Page 19 of Secret Wolf Baby

She perked up. “To a new house? We won’t have to live with Grandpa anymore?”

“We won’t… but we’re moving to a different pack. In Colorado.”

Confusion filled her gaze. “Colorado? Why?”

Because your grandfather and our alpha sold me to prevent people from looking too hard into what they were doing,I thought, but how the hell did you explain that to a ten-year-old?

“I… met another shifter,” I said. “He’s going to be my mate, and we’re going to move with him and live with his pack.”

Claire just stared at me as if unable to process what I was saying. I couldn’t blame her. I could barely understand what I was saying.

“But… my friends…” Claire said.

I winced. I knew she didn’t have many friends, not with how most of the town treated us. But the friends she did have, she cared about. I didn’t want her to have to leave everything she knew. But the alternative was keeping her here with Dad and Reacher, and that was out of the question.

“I know, sweetie.” I reached out and grabbed her hand. “Trust me. I know this is sudden, and if there was any other way, we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all.”

She went silent for another moment.

“Do you love him?” she finally asked.

I hesitated. How the hell was I supposed to answer that? Once upon a time, a long time ago, I thought I did. I was convinced he was the one. Then he broke my heart, and the resulting chain of events led me straight back into the life I had tried so hard to leave.

Despite this, it was hard not to feel a flutter of affection when I thought back on the man I remembered. Until that final night, he had been kind, sweet, fun to be around. He’d seemed like a caring guy, someone I had imagined starting a life with.

I pushed those thoughts away. That had been years ago. The man who was dragging me away from here, whether I wanted to go or not, wasn’t the person I had fallen for when we were younger. He was a stranger. A stranger my alpha had just sold me to.

Claire was still waiting for an answer, looking up at me expectantly, her head tilted like a wolf.

“It’s complicated,” I said. “The bottom line is that we don’t have a choice this time. I’ll explain when you’re older. I promise.”

She gave me a defiant look, one that I knew I used to give on any number of occasions, though I wasn’t sure of the last time I had done so. After a moment, though, as if she read my features and could read how torn and reluctant I was about the situation, the fire in her eyes flickered and went out.

“Okay,” Claire said. “When do we leave?”

“Tomorrow,” I said. “After… after the mating ceremony.”

She didn’t say anything as she stared at her shoes. I could see her working through a myriad of emotions. I couldn’t blame her. I’d had hours to process it, and I was nowhere near close to fully grasping the sudden change. I didn’t blame her for being upset. After all, I was.

“All right,” Claire said after a moment. “I’m going to go up to my room for a bit.”

“You do that,” I said gently.

She shuffled away, leaving the rest of the cookies untouched. My heart broke a little as I listened to the stairs creak under her weight. I had dreamed of moving out since coming back here—if Dad would ever allow it. But I had never imagined it would be like this. I didn’t want to uproot my daughter’s entire life and drag her away from everything she knew. But it was either that or leave her alone with Dad and Reacher, and there was no way in hell that was ever going to happen. Not as long as I had anything to say about it.

I could only hope that where we were going would be better than here.

Chapter 5 - Jackson

The wedding was going to be a small ceremony in a room in the town hall, the only guests were some of the employees plus Will and Trent. In a way, it seemed sadder than just doing it in Reacher’s office with witnesses. But Reacher insisted, so the least I could do was try to make the room look nice. Which was how I now found myself fixing a couple rows of chairs to line up around a makeshift aisle and trying to arrange flowers.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Trent asked me.

“What do you mean?” I replied.

He gestured all around us. “This. You agreeing to stop investigating for some woman. Do you realize how absurd that is? Declan’s going to be furious. You know there’s something going on here—”

“Keep your voice down,” I snarled. Glancing around to make sure no one was listening, I leaned forward. “Yes, I know there’s something fishy going on. But you saw what she looked like, how she acted. I couldn’t just let her stay here.”

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