9. Chapter Nine

I had put the one-night stand, six months ago, out of my head as soon as I had left him sleeping alone in the bed. At least that was the lie I told myself. If username 187 still invaded my dreams on a weekly basis there was nothing to be done about that. It had been a sexually pleasing night, one I didn’t mind visiting over and over when I shut my eyes to fall asleep.

It didn’t mean anything more than enjoying a good memory. It didn’t mean that any sort of bond had started forming between us that night. The more time that passed, the more his memory would fade. Eventually.

But opening that car door, seeing him sitting there in living color, hands tightened on the steering wheel, panting in pain? That had been a shock. His huge, pregnant belly had been another one.

My mind had already been doing some quick calculations, but when he’d said the baby–Julianna–was a month early, that had told me everything I needed to know.

She was my baby. I was sure of it. Something inside me had just known on some level.

Seeing her in the crook of Wyatt’s arm, there was no doubt. Looking at her was like looking at a tiny, female version of myself. It was a little startling, to be honest.

It was also clear to me by the look on Wyatt’s face when I announced that she was mine and he was my omega, that he hadn’t had a clue that we were fated mates. The more I had replayed that night in my head, remembering how innocent Wyatt had actually been, there were days I doubted that he had known.

But it hadn’t changed anything for me. I wouldn’t have done anything differently. I hadn’t even made it down to my car in the hotel lobby before I deleted my profile from the app. I didn’t want a mate. I most definitely didn’t want a fated mate and all that came along with it.

But now everything had changed. It wasn’t even something I could begin to explain to anyone, even myself. Being a father had never been on my bucket list. I’d certainly never planned it at my age. But there had to be a reason Wyatt was in the same town I was, holding my child, and well, maybe having a fated mate wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

Jamie had gotten a second chance with his fated mate, and all his brothers had met their fated mates and were living the proverbial happily-ever-after. I’d done all the things on my to do list and then some. Maybe it was my turn to have this, too.

Did I even want it? I thought maybe I did. Seeing Wyatt again…yeah, I definitely felt something for him. I had never forgotten him. And then there was Julianna. Seeing her had brought out all kinds of protective alpha feelings inside me. She was mine and so was Wyatt.

Fuck, maybe there was something about this town, because there seemed to be a lot of fated mates suddenly walking around it. Fated mates were myths, fairy tales told to children. Then I’d come to this town and met all the Sinclairs, and seen with my own eyes that fated mates truly did exist.

Whatever it was, Wyatt was here holding my daughter, and I wasn’t sneaking out in the middle of the night this time.

The hurt that had flashed briefly in his hazel eyes when he had realized that I had known we were fated, and hadn’t disclosed that information, made me feel like a first class jerk. Which was a strange feeling. I rarely–if ever–felt bad about anything I did. There was no room for it in my life.

Wyatt’s sudden and unexpected return into my world had me spinning. That and the fact that I was a father. A father! I had a baby daughter. She was only a few hours old, but from the moment I had looked down into her red little face I had known I would protect her with my very life.

Leaving the hospital after growling my threat at Wyatt, I drove around aimlessly before pulling into the back lot of Sinful Playgrounds, the kink club Jamie owned. Glancing at the time, I realized it was nearing noon, but Jamie’s cobalt blue Camaro was parked by the back door.

When Jamie’s mate, Sebastian, had resurfaced with their son, Matty, Jamie had changed the hours he spent at the club. He hardly ever worked a night shift now, and was usually done in time to pick Matty up at school.

I was glad my friend was here now, and that without thinking, I had driven to the club. I needed to talk to someone about everything that had happened today, and my best friend seemed like the most logical person. Besides, he had firsthand knowledge of fated mates. And kids. He had two of them now. He’d be able to tell me if all these weird feelings of protectiveness I was having were normal.

Punching in the back door code took less than two seconds, and I was striding down the empty corridor to the closed door of Jamie’s private office. I could hear the low murmur of his voice. Not bothering to knock, I barged on in.

His blue eyes turned to glance at me before they turned back to the chunky baby sitting on the desk in front of him. Ronen was giggling at his dad, blowing bubbles from between his baby lips. The baby was ten months old now, with midnight dark hair that was just beginning to curl on the ends, and big hazel eyes that tended to be more green than any other color.

“Look who’s come to see us, Ro,” Jamie spoke to the baby in a slightly high-pitched voice that people tended to use with babies. Except me. I talked to them in the same tone I talked to everyone. Because let’s face it, my voice was deep and there wasn’t any changing it. “He’s had a super exciting day, yes he has.”

Narrowing my eyes at him as I sank into the leather couch in his office, I tossed a magazine offering the latest sex toys aside. Jamie kept his club well stocked with the latest toys. “What do you know about my day?”

“I know you can add delivering babies to your already impressive resume,” he snarked. “Gonna give my brother a run for his money?”

“How do you know this?” Not that Jamie’s skills for gathering intel weren’t impressive, but even for him it was a little fast to know about the events of just a few hours ago.

“Everyone knows, I imagine. Miss Rose and Gigi were in the line of traffic stopped while you played hero.”

Throwing my arm over my eyes, I groaned. Miss Rose and Gigi were two old ladies who ran the gossip mill in Sweet Alps. I adored both of them, but there wasn’t anything that went on in this town that they didn’t know about. And once they knew it the entire town knew it.

“Exciting stuff,” Jamie blew a raspberry on his son’s belly and Ronen cackled. Smiling despite my mood at the sound, I lowered my arm. Baby giggles really were awesome.

“It wasn’t what I expected when I pulled the driver over, that is for sure.”

“I bet,” Jamie’s shrewd eyes ran over me. “You don’t look too worse for wear. You survived witnessing childbirth better than Brendan did.”

It was well known in the Sinclair circle of family and friends how Jamie’s older brother, Brendan, had passed out in the delivery room when his mate, Ryan, was giving birth to their daughter. Poor guy was never going to live that down.

“I didn’t pass out, thank fuck.”

“It’s actually pretty cool watching a birth.” Jamie shifted Ronen from the desk to his lap, so the baby was now facing me. He grinned a toothy grin from the few teeth he was sporting, drool slipping down his chin. “At least I thought it was. Though Bash made me stay up by his head so I missed all the good stuff. I will say watching them stick him with that epidural needle did make me a bit...” he shuddered broad shoulders, “woozy.”

I had been so focused on just catching the baby that I hadn’t really focused on anything else. It was like I was there, in it when it was happening, but I hadn’t been focusing on the beauty of the moment. Or even any of the other things that had been happening to Wyatt’s body. Maybe next time I would feel differently, if I wasn’t the one having to deliver the baby on the side of the road.

Next time?My wolf questioned. You think there will be a next time?

Okay, where that thought had come from, I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t going to focus on that now.

“I…I’m not sure we had quite the same experience. I was more intent on catching the baby than noticing anything else.”

“Rumor is you not only caught the baby, but stripped your shirt off and gave everyone a show while you did it.”

Goddess, I had forgotten that part of the day. “I needed to dispose of the…afterbirth… in something! I don’t even know why I’m defending that to you. That’s not why I came by. I need to talk to you.”

Jamie raised his dark brows at me, glancing at his phone. “I need to pick Matty up in an hour.”

“Where’s Bash?” While it wasn’t odd for Jamie to be at the club at this time, or to pick up Matty from school, it was strange that he had Ronen with him.

“He’s finishing up the illustrations for the new book. I told him I’d take Ro and give him some peace. Ro’s trying to walk and is not great at it, are you?” He questioned the baby like he was going to answer him. “And he can crawl faster than an Indy 500 race car driver.”

Bash was the author of a very successful series of children’s books that revolved around the adventures of a book dragon and his unicorn bestie. He did all his own illustrations and was a talented artist and writer. Like both Jamie and me, Bash was also an ex-spy, though that hadn’t been any of our official titles. He had once worked for British intelligence and he and Jamie had first met while they were both undercover on the same op.

“Now, what’s got your panties all in a twist?” Jamie unwrapped a green hard candy and popped it in his mouth, expertly evading his son’s grabby hands. Pulling a bottle from the bag by his chair, he handed it to Ronen, then helped him hold it. “I can practically feel the tension from you all the way over here, and I feel like it doesn’t have anything to do with you delivering a baby. You’ve handled more dangerous and stressful situations without breaking a sweat plenty of times.”

“I did a thing.” I mumbled, looking up at the ceiling, evading his sharp gaze.

“I’m gonna need more than that to offer any of my expert advice.” Because of course Jamie had heard and understood my mumble. Damn wolf ears. “And I doubt you ‘doing a thing’ is all that bad. You’re the one who cleans up all the things I used to do.”

Rolling my eyes, I grimaced at him. “Expert advice? Debatable. And used to do? Need I remind you that I just cleaned up your last mess not that long ago?”

“You came to me, dude. We were happily minding our business, weren’t we Ronen?” The baby gurgled nonsense around the bottle in his mouth, before he went back to sucking down whatever it was he was drinking.

Running a hand through my woefully disheveled hair, I sighed loudly. “Remember the seminar I went to in Dallas in March?”

Jamie nodded, “The one you got roped into by your old boss. Because for some reason you just couldn’t say no.”

Ignoring his comment about my ability to say no to people, because we both knew that wasn’t true, I said, “I might have taken your advice and used the Taboo app to hook up with an omega when I was in Dallas.”

Jamie shrugged. “I thought you came back in a happier mood. I give great advice.” He gave himself a pat on his shoulder and I rolled my eyes. “I knew when I was hired to test their cyber security for them, it was the perfect site for you. Glad I could help you get your rocks off.”

“I don’t need help in that department,” I informed him with a scowl. “Not if I’m actually trying to hook up with someone.”

Jamie waved his free hand at me. “Yes, yes, Becks is the best at everything he does. We know. Get to the good stuff. You hooked up with an omega, and…”

Shaking my head at him, I grumbled, “I’m not giving you details of my sex life.”

“Boo,” Jamie fake pouted. “You’re so boring in your old age.”

“You don’t tell me about your sex life.” While there had been a time we had shared exploits, Jamie was tight lipped when it came to Bash.

“That’s because Bash is my fated mate and,” he shrugged, a softness lighting up his ice blue eyes, “it’s different with Bash. Special. Sacred. Private. And Bash would kick my ass if I talked about our sex life, and he scares me just a tiny bit.”

Was that the reason I had never shared anything about my night with Wyatt with Jamie? Because he was my fated mate, and there had been some part of me that had wanted to keep what happened between us private? Probably not, if I was going to be honest with myself. More like, I just wanted to forget it and talking about it would not make that possible.

I wasn’t about to tell Jamie I had met my fated mate, fucked him senseless in a kinky scene, then left him alone in a hotel room without a word, names or contact information. As much as Jamie was my friend, and I trusted him with my life, I didn’t think any of that would have gone over well with him. That and he would have brought it up every chance he could, and I hadn’t wanted to deal with any of it.

Leaning up, I rested my elbows on my knees. “The omega I hooked up with was Wyatt. The omega whose baby I delivered this afternoon.” I clarified, realizing the name Wyatt likely meant nothing to Jamie.

Though with Miss Rose and Gigi leading the gossip brigade, he might know everything there was to know about Wyatt by now. Probably more than I did. Those two ladies were…formidable. They could dig up dirt on just about anyone when they set their mind to it.

Jamie’s blue eyes widened and I could tell he was doing some quick math in his head. Before he could say a word, I filled in, “The baby was a month early. At least according to Wyatt.”

“I’m guessing you suspect the baby is yours.” Jamie stated, not even asking it as a question. We had worked together a long time before he had retired. We knew each other probably better than most people knew their own spouses. He had put his life in my hands more times than we could count. We trusted each other, and we were both men who didn’t trust many people.

“She’s mine.” The certainty in my tone didn’t leave any room for argument.

He smiled, “A girl? That’s wonderful! We need more female blood in our little group of pups. I mean, is it wonderful? I can’t tell by your face. I’m not sure which way I should go with my feelings. But like, if you want to do an arranged marriage for her, I got your man right here.” He rubbed his chin on the top of Ronen’s soft curls, grinning like the asshole he was.

Flipping him off was my answer to that. “I’m not arranging a marriage for my daughter who is not even a day old, dickhead. What is wrong with you?”

“We don’t have enough time for that conversation. But I’m totally invested in your tale of finding your true love. Continue.”

“Why are we even friends?” I muttered, scrubbing at my face with my hands. “Fucking hell, I need to make new friends. And no one said anything about true love, fucker.”

“Because I’m the most awesome friend ever and you know it. So, you hooked up with a random omega on an app, and he happens to show up in Sweet Alps, pregnant, in labor and you end up delivering his–your–baby on the side of the road.” Jamie surmised quickly. “That’s some Lifetime movie of the week shit. Almost like Fate had a hand in it.”

Staring at him, I didn’t say a word to refute anything he had said. His eyes got big, and he practically yelled, “Beeecccckkkkkssss!” Drawing my name out like it had four syllables and more letters than it ever needed to.

“What? Yes, okay, yes! Fate probably had something to do with it.” Muttering, I picked at invisible lint on my jeans. I wasn’t feeling great about my behavior and I hadn’t come here for Jamie to rub my face in it. “I don’t know. But…he–we–are fated mates.”

“Holy. Shit.” Jamie leaned back in his chair, taking a minute to wipe Ronen’s mouth when he had emptied his bottle. “I’m guessing you both decided to try to take the out clause on the whole fated mates thing? You know that doesn’t really work, right? I mean, Fate is a bitch. She ain’t playing around. She may make you think you can walk away, but it’s not really an option.”

Scraping my teeth over my bottom lip, I looked away from him. “Ummm…about that.”