Chapter 23: Four Kinds of Cheese

Rhett showed up every day for eleven days, and on the twelfth he showed up at my mother's table with a bottle of wine and a look of perfect courage.

"Sit," Mom said. "I made the casserole."

"Thank you, Mrs. Rawson."

"It's a family recipe."

"I'm honored."

"It has four kinds of cheese and a can of something."

"I'm still honored."

Across the table my father hid a smile behind the newspaper.

It was our first dinner as two Alphas, and the Rawson kitchen had never held so many wolves.

Rhett's beta sat by the door with a plate on his knee.

The old oath keeper of Blackwater had the chair nearest the stove, and the white-haired woman from the stone room sat beside him.

She had been my birth mother's friend since they were girls.

"You have the look of her," she told me, passing the bread. "More every day."

"Thank you."

"It wasn't a compliment. She was a pest."

Mom burst out laughing.

It was loud and startled and real, and everyone at the table turned to look.

"She was," Mom said, wiping her eyes. "She absolutely was."

Rhett took a bite of the casserole.

His face did not change at all.

"This is remarkable, Mrs. Rawson."

"You don't have to say that."

"I'm going to say it every Sunday."

Dad lowered the paper one inch, and I saw the corner of his mouth go up.

That was when the elder at the end of the table cleared his throat.

He was a broad Blackwater man with a gray beard, who had knelt in the great room with the rest and had not looked at me since.

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