Page 67 of Talk About… Trouble

The laughter in his voice had me cracking up. Mabel continued to eye me, and since the secret was out of the bag, I went ahead and ducked into the barn to grab some celery stalks.

They weren’t her favorite, but they also wouldn’t crank up her blood sugar.

When she saw my hands were full of something, she started to move, but her steps were slow and resigned, as if she really didn’t want to come but couldn’t resist a treat.

On that, we were the same.

“Come on. You know you can be warm and toasty in your little bed of hay. Maybe we can even convince Shepherd to sing you a lullaby.”

“Not likely,” he called out.

The sound of the goat stall closing and locking followed, then his heavy footfalls were heading our way. She let out an indignant snort when she saw him, but her steps quickened a little bit.

“You better get your cute rump in your stall,” he warned her.

I followed her in, putting her snack down on her bed of hay before giving her a little scratch behind the ears.

“Does she need meds?” I asked, turning back to Shepherd.

He didn’t seem to hear me, he was too busy staring at me with a soft smile on his face. It wasn’t until he noticed I had turned around that he startled out of it.

“Sorry. You guys are just too adorable together,” he laughed. “I never expected to find anyone who would care about these animals like I do, let alone someone who cared about me.”

“Even grumpy alphas deserve love,” I joked.

We both startled at the word “love.” It wasn’t exactly something we were using a few months in, but somewhere along the way, between fate, my heat spike, and falling into the beautiful, blissful, domesticated life we had, it had started to form.

So, I didn’t take it back.

Tires on the gravel had the moment falling away. He turned to glance out the open barn door.

“Braxton’s here. Why don’t you go meet him, and I’ll test her blood sugar and see what she needs?”

“I’ll wait,” I promised.

I had already had lunch with Braxton, and I knew that the conversation tonight was going to be rough. If I could give Shepherd a few more minutes of calm before the storm, I was going to do it.

Plus, I hadn’t had a chance to see him administer her meds. I watched as my big, surly alpha talked to Mabel in hushed tones, his gentle rumble soothing her as much as it did me.

She didn’t even flinch when he tested her blood sugar. And when he had to give her an insulin shot, she simply ignored him completely.

She got a final scratch behind the ears, snorting happily before we were walking away, hand in hand.

“I love how you are with them,” I said. “It’s nice to see someone who truly cares about animals that are a little more trouble than others.”

“Somebody’s got to love these demons,” he chuckled, giving my hand a squeeze. “Though, don’t let Braxton fool you. He’s the reason half these animals are even here.”

“Speaking of Braxton, he told me he was bringing dinner. We better hurry.”

Shepherd pulled me inside. We stopped in the mudroom long enough to wash up and kick off our dirty boots before heading for the kitchen, where the others were already chatting away.

“It’s nice to have life back in this house.”

“Back? Was it like this when your grandparents were alive? You mentioned it was theirs, right?”

“Yeah. My grandfather built it for his pack. I’d spend as much time as I could with him growing up because they were a lot better than my two alpha dads, who had a chip on their shoulders, too much anger between them and no beta or omega to soften the blow.”

“That’s why you were so reluctant to start a pack?”

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