Page 55 of His Reward
Through our bond, I felt a rush of excitement from Lucien, maybe even euphoria. He moved one hand to his belly and his expression turned dreamy for a moment. That was exactly the sort of peace I wanted to see from my omega, especially after everything he’d been through.
We decided not to tell anyone, but that lasted about five minutes, once we went downstairs.
“Wait,” Roscoe said as I settled in at my desk while Lucien set up shop at the side of the desk with his laptop, which had been retrieved on one of our trips back to his condo to check on Bea. “Didn’t Lucien go into heat yesterday?”
“He did,” I answered with a straight face.
“It’s been less than twenty-four hours,” Roscoe went on, crossing his arms.
Ernie climbed up the stairs to the loft to join us as he spoke. As soon as he saw us, he burst into a smile and said, “Hey, hey! You’ve bonded at last!”
Roscoe’s eyes went wide for a second before he narrowed them. Only other alphas and omegas who were bonded could see the bonds that surrounded other couples. Ernie had been bonded to his husband for over thirty years, but Roscoe was still unattached. “Really?” he asked. “That would explain things. You know what else would explain a heat that lasted less than twenty-four hours?”
“You’re pregnant?” Ernie asked Lucien with blunt excitement.
Lucien and I exchanged a look. We couldn’t keep straight faces and broke down into smiles and laughter. “Yes,” Lucien told them. “Pretty sure I am.”
“That’s great!” Ernie said, genuinely glad for us.
“Yeah, that’s great,” Roscoe said, not quite as enthusiastic. “That should offset the bad news.”
“What bad news?” I asked with a sinking feeling in my stomach that told me I already knew what it was.
“Engine Fifty-Five is on the list of units the city wants to cut and merge with another station to save money,” Roscoe said, crossing his arms in front of his broad chest with a frown. “They want to merge us with Isaac’s station.”
Knowing that blow was coming didn’t soften it at all. “Is there anything we can do?” I asked. I was ready to grab my phone and call Mayor Vincent if I had to.
“Not unless you can come up with a couple thousand dollars to make up for budget shortfalls,” Roscoe said. “And not just for muffins and soda.”
“Thousands?” Ernie snorted. “Try tens of thousands.”
“Why wouldn’t the city invest in the fire department?” Lucien asked, sitting forward in his seat. “You guys are one of the most important things the city does. You saved my life.” The way he looked at me as he said the last bit and my heart swelled to the point of bursting.
“Those city controller people only look at numbers and bank balances,” Ernie said with a growl. If we were outside, I was certain he would have spit on the sidewalk. “They don’t see the human-interest angle of anything.”
“Well, can we make them see it?” Lucien asked, glancing between all three of us. “Can we show them how important we are?”
I smiled over the way he referred to the firehouse as “we”, but that warmth didn’t last long. “It’s the same problem we’ve had all year,” I said. “We need to raise money. I thought we just needed to raise money for extras around here, but now it looks like whatever fundraiser we do needs to be a lifeline.”
“The Fire and Ice ball idea we had yesterday could do that,” Lucien said with surprising enthusiasm.
“How would a little ball raise enough money to save the station?” Roscoe asked.
“We wouldn’t make it little,” Lucien said, his excitement growing. “For starters, we could book it someplace beautiful and glamorous. I bet Kincade Slopes would love to host it, especially since their ski season is just about over, but the camping season hasn’t started yet.”
The naughty, heated pulse I felt from Lucien through our bond told me he had a few other thoughts about Kincade Slopes, too.
“And not to brag or anything,” Lucien went on, “but if I am able to call in some favors from my skating friends, and if they attend and participate in the bachelor auction we’d talked about, I bet you could get some really high-value donors attending.”
“Can we do that?” Ernie asked. “Can we do an event aimed at the hoity-toity crowd like that?”
“I don’t see why not,” I said. “The Barrington Police seem to have tapped into the millionaire crowd, especially after some of those operations to defeat mob influence a couple years ago.”
Ernie and Roscoe exchanged a look, like they hadn’t considered that. They came to some sort of decision, then faced us again.
“Alright,” Roscoe said. “It’s worth a try, at least.”
“I’ll call Mayor Vincent’s office to see if we can make a deal to keep Engine Fifty-Five open and independent if we come up with the money,” I said.
