Page 51 of Howl Lotta Love

“Jace.” Her voice had gone very quiet. “The acquisition order has changed.”

“How? What are they taking next?”

She turned the map so he could see it, and watched his own face go still.

The circle sat directly over Maddox Pack territory.

FIFTEEN

EMMA

The Catskills opened up past the tree line, the city falling away completely behind them, and Emma pressed her palm flat against the car window without quite meaning to.

“It’s beautiful.”

“It’s home.” Jace’s hand found hers over the console, thumb tracing slow circles against her knuckles as the compound came into view—timber and stone rising out of the forest like it had grown there instead of being built, communication towers discreet among the pines, a security perimeter she only recognized because he’d spent a week teaching her what to look for. “Kane’s had his eye on the parcel bordering the eastern boundary for years. Walter’s map confirms it. I needed you to see the ground before you saw it as a threat on a spreadsheet.”

“You needed backup, you mean.”

“I needed you.” He said it simply, without performance, and the honesty of it sent a warm, unsteady jolt through her chest that she still hadn’t gotten used to. “Both things can be true. Also you’re better with a map than my entire senior staff combined, and I refuse to apologize for using that.”

“Flattery. I see what you’re doing.”

“Is it working?”

“Obviously.” She squeezed his hand, grinning despite herself.

The compound gates opened before they’d fully stopped, and a small crowd had already gathered on the porch of the largest lodge by the time Jace parked—pack members young and old, a scattering of children weaving between adult legs, all of them turning toward the car with open, unguarded interest that made Emma’s stomach flip.

“They’re not going to bite,” Jace said, low, amused, catching her hesitation.

“Says the man who occasionally does.”

“Only when provoked. You’ve been warned.” He came around to open her door, and the hand he offered wasn’t a courtesy—it was an anchor, steady and certain, and she took it without thinking twice, letting him pull her out of the car and directly into the curve of his arm, the most natural transition in the world by now.

An older woman broke from the group first, silver-streaked hair pulled back, moving with the kind of easy, settled authority that told Emma exactly who ran this corner of the world when Jace wasn’t around.

“So you’re Emma.” She studied her for one long, assessing moment, then broke into a smile that transformed her whole face. “I’m Marjorie. I practically raised half this pack, including the very large, very stubborn man currently gripping your hand as though you might evaporate. Welcome home.”

“She’s not my mother,” Jace said, low, amused, catching Emma’s eye behind Marjorie’s shoulder. “She only likes people thinking she is.”

“I basically am.” Marjorie didn’t so much as glance back. “Your actual mother will be along by dinner, and she’s considerably less forgiving than I am, so enjoy the easy version first.”

“I’m not—” Emma started, then stopped, because home had landed somewhere she hadn’t braced for it.

“You are, though.” Marjorie patted her arm, matter-of-fact, already turning to shout a lunch order at a cluster of teenagers on the porch. “Give it a day. You’ll see.”

A young boy no older than seven broke from the crowd and barreled straight into Jace’s legs with the force of a small missile, and Jace caught him without breaking stride, hoisting him onto one hip in the same motion, wholly automatic.

“Uncle Jace, is she the fiancée?” The boy studied Emma with the frank, unfiltered assessment only children ever managed. “Aunt Marjorie said you’d bring somebody eventually, but she also said you’d probably mess it up first.”

“Aunt Marjorie talks too much.” Jace set him down without missing a beat, and steered Emma toward the porch, palm warm at her waist. “This is Emma. Be nice, or I’ll tell your mother about the tree fort.”

The boy’s eyes went wide with betrayal, and he vanished back into the crowd at a dead sprint, and Emma found herself laughing, real and unguarded, for the first time since they’d left the city.

The war room occupied the lodge’s east wing, a long timber table already covered in Emma’s spreading collection of property records, satellite imagery, and the aged map Walter had died to deliver.

Emma worked through the afternoon with a focus that only cracked when Jace appeared at her shoulder every hour or so, coffee in hand, a kiss dropped against her temple before he vanished again to handle the next fire that needed putting out. She’d stopped questioning the rhythm of it days ago. It read less as a distraction and more as punctuation.