Page 9 of The Omega's Secret Baby
4
Matthew
All I'd wantedwhen I'd left the mansion was to get some fresh air. I'd never thought I'd run into Fiona again--and in this park too! There was no mistaking her, though. This was the same crazy black dog who'd caught my attention years ago, on another day that I'd desperately needed to escape from my parents.
The day I'd met Elias.
Who had eventually gone on to adopt Fiona. I remembered that much.
Which meant...
If Fiona was here...
I looked at the kid who'd run me over, then at the man crouching next to me. What were the odds I would run into Elias my first day back home out here in the park?
“This really is a small town,” I found myself mumbling, staring at him.
He blinked, and then he laughed. There wasn't a lot of light, but I could just make out that he still had those adorable dimples that had attracted me to him all those years ago. Aside from his scent, anyway. All omegas had a certain scent to them that could drive an alpha crazy in the right situation, but Eli's seemed even stronger than usual, at least to me. Eli was special. I'd known that from the moment I'd seen him in the park, with a book in his hands and a curious light in his eyes that seemed to shine even brighter when he looked at the dog.
And now he stood in front of me again, unexpected.
“I didn't know you were in town,” he muttered. He straightened, and for a moment it appeared as if he wanted to offer me a hand, but then he didn't.
Shying away from touch?
I got up on my own and brushed the snow off myself. “You couldn't know. I only just arrived. I know rumors fly fast in this town, but I guess not as fast as your little guy here.” I glanced at the kid who'd barreled into me, wondering if he was Eli's. It occurred to me that I'd know if I'd kept up with the town's gossip, but that had never appealed to me. Not when I was so often in the center of it.
And it didn't surprise me to see Eli with a child--he was an omega after all, but the sight still made my chest constrict. I just hoped whoever had fathered the boy was treating him right.
“I'm sorry,” Eli said, taking another step away from me and pulling the child toward himself. “He can be a bit wild.”
“He's an alpha,” I said, because the scent lay in the air, even though it was weak.
“I know,” Eli said quietly, an apprehensive look on his face. Something was wrong. I just couldn't quite put my finger on it.
“Daddy, who is that man?” the boy finally spoke up, voice full of curiosity at the same time as he glared at me, as if he’d decided that, whoever I was, he needed to protect his Daddy from this strange man in front of him.
He was a little alpha all right. One who showed early, too. Most children took until their teenage years to display any alpha or omega tendencies.
“This is Matthew Lowell,” Eli introduced me, matter-of-factly. “You know that big house at the top of the hill that we see when we go sledding? That’s where his family lives.”
“Ooooh. Can he sled on the big hill?”
I laughed. “I haven’t gone sledding in a long time. But my sister and I have taken our sleds up there when we were children.”
This earned me another, “Ooooh,” while I could see his Daddy grow visibly more uncomfortable with every passing second. Had he mated one of those ridiculously possessive alphas who didn’t want their mates to talk to other alphas or what was going on here?
I’d thought we’d parted on amicable terms, all things considered. I could still remember that last night. We’d certainly made it count. Part of me still wished it hadn’t been ourlastnight, but all good things had to come to an end, and we’d been good.Reallygood. I could still remember the way Eli felt underneath me, around me, all warm and tight and…
And I had to shove those thoughts aside if I didn’t want my hormones to spin out of control. There was no point in getting worked up over a mated omega. Thing was, though, he still smelled as if he was unmated. Available. And that smell tugged on all my alpha instincts that wanted to have him.
I took a deep breath, and that didn’t make it better.
I had to distract myself, so I focused my attention on the child. “Do you like to go sledding?” I asked.
“I love it!” he exclaimed, and his honest enthusiasm made me chuckle.
“Cute kid,” I told Eli. “How old is he?”
