Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Cindy pushed away from the table, absolutely full. The pack had gathered together for dinner, to celebrate the fact that both Jen and Olivia had gotten jobs. Jen had been hired at the Sheriff’s Office and Olivia had been hired as the manager at the truck stop, after being recommended by Brenda.
“Tasha, your mom’s Brussels sprouts were amazing, and I can’t believe those words even just came out of my mouth.”
Tasha, sitting next to her, laughed. “I know, right? Brussels sprouts and amazing don’t seem like they should go together, but she has a way with them. Of course, the fact that there’s bacon involved helps considerably.”
Cindy cheered inwardly at Tasha’s willingness to have an actual conversation. She risked pushing it further.
“How was your first day at school?”
Tasha looked thoughtful before she replied. “It made me feel better, knowing that Joe was there if I needed him, but I didn’t. None of my teachers seem like crazy people, so far, and you can usually tell pretty quickly.”
Cindy laughed. “That’s good.”
“I’ve never been to such a small school. I think most of the kids have known each other for years. On the one hand, that’s not so great. But on the other hand, they’re curious to get some new blood in there, I think.”
Cocking her head, Cindy hazarded a guess. “Especially the guys?”
The blush was answer enough, but Tasha nodded. “Yeah, it’s kind of weird, but kind of nice, but also I have to be careful. Girls can get stupid with jealousy.”
Cindy had to smile at the adorable eye roll that came with the statement.
“You’re not wrong, but I’m glad that there’s some openness there. Now you just need to find a girl posse so you can get all the dirt on the guys.”
Tasha’s face went serious and grabbed Cindy’s full attention.
“I just want to thank you guys for taking Mom and me in. I know Mom can be a little…difficult. She doesn’t mean to be, she’s just used to having to bitch and complain to get heard.”
“You guys were in a very dysfunctional pack. I can’t even imagine how difficult that must have been. If there’s anything you can think of that I can do to help with both of you feeling like welcome and active parts of this pack, please let me know.”
“She was really, really pleased that she was offered the opportunity to apply for that job. And that Adam made it clear it was something that had come up, but if she didn’t feel it was right for her, that was all right, too.” She hesitated, and Cindy gave her an encouraging nod.
“In Chicago, she had a hard time finding a good job. Some of the pack members would tell her things, like they saw a help-wanted sign at the fast food restaurant.” She paused again, glanced down the table to find her mom talking to Myra and Bill.
“It’s not that she thinks she’s above a job like that, but she’s very smart, and very good at office work and managing, so… ”
“It probably felt like people were demeaning her.”
“Yeah. Not intentionally, but, yeah. She hated having to ask the pack for help, but everything is very expensive out there. Anyway, I’m so glad Myra and Adam were willing to let us come here.”
Cindy put her arm around the girl’s shoulders.
“Me, too, honey. If your homework’s not bad this weekend, and you’re interested, I’d love some help setting up for the party on Saturday.
And, just in case it hasn’t been made clear already, Adam and Myra are going to want your opinion on the people who ask to join.
So make sure you try and talk to people, get a good sense of them. ”
Tasha blinked at her. “My opinion? Are…are you sure?” She looked doubtful.
“One hundred percent sure. They’ll have to decide, of course, but they’ll want to hear any strong feelings you have, one way or the other.
“Okay. I know Mom is looking forward to meeting Brenda, and thanking her for the opportunity.”
“She’ll be glad it turned out to be a good fit.”
“I’m going to grab dessert. Looks like Joe made a cake. Do you want a piece?”
Cindy laughed and rubbed her stomach. “Not yet, honey, I’m still full. Thanks.”
She made a mental note to let Myra know that the Keoghs seemed to be settling in just fine. A quick look around the room found her mate chatting with Myra. She started in their direction, only to be hailed by Bill and Thomas.
“Cindy, we need you to settle a debate,” Thomas said.
“Oh dear. This isn’t going to go well for me, is it?”
Bill’s lips twitched, but he pulled on a serious face. “You’re a lifestyle blogger, right?”
“Riiiight?”
“So you have your thumb on the pulse of what’s going on out there. Right?”
“Uh-huh, sure, let’s go with that.”
“Tiny homes. Are they the future? The smart, responsible way to live in the new millennium?”
“Tiny homes. Okay, well, I guess my question would be, even if nine out of ten people said tiny homes were the best thing ever, does that really have anything to do with where you personally want to live?”
“Ha!” Bill said, smacking Thomas on the arm with the back of his hand.
“But then again, sometimes you need to hear about a thing several times before you start to incorporate it into your thinking, and allow for it as a possibility. When something sort of radical comes along, it can be hard to take it seriously until you’ve heard it enough that you just can’t ignore it. ”
“Ha yourself,” Thomas said, smirking.
“So, I can’t say I’ve done any research on tiny homes myself, but certainly the idea of being minimalist and being conscious of environmental impact is good.
But then, sometimes space is good as well.
I guess my question would be, aren’t you living in a trailer right now?
Isn’t that pretty much the same thing?” She smiled at Jonas as he joined them, wrapping his arms around her and leaning his chin on her head.
“The trailer is okay, but it hasn’t been optimized for long-term living, like I would want.” Thomas was frowning as he considered.
“We’ve done pretty well so far. We had a fairly large home before, so we still have a lot of stuff in storage,” Bill said. “I’m already starting to forget what half of it is.”
Thomas nudged him. “See, we don’t need all that stuff.”
“Yeah, except I’ve already had to stop you three times from ordering things online because we have them in storage, but you were looking for them.”
“That’s true. We do need our things. But I bet we can get rid of a lot of it.”
“Probably, but we don’t have room for any of it right now.”
“Because we’re not optimized!”
“Well, then, maybe we should do that and see if we can bring our stuff out of storage. Then we’ll know if we can do something like that long term.” Bill leaned over and kissed Thomas’ cheek.
Thomas smiled. “Good plan.”
They both looked at Cindy. “Thanks for your help.”
She laughed. “I don’t think I did much, but you’re very welcome.”
They wandered off and Cindy turned around within the circle of Jonas’ arms.
“Hey, handsome.”
“Hey, beautiful. You about ready to go home?”
“I still need a piece of cake. I was too full of dinner to eat it right away.”
“It’s damn good cake, you don’t want to miss out. Want me to get you a piece?”
“Let’s get some to go and head home.”
When they were in the car, she gave him a rundown of her conversation with Tasha. “You know how I like to think about life in layers?”
“Like with your blog.”
“Exactly. I’m constantly going back to older posts and trying to see how I can take whatever the post was about—be it baking a great cake, organizing your house, diving into finances, whatever—and go to the next level on that one thing.
Sometimes there’s nothing else to add, but a lot of times I find that we can go down another layer. Get deeper into it.”
“I get it. I’m enjoying going deeper with you.”
She slanted him a look and he laughed.
“No. Well, yes, I very much enjoy pushing deep into you, but that’s not what I mean. I feel like every other day, I see more of you, and I’m constantly amazed at how beautiful you are, down to your soul.”
The fact that he got it, got her, was still something she marveled over. “I’m enjoying peeling your layers, too.”
“But that wasn’t your point, I think you were going to tell me something else.”
She blinked. “Oh, yeah, right. Olivia. I was going to say that I think living with that bad pack, she had to give herself an outer shell. A hard layer to protect herself behind. I mean, I don’t really know all the details, but it had to have been very unhealthy.
And she had a child to raise, on her own. ”
“Myra didn’t give you all the details?”
“No, not really any more than was made public.”
“I asked Olivia about Tasha’s father. He was a soldier, killed in Iraq years ago. He was from Mesa, and they moved there when they mated.”
Cindy shook her head, sadness seeping through her enough that Jonas reached out and took her hand.
“I assumed she was from Mesa. I wonder why didn’t she turn to her home pack, contact her family or her old alpha about what was happening with the rogue pack.
I mean, I still don’t get why none of the Mesa pack contacted National, but you’d think she had people she trusted from her home pack, right?
” She slapped her hand on her knee. “No. I can’t second guess her decisions when I don’t have the facts.
I just have to believe that she thought the only way to protect herself and her child was to stay silent.
” She drew in a deep breath. “But now they’re here, and my point is that I have to remember not to judge her by that hard exterior layer.
I need to look deeper. I was really glad when she jumped at the chance to interview for the job Brenda found.
And tonight it seemed like she was more open to getting to know people, not so on the defensive. ”
“I think, when we met her at first, she was convinced she wouldn’t be allowed to join and preparing herself for that disappointment.” He let go of her hand as he pulled the car into their driveway.