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Well, a century ago, he probably built it.
“OK,” she said with a forced show of confidence. “There should be four bedrooms and two baths upstairs. Another bed and bath down here, along with a kitchen. Let’s explore.”
There was all of that and more —the description she’d been given was like that child’s drawing, she thought again. It didn’t capture the beauty of this place. It was easy to tell that Duncan had closed off the upstairs —probably when Miles and the last of his family had moved out. She thought she had that story right. But even the downstairs was a lot for a single man. She stood in the doorway of what looked to be his personal suite: A study full of bookshelves and a beautiful cherry-wood desk with curved legs. A computer on it, she noticed. So he was modernized, to some degree. With old wolves, you never knew. What had he said about the old Alpha? He wouldn’t have been surprised if he tried to pay his taxes with three mules and a goat? She grinned at that. She’d known wolves like that.
But this suite was very personal. His bedroom, a bath, and that wonderful study. She couldn’t imagine packing it up and moving it out of here, even if just to a cabin. She backed out and closed the door, looking at the women who were still almost clinging to her. Titus was standing down the hall a bit — giving the women their space, but within helping distance if she needed him. She was grateful he was here with them.
“Those are Duncan’s rooms,” she said. “How do you feel about asking him to stay? It might be good to have an older wolf here.”
The women looked at each other. “He’s Miles’ grandfather?” Amanda asked.
Jessie nodded. “Great-grandfather, I think. We’re going to want guards here,” she said. “Duncan McKenzie might be a good man to handle things.”
“Guards,” one of the other women,Cass, said flatly. “We’re not safe yet?”
Jessie shrugged. “The pack is still in turmoil,” she reminded them. “It just went through challenges to Alpha and pack Second. Until all of that is sorted out, we’re going to want guards.”
The woman nodded at that. Like Amanda, all of them had come from inner pack families. They knew about pack politics. Jessie considered that. Had they been chosen for that reason? Hostages to fortune, so to speak?
That made more sense than anything else. Something else to discuss with Benny — if they ever had a chance to do something as mundane as talk over coffee again.
“I think we should ask Miles too,” Amanda said hesitantly. “He made me feel calmer — more secure.”
Jessie pictured the quiet young man and wondered why Amanda had that strong of a reaction to his presence. Strong enough that Amanda had trusted him to help her, when she found him opening up the bookstore this morning. Miles wasn’t physically imposing, so that wasn’t it. But he had been the one who came for help when Chen’s recruits were tearing things apart as well. Curious. “I’ll have someone ask him,” she promised. “He grew up here, you know.”
She organized them. Two women went upstairs to get bedrooms ready —two women to a room. Ryder had taken his Wolves off at Benny’s earlier call that there were more women who needed rescue. And the call to Dennis wasn’t good. They’d needed a doctor? She mentally touched her mate bond. Ryder was OK, she reassured herself.
Titus went out to assess the cabins and check the other outbuildings.
And the remaining two women went with her to the kitchen. Food was going to be essential here soon. As she expected there was a full freezer —a large walk-in freezer in fact. There was enough meat here to feed a large family for a few years.
Or a dozen wolves for a couple months, Jessie thought with a snort.
“Cass? You want to take control of the kitchen?” she asked. “We’re going to have company for dinner.” Jessie cackled at the phrase, and the other women grinned at her. But Cass nodded, and Jessie left them to it, while she went to find Titus.
He was outside, walking the perimeter wall. “What?” she demanded.
Titus shrugged. “He built it with defense in mind,” he said. “Makes me wonder, defense from what?”
Probably a good question, Jessie conceded, as she looked around. Duncan McKenzie was the older brother of the Alpha. You wouldn’t think he’d need defense. “Was it added recently?” she asked.
“Not real recent,” Titus said, examining the gate itself. “It was built by hand. So maybe 50 years ago? Long after the house was built.”
“And the cabins?” she asked.
“Those were built more recently,” Titus answered. “Probably about the time that Duncan took in a bunch of his grandkids and great-grandkids 15 years ago. I think there was probably one guest cabin — maybe even built before the house. Probably lived in it while they built the main house. And then he built more of them when everyone came home.”
Fifteen years ago must have been a bad time for the pack, Jessie thought. The Powers That Be were focused on retribution and demolishing a pack that had kidnapped a pack Second and tortured him and his niece. And that was perfectly understandable and even just. But she didn’t think they’d given one thought to all the women and children who had been left behind to survive however they could. “How many died, Titus?” she asked quietly. “They call it the retribution.”
He nodded. “I was here. Okami and his men had killed dozens getting Second Ito and Yui Ito free. And then we came in two weeks later and killed every man who had anything to do with it — except the Alpha. And we should have started with him. He claimed he didn’t know what his men were doing. That’s not possible. He knew. He participated. And he didn’t care if we knew he was lying. We couldn’t prove it. None of us wanted to be Alpha of this pack — so no challenge fight. And that was our biggest mistake. We left him in place.”
Jessie’s notion of world politics was hazy at best. But she thought this wasn’t the only place where that happened —the foot soldiers died, and the country’s leaders were left alive. And if you killed all those men, who rebuilt the country? Embittered leaders? The more she thought about it the less sense it made —both on the global scale and here locally.
But she did see who had really paid the price —the women and children. Even just 15 years ago, she doubted most of the women of the pack worked outside the home. Most pack families were traditional in that regard, and a lot of the women could have been a century old or more. So their husbands were dead. Maybe some of their sons and grandsons were dead too. No income. They couldn’t exactly apply for retirement or government assistance —how did they answer the question: when were you born?
Right?
Well, if they’d descended from Duncan McKenzie or had married into his family, they’d come here. And he’d provided for them all.
