Truth or Wolf: A Small Town Shifter Romantic Comedy (Wolf Brothers Book 1)

Chapter 20

Twenty

“I know you better than the few hours we’ve been together suggest I should. I truly feel like…I know you down to your core.” She laughed a little. “Well, except for the whole werewolf thing.”

— J.R. WARD

Iran down the mountain as a wolf, my tail between my legs.

I left Alice naked in bed.

I left Alice.

And I left my heart behind. I ripped it out and tossed it on that bed because it belonged to her, and even though I hadn’t bitten her, I could not bear to leave her.

Worst mistake ever! my wolf roared. He’d achieved the acme of pissed off while I’d been descending to the nadir of depression.

Alice’s newest plan, the one in which she’d suggested I leave Moonlight Valley with her, move to Nashville (again, with her), and then proceed to conquer the world with her sounded like one of those supernatural romances Ranger read voraciously. He liked the happy endings for the beast men, and for the first time I understood his fixation. It was tempting.

I’d been so, so tempted to say yes.

Go back, my wolf ordered. Grovel. Say yes.

Cannot. Happy endings were for books and for other people. I had All-Purpose Animal Services, my brothers, my responsibilities, the mess with the Iron Wolves, and Momma stuck in her wolf form and running around in the woods.

Darrell’s example could not have been any clearer. He had taken what he wanted without once thinking about how his desires would affect his family. We’d been a prop, a convenience, an inconvenience, and a means to his own ends. He did what he wanted, when he wanted.

I was not that man, not that wolf.

Fucking ethics.

Running away with Alice was a fun fantasy. Exciting, romantic, and a bucket list trip. In reality, however, it was completely impractical.

Atticus and Ranger needed me here in Moonlight Valley. All-Purpose Animal Services was a demanding mistress, and my brothers could not work double- or triple-time to compensate for my absence. Plus, my life’s savings were invested in our business, and I wasn’t going to live off Alice and her inheritance.

What’s that human saying? The Sunday one?

Pride goeth before destruction, I supplied. Was I proud?

Hell. Yes.

I was too proud to be a useless hanger-on in my mate’s life. I would pull my own weight. Contribute. Take care of her.

Love her, my wolf finished. And bang her six ways to Sunday.

That was a lot of Sunday happening, but my point stood.

I was too proud to take from her.

So I’d shifted and rushed out of the cabin before I’d given in to a moment of weakness and either chained her to me here in Moonlight Valley or chained her to me in Nashville.

There are possibilities there.

It was a long hike down the mountain to our place, but I’d shifted and run it, taking satisfaction in the slap of the branches against my side, the solid feel of the ground beneath my paws in a world where everything else had gone topsy-turvy. By the time I arrived at the house, I was itching for a fight. I did not know how to let go of what had happened up there at my cabin. Hitting something seemed like a plan.

Being raised by Darrell had convinced me I would not be a drinking man. And Momma would have had plenty to say if she’d found me drunk. Besides, getting shit-faced meant being out of control, and then I’d likely run back up the mountain and undo the good (and bad) that I’d done.

I therefore decided it was a good time to start demolishing the ancient greenhouse behind the main house. It was listing hard enough to kiss the ground, and we’d voted to take it down in our last family meeting. I’d get a head start on the chore and work off my temper.

But as I prowled around the side of the house in the predawn gloom, I stopped short. Maverick, my oldest brother, was unexpectedly poking around the porch steps, a large army-green duffel bag dropped on the ground by his feet. He’d apparently come home at the ass crack of dawn and was now doing… I didn’t care what he was doing, only what he had done.

Get him, my wolf demanded.

For once, we were in total agreement. I shifted back to human and tore across the lawn at him, buck naked and out of fucks to give. I needed to talk to him, let him know what had happened in his absence. I also needed to share my feelings on the subject with him, preferably through some wrestling and minor punching.

He heard me coming, turned, took in my bare-assed state—his eyes lit up, an amused grin curling his mouth—and he said, “Did you lose your pants, Ford? Did you miss me?”

I socked him in the jaw.

Again.Once is not enough.

I hadn’t hit him anywhere near as hard as I could have. Partly this was because knocking him out would have defeated the purpose of talking to him (or flat-out yelling until I felt better). Mostly, though, it was because I was already ashamed of myself for using my fists. I’d wanted to hurt him and be hurt back by him, and I’d acted on impulse.

Mav staggered, shaking his head. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Fight, fight, fight!

I weighed being a mature, sensible adult who used his words against the relief of fighting it out physically, and I gave in to my wolf. This time, Maverick saw me coming.

We’d all learned to fight and fight well. We were wolves and boys, semiferal and uncivilized. Maverick, having spent too much time under Darrell’s and the Iron Wolves’ tutelage, fought better and dirtier than all of us.

After I’d knocked him off the deck, however, we rolled around the yard, flattening the orange daylilies surrounding the porch and sending dust everywhere. Fists flew, kicks were delivered, punches landed.

My cheek felt swollen and Maverick’s lip had split when we were interrupted by an angry whisper. “What are y’all doing?”

We rolled apart, reluctantly on my part. Ranger’s angry face was more effective than a bucket of cold water. He stood there on the porch, arms and legs akimbo, wearing a T-shirt that announced Cos, I said so.

“You all are making a mess,” he groused. “Fighting. Carrying on. You’ll be waking everyone else up next. You’re interrupting my ponderings.”

Maverick grimaced, shooting me a dirty look—which I repaid with interest—and whispered a loud “So sorry” at our brother.

Ranger propped his hands on his hips and glared at us both. It was not an equal glaring, more of a sixty/forty split. I was the recipient of the bulk of Ranger’s disapproval. “Not on Momma’s flowers.”

I pulled myself unsteadily to my feet, nodding contritely. “Sorry.”

“And now you owe me biscuits and gravy, Ford Montgomery Boone,” Ranger admonished. “There must be consequences. And hash browns.” Then he turned and marched back inside.

I had no idea what Ranger pondered, but Atticus maintained it was world domination.

I did my own pivot and started marching toward the barn. I kept extra pants there.

Maverick followed me, working his jaw back and forth. “What the hell did I do to you?”

“YouTube,” I growled, picking up my pace. “TikTok. Starred in a film. You went for our daddy where Lucky Jansen could catch you with his phone camera, and then you went one further and shifted.”

Maverick’s eyes widened even as he frowned. “You weren’t there. So how do you?—”

“Because of the phone camera, you fool. Lucky filmed the whole thing and now he’s blackmailing us. He wants Atticus and me to join his pack as his new enforcers and beat people up on his command. Otherwise, he’s torn between outing you to the Wolf Council—who will banish you to Alaska or possibly the Outer Hebrides—or to local law enforcement. And they will send you to West Tennessee State Penitentiary.”

I pulled open the barn door and strode inside.

“Damn it.” Maverick sounded shocked and disbelieving. That was fine. I gave him sixty seconds to process the bad news while I found and pulled on a pair of jeans. When I’d finished doing up my buttons, he’d sunk down onto a bale of hay and was holding his head in his hands.

“Did you join? Are you working for Lucky now?” He did not look up from his close examination of the floor.

“Nope. We’ve been stalling him.”

Maverick exhaled roughly. I assumed he was remembering his time as a wolf gang member and all the reasons he’d put that life behind him. “That’s good. Really good.” He examined a crack in the floor, inhaled, exhaled. “And Ranger hasn’t got a plan?”

“Ranger doesn’t know.”

This made Maverick lift his head up. “What do you mean Ranger doesn’t know? You kept this a secret from him?”

“Of course I did,” I said impatiently. “He won’t get pulled into this mess, not if I can help it.”

Maverick’s head snapped up. “Are you a fool?”

I gave him a look. This was not the time for insults.

“When I realized that the Iron Wolves were bad news and joining them had been a mistake, I tried to walk away. They wouldn’t let me. Said I had to buy my way out, pay a price.

“It didn’t seem too bad—Lucky demanded I get blackmail material on the other gang members that he could use to squash any future dissent. He was already fighting with Piston back then because Piston was never gonna be happy being second in the pack—he was jonesing for a big promotion.

“I decided I didn’t care who was in charge as long as I was out, so I asked Ranger to show me how to use drones. I figured it was a good way to get video of the gang members doing illegal things.” He shrugged. “It worked. I recorded a bonanza of illegal, stupid, sometimes downright embarrassing stuff. After I gave Lucky the footage, he ordered the Iron Wolves to let me go, and I washed my hands of them. Ranger, however?—”

Ranger had a librarian streak in him. He liked order and cataloging stuff. We’d got him a label maker one year for Christmas, and you’d have thought we’d given him a Porsche. It had been love at first sight.

“You think Ranger stored backup copies somewhere.”

Maverick nodded. “That boy archives everything, and he’s nosy. I bet he kept the footage. And if he hasn’t, he’s still flying those drones all over Moonlight Valley. He’ll have picked up new things. All we have to do is ask him if he has something we can use to blackmail Lucky to get him off our backs.”

We took turns cleaning up after our bout of fisticuffs by plunging our heads into the horse trough behind the barn.

We’d flattened a couple daylilies, but they would come back next year. I did what I could on the garden front before taking myself off to the kitchen to pay the breakfast penalty Ranger had demanded. Maverick took over biscuit duty while I whisked up the gravy and shredded potatoes for the hash browns.

Breakfast was almost ready when we heard footsteps in the hallway and Maverick went to investigate.

“You’ve been back twenty minutes and you’ve already been in a fight? What happened?”

Recognizing Knox’s voice, I returned my attention to my biscuit gravy. Ranger would not put up with lumps.

Maverick came back into the kitchen without answering Knox. He pulled the biscuits out of the oven and set them on the table.

Knox followed him into the kitchen a few seconds later, his eyes examining Maverick’s face. Not only had I cut his lip, but I’d left him a purple mark on his cheek that was a twin to the one on mine. “Were you attacked on the trail?”

“I had a bondage session with a daddy bear.” Maverick grabbed the coffeepot and poured himself a cup.

Knox was in the process of swiping the few remaining dregs for himself when he caught sight of my face. I had a matching set of bruises, but no daddy bear action. With a shake of his head, he wandered off.

The delicious lure of freshly baked biscuits had Atticus shuffling into the kitchen. I should have made bacon. Nothing got us all together faster than bacon or a wolf run under the full moon.

“Do I smell gravy?”

I smacked his hand away from the cooling biscuits. “Yes. You also smell stupidity.”

I tipped my head in Maverick’s direction.

Atticus looked in the direction I’d indicated. He was smart enough to know that if he didn’t look, he didn’t eat. Still, when he spotted our oldest brother, he frowned, the corners of his mouth pulling down. From the look on his face, he was debating using his words versus shifting into his wolf and biting some answers out of Maverick.

When Maverick had been an Iron Wolf, beaten up had pretty much been his default state, and we’d gotten used to it as best we could. But since he’d quit the gang and turned over a new leaf, he’d been shinier and safer.

“What happened to you?” Atticus finally asked.

“Your twin happened.”

Atticus nodded thoughtfully, then set about making fresh coffee. “We’re helping each other out on this. Ford, do we have a plan?”

“We’re waiting for Ranger to get his butt out of bed.” Or wherever he’d parked it to “ponder,” but I did not need those details.

Atticus spilled coffee grounds on the counter. “I thought we were not inviting Ranger to this summit.”

“Mav says Ranger might have a solution.”

Ranger picked this moment to reappear in the kitchen, clearly in a snit. “Nobody talk to me until I’ve had my biscuits and gravy. I’m mad as a wet hen at both y’all.”

Ranger fixed himself a plate.

We stared.

He took a bite.

We stared some more.

Ranger set the plate down and groaned. “Okay. New plan. Y’all are scaring my appetite. Tell me what’s going on.”