Page 2 of Legally Mated
“Hey, Cas, who’s this?” Holland asked, and smiled his professional smile. The one that made everyone feel like his best friend, with a bit of friendly flirtation thrown in forvariety.
“It’s Mom, Holland,” Cas said, his tone sick. “Mom, this is Holland,Quin’smate.”
“So you’re Holland,” she said, looking him up and down in a way that made Holland’s shoulders visibly tense. “Well, I can see why he was so set on you.” She walked up to him and reached for the baby. “And here’s my baby!” she cooed, then frowned when Holland took an instinctive step back. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “What do you think I’m going to do with him?” She reached for the baby again, and this time Holland let her take him, though the waves of discomfort and confusion pouring off him set all my danger signalsblaring.
Mac’s truck came flying up the road and pulled up behind the station wagon. Abel and Bax jumped out and Abel strode up to his mother. “Mom, why didn’t you tell us you werecoming?”
Even I, not ever having met her, heard the undertone ofso we could man thedefenses.
“A mother can’t surprise her sons?” She looked Bax up and down in the exact same way she’d looked at Holland. “Well, he’s another pretty one.” Then she’d rubbed Abel’s arm and whispered, but loud enough that anyone within arm’s length could hear it, “You need to stop being so shallow. I would have thought being Alpha hadfixedthat.”
I hid in my leafy disguise and watched with my mouth hanging open.Holy shit. Who spoke to an Alpha that way? Or his Mate? Lysoon, there was going to be trouble, I was sure of it. I waited for Holland to explode on her, but he must have been as much in shock as I was, because he just stared at her for a longmoment.
And then it came. He leaned over, took the baby from her, and said, “Welcome to Mercy Hills, Veronica. Do make yourself at home,” in the sweetest Southern accent I’d ever heard. I knew enough to recognize the implied judgment of Veronica’s rudeness.Didshe?
Apparently.
She cast him a sharp glance, and then her smile broadened like a hunting grin. “I’m sure you’ll do just fine making me feelathome.”
That didn’t look promising. More, it looked like Holland had just poured gasoline on a fire. I fought the urge to run out and back him up—I couldn’t see any way I could do anything but make it allworse.
Cas slipped up beside me—I’d been so focused on the threatened nuclear explosion in front of me, I hadn’t seen him sneak off. “Fuck me,” he said. “This isn’t going togowell.”
“I never would have guessed,” I muttered at him. “Shouldn’t you be out there protecting yourbrother’smate?”
“I never do anything but make it worse,” Cas admitted, and I snorted a short laugh, because that was entirely believable. He frowned at me. “Why aren’t you out there throwing yourself between Holland and mymother?”
“I don’t practice Family Law,” I told him innocently, while watching the continued exchange of pointed barbs, coated in sickly sweet Southern charm. Interesting that the shifter who’d brought Veronica already had her bags out on the lawn in front of the doors, and was now waiting impatiently by the driver’s door of the station wagon. It didn’t bode well, in myopinion.
“I hope Holland goes up one side of her and down the other,” Cas declared with all the glee of Agatha planning a prank on her adopted father. “The explosion should be glorious.” He shook his head. “This is why I’m never gettingmated.”
I watched Holland’s expression grow blanker and blanker as the conversation continued, and Bax’s fade into the same pleasantly cheerful lines he used to put on all the time when he’d first arrived in Mercy Hills. Abel looked frustrated, and then Quin came out the front doors. I couldn’t hear what he said, but whatever he did made his mother throw up her chin and stalk past him into thebuilding.
“Shit, that’s done it,” Cas muttered. “So glad I’m the baby of the family. I don’t get half the pressure that poor bastard has thrownathim.”
I looked at him in curiosity. “You don’t think he canhandleit.”
Cas sighed. “I think there’s eight years and a different sire between me and Quin. There’s a damn reason she gave him that high-falutin’ name and a whole lot more reasons why he went into the military as soon as he got to be eighteen, and it wasn’t just to bring money home to the pack. Not all of it anyway. He’s such a damn knight in shiningarmor.”
“Yeah, your family seems to have strong streak of that,” I saiddryly.
“Not me,” Cas said firmly. “Good, they’re going in. I think I’m going to cancel on lunch with Holland and Quintoday.”
“Coward.”
Cas shook his head. “No. I just don’t need to be pecked to death by that old crow. She was bad enough when she was Alpha’s Mate. Now that she isn’t, I expect she’s got all sorts of time on her hands.” He threw me a meaningful look. “Don’t get me wrong—I love her. She’s my mother, and there were lots of good days. But I love her better in another enclave.” And with that, he turned and headed back toward ouroffice.
I stood in the bushes for a few more minutes, watching my Alpha and his Mate, Abel and Bax. Seosamh. They huddled in a tight group, talking intently. Knowing that four—five, really—they’d sort it all out before things got outofhand.
Just in case, I was working in the librarytoday.
Chapter2
The next day,the pack’s latest junker car, a little hatchback tinkered into usefulness by Mac and his buddies, pulled up in front of Laine’s house with only the mildest screech of brakes. I suppressed a wince and wondered what the neighbors thought, then decided it probably paled in comparison to Laine inviting a shifter to staywithhim.
I’d begged a drive to be in town to use the law library and to do my two or three days per week of research and other legal tasks that Laine made sure I got. It wasn’t acomfortablejob, but it paid way more than minimum wage and kept my skills sharp. And, it let me see Laine on a regular basis, which as a good packmember shouldn’t have been as important as it felt, but there I was—maybe not so good a packmember after all. “Thanks for the drive, Avery,” I said. “I feel bad making Duke run all over the place for me, with three pupsunderfoot.”
“No, problem,” Avery replied cheerfully. “Man, I wish we could have houses like this.” He glanced enviously along the street, with its neat squares of green grass and concrete drives, each house a small island to itself. Private and personal, so different from pack life as an olderbachelor.
