Ben tapped out a text with the details and sent it to his brother.
“Have a shower,” Damon said, frowning as he looked Logan over. “Get it together, brother. Life doesn’t offer you too many second chances.” His focus shifted to me. “Be ready to grab them with both hands when they come.”
“Do you think he’ll turn up?” I asked as we walked out of the hotel.
“Only one way to find out,” Jasper said, rubbing his hand down my back.
But the nextsession we had, we walked in, all six of us, to find Logan waiting for us in the reception area. His hair was freshly washed and his chin looked scraped raw and flushed, all traces of a beard gone. He got to his feet the minute he saw us, but then stopped himself from coming any closer. The poor receptionist, Janet, just looked at us and then him, like she was about to have the shootout at the OK Corral play out in her workspace. But as always, Evie surprised me. She pulled free of my grip and walked over to Logan like she had every right to, not a scrap of fear showing. It didn’t mean she wasn’t feeling it. I’d begun to learn just how much Evie kept masked.
“I’m Evie,” she said, holding out her hand. “And you’re my dad.”
There were echoes then of that first time I’d seen Ben again, right in this office. Like Ben had then, Logan dropped down into a crouch, making himself smaller in front of his daughter. He took her hand and shook it firmly, but then didn’t let go.
“I know, cub. You’re my little girl. Can I…?”
His lips thinned and he looked away, but Evie seemed to know what he wanted, stepping in and giving him a hug. He yanked her closer, sucking in a breath, catching her scent in his lungs before he seemed to realise what he was doing, and let her go abruptly.
“My dads are gonna teach me to kick arse today,” she informed him, taking his hand. “Are you going to help?”
My eyes swung around, my lips pursing as the guys all looked sheepishly at the ground, Damon in particular whistling when he caught my eye, then winking.
“Kicking arse?” I hissed at them. “I thought this was about self-defence?”
“Evie is gonna pound those boys into the fucking ground,” Reed asserted. “She’s a little warrior, ready to unleash hell.”
A key partof being a mother, I think, is the ability to have tersely delivered conversations at little more than whisper volume. I had a few of those as we walked into a large training room filled with kids and adults. Evie instinctively hung back when she saw everyone, but Logan’s hand tightened around hers. He stopped and said something to her, which I strained to hear, but she just looked up at him and then nodded.
“So, the ratio of adults to child is quite different for you guys,” Haze said as he jogged over. “Most of the families here have one or two caregivers and a pack of four or five boys.” He shrugged. “Evie’ll just get excellent one to one tutoring during the session.” He looked over and noted Logan standing with Ev. “You got your brother onboard.”
“During the sessions only,” I said.
“It’s a good start,” Haze said. “Alright, we like to get all caregivers participating in the training sessions, so heads up we’ll be doing some laps of the room as a warm-up. You can get started now if you like.”
“What?” But the alpha turned away and jogged over to the other families. “What!”
“Gets your heart rate up,” Jasper said with all the bright enthusiasm possessed by those twisted individuals who actually like sport.
“The only way I like to get my heart rate up is with a triple shot of espresso,” I shot back, watching him stretch one leg, then the other. “I’m wearing jeans and boots.”
“Better kick those suckers off,” Damon said, eyeing my shoes. “They make your legs and arse looking smoking hot, but they’ll be no good for running.”
“Nothing I wear is good for running, because I don’t run!” My voice was getting higher and higher, the hysterical edge apparent.
“Not even through a forest?” Reed’s eyes took on a silvery cast as he approached me. “We’d give you a head start.”
“Hunting our mate down?” Ben grinned at that, and the whole bloody pack smirked then, turning as one to face me. “That’d be fucking hot.”
“Don’t talk about shit like that,” Jasper groaned, pausing in his stretching. “I can’t run around with a fucking boner in front of a bunch of kids.”
“I’ll totally let you chase me through a forest,” I bargained. “Anything if it gets me out of running today. There’s six of us. We don’t all need to run.”
A sharp whistle cut through the air, drawing everyone’s attention to Haze.
“Gotta train for that, love,” Jasper assured me, herding me over to a bench and peeling off my jacket, my bag and then dropping down to remove my boots. “Can’t just stagger a couple of steps and then fall down into the undergrowth and think of the multiple orgasms.”
“I can’t?”
Dammit, I’d been thinking of doing exactly that.