Page 15 of Wrong Number, Right Gray Wolf

“You have a very good dad.”

Posy nodded as she finished the last bite of her pancake. “He’s my only daddy. My friends have two, but I only have one.”

What? There was no omega in the family? But Posy could mean her other dad was working away and only came home occasionally. I couldn’t get my hopes up, and it was kinda ick that I might be pleased Clyde was a single dad because that meant something had happened to his mate.

I refused to celebrate Posy losing a father, assuming that was what happened.

“Well, you're very lucky to have the daddy you do.”

8

CLYDE

When Posy told Stephen that I was her only daddy, the atmosphere changed. Stephen’s entire demeanor lightened up. He’d been friendly throughout the entire meal, but also, like he was carefully choosing his words. But after she said that, he relaxed a little.

His fox was closer to the surface than I’d seen him before, and not in a way that he was pushing at Stephen to do something or an attempt to try to take his fur. The impression I got was that he was curious and wanted to be present.

Stephen told Posy that she was lucky to have me but didn’t ask any more questions about our situation. And I didn’t offer any answers because the answers he’d need to know were ones that Posy didn’t need to revisit. She didn’t need to hear me talking about how her parents were gone or why they were gone or how I became her dad out of that mess.

He knew I wasn’t mated and had a child, and that had to be enough for now. At least that was what I’d have assumed.

Did he think I was hiding a mate? Or that I’d rejected him? Or maybe I was like the few shifters who took the divorce route after living in the human world for too long and forgetting our ways and opting for human connections over shifter ones? He’d have scented that Posy was a full shifter. She was at that age where it was no longer in question. But that didn’t mean her parents were mated. They had been, but for all he knew, I was her bio dad.

I wanted to know exactly what he was thinking, and there was no way to ask. Not here in public and certainly not in front of Posy.

The main thing I needed to know was if he scented me as his. He mentioned how good the food smelled, so he wasn’t disabled and without a sense of smell. He would know I was his by now. Right?

My wolf begged me just to announce our mate status. And it wasn’t until I insisted that it wouldn’t be good for Posy that he fell back enough to let me feel like I was in control again. He was going to be a butt until Stephen wore my mark.

Please let him one day wear my mark.

We went back to talking about school and different kinds of pancakes, about drawing and favorite colors. The entire time, the conversation we needed to have was on the back burner.

“And I think I should get a dog.” Posy looked back and forth between the two of us as if he had any say in it at all. I mean, if he wanted to, he could have full say, but she couldn’t know that. Could she?

“And what do dogs equal?” I asked.

She put her fork down. “Responsibility, Daddy. I know. They require responsibility.”

I’d considered indulging her more than once, but with our schedule, it wasn’t fair to the little fur baby. Our best bet would be waiting for the cat distribution system to do its job. And if we were meant to be cat parents, it would. That was how things worked.

“What do you like about dogs?” Stephen asked.

He didn’t realize the can of worms he’d opened. And she went on and on about everything, from their looks to their intelligence to how they played. Neither of us could get a word in edgewise, which was good because I didn’t trust myself not to say something I shouldn’t in present company.

“You know, if you have a dog, you have to be careful of your teddy bears. They like to eat them,” Stephen said.

“Not my teddy bears,” she said. “I will keep them safe.”

She swished her arm like a sword, and I couldn’t even guess what the image going on in her head was. Was she a knight, a princess, a pirate? Could be any of them or something else entirely.

“Don’t forget you promised to send me a picture of your buttons.”

She had gone back to that twice now. “Absolutely. I’ll send a picture, but I have to send it to your daddy because you don’t have a phone.”

“Sally has a phone, and her birthday comes after mine.” This was not the first time Posy had brought that up.

“Just because Sally has a phone doesn’t mean that you’re old enough to have a phone. Every parent makes their own decisions.” Stephen was really good at this.