Page 215 of Omega's Heart

“Oh. I don’t know. You’re probably right.” Water splashed and Raleigh’s voice went hollow-sounding, as if he too had put his phone on speaker. “Here’s Cas. The pups asleep?”

“In bed, anyway,” Cas said. “What’s up?”

“We’re talking about Mom,” Kaden said. He took the stick from Hunter and threw it again, farther this time.

“She’s not staying here. No room at this inn,” Cas said in mild panic.

“No, we know,” Kaden said wryly. “I don’t want her pestering Felix right now either.”

Cas sighed, resigned. “Family meeting?”

“Not tonight,” Felix said. “Holland’s… having a rough evening.”

“When is she coming?” Raleigh asked after a moment’s silence.

Felix glanced over at him with raised eyebrows, clearly handing off responsibility for that question to Kaden, then looked away with a chuckle as Hunter raced up to them again, the stick now slightly worse for the wear.

Kaden gave a half-shrug and threw the stick again. “Whenever we tell her she can come. Week and a half?”

“That should give us leeway,” Cas mused. “I can make some time to talk to Housing. For Holland, I’m sure they can move a few people around. I’ll let you know what we come up with.”

“I have to fly out again tomorrow,” Kaden reminded them.

Raleigh interrupted smoothly. “He can call you. And that’ll give me time to paint your office without getting in the way.” Then, as if he’d decided they’d had enough of unpleasant topics of conversation, his voice brightened and he asked, “Felix, have you decided if you want a mural for the baby’s room?”

Felix glanced over at Kaden. “You know, I kind of forgot about it with everything going on.”

“No rush,” Raleigh told him. “I’ll drop up tomorrow after the pups go to school and we can talk about it.”

With that decided, as much as they could at this point in time, Kaden took his mate home with the intention of spending a quiet night with him before catching the flight back to Washington in the morning.

Well, after Hunter stopped bringing that damn stick back for them, anyway.

C H A P T E R 1 1 0

K aden was still riding the high of Green Moon’s acceptance of the Mutch trust a week later when he got a terse message to go see the senator.

Shit. Guess he found out.

Didn’t matter. He’d do it again in the same situation.

So when he got the nod to enter from the senator’s secretary, he didn’t creep in with his tail between his legs but made sure he walked in like the alpha and the soldier he was.

He would be sad to lose this job, though.

“Close the door,” the senator said coldly.

Kaden did as he was told, then came forward to stand in front of the senator’s desk and wait.

He didn’t have to wait long.

The senator tapped a few more keys on his computer keyboard, clicked with the mouse, then pushed everything out of his way. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

“I expected you would, sir.” Best to keep this formal and cater to the human’s ego a little. He could have used Felix and his way of defusing unpleasant situations right about now, though.

“Then why did you do it?”

“Time, mostly,” Kaden admitted. “And I wasn’t sure you’d agree.”