How I Met Three Alphas

Emily's POV

The GPS died somewhere past the last gas station, which seemed fitting given how the rest of my twenty-first birthday had gone.

No cell signal. No idea if Silver Hollow even existed, or if this was some elaborate scam involving my dead mother’s supposed house and a lawyer who’d vanished after one phone call. The letter sat on my passenger seat, creased from too many re-readings: *“Dear Ms. Carter, regarding the estate of Roshi Carter, deceased...“*

But I kept driving. What choice did I have? Another month in that shoebox apartment with the landlord breathing down my neck for rent I couldn’t pay, another rejection letter from another literary agent who “just didn’t connect with the material”—no thanks. If this mysterious inheritance was a trap, at least it was a new trap. At least it was movement.

The landscape had been shifting for the last hour, civilization peeling away mile by mile. Highway gave way to state routes, then to narrow mountain roads that twisted through increasingly dense forest. Pine trees pressed close to the asphalt, their branches creating a tunnel that swallowed the afternoon light. My ancient Honda complained on every uphill climb, and I found myself murmuring encouragements like it was a nervous horse.

“Come on, girl. Just a little farther.”

I’d spent my entire life in New York City. The wildest nature I’d encountered was Central Park during tourist season. This—this was something else entirely. The Adirondacks loomed around me, all granite peaks and endless green, beautiful in a way that made my chest tight. It was the kind of landscape that reminded you how small you were, how easily you could disappear.

My phone was useless, just a black mirror reflecting my tired face. Twenty-one years old today, and I was driving toward a town I’d never heard of to claim a house from a mother I barely remembered. She’d died when I was three. I had maybe five real memories of her—dark hair, warm hands, the scent of something woodsy I could never quite place. Dad had loved her desperately, I knew that much. He’d spent the rest of his short life grieving, checking out a little more each year until the heart attack took him when I was seventeen.

Neither of them had ever mentioned Silver Hollow. Neither had mentioned any family at all.

The sun was setting when I finally saw the sign: *Welcome to Silver Hollow, Est. 1823, Population 487*. The wood was weathered, the paint faded, and someone had carved what looked like a wolf’s head into the corner. Charming.

I eased my Honda down the main street—because there was only one main street—and felt my skin prickle. The town was picture-perfect in that way that always meant something was wrong. Victorian buildings with gingerbread trim, a white church with a tall steeple, mom-and-pop shops with hand-painted signs. Flowers in window boxes, American flags hanging from porches.

And people. People who stopped what they were doing to watch me drive past.

A woman sweeping her porch paused mid-stroke. Two men outside the general store turned in unison, tracking my car with identical expressions of... what? Surprise? Recognition? I couldn’t tell, but the weight of their attention made my hands tighten on the steering wheel.

*Okay, Emily. Small towns are weird about strangers. This is fine. This is normal.*

Except it didn’t feel normal. It felt like I’d driven onto a stage, and everyone knew their lines except me.

I was so focused on not staring back that I almost missed the woman waving frantically from the corner. She stood in front of a charming little bakery, plump and motherly in a floral dress, her graying hair pulled into a neat bun. Her smile was wide enough to show dimples.

I rolled down my window as I pulled up beside her, and she immediately leaned in, bringing a wave of vanilla and cinnamon.

“Emily? Oh my dear, you must be Emily!” Her voice was warm honey, sweet enough to give you cavities. “I’m Clara Thorne—your mother’s cousin! I’ve been watching for you all afternoon. You poor thing, you must be exhausted from the drive.”

I blinked. Mother’s cousin?

“I... yes. Hi. I’m Emily.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I can see Roshi in you. The eyes especially. Come on, I’ll show you to the house. It’s just at the edge of town, backing up to the woods. Beautiful property, really. Your mother loved it there.”

She climbed into her own car—a pristine older sedan—and gestured for me to follow.

The skeptical part of my brain was screaming. But the desperate, homeless, broke part whispered that I was overreacting.

The desperate part was winning.

Clara led me away from Main Street, down a winding road that climbed into the hills. The houses grew sparser, larger, older. And then we pulled up to mine—if it really was mine—and my breath caught.

It was a Victorian mansion, three stories of weathered gray-blue paint and white trim, complete with a wraparound porch and a turret. Flower beds had gone wild, and the lawn needed work, but the bones were solid. Beautiful, even. Impossible that it was really mine.

Clara was out of her car and bustling up the walk before I’d even turned off the engine. She produced a key from somewhere in her voluminous purse and had the front door open by the time I joined her.

“I’ve been keeping an eye on it,” she said, ushering me inside. “Dusting, making sure the pipes don’t freeze in winter. Your mother would have wanted it kept nice for you.”

The interior took my breath away. Hardwood floors, high ceilings, furniture draped in white sheets. It smelled like old wood and lemon polish and something else, something that tugged at a memory I couldn’t quite grasp. On the walls, I could see the outlines where pictures had hung, brighter rectangles in the faded wallpaper.

“I’ll let you settle in,” Clara said, patting my arm. “But dear, if you need anything—anything at all—I’m just down the road. The community here, we look after our own. And you’re one of us now, whether you know it or not.”

The phrasing was odd enough that I glanced at her sharply, but her smile remained placid and sweet.

“Everyone’s been waiting for you to come home,” she added, and then she was gone, leaving me standing in the foyer of a house I’d inherited from a mother I barely remembered in a town where everyone somehow already knew my name.

I locked the door behind her. Probably should have done that first.

The house was a time capsule. Everything preserved, waiting. I wandered through rooms filled with covered furniture, ran my fingers along book spines in a library that made my writer’s heart ache with want. Upstairs, I found the bedroom that must have been Mom’s. A four-poster bed with a faded quilt. A vanity with an old hairbrush still sitting on it, dark hairs caught in the bristles that made my throat tight.

And on the nightstand, a leather-bound journal.

I was reaching for it when I heard the knock at the door downstairs.

My stomach dropped. It was full dark now—when had that happened?—and I was alone in a strange house in a strange town where everyone seemed to know things about me that I didn’t know about myself.

The knock came again. Firm, patient.

I crept down the stairs, cursing every board that creaked. Through the frosted glass panel beside the door, I could make out a tall figure, backlit by the porch light I didn’t remember turning on.

*Don’t open it,* my New York instincts screamed. *Strange town, strange house, you don’t know anyone here—*

I opened the door.

The man standing on my porch was tall enough that I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. Ice-blue eyes that seemed to see straight through me. Dark blonde hair, strong jaw, shoulders that belonged on a movie poster. He wore jeans and a simple dark henley, but somehow he made it look like formal wear. Everything about him radiated control, from his perfect posture to the measured way he regarded me.

“Welcome to Silver Hollow,” he said, his voice low and even. “I’m Steven Highsword. ”

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