My fingers trembled as I texted Killian.

I found it.

I was so excited I could spit. I mean not really, because eww, but I was over the moon ecstatic. Just outside the city, in a suburb, in an area that was still more rural than urban, a beautiful Victorian with a caretaker cottage had become available after what looked like some seriously bad mortgage decisions.

It needed some work, mostly to get it looking like it should and not the contemporary hodgepodge it was currently, but the bones were amazing. The cottage was close enough to keep an eye on Mama and not close enough for her to hear me scream her son’s name when he made me come. The best of all worlds.

Found what? Killian responded.

My fingers practically flew across my phone. Come here once the visiting nurse gets there.

His mom was so much better, the treatment working far better than the doctors had even hoped. The visiting nurses were all my doing. I wanted to make sure she was getting the best care possible, and once a week doctor visits seemed like not enough for my paranoid self.

Instead of trying to move any of us into her house, we set her up in our bedroom and added a bed to the basement as we looked or, more accurately, I looked for a new place for us. Killian was in agreement that we needed something bigger, but his heart just wasn’t in searching for someplace new. I had a feeling it was the alpha provide, omega be taken care of bullshit that was pounded into us by society, but until he was ready to discuss it, I wasn’t going to push.

Where’s here?

He responded faster than I could send the address.

Could you wait long enough for me to type the address? Jeesh.

I sent the address and the real estate listing… minus the cottage and the price tag. I wanted him to give it a real chance. I had purposely been picking places we could both feel comfortable in. Nothing over the top, the kind of place I could afford with only the income from my books if My production and sales held steady, which was probably not going to happen since I was already a week late on a deadline. Between Mama’s recovery and a bout of the stomach bug, words just hadn’t been happening.

The nurse will be here in five and I’ll come right over. Mama says hi.

He sent me a picture of Mama playing with Mr. Jenkins. Darn dog was a traitor. He was all about Mama, all the time. It was stinking adorable, and if it weren’t for how well he and Princess Buttercup got along—Princess Buttercup continued to use him as his own personal transportation—I’d have resigned myself to him being Mama’s dog.

Mama loved him to bits, Sally too, and she teased us endlessly about naming a male cat Princess Buttercup. She would never admit it, but I heard her reading a story to Whisper one morning. I could see where my mate got his love for animals and his compassion.

“Any questions on the disclosure, Mr. Fredericks?” The realtor, Jennifer something or other, asked for the four thousandth time. She was impatient, not wanting to wait for my mate. She specialized in high end real estate, which was how my brother knew her, I just wished he had told me she was a bitch when it came to properties she considered beneath her.

“Still no, but I may when my mate arrives. My brother thinks very highly of you. Mentioned using you again soon,” I lied, trying to keep her from calling the viewing over. Served Parker right. I sent him a quick text telling him as much while she stepped out to answer an important client’s phone call, the implication being I wasn’t. He sent one back quickly, a picture of him giving me the stink eye. It was nice to have this with him again, the silly banter of brothers. I sent one back with a picture of only one of my fingers just as she walked back in.

“Someone just pulled in.” She sighed. “Probably thinks we are running an open house with free food or something. Just ignore him if the doorbell rings.

I ran out, knowing she was judging my mate on his car, and sure enough, it was him.

“Killian, you need to see this place. Now you know how people in those stupid home shows are all this would be the perfect house if they didn’t have so much clutter and we laugh at them because, duh, they take their clutter with them? Well, have that kind of mindset, because they left all their ugly ass shit, and weird colored walls, and odd countertops, but that is all fixable and the place is a steal because foreclosure. And I’ll stop now.” I spoke the final words as his lips stole mine, probably to shut up my rambling, but I couldn’t care less as long as they were on me.

“Miss me?” I nipped his ear as we broke our kiss to the rude sound of Jennifer Bitch Face clearing her throat. She was so not going to be our realtor after today, but I didn’t want to tell her before I had a chance to show Killian the property.

“You have no idea.” He kissed me again and this time we ignored her coughs and throat clearing.

Killian seemed far less impressed with the house than I was, his do-it-yourself mindset seeing all the work there was to do, but once I took him to the caretaker cottage, his eyes lit up.

“This is perfect.”

“I know. It was what sold me on the place.”

The cottage was simple, yet nice, and everything was on one floor which was the only thing I ever heard Mama complain about with ours, and mostly because she though it unfair to Mr. Jenkins to make him climb the stairs when he had hurt his paw a couple weeks ago. It was healed now.

“So you would like to make an offer?” Jennifer piped in when she heard what she thought was the sound of cash falling into her bank account.

She couldn’t be more wrong.

“Yes, I will be calling your office and setting that up.”

“That is my job as the seller’s agent, Mr. Frederick.”

“I didn’t read that in the contract.” Because we didn’t fucking have one and I was so done with her.

“We don’t—fine. I’m leaving which means you need to leave too.”

Which we were going to anyway. I had no plans to lead her on no matter how much of a bitch she was. My heart rate sped up when my phone rang. I’d programmed a specific ring tone for my doctor. After the last lab results, he scheduled me for weekly blood draws to see if my hormone levels remained constant or were decreasing, and if so, by how much. So far, they had been holding steady, which was a great sign, but that didn’t make each phone call any less stressful.

“Hello, Dr. Saunders, Marcus Frederick speaking.”

“Hello, Marcus, I have good news for you!” He continued without giving me time to wonder. “You’re pregnant.”

“Can you say that again?” I fumbled with my phone, trying to put it on speakerphone.

“You’re pregnant.”

“Just one more time,” I pleaded, finally getting the speaker on, my voice shaking, tears of joy already welling in my eyes.

“Congratulations, Mr. Frederick. You are pregnant.”

Killian picked me up and twirled me around, plastering my face and neck with kisses.

“Call my office in the morning to set up an appointment. I just knew you wouldn’t want to wait for this news.”

“No, thank you, Doctor.” I dropped the phone, taking Killian’s face in my hands and kissing him soundly.

“It’s time to leave,” the bitch all but screamed at us, as if she hadn’t just heard our amazing news.

I kissed Killian one last time, then turned around to face her, cold fury coexisting with my utter happiness. “I was going to just ask for a new realtor, but I think I may need to have your job as well. How dare you ruin this moment?”

“Our office doesn’t care about piddly little million dollar sales like this one.”

Before I could respond to her or begin to address the panic that filled my mate’s eyes for that split second before he schooled himself, both of our phones rang. Coop.

“Hello?” Killian answered as I started to address Jennifer the Bitch.

I matched her glare for glare. I knew we didn’t look like money. I didn’t flaunt it. I didn’t waste it. And this lady was going to learn something about appearances today, and not counting on them.

“At the house, with the nurse.” The sharp note of concern in Killian’s voice completely derailed me and I scrambled to join the three-way call.

“Thank fuck,” Coop said.

“Thank fuck?” Killian’s shoulders relaxed slightly at the relief in his brother’s voice.

“When the fire department called saying there was an explosion at our house, I was so scared she was there.”

Killian and I shared a look and started walking, completely ignoring the squawking real estate agent as we made our way to our cars. I hung up and called Mama, just to make sure she was safe, but I didn’t tell her about the explosion. Fuck. That was something that needed to be done in person. Even though she had been living with us since returning home, pretty much all of her belongings, all of her memories, had been in that house.

Fuck.