Island Stripe Pride - Chapter 15: Chapter 15

Earlier that same day…
Maggie was exhausted. There was no other word for it. The day had been a total fucking disaster, and that was putting it mildly.
She replayed the events in her head. Uncertain how to break the news to her younger sister, Joelle. But she couldn’t keep it from her. Honesty was the one promise she’d made after their father had died a year ago, that she intended to keep. Joelle was being put on warning at Maccon City High. One more foot out of line and she was looking at a suspension.
Shit.
“Margaret Flint?”
“That’s me,” Maggie stood up and forced a smile.
She hated being called by her full name, but that was the name on the mortgage the bank held in her name. The hotel she’d inherited from her father came complete with a mountainous loan that an unemployed software developer could never pay back without a miracle.
And she’d been working on one. There simply were not enough hours in a day. How could one woman run a hotel, or try to, raise a teenager, or try to, and work on an app that just might change the way hotels communicated with their target clientele?
The answer was pretty damned obvious. Otherwise, she would not be sitting in the bank trying desperately to stop the sale of her mortgage.
The Sunset Inn had been her father’s dream. One he’d shared with his second wife, Debra, and their daughter Joelle. But ever since Malcolm and Debra Flint had passed away in a terrible accident, it had become Maggie’s dream as well.
She hadn’t known her father’s second wife, or his new daughter, very well. Hell, she barely knew him. But the cards they sent every holiday showed a family that Maggie had secretly yearned for all her life.
Her own mother was not demonstrative. In fact, she resented Maggie, and after an exceedingly difficult eighteen years, Maggie had left home the second she’d graduated high school. Much to Susan O’Doyle’s relief.
Malcolm and Susan’s story was neither original, nor was it happy. She’d gotten pregnant with Maggie the year they’d both graduated from Maccon City High. Being Catholic, the O’Doyle’s insisted their daughter have her baby.
But that was as far as her grandparents went towards helping their daughter raise her baby. Malcolm had tried to stay on friendly terms for most of her early childhood, but that was short-lived. Susan was a difficult woman, and she did not like being reminded she had a daughter at all. Having an even casual relationship with her high school boyfriend hardly constituted moving on.
Then Malcolm remarried, and Maggie was forgotten. Well, that wasn’t exactly fair. His wife, Debra, was nice enough to Maggie, but she always felt like the woman was hiding something from her. When Joelle, her half-sister, was born, her visits grew farther and farther apart.
Her dad had explained it away that the hotel and new baby were just a lot to deal with, but he always promised to make it up to her. Maggie tried to understand.
Her own mother’s distance wasn’t too bad, but she’d never liked being a parent. Maggie had often felt like an accessory in her home. Something to take out when she needed dressing up or down whatever the case called for.
It wasn’t until she went away to college that she began to explore her options. She was bright, ambitious, and she had the whole world ahead of her. She’d studied her programming, made headways into business and other fields she was interested in.
Working her way through her bachelor’s degree then her Master’s was difficult, but she’d always thought it would be its own reward. Then the bottom fell out just as she was achieving her second goal.
Her father and his wife passed away suddenly. Victims of an automobile accident that left young Joelle alone, without anyone to care for her. Except Maggie, of course.
In their will, they’d named her Joelle’s guardian, and they also left her the bulk of the hotel with some funds set aside in a small trust for her sister. She had no idea how to run a hotel, and had foolishly trusted Edward Coleson, her dad’s manager to handle things.
Turned out he was a lying thief. She’d caught him stealing from petty cash, and just before shit really hit the fan, he’d left town. If only she’d decided on a business major, she thought with a sad sigh.
Someday, she promised herself. She was going to see that bastard behind bars.
Either way, she was here now and even though her mother had told her she would regret not finishing her Master’s, Maggie was happy. In spite of every lousy thing that had happened in the year since she’d received that horrible phone call.
For the first time ever, she had a family. It was her decision not to pawn Joelle off on some long-distant relation of her mother’s. She really loved her sister despite being sort of alienated from the teen after her birth.
At the reading of her father’s will, Maggie had learned a little bit more about that estrangement than she could have ever guessed. It seemed her father had a few secrets he’d kept from her.
Thinking about them now, she wished he’d told her when he was alive. It would have explained a lot. But after Kurt Lowell had read the will, Maggie had received a surprise visit from an unexpected guest.
Rafe Maccon, and his wife Charley, had come to see her. At first, she’d thought they were friends of her father or Debra’s, though they seemed too young in her opinion to have known them well.
The things she’d learned that day had been eye-opening in many ways. Maggie learned a lot about her father and his wife in a matter of minutes from total strangers, and yeah, that sucked, but at least she could try to do her best by Joelle because of that knowledge. Images of that scene flashed through her head while she waited for the manger to speak to her.
“Ms. Flint, I’m Rafe Maccon, this is my wife Charley. What I am about to tell you is profoundly serious, and also very secret. You might not believe it at first,” he began, and she found herself pinned by his ice-blue stare.
“Rafe, you’ll scare her,” Charley had said, and sat next to Maggie, taking her cold hand in her warm ones.
“Sweetie, we are so sorry about your father and Debra. I only met them once, but they were a very warm, loving couple.”
At that, Maggie had frowned. She wouldn’t know if they were warm or not. How could she when she had never really been invited to come around much?
“Your father named you Joelle’s guardian, Maggie, and it is important you understand what that means.”
“I assume it means that even though they didn’t want me around her when she was a baby, I am stuck raising my half-grown sister, and she doesn’t even know me!” she’d yelled angrily.
“Oh honey, I am so sorry,” Charley had seen past her anger.
She’d pulled Maggie in for a fierce hug and held her despite the sobs that had soaked through her shirt. Embarrassment didn’t begin to cover how mortified she had been, especially when she learned who the Maccons really were.
“What?” she’d screeched.
“We are Werewolves, or Wolf Shifters, as we prefer to be called. Your father and Debra were part of the Pack,” Rafe’s ice blue stare never wavered as he spoke, “I’m the Alpha. That means I lead the Pack. I am responsible for its members.”
“But I am not-”
“I know, Maggie. Not everyone with a Shifter parent inherits the gene. Still, he should have told you. Joelle has already had her first Change a few weeks ago. Lots of new things for such a young girl to face alone.”
“She can turn into a Wolf?”
“Yes, but she still needs help and guidance. That’s what we can offer you. Both of you. You see, Maggie, Pack is family, and Wolf or not, you are that pup’s family, which makes you mine. Please call us if you ever need anything,” he said, and handed her a card.
It was the same card she now gripped tightly in her fist while the bank manager’s secretary pushed her glasses up on her face. Never before had she given in to the desire to call the Macconwood Pack Alpha for help, but Maggie found herself seriously tempted. The older woman gave Maggie a long once over that had her smoothing her skirt nervously.
She should’ve called the Maccons before the meeting. Hell, she should’ve called them when she’d received the first notice from the bank that something was wrong.
But shoulda coulda woulda wasn’t going to solve this problem. And it was her problem to solve. No one else’s. They’d already done so much for the Flint sisters already.
They’d helped Joelle by making sure she knew when Pack runs took place and even started her with after school activities at the Macconwood-Nighthawk Teen Outreach Program run by Cat and Tate Nighthawk.
The older she-Wolf was the Alpha’s sister. A drop-dead gorgeous blonde who was mated to one of his deadliest guards, Tate Nighthawk. The man looked way too serious to Maggie, but he was always polite. She had met with them both a few times. After all, Maggie might have arrived late in her sister’s life, but that didn’t mean she was just going to pawn her off on strangers.
Research was kinda her shtick, and she did her homework on the center before she signed Joelle up for their arts program, and their soccer clinic. The kid had a knack for performing and sports.
As it turned out, Maggie liked Cat Maccon-Nighthawk very much. She’d even offered to hire some of the older teens in the program to work around the inn during the summertime when things would supposedly get busy.
Of course, that offer would be null and void if things at the bank didn’t go her way. And judging from the blank stare of the manager as she entered the room, Maggie had a feeling, things were not about to go her way.
“Ms. Flint you were supposed to be here an hour ago,” he began, “I’m sorry but-”
“I apologize,” she said, not bothering to explain how she had managed to miss such an important meeting.