Page 73 of Reclaiming Home

“He said I can go in today if I want to. Is that okay?” He seemed hopeful0, but there was some wariness in his expression, too.

“Of course. It’s your job, Ben. That’s a priority.”

“Look, Ben,” Kye started. “I have a good idea about how your dad ran this pack, but we’re building a new one. We want to do right by everyone. If someone wants to work, that’s fine. If they don’t, we’ll find a way to support them even if they don’t have skills that are useful around the house. We’re on more equal grounds here.”

I smooched his temple. “What my smart AF mate said.” I grinned at Ben.

He chuckled. “Good.” Then he glanced at his brother, clearly worried behind Max’s back. Ben looked at me and I gave him an understanding smile.

Kye, intuitive and in tune as he was to us all now, swallowed his sip of coffee. “And as for Max, you’re free to find a job of course, but I’m sure there’s always something around the house for you to do for as long as you want it.”

“Or if you want to study something online like I’m gonna do, that’s fine too,” Carys quickly assured him.

Clearly sensing his brother being overwhelmed, Ben walked to Max and leaned to wrap his arms around him from behind. As if agreed on, the rest of us ignored them as we finished our breakfasts.

My phone rang before we were done, so I grabbed it from the fruit bowl at the end of the table where I tended to drop it whenever I needed to put it down.

The number was local. “Hello?”

“Good morning, Alpha McRae,” Holden said in a tone I’d never heard before.

“Morning, Sheriff,” I replied, making eye contact with Kye who seemed as surprised as I felt. “What can I do for you?”

“Something has come up that I wanted to talk to you about. Could you stop by the station this afternoon?” Ah, his cop voice, then.

“Sure. I have Lina Keller coming over in about an hour, and I assume it’ll take me another hour after that to get her set for today in a way that I can leave for a while, but around… two?”

“That sounds good. I’ll talk to you then.”

“Great. See you then.”

I ended the call and frowned.

“What was that about?” Kye asked.

“I have no idea, but it sounded like official business.”

We had cleared the table, and I was putting the plates into the sink when my phone pinged with a message. Since the phone was in my pocket and my hands were wet, Kye grinned and fished it out for me.

“It’s Holden,” he said, lifting it so I could peer into the camera to unlock it.

“Nothing serious, but my boss wants a chat. Have your game face on, the guy is a bit of a jerk and there’s some weird rumors going around.”

“Well okay then,” I murmured. “Read it for everyone?”

Kye repeated the message, which left the pack looking puzzled and frowny.

“What do we know about the Sheriff?” Rian asked from his perch on the island.

“Sheriff Gerrell? Just that he’s an asshole who likes to take all the credit while doing none of the work,” Max blurted out. “Says he wants to get rid of all the meth labs and was a pain in Rusty’s ass for years, but luckily—for Rusty’s sake—this place is far enough that he would never come here personally until a handful of years ago.”

“Yeah.” Ben frowned. “It was very convenient how he also went away real quick, like maybe Rusty paid him off or something. Either way, the word around town is he doesn’t like Holden and the feeling is mutual.”

“And nobody local wants him around for another term, but he has a lot of friends in Warren where his office is and in other parts of the county.” Max grimaced. “I mean it’s not far, but it’s certainly far enough that Holden and the other deputies do all the work here and then Gerrell comes to take any credit he can. It’s unfair.”

“Sounds like a piece of work, especially if your hunch about him being corrupt is right,” Rian mused. “Should I come with you?” he asked me.

“No. Absolutely not. I know how you get. Besides, Holden has implied he’s not big on non-humans, so….”

---