After Six Years The Alpha Begs For My Return Chapter 44
He picked up on the second ring.
“Reese.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m cold.”
There was a brief silence on the other end.
Then he said, “Wait there.”
An hour later, he knocked on my door carrying a space heater, his shoulders dusted with snow. The plug wasn’t compatible, so he had bought an adapter on the way.
He fixed the heating, made sure I’d taken my fever medicine, and didn’t leave until the room had warmed up.
I pinned the brooch to my collar and looked up at him.
“Reese.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not cold anymore.”
He froze for a second, then smiled.
When he smiled like that, he looked nothing like the man who had handed me a business card in that restaurant six years ago. There was less sharpness to him, and something gentler that I couldn’t quite name.
Outside, the lights on the bridge shifted colors, the river a moving ribbon of light flowing through the heart of Gray Harbor toward a place too far to see.
I had lived here for more than twenty years, run away for six, and now returned.
This time, I wasn’t back to accept anyone’s arrangements.
I was back to reclaim my name, my choices, and my pack.
My mother’s surgery was a success, and her recovery outlook was excellent.
The guardianship agency in the state where Corrigan’s daughter lived had received the application. The attorney arranged our first video meeting, and the temporary guardianship hearing was set for next month. I would only take over if she agreed. I had already found a place for her, too—an independent apartment near the Paris branch, not the Beaumont family estate. She would not be taken from one environment she couldn’t choose and dropped into another.