He doesn’t move. Doesn’t check the time. Doesn’t shift his weight or flex his bad shoulder, though it must be aching. He just sits, steady as a fence post, and lets a damaged child sleep holding onto his hand.
When her breathing deepens into something that might be real rest, Sable catches Conner’s eye from across the room and raises her eyebrows.Same time tomorrow?
He nods.
She nods back.
He eases his finger free; slowly, a millimeter at a time, replacing it with a fold of blanket that Mia grips without waking. He rises and walks to the door where I’m standing. Our eyes meet.
“She’ll be better when we find her parents,” he says. His throat works.
“Yes,” I say, not adding more, because we both know there’s little chance of that happening. Doesn’t mean we won’t try, though. And I sense that my mate is going to try harder than anyone.
I take his hand as we step onto the porch. His fingers tighten around mine, and it feels good. Better than good.
The next evening, he finds me at the creek behind the lodge. I’m sitting on a flat rock with my boots off and my feet in the water. Reaching for every wolf on the property, reading the bonds, checking for distress. It’s become a nightly ritual: a scan of the pack, the way I used to do during the raids when every night might be the last.
He sits beside me on the rock. Doesn’t take his boots off. The mark on my neck pulses once when his shoulder brushes mine. It always does.
“Martin Donovan talked to me today,” he says.
“What did he say?”
“He said his wife had a quilt. Her mother’s. The guards took it when they arrived. He asked if I knew about that. About the belongings being taken.” A pause. “I didn’t. But I told him I should have.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he didn’t want an apology. He wanted the quilt back.” Conner looks at the water. “I can’t give it back. The facility’s a ruin. Whatever was in those storage rooms is ash.”
“Yes.”
“So what do I do?”
“You keep showing up. You keep working. You let them see you, and you don’t expect them to be comfortable with it.” I put my hand on his knee. “That’s all you can do.”
He’s quiet. The creek runs over our silence. The stars are thick above the ridge… the Ozark sky, darker than what was once Conner’s Hill Country because the hills are higher and the lights are fewer.
“This is beautiful,” he says. Looking at the valley, the ridges, the sky. “I understand why you love it.”
“Wait until the fog comes to the valley. It fills the bowl, and only the ridges show through. Like islands in a white sea.”
“I’d like to see that.”
“You will.”
The promise is small. Ordinary. A woman telling a man he’ll see the fog. But it carries everything underneath: the mating, the choice, the future we’re building out of rubble and willingness. He’ll be here for the fog. He’ll be here tomorrow. He’ll be here next month, and next year, and the year after that, because I chose him and he chose me. And the wolves we carry inside us aren’t interested in half measures.
He takes my hand. We sit by the creek and listen to the water until the cold drives us up.
We walk back along the path. The lodge is lit, voices inside… Greta and the kitchen crew, the low hum of a pack settling for the night. The turnoff to my room is on the left. His cabin is straight ahead.
I don’t turn left.
He doesn’t ask. His hand tightens around mine, and we keep walking.
His cabin is small: a cot, a chair, a window facing the eastern ridge. His bag is on the floor, half unpacked. The sling for his shoulder is draped over the chair back. It’s the room of a manwho doesn’t know how long he’s staying and hasn’t let himself settle in.
I close the door. He sinks onto the cot and watches me with an expression I’m learning to read: want held in check by the fear that he’ll want too much.