Page 22 of Bad Medicine

I turned to stare at her. “Youborrowed money and bought thirty more acres?”

“I also purchased two tinyhomes and cleared small areas of the woods for them. This place is perfect now,honey.”

I nodded. “It’ll sell for a lotso you can pay off the loan. I’m not sure how you managed the loan like thatwith your income, though.” I squinted at her. “How did you?”

“It wasn’t a loan,” she said,taking my hand and leading me toward her woods. Woods that would soon belong tosomeone else. “Louis and Amy Hedrick gave me the money to buy the extraacreage.”

I stopped walking. “Mother. No.What is going on?” But I was beginning to get an idea.

“This house,” she said, “andthis property. It’s yours now, Kaity. All of it. You’ll live here with yourfriends, and you’ll have your own woods. To hunt, play, and run in.” She beamedup at me. “It’s all yours.”

For a few seconds, I couldn’tspeak. My mind was spinning and my stomach was tight, and I felt just a littlesick. “My place is in the city. It’s where I work. And I absolutely cannot takesuch a gift from the mayor. He’s done too much for me as it is.”

“You don’t have to live in thecity to work there, Kaity. We’re only a few minutes away. And I know you haveno desire—yet—to live at Shadowfield, but you love the woods. You need nature.”She held her arms out as though to embrace the land. “This is your Shadowfield.You need this place more than you know. And Mayor Hedrick and his wife came tome. They wanted to do this for you, Kait. It’s done. They both know that ifthey need you in the future, or if their child needs you, you will be there.They also know that you’re working for the city. You’re making Jakeston safefor them, for all the humans.”

“They know I’m not human?” Iwhispered, pressing my palm into my stomach. “You told them I’m—”

“Of course not,” she snapped.“But the mayor is no dummy. And the detective knows what you are. Possibly hetold the mayor.”

I shook my head. “Rick wouldnot share my secrets. Not with anybody.” But was that really true?”

“It doesn’t matter how heknows. He understands you’re not human, and he understands what an asset youare to not only him, but his world. You’re his hero, Kait, and he wants to makesure you have what you need.” She softened her voice. “It makes him and Amyhappy to take care of you. They’re paying you back for all the things you’vedone and will do in the future. This place was going to be yours anyway. Hejust added some land.”

It didn’t matter that I mightlove the house. It didn’t matter that part of me was excited at the thought ofmoving into Huntersburg and having my own land to explore and to be a wolf in.What mattered was that choices had been made for me. And that just pissed meoff.

But I’d get over it. I couldpay the mayor back for the acreage. I could, though he would refuse to take it.Still, I needed to pay him back, or I would never really feel like the propertywas mine. He’d never owed me anything in the first place, and though Iunderstood his and Amy’s need to shower me with gifts in their grateful joy,he’d already set me up with the office in the city. I needed to have a talkwith him.

That settled, I took a deep,deep breath, and surveyed my property. “You’ll miss being here,” I told her.

“No duh,” she said. “But thisisn’t home for me anymore. My heart is with the pack. You and Lucy and theboys…you need this place.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Theboys?”

She gestured over her shoulderwhere Joe loomed, a little too far to hear us, but never out of view. “He won’tleave your side. And that sweet little Max, all he has is a tiny—thoughwell-fortified—apartment. He will so enjoy helping make this house into afortress. You’ll have to watch him, or he’ll boobytrap the yard so the henscan’t get to him. AndZach, Kaity. He needs this more than any of them.”She took my hand, her voice softening. “This place is magical. And it’s beenwaiting all along for you to come back home.”

I shivered, because I felt it.I felt the future, the rightness, the magic.

“Home,” I said, and went totell the others.

ChapterEleven

We would stay in the city whilemy new house was getting some updates. One of the most important was a hugefenced yard for Ash. He was going to get a doggy door and the freedom to runoutside and play and exercise whenever he wanted.

Lucy had stood in the middle ofthe huge old kitchen with tears in her eyes. “Imagine what I can do in here,”she’d said. She would quit her job to tend to the house, Ash, and the variousother animals my mother left behind—two elderly hounds, the chickens, agoat—and all of us, of course. She couldn’t imagine a better job, but thethought of staying home and being all domestic gave me hives.

My mother told her that if shewanted, the diner in town where she’d worked—Jack’s—would take her on for a fewhours a week, an idea that Lucy seemed to love, though she wouldn’t need themoney. Everyone who lived in the house would contribute to her income. “You caneven bring Ash,” my mother had said. “Jack brings his little ankle biter,Nellie.”

That visit to my mother’s househad been quite the experience, bringing a change to all our lives.

And now I was on my way toShadowfield to see Zach. And the alpha. The day had been long and a littleexhausting, but I was so full of energy that I needed to shift and run. After Isaw to Zach, I would give my wolf some exercise. I also wanted to try out thenew belt Saul had given me.

I was eager to see Zach but dreadedit at the same time. He’d been in bad shape when I’d taken him from Axton, buthe’d started improving greatly. Now he was finally withdrawing from the magicAxton had stuffed inside him. He’d become addicted to his former master as anyhuman slave naturally would. When Axton had died, Zach hadn’t died with him,and that left Zach to deal with gaping wounds and the huge pain and emptinessof Frederick Axton’s absence.

I’d hoped he would somehowavoid the withdrawals altogether—they’d been so long in coming and he’d beenstrong enough to survive his awful captivity with Axton and his vampires aswell as the master’s death—but they’d taken him over, finally. And he wouldsurvive them too. He would.

I parked in front of thecommunity building and got out of the car, something inside me easing simplybecause Shadowfield was full of wolves. My pack. But there was a hesitancy,too, because I knew that part of me would always feel like something of anoutsider here, no matter that Jared had claimed the wolf inside me.

He’d claimed the woman, too.