Father Figure: M/M Mpreg Gay Romance (Never Too Late Book 4)

by Aiden Bates

  "What guarantee can you give us that you're going to treat him right, and not like some kind of pet lab tech that you've got on some kind of leash?" Jake met his father's eyes and set his jaw. He wasn't going to budge.

  Nenci narrowed his eyes at his son. "I'm not entirely sure how to give you that guarantee, Son, other than just to give you my word. I can only promise you that I'm going to do my best. I know that Lt. Devlin is very anxious that we—that I—make this work, and that the lab be willing to accommodate Cold Case again. So he's going to be watching very carefully. And I can see that you're not exactly going to be slacking in that department either."

  "None of us will." Nina stepped over and stood shoulder to shoulder with Jake. She craned her neck to meet Oliver's eyes. "What do you say, Oliver? You're the one who has to work with Captain Charm here."

  Oliver ducked his head. There would only ever be one answer for him with Nenci. "Yes. Of course."

  ***

  Sam meant everything that he said when he apologized to Oliver. He'd been wrong. He knew he'd been wrong. Oliver was damn smart, and Sam probably wouldn't be able to solve this case without him. None of that changed the fact that when he made plans to go up to Marblehead to talk to the current head of the Coucher family, Lt. Devlin insisted that he bring Oliver with him.

  That meant not only bringing an omega into the field, but sitting in a car with Oliver, alone, for two and a half hours round trip. Never mind how much time he'd have to spend in Oliver's company, with that intoxicating myrrh scent, outside of the car.

  Still, Sam knew that he was on thin ice right now. He needed to suck it up and be a professional. He made his way down to the lab, collected his temporary partner, and grabbed one of the unmarked cars that fooled no one.

  They got coffee at the drive-thru before heading out, but that didn't make the first ten minutes any less awkward. Sam had no idea what he was supposed to say to the beautiful young man by his side. How was he supposed to contain himself with that scent filling his nose? At the same time, Oliver was literally the same age as his sons. He shouldn't even notice Oliver's scent, for crying out loud. "So," he said, as they watched the highway pass them by, "you got a new roommate this weekend. How's that going?"

  Oliver chuckled. "It's going well. I mean, it's been a long time since I've lived with someone else, you know? Even in college, omegas don't usually live with other people after freshman or maybe sophomore year."

  "Yeah, I'd guess not." Sam grimaced. He could see where that would get awkward pretty quickly. "But it's working out okay, he's not leaving his dirty laundry all over the kitchen or anything?"

  Oliver laughed. God, but he had a beautiful smile. "No. He's fine. I mean, he pesters me about staying at work too late and stuff, but he did that before so I don't think it's got anything to do with him staying with me." He paused and gripped the passenger assistance bar. "So you're really okay with him living on his own?"

  "Not really." A huge knot between Sam's shoulders released when he said it. He hadn't realized that it had been there, until it disappeared. He couldn't say that losing it was a good thing, of course. That knot might have reminded him that Oliver was untouchable. Still, Oliver had asked, and when Jake showed up on the poor guy's doorstep he'd involved Oliver in the family drama. "I'd rather have him at home with me until he finds an alpha to keep him safe, but I'm well aware that I'm being hopelessly paranoid and uptight about it. If I'm going to continue to have a relationship with at least one of my sons, I need to work on that."

  Oliver raised an eyebrow, but he let that one slide. Sam gave him credit for that. Either Oliver was apathetic about the family's issues, or he was letting Sam have some dignity. "Well, like I told you, it's a pretty safe building. He's going to like it there." He shifted a little bit in his seat. "So, what did you find out last week? I know you were working hard."

  Sam bit his lip. He knew that Oliver wasn't taking a dig at him about Friday's blowout. That wasn’t his style. No, it was only Sam's own guilt making his skin crawl. "I did some digging into the history of that building. It turns out that the building was the subject of a bit of a bidding war. The Couchers won the fight, even though three other groups had higher bids."

  "Huh. I wonder how that happened." Oliver looked out the window for a moment.

  "Well, a property owner can sell to whoever they want, but it does seem curious that they wouldn't want to get top dollar for a property like that." Sam scratched his head.

  "Almost as unusual as the fact that there've been that many attacks on Coucher properties and they haven't tried to convince anyone that it's happening." Oliver took a gulp of his coffee. "That never happens."

  Sam grunted. "I did hear that you've done some arson work."

  Oliver ducked his head and blushed. "That makes me sound like I work for the mob. But yeah, my thesis was about arson investigation. And I've never seen a case where one group was the target and didn't want anyone else to know about it. That makes no sense at all."

  "So I guess the biggest question would have to be why wouldn't they say anything?" Sam risked a glance over at Oliver, only to find him adorably gnawing on his lip. That, of course, drew Sam's eyes directly to those lips, where he shouldn't have been looking at all.

  "Maybe we'll get some ideas when we meet with Mr. Coucher today." Oliver fiddled with his seat belt.

  Sam licked his lips. "Hey, Oliver, please don't take this the wrong way, but I'm just curious. Have you ever spoken with a witness before?"

  Oliver snickered. "Yes. As a matter of fact, I have spoken to witnesses before. More than once, in fact. I promise not to ask if he did it for the insurance money. That's so early nineties anyway."

  "Well the '92 attack certainly falls within that timeframe!" Sam waved a finger.

  "True. But insurance burns don't usually involve tenants." Oliver leaned back with a smug little smile on his face. "At least not in Massachusetts."

  "There was one case I did where the killer figured that would work in his favor." Sam told one of the stories from his earlier days as a detective, much to Oliver's apparent delight. It turned out that they'd discussed the case in one of his classes, but he hadn't gotten to see the more personal side of it. Seeing Oliver's face, rapt with attention and fascination, made something warm up inside Sam's chest.

  They pulled up to Bill Coucher's place on Ocean Ave in Marblehead. The place was a little understated, but still left no doubt in anyone's mind that the owner was a person of means. It was out on the neck, a stately old gambrel-type of house with a lawn the size of Kansas that probably cost a fortune to keep watered out here. Sam parked in the circular drive and rang the doorbell.

  A thirty-something man in khakis and a polo shirt answered the door. "You must be the detectives," he said with a smile. He held out his hand. "I'm Joel Coucher. My dad asked me to show you out to the pool; he's waiting for you out there."

  Sam shook first. He couldn't help but keep his eyes on Joel Coucher as he shook Oliver's hand, just to make sure that he didn't make any sudden moves. That reaction gave him pause. He knew it was wrong, that he shouldn't be feeling all that protective toward Oliver, but maybe it was okay. Oliver was helping Jake out; it was okay to want to protect him too.

  He hated himself almost as much for the blatant lie as he did for the fact that the lie was necessary.

  Joel led them back to the pool, a pretty tiled thing deep enough to dive in and set into a stone patio. Bill Coucher sat on one of the big teak loungers, shielding his phone screen from the sun as he tried to read what was probably an email. He looked a little older than Sam was, maybe in his mid-fifties, with just enough of a tan to prove that he did a lot of work out here by the pool, and graying dark brown hair. He gestured to a pair of solid, comfortable-looking chairs that had been set up nearby. "Detectives," he said, rising from the lounger. "I'm pleased to meet you. Bill Coucher."

  Sam introduced himself and Oliver, and they sat down in the chairs provided. "Thanks for meeting with u
s, Mr. Coucher. I'm sure that this is the last thing that you want to be thinking about."

  Coucher's face wrinkled up as he sat back down. "To be honest, you're not exactly wrong. I was maybe five years old when that fire happened. I had a little measuring tape, and a little T-square. I didn't exactly understand anything that was going on around me, you know? I do remember that my dad and my grandfather made the whole family go to each and every one of those funerals, though." He bowed his head. "It wasn't until later that I understood what they even were."

  Oliver put a hand to his mouth. "That must have been terrible for you."

  Coucher flashed him a grateful smile. "Well, it wasn't fun. It was worse for the families who lived through it, you know? Us, we lived out here. I can tell you one thing. My dad made a promise. He said, 'Never again.' He did a ton of research. He put in the latest sprinkler systems, and once security systems became feasible he put those in too. I'm talking at all of our properties, you know. Not just the Cooper Block."

  Sam nodded. "You sold that one."

  "After the second fire, yeah." Coucher nodded. "Listen, I'm not going to complain about someone re-opening that case. I mean, over the past fifty years the place has killed sixty people or something like that. But I'm curious. Why now? Why not ten years ago, or twenty, when the person who did it might have been around to pay for it?"

  Sam tilted his head to the side. "What makes you think that he isn't?"

  Coucher snorted. "Aw, come on. Whoever was behind that, they'd have had to have been at least in their late teens, probably older to have pulled off something like that. I'm thinking older, because from what my dad told me, that mess took a lot of planning. Sure, you can prosecute a guy in his late seventies or eighties, but what are the chances that he's going to have all of his faculties long enough to understand what's happening at the trial?" He chuckled and leaned back. "That's assuming that he's even still with us. I mean, arsonist isn't exactly a career that drips with longevity."

  "Valid." Oliver wrinkled his nose.

  Sam grinned at him. "Mr. Wesson here has a master's degree in arson, as it happens. That's part of the reason that we went after this case. The Cold Case department isn't choosy about the length of time that a case has been cold, and this one had a pretty high body count. We have Mr. Wesson, who has a gift for this sort of thing. We decided to give it a shot before the window closed for good.

  "Part of the reason we came out here today, Mr. Coucher, is that we noticed that there've been a number of other attacks on properties that belonged to the Coucher family." Sam met his host's eyes and held them. "We were wondering if you might be able to offer any insight into those issues."

  Coucher frowned. "Attacks? No, you must be thinking of another case."

  Sam grinned and pulled out Oliver and Jake's report. Coucher flipped through it, getting paler with every page. "My god," he whispered. "You're right. I hadn't noticed. How terrible is that to admit? I honestly hadn't noticed."

  "It's okay, Mr. Coucher." Oliver leaned forward a little, resting his elbows on his knees. "The attackers were clever. They spread their attacks out over multiple towns and jurisdictions, and across time. It wasn't until the state police started looking at the case as a whole that the pattern emerged."

  "This is almost unbelievable. Are you sure that this one is sabotage?" He pointed to the gas leak.

  "Yes, sir. Those are cut marks, here and here." Oliver pointed them out on the photo.

  "Do you have another copy of this? I'd love to take a look through it, if I may. I might want to reassess some recent business decisions based on this information." Coucher looked to both detectives.

  Oliver looked to Sam. Sam shrugged. "Sure. We have it saved, so we can get access whenever we want it. Can you think of anyone who would bear you or your family this level of hate, Mr. Coucher?"

  "No." Coucher rubbed at his chin. "Well, there's always the Marstens."

  Oliver wrote that down but left it for Sam to speak. "The Marstens?"

  Coucher waved his hand as though swatting at a fly. "Another real estate family. They've always been jealous. They wanted the Cooper Block, and they were furious when the sellers gave it to Grandpa and not to them."

  Well, wasn't that interesting? "Thank you for your time." Sam rose, and Oliver followed him back out to the car.

  They headed back toward headquarters, stopping once to get more coffee on the way. "That was productive," Sam told him. "He gave up the name of their most likely suspect like that." He snapped his fingers.

  Oliver frowned. "Or at least he gave us the people he likes least right now. We don't know that there's any validity to that. We haven't looked into anything."

  Sam laughed out loud and put an arm around Oliver's narrow shoulders. "That's right. You've got a good head for investigations, Oliver."

  Oliver flushed pink at the praise, and his myrrh scent got a little bit more intense. "I don't know about that. But it is a good avenue to look toward." They stood in the parking lot, though, with Oliver making no move to get out from under Sam's arm.

  Sam knew that he shouldn't do this. He was supposed to be better than this. He was supposed to be more in control of himself. None of that mattered when he could feel Oliver's body, right there and pressed into his arm. He leaned in and touched his lips to Oliver's.

  Oliver tasted like coffee, of course. He tasted like coffee, and like the warm sun on a beautiful spring day. He tasted like grasses in a warm breeze or like clean and fresh air out at a park somewhere. He tasted like life, something that Sam hadn't let himself feel in a long time.

  That was what brought Sam up short. He wanted more. He would probably get it, if he asked. Oliver looked up at him with shining silver eyes—and all of the trust in the world. What was Sam even thinking? "We should get back to the office," Sam said. He looked down and stuffed his hands into his pockets, so he wouldn't give into temptation again.

  "Of course." Oliver's cheeks glowed pink, and he kept his eyes downcast for the rest of the ride back to Framingham.

  Chapter Four

  Oliver sat at his workstation and stared at the words on the screen. He couldn't have said that he truly saw any of the words. He'd gone home after work last night just fine, but once the enormity of what had happened hit him he found himself numb. He could have been at work. He could have been at Stop and Shop. He could have been at a Resist concert, or on the moon.

  The moon might have been a good place, actually. There wasn't any oxygen there; he'd soon pass out and not have to remember anything anymore.

  Jake scooted his chair to the other side of the wall. "Hey, buddy, your eyes are going to dry right out. You might want to blink, convince people you're not a robot."

  Oliver jumped. Then he curled up on himself. "Sorry. I'm just…"

  Jake's face darkened, but Oliver knew his friend wasn't mad at him. "I swear to you, the next time that man shows his face around here I'm going to throttle him. What the hell was he thinking?"

  "I don't know." Oliver rubbed at his face. "Obviously he wasn't. If he had been, he wouldn't have kissed me. I mean, he's about as interested in me as he is in dead trout."

  Jake screwed up his face. "That's a lovely image. Just gorgeous. Truly. You should write greeting cards. But something made him do that. You're sure he made the first move?"

  Oliver drew back. "I would never. Not in a million years. Not with anyone, but especially not with him!"

  "I get it. Well, not really, but you know what I mean. It's not you." Jake sighed. "So what exactly are you going to do here? You just agreed to go back on the job. You can't avoid him forever."

  "I can try." Oliver set his jaw. "I mean, it's just…” He clenched his fists and then released them. "It's just that I fantasized about that moment, you know? For years, I pictured that in my mind."

  "And it was nothing like what you expected." Jake pursed his lips.

  "Oh, no. It was everything I wanted it to be, at first." Oliver straightened his back. He would
n't cry. "And then he pulled back, said 'We should get back to the office,' and stuffed his hands in his pockets. I mean I liked it, don't get me wrong, and I wanted it, but I still felt like I'd done something wrong. Does that make sense? I felt like I'd let him down somehow. Like I was a disappointment, or I was dirty, or I was just bad at it. I don't know." He took a deep breath to settle himself.

  "More than sixty people are dead," he said, forcing himself to look at the screen. "The clock is running out on finding justice, or closure, or stopping whatever cycle is going on. It's up to us—him and me—to get to the bottom of it and stop the next attack. There's no room for stupid crap like kisses or flirtations in there, you know?"

  Jake flicked Oliver's ear with his fingernail. "Are you kidding me? You know most people can manage to conduct healthy relationships while working. You get that, right?" He shook his head. "Parricide. That's the only solution. At least I know how to make it look natural. Anyway. Let's see what you've got going on here."