Come back to Honeysuckle Grove and slip into the old townhouse my parents haven’t set foot in for years. Home just long enough to figure out my next move.
No one would notice. No one should have noticed. I just needed toexistfor five minutes, to hide out somewhere solid for a moment after everything I’ve been through.
I’ve been living out of my car for the past few months, just trying to get by after… well, everything that happened.
So I came back to the one place I swore I never would. Just for a little while.
Ugh.
Now I’ve turned a desperate attempt to hide into a town-wide spectacle. Why does it always seem likeI’mthe car crash.
Iamthe parade float.
The disgraced Marsh girl, back in town with glitter in her hair and a target on her back.
I push harder through the crowd, trying to get away, to find somewhere to hide or a hole to fall into. But my head spins and my knees go soft.
I stumble once. Twice.
People gasp, but no one moves. Not that I’d expect anything else. So when strong, steady, searing-hot arms wrap around me just before I hit the pavement.
Everything in me freezes in shock.
Recognition comes unbidden. Because Iknowthis touch.
I know this Alpha scent.
Smoked cedar and vanilla bourbon. Warmth and comfort and everything I once dreamed of.
“Lo?” he breathes.
Beck.
Beck fucking Calloway.
Of course it’s him.
Of course he’s the one who finds me at my worst, catching me like a damsel in distress.
I blink up at him and my vision blurs—whether from the hit to the head or the sudden rush of angry tears I can’t hold in, I don’t know. His scent overwhelms me, and my lungs beg me to draw it in until I drown in him.
He looks down at me with that same furrowed brow, that same unreadable intensity I remember. Still just as stoic and focused. His jaw ticks as his grip tightens. I smell my own scent, acrid with stress, blossoming around us.
I have to get inside…Oh god…I have to get away from so many eyes.
“Dammit, Lo,” he mutters in a low rasp as he adjusts his hold and pulls me fully against him, lifting me with a strength that sets every nerve on fire. “You shouldn’t be here.”
I could say the same.
I could say a lot of things.
But my mouth doesn’t work. My brain’s fogged with confusion and fear and the bone-deep exhaustion of surviving on fumes for much too long.
So instead, I whisper the only thing I can manage.
“I didn’t mean to come back like this.”
And then…
