Misty
Sheriff Misty Dale was pretty tired of getting yelled at by people who needed her help.
“Ma’am,” she said patiently, “I’m just informing you what’s going to happen if your son gets caught doing anything else illegal.”
“You get off my land,” Diane Bigelow shrieked. “You’re harassing us! You arrest my Zeke every other day—”
“No one’s been arrested, ma’am,” Misty repeated for the twentieth time. “Your son and his friend were just detained. We’re dropping him and Ryder off home as a courtesy, because I thought a warning would serve them better than a juvenile record.”
She bit her lip, too late. Sarcasm was never the best route to take with Diane—sure enough, the woman was off on yet another furious rant.
Zeke, meanwhile, smirked at her from where he was slouching against the porch railing. Misty wanted to shake him.
You little idiot, I’m doing you a favor. Your dad’s in jail, you want to end up the same way?
Zeke and Ryder were both the sons of newly-convicted felons—Zeke’s dad, Ryan, had led the local wolf shifter pack, and Ryder’s dad had been a member. The wolves had been into some seriously illegal things, and Misty had caught them in a violent attack on another shifter residence a few months ago.
The case had been airtight, and none of those wolves were seeing the outside of a prison anytime soon. But if Misty wasn’t careful, their kids were going to grow up to be just as much trouble.
The problem was, she didn’t know how to keep it from happening.
Misty had always been pretty good at putting bad guys away. Keeping the troubled kids from becoming bad guys? That was outside of her skill set.
“Have a good day, ma’am,” she said grimly, as Diane’s tirade started picking up some more colorful language.
She turned back to her deputy, Gene, who was too polite and venerable to smirk like Zeke, but who was giving off a pretty amused air. “Let’s get going.”
“You got it, boss,” he said, and they got into their Jeep and pulled away.
Diane was still yelling as they left. And, looking in the rear-view mirror, Misty could’ve sworn she saw Zeke give the retreating car the finger.
She blew out her breath in a sigh. “Gene, you got any advice on how to handle this situation before it stops being funny?”
Gene shook his head, tapping wrinkled fingers on the window. “Those kids are wolves to the bone, boss. You think you can tough-love them out of their blood? It ain’t happening.”
Misty shot him a sharp look. “You know my views on that kind of thinking, Gene.”
He shrugged. “That I do. But that don’t change how things are around here. How they’ve always been.”
Misty ground her teeth. There was no use reciting her lecture on pack dynamics to Gene. Again. He’d heard it, and he wasn’t about to change his mind.
She couldn’t stay silent, though. “There’s got to be a better way.”
Gene just shook his head.
But Misty knew she was right. There had to be a better way. For generations, like shifters had stuck with like. The wolves, the bears, the rodents, the sparrows, and now even the snow leopards, up in Glacier Park. They all closed ranks with their own kind, and God forbid one group angered another.
There could be all-out wars up here in the Montana mountain forests. Misty was determined that she’d see the end of that in her lifetime.
...How she’d accomplish that, though, she didn’t know.
But she was going to figure it out.
***
Ty
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
Ty’s boss Sam turned away from his computer. “That’s right, Ty. Come on in.”
He shut the door behind him and took a seat in front of Sam’s desk. As soon as he sat down, his bones sent out a plea: Let’s stay here a while.
And behind that was the plaintive voice of his jaguar: No, let’s go out. Let’s go run. Away from all the buildings and the computers.
“I imagine you know why I called you in here,” Sam was saying, looking at him over the tops of his glasses, brow furrowed.
Ty sighed. “Yes, sir.”
“How many times have I suggested you take a vacation so far this year?”
“Lost count,” Ty admitted.
“Yes. Me, too. And have you taken any of those vacations?”
“We’re understaffed,” Ty said quietly.
“We are always understaffed. You know what’s worse than understaffed?” Sam gave him a hard look. “Burnt-out social workers. I would far rather have an empty position than have one filled by someone who’s worked themselves to death.”
“I’m fine,” Ty said immediately. Sam, after all, wasn’t a shifter—didn’t even know shifters existed, as far as Ty could tell. He wouldn’t know the lengths to which Ty could push himself, the stress he could take.
But Sam was shaking his head slowly. “You’re sleeping less. You’re starting to get short-tempered—never with the kids, but with your coworkers. You’ve got the beginnings of burnout coming through, Ty, and it’s my job to catch that before it gets critical.”
“I would never neglect this job.” Ty knew his voice had gotten dangerously quiet. Inside his chest, his jaguar growled.
...And that, more than anything, gave him pause.
Sam had caught that something was up, and he gave Ty a long, considering stare. Ty breathed once, twice, and made his jaguar settle down.
“I’ve offered you a promotion to an administrative position,” Sam continued after a minute. “You won’t take it. I am running out of options, here, Ty, and you’re not helping me.”