"I need to think," I manage, my voice barely working. "I need... time."
"Take all the time you need," Hunter says gently. He reaches out slowly, giving me time to move away, and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers linger against my cheek for just a moment before he drops his hand. "We're not going anywhere. And neither are you, if we have anything to say about it."
Then he steps around me and heads toward his bedroom, leaving me standing alone in the hallway with my heart racing and my thoughts spinning out of control.
I make my way downstairs on unsteady legs, my mind replaying both conversations. Wyatt's kiss on my cheek. Hunter's soft eyes and softer words. The absolute certainty in both their voices when they said they wanted me here.
The kitchen still smells like carrots and possibility. I pick up the knife I abandoned and try to focus on chopping vegetables, on the familiar rhythm of food preparation, on anything but the way my heart is threatening to beat right out of my chest.
But I can't stop thinking about Isaac asking if I'll stay forever. About Riley holding my hand like I'm someone she can count on. About three Alphas who've somehow convinced me that maybe, just maybe, I deserve to be wanted.
I talk to Evie's photo again that night after the kids are in bed, my voice soft in the quiet house.
"I hope you understand," I whisper to her smiling face. "I'm not trying to take your place. I'm just... I'm trying to help them heal. And maybe heal myself in the process."
The photo doesn't answer, but I swear the light catches her smile in just the right way, and it almost looks like approval.
Hunter
The front door clicks shut behind me, and the silence that greets me isn't the heavy, suffocating kind I've grown used to over the past year. It's different. Softer somehow, filled with the gentle hum of life instead of the echo of everything we've lost.
I drop my keys on the entry table, rolling my shoulders to try and work out the knots that have taken up permanent residence there. The construction site was a disaster today. Nothing dangerous, just the kind of clusterfuck that happens when three different subcontractors all show up at the same timeexpecting to use the same space. I'd spent four hours mediating arguments, redrawing schedules, and making phone calls to suppliers who were suddenly claiming they never received our orders.
My head is pounding. My feet hurt. All I want is a shower, food, and maybe ten hours of uninterrupted sleep that I know I won't actually get.
But when I round the corner into the living room, I stop dead in my tracks.
The TV is on, some animated movie playing with the volume turned low. But nobody's watching it. Instead, I find Amelia asleep on the couch with both kids draped across her like puppies seeking warmth. Isaac is sprawled across her lap, his head on her stomach, one arm flung out dramatically while the other clutches his favorite truck even in sleep. Riley is curled into Amelia's side, her long dark hair spilling across Amelia's shoulder, one small hand fisted in the fabric of Amelia's shirt like she's afraid to let go.
And Amelia. God, Amelia looks so peaceful it makes my chest ache. Her head is tilted back against the couch cushions, lips slightly parted, her breathing deep and even. One arm is wrapped around Riley, the other hand resting on Isaac's back, and even in sleep she's holding them close, protecting them.
I should move. Should wake them up and get the kids to their actual beds where they'll sleep better. Should probably wake Amelia too and send her home to Dylan's place where she can rest properly instead of on our lumpy couch.
But I can't make myself move. I just stand there in the doorway, my briefcase still in my hand, staring at the three of them like they're something precious and fragile that might disappear if I look away.
My chest feels too tight, emotions warring inside me with the kind of intensity that makes it hard to breathe. Grief hits first,sharp and familiar. This should be Evie. Evie should be the one on this couch with our kids curled up against her, safe and loved and home. Evie should be here to see Riley's latest drawings, to hear Isaac's mangled jokes, to make sure they know every single day how fiercely they're loved.
But she's not here. She's never going to be here again. And that reality still feels like a punch to the gut even a year later, even on the days when I think I'm finally starting to accept it.
Except underneath the grief, threading through it like gold through quartz, is something else. Something that feels dangerously close to hope.
Because Ameliaishere. She's here on our couch with our kids, and they're sleeping peacefully against her like they trust her completely. Like they know on some fundamental level that she'll keep them safe. And the house smells like whatever she cooked for dinner, something with garlic and tomatoes that makes my stomach growl despite the guilt churning in my gut.
The guilt is the worst part. It sits heavy in my chest, pressing down on my lungs, whispering that I'm a terrible person for feeling anything other than grief. That it's too soon, too fast, too wrong to want someone who isn't Evie. That my baby sister has only been gone a year and I'm already looking at another woman with want written all over my face.
"Evie would want this," I whisper to the empty room, to the ghost of my sister who I swear I can still feel sometimes hovering at the edges of my awareness. "She'd want them happy. She'd want us whole."
The words sound true even if they don't quite erase the guilt. Evie loved fiercely and completely. She would have wanted her children cared for, her Alphas healing, her family finding their way back to joy. She wouldn't have wanted us frozen in grief forever, trapped in the moment we lost her.
But knowing what she would have wanted doesn't make it easier to let myself feel this. To acknowledge that when Amelia smiles at me over breakfast, something in my chest loosens. That when she tucks the kids in at night with such obvious love, I have to leave the room before I do something stupid like pull her into my arms and never let go.
I set my briefcase down carefully, quietly, and move toward the couch. Isaac first. I slide my hands under his small body, trying not to jostle him too much as I lift him against my chest. He makes a small sound of protest, his face scrunching up, but then he recognizes my scent and settles immediately, his head dropping to my shoulder with complete trust.
My son. My nephew. The beautiful boy my sister left behind.
I carry him upstairs slowly, cradling him like the precious gift he is. His room is a disaster of toys and books and art projects in various stages of completion, but his bed is made, sheets pulled tight with the kind of care that tells me Amelia did it. I lay him down gently, tucking his blanket around him and making sure his truck is within reach if he wakes up looking for it.
He doesn't stir. Just burrows deeper into his pillow, one small hand curling under his cheek.
