CHAPTER NINE

 

 

Kaya saw three clients that morning at her health and wellness clinic. Two of them were regulars and one of them was new. One of her regulars, Charles, had lost part of his leg due to diabetes and came to their clinic for PT and nutrition and diet counseling. Kaya loved all the time she got to spend with Charles. Not only was he funny and kind, he was also determined to get better. Keeping his weight under control so that he wouldn’t aggravate his prosthesis was paramount. Kaya was proud of him for all the work he’d done.

Her second regular, Reuben, she always dreaded seeing just a little bit. He saw her of his own accord, paying out of pocket, because he was convinced he had some undiagnosed food allergy that Kaya was equally convinced he didn’t have. They’d spent countless hours refining his diet plan and testing him for allergies. That part she didn’t mind, but the guy was a real downer. Everything was terrible, according to him. There was no hope and nothing mattered. She was just as kind to him as she was to all of her clients, but she had to admit, she was always relieved when Reuben’s hour was up.

She also saw a new client, Katharine. Katharine was seeing Kaya for fertility issues. Kaya liked her right away, but these kinds of cases could be really tricky. Sometimes people got in their heads that if they changed their diet perfectly, or got acupuncture at the right moment, or took certain supplements, conceiving would be easy. More often than not, that wasn’t the case. But diet was a good place to start and both women were buoyed by the appointment.

She’d started her day a hundred percent certain that she was absolutely not going to see Jackson that day. She figured she’d call him after work to let him know that she wanted some time. A bit of a break from whatever this was that had popped up over the last few days.

But come her lunch break, she was pulling her coat on over her scrubs, putting her head down, and jogging through the snow flurries in their parking lot, straight into his vet’s office.

“Hi there!” a very perky male receptionist said as she came in through the door. “Picking up? Or did you forget to bring your pet? You’d be surprised at how often that happens. People drive all the way across town to come to the vet and realize that they forgot their cat at home.”

“Oh.” Kaya laughed at that idea. “No. Actually, I’m a friend of Jackson’s and I was hoping to see him.”

The receptionist’s eyes widened almost comically. “Jackson has friends? Well, you could knock me over with a feather.” His eyes skated down Kaya in a strictly appraising sort of way. “You’re cute, too. Nurse?”

She looked down at her scrubs, a little bemused by the man’s intensity. “Nutritionist. At the clinic on the other side of the parking lot.”

“Nutritionist? Like a dietician? Girl, I might come see you come swimsuit season. The holidays just wrecked me.”

From what she could tell, the man had barely a pound to spare on his lean frame. “That’s not really what I… You know what? Sure. Come over and see me.”

She doubted he’d come anyways and it was easier than explaining that her job wasn’t to make skinny people skinnier.

“I think Jackson is just finishing up with a client, but you could wait for him in his office if you want to go on back. On the right.” He pointed down the hall.

Kaya considered waiting in the waiting room, but the allure of being able to study Jackson’s office without him there was too tempting.

“Thanks.”

She headed back toward where the receptionist had pointed but ended up passing by Jackson’s office. She was drawn toward the sound of his voice.

“No. No, we don’t necessarily recommend that shot because that’s more of a big city concern. People in New York or LA get that inoculation. But here we’re mostly concerned that he gets his rabies shot, tick and flea, heartworm medication, and Bordetella.”

“Who’d have thought a twenty-pound bag of bones was gonna bankrupt me?”             

Jackson laughed. “Puppies can be expensive. But mostly at the beginning, when you’re getting everything squared away. But we have payment plans here, Gabriel can set you up for it. Also, I think Arlo might be a candidate for our scholarship program.”

“What’s that?”

Kaya couldn’t help but peek around the open door of the exam room. Her heart nearly squeezed itself to death when she saw Jackson in a white lab coat, sitting on a rolling chair with a floppy brown mutt puppy in his arms. The dog had ridiculously long eyelashes and was obviously pleased as punch to be in Jackson’s arms. His eyes were opening and closing slowly as if he were caught between a dream and reality. As Kaya watched, the dog relaxed so much that Jackson had to adjust his grip to keep the puppy from oozing down onto the floor.

“We have a program here that offsets any vet expenses you might accrue as long as you train, register, and attend companion animal hours at the children’s hospital. It takes a lot of work to train him, and he’ll have to pass a test. But it’s more about a dog’s personality than it is about his skills. After that, you’d be obligated to bring him twice a month to visiting hours at the children’s hospital to let him spend time with kids.”

Well, Kaya was dead. That was the all-time sweetest thing she’d ever heard in her entire life. And the fact that Jackson was explaining it while holding a puddle of a puppy in his arms was enough to make her ovaries take flight and float her clear over the mountains.

“Oh, that’s interesting,” the puppy’s owner said. “Actually, I’d be really down to do that.”

“Cool. Gabriel can fill you in on the particulars of the program when he checks you out at the end of the appointment. Now, before you go, I’d like to talk to you about the puppy’s food.”

Kaya slipped backward toward Jackson’s office, not wanting to intrude any longer. She walked straight to the chair behind his desk and sat down. She’d fully intended to snoop around, but she found that her mind was spinning so fast from watching him be so sweet with that puppy that she just had to sit and get her bearings for a while.

About ten minutes later, Jackson came into his office, his eyes clouded with thought as he dried his hands on a paper towel and tossed it into the trash. He kicked the door closed and, without noticing Kaya, crossed to the bookshelf on the far wall. He was still lost in thought as he pulled a large reference volume off the shelf and flipped it open, moving over to where the light was better by the window.

His brow furrowed as he read. Kaya, quiet as a mouse, just looked her fill. God, he was almost painfully good-looking. Not in a classic, movie star way. He was a bit too lanky for that, his hair was a little too wavy, his eyes too deep-set and dark, his brow too prominent. But there was something about him that just called to her. Looking at him felt right. He felt right. This whole mess of a situation felt right. Which, to her, kind of felt wrong.

She hadn’t asked for this. And she wouldn’t have asked for it if given a choice. But the snowstorm had taken that choice away for both of them. And now she feared she might be screwed. He’d kissed her senseless, cuddled a puppy on his lap, and now she was good and truly screwed.

He glanced up, clearly ruminating on something he’d just read, and finally caught a glimpse of her sitting in his chair behind his desk.

“Oh!” His face instantly morphed into raw happiness at the sight of her. He clapped the book closed and crossed over to her. “I didn’t realize you were here. I wasn’t expecting you.”

He came around the desk and leaned against the edge of it as he smoothed her hair back, chasing some of the loose pieces and twisting them back into her messy bun.

“I wasn’t expecting to come visit you,” she answered honestly, sure that her expression showed just how confused she was by this whole situation.

His eyes warmed with affection for her. “I’m assuming all this has you just as off-kilter as it has me?”

She frowned. “It didn’t, until I came in here and saw you cuddling a puppy and being so sweet to the puppy’s owner. You’re supposed to be surly and difficult, Jackson. Not sweet and lovable.”

He laughed. “Sorry, I’ll work on that.”

“That scholarship thing was your idea, wasn’t it?” She wasn’t sure how she knew that to be true. She just knew.

He shifted, a little uncomfortable at the attention. “Um. Yeah. One of our clients here does it anyways and invited me to come watch a couple years ago. It blew me away how much the kids responded to it. The dogs obviously loved all the attention and the duty and importance of it. But when I talked to one of the hospital administrators, she said that barely anyone brings their dog because the certification process is actually a little rigorous. I got to thinking about what would incentivize people to do it.”

“So you figured that your clinic could start covering all vet costs in exchange for the commitment to certify their animals and make a bunch of kids’ days.”

He shrugged, obviously very sheepish now and something else made sense to her.

She slowly rose from the chair. “Oh my god. The clinic doesn’t cover the costs, do they?”

His eyes dropped.

She reached forward, leaning into him and putting one finger under his chin so that he had to look at her. “Jackson, are you funding this from your own pocket and calling it a ‘scholarship fund?’”

His eyes dropped again, giving her the answer, and she didn’t wait, didn’t hesitate, she simply flung herself forward and pretty much climbed right up his body. Even leaning backward he was still way taller than she was so she had to boost one of her knees up on the desk and then just plaster the rest of her weight against him. She twisted her hands through his hair, her arms around his neck. But her mouth sipped sweetly from his mouth. Gently, almost gratefully.

His hands fisted in the back of the puffy winter coat she still wore. He’d made a sound of surprise when she’d first jumped on him, but now his noises were down to a sort of low, appreciative grumble in his chest.

She was the one who deepened the kiss this time. She felt sweeping waves of want and desire for this man overtake her. But there was something else there, too. For the first time since they’d started this arrangement, Kaya felt like she might be in danger of drowning in affection for Jackson.

The revelation had her pulling back from the kiss, breathing hard, her eyes just a couple of inches from his. He looked turned on as hell, mussed up, blurry and bright. His arms were all the way around her now, holding her tight like she was a magical creature who might disappear if he let up even an ounce of pressure.

They didn’t kiss again. They just stared at one another. She wasn’t sure if he could sense that something was shifting on her side of things, but he was sure looking at her like he knew it.

She had to say something. She knew she did.

The door to his office swung open. “Jackson, I—whoa, my GAWD.”

The receptionist stood in the doorway, his mouth open almost as widely as the door was.  It sent a curl of pleased, proprietary happiness through Kaya that a woman wrapped around his boss was obviously something the receptionist had never seen before.

“Did you need something, Gabriel?” Jackson asked in a gruff voice after enduring a full ten seconds of gaping from his employee. Kaya wiggled but Jackson just held her tighter, obviously unwilling to let her get away.

“I—uh—yeah. Yes. Wow. Officer Woodrow is here with a new pet. He doesn’t have an appointment but—”

“I’ll see him. Can you bring him back to room B and tell him I’ll be with him in a few minutes?”

“Sure.”

“You can go now, Gabriel.”

“Okay.”
But Gabriel’s eyes took their sweet time sweeping over the sight of Kaya in Jackson’s arms. It took about nine minutes for him to close the door.

“Sorry. He’s a little bit of a character. If I’d known you were coming, I would have told you that I could meet you at your clinic instead.”

“I liked meeting him.” She looked around. “I like seeing your life over here.” She let her eyes roam around his office and started to slide down from him, but Jackson’s hand went to her knee that was still propped on the desk and held her there, pinned against him.

She let him hold her as she peered around at his office. The office was tidy, but a little overstuffed, with all the reference books on the shelves, models of animal skeletons, medicine samples in a locked cabinet, a desk full of vaguely organized papers. And on one wall there was  a bulletin board stuffed full with what looked to be holiday cards.

“Are those from clients?”

There were posed family photos and posed pictures of pets with greetings printed and handwritten on the sides; some of them looked years old.

He nodded.

“It’s nice that you keep them.”

He nodded again. “It’s a nice reminder.”

“Of what?”

He let her go then, let her slide down his body. When both of her feet were on the floor, he straightened her jacket and fixed her hair again. “That people like me. That my natural disposition is actually quite kind. That I’m not a born asshole.”

Kaya’s eyes tracked back and forth between his. She took a deep breath. She had to get out of there.

“Well,” she said, zipping up her coat. “I think we’re all paid up here. Meditation for a kiss. Even Steven. Let me know when more payment is due.”

He smiled, though there was a little bit of sadness in it. “You know I will.”

She gave him a quick, terse hug and was all the way to the door when his voice stopped her again.

“Kaya?”

She turned.

“Thank you.”

She nodded and left while she still could. She shouldn’t have come. That much was clear to her. If she went to a doctor’s office and told them that she’d had exposure to something and it had made her dizzy, panicky, delirious, given her jelly legs, made her heart race, made her sweat, made her want to sleep for a hundred years but also run a million miles… they would probably tell her that she was allergic to that thing! So. Yes. That’s what this was. She’d had too much Jackson exposure and she was having an allergic reaction to it. She needed to purge her system of him!

She was just walking through the waiting room again when Gabriel’s voice caught her attention again.

“See you soon!”

He twiddled his fingers at her.

Kaya raised a hand to him. “Maybe.”

“Oh, I hope you come back. You’re way cuter than that other girl who used to come around for Jackson.”

Kaya froze, one hand on the doorknob to the veterinary clinic, her back to the waiting room. Then she pushed through without another word. The fresh slap of cold air did nothing to assuage the eruption of fire that had just taken place in her gut.

What other girl?

Who used to come around for Jackson? She’d never, ever heard of him having a girlfriend. She hadn’t imagined that he’d been celibate, but had he been dating this whole time and she didn’t know?

She paused, halfway across the parking lot. Was he dating right now?

The idea that he might have his fingers in more than one pie made Kaya fairly certain that if she were to stick a firework in her mouth right now, she’d be able to set the dang thing on fire. Her hands in fists, her teeth clenched with unnameable emotions, she walked on stiff legs back to work.

 

 

***

 

 

After Kaya left his office, Jackson allowed himself four minutes to gather his composure. He used every single second of it.

She came over to see me. She kissed me because she couldn’t help herself.

This thought played on a repeating loop until Jackson found himself turning to the mini fridge by his desk and pulling out a bottle of water so he could gulp down half of it in one go. He wiped his mouth with a hand that shook. He’d never thought he’d ever be in this position. One where he was kissing Kaya on a regular basis and thought himself deserving of it.

“God.”

He dropped into his desk chair and finished the water bottle. Realizing that his wolf, even completely uncontrolled, hadn’t hurt Kaya had completely changed the trajectory of his life. The idea that she might not be in danger from him was so mind boggling that he probably should have put a few weeks or months into careful thought and consideration of the situation. But he’d loved her too long to move slowly anymore. He was launching himself into this new world, no shell to protect himself, but he couldn’t stop.

Jackson pushed to his feet, straightened his tie and his lab coat, and strode out of his office and into exam room B.

Officer Ben Woodrow sat in one of the chairs with, of all things, a goose on his lap. He set the goose carefully onto the ground and rose up to shake hands with Jackson.

They’d met a little over a year ago when Ben had been the first officer to respond to the scene when Race Brighton had set illegal traps on the Durant family land and held a gun on Natalie. He’d almost, almost caught Raphael in his wolf form, protecting Natalie, but he’d burst onto the scene just a few moments after Raphael’s shift. Instead he’d encountered a butt-naked Raphael hovering over Natalie, who’d gotten her leg caught in one of the traps.

To Jackson’s surprise at that moment, Officer Woodrow had barely blinked at Raphael’s nudity and instead had barked for them to get him some clothes to cover up. Seth had sprinted back to the house and come back with clothes just moments later, beating the other officers to the scene.

Jackson had thought back on that action many, many times. He’d come to the conclusion over the year that Officer Woodrow was most likely a shifter sympathizer. Finding a naked man in the woods and not even asking why he was naked seemed to be an indication that he might already understand why a man might find himself naked in the woods.

Jackson had wondered whether or not Ben was a shifter himself, but a few months ago, he’d seen a TV interview with the officer that had taken place with the full moon clearly in the background. So, he definitely wasn’t a shifter.

Jackson had been surprised when, a few weeks after first meeting the police officer in the woods, he’d met him again in the confines of his office. He’d come in with a three-legged cat. Since then, he’d seen the officer quite often.

Turned out that Officer Ben Woodrow had quite the bleeding heart. He lived on about a hundred acres outside of town and he and his wife kept over thirty animals there. Some of them barn animals, some of them pets, and some of them wild animals they were rehabilitating. Usually, when Jackson heard something like this, it made his heart sink. People generally just didn’t have the skills or energy or knowledge to care for that many animals. The conditions of those kinds of layman facilities were usually abysmal, the animals in worse situations than if they’d been on their own. But not only did Ben and his wife Shelly have the correct licensure to have that many animals, their facilities were also state of the art. Jackson had been out there a few times to pay house calls to some of the animals and had been duly impressed.

Ben and Shelly obviously took extremely good care of the animals. Jackson really liked them both.

“Hey there, Ben. What do we have going on today?”

“Jackson! Good to see you. I brought my, uh, my goose.”             

Jackson laughed. “I can see that.”

He bent down to study the goose who was standing quietly, slightly behind Ben’s legs, peering out at Jackson.

“What seems to be the issue?” Jackson asked, noting that the goose didn’t seem to be behaving in any way he’d seen a goose behave before. He was quite still, almost suspicious.

“He lost an eye a few days ago.”

As if on cue, the goose turned his head and Jackson saw a gaping, bloody hole where an eye should have been. Something tugged at a corner of Jackson’s brain, but he couldn’t place it.

Jackson frowned. “Poor guy. You found him that way?”

Something passed over Ben’s facial expression, something dark and angry. But it was quickly smoothed away. “He came to us that way, yeah.”

“He’s a new acquisition?”

Ben nodded. “Yeah. Hoping to rehab him and send him back out into the world.”

That was another reason that Jackson approved of Ben and Shelly’s operation. Their goal was to rehab animals enough to send them back into the wild. They didn’t turn every animal into a pet.

“All right, well, I’ll take a look and see what we can do.”

Jackson approached the animal in a practiced way, from behind, sure hands over the wings, a firm grip. It was how one should pick up a goose, but oddly enough, Ben winced, looking a little sheepish.

“Something the matter?” Jackson asked Ben.

“No, not at all. Um, just so you know, he’s a very well-trained goose. Almost domesticated.” He gave Jackson a strangely meaningful look. “If you just set him on the exam table, I’m sure he’d stay there just fine. He doesn’t need to be handled.”

This was kind of a strange way to try to control the way your vet interacted with your animal, but honestly, it wasn’t the first time that Ben had acted this way either. Not with every animal he’d brought in over the year. But for a few of them here and there he seemed to have specific  ideas on how the animal should be treated.

 Jackson set the goose on the exam table and sure enough, the animal stayed perfectly still. Not even making a noise.

Domesticated. Jackson turned the word over and over in his mind. He’d never heard of a domesticated goose before in his life and he’d definitely never ever seen one this well behaved. He snapped gloves on over his hands and began to examine the animal, checking for any other injuries. He drew blood and then started his examination on the eye. He saw that the wound was meticulously clean, most likely Ben’s doing. But he cleaned it again anyway. The goose lifted and dropped his feet in obvious pain, but didn’t even make a noise. He just held still under Jackson’s ministrations.

Jackson frowned. That was so weird. “The socket looks all right. I think this wound will heal on its own as long as it doesn’t get infected and as long as he doesn’t worry it at all. I’ll give you the supplies you need to re-bandage it. And some care instructions. Unfortunately there’s nothing we can do to improve his sight, but we can try to make him comfortable while he’s healing.”

Jackson cleaned and bandaged the eye, put the goose back on the ground, and then turned to toss his gloves in the trash and wash his hands. While he had his back to Ben, he gathered his thoughts. Something wasn’t right here. Had Ben drugged the animal in order to get him to act that way? He thought back on some of the other animals that Ben had brought through his office. The ones for whom Ben had had strange rules on how to handle had also exhibited strange behavior. A supposedly wild hare who’d been damn near a lapdog, not skittish in the least, rubbing against Jackson’s hands and trying to get him to hold her. A Labrador who’d walked onto the scale so quickly and easily it was as if he’d understood English.

But the only animals who truly understood English…

Something clicked into place in Jackson’s brain. He suddenly remembered, with a dizzying clarity, the thing that had been tickling his mind when he’d first seen the goose. The radio report he’d heard in his car before Christmas, right before he’d picked up Kaya.

There’d been a vigilante attack against a small group of shifters. Was it three or four? Either way, they’d all gotten away. But one of them had lost an eye. He turned slowly and avoided Ben’s eyes. He looked only at the goose. The wound, in his opinion, was certainly a few days old.

He thought back to other animals he’d seen that Ben had brought. They’d had broken limbs and signs of having been trapped. He’d even removed buckshot from a few of them. There’d been signs of blunt force trauma and deep, slashing wounds. Now, the members of their community knew that Ben and his wife were running an animal rehab center of sorts, so Jackson just assumed that when anyone in Boulder found or observed a hurt animal, Ben Woodrow was who they called. But… what if that wasn’t the case at all?

What if Jackson hadn’t been treating animals? What if Jackson was unknowingly treating shifters?

If the shifter who’d had his eye injured by the vigilantes had gone in his human form to an urgent care, he would have definitely risked identification and arrest. But going in his animal form to a veterinarian…

“That’s an unusual wound for a goose,” Jackson said, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the counter. He needed information from Ben while not risking giving too much information to Ben.

Ben cleared his throat and the goose went back to standing behind his legs. “Yeah.”

“Any idea how he got it?”

Ben’s face was a friendly blank, perfectly innocent, exactly how someone would want to look if he were hiding information. “I’m assuming an altercation with another animal.”

Jackson tipped his head to one side. “I don’t think so. If it were an altercation with an animal, there’d be other marks, most likely. Injured wing or foot. Claw or teeth marks. And for that matter, there’d be claw or tooth marks around the eye socket. But from what I can tell, whatever took out the goose’s eye did it quite cleanly. Maybe even with a blade.”

Ben nodded. He looked uncomfortable and Jackson was certain it was because he was hiding information. Because these were blatant pieces of information that any cop worth his salt would certainly have already noticed. He was pretending not to have noticed, which was a dead giveaway of just how much he was hiding.

“Oh. Right. I hadn’t thought about that,” Ben said woodenly. “You think it was a human who attacked him?”

Jackson shrugged. “But the goose is friendly. He showed no skittishness during the examination.”

“Right. Quite a puzzler.”

Ben looked distinctly uncomfortable now, looking more at the goose than he did at Jackson.

Jackson’s heart pounded in his chest as he said the next part. “Ben, you’re a hell of a cop and an absolutely terribly liar.”

Ben stiffened, his shoulders thrown back and high color on his cheeks. He was obviously trying to take back control of the situation, but scrambling to figure out how. “I—you—there’s an explanation—”

He cut himself off and sagged downward. “I couldn’t expect you to never catch on, I suppose.”

Jackson’s stomach flipped. He was outright admitting it?

“I guess,” Ben went on, “that I was hoping that when you figured it out you’d have sympathy. For obvious reasons.”

Jackson’s gut went cold as ice. “Obvious reasons being what exactly?”

What exactly was Ben implying here? Shifter accusations could not be thrown around lightly. Especially not from a badge-carrying cop. This was the ultimate form of blackmail. If Ben knew for sure that Jackson or his brothers were shifters, then there was nothing he couldn’t extort out of Jackson. Jackson would do literally anything to keep his brothers from being round up and registered.              

Ben looked up, his eyes cautious. “Your brother,” he said slowly. “Raphael.”

So, Ben had figured it out that night last year, why Raph had been naked in the woods. He’d known that Raphael had just shifted back from his animal form. And now he was referring to it as an obvious reason why Jackson would have sympathy for the fact that Ben had been bringing Jackson shifters to treat for a year.

Jackson pulled himself up to his full height, his heart banging in his chest. “I have no idea what we’re talking about here. But I don’t take kindly to being threatened.”

“Jackson.”

The goose started making distressed noises and backing away. Ben jumped to his feet as Jackson strode to the door. “Jackson, wait.”

“I think it’s time for you to find yourself another vet.”

Ben jumped between Jackson and the door and slammed it closed. “Jackson, please wait. All that came out wrong. I wasn’t trying to threaten you. I’d never threaten you or your family, all right? Ever. I want to help.”

“By insinuating that you know private information about my brother that could, in the wrong hands, get him imprisoned for life? Fuck you. Don’t make me throw you out of here.”

Jackson tried to get the door open again, but Ben threw his entire weight against it.             

“Jackson, listen to me. Please!”

Jackson shoved him to the side but Ben grappled forward, grabbing Jackson by the collar of his white coat.

“Jackson!” He tersely dropped his voice to a whisper. “Shelly is one, too. Shelly is, too. Okay? I’d never fucking turn Raphael in. Everything I do is to make things safer for shifters. For Shelly. I have no quarrel with you or your family. And neither does my wife.”

Jackson went dead still. Ben Woodrow had just admitted that his wife was a shifter. Never, in Jackson’s almost forty years of living on this earth had anyone ever admitted openly to him that they or someone they loved was a shifter. It was akin to a sentence of life in prison for that person. And not just for Shelly, who would be rounded up and registered and interned at a shifter camp. But there would be jail time for Ben as well. It was illegal to know about a shifter and not report it. Ben had just taken a tremendously huge risk. He’d put himself out there entirely and completely.

Jackson backed up from the door and sagged backward against the counter. “Jesus Christ.”

“Can anyone hear us in here?” Ben asked tersely, his back still against the door.

Jackson shook his head. He dragged a hand down his face and took a long breath. “You’re telling me that you and your wife are running a rehab facility for shifters?”

“It’s for regular animals, too. But yes. We’re known in the area for being a safe haven for any shifter who needs a helping hand for a while.”

“And the animals I’ve seen over the past year…”

“Some have been true animals and some have been shifters.”

“Why me?”

“After I saw Raphael naked in the woods, I knew exactly what he was. I knew he’d just shifted back. I knew you’d have a vested interest, maybe even an expertise, in shifter care if you ever found out who I was bringing through your doors. Like what happened four minutes ago.” Ben let out a long breath. “I was trying to keep you ignorant of it. I wasn’t trying to bring you in to the scheme and implicate you.”

Every veterinarian knew that knowingly treating a shifter in their animal form without reporting was a minimum of a ten-year prison sentence.

“But I also knew,” Ben said in a torn tone of voice, “that if you ever figured it out, you were much less likely to turn us in. Because of your brother.”

Jackson’s mind spun. “What were you doing before me?”

“Bringing them to vets all over the state. No one more than once. Using fake names and info so we couldn’t be tracked.”

Jackson’s eyes settled on the goose who was hiding in plain sight in one corner of the room. “Can you understand me?” he asked gruffly.

The goose nodded his head.

“I take it you can shift at will?”

The goose nodded again.

“Fine.” Jackson turned his attention back to Ben. “I’m going to come by your farm tonight. I want to reexamine the patient in his other form. The medical care I’ve given for a year… it’s been for animals, Ben. Not for…”

He couldn’t bring himself to say shifter.

He brought a hand up to his face. “I want to reexamine every single patient you’ve brought me. I set bones in their animal forms. Given stitches. Small surgeries. Who knows how that would affect their human forms?”

He felt sick knowing that things he’d done to shifters in their animal forms may have permanently impacted their human forms. The truth was, he just didn’t know how to medically treat shifters. It was a highly specialized training. A mixture of a medical degree and a veterinary degree and it required one to work within the shifter camps. Not something Jackson had ever wanted.

But that information was highly guarded. The government didn’t want people to be able to google how to care medically for shifters because it would be just another way to keep shifters a secret from the government.

“You did the best you could,” Ben said. “And so did we. We had to make a decision here, Jackson, every time. Is it better to have buckshot removed in your animal form? Or to go to ER and be reported as a shifter? The choices are really shitty, but you’re the best choice. Every time.”

“I’ll be by after work. Around six.”
Ben nodded, a rising hope in his eyes that was momentarily dimmed. “Jackson, we’re a way station more than anything. Most of the shift—patients that you’ve seen are long gone. Healed and moved on.”

“I understand. Anyone who is still there, I want to examine again. No false pretenses this time.”