The Strength of the Pack (Suncoast Society #30)

The Strength of the Pack (Suncoast Society #30)

Tymber Dalton




Chapter One


NOW this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky,

And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.

As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the law runneth forward and back;

For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.—Rudyard Kipling, “The Law for the Wolves,” The Second Jungle Book, 1895.



Nathaniel Crawford started most of his mornings with a three-mile run. Rain, cold, heat—he didn’t care. Some people needed caffeine.

He needed the endorphins only a good hard run could give him.

He’d thank his step-father, the former Marine drill sergeant for that, if the man, and Nate’s mother, hadn’t been twenty years in their graves.

Although at the time, as a kid, he’d hated morning runs with a passion. Especially the six years they’d lived in England in his early teen years when most of the mornings were wet, cold, and drizzly.

Still, old habits die hard. Especially when they become addictions.

The mornings he didn’t or couldn’t run, usually throughout the rest of the day he felt unsettled, missing…something. Like a car with an annoying, intermittent misfire that you couldn’t quite pin down and diagnose.

Except, in his case, he could pin it down and diagnose it.

Which is why he didn’t miss many runs.

This Saturday morning had been a missed-run morning, and by ten o’clock he was already in the weeds. He’d had to change shirts before leaving the house because he’d managed to not get the lid to his travel mug of coffee snapped on securely and spilled the contents down the front of his shirt.

Then he realized on the drive to his office to meet an early client that his fuel light was on because he’d neglected to stop on the way home last night due to his sick headache.

The lingering remnants of which were why he hadn’t taken his run that morning.

His Saturday morning drive, which usually took him fifteen minutes, took him nearly forty between the gas stop and an accident blocking the road where a car hit a power pole and knocked it over.

Then he arrived at the office to find the power out. Due to the same accident.

Fortunately, that wasn’t a totally bad thing. He could light candles in the treatment room, and was in the process of doing that when his client arrived fifteen minutes early.

While he was trying to get her situated and wondering where the hell Cherise, his receptionist and little sister was, his cell phone rang in his back pocket.

He walked out to the front desk to answer it and found it was Cherise.

“Hey, there’s an accident or something. I’m stuck in traffic.”

“I know. I hit it, too. And the power’s out.”

“Great. Add the phones. I tried calling the office number first and it rang fast-busy.”

Shit. “Lovely. My first client is already here.”

“I’ll get there as fast as I can, bro. So I guess the AC is going to be an issue, too.”

Oh, bloody hell. “Yes,” he muttered. “Please, get here.” It was the first week of December, but the highs were supposed to be in the mid-eighties today, and sunny.

Meaning AC was still a necessity.

“Doing my best, Nate. Love ya.” She ended the call.

He’d have to prop the front door open. In the Florida heat, while the office was well-insulated, if the air-conditioner wasn’t on it wouldn’t take long for the building to warm to uncomfortable levels, even on a day as relatively mild by Florida standards as that one.

After taking care of that, and propping open their back door to allow a cross-breeze, he stepped into the treatment room with his client.

“Mrs. Donalds, I apologize for the inconvenience this morning. I’m going to give you an additional treatment appointment at no charge to make up for today.”

The fifty-five-year-old woman always seemed to wear a smile despite her debilitating chronic pain. “That’s all right. Things happen. Usually for a reason. You don’t need to do that.”

“I want to. Well, let’s get started.”

Mrs. Donalds was here today for an acupuncture appointment. At least it wasn’t a fire cupping treatment, which would have added heat to the rapidly warming office.

Thirty minutes later, Cherise’s head appeared in the partially open doorway and she silently waved.

He waved back, not speaking, acknowledging he saw her. He hated when his routine was disrupted even though he did his best to flow with it.

Easier said than done.

Maybe I should skip the club tonight.

Except he’d promised Marcia he’d do a fire cupping demo tonight, and it had been promoted on the club’s site already.

Bollocks.

The power came on just as he was finishing with Mrs. Donalds. “Well, that was perfect timing,” she teased as he helped her sit up.

“I’m still giving you a free appointment,” he insisted.

“All right. If I tell my husband I gave up a freebie, he’d probably grumble.”

Her insurance didn’t cover her treatments but she’d had some relief from them. Nate discounted her visits because he knew the older couple was strapped for cash.