Chapter Eight
Holden
I hadn’t realized how much I needed the conversation with Rian until a couple of days later.
“Chief?” Penny peered into my tiny office somewhere around midday.
I’d been filling out some paperwork, which sometimes felt like half of my job description, and had to shake myself out of that mode.
“Yeah, sorry, deep in the forms. What can I do for you?” I smiled at her.
She came into the office, but didn’t close the door behind herself. “Well, two things. One is better than the other,” she said, then frowned quickly and added, “Three things.”
I smiled slightly. She was in her thirties and she was one of those humans who didn’t give a crap about anyone’s species. She gave everyone the benefit of a doubt, but if you crossed her? I certainly didn’t want to do that, because she got scary when she lost her faith in someone.
“Go on.”
“First of all, I don’t know what happened, but you seem happier now,” she blurted out, looking a bit nervous to be saying something so personal, I supposed.
I shrugged slightly. “I think I am happier.” The weight of the past, of the loss of Hunter and even our parents, didn’t feel quite as heavy anymore.
“I don’t know if it’s about being in a great pack such as the McRae pack or if it has something to do with a certain curly haired someone who wanted to know where you got your lunch, but….” She grinned, relaxing when I didn’t bite her head off.
“It’s both, actually,” I found myself saying. “Not in the context you might think about my friend, though. He was my brother’s partner.”
Penny knew I’d had a twin once, we’d chatted about our families during one of the barbeque parties the town’s emergency department organized twice a year. It was random who got to go to which one, but last summer we’d been at the same one and yeah, while I wouldn’t call us friends outside of work, maybe we were work friends, kind of. The only thing keeping us from being close was the fact that I was still her boss.
“He seemed really nice,” she said, still collecting herself from the initial shock that had flashed through her expression. “Had it been a while since you last saw him, then?”
Nodding, I leaned back in my chair. “Not since Hunter’s funeral.”
She did quick math and nodded slowly. “I feel like there’s a longer conversation here. So maybe some other time. There’s the other two things.”
I smiled. “Yes, what are those?” I was almost disappointed that I couldn’t talk to her about Rian and Hunter now, and it made me realize how much I needed to chat with someone.
Her expression shifted into something uncomfortable. “These are two rumors, so….”
We both knew how small town rumors were, though. There was almost always a seed of truth in them, no matter how little you wanted it to be true. It could’ve been about the person spreading the rumor, or the object of said gossip, but there was always truth in it.
“Okay?”
“For one, there’s been murmurings that Sheriff Gerrell has some… marital issues going on.” She kept her face neutral while she spoke, which was curious.
“And?”
“Someone at the nail salon in Warren heard Holly talk shit about how he’d fucked up and couldn’t even get the one thing done she actually asked of him.”
I thought for a moment. “That could be anything and has nothing to do with us, though.”
“True, but there’s another rumor that he’s been gambling.”
Oh. While Penny, or anyone else outside the pack, didn’t know about what we suspected about the Sheriff’s… cleanliness , it was clear her brain had gone to there being something shady going on about him.
“I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for bringing it to my attention,” I said evenly.
“It’s just that everyone knows you don’t want to be the sheriff, but nobody actually wants him to be, either, and….” She trailed off, seeing in my expression that I wasn’t interested in continuing the conversation. She took a deep breath, and said, “The other one is about the Halls. It’s nothing concrete, but I think we should drive past them more often for a bit.”
I squinted at her. “You sure it’s nothing concrete?”
She clearly had either heard something or otherwise knew something that worried her, and Penny was one of the most levelheaded people I knew.
“I saw Val at the grocery store yesterday and I’m pretty sure she had bruised ribs, if not something worse. And…,” she trailed off and sighed. “I think Levi is hanging out with a different crowd suddenly. My cousin said he saw him at the Michek boys’ place.”
Well, shit. The Michek boys were a family that always had someone in jail for drugs of some kind. They were constantly booked for various infractions around town, and the only reason there were any of them left was that there had been five brothers and then a few cousins who joined in on the fun. It was a whole family of criminals, but they weren’t murderers or violent most of the time.
They were also technically not our problem, because they lived out of our area, inside Gerrell’s domain. Of course our paths crossed with them on occasion, but it was odd that Levi Hall would drive out of his way to this new friend group.
“They’re probably growing marijuana now,” I groaned, rubbing my hand over my face.
Penny frowned. “How do you figure?”
“There was a bust of the farm in Frewsburg in the summer, remember?”
There were weed farms everywhere these days, just as there were meth labs and whatever else people could concoct. But the farm in Frewsburg across the state line, only less than an hour away from us, had been massive and had likely been the source of weed in a very large area.
“Shit, you’re right,” Penny hissed. “And they busted those other growers in… where was it?”
Deputy Fischer was walking past my door.
“Mikayla?” I called out, and she came in.
“What’s up, Chief?” she asked easily.
“Do you remember where the weed farm bust was a couple of months back?”
She thought for a moment. “Somewhere in… I want to say one of the Hickories?”
We had East Hickory and West Hickory southwest of us, again, less than an hour away.
“Yeah, I think that’s it!” Penny exclaimed.
“Why?” Fischer looked curious and confused.
“Levi Hall is hanging with the Micheks, and I think he went there for weed,” I explained, sighing.
“Because of the busts in whichever Hickory and Frewsburg,” she concluded the thought.
“Yeah.”
The phone in the front rang, and Penny excused herself quickly.
“How’s your grandpa?” I asked Fischer now that she was there.
She smiled slightly. “He’s better. Not good and won’t get much better, but not worse.”
“Just know that if you need time off even on short notice, there’ll always be someone to take your shift, okay?” I promised.
She nodded tightly, clearly moved and trying to keep the emotions in. “Thanks, Chief.”
My phone rang, too, and she quickly left my office, leaving the door cracked open a bit.
I pushed the conversations to the back of my mind and answered the call.
T he next day, I got off work around six and changed in the locker room.
Instead of going home, I headed to the pack house, hoping to get fed. It had been a long day, and my lunch had been less than satisfactory as I’d scarfed it down in between two different DUIs that needed my attention.
When I got to the Victorian, I found myself smiling. The house still looked menacing, but there was warm light pouring in through the windows and the yard lights Brodie had installed only days ago lit the whole front of the gorgeous old home.
I parked between Rian’s SUV and Brodie’s truck and went up the porch stairs. I could hear music playing inside, people talking, and saw Rian sitting on the window seat in the kitchen.
He smiled at me, and something warm unfurled in my chest. I lifted a hand, and he did the same in response. I could hear him say “Holden’s here” while he walked through to the living room.
As I opened the front door and stepped inside, Carys shrieked somewhere in the family room, and then rounded the corner to hug me vigorously.
“Hey, there.” I was a bit surprised, but also more than a little happy about the greeting.
“Hi,” she replied after squeezing me tight. “We’re having hamburgers tonight!”
I smiled as I took off my shoes. “That sounds amazing.”
Carys went into the kitchen where the music was coming from, and I headed to the couches.
Only Rian and Max were there. The former was stretched to take as much space as possible on one part of the big U-shaped couch, while the latter was reading a book at the other end.
Max smiled brightly. “Hi!”
I walked to where Rian’s feet were, picked them up and sat down before placing them on my lap. “Hi,” I replied, then dug my fingers into the sole of Rian’s left foot.
The sound he made was obscene, and I heard a choked up noise from the stairs.
“What the hell?” Brodie rumbled as he appeared in the doorway.
“It’s less pornographic as it sounded,” I promised, then held up my hand for him to squeeze as he walked behind us to round the couch.
Instead of only squeezing my hand, he also leaned down to kiss my temple, then mussed Rian’s hair before parking himself next to Max. Brodie casually sat close enough to touch his cousin from shoulder to knee, and I could see something in Max unclench.
That man needed touch like nobody I’d ever met before.
“Where’s your better half?” I asked.
“At the grocery store,” answered Max.
“Upstairs,” said Brodie.
We all froze and then started to laugh so hard it brought Carys into the room, looking at us as if we’d lost our minds.
“What on Earth?” Her confused expression was way too funny, and we laughed until Kye wandered in and went to stand with his sister.
“Don’t ask, I’ve no clue,” she told him, holding up her hand, and went back into the kitchen.
We gradually calmed down and Kye went to cuddle up against Brodie.
“Rough week?” Kye asked me after a while.
I made a noncommittal sound, then seesawed my hand. “Probably the usual, but I didn’t want to go home.”
“To be alone” probably came across without saying it out loud.
Rian, who had closed his eyes and was enjoying his foot rub, reached a hand to pat my arm. “We love you, too.”
I snorted softly. “Thank you.”
“Do you think Cindy would be okay visiting?” he asked, then wiggled his toes.
I wasn’t into feet, but I still felt the urge to take off his socks for some reason. It seemed oddly too intimate, so I didn’t.
“I don’t know. She’s pretty into the car, though. Likes going to the vet’s and all.”
“You should bring her over,” Brodie said. “There’d be a lot to explore here.”
“Hey, that reminds me,” Kye started and looked at me with a hopeful expression. “What are your plans for Christmastime?”
It struck me then that Christmas was only a handful of weeks away.
“I think I’ll be working as usual. I don’t have a family, so I let those who have kids have time with theirs,” I replied, then realized everyone was staring at me. “What?”
Max looked outright… hurt?
Rian cleared his throat and pulled his feet away from me, then sat up and turned sideways next to me.
He put his hand on my arm the same way he had before at my house, and said in an almost gentle, explaining-something-to-a-child tone, “Holden, this year you do have a family.”
My brain screeched to a halt, and I sat there, feeling numb. Then, to my horror, a choked up sob burst out of my mouth, and within seconds I was surrounded by the pack. My pack.
When Ben got home from the grocery store minutes later, he took the food in the kitchen and then came to us.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, immediately reading the situation and coming to reach over people to put his hand on my shoulder from behind.
“Someone realized he has a pack,” Brodie snarked, but his tone was lovingly teasing.
“Ah.” Ben chuckled quietly. “Happens to all of us, really.” He squeezed my shoulder, then rounded the couch to go sit with Max who was on the outside of our cuddle puddle.
Carys appeared from the kitchen and came to hug me from behind, which mostly meant that she wrapped her arms around my head and then gave me a noogie.
“It’s time. I need helpers. I’m going to start frying the burgers and I have most of the other things ready, but we need an assembly line. So, two people, chop chop!” She turned on her heel and marched back to the kitchen.
Ben got up and pulled Max with him. “We’ll go.”
I had Brodie sitting next to me with Kye on his lap. Kye had one thigh slung over mine, and Rian curled up under my arm on the other side.
“If you want to work through the holidays, we understand. We can be a lot,” Kye spoke quietly. “But we would love it if you took some time to spend with us during Christmas.”
“We’re not doing a big gift exchange, either. We’ll just chat with everyone and see if we feel like we have ideas for a gift for everyone. Only one, or if there’s something like say, Brodie wants to give Kye, then he can do that outside the pack celebrations,” Rian explained the plan.
I hummed thoughtfully. “Let me know if you need anything from me.” I took in a deep breath, catching the scent of the old house that was pleasant now after all the renovations. But the best thing was the pack. Everyone here smelled more like home than my house did, which might become an issue at some point.
“Okay, first burgers are ready, come get it!” Carys yelled from the kitchen.
“You two go,” I told Brodie and Kye.
If you believed the old ways, the alpha and his mate should eat first. I could tell Brodie knew this and even Kye squinted at me, but they chose to not say anything and instead, Kye got off Brodie’s lap and then pulled his mate up with a grunt.
“I’m not sure you need more food, you disgustingly muscled wolf.” The fondness of his tone belied the fact that he loved Brodie just as he was, but even I could see Brodie had put on even more muscle mass since the first time I’d met him.
Once they were gone, Rian pulled himself away from under my arm and stretched, reaching his fingertips toward the ceiling until his spine sounded like certain cereal.
“I should start doing yoga again,” he mused. He looked around the comfortable, large room. “There’s definitely space for it.”
Before I had time to comment, he leaned in closer again and very quietly said, “You should come by more often. It makes everyone here happy. We miss you when you’re not around, Holden.”
Then he squeezed my thigh, then got up, and walked out of the room.
I thought about his words. Maybe I could visit more often. Bring Cindy the next time. Yeah, I could do that. Because let’s face it, I was happier around everyone here, too.