"I been managing in the cabin," Rhys says. "There's a difference."
I take the listing back. Look at the garden again. The apple tree. The overgrown beds that would take a full season to reclaim properly.
Something that takes years.
"This one," I say.
"You haven't seen the others," Finn says.
"I know." I look at him. "This one."
Finn looks at Alex. Alex looks at the listing one more time. Then he looks at me with the quiet expression.
"This one," he agrees.
Finn throws his hands up. "I color coded twelve listings."
"We appreciate it," I say.
"Do you though?Doyou appreciate it? Because it feels like you looked at one and made a decision."
"We looked at several," Malcolm says, gesturing at the small pile I went through.
"You looked at four."
"Four is several."
"Four is not—" Finn stops. Takes a breath. "Fine. Fine. I'll call the agent." He starts typing something on his phone with the energy of a man who has accepted a situation he finds professionally unsatisfying. "The garden is genuinely a project though. I want that on record."
"Noted," I say.
"A significant project."
"Noted, Finn."
He grumbles something under his breath that I can't quite hear. Malcolm pats his shoulder. Finn shrugs it off and keeps typing.
Alex leans back in his chair and looks up at the sky. The sun is fully up now, warm and direct, the kind of morning that makes the world feel manageable. His profile is clean against the light. I look at him and think:this is the man who sat on the other side of a door while I was in heat, who broke his own hand rather than let his packmate face jail time, who has kept a precise two feet between us since the day I arrived—all to give me the space to choose freely.
Mine.
I think it without flinching.
I'm thinking about where to put the lavender when I hear the car.
Gravel crunching. The sound of an engine that cuts with the deliberateness of someone who's arrived at a destination rather than passing through.
I know Chase's car by now. We all do.
I turn.
He gets out slowly.
That's the first thing. Chase doesn't move slowly. He moves like a man who has somewhere to be at all times. But he gets out of the car and closes the door. Then stands there with his handstill on the roof. He’s still in a way I've never seen from him before.
My stomach lurches.
He walks toward us.
