The paperwork kept her busy till ten after five, interrupted only by a fifteen-minute break when Toby and Marlee returned home to change and eat a snack before leaving for their afterschool activities. Though Toby was old enough to supervise his cousin, Lara enjoyed spending that time with them.

And, she thought with a smile, recalling the kisses on the cheek as they’d left in the same rush they’d arrived, the children had started to expect to see her—to the point that if she was busy in the infirmary, they came searching. It was nice in the best sense of the word. However, she’d been hard at work since sending them off, and now decided she’d done enough to assuage her guilt.

“Lucy, go home!” she called out to her nurse, closing the file she’d been working on at the same time.

The younger woman appeared out of the storage room a minute later, tugging off her hairtie to redo her sadly drooping ponytail. “Time flies when I’m cataloguing supplies,” she said, tone dry as dust. “I’m a third of the way through. Want me to do the reorders as I go or at the end?”

“As you go. Better if we’re out of some things than if we’re low on everything.”

“I’ll break out my secret-recipe chocolate brownies and bribe someone from operations to process the orders, speed things up.”

“I already asked.” She’d figured Lucy would appreciate the help. “No luck—operations has its hands full to overflowing.” SnowDancer had won the battle, but the violence had left the pack with broken or destroyed equipment, part of a forest to replant, packmates in the city who’d suffered damage to their homes, disrupted comm lines, debris from the enemy’s ships to clear…the list went on.

“Damn. We really need that dedicated admin person.” Putting her hands on her lower back, Lucy bent over backward to stretch her muscles.

Lara nodded. “I had a chat with Ava about it.” With a degree in managing Living Resources, Ava was the one who oversaw the arm of operations that had to do with finding the right people for internal Pack jobs. “She’s making up a shortlist for us to go over, but I think we’d better wait till things settle down a little more before doing interviews.”

“I hope Ava’s list includes lots of smokin’ hot males from other sectors.”

Lara laughed at the plaintive wish. “Dry spell?”

“You have no idea—everyone likes me, but I want to be ravished! Nice Lucy wants a gorgeous hunk of man to see and devour Sexy Lucy.” Shaking her head, she left the infirmary with Lara, her own quarters just across the hallway. “I had a couple of soldiers drop in today. They helped me with the supplies. We talked.”