“We’re cooperating,” he tells the social worker. “She’s been here two days. She’s competent. She’s not taking the child anywhere without documentation. If you have questions, you call me and we can handle them privately.”
It’s promise and barricade in one. Calder swallows and writes something in her laptop before closing it with a small, decisive snap.
“I’ll file a report,” she says. “That’s procedure. You’ll hear from my office. I have to?—”
“You will,” Ethan says, tone even and final. “But if anyone thinks removing a child based on a temporary placement is the right step here, they’ll be moving heaven and earth for the wrong reasons. Tell your supervisor to come meet Jamie first.”
It’s less intimidation than implication. I’ve watched him contain situations this way—make himself unavoidable. He knows how to make bureaucrats feel accountable. Calder closes her laptop like she’s suddenly holding something fragile.
She leaves and files the report. I watch her walk down the hall and feel two truths at once: she did her job, and that job could still unravel everything I’m holding together.
Outside, Ethan stays close enough that my skin pricks with every breeze. He offers a ride without asking. I consider saying no—a hundred small refusals I’ve learned—but I slide into the passenger seat and let his scent claim the small space between us.
“You didn’t have to—” I begin.
“Yes I did,” he says. “I’m not having some county person pry Jamie away while they decide who’s best on paper.”
“And you think you’ll convince them?” I ask.
He glances at me. His eyes are a softer gray than the storm sky. “I’ll make them think twice.”
He eases the truck like it’s an extension of his body and parks outside the diner. He comes around with a half-smile. “You okay to wait a minute? I need to make a call.”
I sit at the counter while Jamie digs into pancakes the size of saucers. I chase syrup from his chin with a napkin and feel domestic motions settle something inside me that has been rattled. The diner smells like coffee and grease and old booths—ordinary and safe and brutal in its ordinariness.
Ethan takes the booth opposite, cradling his phone like a weapon. When he speaks it’s low and quick. I can’t make out words, but his jaw works. A county-stamped envelope clipped to his belt catches my eye. Paperwork. The social worker filed. The county is moving. He ends the call and folds his hands on the table as if folding a map closed.
“Developer called,” he says without preamble.
My fork freezes halfway to my mouth. “What?”
“A man wanted to buy the ranch. Started polite, then got interested in a motivated seller. Offered more than fair if I’d sell quickly.” His anger is a low thing—protective. “I told him to take a hike.”
“He—” The thought of someone sniffing around the place where Jamie sleeps, where the pack hides its den, makes the room tilt. “Why now?”
“Because they smell a weakness,” he says, stating it like a verdict. “Because they go after fences that sag. Once you crack the perimeter, people like him put the screws on.”
Jamie finishes his pancakes and announces he wants to show Ethan his drawing of a wolf. He bounds off the seat, hair damp at the nape from his hat, and toddles over with a crayon masterpiece held up like a treasure. Ethan’s fingers close aroundthe paper with a tenderness that doesn’t belong to the man who just told off a developer.
Later, back at the farmhouse, the day’s heat settles into the walls. The house feels small with the weight of the county’s interest, the developer’s ambition, and the scent of other people’s curiosity. We move through the kitchen—kettle hissing, plates cooling—and the tension between us stretches and pulses.
“You could leave,” Ethan says suddenly. “You could take Jamie and move before this becomes a mess.”
“I don’t run anymore,” I say. The words land heavy. I ran for years until my bones ached. Saying I won’t run is as much for me as for Jamie.
He comes closer. I smell him in full—wild salt and rain and that underlying musk that’s been pulling at me like tide. The scent is private and impossible. It makes something in my chest ache and glow.
“You don’t have to do this alone,” he murmurs.
I love the way his mouth shapes my name. Dangerous softness. I step back, testing the fence I’ve kept close to my ribs. I keep my hands busy with a dish towel because the touch between us feels like an argument.
He reaches for my wrist. The touch is gentle, not owning. It anchors me in a way I hadn’t expected. Heat spills under my skin. My resistance thins.
“I’m not asking you to surrender everything,” he says. “Only to let me keep you safe.”
“Safe from whom?” I ask, irony bitter. “From people who file reports? From developers who think property is more important than a kid’s life?”
His smile tilts—teeth and softness. “From all of it. From the storm when it comes.”
