At pickup, the deputy’s face is polite but thin. “We had a call about a woman around the ranch,” he says.
I answer like I do everything now: clean, steady, prepared. I hand him the note Ethan left—the rules. “I’m working mornings.”
He reads it, then meets my eyes. “You sure you don’t want the school to call someone else? A relative?”
I tighten my grip on Jamie’s backpack. “No.”
Back at the ranch, Ethan watches from where he stands by the tractor, hands buried in his pockets. He moves like he’s trying to find the right distance between protecting and controlling. I wash the dishes with my mind half on the patched knee and half on how he watches my hands. His presence is a prickle—irritating and necessary. I refuse to let it unmake me.
Later, Miguel corners me by the barn. “You don’t belong in pack backyards,” he says. His voice is soft—careful, like he doesn’t want to break anything—the way whispered threats are often worse than shouted ones.
“I belong where I can keep Jamie safe,” I answer. “I don’t want anyone’s sympathy. I want a job.”
“You know the rules.”
“So do you.” I turn away before anger floods my face. Rules cut deep when you’ve had to stitch your life together from small pieces.
Everything about the ranch smells like work and animals and the old, clean tang of leather and wet earth. It’s grounding. It holds me steady.
That night the clouds hang low and the wind picks up. We eat at the kitchen table under candlelight and a single stubborn bulb. Jamie hums and invents a song about a wolf and a truck and a big red boot. Ethan watches the way I braid the boy’s hair and smooth the blanket over his legs. He keeps his distance, but the tension in his shoulders tells me he’d move if I asked.
I don’t ask.
Later, a howl rises from the den again—tight, urgent. It isn’t ritual. It isn’t practice. It’s raw, a warning.
Ethan is up before I am. “Shelter the boy,” he says, like a command I should have obeyed hours ago.
I watch him move to the door, because when he moves the room seems to tilt. He steps out onto the porch and the wind takes the hem of his jacket. I follow, holding Jamie to my chest the way I always will. Even wrapped in a blanket he smells like oatmeal and soap and grief. My hands cradle the tiny curve of his neck and he breathes the cold air in.
Beyond the barn the hedgerow rustles. A light flashes—brief, a blink of metal catching rain—and then the world is full of small noises, as if everything alive is listening. My mouth tastes like iron.
“Stay,” Ethan says again, less command than entreaty.
I can obey. I could follow the rules, keep Jamie inside, be a good temporary hire. I have practiced staying small enough to be safe.
But the thought of the hedgerow shaking and Jamie’s blanket—his blanket, the one he refuses to sleep without—being out where someone can touch it makes something hot and fierce rise in my chest.
“No,” I say.
Ethan’s head snaps to me, surprised. The shock softens his face for a blink. “Nora?—”
“I’m not going to be told I can’t protect the kid I brought here.” My voice is a whisper, but the wind carries it. The pack hears because they’re wolves, and wolves do not like uselessness. They prefer action.
I take his hand—not to ask permission but to mark the space—solid, quick contact that says I’m with him even if I’m not following orders. For an instant his palm is warm and the pulse there beats under my fingertips like a promise that frightens me. Everything about him pushes toward a simpler answer: yes—give up; no—jeopardy.
I step toward the barn.
Miguel moves to intercept, then stops when our eyes meet. There’s a weighing there—judgment and something else like a shadow passing. He doesn’t step in.
Rain smears the world into watercolor. The barn door hangs half closed. My boots slip in mud. I lean forward, the boy safe against my chest, and see the blanket.
It’s draped over a hay bale, shredded where the twine held it—deep, angry slashes through thread and fabric. The little stitched bear sewn into the corner has a line across its eye.
For a heartbeat there is only my breath and the far-off slap of wind.
Then Jamie starts to cry.
My hands go to the blanket first, fingers searching the tear like it’s a wound I can close. The cut smells of diesel and something metallic. Someone was here. Someone wanted him to know they were watching.
