I was going to wait until I got home that night to read the letter. I stuffed it in my locker at work, but the whole time I was changing linens and wheeling patients to physio or activities or whatever, I was thinking about it. Wondering what Maddie's last words to me would be.

"What's got your head in the clouds today?" Mrs. Costner asked as I walked her down to the door out into the garden. Newly released from her bedrest, she was already pretty mobile, just needed someone beside her to steady her on her walker—her hip might be mending but her hands were still kind of hit or miss.

"Oh, just thinking about Maddie. Feels strange not to have her here." I opened the fire door and held it for her. "She left me a letter, but I haven't read it yet."

"You aren't curious?" she asked as she crept through.

"Terribly," I admitted with a grin. "But I'm at work."

She threw me a look that, for a moment, made her look about sixteen. "If I had a letter, I'd find a way to read it at work." She paused and patted at her pockets. "You know, I do believe I forgot my glasses back in my room. Would you be a dear and get them for me?"

"You are incorrigible, aren't you?" I told her. "I'll get you out to the garden first."

"Then you can bring your letter back and read it in the sun with me." She smiled girlishly and started down the hallway toward the garden doors again.

Once I had her settled, I jogged back through the building and grabbed my letter. I checked her room, but the glasses were nowhere to be found and when I got back to the garden, I found them—not so surprisingly—on her face.

"Mrs. Costner," I scolded with a laugh. "I think you lied to me."

"Oh, well, I'm a forgetful old lady. It comes with the age, you know." She patted the bench beside her. "Sit here and read your letter."

"Should I read it out loud?"

She shook her head. "No, you don't need to do that. She was writing to you, I don’t need to hear that. Just read it yourself and if there's something juicy in it, you can let me know after." She winked at me and pulled a paperback out of her pocket. "Particularly if it's juicy Hollywood gossip."

I laughed and stuck my thumb in the small opening at the end of the envelope, tearing it open. A single sheet of paper fell out, in what was recognizably Maddie's handwriting from near the end, shaky but still distinctive. I set the envelope on the bench beside me and unfolded the page to begin reading.

Dearest Llewellyn,

My time is nearly up. Don't argue with me, a woman knows this stuff, especially an old woman. Besides, if you're reading this, I'm already dead and buried, and you can't argue with that.

I smiled as I read that line—it was so Maddie.

I wanted you to have a few things, and I wanted you to know a few things too, now that I won't have time to settle them myself. I'm sorry I never did this before and by the time I realized that I'd missed the opportunity, it was too late to do anything but prepare what I could to go forward after I was gone.

First of all, I've left you some money from my estate. Not a lot compared to anyone else, but the lawyer and I talked about it and we thought it was best done this way to keep anyone from challenging it. If there is one thing I learned in Hollywood, it was to always have a back-up plan. And, a second thing I learned was that money was always a good back-up plan. A smart young man like you can find ways to make twenty-thousand dollars do as much work as two hundred thousand. I also paid my lawyer something on account so he can help you find a good investment advisor, to make sure that money works as hard as I know you do. So that will be for you, to move away, or stay, whatever you want. Use it to ensure your independence and never be at the mercy of anyone.

I want you to know that I would have been so, so happy to welcome you into my family. You're good people. Don't let the gossips get to you.

You were good for Micah, too, no matter what you or anyone might think. I know you loved him, and that you love him still. I'm sorry for that, and grateful for it too, because it means there's someone out there other than his parents who wants the best for him no matter what. As my ends gets closer, I'm coming to realize what a comfort that is. I wish things had gone differently between you two. I wish that I'd been there with him to keep him from making these decisions.

I wish I had more time.

Whether you can bring yourself to forgive him is something you need to work out within your own heart. I wouldn't blame you at all if you wanted nothing more to do with him. But real love—I won't call it true love because my very own beloved Hollywood has twisted and blurred that phrase until it no longer means what it used to—real love is a means for growth. And us alphas, we need someone to take us by the hand and make us grow. You have your safety money now. You don't need to depend on him, or on anyone. If you want to follow the wishes of your heart, you can safely do so, and it is the dearest wish of my heart that you have that opportunity. You made an old woman's final years so much happier and I would like to pass that gift on to you in whatever form you want it to be. If that future includes my grandson, I will be glad (or would if I wasn't dead. )

She’d drawn a little smiley face there at the end of that line, making me chuckle softly. Probably what she’d meant it to do. Our senses of humor were very much alike. If it made her laugh, it was likely it would make me laugh too, and I was guessing that she thought I might need a few laughs about now.

She was a smart lady, our Maddie.

The lawyer has been asked not to tell anyone about the money, so that you can make your decision without anyone else sticking their nose into your business and interfering. We also set it up in a kind of trust that means that even if you marry, the money doesn't become the property of your husband.

There are a few knicknacks, just some personal things, that the lawyer will turn over to you. Nothing of monetary value, but I remembered how you liked that old quilt, and the glamor shot of me in that red gown. (I highly recommend you get one done for yourself—so good for the ego. The lawyer can help you with that too.)

I snorted a laugh reading that, imagining her telling the lawyer she wanted him to find someone to take sexy pictures of me and what his face had probably looked like, and out of the corner of my eye saw Mrs. Costner smile at the noise. I'd probably share this part with her—we'd both get a good laugh out of it.

There wasn't much else in the letter, just some general life advice and reminding me how much she loved me as a grandson, even if I technically wasn't. Wishes for the future, for good luck. All that sort of stuff. And a promise to come back and haunt me if I wasted this opportunity, which made me laugh again through the tears that had started streaking down my cheeks. Mrs. Costner casually pulled a tissue out of her pocket and handed it to me, then went back to her novel, giving me a little privacy as I dealt with my grief.

I wiped my eyes and my nose, then leaned back on the bench and let the sun warm my face and dry any remaining dampness on my cheeks. Mrs. Costner gave me a few minutes to collect myself, then patted my thigh and said, "She was a good one, for one of those Hollywood types."

"She was," I said, my eyes still closed. "She left me some money."

"Money doesn't fix everything."

I smiled and shook my head. "No it doesn't, but that wasn't what she was trying to do." I thought about what having this money could mean to me, what it could let me do. I thought about the freedom it gave me. "She wanted me to be independent. And she made sure that it’s mine alone, even if I get married."

"Well, that's giving her credit for more sense than I thought she had," Mrs. Costner said acerbically. "What do you plan to do with this new independence?"

I opened my eyes and sat up. "I have no idea." But the germ of one was glimmering in the corner of my mind, a crazy idea. It was stupid, but then again, I was an omega. What else did anyone expect of an omega? The only ambition we were supposed to have was a marriage above our station.

Did it make me traditional and ordinary that I wanted to give Mike the chance he had asked for? Or was this me just wanting a little revenge, a little sauce for the goose but this time applied to the gander?

And why the hell were the omegas always the geese? Why couldn’t we be the gander?

Shaking my head, I shoved that question away for some other time, when I had less on my mind and more alcohol in my system. Carefully, I folded the letter and put it back into the envelope, then tucked it securely into the pants pocket of my scrubs. “How’s the novel?” I asked. She’d put her bookmark back in it and laid it beside her on the bench.

“Oh, it’s fine. I wouldn’t call the main characters stupid, but they’d do a lot better if they just talked to each other.”

“Do you want me to find you a different one?” There was a book bus that came around once a week to let the residents trade out their library books, but there were always a few large text copies of donated novels hanging around.

“Oh, no, dear. It’s a good book. But they’re about to have wild, unbridled sex and I thought I’d save that part for bedtime.”

I choked at her words, or more at the implication that went with them, but I was saved from my imminent death by one of the other care workers coming out the door to relieve me and send me back to escorting more residents around the building.

It was only later, while I was stripping beds and remaking them fresh, that her comment about the characters needing to talk to each other came back to me. Which made me wonder if it could really be that simple. And what would happen if Mike and I just…talked?