Page 32 of Silver Fox Mountain Daddies

“We still don’t know your full name.”

Her hands still. She doesn’t look at me.

“Not your real one. Just Ani. A nickname.”

I move in closer, closing the space.

“You haven’t told us where you’re from. Who you belong to. If you belong to anyone at all.”

That makes her flinch.

“You been hiding from a man?” I ask. “Or your family? Or something else?”

“I’m not a danger to anyone here.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

She lifts her head halfway, still not meeting my eyes.

“Do you need to know those things about me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you live here now. In our house. Near our girl. And I don’t know a damn thing about who you are or what you left behind.”

She swallows hard. Her fingers press into the edge of the counter until her knuckles pale.

“I told you my name.”

“You told us what you go by. That’s not the same.”

She finally looks at me. Not at my face, of course. Her gaze lands somewhere between my mouth and my collar.

Silence stretches between us. I let it.

She wets her lips. “Would it help if I said I don’t have a record?”

“You mean you don’t think we’d find one under the name you gave us?”

Her jaw tenses.

“You think this is a game?”

“No.”

“Because it feels like one. You flash your big eyes at Jonah. You laugh when Finn says something dumb. You help with breakfast and dinner, and watch Mae when we ask. But you haven’t told us anything important about yourself.”

I take a step forward. Close enough now that I could reach out and grab her. I don’t.

“You’re hiding in plain sight, and you’re doing it so well neither of those knuckleheads realizes it.”

Her voice, when it comes, is quieter. Less steady. “And you do?”

“I see it every time you flinch when a door closes too hard. When you press your hand over your stomach like you’re bracing for something. When your eyes flick around the room looking for danger.”

She closes them now. Just for a second.

---