Page 24 of Abel's Omega
That was good. My babies were used to being outside as much as possible. Obediently, I followed Abel along the hallway. We passed a room full of toddlers, with two female shifters inside, and then another full of babies Noah’s age crawling about on blankets and some kind of thin foam. At the end of the hall, Abel knocked on a door and someone called, “Come in.”
The office was small, but the woman behind the desk was tiny enough that it wouldn’t matter. I was no bruiser myself, and compared to Abel I looked like a twig, but she looked like a splinter. Her eyes were the same dark brown as Abel’s, but her hair was lighter. She looked up from her computer screen and smiled. “So the rumors are true?”
“What rumors, Becca?” There was a hint of a growl in Abel’s voice, and I stiffened instinctively.
Becca gave me a once over. “Don’t let him intimidate you, dear. We’re cousins. It breeds a certain familiarity.” She pulled open a drawer in her desk. “Here, have a candy.” She held out two tiny, paper-wrapped squares. “That should sweeten you up, you old crank.”
“Quit it, Bec. You’ll give him a bad impression and I want him to like me.”
“Then don’t pretend I couldn’t still dump you in the pond.”
“Ha. I’d like to see you try.” But he grinned and scooped the candies out of her palm. “Which do you want, Bax? Red or yellow?”
“Oh, I don’t—” But I could tell from Abel’s expression he really wanted me to choose. “Red, please.”
He handed it over, then turned back to Becca. “Bax needs forms for his pups.”
“How many?”
She was already digging into another drawer before I could answer, “Four.”
Becca paused in her rummaging and gave me another once over, this one sharper than before. I knew she was guessing my age, and how young I’d been when Fan was born, and wondering what my story was. Did she think I’d mated indiscriminately the first time, overcome by hormones? I felt heat burning into my cheeks and I looked down and paid close attention to the paper I was peeling off the candy.
Abel spoke up and saved me. “His mate died, and he’s looking to move here. Fan is three, Teca is two, Beatrice is one, and Noah is six months.”
I forgot the candy to stare at Abel. It wasn’t even a certainty that Patrick could have rattled off the pups’ ages like that, and Abel had only heard them once. To say I was impressed—and touched—was an understatement.
“I’ll need more staff,” Becca said.
“Bram told me Lydia was here looking for hours.”
“She’s young. The two older rooms should be fine with the staff we have, but with another six month old, I’ll need someone for the baby room, and Lydia’s only thirteen.”
“Why not move Bram there?”
She threw him a sarcastic look. “And have him mooning over babies again? I’ve been down that road once with him already. No, he’s perfectly fine in the older room.” She sighed. “Do you need day hours or evening hours?”
Oh. I looked helplessly at Abel. We hadn’t even talked about that.
“Probably day. He’s going to be working in the office, looking for project funding for us. But if you could fit them in tonight, I’d appreciate it. He’s staying with Jason right now, but it’s too many wolves in too small a space. Mac’s afraid for his ankles.”
She snorted. “This evening shouldn’t be a problem. Our numbers are lower on Saturday nights. Do you need childcare tomorrow?” she asked me.
Again, I looked to Abel.
He stepped smoothly into the breach. “No. He doesn’t start until Monday.”
“Well, then, that’s fine.” She handed me a small sheaf of papers and a pen, and pointed me to a chair and the corner of her desk. “Take a moment and fill those in. I’ll talk to Personnel over the weekend and see who’s available.”
I took the seat she indicated and started filling out the forms. They were simple, just name, age, medical history, favorite foods, favorite stories. I liked the last two—it told me they thought about my babies the way I thought about them. While I wrote, she and Abel chatted in what seemed to me to be a random fashion, until the topic of money and Jason came up.
“I think you should tell Montana Border to shove it where the sun doesn’t shine,” Becca said.
“I don’t think I can. If I renege, they’ll just go through the human court system again. It did them well last time. I don’t know if they cared about Jason as much as the money they could wring out of us.”
She flipped her pen over and over in her hand, tapping it against the desk with each revolution. “Where people get the idea we have bags of cash floating around, I have no idea.”
I looked up at that. It was tempting to break into the conversation and tell them exactly why people thought they were rich, but uppity omegas didn’t tend to fare well, so I kept my mouth closed and listened closely.
