Page 12 of The Case of the Missing Love Stone

I give him a look.

He holds out half the cake.

I take it.

The sheriff already knows BESTF is in town. Federal coordination made sure of that before we crossed county lines, and our next stop is his office for the local files and formal access requests. That part is straightforward. Scarlet Sage is less so. I’ve never felt so pulled toward an omega, so desperate to ease that wrong ache in her scent.

Roman brushes his shoulder against mine as we head for the door. “You’re thinking loudly.”

“Must be exhausting being so emotionally perceptive.”

His laugh follows me outside.

We want her. This is going to be a problem. I can already tell.

Chapter 3

Scarlet Sage

My cottage usually knows how to give me back to myself. After my time in town, my dress feels too fitted, my bra feels like barbed wire, and every inch of exposed skin seems aware that nobody is touching it.

I change into worn denim shorts and the oversized cream sweater I keep draped over the back of my bedroom chair. The ensemble is too warm for May in Florida. I know that. The sweat already gathering behind my knees definitely knows that.

But my body needs the weight, no matter how much I sweat. The sweater settles over my shoulders, soft and heavy enough to create the illusion of contact. I tug one sleeve down over my hand and stand there for a moment, waiting for the familiar relief.

Usually, this helps. Right now, it’s being upstaged by an alpha whose scent followed me home. The alpha’s cedar is everywhere.

I carry what is left of Honey’s lavender coffee into the kitchen and set it beside the stack of notes I abandoned yesterday. Afternoon light stretches across the scarred wood table. The cottage is quiet except for the ceiling fan overhead and cicadas buzzing beyond the screened windows.

Despite trying to settle in my favorite spot with my notes, my body keeps reaching backwards toward the pack from the bakery. Wes’s scent refuses to leave me. He is smoke and warm cedar wrapped around an alpha frequency so steady my omega noticed him before I had the good sense to be discerning. There was strength in his presence, but none of the aggressive pressure I usually associate with unfamiliar alphas paying too much attention to me.

Roman made everything worse. His cardamom and cinnamon settled around Wes without disappearing into him, and the frequency between them was so balanced that my body nearly embarrassed me in the middle of Sweet Tooth.

I have been around bonded packs my entire life. I know what stable pack frequency feels like. Sometimes I stand a little too close to one at the farmers market because the warmth takes the edge off. I stay longer than necessary at Sweet Tooth because Honey and Junie give me enough familiar affection to quiet the low ache for an hour. I have learned how to take tiny amounts of comfort where I can find them without pretending they belong to me.

Wes and Roman feel different. Their presence didn’t just make the ache ease, it made me want to get closer, to let my scent curl around theirs until there was no distinction. Heat rolls low through my belly at the memory, and I grip the edge of the counter.

My omega has some serious opinions right now. Even the memory of them has my body coming alive. My nipples are still too sensitive beneath the sweater, and there is an insistent heaviness between my thighs that absolutely did not exist before two strangers walked into Sweet Tooth and started touching each other like affection was as ordinary as breathing.

Neither man is safe. Together, they are devastating.

Watching packs usually makes me feel like an outsider. But with them, some reckless part of me looked at the space between them and wondered what it might feel like if they made room.

My mind offers several suggestions. One involves Roman’s mouth. Another involves Wes’s hands. The third is less specific and mostly consists of being surrounded by cedar, cardamom, and enough skin-to-skin contact to finally make my body stop asking for more.

I squeeze my eyes shut. “No.”

The spoon in my abandoned morning coffee cup turns against the ceramic with a soft clink. I open one eye, narrowing in on the movement. The spoon settles.

“Exactly. And stay down.”

Sweetheart Haven has hundreds of little superstitions nobody admits to believing until one happens directly in front of them. Flowers turning toward the house mean someone beloved is coming home. When a broom falls across a doorway it means unwanted company. And if a spoon moves in your cup, it means someone is speaking your name.

I pick up the cup and inspect the bottom as if faulty table construction might provide a more dignified explanation. The table is level.

“Coincidence.”

I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that half the town is probably talking about me and the investigators right now.