Page 11 of Duke's Baby Deal
“We can’t tell Adelaide—she’ll tell my parents! I don’t want them to know!” I broke down in tears, and he let me cry until I was wrung out and exhausted. It was probably a good idea anyway—I didn’t think I could stop if I tried. Eventually, though, I didn’t have any more tears to shed, and I sat slowly up and wiped my eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.” I didn’t. I’d always dreamed of having a mate and a baby, once I understood what being omega meant and how it made me different from the other shifters in Mercy Hills, special in a way they couldn’t be. But if I kept the baby, what then? Would they take it away from me and give it to someone else to raise? I glanced over at Taden, so utterly happy against Bax’s chest, and I wondered about the life growing inside me now. “What happens if I don’t want to get rid of it?”
Bax pursed his lips. “That, I can’t say for sure. At home, I know exactly what would happen. Mercy Hills?” He shook his head. “I’ll have to ask.”
“No! You can’t tell anyone!”
“Shh, easy now. I’ll ask Abel. If he doesn’t know, he’ll know who will.”
Abel? I must have made some noise, because Bax patted my hand. “Could you ask Holland to come in here for me?”
I sniffed and slipped off the bed to walk to the door. “Holland?” I called softly, then stepped out into the hallway. “Holland?”
“I’m coming,” came from the kitchen. For the first time, I noticed the smell of something delicious coming from that direction and I remembered that supper was soon. I hadn’t left anything for Mom and Dad to eat, I’d been so focused on my own problems. Guilt poked at me, but I reasoned they’d be happier if they didn’t have to deal with an unmated omega and his child.
Holland came out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. “What?”
“Bax wants you.”
He tossed the towel back into the kitchen and followed me down to the bedroom. Bax put up a hand, telling me to stay by the door, so I hung out there kind of uncomfortable while Bax talked to Holland in low tones. Holland’s head drooped and Bax pulled him close to kiss his cheek, then let him go. “You seen my phone, Holl?” he asked in a normal voice.
“I put it on the side table here when you dozed off.” He stretched to get it and gave it to Bax. “You sure about this?”
“It’s hard to put down the Alpha’s Mate mantle, even when you aren’t Alpha’s Mate anymore.” He took the phone, flipped through a couple of screens and tapped something. Faintly, I could hear the phone ringing at the other end, even fainter when Bax put the phone to his ear. “Hi, it’s Bax. Could you put Adelaide on?” A pause, then, “Oh, good. Yes, I can hang on.” He looked up at me. “She’s just finishing with someone, she’ll be—Oh, hi Adelaide. How’s the clinic today?” Bax listened a moment, then chuckled. “Well, don’t bring any of that with you when you come.” Adelaide’s voice squeaked, tinnily indecipherable, from the phone. “Yes, if you could. It’s not me, it’s Bram. He got himself a bit of trouble last night.” I started to panic, but he held up a finger to silence me. Adelaide spoke again and, very carefully, it seemed to me, Bax said, “Yes, that’s exactly it. Could you bring over what we’d need, just in case? And I’d appreciate it if you could talk to us before you spoke to Bram’s parents. Thank you.” He hung up the phone and turned to me. All of a sudden, he looked tired, even more tired than he had before. “She’ll be over after the clinic closes.” He held out his phone. “Call your parents and tell them you’ve been asked to supper and to pupsit tonight so Holland can go out.”
“I left my laundry in the washer at the southwest laundromat,” I said stupidly.
He glanced up at Holland. “Can you get it for him? He can hang it out here, though it won’t dry much tonight, but—” He turned to me. “If you go through with this, you’re going to have to spend the night so we can keep an eye on you, so you might as well let it dry a bit here.”
“Thank you, Bax.” It was such a relief to have someone who knew what to do.
A sharp movement on Bax’s part caught my attention. I looked where he’d jerked my chin, to catch Holland going back out the bedroom door. “Thank you, Holland,” I said, finally remembering my manners.
Holland made a noise that I decided to interpret as “you’re welcome” and disappeared down the hall.
Behind me, Bax laughed. “All done, beautiful boy?” When I turned back to him, he was setting the baby against the middle of his chest, rubbing his back and waiting for a burp. Bax glanced up at me. “He’s a good eater, for being so young. Caught on pretty quick to where the gravy train was to be found.”
The baby gave a small burp, then settled into boneless content against Bax’s body.
Suddenly, I remembered the phone in my hand. “Thank you for everything, Bax. I really mean it.”
He gave me one of those hard-to-read looks of his. “Promise me you’ll listen to all your options before you make up your mind.”
I nodded dutifully. I wasn’t sure, now that the panic had faded a bit, that there was any other option except to get rid of it. I wasn’t promised to anyone yet, not even a sniff of a potential mate, even if you didn’t consider that I wasn’t eighteen yet. Underage for mating in Mercy Hills, according to everyone, though looking at Bax I knew that wasn’t the case everywhere. If I had been promised, we could have had a quick mating and that would have been it. But as it was—I was starting to regret all my flirting.
I called my parents and put on my best cheerful tone, feeding them the whole story as if it were entirely true. Then I put the phone back on the table and fidgeted. Should I stay with Bax? Should I go hang in the living room? Watch the stuff in the kitchen? Had Holland even left yet?
Apparently not, because he came back with a tray filled with dishes and stuff, and the smell of whatever he’d been making filled the room. “I figured I’d bring your supper in to you before I ran to the laundry.” He put the tray—one of those fancy ones with the legs that go on either side of your lap—over Bax’s legs and carefully took the baby to put him in the cradle on the other side of the bed from me. “I brought some for you, too,” he told me with a nod. “Don’t spill anything on the sheets.”
“I won’t.”
Holland handed me a plate with potatoes and carrots and peas and small balls of ground beef glistening with sauce. He checked on Bax, checked on the baby, and finally left when Bax started to tease him about being a hummingbird instead of a wolf.
For the first time since I’d woken up this morning and realized what had happened, I was hungry, and I tucked into Holland’s delicious food with hardly a second thought.
CHAPTER TEN
I cleaned my plate, but Bax didn’t. “I think I’m going to nap while the little vampire is sleeping.” He handed me his half-finished plate. “Put that in the fridge, okay?”
“You sure?”
