She looked at me then, really looked at me, and I saw something complicated move through her expression. Want and fear and the same careful guardedness I saw every time I looked in a mirror.
“I’ll think about it,” she said finally, and slipped out of the kitchen before I could respond.
I stood there for a long moment after she left, listening to the sound of her sedan starting up and pulling out of the bay. Rhodes appeared in the doorway, inventory clipboard tucked under her arm and a knowing expression on her face.
“You gonna stand there scenting for her all day, or you gonna do something about it?”
“I’m not doing anything about anything,” I said, but I was already moving to rinse my mug in the sink. The scent of cedar smoke and autumn rain still lingered in the kitchen, underneath the smell of fresh coffee.
“Right.” Rhodes didn’t sound convinced. “And I’m the Queen of England.”
“She’s just a colleague. Someone whose work intersects with mine.”
“She’s an omega who got you to say more than five words consecutively and actually smile, which is more than anyone’s managed in three years.” Rhodes crossed her arms, watching me with the kind of maternal concern that had always made me uncomfortable. “It’s okay to be interested, Beau.”
“It’s not okay.” I gripped the edge of the sink, staring down at the drain like it might have answers. “I don’t have the right to be interested in anyone, let alone an omega who’s clearly been hurt enough already.”
“What happened three years ago wasn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it was.”
“The current swept them away before you could reach the vehicle. The report was clear on that. Even if you’d been faster, the outcome would have been the same.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that.” Rhodes moved closer, her voice gentler. “I also know that you’re going to keep punishing yourself until something forces you to stop. Maybe that something just walked in here and cleaned our coffee maker.”
“Rhodes…”
“I’m not saying you have to do anything about it. I’m saying you’re allowed towantto. You’re allowed to be interested in someone without it being a betrayal of people you couldn’t save.”
I turned off the water, dried my hands with mechanical precision. “She’s not interested in me anyway. Or any alpha, from the looks of it. Those suppressants aren’t recreational.”
“No,” Rhodes agreed. “They’re not. Which means you might have more in common than you think.”
She left me there, alone in the kitchen that still smelled like cedar smoke and fresh coffee, wrestling with the uncomfortable realization that she was right.
I was interested. More than interested.
And I had absolutely no idea what to do about it.
Chapter 3
Silas
The emergency call came through at 2:47 PM, which meant I’d had exactly six hours since the morning drill to catch up on paperwork, respond to two non-emergency transports, and consume an inadvisable amount of coffee.
“Ambulance 12, we have a report of a fall with injury at 428 Maple Street. Seventy-nine-year-old male, possible hip fracture.”
I grabbed my radio as I headed for the rig. “Copy, dispatch. En route.”
My partner today was Emma Reyes, a competent beta EMT who’d been with the service for a year. She was already starting the engine when I climbed into the passenger seat.
“Maple Street,” she said as she pulled out of the station. “That’s the Brennan place, isn’t it?”
“Mr. Brennan. Widower, lives alone, has a history of vertigo.” I pulled up his records on my tablet. The beautiful thing about small-town medicine was that you actually knew your patients.The terrible thing about small-town medicine was that you actually knew your patients. “This is his second fall this year.”
“Should probably have someone checking on him daily.”
