The Alpha's Mate (19 page)

“You liked it then?” His grin widened.

“Let me show you just how much,” she purred.
It was something Cassandra might say, but the words were
Elizabeth’s. She didn’t need Cassandra anymore. The look in
Marshall’s eyes told her that Elizabeth alone was quite enough.

Chapter 19

She knew she was coming awake and she fought
against it and clung instead to the dream. Her backside was cold,
but the heat radiating from the body beneath her was too wonderful
to give up in search of covers. This rock hard chest somehow made
the perfect pillow. She snuggled in closer and his arm tightened
around her. She didn’t want to give that up to wakefulness
either.

There was a thump. A small clang and someone
hissed a startled, “Shit!” If she ignored it, it would go away. She
was so, so tired. And he was so, so…

Shit? No one in an erotic dream said shit.
She started to rise before her eyes were fully opened and her knee
came in contact with…

“Ouwf!”

She was flipped onto her back with her hands
pinned above her head. She wasn’t sure if she was more shocked that
the dream was real or that Marshall’s face was contorted with
pain.

“Good god woman,” he sputtered, “That’s no
way to wake a man in the morning. A little rough play is one thing,
but that was… hmmm, this looks nice. A ripe little berry for
breakfast.”

She shushed him. “Marshall, there’s someone
in the kitchen,” she whispered. He was already nuzzling her
breast.

He stopped, cocked his head and listened. “So
there is. Who’s in the kitchen?” he called. He went back to his
nibbling.

“It’s just me. Sorry if I woke you. George is
hungry.”

If Gwenna was trying for nonchalant, it
wasn’t working. Her voice quivered with a suppressed giggle.
Marshall however was working hard at Elizabeth’s other nipple. She
wanted to smack him but he still held her hands in an iron
grip.

“She’ll see us,” she whispered.

“I think she already has,” he informed her
breast.

“Not like this!” What was the man
thinking?

“Oh, you’re right.” He looked up at her face
and grinned that devilish grin. “Would you rather be back on
top?”

“Marshall!” she pleaded.

“Oh, all right.” Marshall rolled his eyes as
if she were the one being contrary. He took a last reluctant taste
and turned his head toward the kitchen. “You about finished in
there, Gwenna?”

“Just waiting for the all clear.”

“There. You see.” He pulled the blanket over
them both covering their heads as well as their bodies. “Make it
quick.”

They heard the bedroom door close and faint
sounds of laughter. Elizabeth let out the breath she’d been
holding. She was almost in tears.

“She walked right through and there I was
with my big old butt exposed for the world to see.”

He kissed her eyes and her nose. He was
chuckling. Did the man not understand?

“It’s not a big old butt, it’s a lovely
little rosy one and if you’ll roll over, I’ll nibble on it some
more just to prove my point.”

“You think this is funny.”

His head was shaking ‘no’, but his laughter
said otherwise.

She smacked his shoulder, which only made him
laugh harder.

“Marshall, she saw us!” How many times did
she have to say it?

He finally sobered. “What did she see,
Lizzie? Gwenna’s not the type to stop and stare. She caught a
glimpse of two people exhausted by lovemaking. She was thinking of
George, not us. She’s probably just as embarrassed as you are.
She’s a big girl, she’ll get over it.”

“She might, but I won’t,” she grumbled.

“Then it’s my job to see that you do.” He
started his nibbling again alternating with nips and kisses. He
worked his way up along her neck, across her cheekbone to her lips,
where he whispered against them, “Besides, you owe me for waking me
up with your knee in my crotch. For that, little rosy cheeks,
you’re going to pay.”

And she did, but oh, what a wonderful way to
start the day.

It continued that way for the rest of the
day. Marshall had to leave for work and he took the path home for a
shower and shave. It felt good to have him kiss her goodbye out on
the front porch and give her rump an affectionate pat.

The pickup truck he had driven up in last
night was hers if she wanted it. George’s final diagnosis on her
car was terminal. The frame was bent and he’d found an array of
other problems that would cost more than the car was worth to fix.
She had no real affection for her old car and in fact, kept it only
because it bugged her mother. It was one of the small victories she
took so much pleasure in.

George swore the truck was a fair trade for
what he figured her insurance would pay and if it wasn’t, they
could bargain over the difference later. Elizabeth had never driven
a truck before and for some reason the thought delighted her. She
wondered aloud about getting a pretty pair of western boots and a
hat to go with her new truck.

Gwenna’s snort of laughter answered that.
They were sitting out back waiting for George’s brother, Carl, to
pick them up. Carl was married to Eileen, co-owner of the Dizzy
Dish, which made him brother-in-law to Sally Ann and Roman and he
was also related to Vickie and her brother Junior, though Elizabeth
hadn’t quite figured out how. She would need a flow chart to keep
track of it all.

“Why can’t I get a pair of boots and a hat?
You wear them.”

Gwenna was wearing a white pair of western
boots that came just shy of mid-calf. They were tooled in light
brown and looked absolutely gorgeous with her long legs and her
skinny jeans tucked inside.

“That’s because I was born wearing them. My
daddy’s pack, as a corporation mind you, owns one of the biggest
spreads in Wyoming. I was riding before I could walk and I can rope
a calf better than most men.” Gwenna looked over at George and
winked. “Leastways most human men.”

Elizabeth didn’t doubt it. Gwenna was tall
with broad, muscular shoulders. Her blunt fingered hands were
sinewy with strength and her stride was long and sure.

“Better than the grease monkey she married,”
George added proudly.

“How on earth did you two meet?”

“Eugene Begley,” Gwenna offered without the
slightest hesitation. “He came on a visit at a time when I was
feeling antsy and ready to get on with my life. He told me about a
wolver he knew who owned his own business and I wrote George a
letter and he wrote back. We wrote back and forth with a few phone
calls in between and then Daddy told me how my name came up at a
Council Meeting concerning a possible marriage with the High Plains
pack.” She reached for George’s hand and squeezed it tight. “The
Double W runs a pretty tight outfit and keeps a close eye on its
women. I knew they’d be choosing a mate for me soon, but I didn’t
think it would be that soon. I tried to tell Daddy I didn’t want
it, but he wouldn’t listen. This mating would improve his standing
in the pack. So-o-o-o, Mama helped me run away.”

“To George,” Elizabeth finished.

Gwenna laughed delightedly. “And don’t think
for a minute it didn’t shock him silly to find me standing on his
doorstep.”

“By her letters, I thought she was a might
older.” George was a good deal older than his mate.

Elizabeth smiled and nodded, but she couldn’t
believe in this day and age women were still bartered in marriage.
“So once you found George, everything was okay.”

“Well, not exactly. The Double W sent
representatives,” Gwenna curled her lip in derision, “To bring me
back, but the deed was done and George said the only way I was
going back was over his dead body.”

“To which the ugliest of the three said ‘We
can do that’ and they proceeded to beat hell out of me.” George
took up the tale. “Bless her sweet soul, Eileen saw them go into
the shop and thought they looked mean. She called Marshall. He
helped me fight them off and when they said they’d be back,
Marshall called the Double W and issued a Challenge by Moonlight.
Fair fight, witnessed by three outside packs, three on three. We
held it right up here at the Home Place, ‘course ole Connor lived
up here then.”

Carl’s big Buick pulled up the drive and
George and Gwenna rose to meet him.

“Wait!” Elizabeth wailed, “You can’t leave it
there. What happened?”

George shrugged in bewilderment. “We won and
I didn’t get kilt. Gwenna’s still my mate and the Double W knows to
keep their noses on the other side of the country or we’ll whup ‘em
again.” What more was there to say?

Elizabeth watched the dust settle behind the
Buick. There were so many stories here and so many people talented
in ‘the tellin’. She knew the tradition came from a time when these
hills were isolated from the rest of the world; a time when cash
money was scarce and needed for more important things than books; a
time before electricity brought television and computers.

So many of these stories began with words
like, “I heard tell of a feller,” or “My Granny told me of a woman
onct.”

She’d listened to the women swap stories
while they waited for the sun to set. She’d laughed along with them
and shed a few tears for people she had never met. But that was the
point, wasn’t it? These stories didn’t have to be about people you
knew. They were about the human condition. They took place in these
hills, but their appeal was universal.

She’d never write a novel. She’d known that
in her heart from the very beginning. She couldn’t. Her mind wasn’t
given to flights of fancy. That didn’t mean she couldn’t write a
book. Her strength was in research. Her mind was geared for the
compilation of data. She should be looking at non-fiction or a
non-fiction compilation of possibly fictitious tales.

She’d need a tape recorder to get the
language down properly and while she was at it, a couple of pairs
of jeans and a pair of, she never thought she’d say this, sensible
shoes. Linen slacks and Italian flats just didn’t cut it here.
Maybe she could stop by Max’s, find out what her nursing schedule
looked like and arrange a trip to the nearest mall. With her pretty
little red truck, she was free.

Her first stop was the Dizzy Dish. There was
only one middle aged couple eating breakfast in a booth along the
windows. Elizabeth eyed the back booth, the one usually claimed by
Marshall, speculatively but decided against it and chose the small
table she’d used before. Word that they’d slept together, although,
she giggled to herself, they’d done very little actual sleeping,
would be out soon enough. No sense advertising. And to be honest,
she wasn’t sure what it all meant.

Marshall was the Alpha. She wasn’t a wolver.
So far, she hadn’t heard any stories of anyone mating outside their
kind. She knew she was one of a very few outsiders who knew their
secret and she felt honored by their trust, but that didn’t mean
they’d accept her as anything more than the Alpha’s current
lover.

She ordered lemonade and a tuna sandwich from
the teenager behind the counter, waved to Roman back at the grill
and opened her laptop. Her mother’s emails had dwindled to ten and
she’d changed tactics. Instead of dire warnings about the perils of
living in the back of beyond, they were gossipy missives the intent
of which were to make her homesick and show her how much she was
missing. The strangest one was about a ‘delightful young man’ she’d
met at the club who was “from down your way. I told him he should
look you up. According to Mimi Philips, he comes with excellent
credentials.”

Dear sweet Mother, still trying to set up
blind dates for her hopeless daughter from hundreds of miles
away.

Elizabeth ignored that one and concentrated
on the others. She wrote about the people here and the new friends
she’d made. She wrote at length about her plans for a book knowing
that her mother would find it easier to explain ‘research for an
important sociological subject’ as an excuse for her daughter’s
absence. She wondered how her mother would react if she wrote about
Marshall and the truth about the people here.

The bell over the door rang and Maggie walked
in. “I see George finally found a home for that baby truck.”

Roman raised his arm over his head and arched
his hand to point at Elizabeth who looked out the window to where
her truck was parked. It did look dwarfed between the big Chevy and
Dodge parked to either side.

“Yes he did,” Elizabeth laughed, “And I
promised to love and care for it until it grows up. You’re just the
lady I was hoping to see.”

“Looking for trouble, are you? What can I do
for you? Bring me a piece of that pie and a sweet tea, will you,
honey?” She took a seat across from Elizabeth and listened while
Elizabeth explained her needs.

“You can check Mercer’s Hardware right up the
street. He carries a bit of everything. You want good clothing at a
fair price, you go on out to the Farm Supply out on 32.” Maggie
glanced over at the couple in the booth. “These stories you’re
collecting. They don’t have anything to do with…?” she raised her
eyebrows in question.

“Oh no, no. I’d edit out any references like
that. Besides, a publisher would label it paranormal fiction.”

Maggie laughed, but kept her voice low. “I’ve
been called a lot of things in my time, but paranormal fiction
ain’t one of them.”

The couple in the booth rose and paid their
bill at the end of the counter. Elizabeth waited until the door
closed behind them.

“Is everyone around here… you know?”

“Mostly. We hold the majority of votes so we
keep key positions to our own. Marshall’s family owns almost half
this mountain and the rest of us own a goodly portion of what’s
left. Government owns most of what’s west of here. We’re doing what
we can to keep folks out. Sooner or later, we’re going to see the
same problems our cousins are seeing down south; rich folks wanting
to live the country life. Course, as soon as they get it, they
start demanding better roads, shopping malls and fancy restaurants
and before you know it, the place looks like the one they left and
there’s no place for our kind to hunt.”