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“Behave, all of you.” She used a tight, stern voice before she giggled. “I’ll be back before you know it, and I want my house in one piece.” She floated right out of the door, and Royce followed behind her, nodding in my direction as if to let me know he had this.
He understood the importance of his job, and I nodded back. We had an agreement.
The door closed behind them, and sudden calm descended on the kitchen, the quiet an unnatural bubble after the whirlwind of activity Mom seemed to take with her everywhere she went. It was a bit like being in a vacuum or a void.
“Oof.” I breathed out a sigh before raising my mug to my lips.
Wes leaned over and playfully tagged my arm. “I’ll say. Look at you walking back in here stinking of ‘thank-you-for-sending-my-mom-on-an-all-expenses-paid-around-the-world-excursion’sex.” He grinned. “Good morning?”
My cheeks heated and I fanned myself. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I told the lie because it was an obvious one and we all knew it. No degree of denial was going to make any of us believe I hadn’t just enjoyed averygood morning in Patrick’s office.
Charmaine laughed. “No shame in any game. No shade from me, anyway.”
“Or me,” Wesley said. “You carry on.”
Charmaine looked thoughtful for a moment. “And you know what? The alpha of my last pack would never have done anything so thoughtful or expensive as this.”
I didn’t say anything.
Patrick had been both generous and thoughtful, and I knew how lucky both Mom and I were that he’d done something so kind, and that he’d considered her safety in his actions.
I wasn’t used to it, though. And as much as my wolf basked in his attention — and in some ways, so did I — I couldn’t trust it. I didn’t know whether he would stick around. I couldn’t believe that if I let my guard down and trusted him, he wouldn’t betray that trust.
Part of me wanted to give in, to just believe that he was good and kind. But how could I trust him when I couldn’t even trust my own instincts?
“My pack wasn’t as affluent as the Silver Claw pack, so I don’t think it would have been possible even if he’d have wanted it to be.” Charmaine said, and she reached for her own mug of coffee. “Not that the asshole would have wanted it to be possible.”
Other people’s packs and their stories still fascinated me. I’d never had one, of course, but Patrick’s was really the only one I knew — and I didn’t really understand a whole lot about how that one worked, either.
Except that Patrick seemed kind and dedicated to his people. Like he took his responsibilities seriously.
“My alpha was called Warren, and he ran the White Smoke pack like he was in control of a group of conmen. It was like he thought he was Fagin from Oliver Twist, or something.” Charmaine gave a delicate shudder. “Honestly, White Smoke and Silver Claw are like night and day. Whatever you see here in Carwyn City from Patrick’s pack, imagine the absolute opposite from Warren’s.” She shook her head. “It got to the stage where I just had to get away from them. Everything was too morally gray — veering occasionally into black, and that wasn’t how I wanted to live.” She looked at Wes and shrugged. “Still, now I’m here and I haven’t looked back, so I don’t need to worry about them anymore, I guess.”
It was strange to hear a story of a pack like that. Like it had just been some sort of criminal gang rather than a family like the one Wes had described to me the other day. Growing up, I’d always believed that packs were families. Even though Mom didn’t have contact with her pack anymore, there was a wistfulness rather than regret at any comments she made. Almost like she missed them, or that part of her missed what being a pack member meant.
“I’m very glad you went to work for Dad at Gold Moon, though,” I said. The White Smoke pack’s loss was very much Dad’s gain. “I’m glad he had someone in the company he could trust.” And I was even more glad she was here for me now.
I would have been completely lost if I’d had to step into Dad’s position without having Charmaine and all she knew as guidance.
“Right, guys.” Wes clapped his hands together and began to load the dishwasher. “I know none of us wants to think about it, but there is still a pile of paperwork upstairs that needs attention, and just thinking about it isn’t helping to get it done.”
“Let me grab my computer so we can cross-reference everything properly.” I left the kitchen and picked up my laptop bag. “We just need to power through and get it done,” I called over my shoulder.
When Charmaine and Wes joined me in the entrance hall, we all climbed both flights of steps and sat on various boxes. I powered my computer on and logged into the company’s system.
“Right. Let’s each take a pile of the files, and we can start verifying them. Any that look questionable, leave them here for me to cross-reference. That sound like a plan?”
They both nodded.
We worked steadily, and the pile of papers that could immediately be verified grew faster than the ones that needed additional research.
“Maybe things aren’t as bad as Dad thought,” I murmured as I took a quick break and boxed some of the files back up. “These can go back into the office when I go in. At least we have an actual filing system there now.”
Charmaine laughed. “To be fair to your dad, he never lost a thing. Whatever his system was, he understood it completely. I think that’s why he spotted when things started going wrong.”
I nodded as I picked up one of the files that needed further research. “Okay. Let’s take a look at one of these then.” I typed in the details, but my search returned no results. “It’s not here.” I checked the date.
It was dated before some of the others, which had been entered into the system and we’d already marked as unsuspicious.
