Chapter 22: A Bell on the Door

I opened the door in Rhett's borrowed shirt, and Lorna looked me up and down with great professional interest.

"Don't," I said.

"I haven't said a thing."

"Your face is saying it."

"My face is happy for you." She held up a folder. "This is the deed to a closed bakery on a corner in Missoula."

"Where did you get it?"

"Blackwater owns it. The pack has held it for fifteen years, and nobody could remember why. I found it in the Alpha's study."

"You went through my father's desk?"

"Your desk. I'm very sorry. I only wanted a bell on a door."

I took the folder and read the first page.

The bakery had a brick oven, a front window, and a stairwell to an apartment upstairs.

"The pack can't give away property," I said slowly.

"The Alpha can sign it over to a member who's left the pack in good standing."

"And you're leaving."

"I'm leaving, Jessa."

Her voice cracked, and she laughed at herself.

"I'm a Pierce who spent twenty-seven years being nice so nobody would notice what my father was. I'd like to go be a person who owns an oven."

Rhett came up behind me with a pen.

"He says he'll witness it," I said.

"I will," Rhett said. "As long as I'm allowed to buy the first loaf."

"You can buy the cheese one."

"I'll buy all the cheese ones."

I signed.

My hand shook, because it was the first thing I had ever signed as Aldric's daughter, and I had to write the name.

Jessa Pierce.

It looked strange, and it looked like someone I would have liked.

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