Promptly Benedict nodded. “Uh-huh.”
She laughed.
“You wish your nana and papa could be here,” he added. “It seems strange for them to be gone at Yule, but they’re having such a good time backpacking in Europe and it seems to be helping them heal after Samuel’s death.”
“Oh.” She squeezed his hand. “Oh, I do love you. A lot.”
He glanced at her, pleased but baffled. He hadn’t done anything special.
Just then the road finished curling around a low hill and the tree tunnel vanished. Ahead the Delacroix home place snuggled into a sunny meadow backed by woods. The house was tall and white and sturdy and wore its black roof like a British gentleman’s bowler. A veranda ran the length of the front. There were two outbuildings visible from the road, both set well away from the house. The barn was relatively new construction and currently housed four horses. The Delacroix family had long been horse lovers; Robin Delacroix was a large-animal vet who’d met her husband when she came to treat one of his family’s horses. The other building was local stone, at least as old as the house, and held Clay Delacroix’s forge and workshop. On the far side of the barn, five vehicles were parked in a recently mown field.
There was a detached garage, too, though Benedict couldn’t see it from this angle. That’s where his guards should have been bunking. He’d been overruled on that, however. Robin Delacroix did not want guests sleeping in an unheated garage.
They were his guards, not her guests, and would be exterior guards at that. Having them bunk in the garage offered an extra layer of security. Even a sleeping lupus was hard to sneak up on. But Arjenie said that her aunt would not budge about this, so Benedict had been forced to agree to her terms.
The gravel road split well back from the house, with one track veering for the field while the other looped in front of the house. Benedict put down his window and signaled Josh, who would park and wait until Benedict summoned him and Adam. It was not exactly normal to bring bodyguards along on a holiday visit; Benedict wanted to keep them as inconspicuous as possible. He kept going. Arjenie had said he was supposed to pull up in front of the porch and unload their bags before moving the car out of the way.
“Oh, look—there’s Uncle Hershey coming around the side of the house!” She waved, then twisted around to grab the green wool coat he hadn’t seen until she dug it out of her closet at her old apartment. She hadn’t needed it in San Diego.
The man she was waving to waved back and broke into a jog. He was under fifty and powerfully built, with a silver streak in his dark hair and a big grin. “They’re here!” he hollered, presumably to those in the house.
Before Benedict got the car stopped, people boiled out the front door—three kids, two dogs, two men, and one woman. Everyone but the dogs wore jackets. The woman was nearly a foot shorter than Arjenie, a couple decades older, and had Arjenie’s hair. She’d knotted it on top of her head at some point that day, but like her niece’s hair, it sneered at attempts at restraint. Escaped strands frothed and fluttered as she skipped down the veranda steps as lightly as a girl.
One of the men was well over six feet and lean, with wavy brown hair and glasses. The other was shorter, broad and strong, with a close-cropped salt-and-pepper beard. That would be Clay Delacroix, blacksmith and sculptor and everything Arjenie knew about fathers.
The dogs barked excitedly. The smallest child—three or four with freckles and a missing front tooth, too young to be the Emily Arjenie once tended—tripped and fell. The brown-haired man scooped her up and parked her on one hip while the other two youngsters slammed into the passenger’s side of the car like guided missiles. The taller boy—he looked Pakistani or Indian—yanked it open. “Arjenie! Arjenie! Is it true your new guy turns into a wolf at the full moon? It’s full moon tomorrow! Can we watch?”
“Malik!” Robin said, rebuke in her voice, adding quickly, “Danny, grab Havoc.”
The shorter boy with chipmunk cheeks snatched up the terrier before it could duck under the car.
And Benedict breathed a sigh of relief. All of the Delacroix, even Aunt Robin, were wearing jeans. Just like him. So far, so good.
Arjenie explained that Benedict only Changed when he chose to, but full moon was a time when he really wanted to Change, and no, they couldn’t watch, and if they didn’t move so she could get out of the car, their aunt Robin was going to turn them into hoppy toads.
That made them laugh—but they backed up. Arjenie bounced out and grabbed her aunt in a hug. Benedict got out on his side. The moment his feet were on the ground, earth tried to surge up through him to join with the moonsong. Automatically he repressed it and reached back into the car for the new leather jacket. He didn’t need it, not with the temperature at least ten degrees above freezing, but he was supposed to wear it.
Questions were spilling from Arjenie as she was scooped into hugs—where’s Uncle Nate and Aunt Sheila and Uncle Stephen and Uncle Ambrose and Aunt Carmen and the twins and the rest of the kids? Everyone answered at once. Benedict picked up something about holly and horses as he slipped on the jacket and eyed the dogs.
He wasn’t worried about the Lab mix, but the other one was a recent adoption, Arjenie had said, a scruffy little Jack Russell terrier. Most dogs either ran or submitted quickly when they met him, but a few just had to challenge. Especially terriers. Terriers were genetically convinced of the dictum that size doesn’t matter—it’s what you do with what you’ve got.
Robin Delacroix told the boys that they had apparently forgotten everything they’d ever learned about manners, and did they want a refresher course from her or from their fathers? The Lab mix rounded the hood of the car and stopped dead, staring at Benedict in utter astonishment.
He chuckled. “You don’t know what the hell you’re smelling, do you?” He snapped his fingers. “Here, boy.”
The dog flattened his ears, lowered his tail, and wagged it once, uncertain. Benedict averted his gaze slightly—I’m not challenging, either—and snapped his fingers again. The dog trotted up to him. Benedict rubbed his ears. “Good boy.”
“Did you see that?” a young voice piped up. “Did you see? He told Harley to come, and he did! Just like that!”
“Hold on to Havoc,” Clay Delacroix reminded the boy in a voice deep enough to rival that of Benedict’s father. He nodded at Benedict in a friendly way. “Harley there is an expert at selective deafness. He knows all the usual commands. He only hears them when food is involved.”
Arjenie turned in the circle of her uncle’s arm to beam at Benedict. “Benedict, this is Clay Delacroix and my aunt, Robin Delacroix, and the man holding little Amy is Uncle Gary—Gary Brown—and this is Uncle Hershey,” she said as the man they’d first spotted reached them, “and the two hellions with all the nosy questions are—”
“Oh, no!” cried the boy who’d been holding the terrier—past tense, since the dog had squirmed free. “Havoc! Come here, Havoc!”
The dog ignored such poor advice to race around the car, barking madly. Both boys raced after her. Which, of course, just increased her excitement. Being chased was almost as much fun as chasing, and maybe the boys would help her get rid of this weird-smelling intruder.
You never know what will work with a terrier, and Jack Russells could be fearless bordering on suicidal. But they were smart and curious, so sometimes . . . Benedict dropped down on his heels and stared at the little dog charging him.