Page 43 of The Alpha’s Unclaimed Mate

“Then we keep them hidden. Mine are.” I shrug. “He won’t know they exist until a judge does.”

She makes a face, then nods slowly. “Maybe.” Her gaze drifts toward the hall. “Where’s your girl? It’s quiet in here.”

“Out with her friend.” I take a sip and keep my tone easy.

“The friend with the uncle.” Rachel’s eyes sharpen, done with her own troubles for the moment. “The director from Crestline Academy. I saw him last night, you know. Parked outside, sitting in his car.”

My stomach drops a floor, but I keep my face bored. “His niece and Mia are joined at the hip. He brought her home, that’s all.”

“So he had breakfast with you.” A slow smile spreads over her face, the first real one I’ve seen from her.

“It wasn’t—”

“He’s gorgeous, Jessa.” She’s enjoying this way too much. “And kind, by every account. Good man. Both my kids are at that academy on scholarships he handed out.”

That catches me off guard. “Both of them?”

“I know.” She huffs a laugh. “Neither of them could kick a ball straight a year ago. I think his scout came for some other kid and spotted mine instead. Everybody in town knows my situation. He probably took pity.” She shrugs. “I’ve never seen my two play this well. They’re good now, but a year ago I don’t think they knew which end of the field was theirs.”

Marcus did this.

“He didn’t even know who I was. I doubt he does even now.” Rachel shakes her head, almost wondering at it. “Why would he? Hundreds of people work under him. But there are other kids in that school from broken homes, parents who couldn’t afford a uniform, let alone tuition. He handles all of it without making a show.” She tests the ankle and stands. “He’s a good person.”

“Maybe he is,” I murmur, and I don’t like how much I mean it.

At the door, she balances the borrowed sugar against her hip and looks back at me. “Thank you for the coffee, the ice, the bandage, the talking.” Her smile wobbles. “It’s nice having a friend out here. Most of the women won’t come near me. They know what he is, and they want to stay on the fire department’s good side.”

“I don’t have a side.” I lean on the frame. “And I could use a friend too. So we’re even.”

She laughs, a real one this time, and limps off down the hall toward her kids. I stand in the doorway and watch her go: three kids, a swollen ankle, a husband the whole town calls a hero but who is violent behind closed doors. None of it is fair, and there’s nothing about it I can fix today.

I shut the door, then go cut up the watermelon I’ve been ignoring in the fridge. Spearing a piece, I chew on Rachel’s whole life, on Marc scouting broken kids, paying for their uniforms, saying nothing about any of it.

“Why can’t you just be an asshole?” I tell the watermelon, jabbing the fork in. “It would be so much easier to hate you.”

The knock that answers a few minutes feels almost smug.

I open the door to all three of them: Mia and Bella vibrating with sugar, Marc behind them with his hands in his pockets. His mouth’s set hard, and he won’t quite meet my eyes, but whatever’s wrong, he buries it under a quiet “We’re back.”

I try not to look at him directly, my heart feeling strange in my chest after this new information I’ve just learned about him.

“So I see.” I crouch to the girls. “Did you have a good time?”

“The best,” Mia announces. “I went so high on the swings. And something bit me, but Marc fixed it with a bandage.”

“Did he?” I find the strip of bandage low on her shin and peel back the edge to check the damage. There’s clean skin underneath, no welt, no bite, no scratch, nothing but the faint pale line where the adhesive sat. I press the spot. She doesn’t flinch.

I look up at Marc. “You sure something bit her? There’s nothing here.”

He steps in to look down at Mia’s leg. His brows pull together, his jaw works, and for a second, he just stares at the unmarked skin. “Oh.”

“What?”

He blinks out of it. “Nothing. Probably just dirt. I thought it was a bite.”

The look in his eyes is strange, and I hold his gaze a beat longer than is comfortable. “All right then,” I say slowly and drop it because I’m a little confused myself.

“You two, go wash the park off your hands.” I straighten. “Then Bella can head home with her uncle.”