An Omega for the Sheriff (Sugar Beach Book 3) Read online

  AN OMEGA FOR THE SHERIFF

  CORIE ROSLING

  CONTENTS

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  1. Rebel

  2. Trygg

  3. Rebel

  4. Trygg

  5. Rebel

  6. Trygg

  7. Rebel

  8. Trygg

  9. Trygg

  10. Rebel

  11. Trygg

  12. Trygg

  13. Rebel

  14. Trygg

  15. Rebel

  16. Trygg

  17. Trygg

  18. Rebel

  19. Trygg

  20. Rebel

  21. Trygg

  22. Rebel

  23. Rebel

  24. Trygg

  25. Rebel

  26. Trygg

  27. Rebel

  Epilogue

  Coming Soon

  Mailing List

  Dear Reader,

  Copyright Notice

  Copyright © 2018 by Corie Rosling.

  All rights reserved worldwide. No portion of this book may be reproduced or copied without the expressed written permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters and events appearing in this novel are purely the product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity or resemblance to any persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Names, places, events or locales are from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and is entirely coincidental.

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  AN OMEGA FOR SHERIFF

  One night changed everything.

  Rebel

  I found my fated mate on the worst night of my life and turned my back on him.

  What’s an omega to do when he opens the door on fate only to discover his alpha delivering the worst news imaginable? He turns his back on his future.

  Trygg

  I never expected to find my fated mate while on the job. Knocking on the door to deliver a death notification, I had to tell my omega his parents were gone.

  What’s an alpha to do when his omega slams the door on their future? He walks away and gives him the time he needs to grieve.

  It’s time to stop hiding.

  See what happens when one alpha draws a line in the sand and refuses to let his omega push him away again.

  1

  REBEL

  I hated Christmas. I hated everything about it. Living in Florida meant I didn’t have to live in a winter wonderland, but I still had to put up with the Christmas carols, the decorations, and everyone insisting on wishing me a Merry Christmas. It was like this each year and I still hated it. There wasn’t anything merry about a holiday where such horrible things could happen. Like a drunk driver stealing my parents from me before I was ready to see them go.

  It had been almost five years and it still hurt just as much today as it did that night when the deputy sheriff knocked on my door to inform me they were gone. Deputy Sheriff Trygg Mann was an imposing alpha who was the law around here. He had been on duty the night of my parents’ accident, and the one to inform me neither one had made it out of the car alive. Not only was hearing that a shock, hearing it from the man you were sure was your alpha was doubly hard.

  There was nothing worse than hearing the words “I’m sorry…” while smelling the most amazing scent that ever was as both those words and that scent wrapped around your heart and squeezed until the pain was unbearable. I didn’t know how I survived that night without going completely crazy. But then, maybe I was wrong, and I had gone crazy. Crazy enough to tell my alpha I never wanted to see him again.

  Of course, in a town the size of Sugar Beach, that was unrealistic. Of course I saw him. Trygg was a big man, and he had a job that was very public. Everyone knew who he was, and he knew everyone in town. I had to do some major gymnastics to avoid him over the last five years. It had worn me down and I was tired of avoiding the man. It wasn’t his fault he had to be the one to deliver such bad news to his omega. We hadn’t even met until that night. The timing couldn’t have been worse.

  I walked down the line of Christmas trees on the back lot of my nursery, inspecting the trees I didn’t really want to sell. It was almost Thanksgiving and there were people who started buying their trees the day after the big turkey day. As much as I hated it, I needed the space the trees took up. These trees were big enough to sell, and it was time for them to do the job they had been raised to do. I had people coming the next day to cut them all down, bale them up, and ship them to the people with whom I had contracts. People who sold trees to the thousands of happy people who loved this time of year and decorated out the wazoo because they loved it so much. Well good for them. I hope they were happy with their trees and decorations.

  It was doubly hard letting these trees go. They were the first batch of trees I’d planted with my parents so long ago when I was just a kid. In a few more years, there would be nothing left of the trees they had planted. It was the nature of the business and I couldn’t keep the trees forever. Eventually, there would be nothing left of the trees my parents had planted. They both had loved the holiday season. My dad would probably kick my ass if he knew how melancholy I got this time of year. I couldn’t help it though. Christmas was hard, and selling off the trees they had planted was harder still.

  Sometimes, I imagined them looking down on me, wondering when I was going to get my head out of my ass and chase down that alpha of mine. How could I tell them I wasn’t ready? I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready.

  I was twenty-three years old. In some ways, I guess I was just starting my life. If I’d been anyone else, people would say I had plenty of time to figure things out. I knew that for the lie it was. I didn’t have time. No one did. Life could be taken from you in an instant, and then where would you be? Alone, that’s where.

  My heats were becoming more irregular and closer together. Despite the heat suppressants, I was miserable. I closeted myself up in my house and refused to leave, even though the suppressants were supposed to prevent random alphas from being so fired up they had to have you. They were also supposed to prevent omegas from needing sex so bad they were willing to do anything for an alpha’s knot.

  For most omegas, the suppressants worked. Unfortunately, I wasn’t so lucky. For me, the medicine got less effective with each heat I had. Soon, it wouldn’t work at all. The doctors weren’t sure why that was. We had tried all the different types of suppressants. None of them worked very well. The doctor’s best estimate was that I might have two more heats before the suppressants failed to work at all. That wasn’t a lot of time to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do about my alpha.

  A noise sounded, and I turned my head to see the wrecking crew chasing each other through the trees, carefree and having fun. The wrecking crew was the name my friends and I had given to the three puppies we had found six months ago in a cardboard box at the nursery gates. Someone had abandoned the puppies, and we had taken them in.

  They were cute puppies with light tan coats. It wasn’t until we took them to the vet for checkups and vaccinations that we discovered what they were. The vet’s best guess was a mix of Great Dane and German shepherd. I’d had a German shepherd as a kid until he passed away when I was ten so I was familiar with the breed. Great Danes were another matter. While I knew Great Danes were a tall breed of dog, I hadn’t been prepared for just how tall our dogs would get. They had grown a lot in the months since we’d had them.

  By the
time I loaded the dogs into the truck and headed back to the house, I still didn’t know what I was doing. That wasn’t exactly true. I knew I’d cave and go see my alpha. Trygg and I needed to talk. I was done needing space. I needed my alpha. I just didn’t know how to tell him that.

  Trygg was an honorable man. He took care of people and I knew he’d take care of me, too. What I didn’t know was if he really wanted to do so. It had been almost five years. Did he still want me as his omega? I didn’t know, and I was almost afraid to find out.

  I drove back to the house almost by rote. The road from the tree farm to the house was packed sand. Most of the back roads out here were. The tires spun up huge clouds of the stuff and it got everywhere. I’d learned early on as a kid riding with my dad to keep the windows up when driving on them unless I wanted to clean the sand out of the truck cab. It was hard keeping the sand outside in Florida. The stuff was everywhere. It was just something a person got used to. It was still better than having to drive in the white stuff in the winter. I’d made that mistake once. I vowed never again to travel up north in the wintertime.

  By the time I parked the truck at the house, the sun was sinking down behind the house and the sky was tinged with pinks, purples, and oranges. Dusk in the south was my favorite time of day. Seeing the colors of the sunset always got to me. Even in my darkest mood, a Florida sunset could lift some of the darkest clouds.

  I walked up the steps of the porch, not surprised to see the door I’d left locked standing wide open. My friends knew no boundaries, and they knew where I hid the spare key. I walked in the kitchen and was greeted by Phil and Todd. Phil was an alpha and Todd was his omega. They’d been high school sweethearts since freshman year. It was rare for alphas and omegas to know that young who their mates were. Some older folks we knew were still sure they were just a fluke. Soulmates were still mostly myth unless you knew someone who was matched with theirs. Phil and Todd were it. The real deal. They were also my best friends.

  Phil was sitting at the table, peeling potatoes, and Todd was stirring something on the stove. I didn’t know what it was, but it smelled heavenly. My stomach grumbled, letting everyone know just how hungry I was. I tried to recall when I had last eaten. Breakfast was a distant memory, and I hadn’t had time for lunch. Food wasn’t usually a high priority for me, which is why my friends were cooking in my house when they had a home of their own not far away. Todd always came to fix breakfast each day, and I could count on them cooking dinner at my house at least twice a week, whether I wanted them to or not. Todd claimed it was because he liked my kitchen better. I knew it was because he worried about me though.

  I could hear sounds coming from the game system in the living room. Guns blazing and explosions notwithstanding, that could only mean Mags and Peter were here, too. Mags was actually Margaret, but she hated that name. She claimed her parents had given her a cosmic “fuck you” when they gave her such a sissy name. She much preferred Mags. There was nothing girly about her, and I liked that about her. She was an alpha through and through. Peter had been my best friend since middle school. He’d been struggling with his sexual identity for as long as I had known him. I did the best I could to give him whatever support he needed even when that meant giving him a home after his parents kicked him out for wearing dresses. My parents had still been living at the time and it didn’t take much convincing for them to let Peter move in with us. It had been like having a sibling, and we were still the best of friends.

  “Dinner will be ready soon. How are the trees? Ready to cut?” Phil asked. He worked the nursery with me. I couldn’t run the place without him. He diced up all the potatoes and threw them in a bowl of water before taking them to his omega, dropping a kiss on Todd’s upturned cheek like he expected the affection the whole time.

  “Yeah, they’re ready. The boys will be out in two days to cut them all and load them up on the trucks. The first shipment goes out to Sanders’ Tree Stand up near Jacksonville. Everyone should have their trees all ready to sell by the day after Thanksgiving.” I shrugged off the bad thoughts that tried to swirl back into my head. The trees needed to go, and I needed the money. I couldn’t afford to keep them for sentimental reasons, and my folks wouldn’t have wanted me to.

  “How are you doing?” Peter asked from the doorway. I looked up at my friend. I tried to smile, but he knew better. He sat beside me at the kitchen table and drew me close in a hug, surrounding me with as much love as he could. Sometimes, I wished we could have been soulmates. Things would have been so much easier. Unfortunately, we weren’t. Despite both of us being omegas, Peter and I had tried to be a couple once when we were teenagers. Kissing each other had been like what we thought kissing a sibling would have been like. So, we had adopted each other instead. It worked for us.

  “About as good as you’d expect. This time of year is hard. Everyone said it would get easier, but it never does.” I refused to let the tears fall that welled up in my eyes. I had already cried way too many tears to do it another holiday season.

  “No, it never does.” Peter missed my parents, too. They had been more like parents than his own.

  We sat there, heads together as the smells Todd created swirled around us. I hated Christmas, but it would be so much worse if I didn’t have my friends with me.

  2

  TRYGG

  I stood at the big picture window at the front of the diner, watching my omega get out of his truck to deliver some large plants to the bank. He wore his usual harem pants. These were a pale blue, tie-dyed with reds, yellows, and greens radiating out in circles. He wore a t-shirt with the logo of his nursery, complete with palm trees, on the back.

  The containers looked heavy as he and his friend Phil lugged them onto a dolly to roll through the bank’s front doors. He was a small man, but he had muscles. They were defined, and I watched them bulge as he hefted the heavy pot onto the dolly. Rebel always turned me on, and I shifted position to adjust the semi I now sported in my pants.

  As the owner of one of only two garden nurseries in Sugar Beach, my omega was always busy. I kept tabs on him from a distance, waiting for the day he was ready to accept me. I’d known for almost five years that we were soulmates. It was hard meeting the man of my dreams and walking away, but it was a choice I had to make. Meeting my omega the night I had to tell him his parents had died wasn’t the best way to start a relationship. He pushed me away, angry and grieving.

  I understood, so I stepped away. I didn’t leave. I couldn’t do that. I could watch and help him whenever I could without him knowing. It was the least I could do for the man meant to be mine. This Christmas was going to be the fifth anniversary of the day we met, the day his parents left this world. All I could do was watch and hope that maybe my omega would be ready to accept me as his alpha.

  “When are you going to get out of your own head and chase down that omega of yours?” Jace startled me as he spoke, stepping up to me and placing his hand on my shoulder. He was a great friend, and I loved him like a brother, but sometimes he saw too much.

  “I don’t know what you mean.” I tried to deny it, but even to my own ears, my voice was shaking.

  “Sure, I’ll believe that when you can look me in the eyes and say that Rebel isn’t your omega. Don’t forget, I was there that day to pick up the pieces after you delivered the news that tore his world apart. I know how guilty you felt to have to be the one to tell him about his folks.” Jace squeezed my shoulder before shoving a fresh cup of coffee in my hands, fixed just the way I liked it. “You have nothing to be guilty about. You were just doing your job, bro. He’ll figure that out someday. Sooner if you step up and force the issue.”

  “Jace. I can’t force him to want a relationship with me.”

  “No, but you can stop moping around, waiting for him to come around. It’s been five years or near about. That’s plenty of time to stop being angry with you. Stop skirting around him and start meeting him head-on. Make him see you.” Jace turned me and looked me
dead in the eyes. “Make him know you’re there for him, even if he doesn’t want you to be. You need to stop making it easy for him to ignore you.”

  I turned back to the window to watch as my omega drove his truck away. “Maybe. I just don’t want to push. I want him to come to me because it’s what he wants.”

  “I get it. I really do. At some point, though, you have to ask yourself if he really wants nothing to do with you or if he’s just comfortable because staying away is easier. It’s really hard to walk away from your soulmate when you find him. I don’t think I could have ever walked away from Dai once I found him. I knew even before I met him he was it for me. Walking away was never an option.”

  “He was so young when the accident happened. He didn’t even have the chance to get any closure since the drunken asshole who caused the accident died, too. You should have seen him that night, Jace. It broke my heart to walk away, but it was what he wanted. How could I say no?”