Epilogue
LISA
There is a buggy in the hall when I open the front door.
I stop just inside, keys still in my hand, and stare at it. Navy. Four wheels, with off road tyres for taking it on walks in the woods. The car seat is clicked into the chassis like he's been practising getting it on and off.
We picked it out together on my laptop at the kitchen table a few days ago, but seeing it standing there in my house is something else entirely.
I drop the keys in the dish on the side table and set the photograph of my grandmother down beside them.
Slowly, I reach out and push it, then curl my fingers around the handle and twist it from side to side.
I smile. The reviews were right. It does feel smooth.
But I thought there was a six-week waiting list to have one delivered?
The house is quiet apart from a gentle swish swish noise in the distance. Staring once more at the buggy, scarcely able to believe this is going to be my life soon, I take my coat off slowly and follow the quiet through the kitchen and down the hall to the spare room.
The door is half open and I catch a glimpse of socked feet and rumpled dust sheets.
Inside, Beau is on the floor with his back to me, a panel of pale wood across his knees and an instruction sheet weighed down by a coffee cup at his elbow.
The walls are a colour I last saw in a sample card pinned to the fridge after a lazy weekend stroll around the local hardware store.
I lean against the doorframe and watch him work. There are flecks of paint in his hair and a streak across the back of his neck where he must have wiped his hand at some point and forgotten.
He knows I’m here, will have heard me pulling into the driveway, scented me the second I stepped into the house, but he doesn’t interrupt my ogling session and stays fixated on his task.
And ogle I do.
The way his strong shoulders move under his shirt.
The careful way he turns the panel in his tanned hands to line it up.
The set of his square, stubbled jaw when something doesn't fit on the first try. How his thick thighs bunch when he stretches forward to pick up the next piece of the crib he’s piecing together.
"Hey."
Suddenly, I have a lump in my throat. I’d love to blame the hormones but it’s not that. This man has clearly spent the morning painting a room for our cub and putting a bed together by hand, after hunting down the buggy I wanted from who knows where.
All while I emptied my desk in front of an office full of people who wanted to know why I would ever choose him over my career, not understanding that I genuinely cannot work out how I got this lucky.
He looks up with a crooked smile, like he knows I’ve been admiring him while he works.
"Hey."
I cross the room and immediately, he sets the panel down and rocks back on his heels to look up at me. His eyes go straight to my face, checking.
"Was it bad?"
Crouching down in front of him, letting him wrap me up in his big arms and pull me close, I exhale.
"No, not that bad. Everyone thinks I’m being too hasty, that the suspension won’t stick. They don’t know that’s not why I’m leaving."
He kisses me on top of my head, one hand coming up to brush my hair back from my face, and I lean in and kiss him before he can ask me anything else.
He kisses me back. Slow at first, until I curl my hand around the back of his neck and don't let him pull away to ask the next question.
His hand at my hip tightens and somehow in the middle of it he gets his other arm around me and shifts so I am sitting across his thighs instead of curled up against him.
I've pushed my hand into his hair, and I feel the heat of him against me through his shirt.
His thumb traces the line of my jaw and then the side of my throat, and his mouth follows it down, and for a long minute all thoughts of the precinct just vanish entirely.
When he eventually lifts his head, his hand stays splayed against the small of my back.
"Tell me."
"They tried to talk me out of it. Said I should take the medical leave and ride it out. That between rescuing Ivy and bringing Amber home they know they can’t actually fire me, not for keeping a source confidential.
It’d be a PR disaster." I rest my forehead against said confidential source and breathe him in. "I said no anyway."
Because there’s no way I can do my job and keep Beau’s, and every other shifter that I meet, secrets safe.
Constantly lying to my colleagues doesn’t sit well with me.
And now that I know just how many shifters there are living among us, protecting them feels more important to me right now than anything else.
"And?"
I rest my palms on his chest and stare at my pale fingers resting against his impressive pecs.
"And they mentioned Dimitri. He got jumped in the yard last week. They had to move him to the medical wing. He’s singing like a canary, desperate to get a plea deal before Black can get rid of him permanently. Reckons he saw you there and shot you three times. That you have to be dead."
Beau is quiet for a beat. His hand on my back doesn't move.
"And?"
I scoff.
"They didn't seem surprised to hear you were there, but that you got shot? No way." I pause, His relief reaches me through the bond. "I didn't tell them anything, Beau."
His dark brown eyes lock with mine.
"I know."
He brings his hand up to the side of my face and looks at me, and the next thing I feel through him is the guilt, sitting underneath everything else he's holding for me. He has been carrying it since the day they suspended me for refusing to tell them exactly what happened at the warehouse.
And he is still carrying it now, no matter how many times we have this conversation.
"Stop that," I whisper, giving him another kiss just because I can.
He doesn't answer. His thumb moves across my cheekbone.
"I didn't quit because they made me, or because you made me," I say, “so frankly, Beau Lennox, you can put the guilt down whenever you're ready. I’m a big girl. I’ve made my choices and I’m happy with them. You wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t."
His mouth twitches.
He pulls me closer and kisses me again, deeper this time, his hand moving up under the hem of my jumper to splay across my not-so-flat stomach. When his thumb grazes the underside of my swollen breasts, I gasp, craving his touch.
Cradling me against him, Beau turns us and lays me down gently on the pale carpet, looming over me with a wicked smile on his face.
“You’re happy then?”
I roll my eyes. “You’re just fishing for compliments now, and I, for one, am not going to indulge this ego trip.”
His deep, husky laugh is cut short when both our phones go off at the same time.
We freeze. He lifts his head, looks at me, and pushes back to his knees, letting me scramble up onto my elbows so I can twist around to look at his screen.
One line.
Need you. Get to the compound ASAP.
Beau's already on his feet, pulling me up after him with one hand under my elbow and the other steadying my back, before he steers me toward the door.
“Remember, we agreed to desk duty only for now.”
In the hall, I watch as he gathers my purse, my coat and his boots. When I don’t agree immediately, he stands up straight and stares down at me.
"Desk duty, Red. You agreed."
"Beau."
He shakes his head.
"Whatever Chase has, you're behind a screen. Tripp and I will handle the field side. That's the deal."
Hand on the door, I can tell I won’t get past him until I agree.
“Fine then,” I grumble, and with a smug grin and over the top flourish, he yanks open the door and waves me through.
He hands me up onto the truck’s running board with both hands at my waist and waits to close the door until he's sure I'm settled, then comes around the bonnet, climbs in and puts the key in the ignition.
The engine catches and he pulls out of the drive and turns toward the mountains, to the Black River security compound.
His right hand comes off the wheel and goes to the bump, resting there as he drives.
It’s comforting, warm and heavy through the fabric of my jumper, his thumb sweeping a slow arc across the curve of my swollen stomach.
"You’re definitely happy? With what you decided, about handing in your notice."
I look at him. His eyes are on the road. His hand stays where it is. He’s anything but relaxed.
So I concentrate on pushing every ounce of certainty and love I have toward him through our bond.
"Yes, Beau." I cover his hand with mine and tangle our fingers together. "I couldn't be happier."
The corner of his mouth lifts, because he knows I'm not talking about the job.
Amber’s free, and the wolves have given her some space to heal, but with their own alpha’s life hanging in the balance, you know things are about to get interesting.