“Meaning?” Matheo asks.
“She’s genuine. Not just looking for a rich alpha to take care of her, but still wants to care for and nurture others.” I tap my fingers on the closed laptop. “She’d make an excellent mother.”
The words slip out before I can stop them, and Lucas freezes mid-stir.
Matheo raises an eyebrow. “Getting ahead of yourself there, Cash?”
“Not like that,” I clarify quickly, catching Lucas’s eye. “I just mean she has qualities that matter. Patience. Empathy. Intelligence. The things adoption agencies are supposed to actually care about, even if they don’t see much past designation.”
Lucas’s blinks slowly once and then twice before he returns to his cooking.
“So,” Matheo leans forward. “Does that mean you’ll help me?”
I look at Lucas, silently asking what he thinks. After our crushing disappointment today, getting our hopes up again might be worse than just accepting defeat.
But this might be exactly what we need.
Lucas gives a slight nod, which is all I need to know he is thinking exactly what I am.
“Fine, we’ll be your pack.” I hold up my hand when Matheo opens his mouth, presumably to thank us. “But we have a few conditions.”
SIX
TRINITY
Margaret Jones-Becker hasme wrapped in a tight hug before I’ve even gotten through the door, enveloping me in the familiar aroma of rosemary, mint, and baking bread that is a combination of her and a perpetual scent of the house.
“There’s my busy girl,” my mother says, squeezing me tight. “It’s been too long since you’ve been home.”
I return her hug, guilt settling in my stomach like a stone. “I know, Mom. Work’s been crazy.”
She pulls back, her hands still on my shoulders as she examines me with the critical eye only a mother can perfect. “You look thin. Are you eating properly? Not just those takeout meals?”
“I eat fine.” I hand her the bottle of wine I brought. “Where is everyone?”
I need a buffer between me and her excruciating, if well-intentioned, motherly concern as quickly as possible.
“In the dining room.” She links her arm through mine, guiding me through the sprawling farmhouse. “It’s so nice to have both my girls under one roof again. This place feels empty without you two.”
I bite my tongue to keep from pointing out that with her, her three alpha mates, and my little half-brothers, the house is hardly empty.
“You know I couldn’t commute from here,” I say instead. “It would be three hours round trip every day.”
“I know, I know.” She sighs dramatically. “But family compounds are meant for families to stay together. That’s why they’re called compounds.”
The Jones-Becker family compound sits on twenty acres of land outside the city. In another life, it might have been peaceful to remain out here with family, but my career makes that impossible.
“Besides,” she continues, “it’s going to be hard to balance all that work when you eventually have a family of your own.”
There it is. The same conversation we’ve had a hundred times.
I swallow my reply because arguing will just sour the evening before it even begins. She has always seen her primary purpose in life as being a mother and wants the same for her daughters. It’s not that I’m certain that I don’t want children someday, but I remember what a struggle it was for her after my biological dad died. The lean years before she met Josie’s father and his packmates—the long hours she worked, the meals we skipped, the secondhand clothes.
I never want to be that vulnerable, that dependent.
Not ever.
“Josie’s alphas are so handsome,” Mom whispers conspiratorially as we approach the dining room. “And successful, too. You should see how they dote on her.”
