>
Oh, how I’ve missed our Saturdays together and oh how I look forward to completing one of the pages in the silly little scrapbook I made for him.
>my alpha asks, and I send him back a message full of heart-eye emojis.
I skip down the stairs and do a little spin at the bottom, floating because Simon Monroe wants me like I want him, dancing because I have the best alpha in the world back in my life.
“You’re cheery this morning. I take it it’s date day for you and Luca?”
“Do you mind? He wants to take me up the coast to the lighthouse and then ice skating.”
Marcus favors me with a wry smile. “Don’t forget your cat hat. It’s cold out there today.”
* * *
Luca’s waitingin the parking lot across the bridge from the omega residences, leaning against his pick-up and looking more like sin than saint this time. He goes to take my skates from me, but pulls me close instead, kissing me and making my toes curl in my boots.
I stand up on my tiptoes, loop my arms around his neck and return his kiss until he nudges me and nods over my shoulder at Marcus. I blush and let Luca drop my skates in the bed of the pick-up then help me up onto the bench seat.
“Storm Harbor?” Marcus calls as he opens the door to the town car he’ll follow us in.
“You got it, man. I was going to take the highway up the west coast.”
“If you lose me, wait until I’ve got eyes on you again. Deal?”
“Of course. You have my word. I’ll keep her safe.”
And I do feel safe as I slide across the seat and up against him, drinking a white chocolate mocha from the bespelled thermos he never seems to be without when he sees me lately. We pull out of the parking lot and hit the highway in minutes. He breathes me in and wraps an arm around my shoulders, pulling me close as he takes the winding road at a sedate pace.
“Love you, princess.”
“Love you, my alpha,” I sigh, nuzzling against him. “And I can’t wait to see the lighthouse. Thank you for taking me.”
“I can’t wait for you to see it, either. It’s a clear day. From the observation deck up top, you’ll be able to see for miles.”
“We get to go up into it?”
“Not to the very top. That’s maintained by the Coast Guard since the lighthouse is still in service, but there’s a small observation deck just below it, and we can definitely head up there.”
It’s just the sort of adventure I need, with just the sort of alpha I most want by my side to experience it with.
* * *
He helpsme down from the pick-up after we’ve parked and hugs me tight as I slide down his body from the high bench seat. I smirk up at him when my toes touch the gravel of the lot, and he gives my ass a teasing squeeze. “Don’t wind me up, princess, or we’ll be spending date day back in my room.”
“We’ll have to warm up after skating,” I point out, grinning, slipping out of his arms and heading toward the lighthouse.
The tower is attached to a small lighthouse keepers’ residence that’s been turned into a small museum, and he lets me wander the small space, going from glass display case to glass display case. I snap pictures as I go, determined to dig into everything I see and read the moment I set foot back in Saint Guinnette’s library once more. A portrait of the saint hangs in the residence’s sitting room and I drift toward it.
She’s pretty in the way that omegas so often are, small and soft. A true beauty. Mischievous blue eyes glitter from a beautiful face, framed by a cascade of wild dark brown curls. Her hands are crossed in her lap, and she would look demure if not for the sparkle in her eyes and her upturned lips.
“Can’t say why,” Luca teases, “but she kind of reminds me of you.”
I laugh and let him guide me up the narrow, winding stairs that spiral up the tower itself, nearly dizzy by the time we stumble out onto the small observation deck. There’s barely room for the two of us but there’s a tower viewer, and Luca grins as he drops a few coins into it for me to look through.
And he’s right. It’s such a clear day, a bright blue sky above us, that we can see for miles—even without the viewer mounted on the steel catwalk. I stare out across the endless Atlantic, watching the white crests of waves dance across its slate-blue surface. Luca helps me pivot the viewer and since we’re so close to the island’s tip, I can see all the way across the Bay of Fundy to the mainland, to the tall pine forests that Marcus and I drove through just days ago on our return to Fairhaven. The ferry crosses the bay, white foam rippling out behind it. Yet everything is so distant—so far away compared to the heat of Luca’s body at my side.
I draw him closer until he’s wrapped around me as I gaze out at the world beyond Deer Island and, saints, it’s so big. Vast and open. Full of opportunity. It makes our own lives feel so small and yet so grand: small because the world around us is so very big, grand because we get to live in this world of crashing waves, pine forests, and endless blue skies.
