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We’re having a baby,she said with a laugh.A pack Alpha baby.
Maggie was tugging Benny out the door, and Karen was walking alongside the two of them. He went along, but turned back one last time, and slowly he smiled. It was wobbly, but it was also full of wonder. He nodded, and then he was gone.
Abby let out a ragged sigh.It was too close,she said to Jake through their bond.We almost lost him tonight. How many others are as precariously balanced as he is?
Too many,Jake replied.The whole damned island is a security risk.He put his arm around her shoulders. “Enough for tonight,” he said out loud. “Let’s go home.”
Epilogue
Six months since the Hat Island pack first emerged, Sunday, Nov. 24, Hat Island
Benny Garrison wassitting on the same log on the beach facing Puget Sound that he always sat on. He faced the water, watching the waves crash in against the wet sand. The white froth of the waves were really all that distinguished the dark gray of the Sound, the somewhat lighter gray of the wet sand, and the darker gray of the sky where a storm was coming in.
At his feet were Abby’s two Huskies. He wasn’t sure how they knew to come here, but they’d been here every night he’d come out. And when he was ready to leave, he’d tell them to go home, and they’d trot back up to the Beach House where King Davis would feed them and tell them they were good dogs. Benny shook his head and smiled.
For the seventh day, he sat on the log, resisting the urge to walk out into the ocean and keep walking. His wolf whined anxiously.
No, he reassured his wolf, I’m not going to do it. I promised the women I wouldn’t. I promised I would be here for them, and I’ll keep my promise. I swear I will.
It might be the most difficult thing he’d ever done, but he owed them that.
Still, he acknowledged that returning night after night to the beach where he’d tried to kill himself was a bit macabre. He knew Abby worried about him, no matter how much he reassured her. Think of it like a reformed alcoholic who goes to a bar to reassure himself that he won’t succumb to temptation, he had told her.
He didn’t think the analogy had helped. Well, he couldn’t blame her. He’d always found that to be weird behavior for a recovering alcoholic anyway.
Benny glanced up the beach. Someone was walking toward him. He sighed, wondering who had been sent out to bring him in tonight?
The man was making heavy work of walking on the sand. He was broad-shouldered and wearing a sheepskin coat made him even bigger. That shearling-lined, tan coat plus the gray Stetson made him look like the old Marlboro man —the coat was about that vintage, Benny knew. He was wearing blue jeans that bagged a bit, and boots they’d called shit-kickers when he was in high school. Probably still did.
He cataloged the details of the man, before it registered: his father was walking up the beach of Hat Island. He stood up and started walking toward him. “Go home, now,” he told the dogs, and they obediently went in the opposite direction.
“You’re about two weeks late,” Benny said to his father, before reaching out and hugging him. As always, his father was a bit stiff, but he returned the hug and patted him on the back.
“Well, that’s a story I need to tell you,” his father replied. “I just spent a week up in Penticton and the Okanogan. I see you stuck Ryder with the pack.”
“I told you, it would never be me,” Benny said, as pieces clicked into place. “Is Nadia with you?”
