My father’s eyes follow me as I cross the porch. He doesn’t say more. I touch his shoulder as I pass. He lifts his hand and covers mine for a second. His fingers are thinner than I remember.
Inside, I wrap brisket in foil, grab my keys, and head for the door.
On the drive home, I think about what Garrett said. The question underneath his question:why here, why now?
I don’t have an answer that would satisfy him. But I have several days of digging that say she’s a woman looking for work who knows her way around a ranch. Nobody I spoke to flagged anything. Her story holds at every point I checked. And Garrett’s suspicion—real as it is—comes from the same place it always comes from. Maren. The stray wolf on the ridge. The belief that any stranger could be the next disaster, because once, one was.
I understand that. I carry it too. But carrying it doesn’t make every outsider a threat, and the woman I sat with at Dutch’s yesterday isn’t a threat. She’s guarded, she’s private, and she’s running from something she won’t talk about. None of that makes her dangerous. It makes her a wolf without a home, looking for somewhere to land.
Saturday will be fine. She’ll come to the barbecue. She’ll meet the pack. And Garrett will see what I see: a woman who fits, in a way I can’t explain and don’t need to justify.
I’m sure of it.
Chapter 11
Willow
I change three times before I leave the motel, which is two and a half times more than I’ve ever changed for anything in my life.
Part of the mission. It’s just part of the damn mission, Willow.
Not the Railhead dress. That’s Briar’s weapon, and I’m not bringing it to a barbecue at a purist wolf compound. Especially after what happened the last time I wore it. But my usual uniform of T-shirt and jeans feels wrong too, underdressed for whatever this is. I settle on clean jeans, a fitted dark green shirt that Briar looks at once and nods at, and my boots because I’m not walking into unfamiliar territory in anything I can’t run in.
“Remember what you’re doing,” Briar says from the bed. She’s not coming. Still not prepared to “become a face,” as she puts it.
“Reconnaissance.”
“Reconnaissance.” She holds my eyes. “Check the compound. Count wolves. Read the hierarchy. See how the pack functionswhen it’s relaxed.” A pause. “And don’t do anything that compromises the mission.”
She means don’t sleep with him again. She doesn’t say it. She doesn’t have to.
“I’ll be back by midnight.”
“Leave the phone in the truck, not on your body. If they search you—”
“They won’t search me at a barbecue.”
“If they do.” She pauses. “And keep your magic under wraps.”
“I’ve been masking it since we left Ravenclaw territory,” I say, because we both know what would happen if I let that slip.
“How long can you keep that up?”
“Long as I need to.” My aunt wouldn’t have allowed me on this mission if I didn’t know how to hide every sign of it.
I take the phone. Leave it in the glove box. Drive toward the compound with the windows down, and my wolf coiled tight inside my chest, restless with an anticipation that makes my hands unsteady on the wheel.
The compound gate is open. A hand-painted sign on a sawhorse reads COMMUNITY BBQ — WELCOME, and there are trucks parked in rows along the ranch road. I park at the end of the row and get out.
Conner’s already walking toward me. He must have been watching for my truck. The thought does something warm and inconvenient to my chest. He’s in a clean chambray shirt, blue, sleeves pushed up. His hair is swept back, and he’s been in the sun, and he looks good enough to eat. He looks like a man on his own land, comfortable in a way he wasn’t at the gas station or the diner. This is his territory. He belongs here.
Which is exactly the problem.
“You came,” he says. Not surprised. Pleased. The difference matters.
“You said I might enjoy it.”
“And? Are you?” He falls into step beside me. His hand doesn’t touch my back. He keeps a careful distance—public space, his pack watching—but I can feel the warmth of him from two feet away, and my wolf strains toward it.