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"Actually, it’s probably the cleanest surface in the room"

He was particularly interested inthen, when I’d started theth of e of each vertebra

"It’s my personal star chart," I murmured into the pillows "It’s how I keep track of where I’ve been"

"Don’t most people use stars to keep track of where they are?" he asked, chuckling into ue I think he was so to do push-pins, but they weren’t as pretty"

"You don’t strike irl"

"I wasn’t, but that was sort of the point Don’t you have any?"

"I had a very strictinto my skin

"I think you would look aweso hiht here" I stroked the tra a little as ers stroked a particularly ticklish section of his back "Or so tribal" He snorted "The Chinese sythwhich inevitably will translate to ‘cliché tattoo’ "

"It’s a little alar that you came up with those ideas so quickly"

"Spent a lot of tiirl"

I rolled over, balancing my chin on his chest "Did you really have a strictabout his runaway human mom when I knew a little bit of the history But I wanted to hear more about Caleb from his own htless Lydia Graha and left her husband and child to thenant olf housewives that I didn’t know if I could trust it

He blanched a bit at the question "Oh, I don’t know I ure her out She left when I was five Dad ton State He told her that he lived in the ot it until she moved there And then she was stuck Not stuck the way you were," he clarified carefully "I don’t reood to her It was seeing the sa the saht it drove her a little crazy So she waited until I was in school oneand ran for it"

As a woman who had once run for it, I could sympathize with Lydia and the desperation she must have felt to have taken such a step But at the same time, how could she leave her little boy behind? I was thankful, at least, that she’d left hih his transforloomy corner ofhis father’s cycle all over again, choosing a woman--however temporarily--ould inevitably leave him Freud would have a field day with Caleb Graha h his hair

He leaned into the caress and shook his head "Wasn’t interested She made her choice"

"And your dad?" I asked

"He always ood dad He loved s a dad was supposed to, but you could tell life was just a little bit less than it should have been for hiave him a little half smile and kissed him "I’m sorry"

"It is what it is Yeah, it sucks, and my life could have been better But there were people in my family who had it a lot worse So I can’t really complain" He rolled onto his side and slid his hand down ertips

"What was it like growing up in the valley?" I asked

"It was the best kind of childhood for a little kid," he said, sighing "I spent a lot of tiie was the little sister I never really wanted We were always chasing so around Cooper and Samson lost their dads pretty early on, so ht us how to fix a car, clear a clogged sink, skin a deer with your bare teeth, that sort of thing"

"Sounds idyllic, in a twisted Torow up fast Cooper becaers And then that other pack tried to take over the valley, and everything got so screwed up It just seemed easier to pull away from all that confusion I knew my dad was disappointed that I ht for ot you into the whole olf-tracker-for-hire business?"

"No, and he doesn’t knohat I am, by the way," he replied "I was the valley’s police force before I left Usually, the alpha takes on the role along with mayoral duties But we didn’t have an alpha when Cooper left, and I was able to fill in I liked it Mostly, it involved keeping the younger wolves in line and corralling my idiot uncles when they tied one on But every once in a while, so it would be a nice place to set up a ood idea In following up on the background infored to discover online And in a lot of cases, these guys--and so to their arrests With my extra senses, I could track them, even after they left the valley I ood contacts as I traveled around So when I left, it seemed a natural fit foraway fro?"

"It was hard, at first I couldn’t stay away for long stretches at a tiot easier with ti for isn’t in the packlands"

"Well, that’s nice and cryptic, thank you"

"So, your fa that you have one You weren’t hatched We’ve established, thanks to your alar deceptive tactics, that you are an only child What about your parents?"

"My parents died a few years ago," I told him

"I’m sorry What were they like?"

I hesitated and cursed myself for it He’d shared with iving him the pat answer I’d developed for Anna Moder, I told him about Jack and Marcy Ca when he slid his lips along the ridge of n business, and Dad ran a construction firht e was supposed to look like I just didn’t pay close enough attention"