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I shook my head. “You are in a completely different department from me. Archelogy is not the same as history and philosophy. Sure, they’re related, and there is certainly a good deal of history in your field, but you go into the field. I do not.”

Calum laughed. “I’ll have to work on you. I’ll get you out on a dig yet.”

I just shook my head. I could certainly see me and Calum becoming friends, and that was a bit foreign to me because I’d simply not been in one place long enough to have them, nor was I willing to risk the twins’ lives. Add in that we both had fae mates, yeah, I could see our families spending time together.

“Come on. I’ll show you your office, and then we’ll head on back. There’s a place we can grab a quick bite to eat before the drive back, and it’ll be good for you to know where the best food places are.”

I nodded. He wasn’t wrong. I would be spending some time here every month. I was going to have to figure out how to get out of my in-person office hours once Beau gave birth. At least at first. With Phineas being pregnant again, I couldn’t ask him or Phineas to help out. Knox and Philip had their hands full with their twins, and beyond that, we were really out of immediate family. Evan was an enforcer, and from what little I’d associated with him, he didn’t appear to be too fond of me. Not that it mattered too much. I was in love with Beau, and if his brother didn’t care for me, that didn’t change the fact that Beau and I were mates. But what would I do when it came time for Beau to give birth? Sure, I was only required to be here one, maybe two days a month, but the thought of leaving my mate alone with our newborn right after he’d given birth didn’t sit right with me.

“You look as if you’re warring with your own thoughts.”

“A bit,” I told him. We’d stopped in front of a new office, and I was surprised to see my name on the door: Dr. Roman Nelson—History & Philosophy. I reached out and touched the plate. It was a bit surreal, and if I was honest, I was gobsmacked that any of this was happening. I knew that without the help of Master Edison, and certainly Callum, I wouldn’t be here, and I’d probably be miserably teaching at the local college.

“You all right?”

I nodded. “Yeah. It’s just…surreal. I never thought I’d actually be in this position again. I was working on it when my father called all those years ago. I left everything to take the twins. I taught here and there online when I could, but for the most part, it was other jobs that I was able to do in between feedings and diaper changes. Things got a bit better when the twins were a bit older, but we moved so much I wasn’t ever able to keep up with anything until we finally settled here.”

It had been a complete fluke that I knew about the council to begin with. I had been searching for something completelydifferent when I’d come across the posting that the council was looking to fill certain positions. Store manager wasn’t exactly my area of expertise, but I could do it and did. It offered not only a stable income for a change but also somewhere secure for the twins. Never did I expect it would change our lives as much as it had.

“Do you want to see the inside?”

I nodded as I looked down at the envelope. I knew the key was inside, and when I tipped it upside down, it slid out and into Calum’s hands. He handed me the key, and after I took a deep breath, I opened the door.

Inside looked a lot like Calum’s office when it came to furniture. There was a desk with a comfortable-looking chair, several bookshelves, a shorter table that sat under the window, but that was it. There were no books or artifacts, no personal touches. I would need to add those. I moved to the center of the room and shook my head. “My last office was a closet. I actually think it was literally a broom closet that they had converted. There was barely enough room for me to get to the side of my desk to get behind it to sit.”

Calum winced. “Yeah, I couldn’t have done that either.” He looked around. “You’ll need to get some things for your office, but what do you think?”

I could only shake my head. “I don’t think I have enough stuff for in here, but I can probably get a plant or two.”

Calum snorted, but it quickly turned to laughter. He patted me on the shoulder before he pulled toward the door. “I guess you and Beau need to check out the council’s store and see what you can find.”

“Probably.”

I locked the door, and then we were on our way. I realized that my office was only three doors down from Calum’s, which would explain why it hadn’t taken long to get to it.

“Do you like sandwiches? Steak is a given, but I was thinking something a bit quicker for lunch.”

I shook my head again. I had been doing that a lot lately. “I’m open to anything. Beau is at the bakery until five, so there’s not a huge rush for me to get back to him. But I understand you want to get back to Asher and Isla.”

“I do, but they’re with my dad. Isla is getting spoiled, and Asher is relaxing.”

That must be nice. “I’m really open to whatever. And if you want to hurry back to them, I’m good with finding something on my own.”

“Nope. We’re going out to lunch, and I know just the place.”

That settled that, and I was left to follow Calum out of the building and then back to the faculty parking lot. It had been an interesting day, and I had to wonder what else it had in store for me.

Chapter 18

Beau

“Ican’t believe you’re not carrying twins,” Lewis said. We were in the bakery kitchen, working on refilling the trays for the display cases. It didn’t seem to matter how much we “baked”; we always ran out. I didn’t think shifter enforcers could have such sweet teeth, but apparently, they did. But at Lewis’s mention of my stomach, I smiled as I looked down at it. He wasn’t wrong. I didn’t have just a tiny bump; I looked ready to give birth. Well, in this shirt, at least. I needed to just give in and wear larger shirts.

I’d been concerned about how quickly I’d “popped,” but when I’d asked Dr. King about it, he’d reassured me it was simply because I was so slender before becoming pregnant that my baby didn’t have anywhere to grow but outward. Add in that I was mated to an alpha who was an entire foot taller than I was, yeah, we were probably going to have a larger baby. Especially since we were having a little tiger shifter.

I smiled as I rubbed my hand on my rounded stomach. I was definitely too pregnant to go out in town off the mountain, but it was completely safe for me to go anywhere while here on the mountain.

“Hey, Beau, your brother is here,” Sean said as he poked his head through the door. I couldn’t help but smile and hurry around the counter. Evan and I were good. We weren’t where we used to be, but we were getting there. We had talked a few times, and he’d apologized, again, about how he’d treated me when I’d found Roman.