The Werewolf Lawyer's Human Mate

8- The Incompetent Sheriff's Department

Claire Dane's POV

“We’re here,” Jeremy says quietly. His voice is steady, but I feel the weight under it.

We stare at each other, our steps slowing to a near halt, my insides shivering from the intense look in his brown eyes, and not the frigid atmosphere. His eyes are so beautiful, turning into a shade of silver-brown. Metallic even. I’ve never seen eyes like his in all my life- never even heard of it and would never have believed it existed until him.

This pull between us, he feels it too. But once again, we both ignore it, turning back to the mountain lodge ahead of us.

It’s different and larger than I remembered, but I guess this is a different view of it, as I spot the drive-in part, which was familiar. A long timber building with stone pillars and a steep roof heavy with snow is in the near distance. Smoke curls from a chimney, and there are lanterns lining the path, their glow steady and patient, as if they’ve been waiting for us the entire time.

When I had checked in with Ferez and the others, this was not the view we got. But I guess it’s because we came from the other side. The view had been angled outward as if the building itself was leaning into the mountain as we drove in. Clouds drifted at eye level, it seemed, slow and heavy, brushing past the glass as if the building had climbed high enough to meet the sky.

Beyond it, the land fell away sharply, the cliffside dropping into a vast white expanse, the slope cutting down so steeply it made my stomach tilt just looking at it. Pines clung to the rock like stubborn thoughts, their dark spines cutting through the snow.

The memory brings my friends back to mind, along with that dull ache. Hmm, I doubt they would even be concerned that I had gone missing.

My chest tightens.

Jeremy stops beside me, Daniel still bundled against him, asleep and blissfully unaware that the worst is over. Or at least, over enough.

We step inside, and the warmth hits me first, and my toes ache painfully as circulation rushes back, and I sway, suddenly dizzy, suddenly overwhelmed. The lobby smells like pine cleaner and coffee, and wood smoke. There’s a stone fireplace roaring on the far wall, boots lined neatly on a rack nearby, wet coats hanging from hooks. There are Christmas decorations all around, and a bit of pine cone smell from the outside as well. I see in the corner near the massive tree with the holiday ornaments, a huge calendar showing 21. Christmas is near!

This is no place for a child to be, and certainly not at this time of year! My heart aches for Daniel, who should be safe at home with his family, warm and cozy, thrilled about Christmas presents.

A long reception desk stretches across the room. Behind it, a woman in a thick sweater looks up with a casual smile when she sees us. A different person from when I logged in with my friends days ago.

Jeremy gives his name, then his son’s, and the woman nods, punching it in. “Ridge eight.” Then he steps back and gestures for me to do the same.

Stepping forward, I drum my well-manicured nails on the countertop slowly. “Claire Danes from Ridge-”

Her expression changes instantly.“You’re alive!” The girl looks up at me with wide eyes. Then to Jeremy and back at me. “Ridge Two made a report that you were missing. Hold on, let me call the sheriff’s office.”

My friends made a report about me being missing? The realization surprises me, stopping me short, and then clarity settles in like a slow exhalation.

Why have I been thinking of them as cold and unfeeling? Just because things have been awkward between us since what Cruise and Daphne did doesn’t mean they stopped caring. None of this was their fault. They didn’t betray me. They didn’t choose sides. They were just… stuck in the middle.

Guilt pricks at my chest, sharp and deserved. They were uncomfortable, yes, but not cruel. And here I am, quietly rewriting them into villains simply because it was easier than facing how much everything hurt.

God. I really need to reevaluate my life.

“Get a medic as well to check on my son, please.”

Everything happens at once after that. Someone brings blankets, and another person appears with a radio, murmuring into it urgently, concern written all over his face as the receptionist urges us into the nearby seating area.

Daniel is gently coaxed from Jeremy’s arms and laid on a couch near the fire, still wrapped, still sleeping. I hover uselessly nearby, my hands twisting together, my brain lagging behind my body.

Jeremy shrugs out of his coat slowly, like he’s finally feeling the ache in his bones. His hair is damp from melted snow, his shoulders tense beneath his sweater as he instructs the receptionist to book a room for him here. To me, he says, "Relax, Claire, we’re safe now. See, I told you your friends would be looking for you.”

I don’t know what to do when survival mode switches off. I wrap my arms around myself and sit down hard on a nearby chair, feeling the receptionist’s hand on my forehead. She says something to me, but I don’t hear as my eyes fall to the floor, my mind whirling with thoughts. A trace of loneliness now enters my chest… an ache I cannot rationalize that comes with never seeing Jeremy and Daniel again.

The misadventure and the closeness forged in cold and danger.

This is where it ends.

__

Inside the Sheriff’s office, Jeremy stands beside me, hands in his coat pockets, shoulders broad and still. Daniel is with a woman in the back room, wrapped in blankets and watching cartoons on someone’s phone. I can hear the faint, tiny sounds of animated voices drifting through the doorway.

“Where’s Hale?” Jeremy questions the man behind the desk, who shows an irritated expression and almost stands up, but changes his mind halfway and stays seated, telling us to sit down. The sheriff is sitting in his chair as if we’re talking about a fallen fence, not gunfire in the mountains when we entered the office, brought here by a deputy. Deputy Evan Miller. Jeremy wanted me to go to my friends, saying he would handle this part, but I insisted I come because… I didn’t want to say goodbye to him. Not yet.

The sheriff straightens. “Hale?” He and the deputy exchange looks.

The sheriff clears his throat. “He’s… been on medical leave.”

“For how long?” Jeremy presses.

“A couple of weeks.”

Jeremy’s eyes narrow slightly, but the middle-aged man behind the desk looks at the man who drove us here, who is still in the room with us. His cheeks are red.

Bringing us over here, the thirty-something-year-old deputy had told us he had been sent yesterday after Jeremy berated him about the laziness of the department and the strong words he would share with the sheriff about it. “Incompetence is not what Thomas Hale is about.”

Scratching the back of his neck, Deputy Evan Miller said, “I remember driving part of the way up. After that… things get fuzzy.”

“Fuzzy how?” Jeremy had fired back, a frown on his forehead as he stared at the man driving us from the passenger seat.

Deputy Evan Miller had frowned, genuinely confused. “I don’t know. I- mean- I remember stopping. Then I remember waking up in my truck later, radio dead, headache like hell.”

I mean, I don’t know politics, but this was strange. Why would an officer be so careless? The sound of gunfire repeated in my head, and I squeezed my eyes shut. It’s as if reality was finally catching up to me, having been blurred for a while by Jeremy’s presence. Or maybe my attraction to him did that, and reality was sinking in.

Jeremy had crossed his arms, tilting his head. “So you didn’t radio in that everything looked good?”

The younger man blinked, shame crossing his face. “I… don’t remember doing that.”

Silence stretched after that.

Now, Jeremy is raising his voice to the sheriff. “So your deputy blacks out, and you don’t send reinforcements? What if we were hurt? My son is registered at the lodge- you didn’t care to check on a child?!”

Exchanging a look between both of us, the man responds with, “Er, you’re both well, thankfully, and your son seems unhurt. Mr. Anderson, please lower your tone and blacked out? Who did?” The sheriff frowned deeply, glaring at the man standing behind us.

“I did, captain.”

“You what?” The older man fires back at his deputy.

“Blacked out, sir.” The man’s voice was thin.

“If you blacked out, Deputy Evan Miller, who the f#ck radioed in that everything is well?”