Nalini Singh - Wild Invitation

She thought of his chuckle over Ben, his slow kiss good-bye, and felt her lips curve in a silly smile.

“My God,” Ava groaned, sinking into the chair on the other side of her desk, “you’re smitten. It’s so sweet I think I just got a cavity.”

Lara threw a soft toy a patient had gifted her at her best friend’s head. “I am newly mated,” she pointed out. “Entitled to be smitten, thank you very much.”

Sighing, Ava pushed her hand through the silky dark of her shoulder-length hair. “True, you’re not a cynical old broad like me.”

“ Please. I saw you coming out of your office looking distinctly disheveled yesterday afternoon, accompanied by a certain Mr. Stone—who had a suspicious bruise on his neck and a shirt that was buttoned up crooked.”

Ava grinned, unabashed. “Hey, we have a baby and a five-and-a-half-year-old with the world’s worst case of curiosity. We have to get creative.”

Having fallen foul of Ben’s curious streak less than an hour ago, Lara grinned. “Lucky you mated a creative type.”

Spencer “Spence” Stone was the pack’s official photographer—not simply of joy, but of pain and war and loss. He’d been out on the battlefield, had captured the only known terrestrial images of Sienna’s X-fire, taking photograph after photograph and transmitting them simultaneously to the den until the flames licked over his body. Even then, once he realized he wasn’t burning, he’d somehow managed to get his arm up over the fire, capture a single shot of the column of flame that had encased Hawke and Sienna.

“Yes.” Ava sighed, expression dreamy. “The man is supremely blessed in the creativity department.”

Lara didn’t think her best friend was talking about Spence’s prowess with a camera. “He ever take photographs when you, you know?”

Ava waggled her eyebrows, eyes the same dark brown as her son’s filled with unrepentant wickedness. “Not telling. But wait till you have a newborn and a teenager to deal with—I figure sweet as he is, Toby’s gonna go crazy on you any day now. Then I will laugh.”

The idea of a baby with Walker made butterflies break out in a manic jig in her abdomen. “I am so smitten.”

“Told ya,” Ava said, checking an incoming message on her phone. Her expression was suddenly one of pure delight. “Sorry, I’m going to ditch you. Mr. Stone is back in the den, the baby’s with her aunt, Ben’s in school, and I’ve completed my work for the day. Adios.”

Lara was still grinning over the speed of Ava’s disappearance ten minutes later when Riley caught her coming out of the storeroom after a quick chat with Lucy.

The senior lieutenant held up a small datapad. “You and Walker settle on a date for your mating ceremony yet? It’d be nice to give the pack the heads-up—there are a lot of folks who want to make certain they’re in the den for the celebration.”

His words made her wolf want to throw back its head, sing in joy. “We had a chat about it last night,” she said, inputting a date into the calendar on the datapad. “How’s that work?”

“It’ll be just over two weeks after Hawke and Sienna’s ceremony,” Riley said. “Fine with you?”

“Sounds perfect.” Walker needed to see Sienna embraced into her new position in SnowDancer and would enjoy his and Lara’s own night far more once he had. And as healer, Lara knew Hawke’s mating and the attendant celebration was critical for the health of the pack. Everyone needed a chance to dance, to forget the blood and pain of battle, and to howl their joy at the mating of an alpha who’d bled for the pack since he was little more than a boy.

“Any plans in terms of the celebration itself?” Riley’s eyes, steady and calm, met her own. “I’ve already got a laundry list of volunteers who want to help.”

Warmth spread through every inch of her body at his words. “I’ll have a preliminary sketch for you in a week or so.” In this, Walker was being the typical male—he accepted everything she suggested. Frustrated, she’d slipped oiled male dancers into the plan, complete with whipped cream and a strategically placed tassel or two. That had received a response—a very firm “No.”

Sliding the datapad into his pants pocket, Riley nodded. “Sounds good.” His expression softened. “I’m very happy for you, Lara. He’s a good man.”

“I know,” she said with a smile she knew shouted her delight in her mate, and returned Riley’s affectionate hug, his body solid as a wall. “Where are you heading now?”

“Down to do some digging in the section being replanted.”

Lara scowled, jealous. “Enjoy. I’m off to slave away at more patient reports.”

The paperwork kept her busy till ten after five, interrupted only by a fifteen-minute break when Toby and Marlee returned home to change and eat a snack before leaving for their afterschool activities. Though Toby was old enough to supervise his cousin, Lara enjoyed spending that time with them.

And, she thought with a smile, recalling the kisses on the cheek as they’d left in the same rush they’d arrived, the children had started to expect to see her—to the point that if she was busy in the infirmary, they came searching. It was nice in the best sense of the word. However, she’d been hard at work since sending them off, and now decided she’d done enough to assuage her guilt.

“Lucy, go home!” she called out to her nurse, closing the file she’d been working on at the same time.

The younger woman appeared out of the storage room a minute later, tugging off her hairtie to redo her sadly drooping ponytail. “Time flies when I’m cataloguing supplies,” she said, tone dry as dust. “I’m a third of the way through. Want me to do the reorders as I go or at the end?”

“As you go. Better if we’re out of some things than if we’re low on everything.”

“I’ll break out my secret-recipe chocolate brownies and bribe someone from operations to process the orders, speed things up.”

“I already asked.” She’d figured Lucy would appreciate the help. “No luck—operations has its hands full to overflowing.” SnowDancer had won the battle, but the violence had left the pack with broken or destroyed equipment, part of a forest to replant, packmates in the city who’d suffered damage to their homes, disrupted comm lines, debris from the enemy’s ships to clear…the list went on.

“Damn. We really need that dedicated admin person.” Putting her hands on her lower back, Lucy bent over backward to stretch her muscles.

Lara nodded. “I had a chat with Ava about it.” With a degree in managing Living Resources, Ava was the one who oversaw the arm of operations that had to do with finding the right people for internal Pack jobs. “She’s making up a shortlist for us to go over, but I think we’d better wait till things settle down a little more before doing interviews.”

“I hope Ava’s list includes lots of smokin’ hot males from other sectors.”

Lara laughed at the plaintive wish. “Dry spell?”

“You have no idea—everyone likes me, but I want to be ravished! Nice Lucy wants a gorgeous hunk of man to see and devour Sexy Lucy.” Shaking her head, she left the infirmary with Lara, her own quarters just across the hallway. “I had a couple of soldiers drop in today. They helped me with the supplies. We talked.”

That was why Lucy was such an exceptional nurse—she understood that not all healing happened in the infirmary and that Lara needed to be kept updated with the health of the pack.

“Younger males,” the other woman added as Lara indicated for her to come into the family apartment.

It was empty, the children’s activities scheduled to run late today, but it held the imprint of the family. Scattered school backpacks, textbook and game datapads on the coffee table, Walker’s jacket hanging next to her own on the coat hook to the left of the doorway, the quiet, deep scent of dark water and snow-dusted firs underlying the brighter, brasher scents of the children.