Page 19 of Where There’s Smoke (Fire House Omegas #2)

Melody

I had slept in. It was the last thing I’d intended to do, but I had left my phone in the den the night before when I had given Dotty her late feed and made my way to bed.

Now that she was nearing five weeks, she didn’t need a bottle anywhere near as often, so I could sleep for four-plus hours at a time.

Grabbing my phone, I barely looked at the time, cursing when I realized she’d been due for a feed about twenty minutes ago.

She was already starting to nibble on some mushy foods, so I knew she would be able to feed herself soon, and I wouldn’t have to get up constantly.

The exhaustion would no longer be weighing on me so heavily.

But just because she was nearing that stage didn’t mean I should get too relaxed.

Ah, to be a puppy mom.

Padding over to the other side of the room where Dotty’s little playpen was, I stilled when I noticed it was empty.

Where the hell was my dog?

My heartbeat was immediately through the roof, panic ringing in my head.

Had I been so tired that I left her somewhere without even realizing?

No way. I would remember if I’d put my puppy somewhere other than her playpen before I went to sleep.

Plus, she was scampering around solo a bit now, so maybe she’d had a jailbreak?

Or one of the guys was playing with her?

Without bothering to change out of the T-shirt and shorts I’d been sleeping in, I strode out of the room toward the den. When I found the room empty, I cursed to myself and made my way toward the kitchen, where I could hear several voices.

Most of the guys were surrounding the table, tucking into what looked like a breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon.

“Hey, have you guys seen Dotty?” I asked.

Samson beamed at me, holding up the bundle in his arms. The little Dalmatian was bright-eyed and wagging her tail excitedly.

“Our girl is right here,” he said proudly.

I sighed in relief. “Oh, thank god. I thought I’d lost her for a moment.”

I’d been so worried about the puppy that I hadn’t even paused to think about what Fitz and I had done the day before.

Did the other firefighters know about that?

I mean, they had to, right? Samson had joked about being hungry while we were making sandwiches, and I didn’t think I’d done a very good job of hiding the blush in my cheeks.

They seemed to be unaware of my internal freakout because Fitz just kept talking. “I could hear your alarm going in the den, so I decided to grab her and let you sleep for a bit longer.” He grinned, shrugging at the way I put my hand to my chest, thanks to the surprising gesture.

"Thank you, but I really need to feed her,” I said, stepping forward to take the puppy out of his arms.

Shaking his head, Samson held the puppy close with a shit-eating grin on his face. “She’s already been fed,” he declared proudly.

“Yeah, he did a really good job,” Fitz said.

“We’ve been watching you do it for the last week or so, and we decided to give it a go.

We followed all the instructions on that tin as well.

She took the bottle like a champ. Didn’t you?

” he said, beaming down at the little puppy and scratching her nose.

Her tail went into overdrive at the attention.

I was tempted to call her a traitor. But even I had to admit scratches from Fitz were nice.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I said weakly.

He leveled me with a glare. “We wanted to. You’re clearly exhausted.”

I gazed at him, my face probably giving away my utter bafflement. “You’re firefighters . You stay up all hours of the night, fighting dangerous fires. I just have to wake up to feed a puppy every few hours. You’re the ones who should be desperate for some sleep.”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. You’ve got bags under your eyes. We wanted to help, and we helped. Dotty girl doesn’t seem to mind so much.”

Given the way she was nestling into Samson’s chest, she obviously didn’t mind one bit.

Traitor.

Despite my mild annoyance, the more prevalent emotion was gratitude. I didn’t trust anyone to look after any of my fosters. Most guys were flakes if I asked them to help, and even some of the volunteers I’d had at the rescue hadn’t worked out.

These guys hadn’t even asked if they could help. They had just stepped in and done it.

There was something so attractive about that.

The fact that they could see I was struggling and stepped in without saying a word.

Sympathy was one thing, but action was another.

Not too many people got to the point where they actually pitched in to lend a hand, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me wonder what kind of fathers the guys might be.

“Just let us help,” Elliot said as he gestured to an empty seat next to Fitz, placing a fresh plate of bacon and eggs down and gesturing for me to eat.

Was this what it was like to be an omega? Or were they this nice to everyone? At any rate, no one could deny that Pack Wilder had some rather nice men in it.

A girl could get used to this sort of attention.

If I was honest with myself, I wanted that more than anything—but why was I so anxious to reach out and grab it? Sure, the past had already shown me that even the people closest to you could disappoint you, leaving you in the dust because they couldn’t be bothered to understand you.

Maybe…maybe these guys would be different.

Folding one of many blankets and placing it on a neat pile, I observed my little nest. The guys had been sweet and not taken their shirts back, which I was eternally grateful for and felt weird about.

I couldn’t explain why I was so obsessed with the shirts, but the thought of them being removed made me want to whine in a panic.

Whine. Like a freaking puppy.

This omega business was insanity, and it was going to take more than a little getting used to.

It still hadn’t fully sunk in how much my life had changed, how much I had changed.

How would I even go about dating packs? Were there apps for that? Date a knot? Oh, lord.

Then again, the idea of dating any pack that wasn’t Pack Wilder made my stomach twist uncomfortably, and apparently, we were already dating, per my conversation with Fitz.

We still needed to sit down as a group and discuss all that, we just hadn’t found the time.

A thought that, of course, made me about as nervous as a chicken trapped with a fox.

Still…I didn’t regret sleeping with Fitz, and warm buzzes of electricity lit up through my body in anticipation of doing it again.

What Fitz and I had done was magnificent, and I was curious if I would have those same sparks with the rest of the pack.

The truth was, I felt drawn to all of them.

Samson, with his giant-sized heart to match the rest of him, Fitz, who was so much like his cousin it hurt, and even Elliot.

That was a sticky one, though. I was interested in getting to know him, but the other day, during sandwiches, had felt more like an interrogation than a conversation.

He was always so on edge, so grumpy. And apparently, that was nothing new for the pack lead. I wanted to know if there was more behind him than all that. Elliot was closed off, to say the least, but there had to be something nice under all that.

The guy was a firefighter, for god’s sakes. Helping people was in his blood. Right?

Quiet hung around me as I finished dealing with laundry, and I considered what I was going to do.

Time was dragging on, and I needed to do something about finding a new shelter, a new home , and I still had no idea if my insurance was even going to cover all the losses.

It wasn’t like I’d splurged for great coverage.

“Ugh,” I moaned, tossing down the blanket I was messing with and slumping onto the bed. “You need to call them. Hell, you need to actually start looking for a new shelter.”

My stomach growled loudly, and I looked down at myself, rolling my eyes. “But apparently, you need to eat first. Okay. Here we go.”

I stood up, regarding myself in the bathroom mirror before I left.

I’d changed out of my pj’s, going with a clean pair of leggings and an oversized sweater that was more like a dress.

I didn’t care. It was warm and cozy, and I had on thick socks to match.

Leave it to alphas to keep this firehouse way too cold.

“All right, Melody. You’re going to go down there and get lunch like a normal person. You’re going to talk to the guy, or maybe just Samson and Fitz, and you’re going to figure this shit out.” I nodded to myself, trying to psych myself up. “You got this.”

I left the room, feeling very much like I did not have this.