Season of the Wolf Pt. 01

Grace doesn't know it, but she is very well protected. Everyone left in this, what was once a town, is related by blood and we take care of our own. I can't answer the one question that has been in my mind since Nathaniel finally located Grace. I don't call the man I once considered a brother by his name. I can't. He died to me the day he challenged Nathaniel for leadership of the pack. Perhaps, that was what in the end gave me the fierceness and raw brutality my wolf needed to unleash itself and tear out his throat. The bastard has a grave in the family plot, but it's more of a reminder or a warning than a memorial.

Did Grace's father know her location? Did he deliberately hide her from Nathaniel and why? Was he trying to protect her from the legacy she was born to fulfill or was it some selfish act? We're born knowing exactly what we are. When the time comes it comes as no great shock but as a celebration of the new generation. Grace will know nothing but terror and fear, pain and confusion. Unless I can find a way to ease her into this world, she'll see it as a curse and not a gift.

It takes a village to raise a child. It'll take each and every one of us to bring Grace into the fold. The corner of the folder tucked under my arm digs into my fingertips reminding me of exactly how important she is to me and I am to her. The diner falls into a hush as I enter. The people know who I am. They respect me and show me the deference due any leader. The way I'm dressed probably comes as a surprise. I haven't worn anything other than faded blue jeans, worn t-shirts, and weathered work boots in the last thirty years. The wool slacks are more reminiscent of another time and the itchiness is more familiar to me than I'd like to admit.

My eyes scan the familiar patrons of the diner. I spot Grace sitting at the far end of the counter as far away from anyone as she can get. She's alone with the exception of Diane's casual attention. I give Diane a nod and before I can ask, there's a fresh mug of coffee waiting for me.

The conversations have picked up again. I can barely hear myself think over the din of the noise. I focus on Grace watching from behind her before I make a move to take the empty seat at the counter. She is everything I thought she would be. Live and in person I realize how very short the photos and my dreams fell. She's a tiny thing, slouching over a mug of cold coffee and staring down at the worn patterns in the countertop. Her lips are pursed in thought. An air of standoffishness and fierce self-sufficiency clings to her, but it doesn't put me off. She's needed this persona to survive in the human world. But, Grace can't know and doesn't realize how very wolfish her aura is.

Her dark hair shines with a halo of highlights from the sunshine streaming through the wide plate glass windows. She is dressed for the summertime heat and the long journey she has traveled in a pair of loose kaki shorts and a baggy t-shirt worn soft and thin from washing. Her feet dangle from the stool in a pair of battered tennis shoes. She's a mess, weary and exhausted, her hair pulled up into a loose ponytail with tendrils left to curl lazily around her long neck. Her lashes are thick and dark adding mystery and expressiveness to her brown eyes.

Covertly, she turns those eyes to me. I can feel them raking over every inch of me. Idly she works the corners of a crumpled napkin with her dainty fingertips. In my dreams she is fierce and commanding. In person, she is soft and vulnerable, fleeting and unpredictable as a breeze. But, I know somewhere deep inside of her is a storm yet to be unleashed.

I squash the instinct to defend her. My inner wolf is growling and bristling, flashing his teeth at the other males, warning them off. The atmosphere crackles with the raw power of my wolf. Diane glares at me. She's right. I need to tone it down, a lot. My wolf has no place here. And I'm starting to scare off her customers.

This isn't the best place for me to discuss things with Grace. There are too many people crowded into too small a place and too many ears to hear. Everyone is wondering how I'm going to handle it. I'd rather not have anyone overhear the floundering of their leader. Especially, since I'm not exactly sure of what I'm going to say myself.

My wolf is a crafty bastard and I'm glad for it. I start with a brief introduction and thrust out my hand. She's hesitant and gingerly returns my handshake. Her fingers are soft and warm, but her grasp firm and determined. Good. She doesn't scare as easily as I'd feared. She has an inner strength perhaps she doesn't even realize. With her hand gripping mine it shows.

She is beautiful, breathtakingly beautiful. Her wolf is there, beneath the surface, finally beginning to wake. I can see her there in the glimmer of Grace's eyes. The fierce predator that is my wolf is subdued and wagging his tail like a damned puppy over the morsel of attention she's paid to us. It's good to know that she isn't as unaffected by my presence as she appears. In that, we are even. The attraction sizzles in the air between us. I can sense it. The signs are evident in her body language and in her scent. I'm making her nervous and a bit uncomfortable. She shifts in her seat and nibbles at her bottom lip. She's not used to having anyone tilt her world on its axis, but I am and she doesn't know what to make of it.

She smells of feminine musk and salty ocean spray, of sand and sun warmed skin. I long to reach up and tuck a strand of hair clinging to her neck behind her ear. Reminding myself of who I'm supposed to be to her, I restrain the impulse. She is familiar to me, but to her, I'm a complete stranger. I explain that I was on my way to my office and decided to stop for a bite. That I have her file here and am more than happy to close the transfer of her inheritance today instead of tomorrow. I tack onto the tale I've woven as a means to lure her home. I work out of my home. That's true, but she doesn't realize my home is her home and she's not only inherited the property and the house it sits on but me as well.

I've already cleaned up after her grandfather and myself. I have a bedroom in the main house, but the old carriage house suits me just fine. I've stowed my things there and set up a cozy studio apartment. I don't need much. I can't even tell you why I occupied space in the house after Nathaniel's death except for my need to cling to tradition and something familiar.

The house is no more mine than the land it sits on. But still, some part of me feels I've earned the right to call it home. I've preserved the past and secured the future for her. I've bled for it. What other reason do I need to consider it my home as much as it is hers?

She'll get used to having me around. She'll figure out she needs me and there's no time like the present to assert that simple truth. It's obvious Grace is exhausted and can't drive another mile. There's no way I'm letting her drive on the twisting gravel roads and steep narrow lanes leading to the house. In her current state she'd be likely to steer that death trap on wheels she calls a car straight into a ditch.

Diane's coffee could put hair on a man's chest, but even that amount of caffeine has its limits. Grace has been properly fed. Diane has made sure of that. I snatch up the check, pay, and usher Grace to the door before she can muster the energy to protest. I take the house key off my ring and toss the keys to Diane before demanding Grace's. Reluctantly, she sees the logic in my argument and hands them over without too much fuss.

Standing beside me, the top of Grace's head barely reaches my chest. We walk to her car and I hold open the passenger side door for her grinning at her embarrassment at the collage of wrappers and empty bottles and crumbs littering the seat and floorboard. The backseat is so full with boxes that I can barely see out the rearview mirror. I adjust the seat to accommodate my long legs. Compact Hondas weren't really made for a man of my height and even with the seat all the way back it's a trick to drive without punching the break and the accelerator through the floorboard.

Grace is watching me out of the corner of her eye. She is distrustful of me. I can see her calculating the many ways she can escape if the situation calls for it. She glances toward the can of pepper spray on her key chain and automatically dismissing it as an option for self-defense. Her brown eyes flicker to the door handle. Yeah, she could risk it and leap out of the car. I wish she'd sit back and relax, let the scenery and the fresh county air do their part in romancing her.

I keep quiet and don't waste time with idle conversation. Being this close to me, the two of us crowded shoulder to shoulder in this tiny car is killing me. The interior is flooded with her scent. The very essence of her stirs my wolf and a part of me I've managed to ignore for a very long time. Grace is subdued by her weariness. Her eyes grow heavy and outweigh her mistrust as they fall closed and suddenly pop open as she forces herself to stay awake. She is trying to memorize the route. It'll take more than one trip to do that. But, I'm guessing her wolf will always be able to find her way home.

I slow and turn off the main highway down a gravel road that stretches off in the distance. The suspension system of the car groans in protest to the bumps and dips in the road. Tall cornfields and thick patches of dense woods on either side of the road flank us. The sky above is a brilliant flawless blue. The dust cloud of our tracks is the only thing I can see in the rearview mirror. Jarred fully awake, Grace frowns at the condition of the road and her brows furrow into deeper lines as I take another turn and inch the car along a lane in far worse shape that leads up high into the rolling hills.

My wolf yawns and stretches, digging his claws into the soft gray matter in my head to let me know he is still with me. As if I could ever forget. He is at home in this wild place and I am too. To Grace this place is distant and untamed. She didn't see it before civilization left its scar on the landscape. There was a time that the people who called this place home were as wild as the landscape. When people were free, really free, to be who and what they truly are. Those days were gone long before I was born. We adapted and will continue to adapt to ensure our survival. Adaptation is the true way of the wolf. Our way.

Grace wipes her palms on the hem of her shorts. I know her so well. It's easy to forget that to her, I'm a stranger. I do the only thing I know to do to put her at ease and start to point out things she can't see with her narrowed vision. She nods and feigns polite interest. It isn't that she isn't curious. She simply hasn't opened her senses up to the world around her yet. And she doesn't understand how very little of the bigger picture she can actually see.

She doesn't see the hawk circling overhead or the doe and her spotted fawn watching us from a dense copse of pines. Grace can't hear the whisper of the wind in the trees or the distant yip of a coyote. She doesn't know an oak from a maple. She has never tasted sassafras root brewed into tea on a cold winter's day. The sweetness of ripe wild berries in season is unknown to her. She has never seen the tracks of a raccoon and doesn't know to give the skunk a wide berth.

We emerge from the shaded lane and onto the bumpy path leading to the house. The meadow stretches out in a vibrant green expanse of gently rolling land. The horses lift their heads from grazing and flick their ears in curiosity before returning to pick at the tender shoots of grass. The barn comes into view as I ease around a curve. In the distance is a field of golden wheat almost ready to harvest.

Every time I coast over the bridge and the meandering creek beneath and the house comes into view I fall in love all over again. I want Grace to fall in love too. Not just with me, but with the house and the fields, the woods, the creek and the pond it leads to, and the land, with everything. She would never compare herself to a tree or a creek or a field of wheat or corn, to an otter or a doe, or the wide-open sky. She can't see the beauty of such things yet. She can't see herself in the wild perfection of nature's randomness, but I can.

The house is decked out in her late summertime finest to greet her guest. The lace curtains flutter over the open windows. The gardens are in full bloom. The colorful flowers are bursting with life and the scent of them sweetens the air. The porch swing sways gently in the breeze on the wide front porch. The calico cat nobody ever bothered to name lounges on a porch step and lazily licks her paw. Birds chatter down at us from the trees shading the front yard as I pull around the circle drive and slide the gear into park. I sit there and admire my handiwork. The house hasn't looked this good since the day she was built. She is polished and shining like the jewel she is and more than that. She looks like home.

I try to gauge Grace's reaction, but I can't. Her face is turned away from me, taking it all in. I can tell she's curious and also filled with trepidation. I can picture Grace standing on the porch watching the sunrise as she sips her coffee. I can imagine her tending the gardens with tender loving hands. I envision her here, safe and happy, at home, in this place and with me. "Welcome home, Grace," I say as I hand her the keys.

Chapter 9

I can hear the pride in his voice as he drops the keys into my palm. I don't bother with my stuff. It's all I can manage to drag my weary ass up the few stairs to the front porch. The house is everything I imagined. Her brick face is weathered from the sun. Moss grows thick up the sides of the trees. Blooming gardens and twisting footpaths cover every square inch of the front yard not doused in the shade of the trees. An inviting porch swing sways gently in the breeze. A cat Han hasn't bothered to introduce me to meows up at me in curiosity as I rest against the porch rail and wait for him to open the front door.

The place is picturesque. I'll grant you that. The house is three stories high counting the attic and towers over the flat landscape not covered by thick woods. This place has no shortage of surprises. Out back at the end of a winding gravel lane sits a smaller building, a garage maybe, and behind that, an immense barn freshly painted red bakes in the summer sun. Even if my GPS were working, I doubt if I could have found my way here on my own.

Flat expanses of farmland and rolling hills of pasture stretch out beyond where my eyes can see. Han made an excellent tour guide rather than asking me a million personal questions on the drive here. He pointed out things I would have never spotted on my own. I didn't see the deer and her baby or the hawk circling in the sky above us. To me, raspberry is a flavor of pop tart, not a berry growing on a thick bramble along the side of the road.

I cast him a doubtful look as he holds the front door wide and beckons me over the threshold. The truth is. I'm a little intimidated by the size of him. I'm not one to back down to anybody, but he towers over me. I reassure myself that he isn't a rapist and take a step inside. The décor is an antique collector's wet dream. I'm still studying a clock on an ornately carved fireplace mantle when he summons me into what he calls a sitting room.

The room is a bit formal for my tastes. Flanked by two wing back chairs a small sofa upholstered in deep crimson sits along one wall. An oval rug in a bright floral pattern covers the polished wood floors. Floor to twelve foot ceiling bookshelves stuffed to capacity with leather bound volumes fill the space. A window trimmed with lace curtains looks out onto the gardens and casts rays of light onto the rug. A desk made out of glossy wood dominates what is left of the room.

This is a room for business and receiving company you want to impress and possibly intimidate. I have to admit the space has had that affect on me. I ignore the chair positioned on the guest side of the desk and choose to sit on the sofa. Like all the other furniture in the house that I've seen so far, the sofa is old-fashioned. I don't know shit about antiques, but I'd bet I'm sitting on one. That in itself makes me nervous. Gingerly, I put my hands in my lap before I get something on the upholstery. Unlike me, Han seems quite at home here and has no difficulty walking on the rug with his boots or having a seat in the wingback chair to my left.

He opens the file and flips through some paperwork before presenting a pen from his shirt pocket. He clicks the pen as he reads. I find it irritating and shuffle in my seat thinking he'll get the hint. He doesn't. Perhaps, he senses what I'm thinking. How intimidated I am by the remoteness and sheer size of this place. He glances up from his papers and says, "Please, try to relax. The paperwork is just a formality. All of this is yours and nobody can take it away from you now."

There's a certainty to his voice that fails to put me at ease. I've never mowed grass or shoveled snow in my life. I don't know a thing about owning a home or what it takes to run a place of this size. I've watched one too many slasher films in my lifetime to be comfortable alone out here at night. I'm ready to tell Han to do whatever he wants with the place and run like hell for California.

Maybe my addled brain can't handle one more thing and my exhaustion is getting the better of me. I'm exhausted and sitting here, being in this house, seeing someone else's belongings and knowing that they're now mine is overwhelming. I get the sense this place is full of ghosts of the past. I remind myself that I don't believe in ghosts. A sofa is just a sofa and a house is just a house, nothing more. But, I can feel the echo of people and events long passed down to the marrow of my bones.

Maybe, the house is haunted and maybe it isn't. Those aren't the kind of ghosts I'm talking about anyway. There are shadows left behind in this place like fingerprints streaked across panes of glass. My grandfather. My parents. Others. And I'm not quite sure if I'm up to the task of meeting the people they were from the remnants they've left behind.

Han clears his throat and thrusts the pen in my hand. He gives me a brief gist of the contents of the papers and motions where I should sign. I don't want to trust him, but I do. I should read the fine print, but my vision is so blurred by exhaustion that I sign where he points. He tells me not to worry about the farm. There's a tenant in the carriage house who takes care of the place. He smiles at my confusion and explains that the carriage house is the building behind the main house and was once used as a stable for the horses and a place to keep the livery out of the weather and that he's just a shout away.

He's my tenant? What? I blink and regret signing the papers so quickly. I don't want to be out here alone and I don't know a thing about horses or harvesting. But, have him so close? He works around the farm in exchange for paying monthly rent. That's good? That's bad? I don't know. I don't like having my privacy invaded, but with the size of this place how often am I really going to see him? For now, I decide to let it go. I don't even know if I'm going to stay here or not. Having a tenant to take care of the place, if I decide to sell, might be a good thing.

He gives me a brief tour of the place. I'm resisting its charm, and his. It's evident my grandfather trusted him. Han knows every nook and cranny of the entire house. The lace curtains filter out the worst of the sunlight and give the rooms a warm hominess. The wood floors creak softly beneath my feet and the sound is somehow soothing. The claw footed bathtub in the main bathroom looks like heaven. The four-poster bed in the master bedroom is welcoming and I find myself sighing as Han ushers me down the hall for the rest of my tour. There is something new around every corner and as weary as I am, I can't wait to see what's in each and every room.