Page 87 of Pack Baby for the Silver Foxes

Lincoln breathed out a laugh, rough at the edges. “He had marmalade on his face and told Hudson his shoes were ugly.”

I glanced at him. “They were very ugly. It was the fashion back then.”

Mary’s mouth lifted.

Lincoln’s eyes stayed on the window, but his scent warmed with memory. “He fell asleep on me the first night she brought him over. Climbed up like he’d decided I was furniture and went out cold.”

“You didn’t move for two hours,” I said.

“He was asleep.”

“Your leg went numb.”

“He was asleep.”

Mary’s smile became real. It was small, but real. And I nearly missed the turn.

“She never wanted more children,” I said.

Her smile faded gently, not disappearing all at once. “Damien’s mother?”

“Yes. She was clear about that. We accepted it.”

“And what happened?” she asked as I indicated to turn into a street.

“Damien visited his biological father in Boston. He was older by then, curious, angry in ways he didn’t know how to name. His father asked him to apply for college there. Damien did.”

Mary looked down at the bottle. “And his mother?”

“She sent us a note letting us know she needed to be with her alpha.”

Lincoln’s teeth ground together.

“A note?” Mary asked softly.

“She said she wanted to try again with him being Damien’s father,” I said.

The car felt very quiet around us. Mary’s gaze moved to Lincoln who didn’t look at her, but his hand had curled around his own knee.

“I’m sorry,” she said, with no joke tucked behind it and no performance. Just Mary, seeing the bruise and stroking over it carefully.

I pulled into a turnout before I decided to do it.

Gravel crunched under the tires. The car stopped beneath a row of bare trees, rainwater clinging to the branches like glass.

Mary looked at me. “What are you doing?”

I unfastened my seat belt and turned in the driver’s seat. “Looking at you properly.”

Her breath caught and beside her, Lincoln had gone completely quiet. I reached back, slowly enough that she could move away. “May I?”

Mary looked at my hand, then at my face.

She nodded.

“Words,” Lincoln murmured.

She swallowed. “Yes.”