Archer
Chapter Ten
I took the chuck roast out and checked it for tenderness when my phone buzzed. Dallas and Justice had a specific notification tone, and they didn’t text unless they needed something. We saw each other all the time, so there was really no need.
On my way home. Bonnie is with me.
I almost dropped the pan. Instead, the corner of it swiped my wrist and burned me. I yelled out while my heart attempted to throw itself out of my chest.
Our omega was coming. To our home.
“Did you get that text?” Justice sprang from his office. Ratty T-shirt. Jogging pants. He’d been working all night and had only emerged from the cave for breakfast, coffee, and to grunt something unintelligible in my direction. I was used to it.
“I did.” Another text came in. She’s out of a shift and has nothing. Needs safety. “Okay.” I put my palms out to steady myself more than anything. There was no time to waste.
How long? I asked.
Hour at least. Leaving from the shop. She’s got her clothes on her back and that’s it.
“Fuck me. We have to go get some things. You have to go.”
Justice’s eyes widened. “What am I supposed to get?”
“A lock for her door. Safety, since she doesn’t know us yet. We never got to that. Clothes. Basics. Small sizes. You’ve seen her. Soft fabrics. Warm. Girl bath things.”
My bond brother looked panicked, and I could hear his heart hammering from across the room. “I don’t know shit about female bath things and clothes and…you have to come with me. Turn the oven off and let’s go. I’ll fuck it up, Archer. I can’t…we can’t fuck this up.”
His words were all strung together sounding like one run-on sentence. Poor Justice. He didn’t show his vulnerability often, but it was on full display at that moment.
“Okay. Oven off. Let’s go.”
Thank goodness I’d planned ahead and gotten dinner started early. Everything was ready, but it would have to be warmed up once we got back home.
“We’ll go to Dathers. Fast as we can.”
Dathers was the closest town in the other direction from the one where our shop was. It had one of those big stores with everything under the sun. That was where we needed to go. Somewhere along the ride into town, Justice snapped back from his shock.
He suggested getting a cabinet and a small fridge for Bonnie’s nest so she could eat extra snacks anytime she wanted.
We picked out pajamas, nightgowns, pants, shirts, hoodies, and enough bras and underwear to outfit the small town we were in. We cleared out the bath-and-body section. She would have enough personal hygiene items to last a year. Maybe more.
We got home in enough time to set everything up. Justice went into hyperdrive. Some of it had to do with the energy drink he’d slammed when we got back into the truck.
“The lock is installed. The fridge is stocked. Snacks in order. I took out all the blankets we had in storage for the nest.”
We’d been planning for our omega for years. Every time I saw something I thought an omega might like, I picked it up. Pillows. Blankets. Cushions.
I just hoped she liked some of it. Omegas would also, from what I had read, take some of their alphas’ worn clothing and add those things to their nests.
The scent of their alphas brought them comfort and safety.
That wasn’t possible this early in our courting but, one day, she would draw security from our scents.
Goddess, we barely knew her, and that made me beyond nervous.
“What can I do to help you?” Justice said. He’d gone over everything three or four times, checking off some list in his head, muttering to himself the whole time.
“I threw some quick breads in the oven. Triple chocolate. Banana. Lemon Poppyseed. Blueberry streusel. I’ve made a mess in the process.”
“Dishes. On it.”
Justice went to work like a madman on the dishes while I drifted to the window and tried to slow myself down. We needed to be steady for her. Grounded. A sleuth she could lean on.
If we didn’t calm down, she would be able to sense it. Smell the anxiety coming off us.
ETA. I texted Dallas hoping he could answer at a stop sign.
Seconds later, he did. Ten minutes.
Fuck me. In ten minutes, our whole lives would change.
“They’re coming in ten,” I called out to Justice. He was busy finishing up the dishes and putting them away. The man shunned the dishwasher, saying it delayed the inevitable which is why we left the job to him most of the time.
“What else, Archer? I can’t think straight.”
“It’s fine,” I answered. My bear pushed a soothing calmness into our seamless bond. This place was our home. We had peace and comfort here. All we had to do was extend that same security and sureness to our omega. “We have everything she needs here. There’s nothing more to do.”
Love would come later.
Lust probably before that.
Mating. Marking. Heats. Family.
All good things would come in time. Finding her had given me hope in those dreams again.
“Why are you so calm?” Justice came to stand next to me.
“Because we prepared for this, Justice. We have saved and prepped, and Fate seems to think we have what it takes to be what she needs.”
Justice’s breaths slowed. “Okay. Yeah. Just love her. That’s all we have to do.”
I nodded. “Easy, right?”
He laughed. “Easy.”