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“I'm making sure the house is safe.”
“Forge, we've lived here for years. The house is safe.”
“It wasn't housing an omega who might have crooked cops looking for her before.”
His smile fades.
“Fair point,” he relents.
“Can I get back to what I was doing then?” I ask.
His smile comes back as he walks toward me, his hand sliding around my hip. “I suppose so.”
He kisses me quickly, then walks to the closet and pulls the door open. He glances at the bed, then back into the closet.
“You think she’ll be warm enough?”
“If you want to add another blanket to the bed, add another blanket.” I yank on the bottom of the window one again. It doesn’t move, just like I knew it wouldn’t because these are all new windows we had installed last year. But I need to ease my mind.
From the corner of my eye, I see Pierce pull a blanket from the closet and go over to the bed. He pulls the top blanket off, and remakes the bed with the new one between the sheet and the comforter.
“What about the colors? You think she will like this?”
“Really? That’s what we’re worried about?”
“I want to make sure she’s comfortable,” I say. “Do you think they’re soft enough?”
“They’re the softest ones we found. If she doesn’t like the ones you chose, she can take any of the others from the closet.”
“We didn’t talk about a nest. Will she want one?”
“Pierce, that’s something you’ll have to ask her. Maybe she will, but we haven’t gotten that far yet. And if she does, we have plenty of things to make one. I think you bought the store out of blankets.”
He looks around the room, nodding. “There’s space for one, if she wants it.”
I huff a laugh then move to the other window to check that one.
Pierce finishes making the bed at the same time I’m finished checking the windows. We look around the room.
“If she doesn’t like it, we can get her new stuff,” I say.
“It’s just kind of boring.”
“Of course it’s boring. It’s a guest room that we used as an in-home office and storage for years. It’s going to take time for her to make it her own.”
Pierce glances at his watch. “We need to leave in about twenty minutes.”
After we left the precinct, we stopped at the grocery store to get food, since we rarely cook. Typically we grab dinner on the way home. Which we can still do with her here, but she will also need things to eat during the day, while we are at work. We have no idea what she likes, but we grabbed a bunch of things so she could figure it out. Her options were limited at the village, and she said she likes trying new things. So we grabbed plenty. When we got home, we put the food away, and then started clearing out the guest room, which didn’t take long.
The bed has always been in there, pushed against the wall with boxes stored on top. They’re now piled in the corner of the living room, behind the desk that we took out of the room and moved down there. Thankfully the living room is spacious enough to make one corner of it a sort-of office. That’s also where we set up our de-scenting machine. We figured it would be a good idea, so we aren’t driven mad with her scent everywhere. We want to give her time to figure things out, and sometimes our instincts like to take over.
There is no dresser in the room. It’s just a bed and an over-sized chair we brought up from the living room to make it look more roomy and comfortable. There is a closet for her to put her clothes in, at least, with plenty of room for all the blankets and extra pillows Pierce got. Plus, she gets her own bathroom. These are the only two rooms up here. Ours is on the first floor. I don’t like that we’re so far away, being on opposite ends of the house and on different floors, but it’s the only option we have. We can’t change the layout of our house, and there are no other rooms. We could move, but that feels kind of fast.
If we get to the point of her sharing a bed with us, I guess we won’t have to worry about it. She’ll be right there with us. I hope we get there. Ultimately it’s her decision to make, but I’m sure it’s what I want.
When it’s time to go, we double check the house is locked up tight before getting into Pierce’s car. We never use mine. It just sits in the garage. Not even sure why I have it.
“I’m going to take tomorrow off. You can go in and deal with Mendes,” I say once we’re on the road.
