but I admired him. I’d seen too many Alphas use fists and fangs to bully their packs and run their packlands like dictatorships. So I appreciated Lonnie’s tendency toward good sense and a stern, quiet voice. Mimi was much the same. She didn’t swan around like my aunts, shouldering an ax to grind. Aside from the brief period of losing her damn mind around the time of Jolene’s marriage and childbirth, Aunt Mimi tended to just give orders and then stared at whoever was giving her trouble until they relented.
My parents tended to keep me out of both of their reach. I’d always assumed that it was because they didn’t want me to embarrass them, but now I wondered whether they didn’t want the Alpha couple to know what was happening in our house. The money problems, the desperate unhappiness of my parents’ marriage, the constant conflicts with me—my father didn’t want Lonnie or Mimi sniffing out any of those issues.
“It’s all an elaborate ruse,” I told him. “If I flood the barn with tomatoes, the aunties will be so overwhelmed by supply that their canning might not turn out.”
Uncle Lonnie just squinted at me and shook his head, all amusement. “Well, it can’t be any crazier than your cousin Waylan’s plan to build a tractor that runs on expired mayonnaise.”
Cousin Waylan was either a genius or completely freaking crazy. Nobody had ever been able to figure out which, no matter how many tests they ran.
“I actually liked that plan,” I said.
Lonnie jerked his shoulder. “Waylan’s a dreamer. How’s the job search coming?”
I dropped my garden knife, nearly impaling my foot. “Beg pardon?”
“Your daddy said you’re looking for a job. That you’re not much for working at the butcher shop.” He kept his lips pursed. I imagined he was trying to find a way to avoid saying, “because you think you’re too good for the butcher shop,” which I’m sure my father had added.
I flushed red, which had nothing to do with the sun.
“If you don’t want to work at the butcher shop, you don’t have to,” Lonnie told me. “A smart girl like you has plenty of options, especially in this family. Your cousin Vern is getting busier and busier with his construction business. He needs someone to take care of the billing and the scheduling and such. And Vonnie could always use some help at the Bridal Barn.”
I shuddered. Nearly all of the McClaine brides got their formalwear from my aunt’s shop. Aunt Vonnie made all of the dresses herself, based on a circa 1982 pattern called “Ruffles and Dreams.” It looked just as awful as the title implied, and Vonnie usually used the shiniest sateen polyester she could find. Despite steadily dwindling business, she insisted that eyesore was the height of elegance.
I would not submit. I might humor the aunties with their dating machinations, but I would not connive unwitting bridesmaids into wearing the Ruffles and Dreams. Every person had their ethical limits, and this was mine.
“I have a job, Uncle Lonnie,” I told him carefully. “I help people with social media…um, it’s like advertising for their businesses on the Internet.”
He tilted his head. “You can make money at that?”
Well, that was a more interested response than I expected. Unlike my parents, Lonnie seemed to be waiting for me to explain, instead of just huffing dismissals about what they were sure I was doing. “I make enough. I would make more if I could get a bit more peace and quiet.”
“Don’t get enough of that at home, huh?”
I shook my head and pinned my lips together, because any words I said would just be destructive and disastrous.
“You happy doing that?”
“Sure.” I managed to say that without adding “so much more than cutting up animals and wrapping them in butcher paper.”
“Well, then, I don’t see why you shouldn’t go on doing it. I’ll tell your daddy to give you some, uh, breathing room,” he offered.
I grinned at him, grateful to the point that it was sort of sad. Suddenly the vacancy in Dick and Andrea’s apartment building came to mind. If I asked Uncle Lonnie for permission to move off the compound, would he give it? The very idea made me dizzy with the possibilities. Bathroom privacy. Sleeping, working, and living on my own schedule. Kitchen privacy. Being a grown ass woman without a curfew. Garage privacy.
I opened my mouth to say the words, but I seemed to run out of air. I’d scored a victory for my