Page 17 of Shopping for His Omega (Omegas of Oliver Creek #15)

Daniel

Hoppy Poppy was a wolf. My beast knew that as soon as she arrived, but somehow, as she grew, she was hoppy as well.

Even if she would someday shift to the same animal as me, her papa’s DNA came through loud and clear in her personality and her adorable nose twitch.

And we were preparing for her first Oliver Creek fall festival.

The event held a bittersweetness for us, since last year we had been there separate and feeling quite lost, but this year, we’d be attending as a family of three. And what could be better than that?

“Mav, do you need me to help with anything?” I poked my head into the nursery where my mate sat on the floor with Poppy. “Weren’t we planning to leave about now?”

“Yes, but look how cute she is.” Our daughter lay on her back, kicking her feet in the air while Maverick tickled her belly gently.

Baby giggles were always enticing and I couldn’t resist joining them on the big floor mat.

We’d gone with flowers for the nursery, the mural painted by a local artist who worked from a photo of the field behind the house in spring.

Thousands of wildflowers in pinks and blues, yellows and oranges and purples.

All the colors of the pollinator rainbow.

The bedding , dresser, and changing table, as well as the bedding picked up their hues from the mural.

We’d bought unfinished furniture and painted it ourselves, wishing we’d had the skills to do the mural but smart enough to know we did not.

And the mat? Shortly after our daughter’s birth, we’d found it online, emblazoned with a huge poppy. How could we say no?

We said yes.

I nuzzled her little feet, getting more giggles as a result. “Poppy, if we don’t go soon, you’ll be napping in your stroller the whole time we’re at the fall festival. Tell your papa it’s time to go.”

“She can’t talk,” my mate deadpanned. “But if she could, she’d point out that as a baby, she doesn’t mind napping her way through life, but if it will make her daddy happy, she is willing to put on her party dress.”

“That’s my girl.” I pushed to my feet and went to lay out her dress, socks, shoes, and the bows for her hair. “I want her to get to enjoy at least a little while before she falls asleep.”

The doorbell rang, and I grunted. “Who could that be? Are you expecting anyone?”

“Today? No.” He carried Poppy to the changing table. “Why don’t you get rid of whoever it is while I change this young lady’s diaper.”

“All right.” A sniff of the air in the room would have made anyone glad for an excuse to skip out, and I gratefully accepted the one offered me.

“I’ll be back in a minute.” Poppy’s laughter followed me to the door, which I opened, ready to get rid of whatever salesman, politician, or other annoying person was daring to bother us on such an important day.

“We aren’t interested in…Dads!” Two tanned and grinning wolf shifters, looking so healthy and happy I barely recognized them stood there. “What are you doing here?”

“Nice way to greet your fathers.” My omega dad presented his cheek for a kiss. After I cooperated, he tsked. ‘We are here to meet our granddaughter. We don’t want her to grow up thinking her granddads are just tiny people who live in a phone.”

“Where is she?” My alpha dad clapped me on the back, then the two of them stared past me down the hallway. “Is that her?”

I might not have existed once they got their grabby hands on Poppy, who crowed with excitement as if she’d known them all her life and they were her best friends.

Apparently FaceTime did work. Or maybe they were just so confident when they took her over, she didn’t know the difference.

In any case, as we piled into the car for the trip to the park, they took seats in the back on either side of her car seat and began to tell her stories about me when I was her age.

Stories that sounded outlandish, but since I had no memories of being under a year old, I could not deny.

My mate winked at me from the passenger seat as I backed out of the driveway. “I think they like her.”

“I think you probably aren’t worried about whether they like you anymore.” It wasn’t far to the event, but we’d been doing a lot more driving since we became dads, wanting to be able to go home whenever we thought it necessary.

“No because I think they would love anyone who presented them with our Poppy.”

He was so right. Our little one had four males in this car, three wolves and a rabbit shifter, wrapped around her tiny fingers.

She was so loved, and I reflected upon the fact that the two men in the back had taught me how to love with their open affection for one another and for me.

“We were going to visit soon, Dads,” I said, stopping to wait for another car to leave a parking space. “Poppy wants to see you surf.”

“Oh, Poppy, you’re in for a treat.” And as we parked, piled out of the car, set up the stroller, and headed into the fall festival, our daughter was treated to surf stories that made the beach where they lived sound like it had the biggest waves in Hawaii.

Listening to them, following them as they pushed the stroller through the park and into the festival, my heart swelled.

They’d not been well when I graduated from college, even if only one of them admitted to specific illness.

But now, they looked and sounded so happy and healthy.

And I’d helped with that, with making sure they got to live where they wanted and have fun.

And now I—with a lot of help from my mate—had given them a grandchild to love.

They were still talking to her, introducing her to the new mayor who was an old friend of theirs and the old mayor, also a lifelong friend.

The town had come back so far from the time when it had been about to shut down entirely.

Restaurants and food trucks, businesses like mine, were all represented here.

My booth was manned by a couple of staff members handing out coupons and samples of our new line of banana breads baked in store.

People were drinking all kinds of cider and eating everything fried and smoked and grilled.

Pumpkin, maple, apples, pecans, all the flavors of fall and music playing. People laughing and chatting.

Once again, I learned what my mate had mentioned to me. He kept thinking he couldn’t be happier and then he was. And now, with my dads here with my mate and our daughter, spending time in a town with so much joy, I’d discovered a new level of joy.

“And we’re taking you home with us to go surfing,” I overheard and rushed forward to inform Poppy that it was not happening this year and probably not next.

But eventually, she’d fly off to have adventures with “Grandpop” and “PopPop” as they had decided she would call them.

Nothing in my life had gone the way I’d expected or predicted; it was a thousand times better.

This much love must glow enough to be seen from space.