Chapter 11

Trudy threw her bags into the boot of her car and then turned to embrace her friend.

“Keep me up to speed with what’s happening around here and yell out if anything gets too much for you,” she told Seline firmly.

Seline smiled down at her. “I can almost guarantee that your phone will be ringing soon after these boys arrive.”

“Don’t let Jonathon Richards bulldoze you or push you around.”

“Oh, I have always been a soft touch around Jon, but not when it might affect my girls – you know how stubborn I can get when it comes to their welfare.”

Trudy chuckled but she shook her head firmly. “I know how strong you are, but do not carry the weight of the problems all by yourself – share!”

Seline reached out suddenly and absently touched a strand of Trudy’s shoulder length hair. “I will – I promise,” she said softly.

They hugged again affectionately then Trudy could see Seline waving at her through her rear-view mirror as she drove away.

She smiled as she fixed her attention on the road in front of her.

She enjoyed driving although she did it rarely, especially when she was in London, which was her main residence.

Her week was pretty much booked up from Monday, but she could enjoy her weekend, or perhaps look up one of her nieces ... perhaps Laurie would enjoy a visit, they never did get a chance to talk over the designs that Laurie was producing for Trudy’s new residential block.

It was an uneventful drive back to London, and did not take her long, but it was already growing dark by the time she unlocked her front door and entered her home.

A shower and then she thought that she would order out, since she was not in the mood for cooking.

By the time he returned to Greg’s house, the sun was brushing the trees of the forest, and the early twilight was upon them. Greg and Matt were waiting for him so that they could enjoy dinner together.

“Have I time to take a shower and change,” Jon asked Greg with a little scowl. “The odours from the Frawning’s house seem to have sunk into the very fibres of my clothes.”

“Yes, go ahead we can wait for another half an hour – Matt and I shall have a nice leisurely pre dinner drink.”

“That would have been nice,” Jonathon sighed regretfully.

“You can take one with you?”

“That was my thought too,” Matt grinned strolling out of the living room, and handing him a tumbler of amber coloured liquid.

It was closer to an hour later when they all finally sat down to dinner, but Greg’s cook was a man of talent and their dinner when it was served was as fresh and hot as it would have been, had they all been on time.

They ate the food in appreciative silence for the most part and it was only as they sat enjoying after dinner dinks that their talk picked up a notch.

“So, your meeting with the Frawning’s pack went as you had hoped?” Greg asked.

“Yes ... yes it was pretty much as I thought and planned it would go, and Bill was most obliging when the time came to relinquish the pack leadership.”

“There was no resistance from the brood then?” Matt half laughed in disbelief.

“Well ... Well, they were never going to just roll over and show their bellies were they, we all knew that! It was one of the reasons I needed them to have no prior knowledge of it.”

“So, Bill held your secret? They had not even the slightest inkling of what was going to happen?”

“No, their state of attire and appearance showed just how unprepared they were.”

“But it still was not a stroll through the park, even with Bill onside the others would have resisted?”

“Oh yes, the oldest one – Ben, he tried to argue for leadership once Bill conceded to me, and it could have ended up being a real battle between the two of us, so I had to come down fast and heavy on him and crush his resistance before it could blossom ... it was not my finest hour, but needs must.”

“I can imagine,” Matt murmured sympathetically. “So, what next?”

“Well, I shall need to keep close to them for now and keep my eye on them here for a while, I think. Matt, I need you to drive down to London, to see Michael. Now that I have brought the Frawnings lot to heel, we need to get everything else in progress, Michael will be managing it all, so I need him to get started. I have these documents for him to give him the authority to act on behalf of the council, these plans that James needs so that he can begin his design of the main house. He and James can coordinate things from London to start with.”

“I can do that easily enough – will tomorrow be soon enough?”

“Yes, yes tomorrow is plenty soon enough ... I shall give Michael a call presently and tell him to expect you ... noon ish?”

“Yes ... It will give me an hour or two first thing to take a run, before setting off.”

“I never realised that you were such a fanatic about running?” Greg murmured with a little smile.

Matt returned the smile easily. “I am not usually, but there is something about those woods of yours, they seem to keep calling me, and I find it almost therapeutic. Not to mention that with all this exercise, I have never felt stronger.”

The two convalescents looked at him enviously. He certainly did ooze restrained power, whereas all they felt these days was a nagging lethargy.

The mere thought of charging through those woods the way that Matt did every morning – just the idea made Greg want to crawl to his bed and rest.

Matt took a leisurely stroll around the garden later that evening, before retiring for the night, he found himself once again standing beneath the large oak tree, staring up into the thick leaves and branches.

Even with his keen eyesight the lack of light and the dense foliage made it impossible to see anything, but he had this persistently nagging sense that there were secrets hidden amongst the tree’s leaves.

Finally, out of pure impatience with himself and his fogged-up memory, he reached up and grabbed the low hanging branch, bunching up his muscles as he began to haul himself up into the tree.

The low growl from the forest had him dropping and turning in shock.

“Who goes there!” he demanded loudly as his eyes darkened allowing what little light there was to filter in and increase his sight ability.

The patchy coarse fur told him clearly what had been watching him, and seconds later the aging wolf emerged slowly from the trees, and then sat on his haunches, to stare with dark enigmatic eyes.

For long moments Matt stood staring back, numb from the shock that a wolf born wolf was in this forest.

Usually, the natural wolves avoided the lands of shifters, in his whole life he had never seen one in the flesh – nor heard of anyone else meeting up with one.

He hunkered down so that he was on the same level as the wolf. “What do you want here?” he demanded huskily.

The wolf gave a low whine, and then slowly – warily he crept towards Matt.

Trudy walked quickly down the street, as the sun rose higher overhead.

Laurie was at a loose end since Michael was at his office meeting with someone, and so she was more than happy to see Trudy and talk about their joint project.

She was waiting for her as the elevator doors opened and the smile lit up her niece’s face.

“Aunt Trudy!” she exclaimed happily as the two of them hugged. “Come on inside and we can talk properly - I have made some sandwiches and a pot of coffee to keep us going...”

Trudy chuckled softly as her niece led her into the apartment proper, and then once Trudy was settled on the sofa, she began to pull out drawings and sketches and notes along with fabric swatches of different colours and materials.

They spent the next hour or so discussing options and setting firm plans, and by the time they were done both women were pleased and excited about this project.

Trudy left the building towards midday, and she did so with a light heart and a sense of renewed purpose, and energy. As she walked along, she decided that she would take a holiday, get away from it all for a couple of weeks. She walked along, making her plans, and totally oblivious to the fact that just around the corner and walking quickly away from her, the love of her life – her soul mate was thinking about her, even though he did not truly realise it.

Matt strode down the street towards his nephew’s office building. He had never been there before, but he had always known exactly where Michael was based.

He walked thinking of the encounter last night with that wolf.

He shook his head in bemusement reliving each second, when the wolf’s snout touched his hand, and sniffed at his clothing, before turning suddenly and bounding back into the forest.

Matt had been tempted to follow, he knew that he could easily catch up with the wolf – even in his human form, but something told him not to. Instead with a sigh he turned to walk back up to the main house, to ponder the encounter – such as it had been.