It wasn’t because they didn’t quite hide their curiosity about me. I got that.

I got it because Chace and Jacob were tight, Faye was married to Chace, and these women were close. I knew women talked so I’d be an object of fascination, what with Jacob corralling their men to install insulation, which said it all about how a man felt about the woman whose insulation he was installing. The girls had shared early on in getting cups of coffee and settling in that all their men had helped find Faye during her ordeal, Jacob included in that, which, when something like that happened, was an unwanted but definite bonding ritual and these men had bonded through it.

The odd man out in that was Graham Reece, who wasn’t around then. But he was a good friend of Max’s so Max figured many hands made light work, especially if those hands are connected to brawny hot guys (though Max probably didn’t think about the hot part) and he’d asked Reece to come along.

I was glad for the help, which cost me nothing but beer and chips and brownies (that I’d had just enough time and just enough luck the oven was working to make).

But I was overwhelmed because these women were tight.

I didn’t fit in. They had history, a lot of it intense, and it was my experience that a latecomer to that might be welcome but she was never in.

And I’d decided long ago, in college actually, when I’d been bit by a couple of girls who were mean girls and were mean to me, that my time and energy in friendships should be saved for only those who deserved it. Seeing as I liked my own company and my life, filling it with people I genuinely cared about who genuinely cared about me worked.

So I didn’t know how to do the girl posse. I didn’t have a lot of experience with it, by design. And being in a chatty, close-knit one in my own house but still the outsider wasn’t much fun.

I wouldn’t tell Jacob this. He’d worry or maybe ask them to leave.

So I had to suck it up and deal.

I was thinking this when something weird happened.

And that weird something was, with Krystal leading the pack, all of them set about making me not the outsider, folding me in the posse, and doing it genuinely but also honestly.

Krystal started this by asking, “How you holdin’ up with your uber-alpha?”

I blinked, stared because I thought her question was weird, then asked, “Pardon?”

“The mighty have fallen,” Lexie noted, grinning at Lauren, “Only Deke left.”

Deke, I forgot to mention, was a big guy with long blond hair in a ponytail. And he didn’t bring a woman.

“So, Emme, how you holdin’ up?” Krystal repeated.

“I, well…” I started but trailed off, unsure.

“Just so you know,” Faye, who’d brought a couple bags of herbal tea and had a mug of it in her hand that luckily my stove was working in order to boil the kettle to make, was talking to me, “Chace is super-happy you and Deck reconnected. He said he’s always liked you.”

That felt nice since I’d always liked Chace.

Nice enough for me to reply, “Just so you know, Jacob is super-happy Chace found you.”

She smiled at me.

“You call him Jacob?” Krystal asked then looked at Faye. “Does anyone call him Jacob?”

“Not that I know of,” Faye answered.

Krystal looked at me. “What’s with ‘Jacob’?”

Until right then, I didn’t understand I called him that because no one else did, except my mom and dad, but including Elsbeth. I called him that likely to be outside the pack. I called him that unwittingly creating something between us, an intimacy he shared with no one… but me.

And he never said a word.

This made me feel mushy.

“I like the name Jacob,” I told her, and it wasn’t a fib.

“It’s a nice name,” Faye murmured, grinning into her tea.

“Just so you know,” I said to Faye. “Jacob is also super-honored you’re naming your son after him.”

Faye smiled at me again.

“Yes, that’s sweet, Faye,” Lauren put in.

“Okay, is it just me, or has anyone noticed Emme hasn’t answered Krys’s question?” Lexie stated at this point, and my eyes went to her.

“That’s because I don’t know how, exactly,” I admitted.

“Oh boy,” Krystal sat back, looking at Lexie, “this is not good.”

My gaze went to her. “Why?”

She leaned into me and warned, “Do not let that man walk all over you.”

I blinked.

Jacob would never do that. I didn’t even know why she’d think that. I’d said nothing that would lead her to that.

“I—” I began.

Faye got there before me. “Deck’s an alpha but he’d never do that.”

I was relieved she felt the same and verbalized it.

“Bullshit,” Krystal said.

My head jerked.

“He wouldn’t,” Faye replied to Krystal.

“They all try,” Lexie put in.

That wasn’t good news.

“Is the sex good?” Krystal asked me, and my head jerked again.

“I, well… it… we just started—” I stammered, not even knowing why I was stammering instead of telling her that was none of her business.

“I hope it’s good but not great,” Krystal remarked. “Sex slave to an alpha. Bad news.”

This time my head didn’t jerk. I blinked again.

“I’m a sex slave to an alpha and I have no complaints,” Lauren muttered, grinning at Zara.

“Me either,” Zara replied, grinning back.

“I’ve had mine longer than all of you,” Nina announced. “And I’m of a mind that there will never be a time I complain mostly because it’s been years and Max has given me nothing to complain about.”

“Don’t tell me Tate Jackson isn’t addicted to all that,” Krystal said to Lauren, ignoring Nina and throwing her hand up in the air to indicate all that was Lauren, and there was a lot.

She had to be in her forties but she hit that age in a happy way, lots of hair, biker babe look that I thought was the bomb, a fabulous figure. Tate Jackson was extremely good-looking but he hit the jackpot with his wife, and unless he was stupid, which I didn’t figure he was, he would know it.

“This is where things are interesting,” Lexie declared. “I would have thought it’d be hard, especially out here without a huge pool to pick from, for Deck to meet his match but he has. I mean, it isn’t like there are a bunch of skanks around, mountain girls have it going on, but not Jacob Decker caliber of have it going on.” Her eyes pinned me. “That’s good news for you, honey.”