“Mum,” Ben said, finally noticing that she was here. He looked rather anxiously at me and Evie. “You didn’t say you were coming down.”
“Neither did you,” Logan said, Grace’s lips pursing as she looked up from Evie’s box. “Came back to find the hotel rooms were emptied, and you lot were gone.”
“You can’t seriously have expected anything less,” I said, frowning now. I’d come down here to escape Logan and his bullshit, and what had he done? Come waltzing in here to force me to face it again. “After what you did…”
I swallowed then, aware the whole table had gone deathly silent. I shook my head and then thrust a hand out for my daughter.
“C’mon, Ev. We need to get you to bed.”
“But Muuum…” Her voice wasn’t just whiny, it had an edge to it, and that’s when I remembered that Barb and her guys had offered to take Evie on a night time marsupial walk. Suddenly I felt so very tired. Of trying, of coping, of just keeping on keeping on. But I had to, I knew that.
“We’ll find out what time the marsupial walk is on and then we’ll come back to the main house for it,” I said.
“It’s starting just about now,” Jimmy said with an abashed expression, looking out over the paddocks. Shadowy figures had begun to appear from the scrub, now that the noisy people weren’t playing footy anymore. Evie quivered like a dog with a scent in her nose, peering into the growing darkness as each creature crept out of the trees and onto the grassed hills.
“Jimmy’ll take Evie to see the roos,” Barb announced. “You lot need a good feed to send you off to bed. Come inside. I’d love to say it’s the result of my cooking, but the chefs have promised to put on an outstanding meal for us. Everything looks better on a full stomach.”
“What did you do?” Grace’s voice was quiet, almost gentle, but there was no mistaking the iron thread there. “What happened, Logan?”
“Dad’s going for sole custody of Evie,” Reed said, his eyes trained on Jimmy and Evie as they walked up the hill, torches in hand. “He wants to take our cub away from her mother.”
Grace just stared then, at Reed, at Ben, and then at Logan, and that’s when her brows jerked down. When she finally settled on me, her eyes were open and guileless. I knew that look because it perfectly encapsulated my own response. The pain, the fear, but mostly the fucking anger at the freaking gall of Dick Morrison.
“Right.”
I knew omegas could be tough, even tougher than alphas, when cornered. Nothing was more important to them than their family. Grace fished her phone out of her pocket and then scrolled through what looked like a million missed call notifications. She let out a little huff of breath before tapping the top one. We all heard the call going through because she had the device on speakerphone. It buzzed once, twice, before a brusque male voice answered the phone.
“Where the bloody hell are you, Gracie!”
Her lips thinned and her eyes flashed as she straightened up and then replied.
“I’m at Barb’s place.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so? A simple note isn’t too much to ask, is it? I’ve had half the district out looking for you. What the hell has gotten into you? You’re well past the change of life, so there should be none of this silliness—”
Fuck,thiswas the guy trying to take my child away from me? Jasper moved then, coming to stand by my back, his fingers digging into the now tense muscles of my shoulders.
“Is it true? Did you do it?” she asked, ignoring his bluster and going straight for the throat.
“What?”
“Did you employ a lawyer to apply for custody of Everly? I bet it was that weasel, Harrington.”
“Who’s Everly when she’s at home?”
I sucked in a breath that caught the attention of everyone here. The sheer wanton cruelty… He didn’t even know who or what Ev was, he just reached out like a spoiled child, ready to snatch her away.
“Easy, Lils,” Jasper said in a low voice, his hands rubbing across the entire line of my shoulders and down to my hands to clasp them in reassurance, Ben and Damon moving to join him. Reed just let out a vicious growl, something that had all of us shivering. And Logan? He just stared at every person here, completely uncomprehending. Grace went pale, something apparent even in the small circle of artificial light thrown by the lamps.
“Our granddaughter…”
She ground the words out, then looked up the hill, Jimmy and Evie little more than dark blobs now, but for some reason I thought she could see both of them clear as day.
“That’s still to be established,” the old prick harrumphed. “I told Logan that a paternity test needs to be done before anything else, but he’s been dragging his feet. This beta girl could be anyone—”
“She’s not,” Grace said, her eyes sliding to me. Jasper’s fingers tightened around mine, almost to the point of pain. “She’s the mother of our only grandchild. She’s our boys’ mate.”
“Morrison alphas don’t mate with betas—” Dick started to say.