The Alpha Claims A Mate (5 page)

Piece of cake.

“So, those archeologists…are they still getting harassed by people from the panther nation?” Sheriff Armstrong asked.

Thank God
, she thought.
Normal conversation!
Any more flirting and I’d crawl across the table and lick his neck.  I am not a woman of willpower, damn it.  My size sixteen ass is living proof of that.

“They’d mentioned it.  What’s that all about? They’re not on panther territory, right?”

“No, but they’re uncomfortably close. Probably not the best place for a dig. The panthers suspect them of secretly looking for tribal artifacts, and the site keeps getting sabotaged.  Tires have been slashed on vehicles, tools keep getting stolen. They posted a security guard there, and the security guard quit the next day, said he saw panthers pacing around in the shadows all night long.”

Blue Moon
County was located on the border of The Panther Nation, a huge section of Florida forest and swampland that was inhabited only by a small, close-knit tribe of Native American shape shifters.  It was strictly forbidden for anyone who didn’t belong to the Panther Nation to venture on to the property unless invited by the panthers, and they had resolutely refused to allow any archeologists on their land.

Some of them interacted with the outside world, operating stores, bars, farm stands, and a casino on the edge of their territory; some were more reclusive and never left their land.

“Well, they’ll be out of there in a few weeks, right?” Ginger said.

“If they last that long. I’ve got a bad feeling about it. I’ve been stepping up patrols, doing everything that I can to keep the peace out there.” The sheriff frowned as he dug into his pie.

Ginger stood next to a
cabinet in the file room, putting away case files and pretending not to eavesdrop. 

The sheriff was engaged in a heated argument with an attractive sheriff’s deputy named Portia Sinclair.
Portia was a reed thin woman with shining, waist length black hair, an adorable little turned up nose, and a sulky mouth.

P
ortia had glanced up at Ginger and the sheriff when they walked in the door, and stiffened in her seat. Another member of the sheriff’s fan club, Ginger thought. And clearly she didn’t like Ginger. 

She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she was sure it involved her. 

Well, eavesdropping was the town’s national past-time, wasn’t it?  Time to join in.

S
he ducked behind a stack of boxes and partially shifted.  The bones of her face shifted and stretched, her ears lengthened, and all of her senses, including her hearing, instantly grew sharper.

“-you have to throw them in my face like this all the time?” Portia’s angry voice growled across the room.

“Portia, I never wanted you to join the sheriff’s department.  You went over my head and got yourself hired after I asked you not to,  so you don’t get to complain that you don’t like seeing me with other women. She’s our guest, and I damn sure expect you to be civil to her, or I’ll move you to the night shift at the North County substation.”

Portia let out a low growl of anger, and then Ginger heard the sheriff’s footsteps heading her way.  She quickly shifted back to her human form.

What were they even talking about?  Why would Portia feel threatened by her? Portia was beautiful. And Ginger was only here for two weeks.

She walked out of the room and nearly ran right into Loch. He stepped back with a grin, and she quickly folded her arms over her chest as her nipples sprang to attention.

“Everything going okay with the filing?” he asked.

“Absolutely! Is…is me being here causing you problems?”

“Not at all.  I did have a couple of questions about your abilities. The ones your Alpha mentioned to me.”

Ginger made a face, although she tried to stifle it. “Sure. Ask away.”

“If it’s something that you’d rather not talk about, I don’t have a problem with that.”

“No, no, not at all. That’s not it. It’s just another thing that
makes me stand out, and not necessarily in a good way.”

He looked at her quizzically.

“You know,” she said, gesturing at herself.  “This figure. The only werewolves who are, shall we say, fuller figured, are the ones who are half-breeds. So we’re pretty rare. And then when I was little, before I could control my powers, I’d talk to people that only I could see.  My mother had me tested and it turned out that I wasn’t actually crazy, that I was communicating with the recently deceased, but people still look at you funny when you carry on one-sided conversations. It took me until I was in my teens to learn to shut it out unless I was actively seeking to speak to the dead. By that point, the nickname Crazy Ginger had spread among the pack, and it stuck.”

Oh, crap. She’d just told him her very unsexy nickname. 

But he was still smiling. No matter what she said, how dorky she sounded, he always looked at her like he wanted to spread whip cream on her and lick it off.   Of course, he probably looked that way at every woman who was old enough to legally buy alcohol.

“
Oooh, I think that’s a wicked cool power. Excuse me for eavesdropping.” A spiky haired girl with arms covered in tattoos walked up and stuck her hand out. Her fingernails sparkled with purple polish. “Hi, I’m Lola.  I’m a secretary here. That’s why I get to dress like a freak.  So, are there, like, ghosts right here? In this room?” she shivered in happy anticipation.

“I
do sense a presence.”

“Really?”
Lola squealed excitedly.

Ginger glanced at the sheriff, who nodded. “Go ahead. Let’s see what you got.”

When he said it, his gaze roved over her body, and she stifled a shiver. Why was it that everything he said felt like it was meant as a double entendre?

Ginger
walked over to the far left corner of the room.  The corner was empty, but she sensed that it hadn’t always been.

She closed her eyes and relaxed, letting her defenses down, letting the world fall away from her.

She opened her eyes again.

“Eek,” she said. There
was a desk and a chair in the corner now, and there was a ghostly figure sitting in the chair, a sheriff’s deputy who was slumped in the chair with what was left of his head thrown back. There was a gun lying on the floor at his feet.

The top of his head was blown off, and splattered all over his lap. Her stomach lurched.

“Suicide?” she said. “No, wait…”

His head reformed.  He was sitting there with a handkerchief in his hand, polishing the outside of his gun, which was pointed right at his face. He was humming a happy little tune.

Then the gun went off, and the top of his head exploded.

She turned to look at Sheriff Armstrong in dismay.

“Was it a suicide?” The sexy smile was gone. He was staring at her with concern stamped on his handsome face.

“
No.  He was cleaning his gun with a handkerchief and the gun was pointed at his face. He didn’t mean to kill himself,” she said.

“Whew. Glad to hear it.
It happened just last month. The coroner’s inquest found that it was an accident, but there have always been questions.  Poor ole Dumb Darryl,” he added, shaking his head sadly.

“That was really his nickname?”

“He’d already shot himself in the foot, twice, drove the patrol car through a store window, and accidentally set his own house on fire. Nobody wanted to go on patrol with him. But his wife will be relieved to get the final word that it wasn’t a suicide.”

“That was so cool!”
Lola’s eyes were wide with admiration.

“Unless she’s certified, it’s not admissible as evidence,” Portia snapped. She had gotten up from her desk and walked over to them.

“I am certified as a post-death communications facilitator,” Ginger said.

“Got the paperwork to prove that?” Portia sneered.

The sheriff turned to Portia and fixed her with a cold gaze.  “I just spoke to you about this.”

“You can’t reassign me. My aunt won’t let you,” Portia’s eyes blazed with anger.

“Your aunt doesn’t run this department. I do.  Last chance, Portia. Now go sit down immediately.” The sheriff’s eyes turned amber, and Ginger shivered involuntarily. He was going all Alpha on Portia, and he was a damned scary sight when he did that.

Portia turned stiffly and walked back to her desk.

“Forget about her,” Lola whispered.

Ginger winced. She had a fee
ling it wouldn’t be that easy.

As she walked back to the filing room, she saw another werewolf watching her with a frown.
He was a handsome, broad-shouldered man who was almost as muscular as Sheriff Armstrong. Loch walked over to her and introduced her to him.

“Ginger, this is
Jax Mackenzie, my lieutenant.  Jax, this is our special guest. You’ve heard all about her.”

“Sure did.” He flashed a brief smile at that, and Ginger almost snickered, but sobered up quickly as she remembered how much trouble her little gaffe had caused. “Pleased to meet you,” she said, and he nodded at her
with no expression on his face, and went back to the case file he’d been studying.

“He doesn’t like me, does he?” Ginger asked in a low voice as the sheriff walked back to the file room with her.

“He doesn’t like anybody. Don’t take it personally.”

Ginger forced a smile, and glanced back at Portia, who was staring at her with eyes like daggers. When Portia saw her looking, she scowled and her gaze immediately dropped to her desk.

It’s going to be a long damned two weeks, Ginger thought, stepping into the file room and shutting the door firmly behind her.

“Marigold, you’ve got a visitor. And a handsome one, at that.” Imogen’s creaky voice drifted into the sitting room, where Marigold, Ginger, and most of the half dozen students from the archeology group were playing spades.

Brenda and the professor were nowhere in sight.  Tallulah’s gaze kept snapping up every time they heard a noise in the hallway, and then when the professor failed to reappear, her face would fall and she’d turn back to the card game.

They all looked up as the bartender from the Hoot Owl walked into the room. He wore jeans and motorcycle boots and a t-shirt with a skull on it.  If Ginger wasn’t trying to find off unwanted erotic thoughts about the sheriff, she’d have found him totally hot.

“Hey, can I talk to you outside for a minute?” he asked Marigold.

“Uhh…” she glanced at Ginger, startled.

“Yes, she can!” Ginger called out.

Marigold shot her an “I know where you sleep” look, stood up, and gestured at Ginger to come with her. They walked outside, standing in front of the boarding house.

A warm wind ruffled the
branches of the trees, and a chorus of crickets creaked in the background.  The stars were like hard bright diamonds set in a cloudless, black velvet sky. Ginger couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked at the sky when she was in the city.

“You left before I got a chance to ask you out last night,” the bartender said. “My name’s Henry, by the way.”

He stuck out his hand and Marigold shook it.

“Sorry, I ah…”

“It’s my fault she left.  That whole thing with the sheriff,” Ginger said. “The temperature in the room suddenly dropped 50 degrees and it seemed safest to head for the hills.”

“Oh yeah.” He chuckled. “That was classic. I don’t think a woman’s ever turned him
down before. It was beautiful.” Then his face grew serious. “Don’t tell him I said that. Please. Seriously. Don’t.”

“I won’t,” Ginger promised
.

He turned to Marigold. “So – dinner tomorrow night? I could pick you up around six?”

“Uhh, well – the thing is-“

“The thing is, she’d love to!” Ginger jumped in.

“Great!” Henry’s face lit up in a smile. Then he stood there awkwardly for a minute while Margiold flashed a pained, polite smile.  “Well, I don’t want to keep you. I’ll let you get back to your card game.”

Marigold waited until he left to turn on Ginger with a scowl. “What the heck? There’s a reason I left without talking to him
last night.   I already looked into our future. I saw me going back to New York by myself. And crying.”

“You know what? You really need to stop looking into your own love future.  It’s ruining your love life.”

“Or saving it,” Marigold grumbled.  “Wouldn’t you have wanted to know what was going to happen with Sir Douche A Lot, back in New York?”

“I don’t know. Not necessarily. Yeah, it sucked, but you can’t live your whole life in fear of making a mistake. Maybe you need to have the life experiences that you’re meant to have,
even the bad ones, so you can become the person that you’re meant to be.”

“What? That was so convoluted, you
almost sounded like Winifred just now. Could you please make sense?”

“Just freaking go out on a date with him. Just this one date, and then I won’t nag you
any more.”

“Fine. If you go out on a date with Sheriff Sexy Ass, I will go out on a date with Henry.”

“He hasn’t asked me,” Ginger said. “And he’s not going to.” She was pretty sure, anyway. For all his flirting, at the end of the day, he’d just dropped her off at the boarding house with a wink and a good night wave.

She had a feeling he flirted as a natural reflex, like breathing.

“Yes, he will. And no, I didn’t look into your future, I can just tell.  Promise me that
when
he asks you out, not if, you will say yes. And I’ll go out on a date with Henry.”

“All right then, I will,” Ginger said. Ha. That was an easy promise.  The sheriff would ask her out when pigs fly.

Ginger woke up early the next morning so she’d have time to shower, get dressed, and be ready when the sheriff came for her at 8.  No way was he catching her in her pajamas again.

She tried on half a dozen outfits, finally settling on a pink shirt and pink floral skirt.

Staring in the mirror, she tugged at the neckline of her scoop neck shirt. Too much cleavage? Too little?  One of the advantages of being a larger woman was having big breasts.  Then again, she didn’t want to look like a floozy. She yanked the neckline back up.

Did the sheriff like big breasts? She wondered.  Not that it mattered, of course.

Ashmont had not been fond of any display of her cleavage. He was easily embarrassed, and before he took her out anywhere he’d spend half an hour fussing at her clothes, yanking them around, readjusting them, picking out different accessories for her.

At the time, she’d told herself that she was lucky she’d found a straight man who actually cared about fashion.

Now that they’d split up she had to admit to herself that his fashion advice was always laced with subtle insults.  He was constantly telling her to dress to hide her figure.  “Wear this sash to make it look like you’ve got a waistline,” he’d say.

“Of course he’ll choose me.  Ever heard of the Madonna Whore complex? Men have sex with sluts, but they marry virgins,” Tallulah’s smug voice drifted down the hall.

Ginger groaned and wished there was another way down to the dining room.  She shut her door behind her, rounded the corner and walked down the stairs, where Tallulah and Brenda were standing  locked in a heated argument. They both swung around as she walked towards them.

“Who do you think a man would want to marry? Some loose-
coochie hoebag or a virtuous soul-mate who’s saving herself for marriage?” Tallulah demanded.

“Bitch, what did you call me?” Rage flared on Brenda’s face and she gave Tallulah a hard shove. T
allulah let out a shriek and stumbled backwards, and Ginger barely had time to grab her before she fell.

“You’re not just a skank, you’re a crazy skank!  I’m telling Professor Reese!” Tallulah screamed, hiding behind Ginger  as Ginger quickly herded her down the stairs.

“Go ahead! I’ll tell him what you called me!” Brenda yelled back.

“He already knows about your loose
coochie, you slut!”

Ginger
stopped and threw her arms out between the two of them and yelled, in her best school-marm voice, “Stop it immediately and act your age or there will be consequences!”

They both settled down, shooting each other venomous glares and muttering under their breath.

“Both of you are risking getting thrown out of school, do you realize that? And if anyone thought that Professor Reese was romantically involved with any of his students, which I’m sure he’s not, he could be suspended from the university. Or fired. Is that what you want?’

Both of them hung their h
eads and muttered sullen “No’s”  as they marched into the dining room.  Professor Reese was already there, digging into a cheese omelet.

“So, how is our newest sheriff’s deputy?” Professor Reese asked cheerfully, as Tallulah took a seat on one side of him and Brenda sat down on the other side. He seemed completely unaware of all the tension that he was causing.

Winifred watched both of them with a quizzical expression on her face.   Ginger imagined that she was probably composing a thesis proposal based on their behavior.

“Fine, thank you.”

“Pass me the butter, will you, my dear?” said the professor. The butter was a foot away from him, Ginger thought with exasperation, but she reached for it. “I’ll do it!” Tallulah said hastily, and leaped up, reached over the table, grabbed the butter, and set it in front him.

“Thank you, angel.”
He beamed at her approvingly, and Brenda rolled her eyes and made a gagging motion.

Tallulah practically glowed at the compliment.

“By the way, you look very nice. I see you’ve finally started taking my advice and you’re putting on some makeup. Just in time for your ridealong,” Marigold said smugly. “I look forward to hearing all the details of your hot date.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, he doesn’t like me in that way? And the feeling’s mutual. He’s bossy and smug.”

“If he didn’t like you in that way, he wouldn’t have you riding along in his car with him all day long;  he’d stick you in the office doing paperwork and answering phones. As for his personality, when he was waiting for you to get ready yesterday he was absolutely charming. I think you’re the one with personality issues.”

“You know, a lapful of hot coffee would severely cramp your style
with the local boys,” Ginger said threateningly, nudging her mug with her elbow. “It would leave blisters.”

“I
ain’t a-scaired of you,” Marigold said, but she scooted her chair away so she was out of Ginger’s reach.

“So are things going well on the dig?” Ginger asked the professor. “The sheriff mentioned that the Panther Nation have been giving you some grief.”

“Unfortunately, that’s true,” the professor nodded. “But we’re not going to let them scare us off. Are we, girls?” He beamed at his students.

They all shook their heads fervently, staring at him with adoring eyes.

“Why do they think that you’re after their artifacts?”

“Oh, just paranoia and suspicion of outsiders.” He waved his hand dismissively.  “They’re trying to claim we’re here to steal their tribal artifacts, but we’re not
. We’re working a very promising fossil bed from the paleolithic area. We’ve found mastodon bones and teeth.  We’ve very clearly demonstrated the legitimacy of our dig.” He shrugged, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

The
floorboards creaked as the new handyman walked in.  Ginger saw Marigold’s eyes flick appreciatively at him. He was a good looking specimen. A panther shifter, he was muscular and had long black hair tied back in a ponytail, and he wore tight jeans and a tank top. He carried a tool box with him.

“Everything okay in here, folks?” he asked. “
I just need to measure these windows so I can put in new frames, if it’s not a bother.”

“That is a fascinating regional dialect,” Winifred said.  “Is your original pack domicile located in regions Northwest of here?”

“Uhhhh….” He stared at her, baffled.

“She’s saying she loves your accent and asking where you from,” Marigold jumped in helpfully.

“Oh! Thank you, ma’am. My folks hail from Alabama,” he nodded politely and walked to the end of the room with his toolbox. Winifred’s gaze briefly followed him and then she quickly turned back to her plate of eggs. Ginger thought that Winifred’s interest, for once, did not seem purely academic.  In fact if she didn’t know better, she could swear that Winifred was checking out the handyman’s ass.

A car horn blared out front, making Ginger jump.