My Alpha Gave Me to His Impotent Uncle novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Burned Eggs

Gunnar promises he'll never touch her and won't say why he drinks poison; their first chaotic morning with five kids ends with Colt cutting the Pup House money: 'Hungry yet?'

"Seven years," I said. "Why?"

Gunnar screwed the dropper back onto the bottle.

"It keeps me quiet."

"Quiet from what?"

"Just quiet."

He put the bottle in his shirt pocket and buttoned the flap over it.

"You don't have to worry about anything in this house," he said. "I'm never going to touch you. Not tonight, not ever."

"Good," I said. "That suits me fine."

"Good."

"Great."

We stood there in the dark kitchen agreeing with each other.

Then he walked past me and went out to sleep in the barn.

I lay down on the floor next to the baby and didn't sleep at all.

The rooster started at five.

At six the baby bit Glory's ankle, Glory yelled, and the whole row of sleeping bags woke up at once.

"I'm hungry," said one twin.

"I'm hungrier," said the other.

The little one said nothing. She sat up, pulled her knees into her nightgown, and watched the door.

I went to find breakfast.

Gunnar's refrigerator held a jar of mustard, half a stick of butter, a carton of eggs, and a bag of something frozen with no label.

His cupboard held coffee and four cans of chili.

I opened the woodstove to cook on it, and smoke rolled straight into the kitchen.

The twins started coughing on purpose.

The back door banged open and Gunnar came in with straw on his jacket.

"Flue sticks," he said. He reached past me and jerked a lever I hadn't seen.

The smoke turned around and went up the pipe.

"Thank you."

"I'll cook."

"Can you cook?"

He thought about it a beat too long.

"I can make eggs."

He could not make eggs.

He put the whole carton in a skillet, stirred it, and walked away to find plates.

When he came back, the bottom was black.

All five kids stood at the stove and stared at it.

"Rancher," Glory said, "that's charcoal."

"The top's fine."

"The top is wet."

"So mix it."

Glory looked at me.

I looked at the skillet.

Then I laughed so hard I had to hold the counter.

I hadn't laughed since before the feast. Maybe since before last spring.

The twins laughed because I was laughing. The baby banged a spoon on the floor.

Gunnar just stood there holding five plates.

The corner of his mouth went up.

"Fine," he said. "You cook."

I scraped the top half of the eggs onto plates and made toast in the oven from the heel of a bread loaf.

The kids ate everything.

Gunnar ate the black part standing up.

After breakfast the baby crawled under the table and bit Gunnar's boot.

Gunnar looked down.

Then he picked the baby up by the back of his pajamas, very gently, and set him on his shoulders.

The baby grabbed two fistfuls of pale hair and screamed with joy.

"He'll pull it out," I warned.

"It needs cutting anyway."

He walked out to feed the cattle with my five-year-old riding on top of him.

Glory watched them go through the window.

"He's weird," she said.

"He's letting us stay."

"Everybody at the feast was laughing at him."

"They were laughing at me too."

She chewed her thumbnail.

"Are we going to have to go back?"

"No."

"You don't know that."

"I made a bet in front of two hundred wolves," I said. "I know that."

She went to help the twins roll up the sleeping bags.

I made a list on the back of a feed receipt.

Milk, flour, beds, a second bathroom we didn't have, school books, the little one's inhaler, which was still in a drawer at the Pup House.

I needed the stipend.

The pack paid the Pup House every month to keep the kids fed and the lights on.

It was the first of October tomorrow. The money would come in tonight.

I could make it last if I was careful. I'd always been careful.

At noon Gunnar came back without the baby on his shoulders.

The baby was asleep inside his jacket, zipped up to the chin.

"He wanted to see the calves," Gunnar said, like that explained it.

I took the baby and put him down on the couch.

Gunnar rinsed his hands at the sink.

His sleeve was pushed up. The burn scar on his forearm was old and shiny.

I noticed his hands weren't steady.

He noticed me noticing and pulled the sleeve down.

"Store opens till six," he said. "Truck's yours if you need it."

"I need it."

My phone buzzed on the counter.

A text from Colt.

I hadn't heard from him directly in three months. Not even about the ceremony he kept moving.

I opened it.

It was a screenshot of the pack account, with the Pup House line struck through.

Stipend: discontinued. Effective today.

Under it, he'd typed:

"Hungry yet?"

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