Chapter 25 — Not A Luna

By morning, nobody had forgotten the word Luna. Hallie could tell by the way some conversations paused when she crossed the yard. She went to work anyway.

Her assignment was inventory in the stores, followed by helping move a delivery that had arrived late the previous evening. Nothing about it was different from the work she had done before marrying Grant.

Hallie was checking supply sheets when a woman from one of the repair crews appeared in the doorway.

“Do you have a minute?”

“For what?”

“We have two jobs waiting on the same tools.”

“Caleb knows?”

“He’s with the unloading crew.”

“Then he’ll decide when he gets back.”

The woman frowned.

“You could look.”

Hallie almost said no. Yesterday’s argument had made usefulness itself complicated. Hallie looked at the woman’s face before answering.

This was a work problem.

“Show me.”

They crossed to the repair shed. Two crews needed the same heavier tools; the cabin repair could not start without them, while the storage crew had work it could do first.

“Let the cabin crew take them first,” Hallie said. “When that part is done, they bring them back.”

One worker looked at her. “Is that the decision?”

“It’s a suggestion. If both crews agree, use it. If you don’t, wait for Caleb.”

The crews agreed. Hallie turned back toward the stores. The man from yesterday’s argument stood near the worktable.

“You see?” he said.

“See what?”

“People come to you now.”

“They had a scheduling problem.”

“And you solved it.”

“They agreed to a solution.”

“You gave them one.”

Hallie drew a slow breath.

“I’m not going to refuse to answer a question just because you might call the answer authority.”

His expression tightened.

“That’s not what I said.”

“It’s where this keeps going.”

A few people nearby had begun listening.

“I didn’t come to Cedar Draw to become Luna,” Hallie said.

The man folded his arms.

“You married the Alpha.”

“I married Grant.”

“That’s the same thing to some people.”

“Not to me.”

Silence followed. Hallie continued.

“I came here to work. I’m still working.”

The woman from the repair shed called over, “She did help.”

The man looked at her.

“I didn’t say she didn’t.”

Another worker spoke from beside the table.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“The problem is everyone keeps proving my point.”

Hallie frowned.

“What point?”

“That people are starting to treat her like the person they go to.”

He sounded worried, not triumphant. That made the argument harder. If he believed she was incompetent, her work could answer him.

But he thought she was capable. And that capability was exactly what frightened him.

“No one gave me authority over those crews,” Hallie said.

“Not yet.”

“No one has offered it.”

“You don’t need someone to offer it if people start following you anyway.”

That landed. Hallie looked around. The people listening were not united.

Some looked irritated with him. Some thoughtful. She had wanted her place here to be earned.

She had not considered that earning trust from one person might look like accumulating power to another. Caleb returned and heard what had happened. He checked with both crews.

Then shrugged.

“If they agreed, I don’t care who thought of it.”

The practical argument ended because the work moved on. The disagreement stayed with Hallie. Hallie finished inventory.

She helped unload the delivery. When someone asked where a crate belonged, she answered because she knew. When she lacked an answer, she said so.

She kept herself useful. She also kept each answer tied to the work in front of her. By evening, her shoulders ached.

She found Grant sitting on the low step outside one of the storage buildings. He looked at her as she approached.

“You heard.”

“Yes.”

Hallie sat beside him. She left only an inch between their shoulders. The silence felt shared instead of empty.

“He thinks people listening to me is the beginning of a Luna.”

Grant rested his forearms on his knees.

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Then don’t become one because he’s afraid you will.”

Hallie glanced at him.

“You could end part of this.”

“Yes.”

“You could tell everyone what being your wife means here.”

Grant looked toward the darkening yard.

“I can tell them what it doesn’t mean.”

“No automatic authority.”

“Exactly.”

“And if people ask you to give me some?”

“I won’t.”

The answer came without hesitation. Hallie felt something inside her ease. What eased her was the precision of it.

He understood that handing her power would make the argument worse and the marriage smaller.

“What if I earn influence anyway?” she asked.

Grant looked at her then.

“That’s between you and them.”

Grant’s promise stopped at his own authority. Cedar Draw would decide what trust it gave her.

Hallie stayed beside him. After a while, she let that last inch disappear and rested her shoulder against his.

Grant’s breath changed once. His shoulder stayed firm beneath hers, warm through two layers of cloth.

They left the contact where it was, shoulder to shoulder, and Hallie stayed. Across the yard, two people stopped beside the worktable and began arguing about tomorrow’s assignments. One of them looked toward Hallie.

Then looked away. The title of Luna still carried too much history for Cedar Draw. It held little appeal for Hallie, either.

Yet people kept looking toward her when something went wrong. Cedar Draw had learned to use her judgment before it had decided what that influence meant.