“Yeah. You’re off the hook for showing up this weekend. I would like to see you sometime soon, though. Even if just for a weekend.”
She relaxed. “I want that, too. But Tamsin’s due to have her baby in the next few weeks. And Nami. I want to be here for them, and we’ve got all the resettlements to deal with.”
“I get it. He’s really freaked out, isn’t he?”
“Ken? Uh, yeah, yathink?”
“Actually, I do want to talk to you about something.”
An unsettled feeling washed through her. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. More an FYI. I’ll be making frequent trips overseas throughout the next couple of months.”
“Searching for Faegan Lewis?”
“Yeah. Among other things.”
She wished they were face-to-face so she could figure out what he wasn’t telling her. “Why aren’t you sending other Primes?”
“Because I need to be there.”
She snagged the nearly empty bowl of cake batter from her desk and sat back in her chair. “You’re not letting me go, are you?” She shoved a spoonful in her mouth.
“What do you think?”
She tamped down on the rage washing through her. “This isn’t just because I’m pregnant, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s for several reasons. Dew, I’mnotrisking your safety. I’m also not risking a rogue shifter selling you out and you get captured. We don’t have concrete details about that situation. We don’t know what or who they know, or what intel they might have passed along already. We don’t even know who it is.”
“Or if it’s happening at all,” she said. “For all we know, it might be nothing more than rumors started by Faegan Lewis to do exactly this, keep us acting cautious and not trusting anyone so it gives him more room to escape.”
“You don’t think I’ve already considered that possibility? Unfortunately, there’s too much cumulative evidence to suggest it’s more than a rumor.”
“Why do I feel like you’re not telling me everything?”
He sighed. “Because I’m not, okay? You don’t need to know everything. If you need to know it, you’ll know it. For now, it’s something I’m dealing with. If it was information you needed to do your job right now I would tell you. There are plenty of items that I never tell you about. Or do you want me to start running every expense item and tax return past you, too?”
“Okay, fine,” she muttered. “You don’t have to get testy with me.”
“Igetit, Dew, okay? You feel vulnerable and like you’re being sidelined. And it doesn’t help that your mate is worried. But I promise you, as your big brother and as Pack Alpha, Iknowhow tough you are. I wouldn’t have named you Head Enforcer if I didn’t have confidence in you. You wouldn’t still be Head Enforcer and head of the expanded pack council if I didn’t have confidence in you. So stop trying to second-guess and catastrophize everything, huh? Jumping to conclusions isn’t an Olympic sport. Although if it were you could win gold.”
That finally made her laugh. “Fine.”
“Now, we good?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Dewi hesitated, then plunged forward. “This is going to sound like an off-the-wall question,” she started, “but have you decided on baby names yet?”
“Nice tangent.” Peyton chuckled, and even with her eyes closed and him on the other side of a phone connection literally on the opposite end of the country, Dewi knew he was smiling that big-brother smile he reserved only for her. “Not yet. Why?”
“Because I’m still trying to decide and I don’t want to name my baby the same thing you are.” She already knew what Trent and Asia had settled on for their little girl.
“Why? What were you thinking?”
“I can’t decide. But I’m torn between Louisa and Lyssa.”
He went quiet for a moment. “If you want to name her Louisa, I think that’d be beautiful. Who’s Lyssa?”
“Ken’s mom.”
