Page 5 of Betrayed By the Wolf

There was no denying it. He didn’t need a DNA test to know the baby was his when her scent told him everything. The baby girl’s smell was half Rami’s, and he’d know her anywhere. That didn’t make it any less surreal to be holding her.

He heard the woman leave, unable to tear his eyes away from Jessa’s. She had stopped crying, looking up at him with wonder in her light brown eyes, so like his own. His daughter.

Rami didn’t know how long he stood there, holding his daughter for the first time. All he knew was everything had changed the moment she’d come into his life.

“Did you hear that, baby girl? I’m your dad.” He gathered up the bags and carried Jessa inside, tears streaking down his cheeks.

Chapter 3 - Vera

“Find anything good?” Evelyn went straight to the fridge, pulled out a carrot stick, and crunched into it. She peered at the paper lying on Vera’s lap. “I’m telling you, Vera, only old people are going to be taking out a newspaper ad. You need to use that app I sent you.”

Vera groaned and pulled her phone from her pocket. “It’s overwhelming, and I swear half of these are scams. Or sketchy dudes.”

She scrolled through the first few listings and read them aloud for Evelyn. “Like this one, Live-in maid, must be female, between 18 and 25. Seriously? Why the age requirement for a housekeeper? You know why.”

Evelyn made a face. “Gross. But maybe they’re just looking for someone young enough to handle all the work?”

“Oh, honey. I love that you think that’s a possibility, but no. They’re just a perv. And I’m too old for them anyway.” Vera swiped down to the next one. “Handyman. Eldercare.”

Swipe. Swipe. Her finger hovered over the next one, hesitating before she swiped it away.Urgent: Live-in nanny needed for full-time childcare. Housing and food provided.The listing went on to detail the pay and potential schedule, noting that there was room for flexibility if required. Details on the child or the home were sparse, probably to prevent any creeps from taking an interest.

“A nanny?” Evelyn asked, with an incredulous tone that made Vera bristle, remembering Evelyn’s previous comment about her working with kids. “That seems like a lot of work. Stuck with a kid all day, and it’s not even yours? Plus, you have to deal with the parents.”

“Parent,” Vera corrected automatically. The ad mentioned that it was a single father needing help. “It’s just the dad, apparently.”

At that, Evelyn wrinkled her nose. “Okay, that’s just as sketchy as the maid job. If someone left this guy, it must have been for a reason.”

Was that true? Rami had dumped her and hadn’t given her a reason, just that it wasn’t working out for him. But he must have had his reasons, hidden behind his inscrutable face, ones that he hadn’t wanted to reveal to Vera.

It was worse than knowing. Whatever he might’ve said, however harsh it might’ve been, it would have been better than being kept in the dark. Better than wondering how they’d gone from happy to nothing at all. He’d left her digging through the past like it was evidence, searching for clues at where it had all gone wrong.

She searched for the signs in every memory. Was it there in the corner of his eye when he held her at night? Or there, in his crooked smile, across the dinner table? Vera had liked his taciturn nature, the way nothing seemed to fluster him, but now she wondered if she’d just liked how easy it had made it for her, pretending he had negative emotions at all.

“Evie,” Vera said in what Moira had always referred to, not in a complimentary way, as her “teacher voice,” “there are so many reasons people end up as a single parent. What if the mother died? What if she was an addict? You can’t judge him for that. At least he’s stepping up to take care of the kid.”

“Sounds like the bare minimum to me,” Evelyn replied, popping the last of the carrot into her mouth. “It just seems like a lot of drama waiting to happen.”

She probably had a point, but Vera couldn’t bring herself to swipe the ad aside like the others before it. It called to her. That same niggling sensation she’d felt before had crept back into her spine. What if this was her only chance to experience a piece of motherhood?

“I’m going to apply.” She swiped to connect with the poster before she could overthink it, her heart thumping wildly. At that point, everything on the app was kept anonymous to protect both the applicant and the poster, and she had signed her message with only her first initial. “It’s two birds with one stone, housing, and a job, so I might as well at least try for it. I’m not exactly qualified, so I probably won’t get it anyway.”

But she really hoped she did.

Evelyn sighed. “Your funeral. I really don’t mind you staying here as long as you need to, though. Better than getting yourself murdered by some vengeful ex.”

Vera clicked send on the form and glanced up at Evelyn. “You’ve been living next to a cemetery for too long.”

“Probably,” Evelyn agreed. “I gotta go. There’s a Silversands meeting happening tonight, and I have errands to run before then. Need anything while I’m out?”

Ignoring the way her stomach flipped at the mention of Rami’s pack, she shook her head. “I’m good, thanks. See you tonight.”

Once Evelyn left, Vera swiped down to see that she’d missed two phone calls and a handful of texts from Moira. Unsurprisingly, her sister was befuddled by Vera’s unexpected visit and abrupt departure from the lighthouse. She should explain herself, but how? There was no way to sum up the mix of emotions that kept her tossing and turning at night, not without sounding pathetic.

Forgot I had somewhere to be but we’ll catch up soon, okay?She jotted off the quick text and sent it, well aware that Moira, of all people, would see right through the lie. It was one of the main reasons she’d been avoiding her—sisterly intuition would have Moira digging too deeply.

Her phone vibrated a second later. Vera braced herself for Moira’s justifiably acerbic response, but it was a notification from the job-searching app, not her sister. The father had already responded to her application. Probably a quick, easy no for him, she thought, pressing the notification to bring the app up. After all, she had no childcare experience unless he counted babysitting her own younger sister.

To her surprise, it wasn’t a rejection message. The man’s desperation came through in his brief reply, if it hadn’t been apparent from the quick response alone. He practically begged her to come that day for an interview.

---