Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Marc
The door shudders in its frame when Jessa leaves, and I chuckle under my breath.
Anyone else who came at me like that would have earned my temper or worn out my patience inside a minute.
Her, though, I just want to indulge. Every flash of that mouth makes me want to hand her whatever she’s snapping for.
My wolf paces a slow circle inside me, pleased with itself, soaking up every second of her attention even when it came sharpened to a point.
I scrub a hand down my face and sigh with an exasperated smile. “I’ve lost my mind.”
Trying to force all thoughts of Jessa from my head, I turn my attention toward the stack of donor agreements waiting on my desk After two of them, the words just start sliding past me. I give up on the third document, leaning back in my chair and staring at the ceiling.
My office sits in the heart of the junior building, close enough to the classrooms that I can hear the recess bell through the wall, and right now I can’t hear the children outside. The bell hasn’t rung yet. Which means Mia and Bella will still be in class.
Getting up, I head out into the hallway.
Crestline takes students from the youngest grades up to their final year before college, the little ones in this building, the older students across the grounds.
I built it so a child could go all the way through in one place.
The junior corridor’s empty this time of the morning, every door shut on a room of small bent heads, my boots loud on the tile until I reach the fourth-grade room near the end.
A narrow window’s set into the door at adult height, and I stop there and look through.
They’re in the second row. Bella’s turned her chair sideways to face Mia, both elbows on the desk, chattering with a looseness she keeps for home and almost never brings to school.
Mia leans in to catch every word. Whatever Bella says cracks the new girl up, and she slaps a hand over her own mouth to smother it before Miss Harlow can turn from the board.
My lips curve. When was the last time Bella was this excited? But my gaze doesn’t stay on my niece for too long.
My eyes keep drifting to Mia.
The wolf lifts its head and leans toward the glass, restless, pushing me to get closer to her. It wants to sniff the child, wants to curl up next to her. There is a streak of warmth and possessiveness that I’ve only ever felt toward Bella.
My lips press into a thin line.
Why?
What is it about this mother and child that has my wolf acting so out of character?
I return to my office, running my fingers through my hair, a knot of tension in the bottom of my nape. I’ve barely just sat down at my desk when the door swings open without so much as a knock and a man steps through, a folder tucked under one arm.
He’s big, built thick through the shoulders for the work the pack hands him, his head shaved smooth and an old scar splitting one eyebrow. He drops the folder on top of the half-signed stack and lifts that scarred brow at me. “Here.”
“Do you have something against knocking?” I scowl at him.
“I’m your second.” Adrian, my childhood friend, drops into the chair across from me without waiting to be asked. “Seconds don’t knock.”
“You’re not my second. You’re the alpha’s second,” I point out.
“You’re alpha-born, so in my book that makes you alpha.” He stretches his legs out and laces his hands behind his head, settling in. “I’m just waiting for you to reclaim your seat.”
I pluck the pen off the desk and throw it at his head. He bats it out of the air without looking. “Quit trying to stir up trouble in the pack, Adrian. If Uncle hears that kind of talk, we’ll have problems.”
Adrian rolls his eyes at me and then picks up one of magazines on my desk. “Got any naked women in here?”
“You think I keep porn in my office?”
Adrian blinks. “Well, where do you keep it?”
I stare at him till he sighs. “Yeah, yeah. I forgot you’re kind of a prude.”
“I’m not a prude, I’m just careful.” I look through the folder he brought. “Anyway, what are you doing here?”
“I came to drop off Gracie’s keys. She told me to hand this to you. My sister has very little respect for me. I’m nothing more than an errand boy to her.” The last part is spoken with a miffed air.
“Well, if you’re here already, look into someone for me, will you?” I lean back in the chair.
“Who?”
“Jessa Vasquez.”
Adrian blinks. “The mother who came in to yank her daughter’s scholarship this morning?”
I glare at him. “Does your sister know what confidential is?”
Adrian shrugs. “You knew what you were doing when you hired her. She’s a big gossip.”
He waggles his eyebrows. “So what’s the story with her? Why’d she want to remove her kid?”
I don’t have an answer for him.
“What do you want me to find out?” he asks.
I walk around the desk and lean a hip against the edge. “Her mother’s running from something. She says she’s married, but there’s no husband, and from the looks of her finger, there’s never been one. She even gave me a fake name when we first met.”
“Maybe she did all that because she thought you were a creep.” Adrian grins.
I narrow my eyes at him. “I’m serious, Adrian.
Nobody has ever tried to withdraw their child from this academy.
You’re talking about thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of education, not to mention the doors this academy opens for its students.
Something has to be very wrong for her to want out like this. ”
The humor bleeds out of Adrian by degrees. “That’s a lot of reasoning for a stranger’s mess. It’s her child, Marc. She doesn’t want the girl here. It’s not your business.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. The trouble is the wolf has dug its claws into the matter and won’t be talked off. For the first time in a decade, I’m tempted to let it have its way.
“Just look. If it turns up nothing, I’ll back off.”
Adrian sighs through his nose and pushes up out of the chair. “You won’t, but fine.” He taps the folder twice. “Sign that. I’ll make some calls.”
He’s gone before I can thank him, which is its own small mercy.
The junior squad is mine after lunch. Every Monday, I coach the junior classes.
Daniel and I learned the game on a mud strip behind the pack house, and I went pro on the back of it long before Bella was ever born.
But a touring schedule and a grieving toddler share no calendar, so I hung up my uniform to pour what was left of me into a school that finds the kids nobody else bothered to scout.
Every child on this pitch got here on a scout’s word, spotted at some school match by people I trust, handed a full ride that donors fund for the pleasure of their names on a stand.
She’s not in uniform today. A couple of the boys notice, nudging each other over the green jeans and the borrowed cleats two sizes too big, and I shut that down with a look.
Then I blow the whistle, and inside four minutes, she makes me forget I’m supposed to be impartial.
Mia plays on pure instinct, reading the pitch three passes ahead of every other kid out there. Everything comes off her left foot, quick and hard, and twice she slides a ball through a seam I don’t catch until it’s already done. Bella shrieks encouragement from the wing, useless and adoring.
Every time the girl jogs past my touchline, the wolf surges up, bright and glad, that protective heat it keeps for Bella running loud within me.
It wants to nose through her hair, check her over for hurts, herd her somewhere safe and pen her there.
I blow the whistle harder than the foul calls for and order myself to quit it.
She’s not mine.
This is a student, a child I met only yesterday. My animal has no business adopting her on sight, and I have no business letting it. The wolf pays no attention. It hasn’t heeded a sensible word since Jessa Hale/Vasquez screamed at me through the rain.
When I call time, the kids stagger to the benches, red-faced, gulping water. Mia plants herself in front of me before I’ve got the whistle back in my pocket, chin up, fists on her hips, dark hair stuck to her forehead with sweat.
“How’d I do?” She doesn’t bother with hello, just stands there waiting on the verdict she figures she’s owed.
“You were very good.” I crouch to her level. “One of the best out there today. You read the whole pitch. Most kids your age only see the ball in front of their nose.”
She fights a smile and loses. “My old coach said I was a ball hog.”
“Then he wasn’t watching the right things.”
That earns me a full grin, quick and fierce, and the wolf about turns itself inside out with a pride it has no claim to.
Bella abandons all pretense of cooling down and bounces over. “Mia, Mia, you have to come to our house. My uncle was famous. Like TV famous. We’ve got all his games on tape, posters, everything.”
“You were on TV?” Mia rounds on me, eyes huge.
“A long time ago.”
“He scored from the halfway line once,” Bella announces, dead serious. “It’s on the wall.”
Mia’s whole face goes bright. “Can I see? Mom never lets me stay up for matches.”
The thought of this child curled on my couch under my roof warms the wolf. I clear my throat against it.
“That’s your mom’s call.” I straighten. “I’ll ask her at pickup. If she says yes, you and Bella can have a movie night out of my old games.”
Bella whoops. Mia beams up at me, pure delight, and I have to turn away before my face gives me away.
I send the squad to the showers and tell myself I’ve got a hundred things to handle before the final bell, when the plain truth is I’m counting down to the moment I can catch Jessa on the front steps and talk sense into her.
Whatever she’s fleeing, I can build a wall around it.
She doesn’t have to gut her daughter’s future to feel safe, and I mean to make her see that before she does something they’ll both regret.