Page 100 of A Wolf After My Own Heart
“Oh?” Berne set Sally down, whispered in her ear, and shooed her toward the kitchen (given the speed of her departure, she probably smelled the apple crisp that went into the oven five minutes ago), then gave Devoss his full attention. “Why am I here, lad?”
“Either to tell Sally you can’t take care of her or to tell Sally you don’t know anything about kids but you’ll take her away where she’ll be stuck on an island without any other cubs around.” Devoss took a deep breath and let it out. “But the thing is, Mr. Berne, you don’t have to even worry.”
“I don’t, eh?”
“We want her to stay.”
Lila put her hand up. “Could I hear your definition of ‘we’?”
As Berne opened his mouth, Devoss rushed ahead. “You don’t have to do anything! You can go home. We’ve got it covered. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Dev.” Annette rubbed her temples like she had a sudden urge for a pallet of Advil. “That’s not how IPA does it.”
“Sure it is!” Devoss spread his arms. “Just look around. Just ask Caro!”
“Come here.”
Devoss dropped his arms and went to stand in front of Garsea, who took his hand. “I know it probably seemed like an easy fix to you, how you and Caro are safe with Mama now, but the reality was it took months of paperwork, and if Judge Gomph hadn’t expedited the process, your status wouldn’t be finalized by now. You can’t just plunk yourself or someone else into a home and declare it’s an IPA-sanctioned foster home, boom, all fixed.”
“You could do it, Net. You could push everything through. Everybody follows your lead…your boss, the phone company, David, Nadia…”
A gasp, followed by a squawked “Oh Idobeg your pardon, Devin Devoss!”
“Sorry, Nadia. But everything else I said is true, Net. Your boss is scared of you.”
“And do you think that’s a help or a hindrance? And he’s not scared of me. He’s just, uh, nonconfrontational.”
Nadia let out an elegant snort, proving that anything that came out of a posh Brit sounded classy.
“I’m not taking her away right this minute, lad,” Berne said kindly. “And perhaps not at all. And I’m not going anywhere soon, either.”
“Your boss won’t get mad? Make you come back?”
Berne laughed. “No one makes me do a damned thing, lad. And since I’m the boss, I won’t get into trouble.”
“Oh. Okay.” Devoss’s expression of relief was nearly unmistakable. “Hey, while I’m gettin’ info, why is everyone rich besides us? Mr. Berne has an island, Oz has the car and the suits—”
“Don’t forget about Garsea’s grain silo,” Lila added with a snicker.
“—and Lila sets her own hours.”
“I’m not rich,” Lila replied at once. “I’m just a careful budgeter. To a near-pathological degree. And I have a weird niche job so I can set my own hours and prices.”
“And you don’t want to get rich the way I did,” Oz added.
At that, Devoss’s small face went the color of a July tomato, so quickly Lila wondered for a panicky second if the kid was stroking out. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry, Oz. I forgot. Just—forget I said anything. I’ll go play with Sally, keep her out of your fur.”
There was a short silence, as Devoss practically sprinted from the room, broken by Lila. “Well. At least that didn’t make me incredibly curious about Oz’s money and wonder if it’d be rude to ask about it.”
“Kids died,” Oz replied shortly. “And I almost did. Lawsuits made the guilty parties pay up.”
“Got it.”
“Anything else?”
Which kids? When? And what were they to you? Is that why you had to live with Annette and Mama when you were a kid? Is that why you want to get out of accounting so badly? Is it why I’m drawn to you—because you’re someone who nearly died when their life imploded?
“…nope.”
