31. Avery
Avery
M eadowbrooke Rehabilitation Facility stood in front of us. It looked like such an unassuming place with a well-manicured lawn, flowers in the garden beds, paved pathways, and benches placed here and there where patients and nurses were already resting.
Everything about it seemed inviting.
I thought Cohen would be ready to run up to the front doors, yank them open, and find his uncle, but he was still holding himself back.
Reading him was a bit easier now. I could tell it was guilt stopping him, as if he felt responsible for what his aunt had done. I just hoped what he found in that hospital room was exactly what he wanted: his uncle functioning, happy, and not as frail as she had made him out to be.
“Come on,” Arden said, not giving him any more time to dwell. He gave Cohen’s arm a squeeze, and I gripped his hand as I led him toward the front door. Arden went up to talk to the nurse behind the desk. She lit up at the sight of us, recognition in her eyes the moment she spotted Cohen.
“Oh, you have no idea how happy he is going to be to see you,” she gasped, looking right at Cohen. “He showed me pictures and talked about having you over for the summers. You’re like a son to that man.”
“Please, just tell me—how is he? Everything I’ve heard so far is that he’s frail, sick all the time, and unable to function,” Cohen trailed off, unable to even finish as his voice broke.
The poor nurse looked so confused, her eyebrows wrinkling as her head tilted to the side, as if she were trying to process this. “What do you mean, sweetheart?”
“Well, Aunt Clara mentioned—” he started, but the way this woman’s face morphed from confused to angry in a second stopped him.
“Now, I’m not trying to upset anyone, but that woman needs to learn her place. No, honey, you come see for yourself,” she said, ignoring all of us and hooking her arm through Cohen’s. She led him down the hall and into a room, forcing us to try to keep up.
“Cohen!” The voice that called out was strong, though a little gravelly, like it was under-used. “My boy!”
I arrived just in time to see the old man practically hop out of his armchair and crush Cohen in a hug. I couldn’t tell who the shaky breath or the small cries came from but we all stepped out to give them a moment.
“That’s what he needed,” the nurse said, nodding her head in approval and dabbing at her eyes. “Glenn is the sweetest.”
“Can we get a little bit of honesty here?” Mason asked.
She didn’t flinch at his blunt demeanor, she just shrugged and waited to hear what he was going to say. The nurse was bound by privacy laws, so she wasn’t going to give him anything personal.
“This Clara... I’m getting the vibes that she threw him in here and locked away the key. Does she visit? Is she still manipulating the narrative? Why didn’t she want Cohen to come here?”
She took a breath as Mason finished speaking.
“I can’t speak for that vile woman, and I’m probably overstepping telling you this, but she’s just a terrible person. You can feel the negative energy coming from that omega,” her nose wrinkled as she looked off in the distance, as if she could picture Clara coming in. “I’m sure she’ll kick up a fuss the moment she hears that he came.”
“That’s kind of what I’m worried about,” I admitted. “Is she going to be able to ban us from coming here? Can Glenn leave soon?”
“She’s footing the bill so far, but that man in there has been ready to leave for close to a year. He’s passed all his rehab at this point, he’s just here because she’s paying, and he has nowhere else to go. My understanding is that she held some sort of decision-making power over his financials as well; otherwise, he could have just checked himself out. It’s a sad situation, but unfortunately, one we’ve seen far too often.”
The compassion in her voice was breaking my heart. I wondered how many old souls were stuck here wondering where their family went.
“Then we’re getting him out of here,” Arden said, as if the case were closed.
“I’m not disagreeing because we definitely are, but we also have to consider the fact that we have an omega now,” Mason pointed out.
“Why wouldn’t I be okay with it?” I asked, confused. The last thing I wanted to do was separate uncle and nephew. Especially after they just found each other.
The sassy nurse was the one to answer. “Well, honey, an omega is going to be in heat eventually, and I don’t think that’s something you want an old man to witness, correct?”
My cheeks flushed, and I groaned. “Okay, I get it. I get it.”
“What about the storage above Cohen’s shop? All of those old buildings have apartments up there. Could we maybe set that up for him? He could stay with us until then, right? Hell, he could stay with my mom until then if we had to. Either way, he’s not staying here.”
“Are you guys serious?” Cohen’s voice was shaky, his face a little pale as he looked from one of us to the next, trying to figure out if this was all a huge dream that he was about to wake up from.
“Of course, we’re serious,” I said. “She said he’s free to go. Your aunt’s been holding something over him. I don’t think he has access to his money, but he doesn’t need it. He can leave here today with us.”
“Oh, we should stop for lunch somewhere. No offense, but nothing beats a dinner out,” Ford said, giving the nurse a grin. She held up her hands and laughed.
“Oh, honey, I agree,” she said. “Our cook makes everything healthy and low sodium. Give that man a cheeseburger.”
Cohen’s eyes fluttered closed as he tried to rein in his emotions. A single tear slipped free, and Ford was there to brush it away. He pulled our beta into a hug, one that I joined. We both held onto him until he was breathing a little easier.
“Avery suggested we convert that storage space above your shop into an apartment for him,” Mason said.
“That might not work if he’s not agile enough, that’s a lot of stairs. We could buy a house near Main Street instead,” I said now that I recognized the fault in that plan. We let Cohen go so he could join in, but the poor beta was beyond overwhelmed.
“Wait, that might work,” Mason said as he pulled me into a side hug. I settled into his scent, though I tried to stay focused. It was hard to do around these men, though. “The place we were renting—there was a house for sale next door. It’s literally a couple minute walk from downtown. It’s perfect. It’s like a one-bedroom little cottage, a cute little yard. It’s fenced in, so he could potentially get a dog.”
“I’m already meeting with the contractor. We could adjust the plans and have him start in town if the place needs any upgrades. I meant to talk with you guys about it yesterday, but things kind of took a turn at the dinner table.”
Cohen opened his mouth as if he was going to apologize, but Arden cut him off. “Don’t apologize. That is not what she meant.”
“It’s not,” I agreed. “And this is not really the place for a full conversation, but I was considering putting a guest house out on the property that I own. We can put up a small house just for him as well to give him his own little space, he’s family so I know none of my other family will protest.”
“Are y’all just going to sit out here and talk about me?” the old man said, pushing away into the hallway, hands on his hips, bushy eyebrows raised.
He was full of personality, and I liked him immediately.
“I guess we should take this conversation inside, huh?” I teased. He let out a hoarse chuckle and waved us on in.
“We need introductions, too,” he agreed.
“You know what, Glenn? Why don’t you guys take over the party room? We don’t have anything scheduled in there today,” the nurse said, giving him a wink before walking away.
“Let me lead the way,” he said, moving past us. To his credit, Glenn was way more agile than I expected. In fact, maybe it was just seeing his nephew, but he seemed full of life.
It only made me want to have a conversation with this Clara, one that ended in her being severely humbled.
Glenn led us to a small room with a few tables and a banquet table. Outside of a couple of boxes of decorations in the corner, it was empty. He closed the door behind us and sat down with a groan.
“Yeah, you know, an upstairs apartment might not be the best,” he admitted as he shifted in his chair until he was comfortable. “But I’m going to need to know why you’re here. Why now?”
There was no judgment, no accusation—just a bit of pain and curiosity. I was so proud of Cohen for not breaking down at the question.
“Aunt Clara,” Cohen admitted, giving his uncle an update on everything he’d heard so far. “She made it seem like I couldn’t visit, that you were too frail, under the weather all the time, it was a new and increasingly awful update each call.”
Glenn’s eyes darkened, and I could tell there was so much more to the story now.
“That woman has seen me maybe twice since I’ve been here. She refused to pick me up when I was done with rehab, saying the doctors didn’t know better than her and I wasn’t ready. I don’t even want to think about what my assets look like, but I’m hoping my lawyers held strong.”
“That’s awful,” I said, shaking my head. I couldn’t imagine family turning on you like that. The Whitakers had always stuck together and this man could use some of that loyalty in his life.
“You’re not staying here another day,” I said. “Are you okay with coming with us?”
“Is there pizza on the outside?” he teased, but the hope in his eyes made my chest ache. It was such a simple request and just showed how much he’d missed.
“We can definitely have pizza tonight,” I promised.
“And I know two little beagles who will be so happy to see you,” Cohen said.
“It’s been a minute. I don’t know if they really will. I’m going to guess those girls have been spoiled rotten by you. They’re your girls now,” Glenn told Cohen. The look in his eyes told me that he knew Cohen needed them still and wasn’t going to take them away now.
“Thank you,” Cohen said, seeing right through the words to the root of it. His uncle was still looking out for him.
“I’m going to go have a chat with the nurses,” Arden said.
Mason turned around and followed him out, the two alphas going to square things away and speed this whole process along. The sooner we got out of here before Clara found out, the better.
“Clara doesn’t have power of attorney over you or anything like that, right?” Cohen asked.
“Not unless she went behind my back and did some shady shit,” Glenn said with a shrug. “I’ll have to make some phone calls soon.”
“Even if you don’t have access to your money, we’ll get you settled in Rockwood Valley with us,” Cohen told him. That was the benefit of having a pack. It wasn’t just a single income, but generally three or more in the mix. That meant we were a lot more stable than couples. We had the funds to truly give Glenn what he deserved.
“No, I’m not trying to be a burden on anyone,” Glenn said, serious now. “I have the funds to retire and should be able to use it. This wasn’t my plan,” he said, glancing around the building.
“Health scares never are,” Cohen said, eyes a bit haunted. I couldn’t imagine how bad it was to land him in here for as long as he was, Clara’s bullshit aside. She never would have gotten away with it if this place wasn’t also an assisted living center.
“That car accident was bad. That deer nearly ruined my life,” Glenn said. “But whatever Clara said happened to me after that was a lie. I recovered here then was simply stuck here. In order for someone with my magnitude of injuries to be released, it had to be with someone else. She arranged for me to stay but it was unnecessary. I got one cold maybe the whole time being here.”
“No wonder she wouldn’t let you call,” I told Cohen. “She knew if you found out this whole thing would be over. She’s up to something else, I guarantee it.”
“God, I’m so sorry,” Cohen said. “I don’t know why I just took her word for it. She said you couldn’t have visitors. The list of restrictions she gave me was so long.”
“She’s just a manipulative, controlling little narcissist. She wanted to control the narrative here, and it worked up until now,” I said. “We’ll just have to figure out why.”
“Attention, probably. Who knows? If she had anybody donate, she could have been making money off me this whole time. She’s the one paying to keep me here.”
“I think it’s time to get you back, and then you can talk to your lawyer,” Arden said from the doorway. We turned to see him standing there with a smile on his face. “You’re officially busted out of here, Glenn. What can we help you pack up?”
Glenn looked flustered now, standing up and trying to remove dust from his shirt, even though there wasn’t any at all. “I don’t have much, but I need to say some goodbyes. I’ll meet you all in my room.”
He gave us one more startled glance then heading right for the nurses’ station. I had a feeling this goodbye was going to be rough on more than just him.
“What did the nurses say?” Cohen asked, looking at Arden and Mason. Their faces were grim now.
“Clara is his contact, but because he is fully in control of his faculties, he can advocate for himself. If he had fought a little bit more against her, he might have gotten out earlier. But he had no access to money, no one to pick him up, and he has to have someone to take him home from here. He can’t just walk out the door. She used all the loopholes she could to keep him locked away for some reason,” Mason summarized.
“While there’s plenty of room at the packhouse for now, I don’t think he’s going to want to stay like that very long,” Mason added.
Cohen froze then turned to me, eyebrows furrowed.
“Wait, what did you say about the house you’re building?” Cohen asked. “I thought you always planned on having a packhouse there.”
“It will still be a house, we’ll have guest rooms and a lot of communal spaces. If we ever need it, it’ll be there. I want it for holidays and hangouts… but we already have a packhouse, don’t we?” I pointed out.
Arden bit back a smile as we all looked at Cohen, waiting for him to respond.
“Does this mean you’re going to move in with us?” Cohen asked carefully. He was so hopeful that it made me want to crush him in a hug and never let go. I wasn’t the only one in our group that had gone through something. He’d been treated poorly by his family for too long and I wanted to spend the rest of our lives showing him what family should be like.
“I was thinking about it,” I admitted. “My alphas haven’t exactly claimed me yet.” I joked. Ford, Mason, and Arden’s eyes darkened as they looked at me, making it very clear they’d be happy to fix that.
“I’ll take you to one of these back rooms and bite you right now if that’s what you really want,” Mason said, his voice rough. “But I don’t think it is.”
“It’s not,” I agreed. “I don’t want to be bitten during heat either. But I couldn’t imagine going back home and staying there after all this. I don’t like being away from you guys for long. I’m ready to be a real pack.”
Arden was the first to break. He moved forward, sweeping me into his arms and twirling me around, holding me as tight as he could as he breathed me in. Marjoram and vanilla engulfed me, my pulse picking up in response.
“You have no idea how happy that makes me. I haven’t wanted to let you go since I met you.”
“Now you won’t have to,” I promised.