Rough and Rugged: A Meet Me In Milwaukee Charity Anthology

Chapter One

Caleb

It had been a shit day.

All day long, I’d been agitated and restless. I loved the Lupa Wolf Sanctuary. Since the first day I’d started there as a teenager working with the founder, Old Man Riley, it had felt like home, and was now that he’d moved closer to his daughter in town and handed the place over to me. The quiet, the seclusion, the hard physical work... normally it centered me, but not today. The wolves picked up on my mood and were as cranky as I was. Even Lloyd, the only other employee, was giving me the eye and he was the most go-with-the-flow man I’d ever come across.

The whole day, I’d been unable to focus. I’d mixed the supplements wrong for Millie, the newest resident at the sanctuary, and had to start over, cursing myself for wasting resources we didn’t have extra money to replace. I’d had to check my checklist three times while feeding our four other wolves, something I did every damn day and shouldn’t have to check any damn list even once to do correctly. Then I’d gotten pissed off working on the new climbing structure in Millie’s enclosure. I’d finally walked away from it after I chucked my hammer off into the trees in frustration and had to go looking for it, reminding myself it wasn’t the hammer’s fault my messed-up brain made puzzles out of things I’d have done with ease just a year ago.

When the afternoon rolled around, and my wife showed up, I wasn’t sure if things had just gotten better or worse.

Gemma Lee Montgomery Scott.

My former next-door neighbor and my younger brother, Cade’s, best friend. The woman I’d known since she was a teenager, married two years earlier, and hadn’t spent a full day alone with since.

Gemma had crashed into our lives at the age of seventeen and had taken our family by storm. My older brother, Carson, the serious, driven, overachiever; Cade, the risk taker and born influencer; and me, the middle son, the quiet – some would say anti-social – one, who’d always marched to the beat of a different drummer. Gemma had flipped the three of us on our heads and become the little sister we’d never had. For me, though, I’d felt anything but brotherly toward her for a long time now.

She pulled up in the drive of the sanctuary and popped out of her bright blue SUV, all blond curls and bottle green eyes and curves that wouldn’t quit. She flashed me her beautiful smile and my heart squeezed like it always did. The eight plus years I’d known her hadn’t helped me build up any immunity. Neither had the two years I’d been married to her.

“If you’re auditioning for the cover of a Mountain Men of Bramble County calendar, you’re a shoo-in.”

It took me a second – like it always did these days – then I looked down at what I was wearing. Worn jeans, flannel shirt, muddy work boots. With the beard I was sporting these days and knit cap I had on, I couldn’t deny I probably looked like the stereotypical “mountain man.”

“What do you need, Gem?”

There was a reason for her visit. I lived way too far out of town and up the mountain for anyone to just stop by. I was afraid I knew why Gemma was here, but it was possible…

“I have something for you.” Gemma said it with a sunny smile, as if that would make any difference in the response she knew was coming.

“I don’t want it.”

Gemma’s hands landed firmly on her hips.

“That’s all? You say, ‘I don’t want it’ and I’m supposed to just go away? You don’t think we should talk about this?”

I rubbed the back of my neck, the muscles there bunched painfully tight.

“It’s your money, Gem. Your grandfather left it for you. It has nothing to do with me.”

I caught her huff of exasperation as I turned my back on her. It was never easy to walk away from her, but I’d made myself learn to do it years before.

“Caleb, wait.”

I stopped almost involuntarily, scowling at my weakness when it came to her.

“Before you leave you need to know Cade bet me fifty dollars that’s exactly what you would do. If you make me lose to Cade, I’m going to be annoyed.”

I let out a groan as I looked up to the sky.

“Dammit. We need to separate the two of you.” I turned back to her. “It’s going to cost you a hell of a lot more than fifty dollars if I sign those papers I know you brought with you.”

Gemma shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t mind the money so much; I just hate hearing Cade say I told you so.”

Cade would, too. Repeatedly.

I scrubbed my hands over my face.

“I can’t talk to you about this right now, Gem. We have a lot of extra work with that new wolf we brought in.”

Not to mention everything I’d already screwed up today.

“No problem.” Gemma shut her car door and started towards me. “I’ll help, then we can talk.”

Short of telling her point blank to leave and hurting her feelings, which I wasn’t going to do, I couldn’t think of a good reason she shouldn’t help. She’d done it before, and the truth was both Lloyd and I liked having her around.

I gave in less than gracefully.

“Suit yourself. Talk now or talk later, I’m not taking the money.”

This time I succeeded in walking away from her, knowing she’d go find Lloyd and jump in wherever he pointed her.