For one second, I just stand here, phone clutched in my hand so tightly my knuckles ache. I tell myself not to cry here. Not now. Not in front of anyone. I’ve held it together for years, so I can hold it together for five more minutes.
Then my throat collapses around a sound I can’t stop, and the tears come anyway, hot and fast, spilling down my face like my body has finally decided it doesn’t care what I want. My chestheaves, my vision blurs, and the sobs punch out of me hard enough to make me fold at the waist.
I’m crying in earnest now, ugly and uncontrollable, like something inside me has cracked clean through at the fact that everything I’ve worked for is gone, that the one place I called home, taken.
“June,” a faint male voice calls.
I frantically wipe my face.
Strong hands catch my shoulders.
I look up through the wet haze and find Seth’s face. The second he sees my tears, something changes in him, the concern sharpening into something darker, harder. The kind of expression that belongs on a man who breaks things for a living and doesn’t lose sleep over it.
“What happened?” His voice drops, tight and urgent. “Who did this? Give me a name and I’ll take care of it.”
I try to answer. I do. But the words won’t form around the sobs. All I can manage is a broken shake of my head before I crumple forward into his chest like my body has given up trying to keep me standing.
He doesn’t hesitate. His arms wrap around me, and he lifts me clean off the ground like I weigh nothing, cradling me against his broad chest. I clutch at his shirt, shaking, and he starts walking, long, purposeful strides pulling us away from the arena like he’s moving me out of danger.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs into my hair, voice rough and steady. “I’ve got you, darlin’. Whatever it is, we’ll fix it.”
I bury my face in his neck and let myself fall apart.
When I finally surface, blinking against the sunlight, we’re in the parking area. He’s approaching Carter’s red pickup truck, fishing keys from his pocket.
“You have Carter’s keys?” My voice is hoarse, wrecked.
“We all have keys to each other’s vehicles.” He unlocks the door and sets me gently on the passenger seat, then stands in front of me, hands on my knees. “I don’t have my own car. I usually drive the livestock trucks between towns, so I share with Carter and Kai.”
I nod, wiping my face with the back of my hand. I must look like a disaster.
“Talk to me,” Seth says quietly. “Seeing you cry is shredding my heart.”
So I tell him. All of it. My mother’s call, the sale, the house, the devastating realization that Holden, of all people, is buying it.
“And my parents are selling it all because they’re desperate for money. But where the hell did Holden get so much money from?”
Seth’s expression turns cold. “That motherfucker,” he murmurs under his breath.
“So I’m homeless,” I whisper, and it comes out thin and ugly, like the word has teeth. “I’m a nobody. A loser without a business or a place to live, and if you guys don’t want?—”
“Hush.” Seth’s hands tighten on my knees, firm and steady, like he can physically stop the spiral if he holds me in place. His eyes burn into mine. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence.”
I swallow hard, throat raw. My chest keeps doing that awful collapsing thing as if my body is trying to fold in on itself. I hate that I’m shaking and that everything I built can be taken with a phone call and a signature I never saw.
“You have us,” he says, slower now, like he’s making sure every word lands. “You’re pack. Wherever we are, that’s your home. Do you understand?”
“Seth…” My voice wobbles on his name.
“I mean it, June.” His jaw flexes. “This changes nothing except the logistics. You’re ours, and we take care of what’s ours.”
The tears slide down my face again, but they don’t feel like the earlier ones. Those were from panic. These are from relief so intense it hurts.
I blink fast, trying not to fall apart again. “I don’t want to be a burden.”
Seth’s expression shifts, softer around the edges but no less serious. “Darlin’, you don’t get to decide you’re a burden. Not to me.”
I let out a shaky laugh that turns into a sob halfway through. It’s humiliating and honest. I wipe at my face with the heel of my hand and fail to stop the tears anyway.
