The Things We Water

“Nuh-uh, park your dump truck over there. I don’t want to catch your cooties,” I told Sienna later that evening when she’d finally wandered into the kitchen for dinner.

Sienna’s reply was a whine, still looking pale and weak, a very clear indicator of the condition she had been in. In all the years we’d been friends, I couldn’t remember her ever being sick. I didn’t think I’d ever heard her cough. And the more I’d thought about it, the more I was convinced she and Matti had contracted some terrible bacteria that would probably put anyone without incredible magical DNA in the hospital, if not worse. I’d seen Matti eat some things when we’d been kids that made the kinds of “organic matter” Duncan put into his mouth seem almost Michelin rated.

Because of that, I’d called the convenience store where I was sure the contaminated food had been from and warned them they might have a death trap on their hands.

And since I didn’t want to risk her hacking germs into my eyeballs on the 1 percent chance whatever they had was contagious, I pointed at the seat two down from mine. A little distance was better than no distance, I figured. But if she tried to touch Duncan, I’d tackle her.

My best friend winced as she took the stool. We were the only two people in the kitchen at that point. I’d checked the calendar in the pantry, and Franklin’s name and meal had been signed into the slot, so I assumed I would sous chef for him and keep learning where ingredients were and how they liked to do things. We were immersing ourselves.

The sooner we started, the better.

Based on how this afternoon had gone, Duncan was already doing a spectacular job at it. He had been so happy when I’d gone to the nursery to check on him. His teacher had let me stay after she’d spotted me at the window. He had jumped on me, sending me “Love, love, love,”even as he’d played with the other children, like he was singing it. His puppy smile had been radiant. The teacher had said he’d done great. All signs pointed at him having a good time.

I’d tried to convince myself that it was better this way. If he’d pitched a fit and had been crying, climbing on me, begging me not to leave him with those puppy eyes, it would have been so hard. This immediate independence and confidence was better.

Sure.

My little selfish heart just needed to come around.

Now, the black ball of fur was so exhausted he was curled under my stool, passed out from a long day of interacting in a new environment with new people. He was going to have to adjust to a new sleep schedule from now on.

“My butt is sore.” Sienna winced as she propped her legs on the rung of the stool. “I didn’t want to waste the day not spending time with you. This sucks.”

I snickered as she planted an elbow on the counter. “I know, and I hope you and your butt feel better.”

“Matti says he now understands why I’ve never wanted to try a-n-a-l,” she whispered.

We had already gone over how Duncan didn’t know his alphabet yet—at least I hadn’t taught it to him, and he didn’t watch Sesame Street, so I figured? More like hoped. “But maybe now would be the time to do it since all those muscles are blown out,” I told her, and she groaned.

“No. Never. He’s not even allowed to look at it ever again.”

I laughed, and she smiled a little. “Where is he anyway? He’s still really sick?”

“Uh-huh. I told him to fast, but he didn’t listen and ate more of your jerky a few hours ago, and now he’s paying for it.”

We both scrunched up our faces and said, “Dumb,” at the same time, making us burst into giggles.

“How was your day?” she asked, misery etched all over her features. “I feel so bad we left you with all these strangers.”

“You should.” I lifted a shoulder. “First off, someone—” I pointed toward the floor where Duncan was. “—forgot I existed. Did you know the preschool here is mandatory for the kids? Anyway, I dropped him off, and I was trying so hard not to c-r-y, and he ran in there like his butt was on fire. Real fire, I mean.”

Sienna’s laugh was as loud as it could be considering I was pretty sure she might have pulled some ab muscles on the toilet seat today.

“I’m o-f-f-e-n-d-e-d and a little h-u-r-t, but I’m really, really glad he seems to be doing well.” I was. Deep down. I gestured with my chin toward the cutest donut on the planet by my feet. “See how tired he is?”

We looked down. The tip of his tongue was hanging out of his mouth. I was pretty sure I heard a snore. So freaking adorable. Traitor and all.

I wasn’t going to get upset, so I changed the subject. “Anyway, all you missed out on was a tour of the ranch.”

She made a circle with her hand like she wanted me to rewind. “Who gave you a tour?”

“Henri.”

“Who else went?”

“Just us.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Huh.”

“What?”

Her shrug was pretty dang dainty. “Just you two. Huh. Hmm.” She slumped even more across the counter, but her expression stayed attentive. “He doesn’t have time to text Matti back, but he has time to give you a tour of this place.”

“Franklin, the elder, pawned me off on him. I’m pretty sure he—Henri—only wanted me to be sure I understood that there’s a lot of work that goes into the upkeep and that they expect me to help,” I told her. “We had a chitchat over me moving here after that crap he threw out about the three months, and he said it was fine, but….”

But maybe that was in character with the way he operated, but maybe he was also trying to be diplomatic when he would rather me leave regardless of what he’d said.

I doubted it. Nothing about the way he spoke or acted, so far, gave me the impression he spent too much time screening his words or decisions. Just his emotions. He still seemed to be the same honorable Henri who had been so reluctantly chivalrous when I’d been a kid. Like if he’d catch me busting my ass, he’d lead me back into Matti’s house and hand me a first aid kit. Or if Matti and I got caught playing too rough, he had never hesitated to remind him to be gentler. I’d had a crush on him for a reason. Once I’d discovered liking boys, he’d been one of my earliest victims.

He just… was a decent man. Maybe a good man now, was my guess. I figured I’d find out the more time we spent together. Talking to each other hadn’t been a struggle so far. He’d called me Cricket multiple times. It was nice that he’d remembered.

On the way back from the bigfoot—I meant Spencer the sasquatch, who I still needed to tell her about—Henri had told me more about the situation with the children who lived on the ranch. How when they reached a certain age and were in control enough of their magic, they attended a normal school in the closest town, but not all of them did. Half the teenagers preferred to study on the property. For every question I’d shot at him, he’d had an answer. A good one.

He knew everything about this place.

And he’d told me a few other things that caught my attention.

There was a five-thousand-acre wildlife preserve located on the ranch.

Two weeks a year, some of the residents worked as tour guides for exclusive—he meant expensive—raft fishing tours through a section of a river on the opposite side of the property.

One of the mountains you could see from certain spots on the ranch was called Blackrock Mountain.

When we’d made it back to the building that stored the vehicles, all he’d said was, “Someone else will give you more details.” Then he’d headed straight back to the clubhouse without another word, leaving me there outside.

Henri wasn’t the first person to ditch me without a second glance, and he wasn’t going to be the last. At least Duncan had given me kisses every time he’d run by while I’d spent the rest of the day in the nursery with the very nice teacher named Maggie, who had thanked me no less than ten times for helping out since I had no idea what else to do with myself. Even if that “help” had mainly consisted of me helping her pass out supplies for projects, tie shoelaces that somehow miraculously were constantly getting unraveled, and then playing board games with the older kids—who had been whispering about Shiloh and Pascal’s shenanigans the day before—who were out of school for the summer, still.

I liked all the kids. They were well-mannered, a little mischievous, kind, and just good kids.

Even Agnes, who had snarled at me when I’d offered to wipe her face after she’d eaten dehydrated chicken necks for a snack.

And now we were here, in the kitchen, just the three of us. Agnes had left the nursery with a puppy a little older than her.

“It just seems a little convenient to me that he has time.” Sienna tried to give me a smile that mostly made her look drunk since she wasn’t feeling well. She dropped her voice. “He doesn’t make you feel awkward?”

Awkward? “No. Why?” I whispered back.

She dropped her voice even more, to the point where I had to read her lips because her volume was nonexistent. “Because of the vibes he gives off. The way he talks. He feels like… so much, you know what I mean?”

Hmm. I guess I could see it. Everything about him seemed bigger, size-wise and personality-wise, than any other person I’d ever met. There was something imposing about him. Like if there was a werewolf I needed to roll over and show my belly to, he was the only one that would make me. “The way he was talking to someone today, I can see that. But I’m not like you guys, so it doesn’t hit me as hard. I can still picture him as a teenager in my head, with his hoodie always pulled up, trying to be quiet and mysterious. Maybe that’s it?”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “And he isn’t a warm person. Not like Matti at all.”

I thought about the way he’d made the kids’ breakfast so patiently and thoughtfully. But I barely knew him, and really, the more I argued about the goodness in him, the more Sienna might see something that wasn’t there. He was doing his duty. In his ridiculous body. That was all.

“Who knows why people are the way they are and do the things they do. I only hope he’s nice to Duncan and decent with me.”

“He better be.” She fisted her hand in the air between us.

I laughed at the same time as she did the same. “Hopefully other people here like me. So far, I’ve got most of the kids in the bag. I met some family members today who were friendly….” They had all been werewolves, except for Shiloh’s mother. The ogre child had left with a werewolf pup and her parents. “I’ll settle for no one calling me hurtful names.” I crossed my fingers.

Like Spencer.

And there went the guilt again.

“They better f-ing not,” she threatened in that way she always had when someone had been rude in her presence. People could be mean to her, but heaven forbid anyone hurt one of her loved ones’ feelings. It was the werewolf in her. “You don’t need to win anyone over. Someone having you in their life is a gift they should be grateful for.”

I started to reach over to touch her, but I remembered she was sick and stopped with my hand halfway to her. “Have I told you today that I love you, Germs?” I asked, dropping my hand.noveldrama

“You don’t need to. I know.” She smiled, and I tucked her love into my heart where it belonged.

“Before I forget,guess what I saw?” I didn’t wait for her to answer. “A sasquatch!”

She sucked in a breath just like I’d expected. “You saw one?”

“I did more than see it. We pissed each other off, and I told him he had dry hair⁠—”

“Nina!” she shrieked with a hoarse laugh, instantly regretting it from the way she broke off into a whimper, her palm going for her stomach.

“He was ready to end me. He threw a log at me, and I told him he had split ends, and now I feel bad because Henri said he’s mean but he’s also a lonely sasquatch.”

“He threw a log at you?”

She sounded so concerned. “Henri threw one back at him. It was pretty epic,” I explained, miming the movement of him treating the log like a javelin. “He made me promise to stay out of the way when we got to the area where we found him, but I didn’t listen.”

“Good,” she grumbled, not seeming all that convinced.

Maybe I hadn’t gotten lucky in a lot of ways I wish I would’ve been, but in all the ones that mattered, I’d won the lottery. I’d been raised by wonderful parents. I had two friends who loved me so much, I was their second favorite person after each other. And I had a little guy that might trade me for a chicken tender basket if he was hungry enough, but later on, he’d regret it. But for the first time in a couple months, I wasn’t so concerned about the uncertainties of the future.

I told Sienna all about Spencer the sasquatch, and I gave her a hug anyway when we started cracking up over other dumb stuff we’d done that the incident reminded us of.

If I was going to get diarrhea, I might as well get it from one of my favorite people in the world, especially when our time together was running out.

“Shh,” I whispered to Duncan at five minutes after midnight. The halls were as quiet as they’d been the day before, and I really didn’t want to wake up anyone, even if the only person I’d met who lived on the first floor was Franklin.

I figured the elder needed his sleep. When he’d come into the kitchen halfway in the middle of Sienna reminding me about the time we had gotten into an argument with a neighbor at our apartment complex over his inability to park in a single spot, Franklin had already been yawning. I’d gladly helped him make five pounds of chicken while he listened to Sienna talking about issues within her family, which had taken up the whole dinner, and he’d even gotten in on the boyfriend troubles her sister was going through. Agnes had eventually wandered in, going straight for the elder, then Duncan, and ignoring the rest of us.

Dinner had given me the opportunity to study the elder, who I’d caught side-eyeing me more than once.

Did he suspect something about me?

I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t going to overthink it more than I needed to. It’d been one whole day, and it had been a pretty good one, all things considered. And now, the donut and I were going to wrap up the night with a little game of tag, just the two of⁠—

“Oh my fuuu—” I screeched, bending down before I could even think about what I was doing and scooping Duncan up into my arms, ready to take off running back up the stairs and lock us in our room.

“You said a bad word,” the pale-haired girl standing in the hallway—the pitch-black hallway in the middle of the night—said.

For a second, I’d really thought the house was haunted by Victorian-era children, but I realized the little girl wasn’t a ghost because her body wasn’t translucent. Thank you, good night vision.

Duncan, unlike me and my instincts, wagged, not even slightly alarmed.

Why was he…? Oh. Oh. “Agnes?” I whispered.

“What are you doing?” she answered in the exact kind of voice I would’ve imagined coming out of her mouth. Unimpressed, flat, high in the way girls that age were capable. The most surprising thing of all was that she had unicorn pajamas on. I would’ve expected her to have Wednesday Addams’s pajamas from the expert level side-eye she was capable of in her mini wolf form.

She was so cute in the way a jellyfish was. You could look, but maybe you should second-guess touching it.

Duncan’s tail wagged some more against my side, and I set him down. He trotted over to his new friend. She gave him an affectionate pet, whispering something so quiet I couldn’t hear. Just as quickly as he greeted her, he came back, pouncing on my feet before sticking his butt in the air, paws stretched out ahead of him.

God, he was so cute. I lived in a constant state of wanting to bear hug him. His ears grazed the floor, and I was going to need to give them a wipe. When he’d been really young, I’d used a hair tie to hold them back when he ate.

“I didn’t recognize you.” I gave her a little smile. “Are you okay? Can’t sleep?”

Agnes shook her head, so I was going to take it that she was fine but couldn’t wind down. She was too young to be filled with worries, but there wasn’t much I could do about that. What I could do instead was benicer to her.

Even if she seemed like a snitch and she didn’t seem to like me.

But there was a reason for her distrust, I just didn’t know what it was yet.

I hesitated for a second, watching her just standing there, silently. “Where do you sleep?” I tried.

She lifted her arm and pointed at the door next to her.

I had to take advantage of her in her human form. “Are you by yourself all night?”

“No. Liddie and Sera take turns sleeping with me.”

I didn’t know either of those people. “In the same room?”

“Yeah.” She was so still, standing there. “They snore. They only wake up if you shake them hard.”

“I see.” That made me feel better, and it made a hell of a lot more sense than a child sleeping by herself all night, magical or not. “So one of them is in the room right now?”

She nodded, her eyes narrowing. “Where are you going?”

Duncan pawed at my feet, telling me to hurry up. “We’re going outside. I would invite you, but I think everyone is asleep, and I don’t know where Henri is.” Or anyone other than Franklin. “I’m scared to take you, and then we all get in trouble for not asking permission.” I didn’t think waking up a stranger in the middle of the night was a great idea either; Liddie and Sera probably wouldn’t appreciate it.

Wasn’t she grounded anyway?

The pale blonde didn’t say a word, and dang it, that made me feel bad. But I knew what it would look like to take a child that wasn’t mine out of their home in the middle of the night. How would I feel if someone did that to Duncan without my permission?

But even being aware of how complicated the situation was, and that I was doing the right thing, didn’t make me feel less crappy.

“I’ll try and talk to someone tomorrow about it. Should you be in bed? Duncan took a long nap earlier, and I don’t need a lot of sleep….” Oh, this child hadn’t been my fan before, and she still wasn’t. I could sense it, even though her expression didn’t change. “I’m sorry, Agnes. I’ll ask them about you coming out to do things with us—if we do anything—tomorrow. All right?”

The too-serious little girl stood there like the young ghost I’d initially thought she was.

Duncan pawed at me again, his front teeth biting my shoelaces and tugging at them. There wasn’t much more I could do now. “We’ll see you in the morning. Sleep good.” How could I feel this bad twice in a single day? I was on a roll.

“Night, Duncan,” the little girl called out.

Ouch. Well, I couldn’t blame her, but I would make it a priority to talk to someone about including her in activities I did with the donut, if she wanted, especially if she didn’t have anyone else.

Slightly deflated—at least I was—we turned and headed down the hall, and I waited until we’d made it to the front doors to finally peek back. Agnes was gone. That didn’t necessarily make me feel better, but I had an excited puppy who I could do whatever I wanted with, and I’d make it up to her if I could. In the meantime….

I pulled the ball I’d stuffed into my fanny pack out when we were far enough away from the house and tossed it underhanded. Duncan took off like a rocket after it, his tail bright in the shadows. He picked up the ball, glanced at me… and then he took off toward the trees.

“Dang it, Duncan!” I laughed, knowing I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help it.

He did circles around a few trees, still holding the ball, and slowed down to let me catch him. When I did, I took the ball and tossed it again. Pure delight came off him as he went after it, saying, “Yes,” over and over again. That time, he brought it back, and I pretended to throw it, then took off running the other way instead.

“C’mon, slowpoke,” I egged him on, going around a trunk. He pounced on my heel and did a quick 180 turn so I could chase him. I did, or at least I tried. He was fast and only getting faster as he grew. “I’m gonna getcha!”

I wasn’t, but we could pretend.

Those short legs pumped even faster, going around a pine with wide lower branches before he dove into them as a shortcut.

Something caught my foot, making me lose my balance, and I landed on my knees with a “shit!” and an “ow!”

“You all right?”

Snapping my head up as I brushed off my knees—noticing my unraveled shoelace as the culprit—I didn’t know how I’d missed the figure coming from the direction of the parking lot. I hadn’t sensed him at all. There wasn’t a single outdoor light on, but every detail of the dark uniform covering his body was obvious. It took everything in me not to make a peep, not to make a face in reaction to the well-built man who had poured himself into black pants and a short-sleeved black polo that I knew didn’t have enough stretch in the material to have any business fitting him that well.

He looked like the kind of law enforcement a woman might get arrested for on purpose.

Was I going into heat? Was I capable of that? Because….

I had never in my life had a thing for a guy in a uniform, other than a football one, but I was really, really reconsidering it.

I’d always found him attractive. First, he’d been cute. Then I’d thought he was hot. Now? He was handsome.

Too handsome.

Stop it, Nina.

“I’ll live,” I called out, retying my shoelace real quick, then tucking my legs under me and standing. He was the only one around, so I had that working for my pride. “Hi, Fluff.”

A flash of blue stopped in place, Duncan’s tail straight up in the air. He wasn’t growling. That was good.

“Hey.” Henri kneeled and held out his hand. “Hi, Duncan.”

The puppy didn’t move any closer, but he craned his neck, smelling his fingers from a distance. Henri’s smile was visible through the shadows. Nothing could hide in them from me.

“You’re a handsome boy. A good boy, huh,” he murmured to my donut, keeping his hand extended as a little nose twitched. “I made your breakfast this morning, remember that?”

I watched them.

“We need to take you to stretch your legs,” Henri kept talking to him in a low, calming voice. That small, pleased smile remaining on his features despite the fact Duncan hadn’t inched any closer to him. “How’s he done with Matti on runs?”

I crossed my arms over my chest and watched as Duncan’s tail lowered just a little bit, like a hair, but a minor improvement was still an improvement. “We haven’t gone anywhere together where Matti or Sienna felt safe enough to be in bodies that they could run freely.”

“Why’s that?” he asked. Henri stayed focused on my puppy, who was doing the same thing right back. “He’s been with you for two years, hasn’t he?”

“Yeah, but we don’t see each other that often. We go a couple months between visits. Your cousin travels a lot, Sienna’s busy with work, and I’m not usually close enough to Chicago to drop by easily.”

He made a face.

What was that expression for? I wondered. What was wrong with that? It wasn’t like he saw them that frequently either.

Whatever had come to mind wasn’t that important though from the way he moved the conversation along. “If you’re comfortable with it, Randall and I can take him out on one of my days off. We can bring Agnes for company since they seem to get along. Nothing long or strenuous. Just to let him run a bit.”

I didn’t have to think about it. “Sure.”

Those orangey-brown irises met mine.

Why did he look surprised?

“What? Matti told me I could trust you, and if I can’t, then there’s no point in being here. And we used to know each other. You were always polite to me, Fluffy. Sometimes you were even very nice,” I teased him.

His eyes moved toward Dunky-Dunk, and I saw his mouth stretch into a smile as he gave my boy a long, assessing look, which he got right back from someone a fraction of his size. Duncan was half an angel, but his side-eye game was strong. He was something else. “That’s a good point.”

“He did really good at the nursery today.”

“Good job, pup,” Henri encouraged him, using a voice gentler than any other one I’d ever heard from him before.

I had to shove every little bit of my attraction down.

I fidgeted. “Hey, about Agnes… she caught us sneaking out, but I didn’t want anyone to think I was kidnapping her. No one has said anything about her parents….” I scratched my throat. “Is she yours?” They didn’t look anything alike, but you never knew. Sure, Henri didn’t have a mate, but….

That got me his attention. “Everyone here is mine.”

The hardest part of living here was going to be learning how to suppress my emotions, I decided right then and there.

Somehow, I kept my face even, chained whatever sound was in my throat in place, and said the only thing I could. “Hmm.”

But that wasn’t an answer exactly.

His gaze flicked to me before going back to my donut just as fast. “She’s bonded the most to me and Franklin, but we all take care of her. Every child here considers every elder extended grandparents, Agnes especially. In the same way that every adult is a guardian to every child,” he explained. “You’re included in that now. Their safety and well-being are the responsibility of everyone, not just a biological family member.”

That made my chest feel a little funny, and my eyes feel even funnier. The situation was what I’d been expecting. What I’d hoped for. “That’s nice.” I heard the hitch in my voice that got curious amber irises back on me. “Then, you’re saying I can take her out to play at night, if she’s awake, and no one is going to try and bite my head off?”

His forehead furrowed. “No one here is going to hurt you, Nina.”

Trying to keep from making faces was a whole lot harder than I ever would have imagined, especially when he was looking right at me—and in that short-sleeved, collared shirt that showed off tan biceps, no less.

Henri kept going. “Either of you. And yeah, you can take her out if you want.”

“I do,” I answered. “She’s not grounded then?”

“She is, but….” He gave me a long look that had my eyebrows shooting up my forehead.

“But? Are you breaking the rules?” I whispered in delight.

Who was this man?

His facial expression didn’t change, and I ate it up even more. “If you don’t tell, I won’t either. She’s a good kid, and it was Pascal’s idea. She told me she tried to get them to come back, and I believe her.”

My mouth formed a little O in even more surprise, and one side of his mouth hitched up for a split second before he blinked and it was gone.

“Do you need to give me a permission slip in case anyone asks?”

The man, who kept surprising me, looked around. Literally, over both of those broad shoulders. “Are there more people out here right now that are gonna worry about it?”

I really didn’t know who he was, not the same man-boy I’d known, but I wanted to get to know him. This part of him made me smile, not just because it was unexpected but because… I liked it. A lot.

I snorted. “Just because I don’t see them or smell them, doesn’t mean they aren’t out here. You probably have people patrolling at all times, don’t you?”

He made a gesture that said I wasn’t wrong. “How are your friends?

“Sienna felt better enough that she came down and ate a little bit of plain chicken for dinner, and Matti was still upstairs claiming he’s on his death bed. It’s the first time either of them has ever had food poisoning.”

That got his attention. “What’d they eat?” He hadn’t asked about it after we’d paid them a visit. He’d seemed so distracted to me. “When we checked on them earlier, I thought they’d caught something viral. There’s a few illnesses that do get us sick.”

“Hot dogs from a gas station.”

His forehead furrowed. “Why the hell would they eat that?”

I laughed. “That’s what I said!”

Henri shook his head in disgust. “You remember the name of the gas station?”

Even more than a fit body, I had a thing for a good man.

I was in trouble.

But I shouldn’t have a thing for this good man. It had just been too long since the last time I’d talked to one, I guess, that it felt so new. So rewarding. My last boyfriend had been BD—before Duncan. Before my RV life, even. My last boyfriend had been when I’d lived in Santa Fe.

It had been a while.

Anyway, I wasn’t convinced this particular good man liked me as a person all that much to begin with. Tolerated? I could see that. Could be sarcastic with and maybe joke a little with? Yes, but I was also aware I gave those vibes off to most people, at least some part of me did. I was a weird contradiction in repelling some folks and strongly attracting others.

And there wasn’t going to be a point in harboring a little crush on an attractive man if I was going to have to devote myself to finding someone here to marry me so I could stay. That was the most important thing I had to focus on. I needed to find options. Whoever I ended up with, we were going to make it work, come hell or high water.

Because, if it was a werewolf, they stayed with their mates. A werewolf’s dedication to their partner was unparalleled. In sickness and in health, through sunny skies and tornadoes, they stayed together. And I liked that, I always had. But there was no point in thinking about that in front of Henri, even if a werewolf was my best shot since most of them seemed to like me just fine.

But some part of my brain wondered again about Henri being a potential mate. The other question was, did I talk to Matti about it or did I keep the idea to myself? He had a big mouth, and I wasn’t sure how he’d react.

“I do remember. I called and spoke to the manager earlier, but I’ll write down the number for you in the morning if you want,” I told him.

He nodded, then asked, “Do I need to check on them?”

“I don’t think so. Sienna and I won’t let Matti die. I don’t want him haunting me for the next sixty years.”

His eyes crinkled at the corners, there one second and gone the next. “All right,” he replied a little more softly than he had before.

“What?” I asked, tipping my chin up at him.

It took him so long to answer, I was half expecting him not to. But he did. “You don’t look like the Cricket I remember or smell like her. Then you laugh or say something cute, and I know it’s you.” Henri met my eyes, and I watched his nostrils flare again for the briefest moment before he looked away.

I thought about my bracelet again and how he still hadn’t given it back, but I didn’t want to ask. If this was what they needed from me—to not mask myself for the time being—I could do it.

I’d just need to stay away from Spencer.

“Thanks, Henri.” He wouldn’t say something like that if he hated having me here. “I need to ask you something since I forgot to ask Franklin earlier.”

“What’s going on?”

“I have to start working again soon. How do I fit in helping out around here? How do I know what you need help with? If there’s a calendar for volunteering, I haven’t seen one.”

That got his interest. “What do you do?”

“I work remotely in customer service. I just need the internet. It’s what I’ve done for years, since satellite internet got so good.” I had zero plans of selling my trailer until the three months were up. Even after that, I might still not. What if one day Duncan could be out in public again? Maybe we could travel a little, and my trailer was paid off; the only monthly payment I had for it was insurance.

“Who do you work for?”

I told him the name of the major online pet company. “It’s full-time, and scheduling is really flexible.” I liked it, and the way the company was run was very customer-focused, so I rarely had to piss people off telling them “no.” Plus, I got a discount for Duncan’s toys, even though his favorite method of entertainment was animal carcasses, followed closely by any old stick.

“Most of us work away from the ranch. All that’s expected is that you help out when you can. Download the app. It’s how we communicate with everyone. There’s a calendar, a forum, and a sign-up list…”

There was an app? They had thought of everything here. I didn’t know how it was possible for my awe to grow every day, but it did.

“…with different jobs and tasks that you can sign up for,” he finished explaining.

Tasks. I didn’t know what that meant yet, but I’d look. “Sounds good,” I said. “Is it okay if I work in that room where I met the elders? I have satellite internet, but if I can avoid running my generator, I try to.”

He got a funny look on his face. “Yes.” The muscle in his cheek flexed. “You live here now. The bedrooms and family homes are the only places that aren’t free space for everyone.”

“That was what I’d figured, but I wanted to make sure.”

“For tax purposes, there’s an address in the town you can use as your place of residence. I’ll get it for you.”

“Okay. Thanks.” I smiled at him.

Those orange-brown irises lingered on me. On my face. The moonlight was hitting his features in a way that brought to life all those stunning angles and the beautiful color of his skin, all creamy golden.

His eyes flicked toward Duncan suddenly.

Stop checking out Henri.

We stood there silently for a minute, Duncan the center of attention as he kept on trying to sniff Henri from where he was. After a moment, my puppy ran for my legs, twining his way through them before sitting right on top of my feet. He leaned the side of his head against my knee.

“You’re a good boy protecting your mom,” Henri stated with a nod at my donut. “I need to get to bed.” The werewolf man drew his palm down his face before sighing. “There are people out here. Nothing would dare come this close, but if you need anything, yell as loud as you can.”

I smiled again. “I will. Sleep good,” I wished him.

He looked at me for a second, throat bobbing before nodding. “’Night, Duncan,” he called out before heading toward the house.

I didn’t let myself watch him just in case he happened to turn around. He definitely didn’t need to see me checking out his butt in those black tactical pants. I was already hoping he hadn’t caught on to my attraction when we’d been out in the woods earlier. Instead, I bent down, poked Duncan in the side, said, “You’re it, Donut,” and took off running again.

Maybe another day, we’d invite Henri to play too.