Chapter Twenty-Six
Lindon
Things that made others nervous didn’t faze me. Everyday bothers. Bills. Hiccups in schedules. The dentist.
Compared to murder and the awful things we had seen in our line of work, those happenings were silly and fleeting.
But what I was about to do was downright terrifying.
Shiloh was at the shop, keeping watch. True was handling some pesky things in town.
And I was meeting Hazel at the back door of her shop.
My mate had been through so much, and all of us, together, were learning the meaning of family and pack in new ways. Shiloh and True had been my pack since we met, but now we had a center. A reason for working together that had nothing to do with money or contracts or bounties.
We had an omega.
And every omega needed a home and a nest.
I waited outside her shop, leaning against the girthy oak whose limbs scraped the roof of their apartment. On our date the other night, she’d said I was a good leaner. That my leaning was sexy.
Now, I made it my goal in life to lean on things as much as possible.
She came out and shook her head, smiling. A dusty-lavender dress hugged her curves and the V-cut settled right above her breasts. The light-color lip stain made her brown eyes glimmer. “This is getting ridiculous. I should’ve never told you about the leaning.”
“What? I thought you liked it.” I pushed off the tree, walked over to her, and pressed a kiss to her lips. I wanted more from her. All of her. Every last drop, but we had broken her trust once. It would take time to earn it back. Patience had never been my forte but, for her, I would strive for it.
“I did, but now it’s going to your head.”
I took her hand in mine, and she let me. I was still surprised at how willingly she allowed us back into her life. We would never take that for granted.
“Every word you say.”
“Where are we going, anyway?”
This was the part that made my stomach shake and my knees wobble. My knees almost never wobbled. “I have something to show you. It’s not far. I wanted something close to the shop so we would be close.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will.”
A ten-minute walk down a mostly forgotten road and up a cobblestone driveway revealed the house.
There wasn’t a whole lot of available real estate in Belladonna Woods. I’d found this by word of mouth. An older pack had lived here their whole mated life and had moved out to be closer to their grandkids. They were very motivated to sell.
And I was even more motivated to buy.
Our pack and our omega needed a home. A nest for her. A kitchen to make her meals and a place where she could rest and relax.
“I found this. The librarian, Lexi, was talking about it one day. They took very good care of it.”
“You found a house?”
I got in front of her. “For us.”
“For your pack?”
I cocked my head sideways and sighed. “For my pack including our omega.”
Her chin quivered. “You have been looking for a home for all of us? We’re not even mated. We…you’re not marked. Neither is True. I haven’t…we haven’t…”
I drew her in, my hands on her waist. “We are staying here. Close to you and your shop and your friends and Alice and this town. We’re not going anywhere. So, we need a place to live that’s not the inn. Before you say anything else, can we go in and take a tour? I have the keys.”
She moved around me and stepped inside. Huge.
Tudor style, black on gray, matching the ambience of this town perfectly.
Moss clung to the corners, and the garden was wilting with the cold coming in, but I would bet it flourished in spring.
The cobblestone driveway extended to the front door. A huge wooden door, rounded at the top.
“Yes?” I asked.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
I took that as a yes.
We walked around inside and it was a lot to take in.
My mate was silent, but her eyes told me everything.
She loved it. Grazed her hand along the pristine wood on the walls and even crouched to touch the floors.
The modernized kitchen retained the gloomy yet comforting nature of the house.
Dark wood everywhere. Black quartz counters. Bronze fixtures.
The theme continued to all the bedrooms. Six in total. But the second floor was what I really wanted her to see.
The omega suite. Her nest. The place where…her place in our home. The heart of it.
“This is the omega suite.” I opened the door and pushed it so she could pass me.
“This is the nest.” She claimed it immediately.
It smelled like the people who lived here only moved out the day before.
These walls held their stories. Their love and their long mating.
I could only hope ours lasted as long and that one day we would transition to a place where we would visit our grandchildren.
An alpha could wish.
“And you want to buy this for us?”
“We…we want to buy this for us. We’ve saved up our money for the time when we found our omega. We have the money. But if you don’t like it, we can find—”
“I love it.”
All the tension I’d been hanging onto left my body in a whoosh of breath. “You do?”
I nodded. “I’m shocked and may feel differently about all of this once the excitement wears off, but I love the house.” Hazel gave me a look I hadn’t seen before. Maybe a hint of it, but this was so much more.
“It’s all for you.”
I raised my nose and took in her scent. Her slick overpowered everything else. That slick was for me.
I’d betrayed her trust and now she wanted me. Me.
What a lucky bastard I was.
“Do you want to see the greenhouse?”
“If this is going to be where our pack lives…show me all of it. Just so you know, after the tour, we’re mating. Today. I can’t wait any more. So make it quick. The tour. Not the other part.”
Quickest tour ever.