“Yes, Daddy.” She pulled out a chair, sat in front of her loot, and folded her hands on the table.
When the microwave dinged, Kendrick lifted out the hot stew, grabbed a knife and fork, and pointed at another chair with his elbow. “Have a seat, Trent, and I’ll bring this over.”
With the scent of hot beef and veggies rising in the air, I wasn’t about to argue. I sat myself down across from Larissa, careful to keep my poncho decent. When he’d placed the bowl in front of me, I picked up the fork and dug in. As I got some wonderful calories inside my belly, Kendrick pulled over a chair next to Larissa and went through the candy, passing most of it back to her, but fishing out a couple with torn wrappers. “Okay, the rest looks good.”
“What will you eat first?” I asked her. “Your favorite, or your least favorite and save the best ones?”
“One favorite,” she said. “And then I start with the okay stuff and good stuff. I save the best ones for last.”
“I used to be like that, too.” I peered down into my almost-empty bowl. “Still am, I guess. All the potato is gone and all the green beans, and I have two bites of beef and one carrot left, my favorites.”
“I was the opposite,” Kendrick said. “Grew up with four brothers, and if you didn’t grab the best one first, someone else did.”
“Only child,” I told him. Most wolves were, of course. With the difficulty pack wives had holding onto pregnancies, or conceiving in the first place, every child was a miracle and rarely had siblings.
“Lucky.” He grinned at me, and it took me a moment to evade where my thoughts had gone and remember why.
“Lucky sometimes. On the other hand, when Mom’s good bowl somehow got hit by a baseball, there was no one else to blame it on.”
“I’m an only kid too.” Larissa licked the candy bar she held like it was a lollypop. “I told Daddy I want a sister or a puppy, but he said not now.” She turned to Kendrick. “Can I take the candy to my room? I promise I won’t eat it all at once.”
“Okay. ’Cause it won’t be me who’s sorry if you break that promise.”
“Yeah. Tummy ache. I know.” She put some of her loot back in the bag, scooped up her “best ones” pile against her chest, and hurried out, leaving the rejected stuff behind.
“You let her have candy in her room?” I murmured. “My dad would’ve tanned my butt for asking.”
Kendrick shrugged. “The worst she can do is give herself an upset stomach or not want to eat real food for a few days and feelkind of icky. Natural consequences. As a single parent, I have to choose my battles.”
“You can tell me to mind my own business, but why are you a single parent? Guy like you, adorable kid, I’d expect men would be lining up to put a ring on that if you wanted.”
Kendrick snapped, “Well, I don’t want some random husband. I can raise Larissa just fine.” He sighed and eased his sharp tone. “Sorry, sore spot. Fact is, I was married. We planned the surrogacy together. Brad wanted a kid to continue his legacy. A Bradford Wrightman the Fourth, you know? He was peeved when I suggested we should mix sperm. But we might’ve had twins, or more. That seemed fair?” The rise of his tone made the words more question than statement.
I said, “Absolutely.”
“Yeah, so first, we found out we were having one girl. And then, well, it was clear she was mine. Brad and the surrogate were both blonds, and he requested DNA tests and yep, mine. I told him he could father the next kid, and I’d be great with that, but he was grumpy. And then Larissa had colic.” Kendrick shook his head. “Simple little word, but it meant hour after hour of walking the floor while she screamed and cried, with maybe two hours of sleep at a time for weeks on end. Brad took to sleeping at a hotel so he could be fresh. Well, he was a pilot. If he was tired, people might die. I’d taken baby leave. And eventually…”
“He left?” I murmured.
“Yeah. She was three months old with no end in sight for the colic. He bailed. He said she was mine anyway. The one blessing is that she has zero memories of him. Can’t miss what you never had.”
“What a douche. You’re better off.”
“No doubt. Was a rough couple of months afterward, though.”
“I bet.” The urge to make things better for Kendrick surprised me. I wasn’t a caretaker type, but I didn’t like the furrow in hisbrow. “You did great, though. She’s an awesome kid. Gutsy too. Those boys were a lot bigger than her, but she wasn’t going to let them have her Hershey bars.”
He winced. “That’s not totally reassuring. I’d prefer smart over gutsy. I don’t want her to get beat up for something meaningless like candy.”
“Never on my watch.” My wolf might’ve added a little growl in there.
Kendrick blinked at me. “Um, wow. I keep forgetting you’re a werewolf. You don’t seem like one.”
“What should a werewolf seem like?”
“Scary? Wild? I don’t know.” He shrugged, but his body language had gone tense and wary. “There was all that violence when werewolves first appeared—”
“Firstcame out,” I corrected, because I figured the phrase would resonate with Kendrick. “Violence directed against us. We’ve been here all along, for centuries. You just didn’t see us hiding in our furry closets.”
