Chapter 1
Bea
I've been home for seven days, and I'm already losing my mind.
Not because Honeyridge Falls has changed—it hasn't. The first snow has already dusted the Montana peaks, bare branches scratch against gray November skies, and the same nosy neighbors still peer through their curtains when I walk to the general store. Everything's the same as when I left four years ago.
The problem is me. I'm not that same eighteen-year-old anymore. The one who couldn't wait to escape, who had big plans and bigger dreams. I'm twenty-two now, with a business degree and ambitions of starting my own marketing consultancy, and somehow I've ended up right back in my childhood bedroom like some kind of homing pigeon who forgot how to migrate.
"Bea, honey, you've been staring at that cereal box for ten minutes."
I blink and focus on my omega mother, who's watching me with careful concern. Behind her, both my alpha fathers hover near the kitchen counter, their worry thick enough to taste.
"I'm fine, Mom." I grab the first box my hand touches—Lucky Charms, because apparently my life has devolved to that level. "Just tired."
"You've been tired for a week." Ben appears in the doorway, and I don't need to turn around to know he's wearing that expression that makes him look like Dad when he's in full protective mode. My older brother—six-foot-four of mechanic-built muscle and overprotective energy—leans against the frame with grease still visible under his fingernails despite obvious scrubbing. "Maybe you should…"
"Maybe I should what?" I spin around, cereal box clutched to my chest like a shield. "Go for a run? Take up yoga? Join a convent?"
"Do convents accept omegas?" Papa asks thoughtfully.
"Asking for a friend?" Dad adds with a smirk.
"You two are not helping," Mom says, but she's fighting a smile.
"Sorry." I set the cereal on the counter harder than necessary. "I don't mean to be a brat."
"You're not a brat, honey. You're processing." Mom's voice is gentle. "But Ben's right—you do smell like a coffee shop went through a divorce."
"Marie!" both fathers gasp in mock horror.
"What? I'm just being honest." She turns to me with those knowing omega eyes. "And that sweater is eating you alive. Is that Ben's?"
"It's comfortable."
"It's a trash bag with sleeves," Ben says helpfully.
I flip him off behind the cereal box.
"Right." Ben leans against the doorframe, arms crossed. "That's why you've been wearing the same sweatpants for three days and smell like sadness and stale coffee."
Heat creeps up my neck. Omega scents don't lie. My usual cinnamon-apple warmth has definitely turned more cinnamon-sadness lately.
Coming home feels like admitting defeat, even though logically I know it's just temporary while I figure out my next move. The breakup with Terrance was amicable enough—we wanted completely different futures. He wanted the whole traditional package—immediate bonding, a stay-at-home omega focused on making babies and keeping house. I wanted my career, my independence, my own path. Neither of us was wrong. We just weren't right for each other.
"The Thanksgiving Festival is today," Mom says, too casually. Nothing my parents do is ever casual. She's building up to something. "The whole town will be there."
"Which is why I should stay home."
"You can't hide forever, Bea."
There it is. The gentle alpha command voice that Dad uses when he thinks I'm being unreasonable. It's not a real command—omega-alpha relationships don't work that way in our family—but it carries weight anyway.
"I'm not hiding." Even I don't believe it this time.
I've left the house three times since I got back—once to pick up my old job at the general store, once to buy groceries, and once to escape Ben's increasingly creative attempts to "cheer me up."
The last one involved a karaoke machine. At seven in the morning. We don't talk about it.
