by Jena Wade
Damn. I still sounded like a stalker.
“You what? Mr. All-About-His-Career quit his job?” He sounded far too happy.
I unlocked my car door and climbed inside. “Sort of. A leave of absence until I can figure out how to fix things with Carter.”
“What’s broken?” Leave it to Harrison to go with the obvious and easy questions.
“I am not even sure broken is the right word. We never really had anything.” Because I never asked for it. Or hinted. Or any of the things that might have had us on a better track before the broken arm thing.
“You have a baby on the way. You must have had something until whatever had happened to break his arm at least.”
Which I still couldn’t get him to open up about. As suspicious as I tended to be when people didn’t give full disclosure, I never once suspected he was avoiding telling me to protect whomever did it to him. No, it felt more like he was trying to protect me, and I had such mixed feelings about that. Sure, I wanted him to not hide things, especially important things, but if he thought enough about me to want to protect me—that was worth exploring, too.
Damn I was a mess.
“But you want something,” Harrison continued. It wasn’t a question.
“I want everything.” And once I figured out how to get it, I’d do all in my power to make it happen.
Over the past few weeks, I’d been flirty and taken him on little impromptu dates usually revolving around meals. What we hadn’t done was the one thing we needed to do: talk things out.
“Then you better Alpha up and tell him. Listen, he has an appointment at three to see the baby, and Lex was supposed to take him. You take him. Lex forgot he has something to do.”
Carter had a baby appointment—a big one and he never once mentioned it? He never hid his appointments, but he never told me about them beforehand either, even when I stated plainly and clearly I wanted to go. I gave him wide berth, wondering if it was embarrassment. I’d seen enough television to have an inkling as to how invasive some of those appointments could be.
“Lex forgot?” Lex, or Alex as Carter called him, would do anything for his cousin. He teased he’d never have been with his Alpha, my brother, without Carter’s help. Having seen the two of them together, I highly doubted that. They were perfect for each other to the point it caused cavities to those around them.
“He forgot I want a little afternoon delight during nap time.”
Eww. No. Just no. I did not want to hear about my brother and the sex he was planning to have. Just no.
“TMI, Brother, TMI.”
“Then hang up and get ready to show your Omega you mean business. And for the record, you being here is a good thing, not for Carter, but for me, too.”
“Love you too, bro.” It was the first time I’d said those words aloud to him. Yes, being in Millerstown was a good thing all around.
My original plan had been to go get flowers and reservations and do the whole be-romantic thing. After Harrison told me about the appointment, I had a better idea. I stopped by the craft coop and bought up all the cute baby things I could find, from hand-carved wooden teethers to baby bibs made of the softest material I’d ever touched to a cloth diaper organizer. I didn’t even know if he wanted to use cloth, but it became the de facto gift basket so to the register it went.
Next I headed to the local bookstore and grabbed a bunch of books for our little one and a few for us—dads to be.
My last stop was the real estate office where I had them run listings I thought might be good for us. I might not know what my future career held, but selling my penthouse would easily buy us any of the places on the list. Everything else was just details.
My nerves grew as I pulled into the motel. This was me attempting to put it all out there. Again.
As I carried the monstrosity that was my gift into the lobby and set it on the desk, Carter was nowhere to be seen. By my calculation he was still on the clock and I decided to hang out and wait for him. Two minutes turned to five turned to ten, and my ability to be patient ran out.
Where are you? I typed into my phone and hit send.
Almost immediately, he responded, My room.
Grabbing the basket I meandered to his room, attempting to not bump into anyone or anything along the way. He opened the door and started out just as I turned the corner.
“I was coming to you.” The damn basket was in my way, and I couldn’t see his reaction.
“W-Why?” he stammered.
“I brought you this and wanted to take you to your appointment. Lex can’t make it.” I was such a liar. “I mean, I wanted to.”
“You…you bought me this and you want to go to the doctor’s just because you want to?”
“Yes and yes. Can I put this down in your room?” The parcel was beginning to slip out of my fingers.
“Yeah, sure.”
I walked in and dropped the gift on his bed, Carter standing there, staring at me as if I were an alien from another planet.
“Talk to me, Carter,” I closed the distance between us and cupped his cheek, gazing into his eyes. “You can tell me anything.”
He grinned. “Just hold me.”
I wrapped my arms around him, “I can do that, love. I can do that.” And more, whenever he was ready.
“The gift basket is amazing. Thank you. So much. I can’t wait to go through it.”
I stepped back, still holding him in my arms, but I wanted to look into his eyes as well. “We can return anything you don’t like, I just wanted to get something for the little guy or girl in there.” Our hips touched as we stood together, and I glanced down. At this stage in his pregnancy, he had the tiniest baby bump.
He picked up my hand and laid it over his belly. “Thank you, Alpha.”
I swear I felt the faintest flutter, and I gasped, my gaze flying to his.
He grinned and, without hesitation, stepped onto his tippy-toes and kissed me. It was heaven. My Omega in my arms, his soft lips on mine. I wanted to stay like this forever.
“It’s time for me to go.” He squeezed me tighter. “Drive me?”
The lab where the ultrasound was happening took less than five minutes to get to. Carter chugged a huge bottle of water the entire way.
“They said to finish it ten minutes before the appointment time.” He would need to pee well before they finished the test if he kept it up.
And that became even more true as we sat in the waiting room filling out more paperwork than could possibly be necessary. I should know, being the king of paperwork. By the time the tech called us back, Carter was squeezing his knees. How could anyone think making a pregnant Omega drink that much water was a good idea?
The tech had him lie on the exam table and open his pants then pull up his shirt. They explained five thousand things while putting gel on his belly and moving the wand over his expanding middle, stopping to click pictures at various points.
The picture on the screen looked more blobbish than babyish, but there was no mistaking the sound echoing throughout the small room. That was our baby’s heartbeat.
Badump badump badump
Best sound ever.
“Technically, speaking I am not supposed to say anything about the health or development of your baby. I can tell you this, though, if I was worried about anything at all—even the slightest bit, I’d be excusing myself for some forgotten item, and the doctor would walk in with me when I returned. But I’m not going to do that.” His kind smile and odd choice of telling without telling had me at ease. “Now, sex...do you want to know?”
He looked at Carter who in turn looked at me. Did we? It wasn’t something we’d discussed. Not that we had discussed much about our baby. We needed to remedy that and fast.
“Whenever we find out, it will be a surprise, so it boils down to when you want to know.” I passed the decision off to Carter.
“I-I-I think I want to wait.”
I squeezed his hand in support. “Then wait we will
.”
“Except, I really can’t wait to pee anymore.”
I bit my tongue, trying not to laugh. The tech failed, his laughter booming in the room. “The room across the hall.”
I helped Carter up from the table and he took off running, not bothering to close his pants before exiting the room.
“Here you go.” The tech handed me a bunch of papers he’d printed.” These are for you and your Omega.”
The images still resembled a blob more than a baby, even with the little notes along the sides of some of them, but they were of our blob, the one Carter and I had created together. This baby, the one growing inside Carter, was my future. I had no idea what being a good dad looked like, but I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to be the best one I could possibly be.
Chapter Nine
Carter
I was stuck working on a gorgeous early summer day. The only thing making it bearable was Jamison hanging out with me. Since taking leave from work, he spent more and more hours with me while I was on shift. It had to be boring for him, but we passed the time easily enough telling stories about our lives, getting to know each other better. Making out on the rare occasion we let our guard down. We also had begun playing games of chess and go fish.
“You know,” I said. “If you’re going to hang out here, I might as well put you to work.”
He stood up from the couch in the corner of the waiting area. “Sure. What did you have in mind?”
“We just had a couple of boxes delivered. Let’s open them up and put the stuff away.”
“All right,” he said. “What’s in them?”
“Shampoo and lotion, I think.”
Jamison grabbed the box from the floor and lifted it on to the counter.
“You want to sort it all here?”
“Yeah, we might as well. We don’t have a lot of space in the back room, and it’s not like anyone’s going to be coming in to visit. We don’t have anyone checking in or out today.” Besides Jamison and me, we only had two other guests at the moment, although I suppose we could get the random traveler.
Jamison grabbed the box cutter from the desk drawer and sliced the tape. He opened the box and pulled out the items inside.
“Extra slick lubricant?”
“The fuck,” I said and looked at it.
“I don’t think these are shampoo bottles.”
“No, no, they are not.”
The box was filled to the brim with travel-size packets of lubricant.
“You know, this is the brand I like,” he said to me with a grin. “We can keep it. It might come in handy.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“That’s a lot of lube,” I laughed. “I don’t think we were supposed to get this. We’ll have to send it back.”
“Or we could keep it. Let’s see what’s in the other box.”
He lifted that one up and sliced it open. Inside, we found stacks of glow-in-the-dark condoms.
I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing. “Our order definitely got messed up.”
Jamison joined in. “My guess is someone running a sex club is going to be really upset when they get a delivery of shampoo and lotion.” He pulled out the first roll of condoms, and it unfolded as he lifted it.
There had to be nearly a hundred connected together. All varying shades of blue, purple, green, or orange.
He held it out to me like it was an accordion. “What do you think? Is tonight a blue or green night? I’m leaning toward orange. But I’ll let you pick.”
“Put that back,” I said. “We have to call the company and see what the hell went wrong.”
“I don’t know. These could come in handy. We could put together an Alpha-and-Omega suite care package.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah. Why don’t you run that by Harrison and see how he feels?”
“Well, unless he and Lex are planning on having their kids super close together, these condoms would probably come in handy for them.”
“All right. Let’s box them back up and put them away before someone comes in.”
I spoke too soon. The bell chimed, and both of us looked up like children caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Condoms and lube packets filled the counter-top, and there was a stack of condoms on the floor. Of course a customer would arrive at this exact moment.
But it wasn’t a customer. Instead, there was the police chief and his partner. Derek and Turner, If I remembered their names correctly. Alex had filled me in about them when he’d introduced me to Cam and Kayden, their husbands.
“Hello,” I said. “Can I help you something?”
The chief stepped forward. “I’m Police Chief Derek Williams. Are you Carter Hayes?”
“Yes.”
“Is that your car out there with the license plate XYZ 7124?”
My skin prickled with anxiety. “Yes. Is there something wrong?”
The two exchanged the glance. “Can you tell us where you were on the night of October fifth last year?”
I laughed out loud at the absurdity of it. As if I had memorized my schedule from nearly a year ago. “Seriously?” I said. “What is this about?”
“Don’t say any more, Carter.” Jamison’s voice took on a growl.
“Are you his lawyer?” Turner asked, eyebrow raised.
Jamison shook his head. “Not specifically, no. But I could be. I’d like for us to know what this is about before we answer any more questions. Do you have a reason for this?”
Turner pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to me. “This is a warrant for your arrest,” he said. “City cops believe you might have been involved in a string of robberies, and they’d like to ask you a few questions.”
I panicked. I couldn’t help it. The packets of lube I’d been holding slipped from my fingertips, and my hands shook. My stomach revolted. “No.” I shook my head. “I had nothing to do with that. It was my ex-boyfriend. He’s the one—”
The police chief’s eyes turned slightly apologetic. “I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to take you in for questioning.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said. I looked to Jamison.
He laid a hand over mine. “It’ll be fine, I promise.” Jamison grabbed the warrant and read through it.
“Don’t— Don’t let them take me,” I pleaded, though I knew there was nothing Jamison could do.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll get you out as soon as I can. I’ll post your bail, and we’ll get this straightened out.”
“I didn’t do anything.” I clamped my mouth shut, knowing I sounded like a broken record. “I spoke with an officer in the city about this, after Bryan beat me up. It was Bryan, not me. I–”
“We’ll just take you in for questioning,” Turner said. “You’re not being charged with anything.”
He unclipped the handcuffs on his side.
I swallowed thickly. I’d never been in handcuffs before. It felt surreal, like I was watching the events unfold in someone else’s life. I choked back a sob. “Okay.”
Turner took a step toward me, and I instinctively flinched.
His hand went immediately to his gun.
“Easy,” Jamison said. “He’s not going to hurt anybody. You’re just scaring him.”
Turner took a step back, his hand relaxing back to his side.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.” I put my hands up. It was hard to believe I was actually being arrested. I stepped out from behind the desk and put my hands behind my back.
Turner clipped one of the cuffs around my wrist then turn me around. He pulled my arms in front of me and clasped the other cuff on. “I trust you won’t run off,” he said.
I shook my head. “No…I just…I’ve never been arrested before.”
“We’ll get this straightened out,” Jamison said.
I nodded. “Can you call Harrison? I don’t want to leave the place unattended.” Oh god. I was going to lose my job. It would look awful for Harrison to have somebody who’d just
been arrested working for him.
Turner put a hand on my shoulder and guided me out the door and into the police cruiser.
Thankfully, there didn’t appear to be anyone watching. Although, did it really matter if they were?
This was a small town. News would travel fast.
Tears streamed out of the corner of my eyes as we pulled out of the parking lot and went to the police station, where Turner helped me out of the car and into an interrogation room.
Chapter Ten
Jamison
Not following Carter straight to the police station fell into the category of one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. I wanted to be there for him, to hold his hand, to make the entire thing go away. That wasn’t how things worked.
First thing I did was to call Harrison. I didn’t give a shit if someone manned the desk at the motel, not really. I’d been hanging around Carter while he worked long enough to know there was very little for them to do at that time of day, anyway. No, I called Harrison for two reasons. The first was because I promised, and I would make things less stressful for Carter by doing so. The other reason had more to do with getting a feel for how much power Harrison may or may not have in this town to get my Omega out of jail as soon as possible.
It sucked when justice was impeded by privilege, but fuck it if I wasn’t going to use any privilege his family, even family by marriage, could afford him.
It turned out he had exactly zero influence since the officers were only arresting as an assist to the police in the city.
I raced out of the motel the second Carter’s replacement showed up. Which, really, given that I had no ability to do any checking in or out was 100 percent to comfort my Omega should he ask. No, scratch that—when he asked. Carter took his job seriously.
The station took only a few minutes to get to, and I walked inside as if I owned the place. I slapped on my lawyer face. Sure, my specialty had exactly nothing to do with criminal law, but to bail him out and get the ball rolling, I was prepared enough. I only had to trust Carter would accept me as his lawyer long enough for me to get to see him.
