Page 17 of Wrangler

Weston had always had a thing for numbers. He had enjoyed it when the balance sheet came out to be right on the money. If it didn’t, he wasn’t opposed to sitting for days on end trying to figure out why it didn’t. That was why he was spot on with how much money he had all the time. But it was Nash’s wife, Sunny, who figured out they were overspending on a great many things when she’d married his brother.

But working with the kind of numbers that were before him it was slightly daunting. There were millions of dollars unaccounted for, and he’d been asked to see if he could not only find the money but to see what it was spent on. He knew where a great deal of the money was now in a bank overseas that had just under six million dollars in the account. The FBI had told him that the money would be coming back to the little town but they didn’t know when.

“The money was earmarked for the school improvement fund. Also, there was a great deal of it missing for the police station to not just have a new jail put in but also bulletproof vests as well as up to date handguns for the men.” He asked if he could start on some of those projects now that they knew where the money was. The man was shaking his head before he even finished asking for it.

“I’d wait until it’s in the bank if I were you. It might take a while for it to funnel through the system before it gets here.” He asked him how long that might be. Again, the man was shaking his head before he was able to finish the question. It sort of pissed him off, but he knew better than to argue with a man with a gun.

“So, in other words, the town might never see it.” The man didn’t say anything but stared at him. “I see. So we’re basically starting from scratch here. Even though the money has been there all along, all I can do is hope that it someday shows up for us to use.”

“If ever.” That wasn’t very helpful and as of two days after that, he was still working the money. Then, yesterday, he was told that there would be some money coming their way, not from the FBI but from Sunny. He’d complained to Lily when she’d come for a visit a couple of days before that about how he wasn’t going to be able to do anything if the money didn’t come to the town. He might not even get paid, they’d told him. So suddenly now he was getting a windfall for the town that he was going to start using right away. He hoped before anyone would realize that it was there. That was advice from Archie, and he was going to do just what he said.

“Mr. Weston, there are three people in the reception area that need to talk to you.” He asked Belinda if she knew what they wanted. Not answering him right away made his belly jump, and then she closed the door. “They’re here to tell you that the playground equipment is no longer safe for the kids to use. That’s not it. There is no playground equipment out there yet. These people are going to see if they can get you to pay the fines and hire someone they know to bring you up to code. They don’thave anyone in line to do that. They mostly want the fine money. It’s quite a bit of money.”

He loved having a sifter in his office. The fact that she was a dark jaguar made him feel pretty good, too. She had made a connection with him when he’d hired her and now he was fielding calls before he had to come to the phone. It was working out perfectly for him and his job.

The men, three of them as it turned out, were led into the office. Belinda was there as well. She was going to be his backup, but as far as the men knew, she was going to be taking notes on the meeting as she’d be his witness to anything.

“You don’t need anyone taking notes, Mr. Sheppard. We have all the paperwork right here for you to sign, and she can go over it later if she wants. The fine for the playground equipment is going to be ten thousand dollars. We can recommend someone that can come out and spruce it up for it—if it’s salvageable, or you can outright pay for better and funner equipment right now, and that will be something that you can take off your plate. And like your predecessor, you get your twenty percent cut in what we walk away with.” The man doing the talking sat in the big chair across from him. They were from Hathaway’s time here, and he had been wanting to toss them out since he’d been in office.

“I see.” He took the paperwork and pretended to look it over while he reached out to his brothers. Nash said that he was with one of the agents now and that he’d alert him to the things that were going on in his office.“There are cameras here now, so maybe they can look and make sure that neither Belinda nor I are hurt.”

“They’re on it, little brother.”As he was turning the pages of the paperwork, he kept asking questions about the playground equipment. It didn’t take, but a couple of those before the man who seemed to be in charge was getting pissed off.

“We’re playing ball here, Mr. Sheppard. You’re not playing with us. Either okay the bill of sale, or we’ll have to go out and tear up the little kiddies playground right now.” Weston smiled at them and told the man that that would suit him better. “What do you mean? We will do it. I swear to Christ, we’ll go out there and rip us a couple of kiddies off the playground stuff to make our point.”

“You should have done your homework before coming here. There isn’t any playground. There hasn’t been since…gosh, I don’t think there has been any out there for at least ten years.” Belinda corrected him and said it was when her brother was going to school there, and he was in college. “Okay, twelve years then. Thank you, dear. Would you go and put that on our list of things to take care of?” When she stood up to leave, she was pushed back in the chair by one of the nontalkers.

“She ain’t going nowhere.” Talker looked at him with a gun now pointed at him. He was more worried about Belinda than he was himself, so when Talker put the gun to his forehead, he slapped it away with his great paw. It was something that he’d never thought of doing before. Not only did he remove the gun from him, but his hand went flying with it.

There had been a short scream, and that was when he noticed that both the nontalkers were lying on the floor with a pissed-off she cat atop them. It took Weston a few seconds to catch his breath so that he could stand up.

“Belinda, are you all right?” She said she was just fine and dandy. “Good. I’m going to need a minute.” Weston turned to the talker, who was screaming about his hand being gone and that he was bleeding. “Will you shut the fuck up? I’m trying to think right now, and your caterwauling is getting on my last nerve. Shut up.”

“You cut my hand off, you mother fucker. I’m going to kill you.” Weston pointed to where the gun was with his hand still holding it and told him to go for it, but he’d never make it. “You have to do something here. I’m bleeding to death.”

“Like I fucking care. You came in here thinking that I was an easy target and got your asses handed to you. By a woman, no less. One that I will be grateful for the rest of my life. Belinda, put yourself down for a raise. Will you remember that?” She laughed and told him that she would for sure. “Good. Good. The FBI are on their way and I have to tell you, I never dreamed that this job would be so lively. Or I guess deadly would be a better way of putting things.”

His morning never got any better until the FBI left with the three men. Well, two and one ofthem on the way to the hospital. It wasn’t until he was able to send Belinda out for a couple of double meat subs at noon did he felt like they were making progress. Once the paperwork was put through, not only did Belinda get her raise, but the playground where this whole thing started was up for repair, with the schoolyard getting the much-needed upgrade getting taken care of as well. By the time he was leaving for home, he’d gotten about half of what he’d wanted done and he was all right with that.

“I have two questions for you.”Weston asked Archie what they might be.“This isn’t one of them, but did you know that Belinda has three sisters and two brothers?”

“Yes. I mean, they don’t work for me but she did tell me that she came from a large family. So do we. What’s the problem.”Archie told him that they’d never pledged to him.“Oh, that I have the answer for. None of them live around here. The closest ones are Rogen and Taylor, who live in the Cincinnati area. The others live in North Carolina. That’s where they’re from.”He did ask him if Belinda had.

“Yes, she did. That’s what made me ask. Okay, then the next two questions should be easy for you. One of her brothers, Calhoun, I believe his name is works for an advertising company that does designs for ads for newspapers and magazines. I was wondering if he would like to come here and work with Beau. He’s wanting to branch out his role as an advertising agent—you know, he does jingles and things like that. The two of them would make a great team.”Weston asked his brother why he would come to him about that.“I don’t know. Does Belinda—I guess what I’m asking you is do they seem close? I like Belinda. Do you suppose that she’s the only one in the family that is nice?”

“Let me tell you about my morning. And how not only did she leap in to help me out, but she stayed her cat until the FBI showed up to take the men away. She’s a hard worker and seems to have a head for what we’re doing here. I’m telling you this because I have a feeling that they’re all outspoken, and they don’t have any trouble telling you no. Nor do they stand back when they’re needed.”Archie told him that was a good indication.“I think so as well. However, I know too that they all have good jobs. I don’t know their names, but one of her brothers is, as you know, into advertising. Two of them are farmers and they make a good living at that. Then, the other two sisters are into construction. I don’t know what they do, but apparently, they do it well because they are sought after all over the country. Don’t quote me on this, but I believe they own the company, the two of them. It’s called Two Watson Construction. They go by TWC.”

“Good information. Okay, my second question is…you’ve already answered it. I was wondering if they used any kind of construction company that would be willing to come here and work without men and women to see if we can get some work done on the leap building as well as fixing up a few roofs with some of the older people in the leap too.”He told him that he didn’t have an answer about that.“Just knowing that they know something about construction will help me a good deal, even if it’s only to recommend someone to work with us. Thanks. How’s things going now with you working on the town?”

“Good. So far we’ve been able to put us in a nice filing system so we know how to find things. Peashaw had things filed by their addresses. It took us two days to figure that one out.”

The two of them talked about this and that, and once he had to take a call, Archie said that he’d talk to him later. As he was finishing up the proposal that he was going to use to get someone out to have the school inspected, he was worn out. The stress of the job wasn’t as bad as he thought it might be, but it was something that he was going to have to keep an eye on. He didn’t want to be too stressed out so that he had himself a heart attack or something worse.

He enjoyed the walk to his place. Weston had been looking over plans and the other houses that the faeries had built and was happy that he was going to wait. He didn’t care for steel and shiny, what he called modern home but since it was going to be for his mate, he didn’t care what it ended up being so long that she was happy. He hoped that she’d be happy with it anyway. Going into his apartment, the one that he’d had since before his mother had been killed, and looked around the place.

It wasn’t dirty. He’d been someone who was neat about his things like he was with numbers. Things had a place and that place is where he put it when he was finished with it. But the things in the place were secondhand. All of it. He was fearful of spending money on something that would get him caught by his mother or grandfather, and that would be painful for all of them. His mother had believed in equal punishment for everyone. Even if they had nothing to do with whatever was goingon. He decided right then and there that he was going to find him a newer place and toss everything out that had been bought with fear in his heart. It was going to be a new beginning for him. Much like it was for his older brothers. Out with the old, in with the new.

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