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“I wondered whether Sloane was your name.”

A startled laugh escaped her. “It is. I swear.”

“Grandma confirmed that.”

Sloane’s eyebrows rose. “How?”

“She looked at your driver’s license.”

“Of course she did,” she said with a laugh.

“She says she was checking whether you had gas money.”

Sloane closed her eyes. “That woman has no boundaries.”

“She believes she has excellent boundaries.”

Sloane took a breath. “I don’t expect everything to be fixed because I helped today.”

“It isn’t.”

“I know.”

“There will be questions,” I said.

“I’ll answer them all.”

“I might not believe the answers immediately.”

She inhaled shakily. “I understand.”

“You’ll have to rebuild trust with more than me.”

“I know.” She glanced at Caldwell. He was sitting in Julie’s lap and watching us. Sloane’s face crumpled. “I’m prepared for him not to forgive me.”

Caldwell lowered his oxygen mask. “You came back.”

Sloane stared at him. He didn’t say anything else. He returned the mask to his face and leaned into Julie.

That small offering made Sloane cry again.

I rubbed the tears away with my thumbs.

She gave me a helpless look. “I have cried so much this week that I think my body is creating reserve water.”

“You were probably dehydrated before.”

“That feels unnecessarily judgmental during a vulnerable moment.”

“Hydration is important.”

She laughed through the tears, and the sound reached somewhere I had missed her most.

I looked at the woman in front of me. Not Loany. Not a wolf who’d returned after years away.

Sloane.

Human.