Free Elijah: Calhoun Men _ Erotic Paranormal Wolf Shifter Romance by Kathi S. Barton Page A

like.”
    “I saw her stepfather the other day. He’s a big man, did you know that?” His dad nodded. “He called the house today too. Earlier this morning. Elijah let me know, and then I called out there and Casen said that she’d taken it all right, but there is another issue that we have to look into.” Trent told his dad what Casen had discovered.
    “You think that she might be some old vamp’s child?” Trent said that he had no idea. “Might be the best thing for her if she is. I know that she’s like us now, with all that Joe and Noah juice running through us, but it won’t hurt her to have a little extra. That man, Merrill, he might learn to back off if she were to come at him with a little of her own magic.”
    “It might not be anything.” His dad nodded again, and Trent held up the next board while his dad shot screws into it. “Dad, what do you think of what we’re doing here? This work that’s going into this building? We might not get the project.”
    An investor was coming into town next week…well, he was one of four that were to come in. Trent had gone to see the city council at their last meeting and had asked to be put in charge of bringing new development to the town. Most of the people, pack included, were having a hard time of it with no jobs to speak of, and people were having a hard time making the few jobs that were there work. He and his family had money, a great deal of it, but they’d worked outside the town and had made their money that way. The ones that lived here, with no desire to travel like he had, were hurting.
    “You said yourself that if we can’t land us one of them contracts that the building will be put to good use. I was thinking that if they decide that we’re too little for them—you know that’s a good possibility—we can use this place for some of the downtrodden around town. And putting a little makeup on this old girl will make the city look a little better.” The little makeup, as his dad had called it, had cost a great deal to get done. And they didn’t even have anyone interested in it right now. “Who you got coming in next week anyway?”
    “One of them is a producer for plastic ware. They make all sorts of things at their company, but when I talked to the buyer, he said that if they did come here, they’d be doing one of three things. I don’t know what those might be, but that’s what he said.” Trent held up the final board for his dad to screw in place. “The other two are very hush hush about what they want the area for. I have an idea whatever it is, we’re going to need a much bigger place than anything this town could handle. The plastics company said they’d hire five hundred people right off. The other two said they’d only need about twenty-five, as they were fully automated.”
    “We need the jobs more than we need automated.” Trent agreed as the two of them gathered up their equipment. “Noelle and Joe are coming over soon. I forgot to tell you when I was talking to Noelle a bit ago. Joe said you knew, I guess. Noelle is a bit skittish and said she needs to talk to you about something. I told her we were working but could use a break, so to come on over.”
    Almost as if he’d conjured them, the two women showed up. Joe came to give him a hug and kiss and Noelle looked around. Dad was showing her all the work they’d done to make the building presentable.
    “I worked for this man once that was point man for a company that made cereal. I don’t think it was any good, the cereal I mean, but they thought they needed to expand.” Trent asked her what the name of the company had been. “Good Eats. It was a terrible name, but he said they wouldn’t change it.”
    “I remember them. They came to us, Elijah and I, when they were having trouble. We told them the same thing…that they needed to change their name to start with. I think they went under a few months later.” She nodded and moved around the room, touching some