The Lost Son.

Chapter 5

Emera had noticed the truck driving up the drive of the old Cartwright property as they passed. She smacked the steering wheel again and snarled, the sun had been gleaming off of his windshield and it had been impossible to see inside of it. She wished that she could get a glimpse of this guy, at least once.

"How am I supposed to protect my pack if I couldn't even tell them what he looks like,” she snarled to herself and turned the music up. Maybe she would hit Ryan up for a sparring match later, she could defiantly use a distraction and let of some steam right now.

She pulled into the parking lot of the big wholesale store and the others did the same. Looking down at the small book worth of supplies that Cookie needed, along with the various other lists of items that they needed she decided that groups would be the best option. She jumped out of the truck and waited for the others to do the same. As the group assembled she made a mental note of the pack members that were part of the shopping party today. There were four Elites: Travon, Lana, Victor and Brian and Four other pack members: Anne Marie, Mary Anne, Leanna and Grant. Anne Marie and Mary Anne walked over and stood by their mates Victor and Brian. They were twins, both quite simple in the standards of werewolf beauty, but would still be considered gorgeous in human standards. They had long dark red hair that had been pulled into a high pony tail and dark green eyes. They were both wearing dark blue jeans and a loose fitting patterned blouse, one in red and the other in blue. It caused her to giggle thinking about how they must have planned to dress alike. They had both joined the pack about a year after she became alpha. She had sent Victor over to another pack to receive some information from their alpha and well he was away Anne Marie and him found each other. He had told her that they had 'bumped' into one another and that was all it took. 'True love' at first touch, he still smiles when he talks about it. Of course he had brought her back to be mated right away and Emera got two new pack members out of the whole situation. Mary Anne would not let her leave without her and it just so worked out that her and Brian were also meant to be.

Leanna and Grant were the youngest of the group. Both had turned 18 over the last year and in a couple of months she hoped would be heading off to go to college. She always encouraged the wolfs that wanted to go, but if they didn't she wouldn't push them. She just hoped that Grant would decide to go to college rather than stay with the pack and train to be an Elite like he kept saying he wanted to. She would love to have him as part of her Elite group but wanted him to try school first.

"Okay boss," Travon chuckled, "what’s the plan? Stick together as a group or divide and conquer?" Emera sighed and glared at him.

"Okay, we have a long list of supplies that we need to pick up before the morning is over so we will split into teams, every team gets two pages." The males all huffed, shopping was not their idea of a great time. "Anne Marie, Mary Anne you are team one on produce duty." They took the pages she handed them. "Victor and Brian you guys are on meat and cheese duty.” They grinned and gave each other a high five, as far as shopping went that was the dream job for two male werewolves’. She shook her head and handed them the list. "Lana, Leanna and Travon, you’re on dry goods." Lana took the list from her. "That means Grant you’re with me." The young wolf blushed and Travon nudged him in the arm.

"Don't worry kid she doesn't bite, hard."

"Ha ha ha, okay everyone let’s get this done, everyone makes sure we get EVERYTHING on Cookies list, we all know how he gets," the group giggled and started off to their designated areas of the store.

"Here you go Grant," she handed him the list and started out at a brisk walk to the store. He paused for a few seconds to look of the list. "Let’s go kid, catch up we don't have all day."

"Coming!" he huffed and took off at a run to catch up. She chuckled under her breath at the boy, he was a good kid, a hard worker and a bit of a hot head with a quick temper, she just hoped he could control it today. They both grabbed carts and started pulling items off of the shelves. Before too long they had marked off all but a few items on their lists and were heading to the front of the store. Since it opened about a year ago, she had been a frequent shopper here and a few of the tellers knew her.

"Hey Emera,” the checker at the register called out to her after he glimpse her over the top of her cart piled high with soap, deodorant, towels and other various items. He ran around the cart to help her unload and ran smack dab into her. It caught him off balance and he landed with a hard thud on the ground with Emera on top of him. Grant let go of his cart and ran over to where he had watched his alpha go down. When he saw what had happened he let out a low rumbling growl and was about to pounce on the cashier when an arm reached around him and he was in an arm hold that stopped him in his place. Grant looked back at Travon who was standing behind him.

"Cool it dude," he snarled.

"But..." Grant started.

"She'll let us know if she needs us, were supposed to be blending in, remember?" When Grant finally relaxed enough Travon released him.

"How do you do it. Just stand here well the alpha is, well, you saw."

Travon let out a snort, "She'll make a rug out of you if you don't, that’s how." The young wolf cringed, "Plus my young friend, we have to blend in with the humans when we are around them. And think about it, would the alpha ever 'lose her balance' just like that unless she wanted too?"

Grant shrugged as he thought about it, "Your right I guess," he finally agreed, "but that doesn't mean I have to like it." He turned and walked back to the carts to start unloading them onto the counter.

Emera let out a yelp as she fell to the ground landing on the cashier.

"Oh, well a hello to you too Jack," she smiled and looked at him. He blushed a beautiful shade of crimson and helped her to her feet.

"I’m so sorry," he stammered, "I hope that I didn't hurt you." Emera laughed and dusted off her pants.

"Nope, I’m good. After all I had a cushion to land on." Jack blushed and turned to the cart and helped Grant finish unloading it.

"Looks like you’re expecting a lot of company," he observed as he looked around at another six carts that had pulled in behind hers.

"Yep, well just call it a reunion of sorts." Travon chuckled at her answer and she turned and glared at him.

"From the looks of it, it'll be one heck of a shindig."

"You can say that again,” she huffed.

Twenty minutes later the nine wolfs pushed out the eight very over loaded baskets of supplies. 'They had made pretty good time in all,' she thought well they were loading the supplies into the trucks. When everything was finally loaded she called the group over one more time.

"Okay, I have a couple more errands to run in town so Grant you can hang with me and the rest of you can head back to the house and help Cookie put this stuff away." They nodded and headed back to their trucks when Leanna ran up to her with a pleading look in her eye. "Yes Leanna, what’s up?" The alpha asked.

"I was wondering if maybe I could go back with you, there was something else I wanted to look at well we were in town. If that’s okay with you." She studied the young girl for a moment, and could almost sense the urgency in her voice.

"Sure jump in!" she finally said and the girl squealed and opened the door, rearranging a few items before jumping in.

"I'm going to go talk to Will and get the rest of what’s on Cookies list. Then I’ll be back at the house," she called out to Travon, who nodded in acknowledgement and jumped in his truck. She heard the engines fire up and watched them drive out of the parking lot.

Jumping in the truck she looked over at her two passengers. "Okay you two we have a few errands to run down town." Leanna squealed and Grant gave a snort and let out a huff.

"Girls are so silly," he muttered to himself, receiving a sharp glare from Leanna. Emera chuckled at the antics between the two wolfs and headed into the small town.

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Alexander watched the four black trucks pull off at the superstore. He thought about following them but decided better of it, he really didn't have any extra room for anything that he would find in that store. Instead he headed deeper into the town, he needed to explore the place anyway. As he drove down the main street, looking out of the window at all of the little stores along the way he noticed the grocery store and the hardware store close by each other. He pulled his truck into one of the parking spots in front of the hardware store and climbed out. Pulling the door open he walking inside and glanced around. He grabbed one of the small carts and started patrolling the aisles grabbing this or that as he went. Before he knew it his cart was filled with supplies. He headed to the register at the back of the store and started putting stuff on the counter.

"Haven't seen you around here before," the older man behind the counter said as he watched Alexander pull things out of his cart.

"That wouldn't surprise me," Alexander chuckled," I just got into town last night."

The man wrinkled his eye brows at him, "How did you find your way up to our neck of the woods?" he asked.

"Oh, I just bought a chunk of land up north of here about twenty miles or so," he explained.

"So you’re the one who bought the old Cartwright property, Margaret had said someone had purchased the old place but no one knew who it was."

"Well, here I am,” he chuckled and extended his hand, "Names Alex."

"Nice to meet you Alex, I’m Burt, the owner of this here fine establishment." Burt smiled and grabbed his hand giving it a firm shake. "Well let’s get you all checked out."

"Sounds good, I also am going to need to get some lumber, there is a lot to do out there," he sighed.

"Lumbers in the back," he started and then looked up when he heard the door chime. In walked the town sheriff. He wasn’t a very tall man and had a pot belly, his speckled grey hair stuck out on all sides under his black sheriff’s baseball cap. Alex watched as he walked up to the counter and leaned over it.

"Hey Burt, how are things going this morning?" the sheriff asked eyeing Alex.

"So far so good Will," Burt chuckled, "Hey, have you met Alex?"

"I don't believe I have had the pleasure," Will stated and stuck his hand out. Alex took it.

"Pleasure to meet you Sir," Alex smiled at him.

"What brings you to town Alex?" Will asked.

"He's the one who bought the old Cartwright property," chimed in Burt. The Sherriff looked at Alex.

"Oh really? So Mr. Alex, are you a hunter then?" He looked between the two men and couldn't help but smile.

"Nope, don't much care for hunting. I've just decided that some peace and quiet for a while would be nice." The Sherriff chuckled and shook his head.

"Well, you shouldn't have a problem with that up there," he said sarcastically, "I best be off, got to finish my rounds. It was nice to meet you Alex. Burt, I'll catch you later," with that he walked out of the store.

"I decided to just go ahead and open you up an account here at the store so you can just come by and pick stuff up, then worry about paying later." Burt smiled at him.

"Well thanks Burt. That’s very kind of you, I’m guessing all be back quite a bit before I get the place up and running."

"There is a drive up door around back, good luck up there at the old property and if you need anything don't be afraid to ask." Alex nodded and headed out the front with his bags of supplies. He dumped them on the back seat and drove his truck around to the loading area in the lumber yard.

About twenty minutes or so later he had his truck loaded down with as much lumber as it could hold. Plywood, 2x4's, 4x4's and lots of other various sized wood created the strategically stacked pile in the back of his truck. He jumped back in and pulled into the spot in front of the store again. He needed to run into the grocery store and grab a few items, like coffee. He needed coffee, he really needed coffee.