Chapter Five #3
Shane readjusted his earplugs as the high-pitched grind of the saw ripped through the construction site.
The cutter might have been on the other side of the partially built house, but Shane’s heightened senses might as well have put his ear an inch from the whirling blade.
He was no stranger to the banging, popping, rumbling, and zipping of power tools, but that didn’t make the jobsite any less uncomfortable for a wolf shifter.
His mind was only half-focused on measuring out the skeleton frame of an interior wall destined for one of the bedroom closets.
The other half of his brain was split between all the details of the towns he had been researching over the last week.
He reexamined each one, going over the flaws and benefits.
Some had good schools, which was a boon for both John Matthews, since he was a teacher, and for his kids.
Another was close to a college or university, which was helpful for Trent, the youngest of his pack and looking to enroll as soon as they were all settled.
Shane made a point of bypassing major cities or capitals, sure that they would already have a shifter pack that claimed the area.
That, and his pack was used to rural, small-town living.
Dropping them into a place like Dallas or Chicago would have made it impossible for them to reconnect.
A smaller suburb of those bigger cities might have worked, but Shane wanted to keep this search as simple as possible.
Then, whenever his brain floated on autopilot, it drifted to a more complicated topic. Kimberly.
They looked at their schedules and decided on Friday night.
He’d bring the food, and she’d pick the movie.
To say he was excited was an understatement, but he couldn’t afford to get too worked up or distracted.
This was to hang out, just to test the waters and see if there was anything still there.
His temptation to lure her away from Gage’s pack was still festering in the back of his thoughts, but that wasn’t the goal of the date.
It was to take a short break from life, from expectations, and just be Shane and Kimberly again, the way it used to be.
He wasn’t so dumb to think that anything would be exactly the same as it was before. Still, the feel of her hand in his, the softness of her skin, and the heat from her blush on his fingertips certainly made part of his old self reawaken to the possibilities.
The growl of an approaching truck engine broke through the background noise of the construction site, followed by the slam of the truck door. Dominic’s scent blew from the street. The Prime Alpha wasn’t worried about masking his arrival.
There were no other shifters on site, so Shane knew Dominic had to be there to see him.
He waited on the back porch concrete slab until Dominic wove his way through the jungle of two-by-fours to step through the gaping hole that would be the back door.
Shane plucked out the earplugs to give the Prime Alpha his full attention.
He had shot a text to Dominic earlier that week to ask for recommendations for new territories.
To that, the Prime Alpha said he’d have to do a little digging and get back with him.
Shane assumed the visit was to talk that over.
They greeted and exchanged small talk about work and the house’s progress before jumping right into business.
Dominic pulled out a folded piece of paper from his back pocket. “Here are a few towns that I know for a fact aren’t claimed by another pack.”
Shane brushed off the dirt from his hands and accepted the note.
As he unfolded the paper to read the list, he grimaced.
None of these cities were part of his own research, meaning he might have done all that work for nothing, and other packs already took those towns he had found.
Perhaps he should have waited on Dominic, but Shane couldn’t sit idle in his free evenings and not try to find a new home for his pack.
It felt lazy and irresponsible, two things he strove not to be as long as he was alpha.
“All of these places were up for grabs the last time I checked, which may have been about six months.”
Shane nodded and they discussed how far away each town was from Tolstone.
Part of him wanted to stay close by. Not because he thought they would need Dominic’s hospitality again, but because Kimberly was still there.
On the other hand, if Gage ever moved his pack, there was no telling how far Kimberly would be yanked from him again.
A niggling voice from the past told him not to make a decision based on his feelings for a girl.
But it wasn’t just any girl. It was Kimberly.
And if Friday night became the start of something more serious, Shane didn’t want to fuck things up with her again.
Like he promised, he wouldn’t purposefully hurt her.
To nourish a relationship only to move several hours away would definitely hurt both of them.
He’d find a way to make it work if there were sparks in the end.
“There’s no rush, of course,” Dominic said. “Let your pack catch their breath while you do some homework on it.”
“What about that pack from Virginia? Don’t you need the room?”
Dominic’s expression grew tight. “We haven’t heard back from their alpha. Maybe they realized it was a false alarm and decided to stay. Even if they do show up tomorrow without warning, we can make do.”
Shane folded the paper and slipped it into his pocket. “Thanks.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed, and his body seemed to tense in defense. “Anything wrong in your pack?”
Shane refused to react in kind and eased his shoulders a little to show he wasn’t bothered. “Not that I’m aware of. Why?”
“Hank told me about a little fight that broke out at Howling Bones last night between one of your pack and Cole’s pack. It was Cody. Did you know about it?”
Inside, Shane’s wolf growled at the indication in such a question, while his more human side was ready to drop what he was doing and go tear into Cody.
The guy never could hold his liquor, and with a toddler at home, he had no business being at a bar on a weeknight.
But for Dominic to bring it up meant word had passed through several people before it ever reached Shane.
Why hadn’t anyone told him yet? Not even Cody’s wife, who had always been concerned about her husband’s tendency to get into fights, had texted him.