His Secret Billionaire Omega Page 15

  "Mrs. Daye?" Dr. Kuyper stepped in with an expectant expression. He was about the only doctor in this whole ordeal who didn't make me want to shake him and tell him to dumb things down to pure English. "Oh good, your son is here, so I can tell you both."

  Everything slowed down around us. Mama and I shared a hopeful, terrified look. She'd been on the antibiotics less than twenty-four hours. She hadn't had any more episodes yet, but she'd gone days without having them before.

  Dr. Kuyper took a deep breath and smiled. "The tests came back with strong indicators for Lyme."

  It was as if the room breathed a collective sigh of relief. "So what now?" Mama asked.

  "You'll stay on the antibiotics, but you can transfer to a hospital closer to home. You can even continue the IV antibiotics at home if you'd like, but that's something you can discuss with your local doctor. We'll put together your files and send them with you when you transfer."

  Mama clenched my hand, tightly, tears brimming in her eyes. And then my vision was blurring. Damn it. I stood to thank the doctor, to shake his hand, and he came up for Mama to give me a hug.

  "You hear that, Mama? Next week, you'll be home."

  Mama swatted my shoulder. "Now, don't get getting your hopes up yet. It's not a sure thing. We have to wait and see if what the next doctor says. You know, I never would have thought of Lyme. I never really left the hotel."

  "Well, I may just have to lock you up like Rapunzel in a tower to keep you safe."

  Her eyes were glinting with a true happiness that had been fading the longer she was in the hospital. "Oh, hush you. Go tell Marcus now. And tell him that just because I'm not dying doesn't mean he's getting out of letting me read his next book early."

  I kissed her forehead, for the first time, not worried that something terrible would happen between me leaving and returning. "I'll do that."

  It took several rings for Marcus to wake up and I realized it was just past nine in the morning. He would have been up once this morning to walk the dogs, but normally he fell back into bed after that. This was worth waking him up for. When he answered, he sounded just as sleep rumpled as I expected.

  "It's Lyme." I didn't have to temper my excitement anymore. "They're planning on transferring Mama back home."

  Marcus was awake immediately after that. "That's amazing, babe!"

  "We'll be home soon," I whispered.

  "That's something we need to talk about." Marcus's voice was hesitant. "I've been thinking about this a lot, and I didn't want to burden you with this before I needed to..."

  I had a brief moment of fear that Marcus was about to break up with me, that he had decided after all this stress, it just wasn't worth it. I wasn't worth it. I could barely breathe. "Just tell me, Marcus."

  "We're going to need a bigger house."

  My breath wooshed out of me in a sudden, dizzying rush. "Is that it?" I said laughing.

  "Hear me out. We hardly have enough room for all the animals as it is, and that's without two full grown men. And even if your Mama does get to go home home soon, she's going to need assistance. Live in assistance. There's no room for her in our house, and definitely no room for us in her house.

  My heart was swelling with relief that Marcus wasn't actually thinking about leaving me, and on top of that, the way he kept saying "our" was twisting my insides up in the best kind of way. But this whole idea of buying a house... neither Mama or I had that kind of money. And I knew what Marcus wanted to say... I knew why he had been hesitant—he knew I didn't like the idea of him just buying things willy nilly, especially for me, no matter what kind of money he had.

  "What are you thinking?"

  "I'm thinking a house big enough for both of us, the five kids, and an in-law apartment."

  That sounded amazing.

  "And I know what you're going to say, and I've been working on some plans and looking at houses. Mostly dreaming, but there are some realistic options out there for us."

  "Thank you," I said.

  "Is that a yes?" Marcus asked hopefully.

  "That's an I'll think of it. But thank you for everything. For loving me, for loving our babies, for loving my mama. For being you."

  After talking to Marcus, I sat with Mama and we researched everything we could, writing down a list of questions for Dr. Kuyper next time we saw him. One of the nurses came in to switch out Mama's IV with a new bag, and I took a selfie to send to Coop and Marcus. Marcus responded with a picture of him snuggled in bed surrounded by all the animals except for Whisper—Blubby in the background. They're excited too!!!!!

  They looked like the lazy bums they were.

  When Dr. Kuyper came in to check on Mama before his shift ended, he took the time to answer all of our questions. There was still a chance the antibiotics wouldn't work if the Lyme disease had progressed far enough. Or they could just take a long time to work. There could be other complications. All of that sat like expectant stones in my gut, but just the fact that we had a possible solution instead of nothing was enough to keep me buoyed throughout the day. I had a fucking good feeling about this

  38

  Marcus

  My fingers trembled as I texted Killian.

  I found it.

  I was so excited I could spit. I mean not really, because eww, but I was over the moon ecstatic. Just outside the city, in a suburb, in an area that was still more rural than urban, a beautiful Victorian with a caretaker cottage had become available after what looked like some seriously bad mortgage decisions.

  It needed some work, mostly to get it looking like it should and not the contemporary hodgepodge it was currently, but the bones were amazing. The cottage was close enough to keep an eye on Mama and not close enough for her to hear me scream her son’s name when he made me come. The best of all worlds.

  Found what? Killian responded.

  My fingers practically flew across my phone. Come here once the visiting nurse gets there.

  His mom was so much better, the treatment working far better than the doctors had even hoped. The visiting nurses were all my doing. I wanted to make sure she was getting the best care possible, and once a week doctor visits seemed like not enough for my paranoid self.

  Instead of trying to move any of us into her house, we set her up in our bedroom and added a bed to the basement as we looked or, more accurately, I looked for a new place for us. Killian was in agreement that we needed something bigger, but his heart just wasn’t in searching for someplace new. I had a feeling it was the alpha provide, omega be taken care of bullshit that was pounded into us by society, but until he was ready to discuss it, I wasn’t going to push.

  Where’s here?

  He responded faster than I could send the address.

  Could you wait long enough for me to type the address? Jeesh.

  I sent the address and the real estate listing… minus the cottage and the price tag. I wanted him to give it a real chance. I had purposely been picking places we could both feel comfortable in. Nothing over the top, the kind of place I could afford with only the income from my books if My production and sales held steady, which was probably not going to happen since I was already a week late on a deadline. Between Mama’s recovery and a bout of the stomach bug, words just hadn’t been happening.

  The nurse will be here in five and I’ll come right over. Mama says hi.

  He sent me a picture of Mama playing with Mr. Jenkins. Darn dog was a traitor. He was all about Mama, all the time. It was stinking adorable, and if it weren’t for how well he and Princess Buttercup got along—Princess Buttercup continued to use him as his own personal transportation—I’d have resigned myself to him being Mama’s dog.

  Mama loved him to bits, Sally too, and she teased us endlessly about naming a male cat Princess Buttercup. She would never admit it, but I heard her reading a story to Whisper one morning. I could see where my mate got his love for animals and his compassion.

  “Any questions on the disclosure, Mr. Fredericks?” The realto
r, Jennifer something or other, asked for the four thousandth time. She was impatient, not wanting to wait for my mate. She specialized in high end real estate, which was how my brother knew her, I just wished he had told me she was a bitch when it came to properties she considered beneath her.

  “Still no, but I may when my mate arrives. My brother thinks very highly of you. Mentioned using you again soon,” I lied, trying to keep her from calling the viewing over. Served Parker right. I sent him a quick text telling him as much while she stepped out to answer an important client’s phone call, the implication being I wasn’t. He sent one back quickly, a picture of him giving me the stink eye. It was nice to have this with him again, the silly banter of brothers. I sent one back with a picture of only one of my fingers just as she walked back in.

  “Someone just pulled in.” She sighed. “Probably thinks we are running an open house with free food or something. Just ignore him if the doorbell rings.

  I ran out, knowing she was judging my mate on his car, and sure enough, it was him.

  “Killian, you need to see this place. Now you know how people in those stupid home shows are all this would be the perfect house if they didn’t have so much clutter and we laugh at them because, duh, they take their clutter with them? Well, have that kind of mindset, because they left all their ugly ass shit, and weird colored walls, and odd countertops, but that is all fixable and the place is a steal because foreclosure. And I’ll stop now.” I spoke the final words as his lips stole mine, probably to shut up my rambling, but I couldn’t care less as long as they were on me.

  “Miss me?” I nipped his ear as we broke our kiss to the rude sound of Jennifer Bitch Face clearing her throat. She was so not going to be our realtor after today, but I didn’t want to tell her before I had a chance to show Killian the property.

  “You have no idea.” He kissed me again and this time we ignored her coughs and throat clearing.

  Killian seemed far less impressed with the house than I was, his do-it-yourself mindset seeing all the work there was to do, but once I took him to the caretaker cottage, his eyes lit up.

  “This is perfect.”

  “I know. It was what sold me on the place.”

  The cottage was simple, yet nice, and everything was on one floor which was the only thing I ever heard Mama complain about with ours, and mostly because she though it unfair to Mr. Jenkins to make him climb the stairs when he had hurt his paw a couple weeks ago. It was healed now.

  “So you would like to make an offer?” Jennifer piped in when she heard what she thought was the sound of cash falling into her bank account.

  She couldn’t be more wrong.

  “Yes, I will be calling your office and setting that up.”

  “That is my job as the seller’s agent, Mr. Frederick.”

  “I didn’t read that in the contract.” Because we didn’t fucking have one and I was so done with her.

  “We don’t—fine. I’m leaving which means you need to leave too.”

  Which we were going to anyway. I had no plans to lead her on no matter how much of a bitch she was. My heart rate sped up when my phone rang. I’d programmed a specific ring tone for my doctor. After the last lab results, he scheduled me for weekly blood draws to see if my hormone levels remained constant or were decreasing, and if so, by how much. So far, they had been holding steady, which was a great sign, but that didn’t make each phone call any less stressful.

  “Hello, Dr. Saunders, Marcus Frederick speaking.”

  “Hello, Marcus, I have good news for you!” He continued without giving me time to wonder. “You’re pregnant.”

  “Can you say that again?” I fumbled with my phone, trying to put it on speakerphone.

  “You’re pregnant.”

  “Just one more time,” I pleaded, finally getting the speaker on, my voice shaking, tears of joy already welling in my eyes.

  “Congratulations, Mr. Frederick. You are pregnant.”

  Killian picked me up and twirled me around, plastering my face and neck with kisses.

  “Call my office in the morning to set up an appointment. I just knew you wouldn’t want to wait for this news.”

  “No, thank you, Doctor.” I dropped the phone, taking Killian’s face in my hands and kissing him soundly.

  “It’s time to leave,” the bitch all but screamed at us, as if she hadn’t just heard our amazing news.

  I kissed Killian one last time, then turned around to face her, cold fury coexisting with my utter happiness. “I was going to just ask for a new realtor, but I think I may need to have your job as well. How dare you ruin this moment?”

  “Our office doesn’t care about piddly little million dollar sales like this one.”

  Before I could respond to her or begin to address the panic that filled my mate’s eyes for that split second before he schooled himself, both of our phones rang. Coop.

  “Hello?” Killian answered as I started to address Jennifer the Bitch.

  I matched her glare for glare. I knew we didn’t look like money. I didn’t flaunt it. I didn’t waste it. And this lady was going to learn something about appearances today, and not counting on them.

  “At the house, with the nurse.” The sharp note of concern in Killian’s voice completely derailed me and I scrambled to join the three-way call.

  “Thank fuck,” Coop said.

  “Thank fuck?” Killian’s shoulders relaxed slightly at the relief in his brother’s voice.

  “When the fire department called saying there was an explosion at our house, I was so scared she was there.”

  Killian and I shared a look and started walking, completely ignoring the squawking real estate agent as we made our way to our cars. I hung up and called Mama, just to make sure she was safe, but I didn’t tell her about the explosion. Fuck. That was something that needed to be done in person. Even though she had been living with us since returning home, pretty much all of her belongings, all of her memories, had been in that house.

  Fuck.

  39

  Killian

  I stood looking over the ruins of my childhood home. I'd wanted to go the day it happened, but Marcus convinced me to wait until the fire department declared it safe. I'd somehow clung to this hope that there would be something we could poke through, possibly some things worth salvaging, but the fire had been merciless. It had taken the entire building right down to the ground.

  Mama had been the calm one when we'd told her about it, and she'd insisted on joining me and Marcus when we went to check it out. But now that we were here... I could feel her losing her composure, piece by piece. She sniffled, and the sound tore my heart in two. I slid an arm around her shoulders and pulled her tightly to me, Marcus coming up on her other side to hold her hand, careful of the IV she still had inserted in her arm, his other hand holding the portable bag to keep it flowing.

  "It's stupid," she said. "It's just things. And I never loved the house. It had tiny hallways and old pipes. And weird corners. That's how you know an alpha man built it." She tried to laugh at her old joke, but it came out a cough. "The important thing is none of us were here."

  "That's right, Mama." I cleared my throat, the breeze pushing the acrid smell of the burnt remains at us.

  "I had too much stuff anyway. I kept talking about getting rid of all the stuff. I don't know why I didn't. Well, now I don't have to."

  I could see she was trying to make the best of things, just like she always had. When Dad left. When our heater busted in the middle of winter and she didn't have money to repair it for a month. But she had been kind of on her own still, even though Coop and I had tried to help out. We'd just been kids. And she wasn't alone any more.

  "It's not stupid," Marcus said. "It's okay to mourn. Even if you hated the house, you had memories here. And not just in the place, but in the things. So many of the things you didn't throw out had memories attached to them, I'm sure. That's not stupid."

  Mama turned to give Marcus a kiss on the ch
eek, a silent thank you.

  We stood silently for a while, Mama and I mourning the past, and Marcus giving us the time to do so. I'd probably do this again when Coop came back, though it might not be until his internship was over. He'd wanted to drive up right away, but I didn't want him to lose out on the experiences this summer was bringing him. There wasn't anything he could do here. We were all fine, a little bruised in spirit, perhaps, but not broken.

  "We'll be making new memories soon enough, Mama," I said. Marcus and I helped her turn around to head back to the car.

  "We already are," Mama scoffed. "The stories I have to tell about the kids already..."

  I caught Marcus's eye and he smiled hopefully. We'd been talking about the house and the coming baby almost non-stop, but privately. We didn't want to make any decisions until we know exactly what was going on with Mama's house. Now that we knew it was completely gone...

  "How would you feel about some more kids?" We stopped outside of the car, and Marcus took my hand as Mama braced herself on the vehicle.

  Mama looked horrified. "You can't fit any more animals in that house, Killian! It would be unfair to the ones you already have to say the least. Maybe once I move out, and you have a little more space, but even then..."

  Marcus's smile stretched from ear to ear, and I suspected mine did the same.

  "We were thinking something a little less hairy. But it will be about nine months before they get here, so we'll have plenty of time to get our new house ready before then."

  "Shut up." Mama's mouth dropped open. "You're not serious."

  "Absolutely serious."

  Mama pulled both of us into a bear hug. "I'm so proud of you boys." When she released us, she asked, "So what's this about a new house?"

  "I've been looking for a while," Marcus said. "And I think I found the perfect one. I found it the same day we found out about the baby and the house blowing up, and I think you're going to love it."