“Another flapjack, hon?” Martha offered helpfully but Scott waved a hand over his plate that still held half of his third helping.

“I wish I could, but I don’t think I could possibly take another bite. You’re too good to me, Miss Martha.” He smiled sweetly at her before taking a sip of his coffee. “I gotta tell you, I’m going to miss this syrup when I go home.”

Martha laughed. “But honey, you have a whole bag filled with syrup and maple candy. Oh, wait. Those are gifts for your friends back home, aren’t they?”

Scott snorted as he waggled his eyebrows. “They were for my friends back home. Now that you mention it, I think they may just have to stay with me.”

“Maple,” I said suddenly. “That’s what you smell like.”

Martha and Scotty looked at me like I’d lost my mind, before breaking into laughter. Martha shook her head.

“I realize that all omegas have their own special scents, but I think that the reason our Scotty boy smells like maple is from all the syrup and candy he’s been eating while he’s been here. It’s probably oozing out the boy’s pores by now, I’d imagine.”

I leaned over and took a deep sniff from right in the crook of his neck, making Scotty flinch away with a giggle at my public display of affection.

“Yep, that’s definitely maple,” I smiled almost sadly as I brushed his hair back from his face. “Great. Now, you’ve gone and ruined syrup for me. I’ll never be able to eat it again without thinking of you.”

Martha brought her hands up to her mouth and blinked back tears as she watched us. “You boys are going to make me cry! Well, you’d better get a move on before Scott misses his bus, I suppose,” she sighed.

With a heavy heart, I stood and held a hand out to Scotty. “Martha is right, we’d better get going.”

Biting his lip, he nodded and stood to his feet. Scott gave me a quick peck on the cheek before moving around the table to give Martha one last hug.

“Now listen, I know you’ve got my email address in your system. If you wind up selling the place before I come back to visit, I expect to be notified.”

“You’ve got it, honey. You have safe travels now, you hear?”

He stepped back and took my hand with a sad smile. “I’ll do my best, Miss Martha. And I’ll think of you every time I eat a subpar dinner roll—because I’ll never eat another one as good as yours in my life, I guarantee it”

By the time I had Scotty and his stuff loaded into my Jeep, we were running short on time to get him to the bus station. We didn’t say anything meaningful on our drive, but just made small talk about the random snowstorm and whether or not he would share any of his maple goodies with his friends back home.

Before I knew it, we were standing in front of the bus while the driver finished his cigarette as we said our goodbyes.

I fought the urge to consider keeping Scott here as I kissed him goodbye one more time. But no… I couldn’t break the very laws that I’d spent my entire adult life protecting. As if reading my mind, Scott tried one more time.

“Are you sure you don’t want to maybe hide me in a closet or something?”

“Scotty babe, I’m pretty sure that there isn’t a closet big enough to hold you and your personality. Listen, just go home until you can come back legally. We have each other’s numbers in our phones—we’ll stay in touch, right? If we’re really meant to be together, it’ll work out.”

I felt like an asshole as my sweet omega blinked back tears but smiled bravely and gave me a quick kiss before boarding the bus with a tight smile and a jaunty wave. I stood there in the cold, oblivious to the falling snow as I watched them drive away until the taillights of the bus disappeared in the distance.

My heart was breaking as I questioned my decision and wondered if it was too late to try and catch the bus. Besides, surely the roads weren’t safe in this snow. No, Scotty shouldn’t be traveling in this weather.

Although, I’m sure the bus driver could handle driving on icy roads. After all, it’s what he did for a living and it’s not like snow and ice weren’t something we weren’t familiar with and didn’t all learn to drive in at a young age.

Heaving a sigh, I slid into the driver’s seat of my Jeep and turned the key in the ignition. I just started to pull out of the driveway, when… No. Absolutely not. I refused to believe it—everyone knew that the Amik shit was a fairytale. I rolled down my window to scream at the fat white fucking rat that sat at the edge of the driveway watching me.

“You’re too late, beaver boy—he’s gone. And you can just quit fucking around with everyone’s lives and end this damn storm, thank you very much.”

Satisfied after my outburst, I drove off with my windshield wipers at full blast. When they scraped across my dry windshield a few seconds later, I realized that the snow had stopped and the storm was dissipating quickly as though it had never been.

“What the hell? Nope. I refuse to buy into a myth. This is merely a coincidence,” I muttered to myself as I pulled away from the bus terminal. “Maybe global warming has finally decided to hit the Great White North.”

I looked back in my rearview mirror, and could almost swear that I saw the same fucking white beaver watching me as I drove away.