Chapter Twenty Four
The events after what happened in the bathroom of the hotel lobby were one huge blur to me. I vaguely remembered hearing the voices of the rest of the guys and feeling them dress me and spray me down with something before carrying me out of the bathroom.
Then the next thing I remembered was being put into a warm bath and someone washing my hair.
The feeling of strong fingers massaging my scalp made me moan, my insides twisting weakly despite my heat being momentarily sated as I rolled my head to the side to get a look at who was doing such a fabulous job.
And there he was. Brooks knelt down next to the tub, the sleeves of the white button down shirt he was wearing rolled up to his elbows as he was laser focused on my hair.
“Thank you,” I croaked weakly, making the alpha jump.
“Hey,” Brooks said, his green eyes crinkling in the corners as he smiled at me.
“We were wondering when you were going to wake up. I mean, I knew Zeke was good—the man has been bragging about his magic fingers for years—but I didn’t think he was good enough to send a girl into a coma for over an hour. ”
He was rambling, which was a sure sign that shit had hit the fan while I was out and the other three guys were currently putting out the fires of the mess that my heat had created.
I watched him continue to work shampoo into my hair like his life depended on it until I finally worked up the courage to ask the question that was on the tip of my tongue. “Did everyone find out about us?”
His hands stopped mid-scrub. “What? No, of course not, Len. We got you out of that bathroom before the dinner was over and up to a hotel room. Sprayed the hell out of it too because it smelled like a cherry bomb had gone off in there. Told your mother that you’re up here vomiting everywhere though. ”
I grimaced at that. “And let me guess, McDaniels wouldn’t let her come up here?”
“Wouldn’t even let her get on the same elevator we took you up here in.
Said he’d have you facetime later. Can’t risk her getting sick so close to election time, never mind the fact that you were sitting right next to her at dinner.
But hey, at least that saves us from trying to explain why you disappeared before dessert came out. ”
“Okay,” I said slowly, confused as to why he looked so worried. “Then what’s the bad news?”
“Ah, well,” Brooks mumbled, suddenly very interested in the ends of my hair. “We needed help to get a hotel room without alerting everyone in the entire damn building about what was going on…”
Even through the hazy fog that my heat-addled brain was giving me, I was starting to connect the dots. “Brooks, you guys didn’t…”
“Your grandma is in the other room.”
My hands were already over my face before he could finish.
“No,” I groaned, sinking underneath the water to ruminate on the shame that was my grandmother, and probably by extension my grandfather, coming to my rescue after I was fingered within an inch of my life in a hotel lobby bathroom.
Brooks, ever the opportunist, decided it was a great time to rinse my hair while I was moping underneath the water and I couldn’t even blame him.
Then, when he decided I’d had enough, he gently grasped both of my arms and lifted me sputtering to the surface again and into a fluffy, waiting towel. “It’s not that bad, Lennon.”
“Oh, really?” I asked dryly, as he gently toweled off my too-warm body. “Would you be okay with your grandmother knowing a man had his fingers inside of your body within the last hour?”
Brooks just looked sheepish as he ran a hand through his deep auburn curls. “Well, gee, seeing as I don’t know my grandmother and men putting their fingers in me isn’t really my thing, I can’t really relate to either of those things… but she’s helping us out. So, I’m just glad she was around.”
A weird mix of irritation and guilt filled me as I sat in his lap and let him cradle me like a pouting child. I knew that a lot of the volatility that I was feeling had to do with my heat, even if it was at a lull right now thanks to Zeke’s earlier ministrations.
The urge to bite the alpha cuddling me to his chest was overwhelming and I would have done it if it wasn’t for the knock on the bathroom door.
“Hey B, is she awake in there?” came Dallas’s voice. “We’ve got a game plan.”
“Yeah,” Brooks called back. “We’ll be out in ten.”
Fifteen minutes later I was standing on wobbly legs in front of my grandmother who looked like the cat who ate the canary.
There had never been a woman who looked more pleased with herself than Bunny Holloway did as she looked me up and down as I shifted uncomfortably in the oversized pair of sweatpants and t-shirt purchased from the hotel gift shop that Brooks had dressed me in.
“Go on, you might as well just say it, Grandma,” I said with a sigh, gesturing for her to just get it over with. I could feel the first stirring of my heat cramps starting again and the sooner we got the hell out of here the better.
“Say what, sweetheart?” she asked, fiddling with the stack of gold bracelets on her thin wrist.
I shot her a look. “You know exactly what, don’t be coy. It’s ugly.”
Grandma’s grin grew wide. “Oh, like how I was right about you and your hunky Secret Service agents? Even though you denied it until you were blue in the face? And now I get to come in and save the day and sneak you out to the Cape so you can live out your romance novel dreams?”
“Hunky?” I heard Zeke whisper behind me but I was too busy connecting the dots of my grandmother’s plan.
Of course she would offer up the house in Cape Cod. It was a cottage that she and my grandfather kept but rarely visited anymore.
“And Grandpa is okay with this? Does he even know about it?”
Grandma’s gaze shifted away from mine, a sure sign of guilt.
“He’s… well he’s in the middle of fussing about it.
I sent him home with strict instructions not to tell your mother or I would tell him about a whole motherlode of things.
This is your business dear and when you want to tell your mother then you will. ”
Well that wasn’t very reassuring, my grandfather couldn’t keep a secret to save his life, but it was all I had right now.
Crossing the room, I threw my arms around her shoulders. “Thank you, Grandma.”
“You’re welcome, Lennon,” she whispered back, squeezing me fiercely. “The cottage is yours, actually. It was always meant to be yours eventually.”
Then she pulled away and looked over my shoulder at the alphas still hovering against the back wall of the hotel room. “Now you all should get going. She’s starting to burn up again and you won’t have a lot of time.”
“They’ll track the SUV,” Maverick pointed out. “We’ll have maybe twenty-four hours before they come after us and we lose our positions and our jobs.”
“Lennon has the ‘flu’, remember?” my grandmother said, putting her fingers up in air quotes.
“I’ve already told Athena I’m sending her out to the Cape for a week to recuperate.
We’ll cancel her appearances and she won’t need the extra security outside of you guys thanks to the extra security we have at the cottage. ”
“Extra security?” Dallas asked with a frown, pushing his glasses up his nose.
Bunny shot the alpha a haughty look. “You don’t think my husband and I would give our only granddaughter a home for her to potentially live in by herself without tricking it out like Fort-freaking-Knox do you?”
Dallas at least had the decency to look abashed by her scolding as he shook his head. “No, ma’am.”
I had to keep from laughing because, while my grandmother looked like the picture of a sweet old hippie, she had a spine of steel and was unafraid of using it.
“There is an electric perimeter gate, cameras, and a fully staffed gate guard. The community itself is also gated and protected. Athena also knows this, so it’s unlikely that she’ll send the cavalry in after you all. ”
My grandmother looked around the room at the four alphas. “Now, I’ve explained my piece of this puzzle, do I also have to explain your piece? I’m not sure if they explain the alpha birds and the alpha bees these days in school but if you get me a whiteboard I’m sure I can draw a diagram—”
“No!” the four alphas chorused, cutting her off before she could keep talking.
“Stop teasing them so much, Grandma,” I said, feeling suddenly exhausted and hot again.
She just grinned the same devilish grin that my grandfather thought was charming back in the day and pressed a cool hand to my forehead. “They’re going to have to get used to it, sweetheart, if they plan on sticking around.”
I was about to answer, but suddenly my world went topsy-turvy as I was lifted off of my feet and into the air by Brooks, his sweet honey mead scent reminding me that I was still, in fact, right at the precipice of my heat.
“We’ll take good care of her, ma’am,” he promised as he held me close to his chest.
“Good,” my grandmother said as she tucked her sparkly clutch under one arm.
“See that you do, because if you don’t I’d just like to let you know that while my daughter may be a scary ass bitch, she learned it all from me and I’ll make you disappear with a level of efficiency that would scare a 1920’s mafia don. ”
Through the emerging haze of my heat, I swore I could hear the sound of four throats swallowing nervously.