Page 28 of War Games

“It’s Dirk,” he said, answering it. “What’s going on?”

“You ordered me to?—”

“I’ll be right there,” Heath said with a snarl in his words. He was jumping out of bed before he even hung up, looking for a pair of pants. He grabbed a pair of sweats and looked at Jacky as he pulled them.

She was out of bed, too, pulling on a shirt and shorts.

“I’ll go. You stay here. Expect Dirk to come over.”

“I can help,” she said, and he met those gold eyes, ready for a fight if a fight needed to happen.

“I can handle my werewolves,” he said, knowing she would face anything if she felt the need.

She nodded, grabbing a jacket.

“Then I’ll be here for him. I’ll make him something to eat.”

“Thank you.”

He finished getting dressed and ran out faster than her. He was grateful for the touch of magic on his truck to keep the late-night officers from noticing how much he was speeding this evening. He nearly bent his steering wheel as he jerked it to turn into his son’s driveway. By the time he was out of the truck and opening their front door, he was furious, and there was nothing else distracting him from it.

I raised Landon better than this. I know I did.

He found Dirk standing near the front door, a couple of packed bags at his feet. He was holding a little too still for Heath. Landon was on the floor, his head in his arms, his knees pulled up.

The image of them made Heath jerk to a stop.

“He didn’t mean to,” Dirk whispered. “He really didn’t. Your order made me call, but he didn’t mean to do it.”

“That’s for me to deal with,” Heath said, staring at his son. “You head over to see Jacky. Sleep on the couch, so you get some rest for your drive tomorrow.”

Landon made a noise, but it was soft and short.

“Don’t be too angry… We’ll get through this. He just needs to talk to you.” Dirk didn’t move, and Heath finally turned to him.

“Go,” he ordered gently, but with enough power that Dirk didn’t have an option. He grabbed his keys and his bags, walking out without another word. Once Heath knew he was gone, he looked back at Landon.

Landon wasn’t looking at him. Once, when Landon was younger, Heath had found him in the exact same position. He’d punched another boy for the first time. He admitted to Heath that day that he had wanted to kill the other young werewolf, and that had made him feel guilty, broken, and immoral. Heath had known what the pack had forced his son to become and desperately wished that he could have stopped it.

Most importantly, it had made Landon afraid.

His middle child never handled his fear well.

Heath remembered a lesson from his first wife and held it to his heart as he did with all his children. He didn’t always live up to the lesson, but there was something about Landon that always had him thinking about it. She had said it about Richard when he was a wild little boy, and Heath had gotten angry with something breaking, but it was always Landon who made him think about it.

Love him first. Before anything, he’s just your son. We can fix what he broke and teach him better, but you better always love our son.

He walked across the room, smelling his son’s anger, his despair, and underneath both, his wild, uncontrolled fear. Only the fear that he couldn’t address brought Landon down like this.

He sat beside his son in the hall, not reaching to touch him yet.

“I took Carey out today. Jacky roped me into it, and I needed it. I haven’t spent enough time with either of you just as your father recently. We saw a couple of movies, then went to dinner. At dinner, the waitress was hitting on me, even though Carey was the one ordering everything. She ignored Carey most of the meal, and I kept waiting for Carey to step in and say something.” Heath was grateful he had that experience today for a new reason. It was a good way to address the fear without pointing it out yet.

“She didn’t. She waited until it was time to pay, which she did and did a small but wonderful little power move to prove the point that no one should be ignored at the table. She said she learned it when eating out with you and Dirk. Dirk would do it, I assume, because she said he would tell her there was no reason to cause a scene and ruin the entire meal. I should have known better than to expect her to cause a scene, but the waitress was annoying me with her light antics.”

“You didn’t have Jacky,” Landon mumbled, his head still down, so it was muffled by his arms.

“I didn’t, so I should have expected a waitress to get bold enough to try flirting with me. There’s one in every restaurant, and sometimes, I get put in their sections. It happens.”

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