“Maybe not. Maybe you would stir up problems within the pack on behalf of Kintail. Who knows? And even if they did allow you to join, which they might, I wouldn’t date you anyway. It was never a sure thing between us. Once Elizabeth returned home from Maine and you treated her so shabbily, that cemented the deal for me. I didn’t plan to mate you after that.”
“That’s why you kept putting off a mating? You were waiting for Elizabeth’s grandmother to die and then you were going to leave with her?”
“I didn’t know I was going to leave until the last minute. I had my own family to take into consideration, not to mention I worried going with Elizabeth could cause trouble if Kintail stirred up the pack members to come after us.”
“Fine, I’ll start seeing Olive.”
Elizabeth and Sheri smiled. That would be news to Olive, another she-wolf in the Yellowknife pack, since she was already dating a wolf.
“Sure, that’s a great idea,” Sheri said. If it made him feel better to say he was going to date Sheri’s friend, who cared.
Of course, Olive would have something to say about it. And the guy she was seeing would probably put a stop to that notion really quickly.
***
David was glad when it appeared Bentley was going to give up his wolf-driven need to claim Sheri as his mate whether she wanted it or not. He had to realize that unless she really wanted to go with him, he stood no chance of fighting the combined forces here today.
Bentley came out of the office fuming mad, despite saying he was dating some she-wolf named Olive next. David wondered if he’d been seeing her behind Sheri’s back, or if he’d just made it up to rile her. Bentley went out of his way to bump into David, as if to say he would fight him wolf to wolf if he ever had a chance, but David just shrugged it off. Bentley wasn’t worth his time. He hoped they wouldn’t see the likes of them—Kintail and his men—again, unless it was on better terms. Which, at this point, David didn’t think would ever happen.
One of Kintail’s men smiled at Sheri in an interested way. David glanced back at Sheri and saw she was smiling back at the man. Who knew where Sheri would end up, but at least in the end it would be her decision.
A new car pulled into the parking lot, and Cameron hurried to speak to the driver.
A potential client? David hoped all the men standing about didn’t scare the client off.
Before heading back outside, Kintail waited for Cameron to finish his business with the driver of the car, then the driver backed up and took off. Any of the PI partners could have concluded things with Kintail, but he seemed to believe Cameron was the only one he could do real business with.
“Sheri can return to the pack anytime she wants, Elizabeth too, without any repercussions from the pack members,” Kintail said. “I guarantee it. But if they choose to stay here with you and your pack, I give them my blessing.”
“And Sheri’s brother and their parents?” David was thinking they would have to go home and straighten out their affairs.
Kintail gave Hans a hard look, but finally conceded. “Them too.”
David thought it looked like it pained Kintail to say so. David wasn’t sure if Kintail was softening his stance against the situation because he was afraid he might lose more pack members due to his totalitarian rule, or he was really coming around and wanted to effect some change in his pack. David hoped the latter, for his people’s sake.
Kintail and his men departed, though Bentley cast David a killing look before he got into one of the vehicles and they drove off.
“Do you think it’s over?” Uncle Strom asked.
“Maybe, but I doubt it,” Leidolf said. “Kintail likes being in control. Seeing his people leave him to join another pack? Even the best of us wolf leaders can feel we’re losing our people because we’ve done something wrong in governing them. We can’t all be democratic like Cameron and his pack. They’re unique because they have been friends for years. Cameron is just the emergent leader, but everyone has as much of a say in what goes on with their pack as he does. It works for them. The same isn’t true for other packs. As wolves, the concept of pack leadership is innate but reinforced by pack behavior as the kids grow up. With Cameron and his friends, it’s still a foreign concept.”
“Well, I for one feel all this is a step in the right direction,” Candice said. “Now that you all are here, it’s time to have a celebratory feast.”
But more than that. They would run as wolves, and jaguars, renew friendships, and show that sometimes change was good—and having friends was even better.
Hans lightly grabbed his sister’s arm and said, “I’m truly sorry I sided with Kintail.”
“You did what you thought was right as far as the pack goes. And maybe”—Sheri shrugged—“you believed I needed rescuing from Elizabeth. I know you. If you thought you could convince me to change my mind about staying here, you would have. Then you would have been in good stead with the pack leader, our parents—”
“But not with you. I could have made you miserable.” Hans looked like he really regretted having come to force the issue of her returning with him.
“What about you, with staying here with us now?” Sheri asked, sounding genuinely concerned that he had made the right choice too.
“I can become a CPA, something I have always wanted to do. I can take care of the agency’s taxes and financial records, maybe even start my own CPA business,” Hans said. “Despite what Kintail says, there’s really no going back to Yellowknife for any of us. I don’t believe he will change overnight like that to accommodate just our family. So I’m going to set up a practice here and make it work.”
Sheri hugged her brother. “I’m glad. Are Mom and Dad really staying here with us?”
“They are. They wouldn’t stay in the toxic environment of the Arctic pack now that both of us have left. They’ll be bad-mouthed for sure that they raised such traitorous children. I hope that Kintail is true to his word about allowing his pack members to come and go as he says, and we’ll have to deal with leaving everything we owned behind and see if there’s a way to sell our properties and change bank accounts and all that without returning, because I highly doubt he’ll live by his word.” Hans hugged her back.
“You can use my real estate agent,” Elizabeth said. “And we know just where you can set up your bank account.”
“And the pack will get you and Mom and Dad passports, birth certificates, everything you need to be American citizens living near Ely, Minnesota,” Sheri said.
David was glad to see the sister and brother reunited. “By the way,” David said, “what was the deal with the guy who was smiling so much at you?”