HOLLY
My hands trembleas I snap my medical kit closed. Not from fear—from pure, unbridled excitement. I’ve waited months for this moment. A real wilderness rescue. Not another case of poison ivy or a twisted ankle from some tourist who wandered off the marked trail in tennis shoes.
“You’re vibrating,” Noah says, glancing over at me from the driver’s seat of the clinic’s rescue truck. His lips twitch with barely concealed amusement. “If you bounce any harder, you’re going to activate the airbag.”
“I am not,” I protest, though I immediately force myself to stop jiggling my leg. “I’m just…eager to get there.”
Noah chuckles, the sound warming something deep in my chest. Ever since our pack arrangement solidified last night, he’s been different—lighter, more prone to these small moments of humor. The bond between us pulses gently, a steady reassurance I’m still getting used to feeling.
I’ve deliberately tamped down on the logical part of my mind that demands to know how these men will fit into my long-term plans. I have no idea what is going to happen when this rotation ends and I’m supposed to go back to New York.
I don’t want to put this new and fragile peace we’ve established by asking questions that I’m not sure have answers I want to hear.
“So what are the details again?” I ask, unable to stop myself.
Noah raises an eyebrow. “This is the fourth time you’ve asked me that. I’ve never known you to need patient details repeated even once.”
Heat creeps up my neck. “I just want to be thorough.”
“Uh-huh.” His knowing smirk makes me want to simultaneously kiss and bite him. “Amateur caver stuck in one of the hydrothermal caves on the eastern slope. Those caves are popular in summer, but winter’s a different story. Snowpack blocks the established routes, confuses people who don’t know what they’re doing.”
I nod, mentally reviewing the equipment I packed. “Any reported injuries?”
“Nothing specific. All we were told is that the patient is stuck and in distress. Could mean anything from mild claustrophobia to crush injuries.”
The truck bounces over a particularly deep rut in the mountain road, and I grab the dashboard to steady myself. Noah navigates the terrain with practiced ease, his large hands confident on the wheel. I find myself watching those hands, remembering how they felt against my skin just this morning when?—
Focus, Holly. People in danger. Medical emergency.
“As much as I don’t want anyone to be hurt,” I admit, “I’m excited to finally see something more challenging than strep throat and broken ankles.”
Noah’s expression sobers. “Just remember these calls can go either way. Might be nothing, might be pulling a dead body out of the rocks.”
The stark reminder should dampen my enthusiasm, but instead, it only sharpens my focus. This is why I chose emergency medicine—the knife’s edge between life and death where quick thinking and steady hands make all the difference.
“Look behind us,” Noah says, nodding toward the rearview mirror.
I twist in my seat to see a fire truck following, lights flashing and sirens wailing.
“They always bring both rescue and recovery equipment,” he explains. “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”
The weight of what we might face settles over me, not extinguishing my excitement but tempering it with purpose. This is what I’ve trained for. What I’ve fought for, hiding my designation and pushing through barriers that would have stopped most omegas from even attempting this career path.
“So what got you into wilderness trekking in the first place?” Noah asks, breaking the momentary silence. “Most medical students I know barely have time to hit the gym, let alone scale mountains. And I can’t imagine you’ve had that much more personal time in residency.”
The question catches me off guard. It’s personal in a way our conversations usually aren’t, at least not without the buffer of Kai’s jokes or Grayson’s quiet intensity.
“I started going into the woods as a kid,” I say after a moment. “To escape.”
“Escape what?”
I stare out the window at the passing trees, memories surfacing that I usually keep buried. “Neighborhood bullies, mostly. They thought I was weird.”
“Weird how?”
I shrug. “Too quiet. Too serious. Too...everything. My mother wouldn’t let me play indoors with omega girls—she was afraid I’d pick up bad habits. And the rougher kids running aroundneighborhood, alphas and older betas mostly, wanted absolutely nothing to do with me.”
Noah frowns. “So you went into the wilderness alone? As a child?”
