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“Good. I’m looking forward to spending more time with them,” she said. “They grow up too fast.”

“Speaking of growing,” Stella said, directing her attention across the circle at Emari. “What is going on with that spider plant in the gallery entryway? When I dropped in the other day to pick up the raven painting, I thought it was going to crawl off the wall and take me hostage.”

“That’s what you get for not coming to the back and visiting while you were there,” Emari said.

“Glenda said you were teaching a class,” Stella replied.

“There was an extra chair. You paint beautifully when you take your time and don’t get distracted,” Emari insisted. “We were listening to Yani.”

“You’re right, I should have come back there,” she replied. “I’ll make sure there’s room in my schedule for a workshop when I pop in next. I don’t remember the last time I picked up a brush that didn’t involve painting over something someone had drawn on the wall.”

“I do,” Emari said. “You painted those lightning bolts over the lake that you refused to let Frost hang in the living room.”

“Oh, meh, I told him to toss it in the trash.”

“He didn’t,” Emari replied. “You’d better not fuss at him for it, either. I have it on good authority that he hung it at his station in the relay tower and proudly tells anyone who admired it that his mate painted it during a storm.”

Her cheeks flushed, but Rusty could tell that she was proud to learn that her mate had treasured the painting, even when she had been critical of her art.

“Now there you two go, reminding an old wolf of something she’d almost forgotten,” Meredith said. “It was a few months back, just after the leaves had changed. I took my easel into the forest to do a bit of early morning painting when I happened upon another painter in the woods. I didn’t want to break his concentration, so I took a different path, but I was thrilled to learn that there was another artist in the family. Rusty, why have you never mentioned that you decided to take up the brush?”

“Huh?” Rusty asked, looking around, sure there had to be another Rusty in the circle because there was no way she was talking about him. “You don’t mean me?”

She cocked her head and squinted at him. “Well, I was certain it was you, there aren’t many wolves around with that bright hair of yours, but now that I think about it, his was considerably shorter.”

Emari gasped, eyes meeting Rusty’s. They both knew what wolf she was referring to.

Flame.

But when the hell had his brother started painting anything other than vehicles?

His airbrushing was a thing of beauty. The designs he crafted were specifically tailored to the owner and the machine. Some of the work he’d done had even appeared in magazines, though that had gotten him into a bit of hot water, because the owners of some of them had been human. Looking back, Rusty was reminded of all the times he’d caught his brother off by himself, sketchbook in hand, until he realized he wasn’t alone and accused Rusty of being nosy. He hadn’t been. He’d sought out his brother to talk and was always startled to see how peaceful Flame looked, sketching by the light of the moon.

“It was your brother, wasn’t it?” Meredith asked. “I used to mix you two up all the time when you were small.”

“No worries, it happens,” Rusty said as he glanced over to check on Wren and saw them laughing at a wolf puppet with a jester’s hat on its head, jingle bells tingling as it danced across the stage, then up onto a ball, making it roll, much to the delight of the pups.

Decades ago, it had been him and Flame seated there, with their sister, Aster, between them, giggling at a different show, fingers sticky from caramel corn, totally engrossed in what was taking place on the stage. Even with the turmoil at home, they’d tried their best to be happy and avoid the yelling and noise. The leaf piles and hollow logs of the forest near their home had become an imaginary world of fairies and magical lands where you were only allowed to laugh, and name-calling was outlawed.

As he watched, the jester puppet fell backwards off the ball, legs kicking while the pups giggled, its bells jangling the whole time it threw a tantrum. That jangly hat with its bright yellow and white stripes reminded Rusty of the crown of daisies and buttercups Aster had woven for Flame the day they’d proclaimed him Prince of the Forest. Rusty had handed his brother a gnarled wooden staff he’d carved from a tree limb he’d found during an earlier romp. The sky had been brilliant blue that day. They’d played in the leaves until they’d heard their mama’s bell clanging for them to come back home. She’d told him once that his grandfather had mounted it on the porch for her after the house was built. A similar one was on the porch at his grandparents’ place, and every pup in the family knew what that sound meant.

Get your ass home.

Astor and Flame had loved fairies so much that their mama had made them wings one year to wear with their Halloween costumes. Trick or treating had been amazing because she’d driven them into town to go door to door where they’d received bags full of treats. All were homemade and better than human candy, especially the fudge and individually wrapped chocolate-covered cherries almost as big as his fists. They’d been sticky by the time they’d gotten home, and their mom had just laughed and sent them to clean up while she put their treats away for them.

Next year, there would be costumes to buy and pups to take up and down the streets of town in a wagon, because he’d been smart enough to learn that trick from watching other wolves over the years. Otherwise, the kids got tired and grumpy, and the parents wound up carrying them in between energy bursts and crashes. Wren would no doubt want to skip ahead with their friends, but that was okay too, there were more than enough adults to keep an eye on all of them.

Logan laughed at something, and Rusty dialed back into the circle of wolves around him to see everyone staring at him.

“What?” he asked, glancing between his mates.

“I’ve been trying to get your attention for the last thirty seconds,” Roark said, shaking his head at him, “but you’re so into the puppet show you didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”

Rusty glanced around at the others, all wearing bemused smiles. Most of them had been mated far longer than him, so he eagerly sought their advice.

“Is this the part where I agree or pretend I have a clue what he’s talking about?” Rusty asked sheepishly.

Laughter followed, at which point Rusty just shrugged and popped a snickerdoodle in his mouth. Roark kissed him on the cheek, then leaned against his shoulder, still chuckling.