Page 80 of Pack Baby for the Silver Foxes

Mac tugged her sweater. “Mama, Mila’s sticky and she is touching Mary’s painting.”

“What!” I twisted.

“Made you look.” Mac laughed. I didn’t.

“Mila is always sticky. And stop trying to get your sister into trouble.”

Mila smiled, showing her small milky teeth.

Maeve took Mila’s hand and led her to the door. “Mac, take Mila and go find Daddy I and ask for a sandwich.”

Mac took Mila’s hand and led her out of the room with a smile because he’d been entrusted with a quest.

Maeve waited until their footsteps faded down the hall. Then she came in and shut the door, crossed the room and sat on the edge of my bed, moving a stack of notes aside. Her gaze caught on the page where I had written stakeholder accountability and several question marks around the word ginger.

“Mary.”

“Don’t.”

“I’m not judging you.”

“That’s exactly what you did.”

“I’m not judging the heat or what you did. I’m saying actions have consequences.”

“Thank you, Mother Superior.”

“And I’m saying that because you’re acting like being wanted by them is the worst thing that could have happened.”

My throat tightened. I looked away fast, toward the window, where the Surrey morning lay bright over the lawn. A guard walked past the far hedge. Fergus barked from somewhere below, high and indignant, probably because a leaf had made eye contact.

“They don’t want me.”

Maeve turned her head slowly. “You said they’re too old. Now they don’t want you.”

“This is me being realistic. I’m twenty-one years old, Maeve. They won’t want to keep me.”

“What else is bothering you?”

Heat crawled up my neck, sharp and humiliating. “Nothing.”

“I know you.”

“You know pieces.”

“Then give me the rest.”

The words sat between us.

I wanted to make a joke. I could feel it rise, bright and sharp, the old defense arriving exactly on time. But I was tired in a way humor couldn’t fix.

The phone buzzed beside my knee, and I turned it over without reading the screen.

“Father was giving me to an alpha, like he didn’t care,” I said.

“Mary.” Maeve’s voice softened. “He did the same to me.”

I picked at a loose thread on the blanket. “I hate that we were just daughters who are nothing more than contracts with hair.”