Sawyer was proud of herself. Over the course of a week, she went to bed at a reasonable hour, got up before noon, and was eating three balanced meals a day. She also put on some weight, filling out the hollows in her cheeks and waist.

As promised, Mom took her to Hillsboro on a shopping spree on Saturday, where Sawyer bought new clothes, three bedding sets, picked up a new rug to replace the rose monstrosity, and upgraded her original cell phone. They even stopped at a nearby comic store after Mom caught Sawyer staring at it longingly.

As it turned out, there were a lot of issues for her to catch up on.

On Sunday, the whole family spent the day going from greenhouse to greenhouse, stuffing Dad's truck bed full of six different varieties of tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli, zucchini, squash, eggplants, and eight strawberry plants. That wasn't counting the vegetables Sawyer just tossed into the wagon on a whim.

During the day, Sawyer worked on her garden. In the evening, she spent time talking with or texting Caleb on his break. There was one thing she hadn't done yet—and that was contact her two best friends. They'd probably be mad at her, but Sawyer wasn't taking any chances someone would overhear and let slip to Alpha Owen that she was back.

Gradually, as the days unfolded, she felt more and more like her old self. She still flinched at strange sounds and kept looking over her shoulder while she was working, however.

"Here," Mom said, dropping a small box onto Sawyer's bed as she stuffed a change of clothes into her old high school backpack.

Sawyer glanced at the box and flushed to the roots of her lavender hair. "M-om," she cried, embarrassed.

"It's a small box!" her mother retorted, a sly smile playing on her lips.

"Goddess!" Sawyer swore as her face burned, snatching up the box of condoms and shoving it into the bottom of the bag. She'd grown up in a sex-positive household, as most werewolves were, but presenting your daughter with an entire box of condoms for an overnight camping trip was overkill. "I guarantee you that Mrs Stillwater didn't do this to Caleb."

"No?" Mom replied with a grin. "Are you sure about that?"

Sawyer's eyes widened. "You two are horrible."

Mom chuckled. "I want to be a grandmother, just not so soon."

Well, they were in agreement there.

"What do you have by way of food?" Mom asked, peering at the snacks strewn across Sawyer's new bed sheets.

"Caleb said he was going to cook us steaks."

"Just steaks?"

Sawyer's brow furrowed. "I think so."

Mom sighed and shook her head. "I'm going downstairs and put together a small salad for you two."

By the time Sawyer went downstairs, not only did her mother have a salad ready in a large Tupperware container, but there was also cheese, pepperoni, crackers, bagels and cream cheese, and a small bottle of orange juice. Plus utensils, plates, and napkins.

"Hi, Mrs Bloodmoon," Caleb called out, entering the house through the sliding glass door with Lee.

Mom paused in her rearranging of Sawyer's backpack to put her hands on her hips and look Caleb up and down. "Caleb Stillwater. Is it true all you were going to feed my daughter was steak tonight?"

Lee began laughing as Caleb blushed. "Yeah, well ..."

"It's a good thing I talked to your mother about this," Mom continued, zipping up Sawyer's backpack.

"Oh." Caleb blinked as Sawyer covered her mouth with one hand. "Is that why she tossed a bowl of fruit at me as I was leaving?"

Mom grinned. "You still have a lot to learn, dear boy."

"Apparently," Caleb replied, coloring slightly. He looked at the floor and poked at one of the stools with the toe of his boot.

Lee snorted, grinning from ear to ear. Caleb shot his best friend a glare.

"That goes for you, too, Lee," Mom told him, wagging a finger at her son. "If you ever get serious with anyone, that is."

Lee's laughter abruptly shifted into a non-committal grunt. Sawyer giggled. She loved her brother dearly, but he was not romantic at all.

Mom handed Sawyer her backpack. Thanks to the goddess, it wasn't as heavy as she expected.

"Now, where are you two going to be camping again?" Mom asked, folding her arms and leaning against the counter.

"By the spring," Caleb answered as Sawyer adjusted her straps.

"That's nice. Just be careful out there—I heard that it may storm later tonight."

Caleb grinned. "No worries, Mrs B. The tent's waterproof."

"Have fun, kids," Mom said as Sawyer reached out to take Caleb's hand. Lee rolled his eyes and mimed gagging, grinning as he did so.

Sawyer stuck her tongue out at her brother. As annoying as he could be, she really did miss these little interactions with Lee.

After saying goodbye to her mother and brother, Sawyer and Caleb descended the deck stairs hand-in-hand until they reached the bottom. There, Caleb grabbed a large bundle sitting on the ground—presumably the tent—and slung it over his other shoulder.

"Ready?" he asked with a wink.

Sawyer nodded; Caleb's eyes flashed orange and she felt a slight surge of energy. In the blink of an eye, a giant, ruddy wolf stood in Caleb's place. Despite herself, Sawyer flinched in surprise. It had been a long time since she had been in the presence of a werewolf in his animal form and she'd actually forgotten how big they could be.

As an alpha-descended male, Caleb's wolf was as large as a small car. "Hop on, Savvy," the wolf said in a deep, growling approximation of Caleb's voice. He lowered himself to the ground, jaws parting in a lupine smile.

But where did his backpack and tent go, one might wonder? Well, anything a werewolf carried on their person vanished into an "otherspace" when they shifted—quite a neat trick.

Shaking off her anxiety, Sawyer climbed onto Caleb's back, weaving her fingers through his thick ruff. Caleb rumbled appreciatively beneath her and carefully stood up. Sawyer bobbled slightly as he moved, but all those years of running through the forest with her parents and Lee came flooding back. It was just like riding a horse if a horse had claws and fangs and could snap bone like a toothpick.

Caleb trotted through the Bloodmoons' backyard and ducked between the trees. Several trails wound through the forest, carved by generations of werewolves. One of those trails led to a large hot spring in the shape of a perfect oval.

There was a legend surrounding the land that Hecate City was built upon; how it had once been home to nature spirits: naiads and dryads—the ancestors of faeries. According to one story, the hot spring was a gathering place for the spirits, where they could bathe without fear of men's prying eyes. How much of that was true was up for debate, but when Sawyer was a child, she sometimes could hear the trees whispering to each other when she ventured into the forest.

The hot spring was a clan favorite destination and was highly in demand during the cooler months. Not so during the rise of summer, so Sawyer and Caleb were the only ones there.

Large boulders rose from the forest floor and spilled down a slight slope to tumble around the hot spring. Over the last hundred years, members of Clan Bloodmoon had beautified the spot, carefully installing a wide wooden deck around the oval. Stones from the hillside were repositioned and carved into stairs leading up to the deck, with a railing on each side. The campground was down another level, with several fire pits and picnic tables and enough room to pitch a half-dozen large tents on the bare earth.

Caleb picked his way down the slope, his paws too big to fit on the wooden staircase leading down to it. Sawyer held on tight to his red ruff, smiling at the memories that rose at the sight of the hot spring.

"You didn't bring stuff for s'mores, did you?" she asked.

One of Caleb's rounded ears flicked back to catch the sound of her voice. "Shit. I knew I was forgetting something," he rumbled, giant fangs flashing as he spoke. "Maybe Mom put some in my bag when I wasn't looking."

Knowing werewolf mothers, that was a strong possibility.

Caleb jumped down the last few feet, landing by one of the fire pits. Without waiting for him to lie down, Sawyer slipped off his back and looked around the campsite. Like her house, nothing had changed here.

There was another slight surge of energy and Caleb asked, "Where do you want to set up?"

Honestly, it didn't matter. There were no advantages, other than being closer to the hot spring. Sawyer put her hands on her hips and assessed the site. She shrugged and pointed to one fire pit that was in the middle.

"Works for me," Caleb said, walking over to the pit and shrugging off the tent.

It soon became clear that neither one of them had been camping in a long time. What should have taken half an hour to accomplish stretched out into two hours of mild frustration and more than one playful shoving match. But oh, it was the most fun Sawyer had being irritated in five years!

At last, the large tent stood proudly, without the weird slump in the middle that had been the source of their frustration. While Sawyer set about making up the inside of the tent, Caleb lit the fire in the fire pit and started grilling.

"Those look ... good," Sawyer noted appreciatively as she exited the tent. The last time Caleb had attempted to grill steaks for her, well ... they didn't look like much of anything when he was done.

"Would you believe that I'm the cook at the firehouse?" he asked with a grin, stirring some sort of sauce in a small pan next to the steaks.

"No!" Sawyer exclaimed, sitting down beside him on one of the long logs. "How did that happen?"

Caleb chuckled. "It's a tradition at my firehouse to make the probie cook for everyone. I failed so badly that I slunk home and demanded that Mom teach me everything. It took a while, but as I got better, I found out that I enjoyed doing it. Pretty soon, I was cooking for the whole station."

Sawyer folded her hands in her lap and stared down at the fire pit. "You've come so far, Caleb ..." She ducked her chin as she realized she had no such accomplishments to brag about.

Caleb threw an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to his side. "And you will too, Savvy. I saw that you started working in your garden again—that's something, isn't it?"

She lifted her head, lips twitching in a small smile as she acknowledged the truth. "Yeah."

"And you're going to get your GED, work for Goldfinch's, and move up from there. You'll be back on track in no time." Caleb leaned down and kissed the top of her forehead. "It's not too late, baby. We've got our whole lives ahead of us."

Considering both of them would live well into their 150s that was not an understatement. "I hate that you're so optimistic," Sawyer groused playfully.

"I won't lie and say that it's been easy," he admitted, sticking his pinky into the sauce for a quick taste. "These last five years were hard."

"I'm sorry," Sawyer replied automatically, looking up at Caleb.

Her boyfriend smiled softly and rubbed her shoulder, pulling her close. "Can you promise me something?" he asked quietly.

"What?"

"No more 'sorries'. What's done is done, okay?"

Swallowing against the sudden lump in her throat, Sawyer nodded. "I'll try." It was going to be hard, she knew that, but Caleb was right. She had to put the past behind her and move forward.

"I know you will."

They sat in companionable silence as Caleb checked the steaks. Sawyer watched his face as he put them in the pan and began spooning the sauce over the tops. There was more to that knitted brow than concentration.

"Something wrong?"

Those warm green eyes flicked over to her and Caleb smiled wryly. "I was trying to decide the best way to tell you."

Her eyebrows rose. "Tell me what?"

Caleb took a deep breath and said, "My grandfather asked me to see him last week."

Sawyer's heart thumped and she swayed slightly on the log before catching herself. No enforcers showed up at her house, so it couldn't be that bad—right?

"And?"

"He tells me to meet him at the casino, of course, and asks me if I'm seeing anyone. I tell him 'no', so he pulls out this massive stack of papers and throws them at me. Tells me that I have to pick a wife from the pile."

Sawyer leaned back on the log, shaking her head in disbelief. Of all the possibilities running through her head, that was not one of them. "And? You don't have to marry someone by the Festival, do you?" she asked in a rising panic.

"No," Caleb chuckled, "thank Hecate." Pulling the pan off the flames, he set it on a nearby rock. "Do you know what my grandfather's requirements are for a wife?"

Phew, Sawyer breathed, feeling her heart rate begin to slow.

"Submissive?" That was the only thing that came to mind when she thought of Alpha Owen's second wife, Phoebe, and their four daughters.

Caleb nodded. "Submissive, small, big-boobed, pretty, and eager to please." He shook his head and laughed ironically.

Submissive, small, big-boobed, pretty, and eager to please, Sawyer thought, ticking them off on her fingers. "Well, I'm certainly not short." She was five-foot-seven. "You can kiss me being submissive and eager to please goodbye. And well, my boobs ..." She looked down at her chest; the girls were more akin to apples than cantaloupes.

"I like your boobs," Caleb murmured huskily.

"I know," she replied, feeling the heat rise into her cheeks. That was definitely not from the fire.

It was at that moment that Sawyer's stomach rumbled, breaking the mood—for a while, at least. Caleb laughed and grabbed plates from her backpack. "Our mothers will kill us if we let this food go to waste."

That was no lie.

Grabbing all the food, drinks, plates, and utensils, they made their way to one of the picnic tables to eat.