Sharon’s Wolves(41)
He turned his gaze to Sharon and smiled as he watched her laugh at something one of his sisters said, her face lighting up in a way that warmed his heart. Why had he put this off?
And Jackson. Jackson leaned against the back of the leather couch, eyeing Cooper for cues about all these women who had just descended on them on the first day of their mating. The man’s world had been turned upside down and inside out, and still he held his head high and kept his wits.
Cooper admired him, and he had to admit he already respected him too. As soon as he allowed himself to face his destiny, things fell into place. They would continue to do so.
“Cooper?”
He shook his wandering thoughts from his head and faced his grandmother again. Her small stature was nearly comical when compared to her huge personality. She pointed a finger at him and spoke as if she’d raised him herself and he’d better pay attention or she wouldn’t hesitate to put him in his place.
“I’m sorry, Mimi. Why do we need to go back to the fracking site? I saw it. It’s obviously the cause of the earthquakes. What more is there to know?”
“I don’t know, young man. All I can do is follow my gut. And my gut tells me there’s more to this than meets the eye. It isn’t as simple as it appears.”
He agreed with her. He’d said as much to his mates before the female wolves descended. But how was he supposed to interpret the desires of some black aura floating around in front of him?
“Mimi, come sit with us,” Melinda said. “Cut Cooper a break. He’s aware of the situation. You know it’s never easy to discern what the spirit wants.”
Mimi took her granddaughter’s advice and made her way over to perch on the couch between Melinda and his mother.
His mother’s face was tight.
“Mom, what do you think?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, but I agree with the others. Something’s very, very wrong. Far more than a group of drills pumping gas out of the land. The hairs on the back of my neck have stood on end for several days, and the restlessness has increased in the last twenty-four hours.”
“Since the three of us met,” Sharon added.
“Yes. Probably since nearly that precise moment. It wasn’t an accident you all came together last night.”
Jackson stood behind the couch still, staring down at the women. “Do you all see the future or something?”
Laurie shook her head. “No. I wish. We just get a vibe sometimes. And when one of us does, often we all do. I’m not sure if it’s a curse or a blessing.”
“So this thing with the logging site that burned last fall. What was that about? Can someone bring me up to speed? I’m a little lost.”
Laurie smiled from her spot curled up in a chair across from Jackson. “In a nutshell, when my brother Sawyer moved here, he met his mates, Logan Masters and Amanda Williams. You know Amanda probably. She’s human and the sister of Jazmine’s girlfriend, Mary.”
He nodded. “Got it. Right. Amanda. I’ve met her a few times.”
“Anyway, the spirits hung around the logging site. You knew something was amiss because the three of them came to you to warn you about the site a few times.”
“Yes. They first told me to go check it out for over-logging and then called and told me not to go because it wasn’t safe. I stalled as long as I could and then went out there. But who cares about the stupid logging site? What does it have to do with anything?”
Cooper stepped closer to Jackson behind the couch. “It’s not so much the site itself that mattered. The spirits made themselves known near the site many times. In the end, I don’t think the aura cared about profit margins and greedy men with lofty agendas. What they cared about was preparing Amanda to be able to get down the mountain alone and preventing everyone at the site from getting caught in the wild fire that ensued.”
Jackson blew out a breath. “So it could be the spirits are warning about something we have no knowledge of instead of simply warning us to stop fracking and pay attention to the land.”
“Exactly,” Cooper said. “And that’s always the most frustrating part.”
“But we’ve already experienced several tremors in the last few days. Aren’t those usually indicative of something larger?”
“Usually.” Cooper nodded. “But that something isn’t necessarily obvious.”
“No matter how you slice it, we need to stop the fracking right now.” Jackson pushed off from the couch and paced the room next to Cooper.
“If it were that simple, I would have called a halt in the wee hours of the morning. But something like this requires a court injunction, and that takes weeks or months.”