The Cougar's Trade (8 page)

Judging by the tender catch in her voice, Hank didn’t think she meant the child-wrestling part. She’d probably witnessed plenty of heartrending scenes during her shifts.

The social worker nodded.

“Do you mind if I say hello?”

“If she’ll let you.”

Hank pulled his phone out of his back pocket and pulled up his text-messaging menu as she knelt.

“You don’t like the car?” Miles asked the child.

The girl gave her head a hard shake.

Hank typed to Mason, “
Marta Fitz’s little girl is in custody of social services.
”

Miles held out a hand, palm-up. “Is it all right if I touch you? I’d like to get your hair out of your eyes so I can see who I’m talking with.”

After a long moment, Jamie nodded. Miles tucked her hair behind her ears.

Mason returned, “
Any idea what happened to Marta?
”

“
Give me a minute. I’ll see what I can find out.
”

“
Thanks. A lot of the kids in the glaring have Foyes listed as backup guardians in case something happens to their parents. I don’t know if Jamie Fitz is one of them.
”

It’d make life easier if she was, otherwise they’d have to scramble to find her suitable care. Cougar adolescents were unpredictable. There was no telling when they might shift for the first time, and the last place they needed to be was in a home with people who didn’t even know shapeshifters existed.

“Why don’t you want to get in?” Miles asked.

“I want my mom.”

“I explained this to you, sweetie,” the social worker said. “Your mom can’t take of you right now.”

“She’ll be back.”

“Hey, maybe she will.”

“She will!”

Miles let out a breath and took Jamie’s hands in hers. “She’s only trying to make sure you have a safe place to sleep and that someone is looking after you until your mom is back.”

“They’re going to be mean to me.”

She said it so matter-of-factly, Hank couldn’t help but wonder just how many times she’d been through this same song and dance. He couldn’t guess. Marta was a relative newcomer to the glaring, only arriving in town in the past couple of years.

“How do you know that?” Miles asked.

“Been there before. They don’t like me.”

Hank texted to Mason, “
MARTA IS GONE. I DON’T KNOW IF THAT MEANS SHE LEFT OR IF SHE’S IN JAIL OR IN REHAB OR SOMETHING, BUT APPARENTLY JAMIE’S BEEN IN FOSTER CARE BEFORE.
”

“
Let me ping Mom and see if her foster care credentials are still active. She might have asked to be taken off the list when Dad died. There was so much happening then.
”

Miles cut her gaze up to the social worker.

The social worker gave her head a slight shake. “There’s no one else, and that’s one of our best homes.”

“Perhaps not the best one for her?”

The woman turned her hands over in obvious concession.

Mason texted, “
ACTIVE LICENSE, BUT SHE ASKED NOT TO BE CALLED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. HAVE THE SOCIAL WORKER CALL HER.
”

“
WILL DO.
” Hank turned to her, and watched her watch Miles for a moment. He understood why the woman would be stunned. Her job was to handle children like Jamie, and she’d likely encountered many who put up a fight, but she’d probably never had a stranger off the street step in and calm a child with just a few whispered words.

The cougar part of his brain seemed to believe that was signal enough for Hank to get the woman on her back as soon as possible and try to make a cub.
Do it. Right now
, it said.
Look how pretty and sweet she is
. The more ordered part of his brain, however, while impressed, wasn’t as swayed. Falling for her was an impractical luxury he couldn’t afford.

“Listen, there might be one other option,” he said. “I think Jamie knows my mother, and she’d take her for the time being. She’s licensed. Her notes probably say not to call, but they’re old. She might take one child.”

The social worker furrowed her brow and turned to Jamie. “Do you know him?”

Jamie gave the tiniest nod. “Kinda. That’s Fabio.”

Hank pinched the bridge of his nose.
For fuck’s sake.
He’d grown out his hair after high school to cover a scar on the back of his head, and then he’d just gotten used to not cutting it. He wasn’t sure who’d started the “Fabio” barb, but he had a sneaking suspicion the perpetrator had the last name “Foye.”

“Let’s go inside, out of the heat, and work it out,” the social worker said. “If we can avoid putting so many kids in one home, we try to do it.”

“Unavoidable sometimes,” Miles said, and now he knew for sure from the catch in her voice she wasn’t just speaking in hypotheticals. She was drawing on something else.

He hoped it wasn’t what he thought, but he really didn’t know anything about her at all. He’d been spending the last month doing all he could to not even look at her. Now he didn’t have a choice. She’d already stuck her nose into glaring business, and he wouldn’t be able to pull her back without damaging relationships. They needed stronger relationships in the glaring, not more strain. He’d deal with the strain in his own relationship later, if that was what it even was.

By the time they returned to the ranch and got Jamie settled in with Glenda, it was dark. Quiet.
Blessedly
quiet. If they were lucky, there wouldn’t be any demons flying up out of the hellmouth and they could all get a good night’s sleep. Not that Miles thought she’d be getting much sleep, and when she saw Ellery streaking across the yards with her arms thrown open and a big grin on her face, Miles couldn’t help but find her second wind.

Ellery pulled her into a hug that all but knocked the wind out of her.

“I’m okay,” Miles said with a laugh.

“How’s freedom feeling?”

Miles cut her gaze to the looming Cougar at her left and shrugged the best she could inside Ellery’s grip.

“Hank, don’t you have someplace to be?” Ellery propped her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes.

“At the moment, no. I was just about to take Miles to my house.”

“She’ll meet you there.”

Hank folded his arms over his chest.

“Mason! Come get your brother,” Ellery shouted through Glenda’s screen door. Mason had been peppering Jamie with questions when Miles had been informed by broody Hank that it was time for them to go. Miles hadn’t been looking forward to leaving, not only because she’d wanted to see Ellery before bed, but also because she wasn’t particularly looking forward to hearing whatever Hank had on the tip of his tongue to say. She had the feeling he was holding something in waiting and simply needed the right time and place to spit it out.

“That’s cold,” Hank muttered.

“I play dirty,” Ellery said. “You should know that by now.”

Mason stepped into the doorway with Nick on his hip. “Hello, witchy love of mine. How was work?”

Ellery pressed her palms to the small of her back and cracked her spine. “Grueling. No easy first day for this chick. Listen, didn’t you have something you needed to confer with Hank about?” Her gaze flitted pointedly toward Woodworks, which Sean probably couldn’t see from his position.

Miles stifled a laugh.

“Oh. Yeah, actually, I did.” Mason descended the porch stairs, gave his mate a kiss, and handed her the kid. “Come on,” he said to Hank. “We need to see how much Cory’s cabinet repair and installation could possibly fuck up our production schedule.”

“The easy answer is
a lot
.”

Mason cringed. “Well, let’s figure out specifics. I’ve been wanting to promote one of the installation guys to supervisor, so this might be a chance to see if he can step up.” He waved Hank toward the large, corrugated-metal building Woodworks called its headquarters.

Hank cut his gaze to Miles, and as always, she couldn’t read anything in it. She couldn’t tell if he was angry or sad or just aloof.

Not knowing made her look away.

“She’ll be fine with me,” Ellery said. “I’ve been looking out for her for a very long time. A
decade
before you came along. If you can’t trust me to keep her from absconding, take that shit up with your brother.”

On that note, Hank walked away.

As soon as he was out of a Cougar’s earshot, Miles whispered, “I’m not going to abscond. I told him I’d stay.”

“What? Hold on. I need to sit down for this.” Ellery plopped onto the second-to-bottom stair step and set Nick beside her. She patted the space right next to him. “Sit.”

Miles did.

“Explain.”

“It seemed practical. If it doesn’t hurt, why not help?”

“You always say that,” Ellery said softly. It was that voice she always used right before she dug into her purse for a handkerchief, and if she cried, Miles would cry, and in the end, they’d have no idea what they were blubbering about.

“No crying allowed. I’m too exhausted for it. And it’s true. I told him I’d trade him something. I don’t know what, but hey—” She gave Ellery’s shoulder a little nudge. “This way I get a little freedom to come and go. I won’t leave you high and dry. I can keep Hannah from doing anything rash, and Glenda has one less son to worry about losing to a curse. No one should have to deal with what she does.”

“Even when the poor woman’s sons are professionally irritating. Oh
honey
.” Ellery pulled her into an embrace, squashing poor Nick between the two of them. He took it all in good fun, though, and giggled from between their torsos.

“Can I stay with you?”

“Of course you can.” Ellery chuckled and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms. Her eyelids were heavy. She had to be as tired as Miles, just for a different reason. “You know, Mason and I were pretty certain the pairs would sort out the way they did.”

“Why?”

“Because it took them so long. If the obvious choices had felt right to them from the beginning, it wouldn’t have taken them a month to claim you and Hannah. I think they knew something wasn’t right with the obvious, and they just couldn’t digest it.”

“Do you think she’s wrong?”

“Who?
La Bella Dama
?”

Miles nodded.

“Well, she’s not
my
goddess, honey. I’m like you—just an outsider mate. We’re caught up in her whims, but I think in general, she knows what she’s doing. Mason is coming around to accepting that. I’m sure Hank and Sean need more convincing.”

“I could use a little convincing, too.”

“It’s Hank’s job to do that, unfortunately. And you can still go. You may have told him you’d stay, but there’s no reason you can’t leave when you want if he’s not treating you the way you deserve. I mean, the fairy-tale romance would be nice if you could get it, right?” Ellery gave her a bump with her shoulder.

“Maybe, it would be, but what kind of fairy tale? Like, an original Grimm, or the modern cartoon movie version where everyone’s happy and only the villains die at the end?”

“For you? Only the happy kind.”

“And what about Hannah?”

Ellery didn’t have to respond. Her grimace confirmed the same thing Miles was feeling. “Do you think it would help if we talked to her?”

Ellery shook her head. “She won’t talk to me. I keep trying, and she tells me I’m a traitor and turns her back when I try to get her to understand.”

“She can’t.”

“I know. Trying to explain falling for someone unexpected to a person who’s never been in love before is probably a futile endeavor, but I’ll keep trying. You can sleep at our place for as long as you want, or until you figure out how you’re going to negotiate this thing. Do you think you’ll go home once things settle down?”

Miles turned her hands over. “Probably. Maybe I’ll ask for that in exchange for the favor. I don’t see why I wouldn’t go home, especially since Hank thinks I’m a liability here.”

Ellery grimaced. “I don’t think he’s going to go for that.”

“Why not?”

“From what I’ve learned, Cougar men aren’t so inclined to let their mates stray, even if they’re not a couple.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Says the lady to her witch BFF? Why do you keep expecting things to make sense here?”

Ellery had a point.

“Anyway, Mason swears the sofa is comfortable, but I can’t vouch for it.”

“I’ve never met a sofa I didn’t like. As tired as I am, I probably wouldn’t notice if it was uncomfortable for long, anyway.”

They started toward Mason’s house, letting Nick toddle slowly between them while gripping their hands. Sean jogged past them, half-clothed and throwing up a hand in salute. He was probably on his way to shifting to his cougar form. “Guarding the hellmouth,” he called back. “Please forgive me for locking your friend in my basement.”

“Sean!” Ellery shouted, and looked toward Sean’s house.

Sure enough, the basement lights shone up from the window wells.

“Um…” Miles cringed. “Should we…”

“Rescue her?” Mason had caught up to them, with Hank right beside him.

There went Miles’s plan for an easy escape for the night.

“She had choices,” Mason said. “She preferred the basement to a conversation. Sean is seriously considering getting her on the very first flight heading east.”

“Can you blame her?” Miles asked. The words were meant for no one in particular, but they had to be said. “It’s an awful situation. Hannah wants her freedom, and Sean has to either do his goddess’s bidding or lose his life as he knows it. It’s not Hannah’s problem, but Sean’s, and what does it matter to her if some guy she doesn’t even know ends up stuck wearing a cat’s body for the rest of his life?”

No one said anything, but she hadn’t expected they would. Sometimes the truth made for hard conversations.

Hank fell into step beside Miles, and she looked up at him.

Miles was a little more sympathetic, but she wondered how long she could maintain that. There was nothing to read in his expression. He might as well have been a statue.

There was a serious disconnect between the Hank Glenda knew and talked about, and the one Miles had personally met. Supposedly there was an intelligent,
interesting
man behind all that stone. Miles hoped to someday meet him, just to see if he lived up to his own legend.