I’m not sure what I was going to suggest, maybe a run out somewhere no one would see us. But it was too late.

“Mercy,” said a high-pitched voice as the office door popped open with a roar of bongos and guitars, and Gabriel’s littlest sister, Maia, bounced down the short run of steps and sprinted toward us. “Mercy, Mercy, guess what? Guess what? I am all grown-up. I am going to pretty school, and I—”

And that was when she caught a glimpse of Sam.

“Ooo,” she said, still running.

Samuel is not bad-looking in his human form—but his wolf is pure white and fluffy. All he needed was a unicorn’s horn to be the perfect pet for a little girl.

“Pretty school?” I asked, stepping forward and to the side, so I was between the werewolf and Maia. Maia stopped instead of bumping into me, but her eyes were on the wolf.

The next-oldest girl, Sissy, who was six, had emerged from the office a few seconds after her sister. “Mamá says you can’t run out of the office, Maia. There might be cars who wouldn’t see you. Hi, Mercy. She means preschool. I’m in first grade this year—and she is still just a baby. Is that a dog? When did you get a dog?”

“Pretty school,” repeated Maia. “And I’m not a baby.” She gave me a hug and launched herself at Sam.

I would have caught her if Sam hadn’t bounded forward, too.

“Pony,” she said, attacking him as if he weren’t a scarily huge wolf. She grabbed a handful of fur and climbed on top of him. “Pony, pony.”

I reached for her, but froze when Sam gave me a look.

“My pony,” Maia said happily, oblivious to my terror. She thumped her heels into his ribs hard enough I could hear the noise. “Go, pony.”

Maia’s sister seemed to understand the danger as well as I did. “Mamá,” she shrieked. “Mamá, Maia’s being stupid again.”

Well, maybe not as well.

She frowned at her sister and—while I stood frozen, afraid that whatever action I took would be the one that sent Sam over the edge—told me, “We took her to the fair and she saw the horses—now she climbs on every dog she sees. She almost got bitten by the last one.”

Sam, for his part, grunted the fourth or fifth time Maia’s heels hit his side, gave me another look—one that might have been exasperation—and started toward the office, for all the world as if he were a pony instead of a werewolf.

“Mercy?” Sissy said.

I suppose she’d expected me to say something—or at least move. Panic left me with cold fingers and a pounding heart—but as it faded, something else took its place.

I’ve seen any number of werewolves whose wolf had superseded the man. Usually, it happens in the middle of a fight—and the only thing to do is to lie low until the man takes back control. The other time it often occurs is with the newly Changed wolves. They are vicious, unpredictable, and dangerous even to the people they love. But Sam hadn’t been vicious or even unpredictable—except in the best sense of the word—when Maia had hopped up to play Wild Horse Annie.

For the first time since I’d walked into that damned hospital storeroom last night, I felt real hope. If Sam the wolf could keep to civilized manners for a few days, maybe I would have a chance to persuade Bran to give us a little more time.

Sam had reached the office door and stood patiently waiting for me to let him in while Maia patted him on the top of his head and told him he was a good pony.

“Mercy? Are you okay?” Sissy looked in my car—I often brought cookies. I’d brought the ones I made this morning out of habit. I usually make a lot more cookies than any one person can eat, so when I have a baking fest, I bring the cookies for customers. She didn’t say anything when she spotted the bags sitting on top of the book I still needed to deliver to Phin, but she got a big smile on her face.

“I’m fine, Sissy. Want a cookie?”

WHEN I OPENED THE OFFICE DOOR, WHICH WAS A FADING orangish pink and needed to be repainted, the blaring music was overwhelmed by “Mercy” and “Look, dog!” And what seemed like a hundred small bodies piled on us.

Sissy put her small fists on her hips, and said in a picture-perfect imitation of her brother, “Barbarians.” And then she took a bite of the cookie I’d given her.

“Cookie!” shrieked someone. “Sissy has a cookie!”

Silence fell, and they all looked at me like a lion might look at a gazelle in the savanna.

“You see what happens?” asked Gabriel’s mother, not even glancing up from scrubbing the counter. Sylvia was about ten years older than I, and she wore those years well. She was a small woman, delicate and beautiful. They say Napoleon was small, too.

“You spoil them,” she told me in a dismissive tone. “So it is your problem to deal with. You must pay the price.”

I pulled the two bags of cookies from where I’d hidden them in my jacket. “Here,” I gasped, holding them out over the horde’s reaching hands toward their mother. “Take them quick before the monsters get them. Protect them with your life.”

Sylvia took the bags and tried to hide her smile as I wrestled with little pink-clad bodies that squealed and squeaked. Okay, there weren’t a hundred of them; Gabriel had five little sisters. But they made enough noise for ten times that many.

Tia, whose name was short for Martina, the oldest girl, frowned at us all. Sam, sitting beside her, had been abandoned for the possibility of a cookie. He seemed amused, more amused when he caught my wary glance.

“Hey, we’re doing all the work,” Rosalinda, the second-oldest said. “You chicas start scrubbing right this moment. You know you won’t get cookies until Mamá says.”

“Sissy got one,” Maia said.

“And that is all anyone will get until it is clean,” proclaimed Tia piously.

“You’re no fun,” Sofia, the middle girl, told her.

“No fun,” agreed Maia with her bottom lip sticking out. But she couldn’t have been too upset because she bounced away from me to crawl back onto Sam, her fingers clutching his collar. “My puppy needs a cookie.”

Sylvia frowned at Sam, then at me. “You have a dog?”

“Not exactly,” I told her. “I’m watching him for a friend.” For Samuel.

The wolf looked at Sylvia and wagged his tail deliberately. He kept his mouth closed, which was smart of him. She wouldn’t be happy if she got a good look at his teeth—which were bigger than any dog’s I’ve ever seen.

“What breed is it? I’ve never seen such a monster.”

Sam’s ears flattened a bit.

But then Maia kissed him on the top of his head. “He’s cute, Mamá. I bet I could ride him in the fair, and we would win a ribbon. We should get a dog. Or a pony. We could keep it in the parking lot.”

“Uhm, maybe he’s a Great Pyrenees mix?” I offered. “Something big.”

“Abominable Snow Dog,” suggested Tia dryly. She rubbed Sam briskly under one ear.

Sylvia sighed. “I suppose if he hasn’t eaten them yet, he won’t.”

“I don’t think so,” I agreed cautiously. I looked at Sam, who seemed perfectly fine, more relaxed than I’d seen him since I walked into the storeroom at the hospital.

Sylvia sighed again, theatrically, her dramatically large eyes glittering with fun. “Too bad. It would be much less trouble if I had a few less children, don’t you think?”

“Mamá!” came the indignant chorus.

“There aren’t as many as there seem to be when they are running around shrieking,” I told her.

“I’ve noticed. When they are asleep, they are a little bit cute. It’s a good thing, or none of them would have survived this long.”

I looked around. They’d already been working for a while. “You know, people are going to walk in—and turn around and walk back out because they won’t recognize the place. Are Gabriel and Zee in the shop?”

“Sí, yes, they are. Thank you for the use of your car.”

“No troubles,” I told her. “I don’t need it right now. And you can do me a favor and tell me about anything you notice is wrong with it.”