Chapter 4- Andrew

Cat 

   The next morning, I was up before everyone and getting breakfast made. The coffee was made and I had already made my cup. I had the toast done with the eggs and the bacon was finishing when Hank walked in, followed by Preston and Owen. I took a sip of my coffee while cooking.  

   "Coffee is ready, everything else will be ready shortly," I said. 

   I didn't hear them say a word as they got their mugs and coffee, then sat down at the table. I stopped what I was doing at the stove to listen to the kids upstairs. They were finally moving around and getting ready for school. I went back to cooking and felt eyes on the back of my body. I wasn’t sure who was staring at me but I could feel it. I wanted to squirm but I kept still and finished cooking. I started placing food on the table. 

   The kids came down the stairs together and sat down to start eating breakfast. My phone went off on the counter with multiple text messages in a row. I looked at my phone like it was possessed for a moment before picking it up and seeing what was going on. I leaned against the counter with my phone in hand and took a sip of my coffee.  

   I had four messages from Alpha Andrew from the Juniper Moon pack to the East of the ranch, right across the highway. We’ve done business with them all my life. They normally bought cattle and horses from us or breeding rights to my stallion. 

   I opened the messages and read each of them. He was headed to buy cattle on short notice and a horse. He had one to drop off for training also. I hate short notice and he knows that. I looked at his message closely and knew I needed to respond and get my day started now instead of having a normal quiet day.

   I responded to him with, “I’ll try to have everything ready when you get here. The cattle are out to pasture, so it could take some time to get the six you want in a pen.”  

   I closed my phone and looked at everyone at the table. The kids had started to eat already but the guys were all staring at me. 

   “Eat breakfast. I’ll be back in a minute,” I said.  

   I turned and walked briskly to my office. I grabbed my ledger from the bookshelf along with my ear tag book. I needed to look for the six cattle that he wanted. At this point in the season, all of my cows were carrying calves but they weren’t very far along. Most of them were only about five months along. He needed cows that were close to giving birth. 

   I spent ten minutes looking through all the cattle notes and found cows that had been palpated that were further along. I wrote down the ear tag numbers and quickly went back to the kitchen to eat my breakfast. I went to sit down but looked at the time and saw that the bus was about to arrive. Shit, there goes my morning.  

   I grabbed a piece of bacon and told the kids, “get your bags.” 

   They cleaned their plates and grabbed their bags along with their jackets.  

   “I’ll be back in a few minutes. I need the three of you to let the goats and chickens out and feed everything,” I told the guys while eating the bacon I had in my hand. 

   “Aren’t you going to eat?” Owen asked. 

   “Don’t have time,” I said while leaving the house with the kids. 

   I took them down to the bus stop in the truck and we waited while I ate the few pieces of bacon I had grabbed from the table. I got the kids on the bus and drove back to the house. I walked to the stables and got the horse that Andrew was wanting to buy out into the paddock, then went back to the stables. I got Thunder out of his stall and started getting his tack on him while asking him about his night. I liked talking to my animals like they were people. Hank walked in and got Bess out of her stall to get her saddled. 

   “Andrew is on his way this morning. We need to pull six cows for him,” I told him.

   “Ok.” 

   I kept working on getting Thunder ready to go out when Owen and Preston came walking into the stables. They stood not that far away while waiting for me to tell them what was going on.  

   “The two of you will be learning on the move today. We have to pull six cows from the herd. Get your horses saddled,” I told them. 

   They said nothing as they got Bolt and Annie from their stalls and started getting them saddled. Once I was done with Thunder, I walked around him to check on how the guys were getting through saddling their horses. I walked up to check Annie’s tack that Preston had put on her. He was good but I needed to tighten her saddle girth. I made my way over to check Bolt’s tack. Owen had done a great job but I said nothing and just walked away. 

   I felt this pull this morning to be near him and it irritated me. I barely knew the guy and I wanted to be close to him. Normally, that was something I could squash but this seemed different. I had been attracted to ranch hands before and pushed that aside to keep it a platonic relationship. This one was going to be harder to do that too.      

   “Alright, let’s go,” I said, grabbing Thunder’s reins and leading him from the stables. 

   We all climbed on our horses and I led them out to the pasture the cows were currently in. When we got out there, I told the guys which cows we were looking for. We found four of them easily and I had Owen and Preston watch as Hank and I cut them off from the rest of the herd. Preston was impressed and wanted to try it out. 

   We found our fifth cow and I let Preston give it a try. He was bad at letting the horse do the work. I kept telling him to let Annie take the lead and let her cut the cow off but he kept pulling on her reins. All I could do was shake my head and laugh at him. He would learn. 

   We finally got all six of the cows we needed to cut off from the rest by mid-morning. We started pushing them back towards the house so we could pen them until Andrew got here.

   We got them penned and then took our horses back to their stalls. Each of us took the saddles off them and brushed them down before feeding them and giving them water. When I was done with Thunder, I left his stall to go wait for Andrew.  

   As I stepped out of the stables, a Ford dually truck was coming up the driveway with a cattle trailer. The truck stopped and I walked up to the driver's side. The window rolled down and I saw Andrew sitting there smiling at me. He’s a tall thin man with dark brown eyes and reddish-brown hair. He’s a good-looking man and his mate was lucky to have him.   

   “We can load the horse first. She’s in the paddock and that’s where we need to drop the one you are leaving with me,” I told him. 

   “Got it,” he said with a nod of his head.   

   He drove over to the paddock and parked but left his truck running. I opened the gate to the paddock and got the horse from inside it out and tied her to the outside of the trailer. Andrew got the other horse out and let him run inside the paddock, then loaded the new horse. I watched the horse he was leaving with me as it ran and jumped around inside the small pen. He was dark and light gray with a white star on his forehead. Beautiful creature. 

   Andrew came up beside me and I tore my eyes away from the horse to look up at him.

   “I’ve been calling this one Dexter,” he told me.  

   “Why?” I asked. 

   “Because he’s a little psycho and very wild.” 

   I just shook my head and looked back at the horse. The horse was still running amuck inside the pen and showed no signs of slowing down. This one was going to be fun to work with. I heard Andrew lightly sniffing the air and I looked up at him. 

   “You can smell them, can’t you?” I asked. 

   “Yeah. What are two grown wolves doing here?” he asked in concern. 

   “They said they wanted to learn about ranching. Which I think is bullshit, but I’m going to put them through their paces,” I told him. 

   He chuckled and looked around before saying, “let's load the cattle and I’ll hand you some checks.”

   “Sounds good.”

   Andrew backed his trailer up to the gate of the cattle shoot and we worked together to get the six cows in the trailer behind the horse. When everything was done, Andrew handed me a check for the horse, a check for the cattle and a third check for training the horse he brought. 

   I caught sight of Owen and Preston watching me talking with Andrew beside his truck. Andrew noticed where my eyes were and looked in that direction before turning back to me.

   “Those aren’t just any wolves, Cat. That’s Alpha Owen and Beta Preston from Medicine Rock Forest. I got a call from him a few days ago about some of his pack members being shot to death on patrols and some of them are still missing,” Andrew told me.  

   “What the fuck?” I asked. 

   “If he’s here and gave you the reasoning that they wanted to learn how to ranch, that means they think you’re killing their pack members, and just haven’t asked you yet,” Andrew told me with high eyebrows.  

   “That's awful. I don’t shoot wolves because I know what they really are and you know that. They also don’t know that I know what they are and who they are. I’m going to keep it like that.” 

   “But your pups,” Andrew protested in a low voice.  

   “I know. I had no idea what they were until Ivy and Jacob said something last night,” I whispered.

   He nodded his head and said, “be careful. I don’t know Owen well enough to say you and the pups aren’t in danger.” 

   “Don’t worry. I’ll keep my eyes open and call if I need you.” 

   “Good,” he said with a nod.

   “Also they don’t know anything about me and my knowledge of the wolf world. I want it to stay like that.”   

   I looked at Owen as he walked over towards us. I noticed the irritated look on his face and wondered what that was all about. I brushed it off and hugged Andrew tightly. 

   “I’ll let you know when Dexter is ready,” I told him as I released him.  

   “Thank you, Cat,” he said.  

   “No problem.” 

   I walked back to the house to deposit the money we had just got into my mobile bank app and do some bookkeeping. 

~

Owen

   When I saw Alpha Andrew Peterson here, my blood started boiling seeing him talking with Cat like they were old friends. I knew he had his mate but was he the dad to Cat’s pups? It’s not unheard of for a mate to cheat but I thought it was fucking awful. I wouldn’t do that to my mate. I wouldn’t do that to Cat if I was able to claim her.   

   I walked up to them trying to control my possessiveness and irritation. Cat hugged Andrew and that practically set me on fire. I kept it all in control as best as I could and stood there in silence until Cat was gone. 

   “What are you doing here?” I asked Andrew. 

   “Buying a horse, leaving a horse and buying cattle like I always do. I keep an eye on Cat and buy livestock from her to help her out. It’s smart to keep her here so she doesn’t have to sell, which would fuck the packs in more ways than one. What are you doing here?” he asked me. 

   “Investigating,” I answered. 

   “That’s what I thought. Cat won't kill a wolf. She barely kills coyotes,” he told me. 

   “So you know her pretty well. Are you the father of those pups?” I asked a little more aggressively than I should have. 

   “Whoa, calm down Owen. No, I’m not the father to her pups. I wouldn’t do that to my mate,” he said honestly while shaking his head.  

   I took a breath and calmed down. They were just friends then. Jet relaxed a little and so did I knowing that he was just her friend and was watching out for her. 

   “Who is?” I asked. 

   “She never told me,” he said while shrugging.  

   “Does she know about our kind and the packs?” 

   “How could a human in the middle of three wolf packs not know what we are?” He asked back.

   “So she does know,” I said. 

   He just shrugged his shoulders which wasn’t helpful. I groaned and knew that I would still need to tread lightly with her and her pups. This was a mess but I felt better knowing that she probably wasn’t the killer. Who the hell was it then? Hank?