“Yeah, it matters. This is our town, Flint. Strangers coming in and buying our school . . . It’s wrong.”
“Chief, the school was for sale for six years. The town council listed the school on the market before the paint on the new one had dried. I heard the corporation that bought it was the first company that had any interest in it at all. And if they hadn’t bought it when they did, the town was going to have to pay to demolish it soon. No way that roof is going to last another winter. Hell, Maddox put his foot through it getting a ball back when we were in seventh grade. Be glad someone is putting it to good use.”
He wanted to tell the chief about little Emma getting the Excalibur-like window open, but that would mean he might go looking for it and the invisibility spell had it covered. So, best to keep his mouth shut.
“It’s not all bad. It got you to string more than three words together.” The chief sunk into his chair. “Not bad at all.”
Flint shook his head and left the chief’s office. He hung up his gear in his cubby. The scent of apples clung to his skin, and he pivoted to take off to the shower. He didn’t need the female, and smelling like her wasn’t going to help get her off his mind. Not in the least bit. He showered and dressed in his blue work uniform with a little under an hour to go before he was off for four days. He’d have to hold the power in. They had gotten into such a tiff that he’d stormed off with her power still deep in his bones.
“There he is, right when we’re about ready to finish for the night,” Beckham said with a laugh. “So glad you could join us.”
Flint raised one eyebrow at his cousin. It wasn’t his cousin who had done the majority of the cleaning around the firehouse this morning, because Beck hadn’t gotten out of bed. It took Chief Ledger smacking the side of Beck’s bunk for him to join them. Granted, Beck had taken point at a three-alarm fire over in Spring Ridge the night before. It had taken four tankers to put out the old barn fire. Luckily, no one got hurt, and while it had raged, it didn’t set the farmhouse alight. If Beck was human, he would have gone to the hospital for sure with smoke inhalation. The male was due a few extra minutes of sleep.
Flint grabbed a polishing chamois and attacked the engine. The place was spotless when the replacements for Beckham, Maddox, and Flint arrived. They changed into jeans and Hundsburg firehouse T’s and headed down the street to the Easy Rabbit.
Beckham was Flint’s cousin from his mother, and Maddox was Beckham’s cousin from their dads. But Flint and Maddox still referred to each other as cousins. They’d done everything together. Everyone had expected Flint to follow in his older brother’s footsteps and go to grad school, become a doctor like his brother. Everyone else might have expected it, but Flint never did. He liked his life at the firehouse and his cabin away from pack lands. It was close enough to keep him grounded and tethered to his cousin Spencer as alpha but far enough away that he didn’t have to deal with all the crap that had been clawing its way out of his family tree.
“I’m buying the first round.” Maddox slapped a twenty down on the counter.
Beckham laughed. “Sure, that doesn’t mean we’re buying the next seven.”
“I’m heading out early.” Flint sat on the stool he always used in the bar that they’d been coming to for the last five years with the surrounding people who had sat in the same seats on the same nights of the week for the last forever.
“You’re what now?” Beckham looked down his nose at him.
“I’m cutting out early. Eloise wants me to swing by for dinner. She said it’s been too long since I’ve seen my nephew and nieces.” Flint sipped his beer.
“She says that the day after you’ve been over at her house.” Beck took a swig of beer.
“I know. But what can I say? I’m the favorite uncle.” Flint played with the ceramic coaster on the bar top.
“I bet Tad gives better presents.” Maddox elbowed Flint.
“It’s about the presence, not the presents. And I’m not competing with Tad. My brother could buy the whole town if he wanted to.” Eloise’s text message had said something was up and she wanted to talk in person, but he wasn’t going to tell them that.
Half a beer and an hour later, Flint pushed back from the bar and left for his sister’s. The pack lands were a few miles outside of town. The alpha’s house had enough land around it to let the pack have their lunar runs and not risk running into humans. And while the pack didn’t own the land in town and the neighboring town of Spring Ridge, his cousin served as alpha to almost all wolf shifters who lived there. And though most of the pack lived out on the compound, not everyone did. The same held true for the pack’s construction business. Larsen Construction employed most of the pack. Heck, most of the town worked for them too. And their alpha was the head of the construction company.
Flint didn’t want to be around his alpha-cousin Spencer or Spencer’s youngest brother Duncan. They were both embracing their new magical powers of being witches. So were his sisters, mostly. But Eloise was right: he wasn’t going to stay away from any of his nephews or nieces. None of them had shown any signs of being anything but wolf, and even if they did, it wasn’t like they knew any better.
Flint drove under the metal pack sign, and his stomach settled into rocks. He passed the little cluster of condos and drove up the hill to his sister’s place. His mother’s house and the family homestead the alpha lived in were farther up the hill. He couldn’t see either when he parked his truck in Eloise’s driveway. Grass shoot up between piles of snow that had fallen off the roof. The yard was a mixture of abandoned sleds and bikes on the soggy turf. He picked up a little pink bike and brought it up to the covered porch, then squared his shoulders and slowly blinked, building up the courage to deal with his older sister.
“Hey, Uncle Flint is here,” Pike Morris, his brother-in-law, announced to his kids.
He opened the door without knocking. The place looked normal, like a toy bomb had exploded over the living room. Toys were slowly leaking into the kitchen. The meal his brother-in-law was cooking smelled of nirvana—fated mates or not, his sister would have mated Pike for his cooking skills. Most of the pack would have mated Pike for his cooking skills.
“Hey Flint.” Pike got out of the way before two sets of little arms attacked Flint around his legs. “Thanks for coming out.” Pike stirred a pot on the stove. The aroma was enough to make Flint forget why he hadn’t wanted to come.
“Thanks for cooking.” Flint dropped his truck keys in the key bowl on the counter.
“Happens every day around the same time. You’re more than welcome.” Pike moved from the counter to the oven. “Get some plates out, will ya? See if you can find the table underneath the mess over there.”
“Sure.” Flint walked like a zombie, dragging Luna on one leg.
Atlas flung himself upside down on the sofa and settled into watching cartoons. Luna and Atlas were born ten months apart. They weren’t real twins but what the older females in the pack called wolf twins—single births back to back. But they liked to pretend they were twins, like the real twin of their mother and their aunt.
“I’ll do it if I can get Atlas off my leg,” said Flint.
His niece howled with laughter that he’d called her jokingly by her brother’s name. It was a game Flint played with his oldest niece and nephew every time he came over.
He picked up Luna and swung her upside down before setting her on her feet. “When are we going to play baseball again? I was the best back in my elementary school. I can teach you all the moves.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
Luna wiggled the lower half of her body, ran in a circle, and ended up on the sofa next to Atlas. Clearly up to something devious, she turned to her uncle. “I’m Luna, Uncle Flint. Can’t you tell us apart yet?” Luna was laughing, and she whispered something into Atlas’s ear. They both took off running down the hallway.
Flint’s sister came out of the back hallway, baby Milo on her hip. “Where are those two going?” She kissed Pike on the cheek.
“They’re playing the twin card again. Best guess is they’re going to change into matching outfits.” Pike continued his chopping.
“You’re staying after dinner to put their closets back together.” Eloise kissed Flint on the cheek and handed him baby Milo, who was already reaching for his uncle.
“Look at you, what a big cub.” Flint rubbed his stubbly cheek down his nephew’s, sending the baby into hysterical laughter. The little guy was a year and a half old and a fuzz ball of giggles.
Eloise opened the window above the sink to let the steam from the pasta water out.
Flint caught his sister’s scent on the breeze blowing in. “Holy crap, you’re pregnant.”
“I am.” She cocked her head at him. “So nice of you to notice. I figured you should come and find out from us instead of Marley down at Pick-n-Pay.”
He hugged his sister. But there was something else. She didn’t hug him the way she normally did. He leaned out of her hug. “Is everything okay?”
