Page 40 of The Alpha’s Unclaimed Mate

“Can we go to the park? Please? Bella’s never been to the one near our house.”

Jessa wipes her hands on a towel. “I’ve got work I can’t put off, baby. Month-end won’t close itself.”

“I’ll run them over.” The offer’s out before I think better of it. “You get your work done. I’ll have them back whenever you say.”

Jessa stills at the sink. She looks to Mia, then back to me, the old wariness surfacing fast.

“You can trust me.” I keep it gentle. “I won’t let either of them out of my sight. Nothing’s going to happen to them.”

“It isn’t that.” Her jaw tightens on whatever she won’t say.

“Then what is it?”

She holds my eyes a beat, and pain crosses behind them before she shuts it down. “Nothing. It’s fine. Take them.”

The park’s a short walk from her building, a green strip with a climbing frame, two benches, and a hot dog cart parked by the gate. Both girls are through the gate the instant I unhook it, tearing for the swings, and I claim the bench with the clearest view of them.

They climb the frame, chase each other across it, and hang upside down off the bars till the blood pools red in their faces. Mia plays the same here as on the pitch, all nerve, daring Bella up higher than my niece would ever climb alone. Bella follows her anywhere. Watching it does me good.

When the heat finally chases them off the frame, I buy three hot dogs from the cart, and we crowd onto the bench to eat.

“So what was it like back in the city?” I ask around a mouthful. “Before your mom dragged you out to the middle of nowhere.”

Mia knocks her heels against the bench leg. “It was busy. Mom worked a ton. She always came home, though, so we’d do things together, like movie nights or the big park with the boats, not a dinky one like this.”

“She sounds like a good mom.”

“She’s the best.”

“What about your dad?” I keep my eyes on the cart. “Still back in the city?”

She goes quiet. The heels stop knocking. “He left ages ago. I don’t really remember him.”

I don’t push it. “Your mom have many friends out there?”

“She’s got friends.” Mia nods, sure of herself.

I bite down on a smile because she’s sailed clean past what I meant. Before I can find another way in, Bella leans across her hot dog, delighted to help.

“He means boyfriends, dummy.”

Mia cracks up, nearly choking on her bite. “Mom doesn’t do boyfriends. There’s no time for that. She says I’m all she needs.”

Even knowing the answer, I still fish for it. “So there’s no husband, nobody off working somewhere far away.”

The girls trade a scheming look, then turn matching grins on me.

“Do you like my mom?” Mia asks, and there’s nothing shy about the question.

The nerve of her nearly makes me choke. “What if I do? Would that bother you?”

Mia swings to Bella, already working it out. “Does that mean me and Bella get to be sisters?”

“I only said like,” I cut in before the two of them run off with it.

Mia giggles. “I don’t think Mom’ll make it easy. She doesn’t like dating guys.”

That has me pausing. “She’d sooner date women, then?”