Page 28 of The Alpha's Temptation
“You packed rocks?”I ask because her pockets are clacking like wind chimes.
“Lucky ones.”She tips her palm to show me smooth ovals in grays and greens.
Foster drops into a squat, and our son clambers onto his back like a little wolf scaling a tree.“Strategy review,” he says in his very official Alpha voice.“Step one?”
“Pick a stone with a sharp edge,” Adam says, serious enough to make me bite my lip to keep from grinning.
“Step two?”Foster asks Nicole.
“Wrist loose.Follow through.Hips, not just arm.”She demonstrates in a perfect echo of a summer afternoon five years ago, when a patient boy taught a shy girl to try again.
“Step three?”Foster looks at me.
“Breathe,” I say, because that’s the one he forgets when he wants something too much.
He winks like I’ve given away state secrets and steals a kiss that tastes like cinnamon and pride.“Breathe,” he repeats against my mouth.
I smile and lace my fingers with Foster’s as we follow the others down to the river.We had the twins almost nine months to the day after we were first mated.They’re nearing five now and growing like weeds.
We weave through the crowd to the river and stop when we spot Rhodes and Camden.They’re talking smack like it’s a sport, and I roll my eyes and leave Foster with them as I inch closer to the river edge with the kids.I spot Penny standing on the low wall with a cone of sugared almonds, whistling loud enough to make birds startle from the willows.She catches my eye, points at our kids with two fingers, and pantomimes a medal.I grin back at her.She mouthscake, because of course she brought some.
The judge for the kids’ bracket is Cyrus in a straw hat he absolutely stole off someone’s porch.He holds up both hands, and the chatter shushes itself.“Three throws,” he calls.“Best total skips wins.If you throw your rock like you’re angry at it, you’re disqualified for being a menace to geology.”
“Which means you, Camden,” Rhodes mutters.
Camden throws him an offended look, followed by a peanut.It bounces off his shoulder.The whole line of children cackles.
Nicole steps up, sets her feet like she belongs to this river, and picks her first stone.She glances at Foster.He tips his chin.Breathe, I mouth, and her shoulders drop a fraction.
She throws.
Skip.Skip.Skip-skip-skip.
Six.
The crowd whoops.Nicole doesn’t look back at us.She’s already rolling the second stone in her fingers.She winds up and lets it go, and the river loves her for it.
Seven.
“Lightning,” Foster says under his breath.
He squeezes my hand, and I squeeze back, warmth climbing my spine as if it remembers the exact path it took the first time.
Her third stone goes out flat and true, touches down like a bird, and takes off again.
Eight.
She doesn’t cheer.She turns, eyes searching for ours, and when she finds me, she grins so wide it’s like she’s letting the lantern light into her chest and out again.I press my fist to my mouth.Foster’s wolf hums in my bones, low and pleased.
Adam is taller and more nervous.He keeps licking his lips.
Foster crouches so their eyes are level and taps their foreheads together once.“What’s the only rule?”
“Have fun,” Adam says automatically, then whispers, “and don’t throw like a menace to geology.”
“Atta boy.”
Adam chooses a stone that looks too big to my librarian eye, but what do I know; I catalog paper, not rivers.He takes three quick breaths because he remembers everything I say, even when he pretends he doesn’t, and he throws.
