“Poetic,” Ortega said. There was a slight pause and then everyone burst into laughter, Jesse included.
“So are you home?” Buckner asked.
“If you’ll all let me.”
“Yeah, why not?” McCready said. “I’ll vouch for the others not here, too. It’ll be good to have another set of hands around here. It’s been—tough, to say the least.”
Jesse felt a hand squeeze his knee. He jumped and looked over at Kate, who was smiling at him.
“See? Look how it all turned out.”
“Thanks,” he said. At that moment, Ortega brought over the food he’d been cooking. It was chili—one of the Shifter’s favorite foods. It was stereotypical, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. The men all dug into their food, Kate keeping up as much as she could.
It was silent, then, except for the sound of bowls scraping and ev
