Page 115 of Truthfinder’s Promise

“Not feeling the need for speed tonight?”

“Of course I am. But this is the mom vehicle.” Her condo came with two garage spaces, so she’d only kept the Escalade and her Porsche. “When I said I promised Natalie I’d take her tonight, I meant she conned me into taking her and her friends, so she could be the cool kid who gets to take her friends to a bonfire party.”

He laughed. “Pushover.”

He wasn’t wrong. Meredith had Dying to Be the Cool Stepmom Syndrome. If Natalie mentioned wanting, needing, or even vaguely being interested in something, be it clothes, technology, or hobbies, Meredith bought it for her. There was probably a bad precedent being set somewhere in there, but Natalie hadn’t suddenly turned into a materialistic bitch overnight, so maybe it was fine.

Twenty minutes later Natalie, Rath, and Ruin piled into the backseat. The two telepaths—was telepath even the right word, if they could only talk mentally to each other?—were so in tune with non-verbal communication they frequently forgot to speak out loud with each other when they weren’t alone.

Add in their self-given names and the fact they both considered themselves adults after having basically parented all the kids in their group for six months, and they were just odd enough in a school full of odd children that they hadn’t fit in. Natalie gravitated to them because they were quiet—at least on the outside—and she was somewhat of an oddity too.

Hearing them all at turns bickering and laughing hysterically in the backseat, Meredith couldn’t help but smile. The front gates to Siren and Jace’s estate was wide open. Technically, the kids probably could have walked here—The Refuge was the old Winters’ estate, which was sandwiched directly between Siren and Jace’s property, and Random and Valkyrie’s—except no one trusted them to not “accidentally get lost” on the way over.

A pang of longing hit her as she drove down to the house. Her condo was fine, but she missed the quiet and open space of having some acreage between her and everyone else. And she was a little jealous that her friends got to live on the same road. It was like they had their own little community, one she wanted to be a part of, and so did they.

They’d both casually mentioned about a dozen times that the lot next to Siren’s had been abandoned for a slew of years, and maybe someone should track down who owned it and see if they wanted to sell. Meredith had, and the owners did.

But she’d hesitated to pull the trigger because she wanted to ask Jensen if he could see himself living there. With her. Then she’d been terrified to ask him, so she kept putting off the actual purchase. She should have just bought it—she could afford to even if she never used it—but she’d put it off for months. When she’d finally made the decision to go for it, the owner had already sold.

Apparently her interest had made someone else realize they wanted what she did. The ramshackle structure on it had been torn down, and a new home had started going up in record time. She’d stopped letting herself drive by and look at the progress once the frame went up, because it made her sad.

She parked and twisted around in the seat to address the kids. “The most important thing to remember tonight is that, no matter what wild stories Hel tells you of her childhood, setting things on fire is never the way to go.” Jensen’s cousin and a handful of Shifters from his enclave had moved to Seclusion soon after the agreement was signed. It had made her hopeful that maybe the whole enclave would decide to relocate. Unlikely, but a girl could have dreams. “I need you all back at the car at midnight on the dot. Have fun and behave.”

Natalie rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mom.” She jumped out with Rath and Ruin, leaving a stunned Meredith in her wake.

“You alright there, darlin’?”

“That was an affectionate Mom, right? Like, it was sarcastic, and I get she’s not actually calling me her mom, but it was like, sarcastic-affectionate, right?”

Jensen pressed the back of his hand to her forehead.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking for a fever,” he murmured. “Are you having any other symptoms? Feelings of being unfulfilled? The random sense that a clock somewhere is ticking?”

She slapped his hand away. “No. My feelings of being unfulfilled lie in another direction.”

His eyes heated. “Is that so?”

“And while that act might have a biological purpose, if you put a kid in me, I will murder you.”

“That’s a relief. I was worried your one year of part-time parenting might have made you realize you wanted one or five of your own.” Meredith shuddered and Jensen chuckled. “You should see the look on your face.”

“My year of part-time parenting has made me glad I’m not actually a parent. Let’s go join everyone before they think we’re fogging up the windows.”

He leaned across the console and skated his fingers down her arm. “Or, we could fog up the windows and take care of those fulfillment issues.” He kissed the sensitive skin of her neck and her breathing quickened.

“I’m not having sex with you in a car in my friend’s driveway.” Afraid she would do just that, she opened the door and jumped out into the frigid December air.

“Tease,” he called, following her.

“You started it.”

He rushed her from behind, gripped her in a bear hug and spun her in a circle. “I’m going to finish it, too. Keep that in mind for the next four hours.”

“Now who’s the tease?” she grumbled.

Her mind was fixated on wholly inappropriate things by the time they reached the bonfire. The ground around the blazing tower had been cleared down to the dirt in that smooth, not-a-blade-of-grass-in-sight way that could only be achieved by professional landscapers or an Elemental Aspecter with an earth affinity. No random lawn fires were getting started tonight.