“Peace at last,” Jax said, smiling wide as he watched Axel drive off with Hadley. His fellow firefighter was heading to the airport to meet his new mate’s family in Philadelphia, and Jax was all alone.

He didn’t understand Axel at all. He had knocked up Hadley and had then convinced her to move over here when she was willing to raise the baby by herself on the other side of the country! “What an idiot,” he laughed to himself as he walked back inside the firehouse. Axel had been off scot-free, but then somehow managed to screw it all up and now he was stuck raising the child.

Only Axel would do something so stupid.

Jax hated kids. They were truly the worst.

Kids were mean, selfish little brats, and he didn’t want anything to do with them. He had spent enough time around horrible children while growing up in an orphanage to last ten lifetimes.

But luckily, he didn’t have to worry about that now. He had the firehouse all to himself.

He grinned as he flicked on the radio, blasting some heavy metal as he opened the fridge and grabbed a can of beer. The fire chief and his alpha Draven was somewhere in Europe with Gunner busy hunting dragons, Zane had gone on a five-day vacation with his mate Gwen, and Axel was about to screw up his life by heading to Philly with his pregnant mate Hadley.

And Jax was in heaven.

He cracked open the beer and took a long gulp as his heart drummed happily in his chest. Four days alone with just him, a few cases of beer, a freezer full of steaks, and a television that he didn’t have to fight anyone over. He could watch whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, wearing whatever he wanted.

That reminds me…

Jax grinned as he yanked off his shirt and pulled off his pants. The next four days were going to be pantsless.

He tossed his jeans on the floor, threw his shirt into the kitchen sink, and grinned as he walked over to the couch.

“Ahhh,” he said, smiling wide as he sat down on his alpha’s chair—the one that all of them were forbidden to sit in.

“Hey, Draven,” he called out to the empty room. “Mind if I sit in your chair in my underwear?”

There was no answer. Just the loud heavy metal music blaring at full blast.

“I’ll take your lack of an answer as a yes,” he said as he hit the recliner and put his feet up.

It dawned on him that he had never had alone time like this in his whole life. Jax had gone straight from the busy, overcrowded orphanage with Zane to here. Draven had taken them in and trained them when they were only sixteen years old and he had been living here ever since. He had gone from the crowded orphanage to the crowded firehouse.

There had always been people around. People to tell him not to leave his clothes lying around, people to tell him not to drink so much beer in the middle of the afternoon, to turn down his music, and to wear pants.

“Not anymore,” he mumbled as he cracked open another beer. “I’m free. For four days at least…”

After three hours of watching television without Axel bugging him every five minutes to watch some stupid cartoon, he had a mountain of empty beer cans at his feet, and he was getting hungry.

He grabbed the remote, flicked the TV off, and stood up. A wave of clinking cans fell on the floor as he got to his feet.

A soft sound caught his ear as he walked to the kitchen. It was a sneeze. Not a loud booming one like Gunner always did, but a gentle one like a baby would make.

He shrugged as he continued to the fridge, thinking that a poor mother must be passing by outside with a baby in a stroller.

His stomach growled as he opened the freezer and searched through it, looking for the biggest steak. “Yes!” he said with a grin when he found a huge Porterhouse steak in the back. There was something written on it with a black Sharpie.

Zane’s Property. DO NOT FUCKING TOUCH!!!

Jax just laughed as he ripped open the plastic wrap and tossed it into the garbage. “Sorry, Zane,” he muttered. “But I’m fucking touching.”

He tossed the steak on a plate and headed outside to cook it up on the barbecue. His mouth was already watering as he imagined the taste of it. He would cook it to perfection. Zane was always overcooking their steaks, and it would drive Jax crazy. “Well, not this time.”

It was a beautiful July evening in Colwood, Montana, and it was the perfect night to barbecue, by yourself, in silence.

Jax opened the door and jumped back in shock when he saw an opened box lying on the doormat. At first, he thought it was a package, but when he saw movement inside, his face dropped.

“No,” he gasped, as a pink foot popped out of the swath of sheets.

His heart slowed to a sluggish beat as panic and dread overtook his trembling body.

It was a baby. On the doorstep.

And he was the only one home.

Jax dropped his head and sighed. “I’m so fucked.”