Chapter 132
Chapter 132
Blake’s POV
The baby shower was in full swing by the time I made it out to the backyard and for a moment I just stood at the back door and took it all in.
The space looked nothing like it had this morning. Linda had outdone herself and I could tell by the satisfied expression on her face as she moved between tables that she knew it too. Pack members filled every corner of the yard, talking and laughing with the kind of ease that only came from people who had known each other their entire lives. Sara was sitting in the middle of it all like a queen on a throne, which was essentially what she was at this particular moment, opening gifts with dramatic expressions that had everyone around her in stitches. Anthonio was beside her with his hand on her back and a smile on his face that I hadn’t seen in a while. Whatever exhaustion he had been carrying this morning had temporarily lifted and I was glad for it.
And then there was Fiona.
She was standing near the dessert table with Marcus, laughing at something he had said with her head tilted back and her eyes bright. She had a small plate in one hand and she was pointing at something on the table with the other, probably telling him off for eating something he wasn’t supposed to touch yet. She was wearing a soft yellow dress that I didn’t recognise and her hair was down and she looked so completely at ease in the middle of my pack, surrounded by people who had taken her in as one of their own, that something in my chest pulled tight in a way I had long stopped trying to find words for.
She hadn’t spotted me yet.
I used those few seconds to just look at her because in a few hours I was going to have to sit down and tell her that my brother was circling our territory and that the threat we had both believed was behind us was very much still in front of us. I was going to watch the ease leave her face and the tension come back into her shoulders and there was nothing I could do to stop that. So for right now I let myself have this. Her laughing at Marcus in the afternoon sun without a single weight on her.
Then she turned and found me across the yard and the smile didn’t leave her face but something in her eyes shifted. She had been watching for me. Of course she had. I crossed the yard toward her and Marcus took one look at my expression before suddenly finding something very urgent to attend to on the other side of the garden. I appreciated that about him more than I ever told him.
“You’re back,” she said when I reached her.
“Told you I would be.”
She looked up at me with those eyes that always managed to see more than I intended to show. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, letting my hand linger against her jaw for a moment. “Everything okay out here?”
She gave me a look that told me she knew I was redirecting but she allowed it. “Sara has eaten half the dessert table and Cicilia is pretending not to notice. Marcus tried to open one of the gifts before Sara got to it and nearly lost a hand. Linda has been taking photos of everything and I mean everything. So yes, everything is fine out here.”
I smiled despite myself. “Good.”
She studied me for another second. “You’re going to tell me tonight.”
It wasn’t a question. I nodded. “Tonight. I promise.”
She held my gaze for a moment longer before nodding and turning back toward the table. I stayed beside her, close enough that our arms touched, and she didn’t move away. That was the thing about Fiona. Even when she knew I was keeping something from her, even when the questions were piling up behind her eyes, she had this way of choosing to stay present in the moment she was in rather than letting the unknown pull her out of it completely. It was something I had noticed about her early on and it still caught me off guard sometimes.
“Blake!” Sara’s voice carried across the yard and we both looked over to see her waving us toward her with an impatient expression. “Stop hovering over there and come sit. I want to open your gift.”
“We got her something,” Fiona said under her breath, sounding mildly surprised.
“Linda handled it,” I said.
“Of course she did.”
We made our way over and I pulled up a chair beside Fiona as Sara tore into the large box with an enthusiasm that suggested she had fully recovered from last night’s restlessness. Inside was a set of matching hand carved wooden keepsake boxes, one for each baby, with their names already engraved on the lids. Sara’s expression crumpled the second she saw them and Anthonio immediately reached for her hand.
“Linda,” Fiona said quietly beside me, shaking her head with a smile.
“She asked me what Sara would love most,” I said. “I said I had no idea. She handled the rest.”
Fiona laughed softly and leaned her head briefly against my shoulder before straightening back up. The contact lasted maybe two seconds but my wolf noticed every single one of them.
The afternoon stretched on and I stayed close. I talked when talked to, smiled when smiled at, and kept one part of my attention on Fiona at all times and another on the perimeter I couldn’t see from here but knew my warriors were holding. Every so often my phone would vibrate in my pocket with a quiet update from the patrol team and every time it did I checked it discreetly and found nothing to alarm me. The border was holding. Everything was quiet.
Which should have made me feel better.
It didn’t. Because Maxwell had always been patient in a way that I had underestimated before and I was not going to make that mistake again.
As the sun began to drop lower in the sky and the guests started to filter out in small groups, I caught my father’s eye from across the yard. He gave me a single nod that told me the warriors were in position and the night rotation had begun. I returned it and looked back at Fiona who was helping Sara navigate the small step up into the house with one hand and carrying a stack of gift bags with the other, talking to her the whole time in that easy way she had with people she loved.
She was going to be upset tonight. Not at me, not exactly, but at the situation. At the fact that it wasn’t over. At the fact that just when things had settled into something that felt like a life, something was pushing at the edges of it again. I knew her well enough to know that. I also knew her well enough to know that after the initial reaction she would lift her chin and straighten her shoulders and face it the same way she faced everything.
That didn’t make me any more eager to be the one to tell her.
I waited until the last guest had gone and Linda and Westley had said their goodnights and the pack house had gone quiet before I found her in the kitchen, sleeves pushed up, washing the last of the serving dishes with her back to me. I leaned in the doorway and watched her for a moment.
“I know you’re there,” she said without turning around.
“I know you know,” I said.
She turned off the tap and dried her hands slowly before turning around and leaning back against the counter. She looked at me with an expression that was calm and open and braced all at once.
“Okay,” she said quietly. “Tell me.”
I crossed the room and stopped in front of her, close enough that I could see the slight steadying breath she took before she met my eyes. I reached out and took both her hands in mine.
And then I told her everything.