Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
O wen
Wyatt and Daxton are waiting for me outside the children’s ward when I finish at 6pm. Which is strange because Daxton hasn’t finished work before 10pm for the last two and a half weeks and after this morning’s shenanigans I expected him to pull an all-nighter.
“I’m not going on a date,” I tell them both firmly before they can even ask. I’m in a bad mood, one I’ve worked hard to disguise in front of the children. Now my working day is over, I intend to unleash that mood.
Harper left Rockview today. Flew to New York. And along with her, took all my damn hopes and dreams. We tried to stop her, and we failed.
A date with some other snotty-nosed omega is the last thing I need.
“What date?” Wyatt asks, adjusting his glasses in confusion.
“Whatever date you’re hoping to drag me on.”
“I’m not planning on dragging you–”
“Harper’s pregnant,” Daxton blurts out.
“She’s not,” I say. “She’s in New York.”
“No, dickhead,” he snaps, “she’s going to have a baby.”
I laugh so violently, I’m forced to bend double and clutch my belly. I don’t know what planet my packmate has landed on, I have no idea from what rumor mill he heard that bullshit, either way, he’s lost his mind. “Where the hell did you hear that from?”
“Harper. And I was with her when she took the test. This morning.”
I stop laughing and roll up to stand, peering at my packmate through wet eyes.
“You’re serious,” I say, stunned.
“You really think I’d mess around about something like this?”
“Isn’t it too early …?” I frown, doing the math in my head. If it’s too early for her to know she’s pregnant after her heat, then that must mean she was already pregnant. Which means …. “It isn’t ours.”
“It is ours. And apparently it isn’t too early.” Daxton combs his fingers through his hair.
I gape at him again. Actually, that does make sense. Harper wouldn’t have fallen into heat if she was already pregnant. I almost smack myself in my own face. A heat is all about getting the omega knocked up.
Which means … Harper got pregnant in that heat we shared. And the baby is ours.
“Where is she?” I ask, my heart beginning to pound.
We need to see her.
Now.
If she’s in New York, we need to get on a flight ASAP.
I’m not hanging about. I’m already walking past my packmates.
“She went back to her mom’s house.”
“Then we need to head there right now and ask that girl to marry us.”
“Erm,” Daxton says and the way he says that has me halting and turning slowly to face him.
“What?” He grimaces. “Daxton?”
“I may have, you know, already asked her.”
“You did what?!!”
“Did she say yes?” Wyatt asks hopefully.
Daxton shakes his head, then cringes again, this time even harder. “I asked her in the bathroom.”
“Jeez,” I mutter, burying my face in my hands. “Just what every girl wants. A proposal by the goddamn toilet.”
“It wasn’t my best moment. I panicked. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Are you still panicking?” I ask, examining my best friend.
“A little. Are you?”
“A shit load.” I pause. “But in a good way. Harper’s carrying our fucking baby.”
“Does she want to be carrying our baby?” Wyatt asks, crashing my skyrocketing feelings straight back down to Earth.
I turn once again to Daxton.
“How did she take the news?” Because I’m pretty thrilled about the news, I just assumed she would be too. But maybe she isn’t. She was meant to be going to New York.
“Actually, she seemed okay about it.”
I rub at my beard. “Only okay?”
“She wasn't freaking out,” Wyatt points out.
“She seemed … pleased.” I smile. “But also worried. This is a hell of a mess.”
“One we can clear up,” I say, assuredly. “This is our chance to win her back, boys.”
“I think so too,” Wyatt says with that same optimism.
“I don’t know,” Daxton says, scratching the back of his neck. “I know what Adrianna said–”
“–Adrianna?”
“–My anesthetist.”
“But this isn’t the movies,” Daxton continues. “This isn’t a romance novel. This is an unplanned pregnancy and babies are often the thing that drives couples apart.”
“Or brings them together.” Wyatt seems unpersuadable from his optimism today and I can’t help mimicking that feeling. Then again, Daxton’s always been the more cautious one when it comes to everything Harper related.
“She’s still worried about people finding out about the heat.”
“Then we’re just going to have to prove to her just how indispensable we are,” I say with an assured nod. “Until she realizes her life would be one million times better if we were together – as a family.” The idea of that warms my heart. A family. Harper and a baby. Our omega, our baby. “We’re not a bunch of fuck-boys. We stand by our girl no matter what she chooses.”
“Even if she sticks with her original decision? Even if she doesn’t want us to be a family?” Daxton says. “Even if she never acknowledges that one of us is the father of her baby?”
“Harper wouldn’t do that,” I say.
“And if she did,” Wyatt says, “we can take her to court. Have our paternity legally acknowledged.”
“You’d take Harper to court?” I say, staring Wyatt down.
I watch as the cogs turn in his busy mind. “No,” he concludes.
“No,” I say, “and if it really ever came to it, then we’d just have to accept it. But it won’t. I’m certain of that. Certain she wouldn’t do that to us or the baby. And certain we can win her back.” I grin at my packmates. “This is our chance, boys – handed down by fate – this is our chance to get the girl back – and this time forever.”
On the drive to his dad’s house, we force Daxton to tell us the story of this morning’s events over and over again. Despite what he said earlier, it’s clear he’s as hopeful as the rest of us that we can win Harper back. He wouldn’t have asked the girl to marry him otherwise, no matter what bullshit he says about panicking.
When we arrive outside the house, we realize we haven’t thought this through. Harper may be in the process of breaking the news to her mom, in which case us arriving unannounced is going to complicate things. If she’s chosen not to tell her mom just yet, getting her alone where we can talk to her in private may be challenging.
I don’t have the patience for planning though. I need to see our girl. Our knocked-up girl. We’ll just have to wing it.
Wyatt, of course, is less keen on this approach, but I’m out of the truck before he can persuade me otherwise and both he and Daxton are forced to follow.
I ring the doorbell.
“What are we going to say?” Daxton hisses.
I shrug.
The door opens and Melanie stands in the doorway. She takes the three of us in and smiles widely.
“Oh, I’m so pleased the three of you came to check up on me. I could use cheering up. Harper left this morning.” She sighs.
“She left?” I say, my head spinning in confusion. Did she get on a flight to New York after all? “She didn’t come home?”
“No, silly. She caught her flight to New York this morning. She must have landed about three hours ago, although that girl has not texted me like she promised. I was just about to call her, actually.”
“You mean the 9:03 flight, right?” Dax asks.
“Yes, that’s right. We dropped her off at the airport this morning.”
“And she didn’t come back from the airport?”
Melanie chuckles in confusion. “You already asked me that. Why would Harper come back home? She’s in New York.”
“How about we go inside?” I say, glancing to the others as I take Melanie’s elbow and lead her down the hallway.
“Wh-what’s going on?” Melanie says, swinging her gaze between us, registering the concern on our faces.
“Where’s Dad?” Dax asks.
“In the kitchen. Why?”
We lead Melanie that way and find Daxton’s dad drinking a cup of coffee at the kitchen table with his laptop open in front of him. He looks up as we enter.
“Hello b–” he begins before spying the looks on all our faces. He closes the laptop, and places his coffee on the table. “What’s wrong?”
I maneuver Melanie into the seat beside her husband.
“Boys, you’re scaring me,” she murmurs, hand rising to her throat.
“Harper didn’t take the flight to New York,” Daxton explains. “She was taken unwell.”
“What?!” Melanie cries, leaping back onto her feet.
“Melanie,” Daxton says. “She was fine. I saw her at the hospital. Nothing more than a little sickness.”
Ethan pulls his wife back down into her chair as she mutters, “She was complaining of feeling peaky this morning. I shouldn’t have let her go. Is she still in the hospital now?”
“No,” Daxton says. “She was discharged. I understood she was coming straight home.”
“How long ago was this?” Ethan asks.
Daxton swallows, meeting his dad’s eyes. “About six hours ago.”
“Oh Lord,” his step-mom cries. “Six hours?! Where is she?” She swings her head towards her husband. “You don’t think she’s been–”
“Melanie,” Ethan says sternly. “Let’s not panic. Where’s your cell? Can you call her?”
Melanie reaches around the back of her chair where her cardigan is hanging and roots around in the pockets. She pulls out her cell, pressing buttons in a frantic manner, then switches on the speaker and lays the device out on the table.
Loud ringing fills the silent kitchen and five pairs of eyes are fixed on the cell screen. It keeps ringing and ringing, finally clicking to the answerphone, where Harper’s chirpy voice tells us to leave a message.
Melanie hangs up with a little squeak of dismay.
“Try again,” Ethan tells her. Daxton’s step-mom calls Harper three more times, each one clicks through to the voicemail.
“Ethan,” Melanie says, her voice wobbling.
“How about a tracker? Do you have a tracker on Harper’s cell?”
“Oh yes,” Melanie says, her face brightening with hope. “Ethan installed something for us both … but I don’t know how to use it.”
“Dad?” Daxton says.
Ethan picks up the phone and starts typing away. After a minute, he holds up a picture of a map.
“Looks like she’s down at the harbor front.”
“On a boat!!” Melanie cries out, obviously imagining Harper tied up in a hull somewhere about to be shipped off to a dubious destination.
“No,” Ethan says, “this tracker isn’t one hundred percent accurate, but it’s damn close. It seems she might be in one of the shops.”
“Shops?” Melanie says, confused, peering at her wristwatch. “It’s 7.40. The shops will be closed. It makes no sense. Should we call the cops?”
“The cops won’t be interested in a woman missing for a few hours. Especially one who is probably doing some late-night shopping,” Ethan says. “I’m sure she’ll be home shortly.”
“No,” Melanie says, “that makes no sense. No sense at all. Something’s wrong, my Mom intuition tells me something’s wrong.”
“How about we go look for her?” I suggest. “Ethan, can you forward her live location?”
“Sure,” he says.
“Will you go right now?” Melanie asks.
“Right now,” I tell her.
With promises that we’ll call as soon as we have eyes on Harper, we march quickly back to the front door, Ethan following after us.
At the door, he lowers his voice and says, “I think Melanie’s right. I don’t like this. Something feels off. Harper tells her mom everything.” Well, not everything, I think, but I happen to agree with Ethan. “I’ll call my security team to come down with you.”
“No,” Daxton says. “We’ll handle this ourselves.”