Page 187 of Omega's Heart

He shook his head. “Ma’s expecting me home to look after the littles in a bit. Felix, if you want to give me your list, I’ll make sure it gets picked up and dropped off at the guest house, then you won’t have to cut your visit short.”

“You sure you don’t mind?” I would have preferred to pick out the food myself, but I also didn’t want to keep Jacob if he had things to do. From what I’d learned talking to the other omegas, he could actually get into real trouble for inconveniencing someone else. Which was an attitude that baffled me and made me once again grateful that I’d been born in White River and not in one of these other packs.

“Don’t mind at all,” he said cheerfully. “Means I can dodge extra chores for the day.” He took my list and my baskets, said a polite farewell, then was gone out the door, humming as he left.

“Come in, make yourself at home,” Denise said as she closed the door behind him. “Bax never said a word about sending anything over!”

“I think it was meant to be a surprise, ma’am.” I followed her through the living room and around the corner to a tiny niche with a dining table in it.

“Sit down, please, and I’ll go put the kettle on.” She disappeared almost as soon as she said that, the familiar sound of a kettle being put on a stove and the rattle of plates being gotten out of the cupboard echoing back to me.

I put the box in the middle of the table and looked around. The house had a second story, but it didn’t look that big. Bax had said he had a few brothers and sisters, but he didn’t seem to be too close to them and I realized that I didn’t actually know how big his family had been.

Denise bustled out with a plate with some cheese and crackers laid out on it, sliced apple on the side. “Tea will be ready soon.” Her eyes drifted toward the box but she made no move to open it.

“If we’re waiting for the water to boil, you might as well open your package. I’m sure Bax would like to hear what you thought of it.”

“No, I can wait, it wouldn’t be polite. I’ll write him a letter afterward.” But her eyes couldn’t stay away from Bax’s present.

I pushed it toward her. “Open it. It’s okay. I’m just the delivery omega,” I told her, almost entirely straight-faced.

She gave me a doubtful look, then caught the smile I couldn’t help curling my mouth. “Oh, you’re as bad as he is!” she scolded and reached for her gift. I laughed and made myself comfortable.

Bax’s mother was careful with how she unwrapped the plain brown paper on the box, folding it carefully and setting it aside, and just as careful emptying the box out. I hadn’t had a chance to ask Bax what was in it, and it wasn’t really my business anyway, so this was my first time seeing what had been sent.

Denise lifted out a couple of framed pictures—when she set them up on the table, they turned out to be one of Bax, Abel, and the entire family, and then another of just the pups, all smiling happily into the camera. She gazed fondly at them and touched the frames, fingertips brushing gently along them. “He looks so happy. So many pups! But I suppose his alpha wants at least as many pups of his own.”

“I think Abel does what Bax wants when it comes to the pups,” I told her. “They share the work pretty evenly between them.”

“Oh.” She seemed surprised. “That’s good.” Then, “They seem to have a good mating. Bax tells me he’s happy.” She picked up the picture of the whole family again and stared at it.

She was looking for assurances that Bax wasn’t trying to protect her. That he was telling her the truth. “I think it’s a very good mating. They’re very well suited.”

She smiled at me, then turned back to the contents of the box. “Oh, how beautiful!”

The pups had drawn her pictures. The younger ones, anyway. I counted five and guessed that Fan, being nearly a teenager himself, couldn’t be convinced to engage in something quite so pup-like, even for his grandmother.

She laid the pictures out on the table and laughed at Noah’s picture of the whole family in wolf form, dancing around under the full moon.

Underneath the pictures was a sweater that Bax must have traded for with one of the grannies, pale green with a pattern of ferns knitted into the bottom in the same color. There was an envelope on top of it and I looked away in case she wanted to read it, but instead, she set it back inside the box on top of the sweater and carefully put everything back inside it. “He was always such a loving pup. And thoughtful, too. This is all beautiful.”

“I expect he misses you, even after all this time. I know I miss my mother.”

She patted my hand. “I imagine you do. You get used to having each other around. It’s hard when your pups move to a different enclave. But I imagine your mother sleeps a little easier knowing you’ve found such a good mate.”

“I’m very lucky to have him,” I agreed.

“And his mother? Have you met her yet?”

“A couple of times. She came for the mating.” The less said about that, the better, though our relationship since had evolved into a sort of… guarded respect, I guessed? She’d tried putting her paw into my den a couple of times since and I’d set her right back on her rump, something that surprised her. Even more so when I made it stick, though maybe I’d taken the coward’s way out because I just refused to discuss these things with her. I didn’t know what she said to Kaden after those calls—he always told me that I didn’t need to worry. But we certainly weren’t friendly.

“It’s good that she could travel.” Denise got up and went to the kitchen. I heard the rattle of cups and the sound of pouring water, then she came back with two mugs on a tray, a bottle of honey and a small jug of milk. “Help yourself, please. Is there anything else I can get you?”

“No, this is fine. Thank you.” I added some honey and milk to the tea and took a sip, smiling in her direction.

Denise did the same, then sat back in her chair and regarded me with a steady eye. “So, tell me how you and your mate first met?”

After an entirely pleasant afternoon with Bax’s mother, I came back to the guest house to find Kaden. He’d changed into a casual shirt and his best jeans, by which I gathered that our meal this evening was going to be casual. Or his, anyway. I wasn’t even certain I would be invited.