strolled off, having proven that he was still in control of his household.
I groaned and wanted more than anything to pull the pillow over my head. I should have known I’d gotten off too easy the night before, walking into the house under my parents’ glares and brazening my way into bed, pretending that I didn’t smell like aggressively floral moist towelettes I’d wiped down with right before I walked in. But hiding under bedding would just give my family the impression than I’d done something to hide from—which I hadn’t.
The trick to not giving away incriminating information to one’s nosey relatives was to make a lot of eye contact and keep your expression neutral. This was sort of difficult to do when your still-adjusting eyes were all squinted from the sunlight pouring through your windows.
“We have good news,” Lurlene announced.
“That seems unlikely,” I muttered, grabbing a spare shirt from the floor, next to my bed for just such an occasion. Mama tossed me a pair of sweatpants, which was more than she’d intervened on my behalf in years. I slipped into my clothes under the blankets.
“Braylene has called in every favor she had and gotten you a dinner date with Donnie Ansen,” Lurlene told me.
“What kind of favors?” I asked, squinting up at them.
“I’m gonna have to curl and set every woman in the Ansen family, and do an ungodly amount of plucking,” Braylene muttered.
For just a moment, I felt an unfamiliar flash of warm affection for Braylene. While Braylene loved to ply her trade as a not-quite-licensed beautician, it would be a blow to her pride to work on the Ansens, who were a couple of tax brackets higher than our pack. I could only imagine their wealth (something to do with fertilizer) had a lot to do with why my aunts were pushing me to make a match with Donnie. I’d met him a few times. Young werewolves tended to mix together when the packs gathered. He was tall, dark and handsome, the cliché Alpha male package, but we just weren’t compatible . He didn’t understand why people made fun of the Cats movie. He thought “that Shakespeare dude” was still alive somewhere. But my approved werewolf dating pool was so small, he was probably considered the best I could get.
“We thought you might like to meet at that nice restaurant in town, Southern Comfort. Donnie’s going to call and set up a time,” Lurlene told me.
“He has my number?” I asked, carefully refusing to mention that Southern Comfort was well-regarded in undead circles for its vampire-friendly options.
“No, he’s going to call your daddy and set it up with him,” Mama said softly.
“Of course. Why would he call me to ask me out?” I muttered, swinging my legs out of bed.
“He’s not asking you out, you’re going. That’s it. We’ve let you do things your own way long enough,” Lurlene informed me.
“When?” I giggled. I couldn’t help it. The very idea was just freaking preposterous. “When have I ever ‘done things my own way?’”
Lurlene ignored me. “And that ends now.”
“Mama, thoughts?” I asked.
“I’m sure your aunts know what’s best,” Mama murmured. She rubbed the sleeves of her worn gray cardigan before backing out of the room.
“You stop by my place, when Donnie and your daddy set up a time,” Lurlene told me, thumbing through my limited closet options. “We’ll go over what you should wear.”
“And what to do with your hair,” Braylene added as she and Lurlene bustled out of my room. “Now, get yourself up. It’s too late to be lazing around. My Annaleese has already done three loads of laundry and butchered a hog this morning.”
I groaned, rubbing my face with my hands. “That explains the laundry.”
Since I woke too late to start a shift at the butcher shop, Daddy sent me to the enormous vegetable patch the pack kept just over the hill from the trailers. Yes, we did eat mostly meat, but even we knew better than to go completely without roughage. McClaines had figured out a lot of tricks to grow the cheapest bumper crops possible. Which was why I was on my knees in the dirt, transferring tomato plants that would result in the stewed tomatoes that I despised.
Several of my cousins, plus a few aunts and uncles who preferred the garden to the other family ventures, were working the rows around me. The Kentucky growing season started relatively early in the spring, as long as the weather held, and it