Wolf's Pack (Wolves Next Door #3) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,13

that of Ashley. "I'll make sure he knows," she continued, "because this is a good thing, Ian. It really is."

I closed the distance between us and wrapped my arms around her. "I really hope you're right, because I don't want to let my pack down."

"No," she mumbled against my chest. "You're making it stronger. Believe it or not, diversity is a good thing. Ask Seth if you don't believe me."

I intended to do just that. Oh, I wouldn't tell her, but I was going to spend the rest of the afternoon learning every single thing I could about bears, about integrating communities, and then I'd see where that took me. Because when my mate wanted something, I had this overwhelming desire to find a way to make it happen. Mostly because she had a habit of being right.

CHAPTER 5

* * *

Ian left eventually. Ashley headed back to her office to "look something up," she said. I went back to finishing that insane amount of email inquiries, but then I noticed the clipboard. One of the guys had managed to fill it out in the middle of our talk. Beside it, Ian had left the floor plan with the bears' list of requirements on the back.

I read through it. The part about the trees gutted me. They wanted access to a tree, preferably three? That was it?! For a long moment, I just sat there, staring at the words and fighting this feeling in my chest. It took me much too long to figure out the name for it, but it felt the same as when I made rules for my daughter.

Protective.

Once, Ian had mentioned that seeing me mowing my lawn with a broken mower had set off his protective instincts, and I had a funny feeling I was getting a crash course in how those worked. I wanted to make things easier for those men. The way they'd stepped back when they realized I was stressed out? How defeated Vic had looked just before they'd left?

On impulse, I dug in my purse for my phone and called in my secret weapon. The phone only rang twice before it was answered with a rushed, "Mom, are you ok?"

"I'm fine, Gabby," I promised. "But I need my Alpha-pup's help. Get in touch with your friends, and find out everything you can about the other shifters, would you? Specifically bears, but I have a feeling we'll need to know about all of them. Add foxes to the list because they've been mentioned. And then we're having dinner at Ian's tonight to deal with some pack stuff."

"What stuff?" she asked.

I pushed out a breath. "Gabby, a group of bears came in today, and they asked if we'd consider letting them live here. I want to find a way to make that work, but the wolves think like wolves."

"And we think like Latinas," she realized. "Ok. You cool with my friends all coming over? We can hit this hard. Wait, what time is dinner?"

"Seven," I told her. "And I want to make sure that Ian can't say no. I don't think he wants to, but I get this feeling that he assumes he has to. Let's change his mind?"

"On it, Mom," she promised. "And tell Seth that the counter is not a subtle place for condoms? Seriously?"

I groaned. "Look - "

But she cut me off. "I don't need condoms, ok? Not doing that."

"I'd rather they were there if you need them, mija, because I'm not ready to be a grandmother. That is not permission to use them, just a backup plan."

"Well, when you find them by the tampons, don't think the wrong thing. I don't need Roman coming over and getting the wrong idea!" She honestly sounded mortified.

"Put them in the tampon box," I suggested. "He won't look there. And Gabby? I'm proud of you for waiting."

"And now I'm feeling sick," she teased. "No more sex talks, Mom! I'm going to dive into bears so I can pretend like this never happened!"

And she hung up on me, but I was trying hard not to laugh. Over the last six months, I felt like my relationship with my little girl had gotten so much better. The fact that we could even have that talk? To me, it was pretty amazing. I also didn't believe that she'd wait as long as she thought. Not my child - but I didn't want her sexuality to be treated like a prize for a boy to win. I wanted it