“Off you go,” I said, forcing myself to smile and wave her away. “Do as you’re told and listen to Jimmy.”
She grinned then, following the big man through the house and over to the property. As she went, Reed followed behind at a discreet distance.
“Don’t worry about your cub,” Barb assured me. “Jimmy’s a big kid himself.” Then she looked up at me and let out a sigh. “But you can’t help it, can you?” I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak. “Let’s get you lot set up in a couple of cabins and then we can sit down and have a cuppa.”
And so,once we had our bags put away, the sleeping arrangements to be determined later, we found ourselves back on the patio I’d enjoyed so much yesterday. Delicious nibbles had been placed on the table as well as a rich, gorgeous smelling brew of coffee.
“You finally found her,” Barb said to Ben, noting the bite mark on my neck.
I hunched down a little self-consciously into my chair, nursing my cup.
“I did.” Ben’s arm was slung across the back of my chair, his fingers teasing the ends of my hair. “And somehow I managed to get her to accept the bond.”
“Then it will be you lot, next,” she said, tipping her head at Jasper and Damon.
“I hope so,” Jasper said, daring a look down the table at me before glancing away again. “That’s if Dad doesn’t fuck everything up for us.”
“So what has Dick Morrison done now?” she said with a slight frown.
It took longer than it should’ve to get out, each one of us supplying a part of the story until it was all the pieces were in place.
“Well, if you want advice from an old woman—” Barb said.
“Old woman? Pfft…” Damon muttered.
“Make sure you hold love lightly.” She glanced at me over the rim of her mug. “You didn’t want to let Evie go with Jimmy, did you?” I shook my head. “But you did. Because you knew that she’d love it, seeing the animals, building something with her own two hands. You don’t have the energy to trail after yourself, but you let her go with someone else. Richard never did learn that lesson. Losing his brothers convinced him that he had to hold everything in a death grip, lest it all slip away.”
Her eyes slid over the three Morrison men at the table.
“And look what happened. He’s squeezed the lot of you so hard, you’ve taken off just so you can breathe. Where’s your brother?”
She didn’t have to specify which one because we all knew.
“Logan was always Dad’s offsider,” Ben said with a censorious shake of his head. “He’s been the go between in all of this.”
“Stuck between the father he’s always loved and the woman he knows will steal his heart away the minute he stops all this bullshit.” Barb nodded slowly, squinting into the midday sun. “He always did like to walk the hard road. And what’s happening with the cub? Richard can be a miserable old prick, but it’s not him that’s turned your smiles upside down.” She watched the four of us with an eagle eye. “Something else is going on.”
So the confessions started all over again.
“Isthat what all omegas are like?” I asked Ben, as we walked along the path to the ‘cabin’. It was really a devastatingly sleek-looking rectangle made from shining metal and local woods, somehow managing to blend right into the landscape. It had huge floor to ceiling windows, to give a panoramic view of the rolling green hills and gum tree forest beyond.
“The Spanish Inquisition?” he asked.
“No, like…” I sighed, walking up to the metal railing of the cabin’s deck and looking at the view. “Like I could tell her all of my problems and they’d all just go away. That she and her pack would sort out everything.”
“We used to feel the same way when we came down here as kids,” he said. “Dad said it was to get us out his hair around Christmas time, but Mum… She knew we needed something like this. A place to just be. Apparently, Barb’s mum was much the same when Mum used to come and hang out here.”
He slid open the glass door and I stepped inside, taking in all the mod cons with a glance but at the same time feeling a growing sense of disquiet as to what would happen now that Ben and I were here together, alone again. My unease spiked when we got to the bedroom.
“Ben, I don’t think—” I started to say, my body feeling so bloody heavy right now, each step becoming ponderous.
“I know.”
Just a gentle couple of words, then a smooth stroke of his hand up and down my spine, and I found myself going limp.
“I need to sleep,” I whined, feeling like as much a ratty child as Evie was, then I chanced a look up at him. “But I’d like to sleep with you.”
He snorted at that, then pulled me closer, that big, warm hug doing so much to settle me.