Fat Nanny Mate (Silvercreek Lottery Mates #7)

Chapter 1 - Caleb

Some mornings, when the world is still dim, and the birds haven’t yet started their full-blown chorus, I pretend I’m the kind of man who wakes up full of purpose. This is a lie, but it usually gets me vertical.

Today I manage to conjure a mug of coffee and a handful of toast, then stand at the window above the kitchen sink, chewing mechanically and watching mist rise off the roof of my truck.

The cabin is freezing. I haven’t fixed the insulation yet, just patched the worst gaps, but it’s better than when I moved in.

Back then, you could hear the wind cross through the living room.

Now the cabin at least feels more like mine.

The old man who owns the place practically pays me to live here and fix things up.

Says it’s a fair trade. He’s not wrong. The rent is pocket change, and when he offered the deed for next to nothing, I almost said yes right there.

But I didn’t. Not because I don’t want it, but because part of me still feels like I’m camping out in someone else’s story and I need a bit more time to think it through.

I finish the toast and rinse the crumbs down the drain, standing there a few seconds longer, letting my hands thaw under the warm faucet until I’m slightly less numb.

If I could, I’d spend the rest of the morning just standing here, leaning into the steam, letting my thoughts drift.

The only downside to fixing up a place is that eventually you run out of shit to fix.

I’ve replaced every pane of glass, patched the roof, and swapped out the busted pipes.

Even the porch, once a hazard, looks practically respectable.

I keep telling myself the next project is insulation, but I suspect the real project is figuring out what the hell to do when there’s nothing left to distract me.

I hate sitting still by myself. Inactivity feels useless, dangerous, and loud.

I take my second cup of coffee out onto the porch. The air is so cold it bites, but I like it. More to the point, I probably need it to fully wake me up.

I’m just starting to enjoy the silence when I catch the low grumble of a truck engine. My wolf’s ears prick up, and I clock the vehicle before I see it, the crunch of tires on frost. It isn’t Nick or Thomas, and it’s too old and rusted to be one of the pack security rigs.

I set my mug on the rail and brace for company.

The truck that pulls in is a battered Dodge, paint faded to the color of old mustard, the passenger-side mirror barely holding on with duct tape.

I watch the driver kill the ignition and sit there a few seconds, head turned away as if doubting herself, hands clenching the wheel like maybe she’s thinking about bailing.

I know it’s a woman before she steps out, partly from the silhouette and partly because my wolf’s hackles twitch in a different, more complicated way. She’s got long red hair, not the natural soft kind, but a bottle-red that glints even in the weak morning sun.

I don’t recognize her right off. She’s definitely not from Silvercreek, and I can’t think of any reason a stranger would be up this far unless it was to dump a body, or maybe pick a fight.

Then she looks up, and her eyes lock on me, and it hits.

The memory comes in sideways, blurring at the edges: a bar off Route 23, months back.

I was in the middle of my worst behavior then, making the rounds of every mountain dive that would serve the wolves who didn’t mind a little trouble.

She was a waitress, or at least I think that’s what she said, with a laugh like broken glass and a way of making you feel like she’d already sized you up and found you lacking even while she laughed at your jokes.

The night is a blur of whiskey and cheap perfume, a dark parking lot, and my own self-loathing.

She shouldn’t know where I live. I doubt I even gave her my real name. I feel my face go blank, the way it does when I’m scrambling not to show anything. I force myself to lean casually against the porch railing. Whatever she wants, I’m sure I can smooth it over, like I always do.

The wolf in me wants to pace. Instead, I give her my best “welcome to nowhere” smile and call out, “You lost?” She doesn’t answer, just slams the door and walks toward me, her expression unreadable.

She stops at the bottom step and looks up at me, chin tilted. “Caleb.”

I wonder what she wants me to say. I think through a few options, but none fit, so I just nod. “That’s me.”

She doesn’t blink. “I need to talk to you.”

She says it in a way that doesn’t invite a response, so I just stand there and wait.

She glances past my shoulder, at the patched roof, the piles of half-finished lumber, and the sweep of empty land behind me.

It’s not judgment, exactly, but it feels like she’s running through a checklist. Thinking something through.

She’s wearing a jacket that isn’t designed for this cold weather, and her jeans are ripped in a way that suggests the look isn’t necessarily about fashion.

She looks tired. The kind of tired I recognize from the mirror.

“Okay,” I say, running a mental inventory of every possible scenario but coming up blank. She’s not crying, which is a relief. “Come up.”

She hesitates, then takes the steps two at a time. She smells like she hasn’t shifted recently, or maybe not at all. Could she be human? The wolf in me notes the tightness around her mouth, the way her hands are balled in her pockets.

She stands in the cold, breathing through her nose, eyes not quite meeting mine. She’s trying to figure out if I even remember her. I do, unfortunately. Not her name, but the shape of her, the taste of her after a night of heavy drinking, and the headache aftermath.

“You want coffee?” I ask, just to break the tension.

She shakes her head. “No, thanks. I’m not staying.” I wait, and eventually, she spits it out. “I need you to take something.”

“What kind of thing?” I ask, instantly suspicious. There are a lot of things a person like me could be asked to take off someone’s hands, like a debt, a grudge, or a gun. I hope to hell it’s not a dog.

She glances at the battered truck, then back at me. “Not a thing. A kid. Yours.”

I laugh because it’s so unlikely that it quickly circles back around to sounding more plausible. “Very funny.”

She doesn’t laugh. She just stares, like she’s daring me to call her a liar. “She’s eight weeks old. I… I can’t keep her.”

I shut up, because now my heart is pounding in my ears. “Hold on,” I say, too loud, too sharp. “Back up.”

“I don’t want money,” she says. “I just want her safe. But I also need her gone.” She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. Will you take her or not?”

I search my memory for the possibility. I remember that night; the whiskey, the parking lot, and hands in my hair. I remember her nails down my back. I remember being reckless, but not stupid. I never am.

“Listen,” I say, “I don’t even know your name.”

She flinches a little, like I’ve slapped her, but her jaw sets. “Tanya,” she says. “If you don’t take her, I’ll leave her at your pack hall. Either way, she can’t come back with me.”

I look at her. Really look at her—the cold set in her eyes, and I know she means it. Suddenly, something occurs to me. “Where is she now?” I ask, and she shrugs toward the truck before walking over and pulling a car seat from the passenger side.

She sets the car seat on the porch boards, hard enough that I hear the plastic crackle, and stalks back down the steps. I don’t move. The carrier is covered with a faded pink blanket, and the thing inside is so small I can’t even tell if it’s breathing.

“Thank you,” Tanya says, but she’s already at the truck, already climbing in, already starting the engine. She doesn’t look back. I stand there for a long time after the taillights disappear, waiting for the punchline. It doesn’t come.

I feel like I should stop her or say something more, ask her when she’s coming back. But I already know the answer to that. She’s not.

I have no idea what to do. My hands hover, stupid and slow, above the little bundle. She doesn’t have the solid, high-wattage wolf scent yet, but there’s something in the tilt of her nose, the stubborn set to her frown, that I recognize. Even my wolf, usually so quick to judge, goes silent.

The car seat is heavier than I expected. I carry it inside and set it on the kitchen table, suddenly really noticing and cursing how cold the cabin feels.

I stare at the sleeping baby, waiting for instructions, waiting for instinct. She just keeps sleeping. There’s a bag. Diapers, formula, and a single bottle. One stained onesie. I open the fridge, find only beer and leftovers. I close it again, feeling useless.

I need help. I don’t know anything about this baby; she could be sick, she might not even be mine, and I don’t even know how to feed her or where babies sleep.

I carefully grab the car seat and load it into the truck as though it’s a live bomb that could go off at any moment.

I know Skylar and Fern will be at the medical center, and heading there is the only thing that makes sense.

I’m not sure if this is a medical emergency, but it sure as hell feels like some kind of crisis.

The drive to the clinic takes all of eight minutes if you’re law-abiding and four if you’re desperate.

I’m somewhere in the middle, jittering between red lights and the weird, yawning silence in the passenger seat.

The baby hasn’t made a peep, not even a whimper, and that seems like a bad sign.

I check her every thirty seconds, and every time she’s still there, asleep, lips puckered and skin far too pale for my liking.

I slow down when I pass the old rec field. There’s a running track that wraps around what used to be Cheslem’s football turf, and even in shit weather, someone’s always out there. Today, it’s Dina.

She moves in long, violent lines, her stride too fast for a warm-up, too aggressive for exercise.

She’s running the way you run when you’re trying to outpace something that’s already inside you.

Her hair is in an elaborate braid, and her sweatpants are threadbare and obviously worn for function, not aesthetics, a silent fuck-you to anyone who expects her to put on a show, and yet somehow, her appearance draws me in the same way it always does.

She doesn’t see me. I keep rolling, like maybe if I don’t make eye contact, the universe will ignore me for once.

I tell myself I don’t care what she thinks, but that’s a lie.

I picture her seeing the baby seat in the back of my truck and coming to the obvious conclusion…

that I’m exactly what everyone probably thinks I am; a mess of mistakes waiting to happen, leaving collateral damage in my wake.

She has the right to judge more than most. She knows what my old pack did to her family, to her.

I know I got out more or less intact, while she’s spent every day since learning to live with what happened.

I park in the clinic and lug the car seat inside, holding it with both hands to keep from shaking. Thank the goddess that the waiting room is empty because I barely know how to explain this to Skylar and Fern, never mind anyone else.

Skylar meets me at the door to the exam room. She’s wearing scrubs, her hair a wild honey tangle pulled into a bandana, and she looks tired but not unhappy to see me. Her wolf eyes flick to the car seat, then to my face, then back.

“Is that…?” she starts.

I nod, because words feel like too much work. “I need you to tell me she’s not dying.”

Skylar’s face softens, as if, despite not knowing what is going on, she can see how much I need help.

She checks the kid’s pulse, unfastens the car seat straps with a skill I don’t have, and does a quick head-to-toe.

I just stand there like a statue, arms crossed, trying not to look as desperate as I feel.

“She’s cold,” Skylar says, her voice warm enough to melt permafrost, “but she’s breathing fine.” She glances at me. “When did she last eat?”

“No idea,” I admit. The confession tastes like shame. “Maybe before the drive over…her, erm, mother just left her with me. Just now.”

Skylar clicks her tongue and cradles the baby in the crook of her arm.

“Fern,” she calls, and a moment later Fern appears from the back, sleeves already rolled up.

She spots the baby and the panic on my face and immediately pivots into therapist mode, which is to say, she pretends everything is normal, and nothing in the world could possibly go wrong.

Fern takes the baby as Skylar fills her in, then touches its cheek with her thumb, gently and practiced. “She looks like you,” she says, and I nearly choke.

“Impossible,” I say. “She’s not scowling nearly enough.” It’s a joke, but neither of them laughs.

“What’s her name?” Fern asks, rifling in a cabinet for a bottle, like there’s always a spare infant on the premises.

I stare at her. “I…don’t know.”

Skylar raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment. She fills a bottle with formula and hands it to me. “Here. She might take it from you.”

I look at the bottle like it’s a grenade. “How do I…?”

Fern smiles, patient and a little sad. “Just hold her. Angle the bottle up, not down. Let her set the pace.”

The baby’s mouth finds the teat on instinct, and a primal, guttural relief floods through me. As she eats, her eyes flutter open, dark and accusing. She looks like she’s already disappointed in my life choices. Which is probably fair.

“Are you the father?” Skylar asks, but her tone is clinical rather than judgmental.

“Genetics pending,” I say. “But my wolf says yes.” I glance down at the baby, trying to see myself in her, but all I see is a tiny, beautiful, but furious pup.

Fern gently swabs the baby’s cheek when she takes a break from the bottle, seals it, and sets it aside. “We’ll run a panel,” she says, “but if your wolf knows, that’s usually enough.”

I feed the baby and try not to think about the future, but Fern is already way ahead of me.

“So, what’s the plan?” she asks, soft enough that I could ignore the question if I wanted to.

I don’t have a plan. I don’t have anything. Except for a whole lot of regret and shame that I’ll never let anyone see.