The Porch Wolf

Vicki woke up first, getting up and quietly leaving the room. My alarm went off a few minutes later; it was Monday. For the first time in years, I was going to work.

Adrienne rolled over and grabbed my phone off the side table, turning it off. “Morning,” she said.

“Good morning, love,” I replied. It had been another restful night, no nightmares or waking up. She helped me sit up, removing the arm immobilizer. I moved my shoulder around, and there was soreness but no pain. “At least I can start using this arm now,” I said.

“Keep it in the sling unless you need it out, and it will heal faster,” she said as she helped me into my scooter. “When do you change to a walking boot?”

“I have an appointment Wednesday,” I said. She went to her room to get ready while I went into the bathroom and did the same. When I got out to the table, Donna was serving pancakes and bacon to Sharkbait, Larry, Mike, and Anita. I ruffled the girl’s hair as I drove by. “Excited for the start of school,” I asked.

“Pack school!” I pulled into the open spot as Vicki told me about the classroom downstairs that had been put together. “No more bus rides!” I was happy that the new Pack would be doing homeschooling, at least for the younger pups. It was hard to teach all the classes and have all the sports and extracurricular activities in middle and high school, we sent them to public school then.

Liv and Brent came downstairs towards the end of the meal and sat down after both kissed and hugged Vicki. “The meeting with your Mom went well,” I asked.

“Better than I thought it would go,” Liv said. “Mom wants to be part of our lives again, and the two of us have made up, but it’s far from the end of the story. She has to convince Dad, and before that, she has to visit her sister in Duluth. If she doesn’t, Dad will be very upset that she lied to him.”

“Why haven’t you kept in touch with your aunt,” Larry said.

“My father has four brothers, my aunt is married to the youngest,” Liv said. “When Dad disowned me, he tried to make sure I had no one else in the family to run to. He told them that it was them or me. The only one he couldn’t control was Grandmother; she lost touch with both her daughters after taking me in.”

“That’s messed up,” I said.

“Appearances are everything to my father.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t put you in the stocks, flog you and then make you wear a scarlet A. Does anything change now that media has told everyone you are a single mom?” She shrugged her shoulders. All this because a college girl made a mistake being with a married man, then kept the baby. “I imagine she’s not going to have an easy time convincing your father to let you back in.”

“She knows. Dad is rigid in his ways. Changing his mind now would be admitting he was wrong.”

I just shook my head. I noticed Vicki had been following along with the conversation. “Will she be my Grandma?”

“She wants to see you too. I invited Grandmother to stop by the house on her way up to Duluth,” Liv said. “She should be here in an hour or so.”

I’d be gone by then. “What are you planning to tell your Mom?”

“None of the werewolf stuff, obviously. I thought I would take Mom up to the apartment and show her where Vicki and I live. Brent doesn’t have anything up there, and we won’t mention he’s living in the house. It’s hard enough knowing we’re getting married soon.”

I nodded. “All the other students will be arriving then, so we’ll get them downstairs quickly and let Sharkbait stay upstairs with you. No shifting, obviously. Vicki, you need to be careful with what you say about your school and your life here. No mentioning Packs, wolves, or shifting.”

“I know, Unky Leo. Mommy told me.”

Liv looked over at me. “What do I say about you? Or my work?”

“Work is on hold until things settle down,” I said. “As for me, I’m related through Vicki, and I’m helping you both out. It helps that I’ve known you for years.” We finished up the guys helped me out to the garage. Adrienne’s rental car was in my bay; my truck was totaled, but I hadn’t picked out a replacement yet. There wasn’t much of a point until I could drive. After I got in, they loaded the scooter in the back of the sport-utility, and we started driving towards Red Wing.

As we pulled through the fence into the parking lot of Volkov Construction, I started to get a little emotional. I remembered every aspect of this, from clearing the lot to furnishing the office. I could see a few cars here already as we parked. “Susan is here,” I said.

“Good, you have a lot of work to do in there,” Adrienne replied. That was true; when I entered the office, three Pack members were waiting with Susan for me. Luis Hernandez, who did drywall and roofing, was sitting in the corner with his McDonald’s bag. Rufus Washington was leaning against the wall; he is our plumbing supervisor. Craig Price, our Site Foreman, was at his desk next to mine, with Susan at her reception desk by the door. “Good morning, everyone,” Adrienne said as she held the door for me.

“Good morning, Alpha, Luna,” Susan said. “We have no active work sites today, but we have a big problem. Todd isn’t going for the deal,” she said. “In fact, he ordered me to kill you and Vicki instead.”

I drove over to my desk as everyone watched me for a reaction. “I kind of expected Todd would do that,” I said. “Thank you for telling me.”

“I’m sorry, Leo. I did everything I could to convince him, but he thinks with the two of you dead, his lawyer can argue the real criminals are still out there. What do we do now?” She looked beyond nervous, she was shaking, thinking the whole deal was going to fall apart now. If it did, she’d be left destitute.

“You do NOTHING about this,” Adrienne said. “This is now Council business, and my job here was to make sure the agreement was enforced.” She looked at the clock. “I need to call the Chairman and update him, then get my orders. I don’t know how long I’ll be busy,” she said.

“Do what you need to do, one of them can drop me at home at the end of the day,” I said. I reached my hand up, pulling her into a kiss. “Be careful.”

“I’ll be fine, you clean up this mess,” she said before turning and leaving.

I watched her go, wondering what she was thinking. I didn’t have a mind link with her yet since we hadn’t mated, and she wasn’t a member of my Pack. I didn’t know what the Council would do, but I had my own problems.

“Susan, the deal was with you and I’ll uphold my end. The sale goes through, you’re still a Beta in my Pack, and you’ll have your home equity loan paid off, and a job to support your family.” Her relief was immediate. “Meanwhile, there’s a lot of work to do. Bring me the bills.”

She picked up the stack of them and placed them on my desk. “I need to get up to speed first. Let’s start with current projects and work our way towards the bids.”

It didn’t take long, as there were only three jobs we were doing, along with contract snow plowing for a township. I was getting a better idea of how bleak things were when the door opened, and Jacob Burnley walked in. “Leo! I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“It’s Monday, and I’m behind already,” I said to my lawyer. “What brings you here?”

“Paperwork. Susan and I need to file the forms with the Secretary of State’s office for the ownership transfer, and we need to visit several banks to take care of the financials. Do you want to go along?”

I had a lot to do. “Am I needed?”

“Not really, you’ve signed the forms, and I have your power of attorney if anything else comes up.”

“Then go, I’ll keep working here.” Susan grabbed her stuff and left with him while I picked up the phone.

I spent the next hour speaking to every person that Volkov Construction had contracts with. I informed them that I had purchased back a majority share in the company, that we were not going anywhere, and that we would complete our contracts on time with quality. For those who had dealt with us before, I could sense the relief that I was back in charge. For the others, they were cautious, not knowing what the future would be with Todd in jail. We would have to prove to them that everything was all right.

The financials couldn’t wait any longer, as many of the problems with suppliers would go away with the cash infusion I was bringing. I gave the company a zero-interest loan of two hundred thousand dollars, with Jacob taking care of the paperwork and the banking transfer. That gave me the money in the checking account I would need to take care of bills, and there were many of those.

The workers were another issue. Luis and Rufus were doing all right; they had filled in the gaps in work with Volkov by subcontracting for other jobs. Craig Price had more issues as the foreman; he’d had to lay off workers due to the declining amount of work, and the money issues were interfering with his purchases of supplies. Deposits for the current jobs had disappeared into the pit of debt that Todd had accumulated, and some of our suppliers had cut us off.

“Start making phone calls and getting crews together,” I told Craig. “I’ll straighten out the suppliers.”

“How many?”

“I want the Herling job finished this week, the other two by the end of the month,” I said. His eyes got wide, they had a lot longer in the contracts to complete them. “I know. Right now, we need to have some wins to show Volkov is back. The best way to do that is to finish the current jobs ahead of schedule. If we need overtime, I authorize it. If we need to bring people on, do it, start with Pack and add others where you need. Don’t skimp on quality, just get it done, starting this afternoon.”

“Yes, Alpha,” he said. He started making calls from his desk. January was a slow time for construction companies since you could only dig and work in spaces that were closed off from the weather. The good news is that as soon as the weather warmed, there was a backlog of homes and other work. It was that backlog I needed to be able to bid and win on if we were going to turn the company around.

I made one call to the Sheriff’s Department to find out when the dump truck would be released from the impound. The deputy was surprised to find out that I now owned the company again; since the truck’s title read Volkov Construction, there would be no issues getting it back when it was no longer in evidence. The problem was that just like my pistol, it wouldn’t get there until the trials were over. After all, Todd’s lawyer might want to check it out too.

While I was on the phone, I called the Ford dealer about a replacement for my totaled truck. There was a little sticker shock as I found out how much truck prices had gone up in the last six years, but they had what I was looking for on the lot. The insurance payout on my old truck would cover about a fifth of the cost, so the rest came out of my cash. It would be ready to go by four this afternoon if I showed up and signed the papers at three.

Susan was dropped off after all the paperwork was done, and she brought Italian Beef sandwiches from Johnny’s Gyros in town. Trying to eat the messiest sandwich in the world with one hand didn’t work, so I took my sling off for lunch before I ruined my shirt. It was worth every twinge of pain as I chewed on the beef and hot peppers, though.

I pulled the bills and the checks for the local suppliers and gave them to Craig. He left soon after, taking a few people and trucks with him to bring accounts current and pick up the supplies we would need for tomorrow. It hadn’t taken him long to get the people he needed to kick the first project in the butt and get it moving again.

I made a few more calls after lunch. I tried Adrienne’s phone, and it went straight to voice mail. I left a message saying I loved her and missed her, and I’d be home before five with my new truck. Then I called Liv to see how the morning went for them. “Did you Mom show up?”

“She did, and she stayed with us for an hour,” Liv said. “I barely got a word in edgewise, between her apologies and Vicki showing her everything in her room. She said to thank you for saving our lives, and for helping us out.”

This was good. Vicki deserved better than to be abandoned by her grandparents. “How is school going?”

“Oh, I think this class is going to be a handful,” she said with a giggle. “Poor Lois! At least she can growl at them to get them to stop messing around. Hopefully, it will all settle down in a few days.”

“I hope so. The last two weeks haven’t been much of a vacation for any of us.” We talked for a few more minutes, then I called Mike and asked if he and Anita could pick me up from the Ford dealer at four. Once all the personal stuff was done, it was back to work, paying the bills and checking account receivables.

I spent the last hour going over the maintenance histories of the equipment. It was as I suspected; maintenance had been pushed off to save money, and now it was coming due. I started to put together a plan to get it done before the spring season began.

By two forty-five, I’d had enough. “Susan, can you give me to the Ford dealer?”

“I normally don’t leave this early,” she said.

“School is ending, and I’m sure if you let the girls know you’d be welcome to stay for dinner,” I said. “You have enough drama in your life, let us help you.” She grabbed her keys and the guys loaded me up, then she dropped me off in front of the dealer on the way through town.

I checked out my new truck parked by the door. It was fancy, with leather seats and all the electronics of a car these days. I’d brought along the door and tailgate decals for the company, and those were put on the white truck while I was doing other things. The cost was coming of the business account, not my personal one, so it had to have the ads.

Anita dropped Mike off just before four, and he got me in the front before folding the rear seats up and getting help to lift the scooter in. “How was work,” he asked.

“A lot tougher than retirement,” I said. “It feels good to be doing something again, though.”

“Donna’s making fried chicken tonight. What would you have done last year on a Monday?”

“Chinese buffet. Eat as much as I could, then have the munchies two hours later,” I said. “Is Adrienne back?”

“We haven’t heard a thing.” I pulled out my phone and tried calling, getting voice mail. This time I sent a text telling her I was on my way home and was hoping to see her for dinner. It was an adjustment for me, knowing my mate had her own career with the Council. I had no idea how we would reconcile her demanding job and its frequent travel with being my mate and Luna of the Miesville Pack.

I hoped she accepted me so we could find out.