Wolfe Ranch Part 2

Jacob

I was sitting in my office looking at my computer and wondering how the hell the schedule for guard duty got so screwed up. The time sheet was utterly fucked up, and I knew I hadn’t done this. Someone else had been messing with the system since I was last in it. The only question was, who?

“Briar!” I yelled as I sat there with my elbows resting on my desk.

I waited for a reply as I looked at the sheet and tried fixing it to its original state. It wasn’t even a minute later, and my younger brother’s head popped into the doorframe of my office in the packhouse. Briar took over as Alpha for our dad, Owen, a few months ago, and it’s been a rocky start for him. Time management for his work schedule and pack duties wasn’t his strong suit.

Briar’s identical twin, Jasper, was traveling and exploring the world before returning home to help on Wolfe Ranch. He had no idea what he wanted to do with his life, so he was out trying to figure that out.

Jasper and Briar looked like Owen, while Ivy and I looked like our dad, Danny King. They had brown hair and blue eyes, while we had black hair and blue eyes. Poor mom didn’t have anyone who looked like her, but she had Ivy, who acted like her most days.

“What’s up?” Briar asked me.

“Did you mess with my guard schedule?” I asked with a frown.

“Nope. Why, what’s up with it?” he asked as he stepped into my office.

I turned my computer screen so he could see what was happening, and his eyes bulged at the sight before him. He shook his head slowly while keeping a look of shocked horror on his face.

“I didn’t touch it. Ask Lacy,” he said with a grimace.

“Is she even in her office?”

“No.”

“Big surprise!” I said in irritation.

Briar shrugged his shoulders and left my office to return to his. I sighed and looked for Lacy’s mind in the pack link to mind-link her. Lacy was our cousin Easton and Amber’s daughter. She was nineteen now and a social butterfly who drove us crazy.

I connected with her quickly and asked, “Hey, did you mess with my guard schedule?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she told me while trying to sound innocent.

It was her that did this. She couldn’t lie to save anyone’s life.

“So you did.”

“Maybe…”

“Why didn’t you tell me it messed up on you?” I asked in frustration.

“I didn’t want you to be mad like you are right now.”

“If you had just told me immediately, I could have fixed it faster. Now it’s going to take me all day.”

“I’ll come to help you,” she sighed.

“No, I got it. Just stop messing with things, and when it goes wrong, tell me. I would rather know if something is broken so I can fix it than for it to sit and confuse the guards that need it.”

“Ok. Let me know if you need help.”

“I will.”

I closed the mind-link and started looking for a way to reset the Google sheet to the way I had it. About an hour later, I finally figured out that I could go to file, press version history, and undo everything Lacy had done to the spreadsheet with just one click. I noted the guards to talk to and see if there were any reasons to mess with their work and training schedule. I might have exaggerated when I told Lacy it would take me all day.

As I was getting ready to call the guards to speak to them individually, my phone started ringing. I picked it up off the corner of my desk to see who it was and saw that it was Danny calling. I sighed, wondering what my dad could want. I answered in my normal voice to give him the benefit of the doubt that it wasn’t something stupid.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Jacob. How are things going?”

“Good. What’s up?”

“I need your help with something,” he said in a pained voice.

“What’s that?”

“I’m investigating the theft of some of our livestock here at Sandstone. Our trackers haven’t found anything, and our security system is down.”

“Ok. I’ll come over and help figure out what’s happening.”

“I appreciate it.”

“No problem. See you soon,” I told him.

“Alright, bye.”

I hung up the phone and sat at my desk, thinking momentarily. This seemed odd even for Danny to need my help. I’m surprised Alpha Bennett even allowed him to call me in. He still hated Ivy and me because we were born. He disagreed with Danny dating my mom, and it made him even madder when she got pregnant with us. Both Bennett and Danny weren’t the best people, but I would try to help to show that I was better than them.

I sighed and stood up from my chair. I walked down the hall to Briar’s office and entered the doorway. He looked up from the ledger he was reading through and gave me his attention.

“I was just called to Sandstone about a cattle theft that Danny is looking into,” I said.

“Wow! Ok. I’ll see you when you get back.”

“Wish me luck,” I told him.

“Good luck!” he said with a giant smile.

I shook my head and left the office to climb into my truck. I drove twenty minutes down the highway to the front gates of the Sandstone pack. I stopped at the guard shack, and they walked out to speak to me. I rolled my window down and wondered if I would be let onto the property.

“Hey Jacob, what brings you here?” one of the guards named Steve asked.

“Danny called me to help investigate some cattle theft,” I told him.

“Oh! I’ll let him know you’re here. Go park at the packhouse.”

I nodded my head and said, “Thanks.”

“No problem,” they said as they opened the gate for me to drive onto the property.

I was surprised to be here on the territory. Ivy and I could come to see Danny, his mate, and our younger sister, but we weren’t allowed to stay for more than a day at a time when we were younger. Bennett never wanted us over here after we turned eighteen. I couldn’t understand why because we didn’t want to be his pack members. We had our pack thanks to our dad, Owen.

I drove into the territory and up to the large packhouse. I parked next to the other vehicles and got out. I leaned against my truck’s tailgate while waiting for Danny to show up and show me the area he was looking at. I stood there for about five minutes when he finally walked up. I greeted him with a small smile and offered him my hand. I didn’t hug him because it was odd.

We shook hands, and he said, “I’ll show you what we’re looking at.”

“Alright.”

I followed him away from the packhouse to a broken-down golf cart on a well-used path. I looked at it and worried that it wouldn’t last while carrying the two of us around. We weren’t exactly small men.

“What’s with the wheels?” I asked as I watched him climb into the driver’s seat.

“Several of the horses are gone, so this is what I’m reduced to using,” he irritatedly said.

I walked around, climbed into the passenger seat, and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me that, too?”

“I’ll let you know everything on the way out to the site.”

I sat there and felt the golf cart take off as fast as it could. I was very unprepared for its speed. I thought it would putter along, and walking might be faster. To say that I was surprised was an understatement, as it sped away, and we bounced in the seats.

As Danny drove, he said, “About a week ago, four of our horses went missing. We have no idea how they are gone or where they went. This morning, I noticed that the security cameras were down in one of the pastures, and a large number of cattle were gone.”

“How large?”

“Twenty head!”

“Fuck! That’s a problem.”

“Yeah. Has Wolfe Ranch noticed anything odd going on?” he asked.

“No. Mom and Owen would have said something if there had been. I haven’t heard anything from Juniper Moon either. Did you call them?”

“Not yet,” he said, shaking his head.

We pulled up to the cattle pen, where I saw Alpha Bennett, his son, Colt, and several other pack members moving around and talking. I stepped out of the golf cart with Danny and walked into the cattle pens. They put the animals in a small one-acre holding pen at night so they weren’t in danger.

“Why did you call him?” Bennett snapped at Danny.

I just walked off, not wanting to listen to it this time. Ivy and I had heard it all our lives between them. Bennett made it difficult for us to see Danny, so we eventually grew apart. It wasn’t any secret that Bennette hated us, and we couldn’t fix that. I didn’t care why he hated us anymore. He was just a dick.

I walked through the field, looking at the cattle’s tracks and observing their movement patterns. They congregated close to the gate at night, then moved in and out from one large gate at the back of the pen to graze during the day. They had been out in the larger pens since the day had started.

I stepped towards the back gate to look at the tracks to see if any of them looked different. Inside the pen, I didn’t notice anything unusual. I started to step through the open gate into the pasture while sweeping the ground with my eyes.

There, in the mud leading through the gate, was a small strip of dirt that resembled vehicle tire tracks. It was almost covered by hoof prints, but I noticed them. I sniffed the air but didn’t get a hint of anything other than cattle.

I looked back at where Danny was still talking with Bennett. Colt stood there, shaking his head in annoyance, and turned to watch me. Colt was twenty now, but Bennett wouldn’t let him take over until he found his mate. I can’t wait to see if he makes a difference for this pack or if he will be just like Bennett.

When Bennett and Danny stopped talking, I motioned for them to come over and look at what I found. The three of them walked over, and I pointed at what I saw.

“When’s the last time there was anything with wheels over here?” I asked.

“About three months ago,” Danny answered.

“Then it looks like someone had a vehicle out here that you didn’t know about. Could be whom you’re looking for, and it might not be,” I told them.

“Thanks, Jacob. I didn’t even notice that,” Danny said.

“You’re welcome.”

“I’m going to upgrade the security system and put guards close to the herd each night until we catch who is doing this,” Danny said.

“Alright. I’ll let you know if anything comes up anywhere else or if I hear anything.”

“Perfect. Thank you for coming out.”

“Anytime.”

Movement caught my attention in the field nearby. I looked up to see a woman in tight blue jeans, boots, and a loose tan V-neck T-shirt. She was really pretty, and I couldn’t help but watch her as she moved closer to us. I smiled at her in greeting, and as she got closer, I noticed she was just watching me.

She had long blonde hair that was being tossed around in the wind. Her eyes locked with mine, and I marveled at their amazing color. They were a golden amber color and sparkled in happiness as the sun hit them. Her scent wrapped around me as she got even closer, and I inhaled deeply to imprint the smell in my memory. Her scent of wisteria was warm and inviting. I was enjoying it way too much.

My wolf, Storm, awoke suddenly and seemed to notice her. Most of the time, he slept and didn’t interact with me much unless I needed him or if he wanted to go for a run to stretch his legs.

“I hope you’re ready for this,” Storm said.

“For what?”

“She’s our mate.”

I found her here at Sandstone. I was going to have to lay the charm on with Bennett, which made me nervous. He already hated me, and I might make it worse by telling him that my mate was in his pack. Shit, this was going to be difficult, but I had to try. She was mine, and we owed our wolves the chance to be a mated pair.

Briar, I hope your wish for luck works for me today.