“I hope he isn’t an omega,” Jackson said.
“Maddox would never let the government take Oliver.” I knew that.
“Yeah. They’d all have to go into hiding. We’d never see them again.”
“I’m hoping the government will be exposed before it comes to that.” We sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to David singing to Ollie down the hall. Then I asked, “Are you happy, Jackson?”
“Very,” Jackson said. “You?”
“Yeah. I think I am. It’s only been a few days, though. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“It won’t. I’m glad you have two great alphas to take care of you. I was really worried when you were on the run.”
“It was scary. And after I got here, I was afraid I couldn’t stay.”
Turning his head to look at me, Jackson said, “What do you mean? David would never kick you out!”
“When the government came looking for me, they’d have to hide me. But Angus and Colt said they wanted to mate me, and it was just in time. Those guys from the government looked so mad about it. It seems like they enjoy taking omegas away.”
“You have to wonder why,” Jackson said. “Are they just sadists? Or is there a real reason they don’t want us around?”
“Maybe the betas are jealous. You know, because they can’t have awesome heat-rut sex,” I said, and we both broke into laughter.
“I can’t believe you just said that,” Jackson said, wiping his eyes. We laughed and talked some more, trying to keep it down so we didn’t wake anyone. I was thinking we should get up to go to bed, but before I could do it, I must have fallen asleep.
Sometime later, I felt Colt lifting me from the floor to take me to bed and Carter whispering to Jackson.
Chapter thirteen
Angus
“Is he real sick?” I asked Maddox. He’d knocked on the door of my living room to tell me Oliver wasn’t feeling well.
“He’s got a fever.”
“He can have a fever with a cold, though, right?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve put a call in to Dr. Humbard.”
“Has Laura taken a look at him?”
“She said she will when she gets back. She went to the Borders’ again to help out with their sick little one. Dr. Humbard is supposed to see him later today, but his nurse told Nova that there’s a lot of sick kids right now and Jessup’s other pediatrician is in Puerto Rico on her honeymoon.”
“Damn small town,” I grumbled. “As many kids as there are in Jessup, it ought to have more than two pediatricians.”
“I agree,” Maddox said. “But after Old Doc Franklin passed away, nobody took over his practice.”
“Probably because nobody wants to come way out here to an unknown town,” I said.
“I don’t know, Gramps. We’re on the map since a few national news stations broadcasted the story of a redistributed omega being matched to Bertram last year. That was a little odd, if you ask me.”
“You really think the government did it because of all the questions people have been asking about the whereabouts of registered and redistributed omegas?” I asked. I wasn’t sure how I felt on the subject yet. In my thinking, Bertram’s omega just proved the government’s been doing what it said it was all along.
“Yeah, I do. The more that happens, the shadier it looks. Why would the news suddenly care about an omega match?”
“Maybe because of Trey’s senator dad,” I suggested.
“No. They didn’t mention that. And think about it: the government isn’t going to want people to know that a senator raised his omega son when no one else has been permitted to do that. It would create outrage and more questions about what they’re doing with registered omegas collected by the program. If they’re really being redistributed, where are they?”