“How often do you practice?”

“Every day. This used to be my mom’s bedroom. My adopted mom, I mean. Jess. But when she mated with Smitty, she took one of the rooms downstairs and turned this into a practice room for me so I could practice whenever I want rather than worrying about booking time in practice rooms away from the house.”

“This Pack, your Pack, has been super supportive of your music, haven’t they?”

A small smile curled the corners of Johnny’s mouth. “Yeah. They have.”

“What if they hadn’t been?”

He shrugged. “I’d play anyway. I got thrown out of one of my foster homes because I practiced too much. Well . . . that and I snarled at one of the other kids when he was trying to take my Twinkie, but my God, it was my Twinkie.”

She laughed. “Don’t feel bad. I was performing with a quartet in Australia once and I ended up hitting the cello player with another player’s flute because his nose was making this high-pitched whistling sound. Full-humans have no idea how those kinds of noises irritate sensitive dog ears. It’s like nails on a chalkboard.”

“Can I ask you something, Miss Jean-Louis?”

“If you call me Jackie, you can ask me.”

“Why are you here?”

“I know you’re starting Juilliard in the fall and I thought maybe I could work with you this summer. Get you ready. You’ll be dealing with some serious competition at Juilliard. And those full-humans can be mean. I get that they are competitive, but telling me I have birthing hips? Who says that to a woman? I mean, I do have birthing hips but that’s not the point. What I want to do with you is teach you to control your natural and correct instinct to tear out the arteries of someone who says you have birthing hips and instead, calmly blow them away with your talent. Because let me tell you—the full-humans hate that.”

Johnny leaned back a bit, big brown eyes blinking. Jess saw him swallow before he asked, “You want to work with me?”

“Yes.”

“Me?”

The She-jackal grinned. “Yes. You. Is that really so hard to believe?”

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

“Johnny, you’re good.”

“I know I’m good. But you’re . . . you’re . . . you’re friggin’ Jacqueline Jean-Louis. The Jacqueline Jean-Louis. I have all your CDs. I’ve watched every documentary PBS has ever had on you and your CBS Christmas special three years back.”

“And I’ve heard you play,” she said, keeping it simple. Jess liked that.

Jacqueline got to her feet and Johnny scrambled up to his own. Now he towered over the jackal, like the big wolf he was growing into.

“Look,” she told him, “think about it.Talk it over with your mom. I’m right across the street for the rest of the summer.” Something Jess had argued against. But her Pack wouldn’t let her ignore the amount of money the Jean-Louis Parkers were willing to pay to rent the place across the street. Although, to be honest, Jess couldn’t ignore it, either. It was truly a shitload of money.

“And I’m talking a casual thing,” the jackal went on. “We get together, we play, we talk. We exchange ideas. I listen.”

“Well . . . um . . . I’ll talk to my mom.”

“That should be easy enough since she’s standing right outside the room, along with a good chunk of your Pack.”

Jess spun around and yes, at least ten of her Pack, including Sabina, May, Danny, and Phil, were standing right behind her.

“You guys!” Jess snarled.

They all shrugged and Jess rolled her eyes, then slowly eased into her old bedroom. Johnny lifted his hands and dropped them. “Ma.”

“Don’t be mad at her.” The She-jackal smiled. “She loves you. She’s just watching out for you. I’m like that with my own kids—oh, my God!” she suddenly burst out, startling every canine in the room and the hallway. “My daughter! I completely forgot. And she takes it so personally when I do.” She turned and rushed toward the door. “She’s gonna kill me!”

While the jackal ran downstairs, Jess walked over to Johnny. “Sorry if we embarrassed you.”

“What’s this ‘we’ shit?” came from the hallway.

“Shut up, Phil!” Jess yelled back.

“She wants to work with me,” Johnny whispered to Jess. He gripped her hands tight. “Me.”

Jess still didn’t know if she trusted that jackal—although because of her honesty, she did trust the jackal’s daughter—but none of that mattered. Because she wasn’t about to destroy her son’s obvious happiness and excitement. It was something he seemed to experience so rarely that Jess knew in her heart this was an important moment for him. One of those life-changing ones.

So if Johnny was happy about this, then Jess would be happy for him.

Grinning, Jess asked, “Now can I get you that Stradivarius violin they’re going to auction in Milan?”

Laughing, Johnny dropped her hands. “Ma, no!”

“Stop talking to me, Mom.”

“I said I was sorry!” Jackie told Toni. “What made you go diving in front of a truck anyway? The dog had cleared it.”

Ignoring her mother, Toni marched up the stairs of their rental home toward her bedroom. Coming down the stairs, her father stopped and stared at her. “Baby, what happened to your arm?”