He tugged the lace. It snapped.
“Oh,” he said. He stared down at the fragment in one hand, and his bottom lip wobbled. “Sorry. I—I thought I could help.”
“Don’t worry about it.” The boot was too loose now, and blisters were a definite possibility, but she wouldn’t tell him for the world.
The garage side door opened. Aaron appeared, a brand-new pack of black boot laces in his hand. He tore open the package and offered it not to her but to Quinn.
The kid brightened like a sunbeam. “I can fix it.”
Ember was more than capable of lacing her own boots, but she stood still and allowed Quinn to redeem himself.
“You can hear a shoelace break from out in the garage?” she said.
Aaron chuckled. “The conversation was context enough.”
“Done.” Quinn stood back as if Ember’s boot were his latest in a long line of artistic masterpieces.
“Good job,” Aaron said.
“Wolf strength requires wolf restraint.”
“Spot on, pup.”
He had provided the means for Quinn to repair the damage, then stood back and let Quinn repair it. He had let Quinn state the principle, learn the lesson, all without humiliating or admonishing. This man was truly patient.
She followed her nephew out of the cabin and down the hill. She didn’t know how to measure by acre, but a portion of land the size of at least twenty typical backyards had been cleared in every direction around the cabin. Directly behind it, at the edge of the clearing where the forest took over, a wide creek ran over rocks. Quinn stopped here.
“This is my favorite spot,” he said.
“I can see why.”
“Aaron says water’s a good buffer when you get overwhelmed. The sound and smell of it. It happens to me a lot, but Aaron says that’s because it’s all new. He says in a few months or maybe a year—it’s different for every wolf—I won’t feel so engulfed all the time.”
Quinn ambled along the path of the creek as he talked, and Ember took mental notes on questions for later. She had to know everything there was to know about Quinn’s new life. She had to learn how to be the best aunt possible to a kid whose basic genetic code did not match hers. But he was still her Quinn. If any part of her had feared driving out here and meeting a stranger in her nephew’s body, she knew better now.
When Quinn ran out of praise for the woods, the creek, the hills, and the cabin, he moved on to praise their owner. Not directly, but admiration rang in every utterance ofAaron says.
“Quinn,” she said at last, “it’s just us out here, right? Nobody listening in?”
“Yeah. The Freemans are the closest neighbors, and we’re way past earshot from Jeremy unless we screamed or something.”
“What about Aaron?”
“Same thing. If we screamed for help, he’d get the echo of it.”
Good enough. “Okay, I want you to look at me and tell me the truth.”
Quinn pivoted to face her, his eyes somber, his mouth turned down. He nodded.
“Has he—have any of them—ever made you feel afraid? Ever spoken to you harshly, or acted wrong in any way?”
He stood with her questions a long moment, let both of them absorb what she had asked him. He didn’t leap to a programmed defense, and more than anything this calmed Ember’s pulse, which had begun to pound when she voiced the most important question on her list.
“No, Aunt Em. I promise. I’m safe here.”
“You’re very sure?”
“Hundred percent.”
