"I'm ordering it." Pedro drops into the chair beside me. "Eat."
"So bossy." But I pick up the spoon and taste the soup. It's good. Warm and savory and exactly what my exhausted body needs. "This is delicious. Did you secretly learn to cook?"
"Carlos helped." Pedro's ears go slightly pink. "I supervised."
"He burned the first batch." Carlos grins from the stove. "Left it on too high while he went to check on you. I rescued the operation."
"My hero."
"I try."
Sergio closes his laptop and focuses on me. "Sharon's babies?"
"Both girls. Margot and Rosalie. She sounds exhausted but happy." I blow on another spoonful of soup. "I told her I'd visit soon. After things settle down here."
"I want to see Pine Hollow." Carlos abandons the stove and drops into the chair across from me. "I've heard they have excellent coffee."
"Your priorities are very clear."
"Coffee is life, Jess."
"Overrated." Pedro cuts in. "Tea is superior."
"You take that back."
"I will not."
"Boys." Sergio's voice carries the weight of years of breaking up sibling arguments. "Let her eat."
I hide my smile behind another spoonful of soup as Carlos and Pedro continue their beverage debate in increasingly passionate whispers.
This is my life now. Soup and squabbles and four men who would drive across the state to meet my best friend's babies because she matters to me.
For the first time in years, I'm just going to let myself be happy.
The soup is warm in my stomach. The voices of my pack fill the kitchen with comfortable noise. Outside, the sun is setting, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink.
Tonight, we have each other.
And that's enough.
37
NACHO
The headlights cut through the darkness so late at night.
I'm on the back porch, nursing a beer I don't particularly want, watching the tree line shift in the wind. The night is cold, clear, stars scattered across the sky like someone spilled a bag of diamonds on black velvet. The Negrorio property stretches out before me, forty acres of forest and field that our great-grandfather cleared a century ago.
I know every inch of this land. Every tree. Every shadow. Every sound that belongs and every sound that doesn't.
The engine rumbling up our private road doesn't belong.
I set down my beer and move to the corner of the porch, where I can see the driveway without being seen. The motion is automatic, instinctive, years of law enforcement training kicking in before my conscious mind catches up.
A black Mercedes rolls to a stop twenty feet from the front steps. Expensive. German engineering. The vanity plate reads MORRISON.
My jaw tightens.
