Page 3 of The Healer and the Wolf: Part Two

I could see why he and Leo got along so well. They definitely took on a lot of responsibility and cared for those around them. While I appreciated it, I wished it didn’t make me miss Leo so damn much.

“Hey, guys, you’re looking good,” I murmured, trying to put my heart in it as I greeted the rows of tomato plants I’d been struggling with for the week. Although gardening was my respite, it wasn’t easy to concentrate on it these days. Especially since every time I dug a hole or pruned an errant branch, I thought of how I could be saving Leo instead.

Soon.The thought was calming, even though I didn’t really have any proof it would be soon at all. But whatever. Sometimes hope was a drug I very much needed.

Thankfully, my garden did turn out to be somewhat of a respite, even if its effects were muted. I focused on getting the rest of my heirloom tomato varietals in below the cattle panel trellis I had erected on three T-posts, then went on to harvest a whole bunch of greens for lunch. No one could complain about not getting enough fiber in my house.

While I was washing some particularly vibrant leaves of chard at my makeshift processing station, I noticed two pairs of eyes staring out at me from the greenhouse. Fork and Mudpie were perched in different spots, watching me with that keen interest cats naturally had. It had been ages since they’d both been in the greenhouse while I was outside. The arrival of a giant wolf had definitely shaken things up a bit.

Goober was there too, but unlike his siblings, he wasn’t lounging. No, he was prowling around, looking for something. Maybe a mouse had gotten in? That was one of the reasons I had gotten the landlord’s permission to build the cat tunnel. Although, if I was being honest with myself, my primary motivation had been hanging out with my cats while I was working outside—a difficult thing to do, considering I was strictly against having outdoor cats, so the cat tunnel was the best compromise.

Sure, some farms had barn cats, but those were animals with jobs. To me, that was very different from allowing my pet outside. I was well aware plenty of people would disagree with me, but those people wouldn’t have to deal with the heartbreak if a coyote somehow got hold of my babies. Not to mention that back when I was volunteering at the clinic, we’d had a surge of FiV and FeLV kitties, which had also put me off having an indoor-outdoor cat. While veterinarian sciences had come a long way since then, those two infectious diseases could be so insidious, and if keeping my cats indoors kept them from suffering from debilitating conditions, then I was all for it.

It was under their watchful eyes that I finished all the planting I had to do for the day. After that, I was supposed to move on to weeding—goodness knew my garden needed it—but a quick look up at the gray sky, as well as the smell of camphor and geosmin in the air, told me it was going to rain. And soon.

I could go inside, do some deep cleaning, maybe do more research on the internet about the Mammon cult, but all I wanted was to shut off my brain and listen to some music while keeping my hands busy.

Propagation it was.

As I headed into the greenhouse, Ricky stepped out on the back porch, fully dressed, looking much more awake than the last time I had seen him.

“Looks like it’s about to rain. You gonna come in?”

I shook my head. “Going to get some work done in the greenhouse. I’ll be sheltered in case it storms.”

“All right, I’m heading out for a bit. See if I can hunt something to fill your freezer. Don’t be alarmed if I’m not back until dawn.”

As much as the prospect of fresh venison or other game was exciting, I couldn’t help but feel there was something off about Ricky’s tone. Or maybe it was his body language. It was hard to tell since I was still getting to know him.

“You okay?” I asked cautiously, not wanting to sound suspicious. I was going for concerned. I figured he had the right to be a little off considering everything he’d gone through while trapped in his wolf form and abused for so long, but it never hurt to check in.

“Yeah, yeah.” He said it in a way that made it sound like he wasn’t okay at all. “Got a lot on my mind.”

“Anything you want to share?” We weren’t that close, but I hoped he knew I was more than happy to listen to anything that was troubling him.

“Nothing that’s new. Same ol’, same ol’.”

“Leo?” I hedged. Although a good part of me resented Ricky for carrying me out of the laboratory and keeping me away for the past week, I also understood that he’d had to go against his very wolf nature. He chose to follow Leo’s orders and keep me safe rather than save his best friend. I had to respect that even if I hated it.

“Pretty much.”

“I’m sorry.” It was all I could think to say, because really, what else was there? We’d gambled, and it hadn’t turned out in our favor. As a result, we’d lost someone incredibly important to us, even if Leo was important to each of us in different ways.

“You ain’t got nothing to apologize for.”

“Feels like I do.”

Ricky let out a sigh that was jam-packed full of emotion and scuffed his shoe against the ground. I got the sense he was thinking, so I didn’t interrupt him. But it seemed like he wasn’t quite done grappling with whatever was in his brain, because after quite a pregnant pause, he tipped his head.

“You be safe now. I’ll be back soon.”

“I will,” I promised.

With that, Ricky shifted into a wolf and took off into the trees.

I watched him go, idly observing all the differences between him and Leo in their wolf forms. Ricky was still far larger than the standard lupine, but several inches shorter than his alpha, and he didn’t have nearly as much mass. His coat was darker with a reddish hint, and his eyes were bright yellow. And now that he had quite a few good meals into him, his bones didn’t show anymore, making him look much more like the apex predator he was supposed to be.

Once he disappeared out of sight, I headed into my greenhouse to work on some climbing jade babies as well as golden pothos nodes. It was soothing, especially with my cats all around me. Goober was still on the hunt, winding around my legs occasionally and eek-eek-eeking like he usually did whenever he saw a particularly pudgy squirrel scurrying past the kitchen window. But there were no squirrels here as far as I could tell, so I chalked it up to my Maine Coon being a silly Maine Coon.

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