A single ping from her cell phone woke Sawyer up. She shifted in bed, wondering why everything felt off. Not bad, but good.

Like—really, really good.

The mattress was soft, the pillows firm beneath her head. There were actual sheets on the bed and not a dime store throw that was too short to cover her body completely. All the linens smelled fresh—not like the cheap bar soap she sometimes grabbed from the bar kitchen.

Sawyer blinked and the room came into focus. She was home, lying in her childhood queen-sized bed. Her eyes flickered to the digital alarm clock on her desk: noon.

Not exactly an odd time for her to be getting up, but she actually went to bed at a reasonable hour last night. It had been an adjustment to sit in the dining room with her parents and brother, eating normal, healthy food. Well, if you counted the celery that came with Wings over Hecate City's Firestarter Buffalo Wings "healthy" ... Still, it was the most food she'd had in a long time and consequently, she got sleepy right after dinner.

Her phone pinged again.

Yawning, Sawyer reached out, grabbed it off the desk, and looked at the message. It was from Caleb:

<< I didn't wake you, did I? >>

That was Caleb—always thoughtful. << No. I just woke up a little while ago. >> A little white lie.

<< Are you free to talk? I just got off of work. >>

Sawyer's lips pursed and she found herself hesitating. But why? She was already home. That's what Caleb and her family wanted in the first place. So many habits to break, Sawyer mused as she hit the "call" button; Caleb answered on the second ring.

"Hey," he drawled, the warmth in his voice tempered by weariness.

"You sound tired," Sawyer replied, sitting up in bed and leaning against the wall. Comic posters crinkled as she moved.

Caleb chuckled wryly. "You got me there. Just got done taking care of a residential fire on Patterson."

Sawyer shifted, crossing her legs beneath the sheets. "Oh? Is everyone all right?"

"No." Caleb sighed. "It was a hoarding situation with no working smoke detectors. By the time we got there, the elderly homeowner passed from smoke inhalation and her daughter is in critical condition at Laurel Reed Medical Center."

"Oh, my goddess." Sawyer clapped her free hand to her mouth. "Are you all right?"

"It's not the ideal situation, obviously. But I'll be fine. I just wanted to see how you're doing this morning."

Sawyer paused, considering. "Good. I'm good." The second time she said the word, she actually believed it.

Caleb's sigh of relief was audible over the phone. "I'm glad, Savvy, I really am." He took a deep breath, then said, "I want to apologize."

"For what?" she asked, staring at her open bathroom door in confusion.

"For ... for pressuring you to come home. I've been thinking about it a lot, actually. I didn't realize how much pain my grandfather caused you, and—"

Goddess. "Caleb," Sawyer interrupted gently.

"Hm?"

"You don't have to be sorry."

"But you weren't ready," he argued.

"But it's what I needed." However, it took nearly all day for everything to sink in.

"So ... you're not mad at me?"

Sawyer's nose scrunched up as she smiled lopsidedly. "I was," she admitted slowly. "But I know why you did it."

"I love you, Savvy," Caleb told her, voice cracking.

"I love you too, Caleb," she whispered, knuckling tears that formed at the corners of her eyes away with her free hand.

Caleb drew a shaky breath, then laughed and said, "Listen. I'm sure you're hungry, so I'll hang up and let you get something to eat. My days off are Wednesdays and Thursdays. I'll see you then?"

"Wednesdays and Thursdays?" she repeated. "That's odd."

"It's firefighters' hours," he explained, and she could almost hear him shrug.

"Well, you know where to find me," she replied.

"I do."

"All right, then. Bye."

"Bye."

The line went dead. Sawyer tipped the phone and stared at its black screen, a small smile playing on her lips.

Throwing off the sheets, she grabbed a tie from atop her dresser, pulled her hair into a messy bun, and went downstairs.

"Sawyer? Is that you?" Mom called out, entering the kitchen from the living room.

"Mom? Shouldn't you be at work?" Like most high-ranking betas, Sawyer's parents worked for the alpha; her father was a pack lawyer and her mom was an accountant at the casino. Lee also worked at the casino as night security.

Mom flashed her a smile and slid behind the kitchen island. "I took the rest of this week off and all of next, too. Your father and brother wanted to stay home as well, but we decided that it was too suspicious."

"Thanks, Mom," Sawyer murmured as she slid onto one of the stools in front of the island. "You didn't have to."

"I did," her mother replied with a knowing smile. "Now, what would you like?"

Options. There they were again. After settling on a simple meal of waffles, bacon, and orange juice, Sawyer found herself twisting back and forth on the stool. Her eyes roamed over the kitchen, finding little had changed there, too. As she pivoted, she caught a glimpse of the backyard through the sliding glass doors.

A massive red-brown deck sat just outside, extending nearly the whole length of the house. A giant, shiny grill that looked like it needed NASA scientists to operate perched in the middle, surrounded by lounge chairs and a large table with an umbrella. Just beyond the deck, down a slight slope, was the in-ground pool, and next to that, a large, overgrown patch of weeds surrounded by chicken wire.

"You didn't pull up my garden?" Sawyer asked as her mother slid her late breakfast across the island.

Mom glanced out the glass doors. "No," she replied with a wry smile.

Popping a piece of bacon into her mouth, Sawyer chewed thoughtfully, staring out the window. She had three weeks to kill before she was free of Alpha Owen's rule. It was the beginning of June, which was the start of the planting season, so there was still plenty of time to prepare the area. Tapping her fingers against her chin, Sawyer's mind drifted as she began to think about what she could plant.

"Your food's going to get cold."

"Hm?" Sawyer looked up at her mother's amused expression. "Oh, sorry."

"What were you thinking about?"

Sawyer poured syrup on her waffles and took a large bite. "Do you mind if I plant a garden again?"

Mom's eyebrows lifted and her expression melted. "Of course not, baby. I was actually hoping you'd mention it." She began loading dirty dishes into the dishwasher. "I thought we could head down to Hillsboro to do some shopping this weekend."

Sawyer swallowed her waffles, then took a swig of orange juice. Hillsboro was twenty miles south of Hecate City, a long drive, but a necessary one to ensure they didn't accidentally run into any of Alpha Owen's inner circle. Not that the werewolves the alpha associated with would be caught dead shopping in a human city.

"Yeah," she replied after a long consideration. "We can do that."

Mom smiled and went back to cleaning up.

After she was done eating, Sawyer slipped out the back door barefoot and descended the deck stairs to the backyard. Her house sat squarely in the middle of Clan Bloodmoon, a rural-residential community that consisted of about two hundred members—the majority of whom were blood-related. A large tract of woods acted as a natural border between Sawyer's clan and the neighboring Clan Icewalker.

Sawyer smiled to herself as she walked towards her forgotten garden, the plush grass feeling delightful under her feet. There were many places in that forest where she and Caleb had snuck away to make love.

Until Alpha Owen found them.

Sawyer's smile immediately bent into a frown as the memories resurfaced. Her left hand automatically lifted to touch the scars the alpha had left on her body.

He was still out there. He could still hurt her—

No!

Gritting her teeth, Sawyer forced herself to turn away from the woods. She wasn't going to think about the alpha anymore.

Sawyer walked up to the garden and opened the simple wood-and-wire gate she and her father had built together. A sea of weeds filled every inch of the twenty-by-one hundred garden, some nearly as tall as the chicken wire fencing. Sawyer waded into the mess, sending faint electrical pulses over her skin to discourage any bugs—especially ticks—from clinging to her body.

She paused in the middle, hands on hips, as she looked around. The weeds would need to be cut down with the push mower before she could start digging everything up. I'll have to take those down with the clippers, first, Sawyer noted, eyes falling on a couple of saplings of indeterminate species that had found their way into the garden.

Wait—that's not a tree.

Curious, Sawyer slogged her way through the overgrowth towards a sapling that looked different from the rest. Delicate little white and pale fuchsia flowers sprouted in clusters of three or four along the whip-like branches.

As she realized what it was, Sawyer grinned. It was a tree, but not one from the nearby forest. To her surprise and delight, a little apple tree had taken root in the middle of her garden.

Having an orchard was something Sawyer had always planned on adding after taking a field trip to one during her junior year. She and Dad had even laid out an area near their property line for a couple of trees. Now, here a little apple tree sat, waiting for her to come home.

"Looks like you've got your work cut out for you," Mom observed, walking up to the fence and standing next to it.

Sawyer looked up, eyes bright and eager. "Did you know that there's an apple tree growing in here?"

"There is?" Mom raised her eyebrows. "No, but that's great, honey. Didn't you tell your dad you wanted some?"

Nodding, Sawyer reached out to touch the little flowers with the tips of her fingers.

"Can it be moved?"

"Oh, definitely," Sawyer replied, chewing her lower lip thoughtfully. "It'll take some maneuvering, but it can be done."

Mom smiled. "Well, I'll leave you to your planning."

Sawyer nodded as her mother walked away, finally allowing herself to dream of the future and all of its possibilities.