Page 5 of The Pack Next Door (The Wolfverse #4)

Briar

“You’re finished already?” Mum’s eyes looked heavily lidded as her head rose up off the couch. With a frown, she looked out the front window. “If you are, who’s using the lawnmower?”

Maddox, calls me Mads, I wanted to answer, but instead, I sat down on the couch beside her with a smile.

“I was paying the Sandersons to look after your yard,” I replied.

“You didn’t!” Mum sat bolt upright. Money had been tight when I was young, especially after Dad left her. “I knew Miranda wasn’t sending her boys over from the goodness of her heart. Do you know she had the gall to complain to me about having to do it?”

“Well, apparently she passed the job onto the pack that moved in next door. One of them came over…” My voice trailed away as a huge silhouette went past the window.

Mads was entirely focussed on hacking down the long grass to a manageable level with the whipper snipper, so he could go over it again with the mower. “And offered to do the job for me.”

“Oh, they must be nice boys.” Mum would’ve launched herself out of her chair if her hip didn’t protest. She sank back gingerly. “We need to invite them in for tea.” Her eyes gleamed as she stared at me. “You need to invite them in. A pack of alphas?—”

“No.”

My mother blinked at my abrupt answer and, attempting to soften it with a smile did not work at all.

“Briar, I know it was tough, being rejected in front of the entire town…”

It was horrifying, I wanted to snap. Left me wondering why the three alpha packs couldn’t have had a quiet word with me before the mating ceremony.

I could’ve left town, avoided the whole debacle, watching the entire town react with shock, then pity, as the Forrest pack announced that they’d found their omega when they went to buy cattle feed at a nearby town.

Damien was furious. His alphas had to drag him away, because he was ready to scratch Amy’s, their omega, eyes out.

Then they’d had a very curt conversation with the Forrests, making clear that they needed to try their luck in another town.

They could’ve stayed in Moon River. Why leave when I had no intention of staying?

Damien made clear he couldn’t tolerate any of them on his territory.

“...but don’t you think it’s time to get back out there?” Mum finished. “With all of these alphas in town?—”

“Damien and the Harts are sure to find a suitable heir to take over the town,” I said, getting to my feet. “Now, my calendar says we’re due at the doctor’s in half an hour. Did you want a hand getting dressed or?—”

“I’ve got it.” Mum hobbled up the stairs, each step obviously hurting her, and I just followed on behind her. Not saying anything, not sweeping in to throw my arm around her and help was killing me, but I stayed quiet. “Not sure what the doctor is going to say. It’s just bruised.”

“We’ll find out when we get there,” I said.

That earned me a dark look, but she disappeared into her room not long afterwards.

I went back downstairs and grabbed my suitcase, wheeling it into my old room.

While Mum had obviously come in often to clean, I still caught the stray scent of the harshly perfumed body spray I loved before I revealed as an omega.

All the band posters and photos of teen idols had been taken down, but my bookcase remained the same.

Even as a child, I loved to decorate. With a smile, I ran my finger across one shelf, looking at the pebbles I’d found, each one a perfect soft shade of green or brown, along with the feathers plucked from the forest floor.

Grouped with the beautiful little bird’s nest, it created a little tableau that had my breath hissing out, taking with it all my tension.

Until I spied Mads through the window.

The lawnmower had been turned off, and I admit the lack of the mechanical roar soothed me almost as much.

He’d stopped to mop the sweat from his brow, his brown hair now almost black.

But it was those perfectly taut abs that caught my attention.

My fingers trailed along the wall, instinctively following the path of the perspiration as it trickled lower.

When it reached the trail of dark hair, he looked up, those intense grey eyes feeling like they could pierce the gloom of my room and see me clearly.

Then he grinned.

I yanked my hand away from the wall and stepped back abruptly until my shoulders hit the shelves. My childhood treasures rocked on the shelf, threatening to overturn, when Mum called out my name.

“Well, are you ready, Briar? We’ll have to take my car. I can’t fold myself up small enough to fit into the little buzz box of yours.”

“Coming,” I said.

But Mads kept on grinning, as if he could hear every single word.

“Ohh…” Mum paused on the front step, and when I saw her expression, I wish I had pushed harder to mow the lawn. Her hand wavered as it went to her lips. The grass was still matted with clippings, but… You could see the bones of her garden, revealed again by Mads’ hard work. “You did this?”

She stared at him, uncomprehending.

“Maggie, is it?” he asked, sketching a funny little bow. “Maddox Whitlock, at your service.”

He had to stand there and charm the socks of my mother. That shirt of his, it had to stick to that broad chest, the dark fabric revealing every muscle. He had to be too tall, too big, too?—

“This is too much,” I muttered to myself.

“Not enough, the way I see it.” Mads held out his arm, then escorted my mother over to the front fence. “I figured me and my brother could come by tomorrow and weed the garden beds. Maybe replant the rose bushes, then fix the creaky gate?”

“Oh, that would be lovely.”

Mum clung to that muscular arm like it was a lifeline.

“You’re very energetic,” I said, and in my mind, that came out a million times less bitchy.

“Just like helping people,” Mads said with a wink. “I especially like seeing you blush.”

“I’m not blushing,” I growled, right as I felt my cheeks burn. Mum and Mads seemed fascinated by the process.

“All this hard work…” She gestured at the front garden. “We need to invite Maddox in for some tea.” Her eyes met his. “I make the best scones in town, and Briar’s are second best.”

“Mum…” I shot her a meaningful look. “We need to get you to the doctor.”

She was going to protest, but Mads came to my rescue.

“I better keep going so it’ll all be done by the time you come home, but…” Those grey eyes found mine over the top of my mother’s head. The twinkle made clear I would not like what he proposed. “Perhaps the two of you could come by tomorrow evening and have dinner with my brothers?”

“We—” I started to say.

“Would love to.” Mum patted his arm before pulling away. “We can discuss which roses to put in the garden. Some of them are pretty but awfully susceptible to black spot.”

“Can’t wait.”

That smile made clear that flowers were the furthest thing from his mind. I shook my head and then yanked open the front gate.

“OK, so we better get going. I haven’t driven your beast of a car since I first learned how to drive,” I said, walking through it in the vain hope Mum would follow me.

“She bunny hopped all the way up main street the first time she tried,” my mother, the traitor, informed Mads. “Hopefully she won’t have a repeat performance today!”

My mother and the alpha next door seemed to be having an awesome time, but I just grit my teeth as she hobbled over to the car.

One dark look made clear that she was not going to drive.

When we got in and I reversed out, I felt eyes on me, and they weren’t my mother’s.

She was telling me about the different rose cultivars.

Instead, Mads stepped up to the gate, then shot me a little salute as I drove past.

“I like Maddox,” Mum announced as we turned down the main street without even a little bunny hop. “An alpha like him…” Her eyes were burning into the side of my face. “He’d be the perfect mate for you, Briar.”

Trouble was, I wasn’t the perfect mate for any alpha.

“Not looking for a pack, Mum,” I said as I flicked the indicator so we could turn into the doctor’s surgery car park. “Just want to look after you.”

“I’m your mother.” I turned around to see her staring intently at me. “I look after you, not the other way around.” My hand slid over, grabbing hers tight, and I tried really hard not to feel the way the bones pushed through paper-thin skin. “And I just want to see you happy.”

I thought of the first month I could afford to pay myself a wage from the business.

The first time I saw my website after an actual designer had redesigned it.

The moment when I met Emma and Seb, knowing that I’d employ them until they were sick of my shit.

That time we did a pop-up shop in a busy shopping centre at Christmas and sold out of everything on the first day.

Drinks with my friend, Candy, as she regaled me with her crazy tales.

Buying my own home, only to turn it into one massive omega nest. I smiled at my mother, feeling everything she described and yet not knowing how to talk about it with her.

“If you were mated to a nice pack of alphas, I could die happy,” she said.

With a sigh, I parked the car and then rushed around to her side, getting the door for her, but rather than head for the surgery, she turned and eyed the town square just across the road.

“Looks like they’re getting everything ready for the big opening ceremony before the dominance fights.” Mum eyed me closely. “We might stop in there on the way home.”

I opened my mouth to protest. Agreeing to that before was a mistake because she obviously needed to get off her feet and rest. Before I could get a word in, she shuffled over to the front door of the building.

Damn, my mother could really move when she wanted to have the last word.

I followed along behind her, smiling at the receptionist before checking Mum in.

“Maggie?”

The door opened and Dr. Stanton came out with a smile. I offered my mother my hand, but she just waved me away, limping over to the consulting room.

“Let’s get this over with,” she grumbled, before turning to me with a sly smile. “Because we want to get a good seat at the opening ceremony this evening. Briar needs to sit front and centre when they bring all the new alphas to the stage.”

I plastered a polite smile on my face, even as my teeth gritted tightly. I would rather be anywhere else in the entire world than right back in the town square watching alphas come onto the stage, but I didn’t know how to tell Mum that.

“Alright then,” Dr. Stanton said as he pulled the privacy curtain around the examination table. “Hop up there for me and I’ll take a look.”