11. Waylan

Chapter 11

Waylan

I remember the day it happened in perfect detail. It started like every other morning that autumn. I made breakfast while Joe fed the chickens. We ate, prepared our second cup of coffee, and then headed into the barn to keep working on the bricks. Even though it had been a couple months since we first slept together, I still felt intoxicated by Joe's presence and his scent.

That was probably why I missed the signs that someone had been in the barn.

Joe didn't sense it either.

He set his coffee down on the long table, put on his gloves, and smiled at me. Once he got the hang of something, he tended to be pretty good at it. This was just one of the many things I was learning about him. I barely had to give him any direction before he was packaging pawflower like a pro.

For me, the biggest novelty was that I actually enjoyed working beside him. I'd never been able to work with other people before. When I'd hired guys to help on the farm in the past, I usually set them up in one area, and I'd go do work someplace else. No matter what they were working on, they just got too loud.

But Joe was different.

Not only could he handle the hours of working quietly that I needed, he seemed to thrive in them too.

Bricking up the flowers was a step I'd always done alone because I just didn't trust anyone to be around the product at that stage, so having Joe with me made this year's work go by faster than ever.

I watched him picking apart the pawflower and smiled. "You know, it's really unusual that this doesn't affect you. I've never been able to hire shifters."

I'd already explained pawflower to Joe, and I'd told him a little about The Quiet. Sometimes I thought he might have it too, although he lacked the grim disposition for it. Maybe there was some version of The Quiet that was naturally occurring in gray foxes.

He brought a fistful of flowers to his nose and inhaled. "I love the smell. It's like if sunsets had a smell, this would be it."

I had just set up next to him and pulled on my gloves when I heard the sound of gravel crunching under tires. Looking out the window, I saw a white van pull up with a driver I didn't recognize. Silently, I put my hand out to signal Joe to stay back and walked toward the van.

People almost never came up my road by accident. I was too out of the way and too tucked back. Eyeing the driver uneasily, I crossed my arms over my chest and made sure I looked big and strong. "Can I help you?"

"Waylan, right?" The driver seemed too friendly to know my name.

I didn't reply, merely narrowing my eyes as the side door of the van slid open. Five more men were in the back. My hackles rose as I heard footsteps and sensed Joe walking up behind me. When he stopped beside me, his fists were clenched at his sides.

The driver eyed Joe warily. "Who's that?"

It was clear that they expected me to be out here alone. With my most pissed-off alpha glare, I looked into the driver's beady eyes. "You need to get off my property right now."

Instead of listening to me, the driver opened his door and stepped out of the van with the other men following. "We're with you, Waylan. We're with the West Coast Coyotes. Este sent us to pick up a hundred bricks."

"Bullshit. I'm not going to tell you to leave again."

The men were all on the small side, so I wasn't worried about myself, but it wasn't just about me anymore. Now I had an omega to worry about because I didn't want him to get hurt. A low growl started to form in the back of my throat.

Unfazed, the men started toward the barn.

I shifted and went after the driver, figuring he was the leader. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the others pull a gun and point it at me. I pivoted, worried I would be too late to stop him, but then a lean, gray fox came sailing through the air and sank his fangs into the gunman's arm.

The man screamed and dropped the gun, which clattered with a wooden sound.

Both annoyed and relieved, I realized the gun was fake, and Joe was going to turn the guy's arms into shredded jerky. I pivoted back to the driver and saw a band of red foxes where the men had just been.

I gave them one vicious alpha growl, and they all began to whimper and cower. Joe's guy shifted too, but Joe's larger gray body stood over him.

The situation would have been laughable if it weren't so pathetic. These guys must have thought I was an easy mark. Some small-time gang trying to make a big score, thinking they could impersonate the West Coast Coyotes and steal our product.

Joe circled around the back of them, keeping them where they were.

I shifted back and towered over the foxes. They were likely too afraid to shift back, and several rolled onto their backs and peed. "If any of you try to run, I will hunt you down and find you." I walked to the doors of the empty root cellar and pulled them open. "Joe, get them in here."

Joe herded the foxes down into the cellar, then we locked the doors.

My omega shifted back into his skin and turned to me, his eyes wide. "I thought you said foxes didn't organize."

"Gray foxes don't." I chuckled and nodded toward the piss puddles. "And I wouldn't exactly call that organized."

He wrapped his arms around me. "You were amazing! Weren't you afraid?"

Now that was funny. "Of them? No. But we'll have to call Este about this, and you'll get to meet the real West Coast Coyotes. Then you'll understand why I'm not afraid of a few punks like this."

Joe nodded and swallowed hard. "Okay."

I didn't want him to know that I was more nervous about him and Este meeting than anything else. I hadn't explicitly talked to Este about my finding a mate. Honestly, I think we both just assumed it would never happen, that The Quiet would keep everyone away. And if Este ever did think about me finding a mate, he probably assumed it would be a coyote. I wasn't sure how Este would react or if he would have a problem with Joe staying.

I shook my head to clear those thoughts away. "Come on. Let's go figure out how long we're gonna have to keep those guys down there and what we have to feed them."

Pitiful yips came from the root cellar as we walked to the house.

Joe looked at me. "Is that what I sound like?"

I laughed and took his hand. "No way. And you were pretty amazing back there, knocking the gun out of his hand."

He scoffed, though I could see the hint of pride in his eyes. "The wooden gun."

"Yeah, I didn't know if you even noticed that." I laughed again. I smiled, but inside, I felt unnerved. If those guys knew what we were doing back there, who else knew and how?