Page 18 of Claimed By My Exiled Alphas
Something shifted in his expression, softening around the edges. “You’re being kind.”
“I’m being honest. There’s a difference.” I stood, brushing dirt from my knees. “Show me the rest?”
We walked the garden paths together, and he told me about each section. The vegetable beds where his grandmother had grown enough food to supply half the neighborhood. The herb garden that now provided plants for Elias’s apothecary blends. The cutting garden where she’d harvested flowers for the bookstore every week.
“She believed gardens were supposed to be useful,” he said, running his hand over a stand of ornamental grasses. “Beautiful, yes, but also productive. She didn’t have patience for flowers that existed just to be looked at.”
“Sounds practical.”
“She was. Practical and kind and absolutely certain about what mattered.” We’d reached a bench built into the stone wall at the garden’s highest point, looking out over the valley. “She knew everyone’s story. Not just the surface things, but the real struggles people were facing. And she always seemed to know exactly what book they needed to read or what plant would help.”
We sat, and I noticed how careful he was to leave space between us. Respectful distance that somehow made me more aware of the gap than if we’d been touching.
“You do the same thing,” I said. “With the books, I mean. You always seem to know what I need before I know it myself.”
“She taught me that. How to pay attention to what people aren’t saying.” He turned to look at me, and the afternoon light caught in his eyes, turning them amber instead of their usual hazel. “It’s easier with books. People reveal themselves in what they choose to read.”
“And what have I revealed?”
“That you’re healing. That you want to believe the world can be kind but you’re scared to trust it.” He said it gently, without judgment. “That you’re building something important and you’re terrified it won’t be enough.”
The accuracy of his observation made my chest tight. “That obvious?”
“Only because I’m paying attention.” He shifted slightly on the bench, angling toward me. “Most people don’t. They see what they want to see and move on.”
“Is that why you don’t let people close? Because they don’t pay attention the way you do?”
The question surprised him. I watched him process it, saw the defensive walls start to go up before he consciously lowered them again.
“Maybe,” he admitted. “It’s easier to help people from a distance. Give them what they need and let them leave before they start expecting more than I know how to give.”
“That sounds lonely.”
“It is.” He looked out over the valley, and I saw something raw in his profile. “My grandmother was my only real family. My parents died when I was sixteen. After that, it was just her and me. She taught me how to run the bookstore, how to live in this town, how to find meaning in helping people find the right stories.”
“And then she left too.”
“And then she left too.” His voice had gone quiet. “I know she didn’t choose to die. I know cancer doesn’t care about timing orfairness. But it still feels like everyone I love eventually leaves, and I’m just here maintaining things they built while trying not to need anyone too much.”
The vulnerability in that admission made something ache in my chest. This gentle man who created sanctuary for everyone else, who always had the right book and the right tea and the right quiet presence, was desperately lonely underneath all that careful caregiving.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “That’s a terrible way to live.”
“It’s safe.” He turned back to look at me. “If you don’t need people, they can’t hurt you when they leave.”
“But they also can’t stay if you never let them in.”
We looked at each other for a long moment, something passing between us that felt significant. Like we were acknowledging truths neither of us had been ready to say out loud.
“Why did you bring me here?” I asked. “Really?”
He was quiet, considering. A bee droned past, late for the season and moving slowly through the cooling air. Somewhere in the valley below, a dog barked and someone laughed in response.
“Because you’re the first person I’ve wanted to share it with,” he said finally. “The first person who felt like they might understand what this place means. Not just the garden, but the grief and the beauty and the weight of keeping something alive that someone you loved created.”
“Like the bistro.”
“Like the bistro.” He smiled slightly. “You’re building something that matters to you, and you’re terrified you’ll fail and prove Vincent right about your worth. I’m maintaining something that mattered to my grandmother, and I’m terrified I’m letting it die slowly because I’m not her and I’ll never be able to do it justice.”
