1.Homecoming

“God damn it!” I shouted between my gritted teeth as I threw away the hammer that I was holding in my hand. I was sitting down on one knee, my good knee, trying to fix the damned fence that kept the horses from running off, and just as my luck would have it, I had just used the last nail, trying to keep the damned fence attached to this fucking wooden pole. But of course, with my luck, that didn’t work as planned. Because here I was, out of nails, the fence still not being repaired, feeling like a damn failure all over again.

Hah… story of my life, if you ask me.

The wind howled through the trees as I gave up on my task and started to walk back toward the main house on the ranch grounds. I squinted through the sunshine, searching for the familiar landmarks that would lead me back to the ranch house of my family. The place that had once been my home, and now felt like my Goddamn prison more than anything if you asked me. The sunshine illuminated a rusted sign that read “The Loup Ranch.” And I let out a heavy sigh. This was home alright, but it had been years since it had felt like that to me.

The Loup Ranch was my family’s ranch. It had once been my father’s, and ever since his passing, my two older brothers had taken over without any hesitation on their part, me on the other hand… not so much. I had lived my life as a pro hockey player, playing for the big league and making big bucks every second I was holding a stick in my hand. I was living the life of a rock star at that point, with money in my account and the occasional woman in my bed. But that had all changed during my last hockey game. The one that had destroyed both my career and my life at the same blow. I had been on a winning streak, playing my best fucking season ever. I was even in talks for a long-term contract that would have settled me in for life with my favorite team in the world. But then, another player from the team that we were playing against had smacked me into the side of the stadium when I hadn’t been paying close enough attention. My body had hit the side of the rink so badly, that it had completely broken my leg. Not just breaking it in half, but breaking it so badly that the fucking bones were sticking out of my skin.

let me tell you... that right there

it wasn’t a pretty sight to see

and it was even worse to feel!

The worst of all about this whole Goddamn mess… was that it hadn’t even had to end the way it did for me. Why I was right here, right now, was just the sickest form of Karma known to exist. Because this ranch that I was living on right now, it wasn’t just a ranch that held quality horses being used for breeding programs, selling off their foals to the highest bidder, and because of that, being able to feed a home that occupied 5 people and still had enough money left to save at the end of every month, oh no… it was far more than just a ranch. The Ranch was called ‘The Loup Ranch’. People always thought it was simply because of the driveway that led up to the ranch house and how it formed a massive loop, and someone in the early days had made a huge typo and my parents had just thought it was funny at the time, and they had decided to stick to the name.

Nope…

not the right story there at all.

Loup wasn’t spelled wrong at any given time. It didn’t refer to a loop in our fucking driveway either. Loup was French, French for the word that held our family’s true identity, one that we kept hidden from the outside world with a passion. Loup… meaning WOLF. Because that right there was exactly what we were. We weren’t even humans, we were werewolves. Werewolves who were running a ranch filled with horses.

Try to read that again and not start laughing out loud!

And the reality of all of that had made me fucking angry. Why? Here’s why. One thing that werewolves were known for, was their amazing ability to be able to heal much faster and much better than any human. If we scraped our knees? Give us five minutes and the rash was completely gone. Broke your nose? Maybe after about an hour and we wouldn’t be able to see or feel a thing about it anymore. That’s why I had become the star hockey player that I always was. I got hurt like everyone else, sure. But I never got an injury, let alone a serious one. I was the lucky bastard that kept on playing and scoring without any restrictions on his side physically wise. But that had all changed the day that I had broken my leg in a stadium filled with humans who were all looking directly at me while it had happened.

My first mistake after my body had crashed, had been to look down and see the actual bones of my legs poking out through my hockey pants. No matter how much protection I was wearing while playing, somehow the fucking bones had still been able to poke right through as if to say 'Peekaboo' at me. Now, I might have been a beast on the field, but seeing that being followed by the immense pain of having an external leg fracture. Because yes, even though wolves had the ability to heal much faster than humans, we still felt pain like anybody else. And my mistake that day had been, that once that pain had hit me square in the chest… I had fucking fainted like a pussy. And that right there had cost me everything.

Because the very next thing, the star player Caleb Johnson for the Wisconsin Lions had been rushed off in an ambulance, being brought to the nearest hospital, which had their best surgeons already waiting out for me. And while I had still been knocked out from the pain, they had sedated me even more, and they had started to operate on me immediately. And that right there had been my demise. Because let me tell you right now, a wolf may have super healing powers, the fact that those surgeons had placed what looked and felt like twenty metal screws and plates and pins in my leg, in order to fix it back up and keep everything locked into place, they had done so much more damage to me and my wolf than anyone could have ever known. That surgery had blocked my wolf from healing at the quicker wolf pace. That surgery had turned me into a cripple man. And by the time my brothers had been able to reach me, calling in my attorney to make sure that every screw and bolt had been removed back from my leg because I had never consented to surgery because I had been knocked out in the first place, it had already been too late for me to heal back from. The damage had already been done, and not even my wolf could heal me back up completely. Meaning that after that night, and after months of human therapy and countless setbacks, I had come to the realization that I could kiss my entire hockey career goodbye. My hockey career was completely over. And my life, along with it. Because yes, my career had always been my life. I loved to play, I lived and breathed hockey. I loved to hop from city to city playing against other teams. I loved hearing the roars of the people coming to watch us play. And now… I had been forced to trade it all in for a fucking life on the family ranch, being surrounded by fucking horses, while I couldn’t even shift into my own wolf because the shifting process was too hard on my leg to handle.

To say that during the last months, I had turned into an old and bitter cripple man, was quite an understatement, really. But I did. I had become bitter, and I resented everyone and everything about what had happened to me. My coach, for agreeing to operate on me without my consent. My brothers, for not being in time to save me. My own wolf, for not being strong enough to heal me back up. So yeah… right now I was just angry at the world to be completely honest. Not having a clue on where to go from here on out. But, there had been no other option for me than to return home to the ranch where I had grown up. My two older brothers had taken over the business of the ranch after our father had passed away. I guess I had always been the wild one of the bunch, the rebel who had wanted to break free from the monotony of ranch life. But now, I was back, feeling like a Goddamn failure more than anything.

Shit

I couldn’t even fix a damned fence…

The ranch had at some point been a place of solace to me. A place where I could escape from the pressures of the world. But now, it was just a constant reminder of what I had lost. As I walked up to the main house, I could see Jake standing on the front porch waiting for me with his arms crossed over his massive chest.

“Welcome home, you little ray of sunshine,” Jake said to me in pure sarcasm, clapping me on the shoulder once I had walked up the two stairs, my knee already stinging with the pain I had grown used to by now.

“Fuck off, shitface.” I growled, taking off my cowboy hat and laying it on the railing, as I leaned next to it on my elbows. Sweat dripping from my forehead. It was fucking hot this time of year. And sure as hell, my parents couldn’t have picked a better place to start up a horse ranch than in fucking Florida. The place was too humid and too hot for me, which was probably why I had ended up playing hockey as a kid in the first place. I liked the cold much better than this sauna.

“Did you restore the fence? Like I asked you?” Jake asked me, to which I shook my head as I couldn’t shake the feeling of disappointment along with it. This wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I was supposed to be on the ice, scoring goals and living the dream. Not repairing a fucking fence on a ranch in fucking Florida feeling as if my body was about to set itself on fire because it was that fucking hot outside.

“I guess I’m not quite the handyman like you are. I’ll call someone to come over here and get it fixed.” I answered my brother, who immediately shook his head.

“Nonsense, I’ll come along with you. We’ll do it together.” He told me instead, giving me half a smile as if somehow he liked the prospect of us sharing some time together as we used to when we were kids. Lord only knew how much we used to hang out together when we were little. But ever since I left home to go play professionally, I had also left my family behind along with the time that I otherwise would have been able to spend with them.

It had been a couple of weeks since I had moved back home. I had tried to settle back into living a life on the ranch. Waking up before dawn to tend to the horses before it would get too hot outside, spending my days trying to fix fences, and doing other odd jobs around the property. I was grateful for the work and for being close to my brothers again, because I did know for a fact that they had my best interest at heart and weren't just after my money. But I couldn’t shake the feeling of resentment. And I remembered the first night when I had come back to live here. When I had been sitting inside the same room, the one where I had slept as a kid back when my parents were still alive, and life had been great and everyone had been happy. I had just grabbed my pillow, pressed it against my face and I had just screamed out my frustration until my voice had gotten sore. This wasn’t the life I had planned for myself. I was supposed to be a hockey star, not a ranch hand. My brothers had wanted this life, and they loved doing this, but not me.

As I stood there on the front porch overlooking the fields that the horses were grazing on, wallowing in my own self-pity, I did realize that this ranch wasn’t just a place of solace for me. It could also be a place of opportunity if I could somehow change my mindset. I had the chance to make something of myself here, to contribute to the family business, and to build a life for myself as well. I needed to find some renewed determination. I needed to find a new hope around this place. I needed to find a new dream to chase after. I sure as shit didn’t know what the future held for me, but I knew that at least I was home surrounded by people who really did love me. And if I wouldn’t do it by myself, my brothers would keep kicking my ass until I would make something out of my life again. They had given me some space and time to mourn the loss of my hockey career, but this morning, when Jake had dropped the hammer on the breakfast table right in front of me, it seemed as if today, their time to be patient with me had run out.

“The fence at the south is broken, you need to head out there and fix it, today.” Jake had spoken to me, not asked, to which I had looked over him. Jake was the second oldest son and the one who was running the ranch now, mostly. When he wasn’t working on the ranch, he was driving around in his police car chasing the bad guys for a living. Because yes, my brother was a police officer by day, and a wolf slash farmer by night. Oh yeah, and he also had a five-year-old daughter, Dahlia, on top of that. Now that girl was the apple of my eye, and right now, the only ray of real sunshine in this shitty sunshine state. How my brother Jake was able to jiggle all those balls at the same time? I honestly had no idea. But somehow, he rocked the farmer-slash-police officer-slash-single father to a T. Hell, everywhere he came, the ladies turned their heads and nearly fainted for his dark eyes and black hair, which was the biggest contrast to Dahlia, since his daughter Dahlia had blonde long hair that curled at the bottom. She did share our dark eyes, however. Our Loup ranch family chocolate brown eyes that is. Because I shared those brown eyes as well along with our brother Rob, who was the oldest out of the bunch. But he didn’t live here anymore either. Quickly after our father had died, he had joined the army. Ran away from his grief and problems, just like I had done.

The fourth brother on the Loup Ranch was Zach, who in big contrast to the other three brothers, had bright green eyes instead of our brown ones. As a kid, we had loved to pick on him for his other eye color, telling him he was adopted or later on, once we knew how babies were really made, joked around telling him that his dad was probably the mailman.

Oh, how we loved to push his buttons.

Hell, we still did to this day.

Honestly, we even picked on him on how he was a child of the devil. I mean, that was the only reason that could justify the man’s obsession with fire in the first place, even as a young kid. The obsession that even had turned him into a firefighter. Like hell… who even would do that? Extinguish fires for a living, risking your life on a daily bases…

Not me... let's make that perfectly clear!

“Anyone wants some iced tea?” We heard a female voice coming from inside the house. And I turned to face our Nanna. She was our grandmother, the mother of our father. At a whopping seventy-eight years of age, she still had her back straight and was healthy as a horse. And ever since our parents had died while we were all still basically kids ourselves, our Nanna had stepped up immediately and she had moved into the ranch house overnight. Raising four teenage boys who loved to kick each other’s asses and curse like sailors. But deep down, we all loved the little old lady, she had made sure that we boys had stayed together while growing up. It was either that or being placed into childcare and becoming state property until we would become 18 years old. Thank God, our Nanna was an incredible woman, having had the skills to turn four half-monkeys into four honorable men. This woman had wiped our asses and had given us the 'always use a condom' talk. She was a saint and the devil's advocate all at the same time.

The woman deserves a Nobel prize for putting up with us for all these years.

It’s true!

“Sure, Nana.” Jake and I spoke in unison, both being smarter than to deny Nanna of her requests. And we walked inside, and finally, the breeze of air conditioning hit me square in the face. Hell, we might have been living on a ranch out here, at least my brothers were all modern enough to buy the latest luxuries that were needed in order to survive in this desert. Or swamp. Hell... it felt more like a desert outside, to be honest. Nanna had already placed a carafe of iced tea on the kitchen table, along with three glasses filled with ice cubes, and my mouth watered just looking at it. The woman’s timing was always spot on. God, what would we have done without her?

Nothing… absolutely nothing.

“So, Nana. Any plans for today?” I asked her as she sat herself down, filling all glasses as she passed them along to both Jake and myself.

“Actually, yes, which was why I needed to talk to you two. Zach is at work so I can't ask him.” She spoke, her head slightly tilting down as she looked at the two of us over the edge of her reading glasses.

“OK?” I asked her, waiting for a bomb to go off somewhere any second now.

“I’m sorry”, Nanna said, looking apologetic, knowing the woman through and through, and realizing she felt no remorse, ever.

“I know I was supposed to get Dahlia from school today, but my friend Maggy called and I haven’t seen her in ages. She wanted to go get some coffee, by the sounds of it, her cat died and she needs some time and a person to vent to. So, me being me, I offered to listen to her.” Nanna stated, making me chuckle at her words.

“Are you just trying to go see Simon again, Nanna?” I grinned at her, Simon was the retired owner of the coffee shop downtown. After his granddaughter took over his shop, he still came by often. Everyone living inside this house knew just how much of a crush our Nanna had over old Simon. She just never acted on her feelings, probably because she was too busy raising us four boys.

“No comment.” She answered me, her eyebrows raising on her forehead as if she was silently shutting me up, making sure I wouldn’t ask anything further. Me being a wise man, knew to just drop the subject.

“So, can any of you two pick up Dahlia from school instead? Zach is at the fire station, I cannot get a hold of him.” She added, to which Jake shook his head, already looking worried about his daughter as he looked down at his watch.

“I have a shift at the police station in an hour, so it will have to be Caleb.” He stated as I sighed deeply.

I felt a knot in my stomach at the thought of heading into the city to pick up my niece. As a former famous hockey player, I was used to crowds and attention, but the thought of being placed in the city, where people actually knew who I was and what I had gone through. Hell, the women all wanted me for what was left in my bank account, while all the men looked at me as if I had disappointed them by breaking my leg that day. It made me feel uneasy more than anything. Nanna must have seen the worry etched on my face because she patted my hand reassuringly.

“Don’t worry, dear. You will be fine. Just take your time and be careful on the road while you drive.” And I nodded, trying to take her advice to heart. I finished my iced tea, stood up, and kissed Nanna on the cheek.

“I’ll go get her. You enjoy your time with your friend. You are already spending too much time inside this house, go out there and live a little. Hell, maybe today is the day where you will ask Simon out on that date?” I told her, feeling her smile before I even saw it.

"If anyone should be dating, it would be you, boys. Lord knows I'm too old for all that drama. I still want to able to walk you boys down the aisle" She giggled at me in response.

"It's the woman that walks down the aisle, Nana." I grinned, to which she grimaced.

"From where I am sitting, nobody is walking down the aisle anytime soon, you guys need to get out there and find yourself a good woman, I won't be around forever, you know?" She added. To which I laughed, but understood that her words held a lot of truth to them as well. But shit... before I could even find a woman out there, first, I needed to get out of my funk and get back out in the real world again.