Chapter 6: Whose Pup

Hazel and I went up to the east guest wing at eight the next morning, before anyone could warn Mirelle.

She was sitting up in bed in a cream nightgown with her hair brushed, and she smiled when we came in.

The smile held until Hazel closed the door.

"Six weeks," Hazel said. "You told the pack fourteen."

Mirelle's cup stopped halfway to her mouth.

"The clinic must have miscounted."

"The clinic is me," Hazel said. "I don't miscount."

Mirelle put the cup down.

Her hand was shaking, and she folded it under the other one.

"Ivy," she said. "Please."

"Whose pup is it?"

"Ronan's."

"Mirelle."

"It is, it's his."

"You came home four months ago, and you are six weeks along," I said. "Ronan has slept in this house every night of it. Where was the father?"

She stared at the blanket.

Then her whole face crumpled, and the sweetness slid off it all at once.

"There was a man on the logging crew," she said. "He left town the week I told him. I called him forty times."

I knew exactly how that felt, and I hated that I knew.

"I came home from Seattle with nothing. I owed money to people I don't want to name."

"And Godfrey found out."

"Godfrey found me." Mirelle wiped her face with her wrist.

"He said the Hargroves take care of their own."

"He said if the pack thought the pup was Ronan's heir, nobody would ask questions. And he'd clear what I owed."

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