Wrangler (Sheppard’s Shadow #3)

Chapter 4

Wrangler held onto Amber for a few minutes, then scooped her up in his arms and sat down with her on the steps that led to their home. While holding her, he kept an eye out for anyone coming upon them, especially her parents. There wasn’t any way that they were going to hurt her again while he was there to protect her.

“We’ve arrested them both and put them in separate cells.” He let out a long breath when Larry, the local cop and wolf friend of his, spoke. “They’re a nasty sort of people, aren’t they? Wanted us to let them in the same cell because they had to have sex nightly or they couldn’t sleep. Sort of made me sick to my stomach when they told me that. Like anyone wants to see their nasty old asses having sex on a cot no bigger than a twin bed.” They both laughed, though it wasn’t all that funny.

“I also noticed that they don’t bathe all that often either. Just to stand next to them made my cat sort of ill.” They talked about the clothing that the two of them had on as well and wondered if they owned anything other than jogging pants and tee shirts. “I wear them around the house and maybe in the yard when I’m working but I don’t make it a habit of wearing them when I’m out and about. I mean, not like they had on. There were ten times more holes in their pants than required. And don’t get me started on their shirts. I doubt very much either one of them has heard of the bands that are on their shirts either.”

“My momma would have jerked me bawled if I did that.” They both laughed. “The judge won’t be coming through until next week. I can hold them that long because of the way things work around here. Also, I thought that I’d make sure you knew we’ve taken the card from them. They told you about them applying for one in Amber’s name, didn’t they? Well, not that they could do much with it in jail, but they don’t have it.”

Wrangler realized that Amber was quiet and looked into her lovely face. She’d fallen asleep, and he thought that she needed that more than anything else right now. He asked Larry if he knew if they were wanted anywhere else.

“It’s funny you should ask that. I have a certified letter here from the island that Archie was at with Carrie, and they’ll ask to have them brought to them after we have a trial for them. I was told that the two of them had been charging up money all over the city with their daughter’s credit card. I guess it’s over ten grand, too. Also, the airport where they left from is suing them as well for clogging up the bathrooms on a regular basis with their nastiness. It didn’t say that, but I understand it better now.” He asked his good friend if they had said anymore about selling off their kids. “They sure have. I’m surprised that someone hasn’t asked them about that before now. I mean, they’re out there in the open talking about selling off Wills and prostituting poor Amber for the cash. They don’t much care that the two of you are married either. However, the mister thinks that you’ll be all right with him pimping her out because nobody wants to sleep with the same woman every night. Christ, I could just puke at the things that they’ve said to me about Wills and Amber.”

After talking a bit more, Larry said that he had to fill out some paperwork on them. Also, would Amber come down sometime tomorrow and press charges against them. He told him that she’d be there first thing and that he’d bring her himself. Tomorrow was going to be a good day, he thought, just to show the older couple that Amber meant business.

“Hello.” Startled out of his thoughts, he looked at Pancake when he landed on his knee. “The mistress is all right, sir? She was so fearful of one of us getting hurt that she tried to send us away. I love her for that, and so do the other faeries.”

“She cares about a great many things. You guys are just one of many. Did you get the jam made?” He nodded, excitement racing all over the little man. “Good. She might want some when she wakes up. I know that I can always use a bit of sweets when I’ve been stressed out.”

“We had a good harvest this year, sir. The berries alone have been something that we’ve not had in some time. I think that it’s because the others like me wish to please the young miss.” Wrangler reminded him, too, that Amber had asked for some tea. “Yes, our lady the queen has given us permission to make her some of her own brew. It will suit her well with all the things going on around her, we all believe.”

“I’m glad to hear that. When you give it to her, make sure that you tell her that the queen has allowed you to share. She’ll love the story that goes with it.” Pancake smiled and flittered around a bit before coming back to sit on his knee again. “Something bothering you? I’ll do what I can to help you. You know that Amber will as well.”

“Her and master Wills are the best, sir. The very best. But we were…I mean to say that she is ready to breed. I wouldn’t normally say that to you, but she did say that she wanted about a million children and while I know that’s a fair amount of babies, she’ll need to get started on them soon, I believe.” He told him that it was just an expression for her to rub it into the face of her parents. “Oh yes, I can understand that now. Yes, I get it. I did think that was a great many babies to have.”

When Amber woke up, she seemed to be in a better mood than before. While she and Pancake talked about the jelly and the tea, he kept an eye out for anyone coming around. It wouldn’t surprise him at all if the Damons hired someone to come after his mate, and that would be the end of them if they did. Wrangler wouldn’t hesitate one moment in making good on his promise to rip their throats out.

Wills was playing with the game system that he’d had. It was outdated, but since he’d not ever had a chance to play with one, it was fine by Wills. Even the games that he was playing were something that he’d not thought of in years.

“Wrangler, can I talk to you?” Wills was helping set the table for them for dinner and had his hands full of cutlery and plates. “You can tell me no if you want, but I was wondering if it would be all right with your brothers if I called them Uncle? I don’t know that I’d mind all that much in calling you brother either. That’s what you are, aren’t you? My brother, on account of you marrying my sister?”

“I’d be honored if you were to call me your brother. I promise you that I’ll never treat you any differently than a family is supposed to. I grew up with a terrible mom and her dad so you and me, we’ll be learning how to be good relatives as we go along.” Wills paused in his setting the table and looked at him. “Something else that you want to tell me?”

“You told my parents that you adopted me. Were you just funning with them?” He said that Sunny had made sure that he was adopted by him so that there wouldn’t be any problems down the line. “You mean like me going to school and all.”

“Yes. Your sister is your legal guardian as well. And by legal, I mean that it’s been okayed by the courts that we can make decisions on your welfare without having to go through your parents.” He told him that they’d more than likely tell him to let him die. “That’s not going to happen. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Pancake told me that I was an immortal. To be honest with you, Wrangler, I don’t want to be a ten-year-old little boy for the rest of my life.” He explained to him, without laughing too much, how that was going to work. “Oh, good. I thought that I’d be an old man like you and be looking like a ten-year-old. Thanks for clearing that up for me.”

“My pleasure.” They talked about school and how much he was going to enjoy it. Also, the two of them talked about a puppy for Wills. “We’ll have to find a puppy for us that is raised around shifters like I am. I’ve known a couple of people doing that, making sure that kids of shifters can have pets, but I’ll look into it more tomorrow.”

“Thank you. Amber told me that I could have a dog someday when we were settled, but we didn’t really hold out much hope for that. We’ve been running since I was just a little kid. I think the first time that Amber took me out of the house was when I was six. It seems like we’ve been running from them since that day.” He asked him what had prompted her to take him away so young. “Dad beat me. I spilled my milk on the table, and that made him mad. I was in terrible shape when Amber got home, and she took me to the hospital. After that, we never went back. Well, not unless they caught us. We weren’t so good at first in hiding out, but we got better as time went on. They used to find me when I was little. I didn’t pay attention to Amber telling me to be careful, so I’d get caught. But no more. I know what to do and how to do it nowadays.”

“I hope you never have to run from this house.” He said that he wasn’t planning on it. “Good. Also, I wanted you to know that your parents have been arrested and that it’ll be a while before they can stand before a judge. But I still want you to be extra careful. There is no telling who they might talk to if they think there is a buck or two to be made.”

“I’ll be careful. You too, okay? I know you’re a big cat and all but I don’t want you to be hurt either. I think that Amber would just about shrivel up and die if you weren’t around her all the time. I know that I would, too. I really like you, Wrangler.” He had to smile at that, telling the young man that he was immortal, too. “Yeah, I know that, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be hurting. All right?”

“Yes, all right.” They were sitting at the table now, the one in the kitchen that they’d been using for dinner time when no one was around. Harp, their faerie cook, was making great strides in making meals for them, and since he’d been able to give her a cookbook, she was having so much fun mixing things up for them. Like tonight. They were having ham steaks, his favorite grill, pineapple, and tater toes. Not tots, no, they were forever going to be called tater toes as far as he was concerned.

“I’ve been thinking about school.” Amber asked her brother if he thought that he was going to get out of studying just because they had a home. “Gosh, no. You’d beat me around with a wet, limp noodle. I was wondering if the schools around here would take me in. I don’t have any kind of school record. We’ve been running for so long, but I do want to go to school soon.”

“It’s summer break, but I do know that the nearby pack has some summer classes that you can take about the outdoors. I know next to nothing about the schools around here. I know that they’re asking for money for the new football field, but other than that, nothing. Who to ask would be my brother Beau. He’s on the board there and has been a huge supporter of their fundraisers since we’ve been on our own.” Wrangler tried to think when the last time he’d even gotten to go to an event that was going on at the school. “I’ll ask him to come over if you want. I know that he’s been working a lot on some of the investments that we have going on right now.”

“I’m working with him tomorrow on one of his garden projects for the faerie queen. She sure is sparkly, don’t you think?” Wills grinned. “Anyway, we’re going to go to the other realm and find out what kind of seeds can be planted over here so that the faeries can take care of them. I’m having so much fun with Queen Lily. Did you know that she has all kinds of animals around her that everybody thinks are fake? I got to see a real dragon when I was there the last time.

While Wills was talking about his visiting the queen to his sister, Wrangler reached out to talk to his little brother. Beau told him that he and Wills had been working together on several projects here and in the other realm, and he was glad to have him with him.

“The kid has a way about him that makes me think that he’s an old man in a kid’s body. However, he’s smart as a tact, too about things. And if you ask him something, you’d better be prepared for a straight-up answer, too.” Wrangler told him that he had noticed that about him . “I will have a talk with him about the local school system. I’m not sure if anyone has contacted any of us about the place, but it’s the same place that I think our mother might well have gone to.”

“That’s what I was thinking too. There is a plaque on the front of the building that has a year on it when it was established and I believe that it was well before our grandfather went there. I know for sure that the date would have put our dad going there.”

After dinner and his conversation with Beau, the three of them walked into town to have an ice cream. He had been craving a banana split for a month now and was happy when he was told they had just enough bananas for him to have one and Wills, too. Amber just wanted a plain vanilla cone, and he was going to tease her about that until she branched out her tastebuds.

Wrangler was going to have to work harder on his job before the end of the year. He kept books for a few businesses around town, and he liked it well enough. But it wasn’t mind-stimulating to him anymore. He, too, needed to branch out in a different direction, and he couldn’t wait to figure out what that might entail.

~*~

Weston couldn’t believe his luck. Yesterday he’d been in town just wandering around when one of the kids that he’d seen hanging out with at the basketball courts had asked him if he had some money on him. It wasn’t for anything that he wouldn’t normally do but they didn’t have a basketball and really wanted to play. After giving them the money to get one, he sat in the bleachers and watched them playing for about an hour. Then Rocky, who had asked for the money brought him the ball back and told him that he could keep it.

“Nah, you might as well keep it, Mr. Weston. They’re tearing down this area in a couple of days anyway.” He asked him where he’d heard that and one of the other boys brought him over the flyer that had been hung up nearby. “They said that nobody uses it and that it would be better served as a paying parking lot. Me and the boys, we come here all the time. I mean, it’s got a lot of glass and stuff around, too, but we play here nearly every day in the summer.”

It took him an hour after talking to the boys before he was able to track down the person in charge of the lot destruction. There used to be a tennis court with a basketball court, too, but it, as Rocky said, was covered in glass, weeds, and empty beer and cola cans. Ms. Peashaw, secretary to the mayor, told him that the sale hadn’t gotten them any interest so they were just going to tear it down.

“I’m afraid that’s not going to work.” She rolled her eyes at him, and he grinned. “The lot and the surrounding lots there belong to me. My father purchased it about fifty years ago, and when he died, it was left to me to do with what I wanted. It’s not possible for you to sell anything that you don’t own either.”

“You’ll have to take that up with the mayor then. He’s hell-bent for leather to get it taken care of so that it’s not an eyesore anymore. Why haven’t you done anything to it if you own it? It’s a mess down there.” He said that he was going to take care of it in the morning. “Famous last words. Your mother wanted it torn down, too. You should just allow the city to do what they want with it out of respect for your mother. The income off of the meters that are going to be put in place will add a nice chunk of change to the coffers.”

“I never respected my mother in the first place and if doing this is something that she wanted done, I’m going to do the exact opposite.” She called him a bad son. “Thank you. You couldn’t have said anything better to get me going. I’ll do this and have fun with it.”

That had been yesterday. Today, he was standing in the mayor’s office waiting for his appointment time to see the man. The bulldozers had shown up at ten, and he had told them that the land wasn’t to be touched. Calling on Larry and the rest of the police squad to keep them from doing it was fun, too.

“You say you own that piece? I don’t believe you. You Sheppard boys would say anything to get out of trouble.” He showed the man who seemed to be in charge of the project, Mayor George Hathaway, the deed that had his name on it. “That don’t mean anything. You could have gotten that from online. Just sit right there and let me make some phone calls.”

Reaching into his mind, Weston was able to figure out why the rush was in taking down the play area. He knew that his family owned the land and was hurrying it along so that it would be too late for them to do anything. Not only would the meters bring in some money but it was going to be lining the pockets of the mayor as well. Then there were the people coming into town to open up some shops. He didn’t understand that. The town was about on its last legs as it was now. Putting shops in the empty buildings in the downtown area wouldn’t help at all with the income of a great many people.

“I’m going to go and get me a certified copy to make sure that you kids aren’t trying to pull a fast one on me. You did that kind of stuff to your mother and grandfather. Good people they were, and you six have done nothing at all to memorize them.” Weston asked him what he was going to do with the paperwork that he had forged with Gerald Hathaway, his name on it rather than his own name. “Never you mind about that. I’ll have you know that I’m going to knock your heads together on some things now that things have come to my attention. Or you could just do what I tell you. Like you need to put in a new football stadium for the kids around here. Then call it the LouCinda and Archibald Sheppard Stadium. Yeah, that’s what you should be doing. Your mother would have loved that. I know that your grandda, he loved football.”

“Really? My mother hated football and said that the stadium was a waste of space that could be better used for a lecture hall. As for my grandfather, the only sport that he enjoyed was doing my mother’s bidding and knocking us around a great deal—which usually was the same thing. In fact, I think he wore a helmet when he was using a bat on us so we’d not get our blood on him.” Mayor Hathaway said that he was a liar, that he knew for a fact that their mother would have wanted the stadium. “I believe that I knew her a good deal better than you did. Also, you do anything to that land there, and I will own your ass. Understand me?”

“You bastard. You fucking bastard. Don’t you know what a prime piece of land you have in that? What are you going to do with it? Huh? Nothing, that’s what. I’ll make sure that you never get a permit to do anything there. How about that, you little shit for brains. And the other buildings that you supposedly own, I’m going to put my name on them, and you’re not going to say a word about it. I’m god to these stupid people, and the sooner that I get them out of town, I’m going to be rolling in the cash.” Weston stood up and smiled. “And what do you find so fucking funny? You’re all little bastards, all six of you boys. You treated your saintly mother like garbage, and I’m going to make sure that her work will be remembered forever. And if you even think that I’m going to allow you to bring in any businesses that I don’t approve of, then you’re going to be shit out of luck with that too. This town doesn’t deserve anything. The sooner everyone moves out, the faster I can bring in every new business that will be greasing my palms. Oh, you have no idea the links that I’m going to go to in order to ruin the bastard Sheppard boys. I think that your momma should have beat you more if you were to ask me.”

“Thank you for that.” The mayor looked confused. “I read your plaque on the way in here. It says that you’re going to be recorded and that it will be a public record for anyone who wants to view it. So I had my little brother, one of the bastards you called us, dig into the camera system and had made sure that what you just said to me is all over the news outlet. You did want to tell the people what was going on, didn’t you? I mean, I think people would want to know that their own mayor is a thief and a liar. I know that I do.”

Hathaway came up out of the chair, no easy feat for a man his size and lunged at him. Only having to step away and out of his reach, Weston snatched up the paperwork that was for the part of town that he owned and told the camera that the mayor was going to be arrested for falsifying county records.

“You are brilliant, big brother. I’m glad that you asked me to help out with this. How did you know that was what he was going to do?” He said that the only thing that he had been sure of was the falsifying records. Beau laughed. “Well, it’s out there now and I’m going to go around town asking people what they thought about the news. Also, before I forget, the company that refurbishes hard drives is coming to town in a couple of days. If they build, it’ll be fifty more jobs than we had before.”

“Great. Sunny has been talking to a couple of people that she knows as well, and they’re bringing a warehouse to this area that will employ as many as a hundred people to start then more when they’re established. Also, Archie is talking to two different car manufacturing companies that want to deal with us in building parts. One of them seats material the other steering wheels for their cars. That will be another five hundred people working.”

Weston was thrilled by the amount of employment that was happening right now. They had been talking to a guy who made mattresses as well as a person who had a large pottery production company. The employment to the latter wouldn’t be all that much, but it would be someplace to work for the town to get on board with.

By the time he was back at his apartment, he’d been stopped by no less than ten people asking about the mayor’s position. They were going to run Hathaway out of town with his stingy wife and kids. He hadn’t cared for the mayor in the first place and was happy that he was going to be gone. They’d be able to get more work done if there was someone in the office who actually cared about the town and the people living there.

“Are you going to run for the position, Weston?” He asked which one that was. “The police are at the mayor’s home now. They’re finding all kinds of things that are going to get him in trouble with the Feds. From what I’m to understand, they’re on their way here to look into fraud and other things that he’s been up to.”

“That was quick.” He hadn’t realized that people would already be coming around to arrest the man. Weston only wanted what was his with the things that his dad had left him. The very idea that Hathaway had thought he could get by with his wrongdoings boggled his mind. He decided that he might be better off going home rather than walking around the town to see people’s reactions. He didn’t want to be caught up in a words war with anyone but especially the former mayor, what it was looking like to him, anyway.

Hurrying home, Weston had contacted the local pack and was having them start on the clean up around the area that was going to be what it had always been. A basketball court along with a tennis area. The baseball field, for now, was only going to be good for practice until the lawns could be redone and the people put in place to make the area a place for the kids to play in the spring and summer. He thought that he’d enjoy that most of all.

Weston hadn’t been allowed to play ball that wasn’t marked as gym classes. He’d enjoyed the crap out of it when he got the chance and decided that if he had to use all his money, he was going to make sure that the kids in the neighborhood would be able to have a good game, whether it be just a pick-up game or the world series.

They’d need uniforms as well, he realized and was going to see if there were a few places that were coming to town that would like to sponsor the little leaguers so they’d be dressed in colors that they wanted. He was heady with the ideas that were going around in his mind.

He thought that he might well run for the open seat for the mayor’s position. He might well be able to get a lot of things finished up by not having to wait in line to see the man in charge. He also knew that once he was in office, he’d be able to make sure that things were running right. With the support of his brothers, he thought that they’d get a great deal finished up and make the town a good deal more livable. But first, he decided that he was going to go to the football stadium and have a look around.

“It’s worse than I thought here.” Archie had played a little bit of ball, not enough to hear his brother talk about it but he did understand more than he did about the game. “These fields will have to be pulled up and redone. I mean all the way down and then resod it, too. The bleachers will also need to be replaced as most of them are dangerous with the rust on them. I never realized that it had gone to shit until today.”

They started out making notes on what needed to be done and decided that it would be easier to just yank everything down to the barest of bottoms and begin again. That’s what he’d do if they were to try and fix what was there. In a few more years, they would be redoing it again when the things that had been all right were no longer safe to sit on.

Weston had several projects to work on when he got home, and he was as excited as he’d ever been about having something to do with the town. Some of the people might still believe that they treated their mother and grandfather terribly, but he knew better. Maybe they’d come around, too, he thought.