Claimed (The Lair of the Wolven #1) - J.R. Ward Page 0,111

with one of his Cokes from the vending machine in the WSP’s break room. With the amount he was drinking at work, he was going to empty the thing of all its red cans.

“Yup, a picnic. Made up of picnic things.” He sat back and stretched. “Anyway, the last of the bridges is fixed. Equipment shed roof is solid. That doctored toilet is good for a little longer. ATV is fixed.”

“Your checklist.” Lydia twirled her fork around. “Everything done.”

As she let the sentence drift, he wondered if she hadn’t guessed he was leaving.

Fucking Eastwind. But that sheriff wasn’t the reason behind the departure. Bottom line, the most important thing he could do for Lydia was get the fuck out of her life. In the short term, he might be able to keep her safe-ish, but he would have to go sooner rather than later—and he had his own enemies.

“Where is the rest of your family,” he asked. “Cousins, uncles, aunts?”

Anybody.

Lydia shrugged. “It was just my grandfather and I. Only children of only children kind of narrow the family tree.”

“What happened to your parents?” In response to his question, she just kept looking at her plate, teasing the spaghetti with the tines of her fork. “I’m really not prying.”

Bullshit.

“It’s okay,” she said with a haunted smile. “I just … it feels like a different life and it was so long ago. And I guess … well, I’ve always lived in two different worlds, neither one nor the other. Talking about my mother and father feels like trying to reconcile the irreconcilable.”

“Tell me,” he whispered.

Lydia’s smile was lost as she kept poking at her pasta. “Well, my mom left me right after I was born and my dad was never around. If my grandfather hadn’t stepped up, I honestly wouldn’t be here.”

“Wait, what—your mother left you?”

“When I was born.” Her eyes flipped to his as if she were checking to see how he was reacting. “I wasn’t expected, either. You and I have that in common. And both our mothers left us, didn’t they.”

“Yeah, they did.” Daniel shook his head. “So she just abandoned you at the hospital?”

“It was a home birth. At my grandfather’s house. She tried to end the pregnancy … so many times.” As he cursed softly, she kept going, her words coming faster as if she just wanted to get through the story. “She tried to give herself a home abortion with a coat hanger. Then there were two suicide attempts with pills. The last one … she threw herself in front of a car. But I stuck.”

Daniel could only blink. “Fucking hell, Lydia.”

“I only found it all out because her diary was in the things she’d packed for the birth at the clinic. But labor happened too fast to get her across town, so after I was born, as soon as the bleeding stopped and she could walk, she got in her car and drove away. That bag was all I had. I slept with it under my bed. When I was ten, I finally opened it. She’d clearly packed with a mind to bolt from the hospital. I read the diary, but I didn’t understand it all until a little later, when I was older.” She laughed awkwardly. “The only picture I have of her was the one on her driver’s license—she didn’t even take her wallet, and I was glad I got it.”

“Is she still alive?”

“I don’t think so. I did try to find her, once. The picture on the license was real, but the name and address were fake.” She put her fork down and pushed her hair back. “Oh, my God, this sounds like such a soap opera.”

“So it was your father’s father you lived with?”

She nodded. “He lived in a secluded area surrounded by trees. I used to sleep with the window by my bed open, even in the winter. The wolves singing to the moon were my biggest comfort.”

“I love that sound, too,” he murmured. “Is that why you ended up here? Working with them.”

“It’s just home to me. And let’s face it, I do better in places where I don’t have to be anything other than what I am.”

“A behaviorist.”

“Someone who doesn’t belong anywhere.” She shrugged a little. “Here, in this small town, where there aren’t a lot of people? It doesn’t bother me as much. And then there are the wolves … they’re such beautiful creatures, and they need to be protected. Even predators can be hunted, and humans