“I don’t—I don’t know anything about doing that,” Stella said, because she couldn’t quite say, Nate wouldn’t put up with that.
She’d dated plenty of guys who’d been disdainful about the idea of trying to make money from art, but even though they hadn’t discussed it, she knew Nate wasn’t going to be one of them.
“Talk to Nina’s mom.” Eva looked really excited now, possibly because she’d brought this up before but this was the first time Stella had entertained the idea past the first sentence or two. “She consults with small businesses, remember? She taught Aunt Lynn how to turn her guide business into something that really makes a profit. She’d know what to do.”
“I—” I can’t. Stella only knew Mavis a little bit. She was Colonel Hanes’ mate, and Lynn’s friend, and she’d helped them all drive Todd’s pack off when they’d shown up at the house.
She was also a beautiful, graceful, capable, professional woman, who always seemed to know what to say, and who had a track record of helping all sorts of local businesses around Glacier Park get back on their feet.
Stella found her intimidating as hell. But she couldn’t admit that to Eva, not when her daughter was looking at her with those hopeful eyes.
“I’ll...see what I can do,” she managed.
“Great!” Eva said. “I’ll let Nina know that you want to talk to her mom.”
Wait, don’t— But it was too late: Eva had already grabbed her phone and was texting.
“I didn’t know that you and Nina were close,” Stella managed. It looked like Eva was having a whole social life that Stella hadn’t even known existed.
Eva shrugged. “She’s nice. She’s moved around a lot, too, although she was by herself and it sounded like it really sucked, not like us.” She looked up. “She told me that meeting Joel and finding a pack here with the snow leopards was the best thing that ever happened to her. Does Nate have a pack?”
“I...don’t think so.” Stella hadn’t asked. Nate hadn’t mentioned anything, though. Just his job.
Eva’s face fell. “That’s too bad. Maybe he could move here and make a pack with us, instead of us moving to Chicago to be with him?”
Stella hated to disappoint her, but she had to object with, “His job’s in Chicago, honey. His whole security company is based there. I’m sure there’s all kinds of work for a security consultant in Chicago that there isn’t up here in Glacier.”
Although Nate did say he traveled a lot for work. That made Stella wistful in the way that living in a big city didn’t. If there was one perk she was going to demand in this relationship, it was that she get to tag along at least sometimes. When Nate was going somewhere particularly exciting.
In this relationship.
Jeez.
“Oh,” Eva said softly. “Well, um. I guess we can move, if we really have to.”
Eva was putting a brave face on. She’d done that before—there had been times when she was younger, when Stella had picked them up and moved them even though Eva really, really hadn’t wanted to. When she was very little, she’d thrown tantrums and told Stella, in all seriousness, that Stella was ruining her life. After she’d gotten older, she’d bitten her lip and insisted that she understood, that it was fine.
But those had been the times when they had to. When Eva had liked the house they were living in or the boyfriend Stella had been dating...but that relationship was over, so they couldn’t stay there. When she’d lost a job, and so they’d had to move somewhere where there were different ones.
When wanderlust grabbed her, she’d sit down with Eva and say, “Should we go somewhere else?” and wait. And if Eva’s face scrunched up and she shook her head...well, Stella would wait and ask her again later.
This...was something in between. But Stella knew one thing for sure: they didn’t have to move. She had a job and a place for them both to live, and Eva had a school to go to and, apparently, friends to spend time with.
And that, more than anything, made her want to stay. Because Eva had always had such a hard time making friends in the real world, instead of just on the Internet. Stella couldn’t quite bring herself to make her daughter abandon them, now that they were here.
“So,” she said, settling herself more comfortably on the bed. “When do I get to meet these friends of yours? Want to have them over sometime?”
“Mom,” Eva said, the song of the embarrassed teenager everywhere. “But we’re so weird.”
Stella laughed. “But weird is good. Didn’t you say so yourself?”
Eva subsided with a grumble, and Stella smiled to herself, despite the disquiet in the back of her mind.
Her daughter was happy. She and Nate would just have to work everything out for themselves.
***
Nate