“Yeah, sure. Whatever.” The whiny voice agreed. “I tell you what, though. I find that fucking Omega and it turns out some fuckers been protecting him, Imma have me a twofer.”
Kade just grunted. Then there was the sound of cheap athletic shoes slapping on the asphalt of the parking lot, blessedly moving the opposite direction from me.
A minute later, a bundle flew over the fence, landing square on my head and making me sputter.
“Well, shit. I think I missed,” Kade snickered out loud. “Oh, well.”
I waited for a second, assuming Kade would signal me to come out, but, instead, his bootsteps began to fade away.
With a frustrated sigh, I began to carefully unwrap the bundle he’d beaned me with.
It was the heavy winter coat I’d been wishing for earlier, wrapped around the ski gloves tucked inside a thick knit hat with a jaunty pompom on the top, and a small paper bag that, oddly, was warm.
Giving silent thanks, I struggled into the coat and hat, stuffing the gloves into the coat pockets until I checked the contents of the bag. Reaching in, I pulled out packs of nuts, bananas, protein bars, an assortment of candy bars, and, to my absolute astonishment, an empty take-out cup with a sealed Ziploc bag of coffee tucked inside.
Damn, if my Alpha hadn’t thought of everything.
Balancing the empty cup between my knees, I opened the tiniest slit in the zipper of the coffee bag and ever so slowly tipped it until the cup was full of warm coffee. It wasn’t steaming, but, as I took a long swallow and felt it warm me from the inside out, I definitely wasn’t complaining.
Sifting through the paper bag, I picked a candy bar at random and peeled the wrapper, scarfing it down in a couple of bites and sighing as the sweet sugar rush gave me a much-needed boost.
Now, if only I had some idea what the plan was.
The only thing I could be sure of an hour later when obnoxiously bright red and blue lights began bouncing off the shadows, reflected by the frosty night air, was that I was pretty sure that being arrested couldn’t be it.
Then a police siren screamed next to my hiding place, all but deafening me,
“You! In the trash enclosure!” I dropped my nearly empty coffee cup when the siren cut and a deep voice boomed out over some sort of loudspeaker. “Come out, hands in the air!”
Well, shit.
ChapterFifteen
Kade
“Dammit, Sonny! You’re gonna freak him out!” I snarled as my friend barked at Jeremy through the loudspeaker on his patrol truck.
“You want this to work or not?” Sonny snapped back. “You need word to get out that your boy was picked up by the cops, you’re gonna have to accept that it needs to be loud. Otherwise, no one is even going to freaking notice.”
“Sorry.” I groused, knowing he spoke the truth, but not thrilled by it.
Sonny just tipped his head at me. “Hang tight while I get him.”
I watched through the fogged window while Sonny gently positioned Jeremy against the wooden fence, gritting my teeth as the sheriff ran his big hands intimately over my Omega’s body as he made a production of searching Jeremy.
My head was dangerously close to exploding by the time that the door opposite me was yanked open and I found myself staring at my Omega’s stunned, tear-stained face.
“Watch your head,” Sonny said gruffly as he gently pushed Jeremy in beside me. “Kade, get him in there before someone sees you,” Sonny hissed when Jeremy seemed frozen in place.
“C’mon, baby,” I urged him. Reaching one hand toward him. “I promise I’ll explain, but we’ve got to get you out of here.”
Jeremy seemed to snap out of his fog when he heard my voice, nodding jerkily and climbing awkwardly into the back seat behind me as Sonny gently lifted him from the outside. I leaned over to wrap my arm around his waist, drawing him close to my side.
“It’s okay.” I murmured against his ear, concern flooding me at the shivers wracking his too-thin frame as he all but melted into me. “You’re safe. I’m sorry we upset you.”
Sonny pulled the truck out of the parking lot, the lights still strobing through the darkness but the siren blessedly silent.
“Are you okay, Jeremy?” the sheriff asked, his gruff voice breaking the silence in the truck.
