Page 45 of Duke's Baby Deal
Abel gave in to my pleading and pulled through the drive-thru of a small, blocky building that smelled of meat and fat. My stomach sat up and took ferocious notice. I thought for a moment it was going to leap straight out of my body to haul itself in through the little window we pulled up to and help itself to the entire contents of the restaurant.
Duke handed me back a bag, heavy and warm and smelling absolutely delicious. I dug through it, found two hamburgers and a small box of chicken nuggets with a tiny packet of sauce. The fries had all fallen out of their container and lay in a warm, greasy, tantalizing heap at the bottom of the bag. “Smells so good,” I moaned, and unwrapped one of the hamburgers to cram it into my mouth.
I managed two whole, wonderful, delicious bites before my stomach went into reverse like a skunk has just jumped out in front of it, tail up and ready to dance. The hamburger landed on the floor of the van and I doubled over with my hand over my mouth while I hunted for something to throw up in.
“Shit,” I heard Duke say, faintly, because the blood was pounding in my ears. “Pull over.”
But it was too late.
I ended up puking on my fries, which nearly made me cry, because they’d smelled so good, but at least I didn’t get it in the van. When my stomach finally gave up, I leaned against Duke and this time I did cry, because this was scary and I was—or had been—hungry, and now I was going to starve myself and my babies to death because all I could eat was dry toast and crackers. Even the human medicine couldn’t keep me from throwing up.
Duke gingerly handed the bag away to Abel, and wrapped his arms around me. “Hey, you can’t be the first one to have morning sickness like this. We’ll figure it out. We have vitamins, and more importantly, we have Bax and Holland, who grew up with this. They’ll know what to do. And maybe we needed to give the pills more time to work. We can get another hamburger once we’re closer to home.”
I tried to take comfort in it, but it was hard.
Duke was right. An hour into our return trip, we stopped to replace my wasted food, and this time I was able to keep it all down, though it was still a dicey situation. I didn’t care—it was delicious, and I hummed my contentment as I chewed, which made Duke laugh.
Duke stayed in the back of the van with me for the rest of the trip, even though I told him he could sit up front with Abel if he wanted. I was tired now that my stomach was full and the food was staying in, and I wasn’t going to be good company. But, instead of leaving me alone, he helped me lie down with my head in his lap, and covered me with his blue Christmas jacket so I’d be warm.
As I curled up with the scent of my mate all around me, I felt the safest and happiest I’d ever felt, despite the problems we were facing. Duke was right, we’d make it through.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Duke walked Bram to work one morning, shortly after their trip outside the city. Bram had somehow gotten hold of a couple of old picture frames and the ultrasound images were proudly displayed in them. He was taking them to work to show everyone, because no one ever got to see their babies before they were born. Duke supposed that someday they would have to get a machine of their own, but they’d done all right without one so far. But he kind of liked having the pictures, something no one else in the pack had. He knew that everyone thought their babies were special, but he thought that having the pictures maybe made them a little more special, even on top of being twins, which was almost unheard of in shifter culture.
They stopped in front of the door of the daycare. Bram was opening, because he was always too sick to work in the afternoon. He was still working all his old hours, but Duke wasn’t sure how much longer that would last. Becca was worried about him. He did look a little drawn, though he tackled everything he did with the same energy as ever.
Bram stood up on his tiptoes for his traditional kiss goodbye. “Should I walk down to meet you after my shift? You should be done by then.”
“I don’t think you should walk that far.”
“The doctor said I should exercise, remember? And he particularly recommended walking. And if I don’t start moving more than I am, I’m going to turn into a whale.”
“You’d have to eat for that to happen.”
“I do eat. And it’s better now that I have the pills.”
“I know. I just don’t want you wearing yourself out.”
“I’m fine.” Bram’s smile was like summer sunshine in winter. “But thank you. I should go in. I see Carlotta coming with her boys.” He made a face. “I hope she doesn’t grab for my stomach again. Like, they’re my babies, not hers, right? I never realized that getting pregnant made me public property.” He bumped his head on Duke’s chest as if he was banging it against a wall, then abruptly stood up straight and smiled past Duke’s shoulder. “Hi, Carlotta. I’m just unlocking. Hang on.” He insisted on another kiss that Duke was happy to give, then turned to the door, dodging Carlotta’s attempt to feel his belly and breezily ignoring her questions. Bram let her go inside the building first and, as Duke turned to leave, Bram threw him a glance with crossed eyes and tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, a small, laughing commentary on how he thought his day would be.
Duke grinned and waved as Bram disappeared back inside the daycare, and then he headed for work.
He got there just as the humans were unlocking the heavy silver-coated steel gate. The two sides rattled back out of the way and Duke watched as the humans clamped them in place out of the way and hurried back inside their guardhouse to stay warm. Their building was twice the size of the one the shifters had just inside the gate, but that was kind of par for the course.
Duke exchanged a few words with the shifter who had worked the after midnight shift down here, getting the report on anything that had happened through the night. Then he was alone there, until the rest of his team came for their shift, which would be in two hours. There wasn’t much need for more people until it was likely there’d be traffic, and at this time of year, getting work outside the enclave was pretty tough. Traffic in and out of the their home was pretty light in winter.
They were expecting a truck later on, though, with February’s food orders and whatever other items had been picked up for the pack—lumber, wire, cloth. Bax had a load of books coming for the library, mostly second-hand, but all of them carefully chosen to fill in the gaps in the selection they had already. Duke wasn’t much of a reader, but Bram seemed to really be enjoying the novels he borrowed from Bax, and Duke assumed other people would be excited to see new books coming in too.
For now, there wasn’t much to do but keep an eye on the gate and the humans on the other side of it, and try to figure out how to get his hands on Justin Montana Border.
Justin had been in Mercy Hills to learn how to do wiring, up to and including the new solar panels that Abel—or rather, Bax—was trying to get funding to produce on a much larger scale. So there wasn’t much of a chance that he’d be at the summer meeting, but Duke would have been just as happy to get his hands on Orvin as Justin.
Well, maybe notquiteas happy. But he held Orvin responsible for some of it too. If he hadn’t been such a spoiled whiny pup about Jason, he would never have gotten his pack stirred up to the point where a packmember thought it was acceptable to take revenge on a helpless omega. Or maybe Duke could find a way to get to Montana Border. It sucked that the place was so far away. It would be damn near impossible for him to sneak over there, quietly throttle Justin and drop him someplace he wouldn’t be noticed, then sneak off home again. Not that it wouldn’t be worth the effort, but he wasn’t risking getting caught, and everything it would mean for Bram. Nope, that idea was out. But he needed to go to the summer meeting, if only to get a feel for Montana Border, and to see if there were strings he could pull to… Oh. He had an idea. A wonderful, horrible idea.
But he’d need to get Quin on his side, without letting Quin know what he was up to.
He pulled out his phone and dialed. “Abel? Yeah, I know it’s early, but I wanted to run something by you. You said you wanted more trained technicians, right? And maybe to get some of those foreign omegas out of your hair?”
