We rose because the house had grown quiet and the rain had thickened. I walked her to the door of the guest room. Her coat brushed mine, a note in a song I hadn't allowed myself to remember. My pulse clicked at my throat.
She left to fold Jamie's blanket one last time. I lingered at the kitchen counter, listening to the rain. The pack slept like coals beneath ash.
A knock at the farmhouse door made me move—deliberate, hard. I thought it the wind at first, then the sound came again.
I opened the porch door with my shoulder. Night had tightened; there were no headlights down the lane, no movement beyond the yard. A sliver of paper had been nailed to the door with a thin, rusty nail.
Nora's footsteps behind me. Her hand found mine in the dark—small and certain. She bent and peeled the paper free.
Her voice broke when she read it aloud. "This town doesn’t need your kind. Stay gone—or we’ll make sure the social worker takes the child."
Cold rode the wind and stung. The paper trembled in my hand. The word we smelled like threat—like someone who'd decided the ranch was a problem. Like a town starting to notice us the way I'd tried to keep it from noticing.
I stepped back into the porch light, the paper between us. Somewhere in the dark a car idled and then pulled away, its lights swallowed by trees. For a long minute the only sound was rain and the wolf listening for a name.
"You're not leaving," I said. The promise landed like an iron bar in the quiet. It had been out there before the nail; now it had to be a shield.
Nora's fingers curled around the paper until it creased. Her thumb smoothed the words as if she could rub them away. She looked at me as if giving or asking permission—one or the other.
"I won't," she said.
Then headlights paused on the lane beyond the old oak. Two bright circles hung in the black, the engine ticking. Someone watched the ranch from the dark.
4
NORA HAYES
The principal’s fluorescent lights hum like a fly I can’t swat.
I stand in a hallway that smells of floor polish and paste, holding Jamie’s permission slip between fingers that won’t stop shaking. He’s been sucking his thumb all morning like it soothes a worry only he can hear. He trusts me to fix the world. I trust myself to keep him safe. Today the county wants to test both bets.
The social worker waits in a folding chair that has seen better months. Her blazer is conservative; her smile is thin and practiced. Her badge reads S. Calder—state rep. Her notepad says she’s been thorough enough for the county. Her phone says she’s been following up.
“You’re Nora Hayes?” she asks, tapping a name into her laptop with a precise finger. “You’re listed as Jamie’s temporary caregiver. We have a few standard questions.”
Standard. The word curls cold in my gut. Standard means boxes, forms, histories. Standard means official eyes that scrape at the edges until they find the center. It means an investigation that could pry Jamie away while the county polishes its paperwork.
I set the permission slip on the plastic school desk and fold my hands over it. “I’m his caregiver. I’m only here because he needed someone immediately. I’m on the paperwork trail. My references are—” My voice trembles, and I stop.
“She’s new,” Jamie says from the doorway. His words are small; the thumb stays in his mouth. He stands beside me like a flag that refuses to fall.
Calder’s smile thins. “We do this for his protection. There are guidelines about background checks and legal guardianship. There are questions about stability, and—” Her eyes flick to the boy. “We need to make sure this placement is in his best interest.”
I’ve rehearsed this thirty ways, but reality has sharper edges. I can talk records until midnight. The truth—papers are pending—sits heavy on my chest. I took Jamie in because the alternative was chaos. The county was slow; I was fast. Fast looks messy on a spreadsheet.
The hallway door bangs open.
He fills the frame like a shadow that learned to stand still. Ethan Cole smells of rain-soaked earth and something older and deeper. He moves with a presence that clears space without a word—no shouting, no performance, just an unambiguous shape. Calder’s eyes widen. Mine flare.
“Ms. Calder,” he says. His voice is steady. Not cozy; not syrupy. The sort that warns you not to test its limits.
“Mr. Cole.” Her mouth tightens. “This is a school?—”
“This is my boy’s school,” he says. The possessive drops like a fencepost. He doesn’t need to explain. People read alpha like headlines—by the set of his jaw, the square of his shoulders.
Pride twists hot and awkward in my chest. He’s come because of us. Because of Jamie. Because somehow my mess has bled into his borders.
He won’t let Calder finish. He won’t let me answer. He bends, meets Jamie’s height, gives him a look that says go on, boy. Then he looks at me. The air between us tightens like a drawn string. I smell him fully—pine resin, leather, rain-soaked fur—and my pulse answers in ways I refuse to catalog.
