The Alpha's Mate (25 page)

“Rabbit Creek ain’t never been Mayberry,”
Maggie said from the door, “But this mountain is as close to heaven
as you’re going to get this side of the real thing.”

“Until I came.”

The older woman snorted. “Think a lot of
yourself, do ya?”

“I brought those men here,” Elizabeth said
miserably. “I had to go play the lady with some mean bastard in a
restaurant.” She’d already told them about meeting Charles in the
restaurant, about Creepy Eyes and his thugs. She didn’t tell them
anything about the feelings Creepy Eyes evoked in her or about
Charles. She was ashamed enough without the whole world knowing
about it. “It was his men who followed me and his men who
k-killed…”

“He ain’t dead yet, honey. Don’t bury him
before his time. So it’s your fault Max got beat? Your fault this
barn got burned before anybody knew you was in town?”

“But it all happened after I came to
town.”

“Dammit woman. Richard Nixon was elected
while I was in the United States. That don’t make it my fault.”
Maggie shook her head in disgust. “I never thought you to be a
quitter. First time I saw you, I said, ‘This girl won’t run’. Now
you go and make a liar out of me.”

“I didn’t run,” Elizabeth cried. “I didn’t
run the night of the fire. I didn’t run the night Max was attacked.
I didn’t run tonight.”

“You’re sure running now. You’re angry with
us for watching him die, but you’re standing in here talking to
horses about poor you. You’re running and hiding inside that broken
heart of yours and that ain’t doing Marshall a bit of good. You
ain’t using that brain of yours to figure how to stop Marshall from
dying. It’s Roman in there who’s calling all the way to Europe
trying to find Mikey. He’s at some fancy conference there, but
he’ll come when he’s called.”

“What if he doesn’t make it in time?”

“He’ll try. That’s all a body can ask of a
person. I’m asking you to try. You know where Charles is.”

“Oh god, Maggie. Goodmans have always been
healers. You said it and I wasn’t listening. I’ll get you the
number.”

“You’re going to have to do more than that,
girl. You think Charles Goodman would come back here on any of our
say so? You think he’ll come back to help his brother?”

Yes, Elizabeth did think so, but she wasn’t
willing to take the chance that she was wrong.

Maggie rolled right on. “You got the number.
You call. You say what you need to say, do what you need to do. But
you got to know there’s some folks won’t thank you for doing
it.”

Maggie continued to speak, but Elizabeth
didn’t hear any of it. She was running for her truck. She opened
the passenger door and started rummaging through the debris.

“I’m back where I started in Rabbit Creek,”
she mused as she stacked the meat on the seat. It was still cool to
the touch and was probably still good to eat. She should bring it
in or pass the word to someone else.

Right now, she needed to find the card.
‘Wolf’s Head Enterprises.’ She was sure she dropped it in her
handbag. Was it only this morning? She’d collected the glasses and
the almost empty jar from the porch and the card was there, damp
from the rain. Her bag was on the kitchen counter and she slid it
in as she did all business cards. It was habit.

She dumped the contents on the floor. Check
card, keys from her old life, compact, wallet, lipstick, everything
but what she needed. Ah! There it was, folded into the wad of
tissues. She grabbed the card and an armload of meat and ran for
the house.

“Excuse me. Pard’ me. Excuse me.” She sounded
like that old comic routine as she made her way through the house
to the kitchen phone. She plopped her load into the table before
she turned to the person using the phone.

It was a woman she didn’t know and she rudely
turned her back when Elizabeth tried to explain.

“Please,” Elizabeth begged, but the woman
wasn’t listening.

“You’ve made your choice and see where it’s
led,” the woman snarled.

Elizabeth ran back to the truck, no longer
taking the time to be polite. She pushed her way through the crowd.
She had no time for this. She’d already wasted enough. She grabbed
the shotgun and elbowed her way back to the kitchen, turned to the
woman on the phone. At the sound of the shell slamming into the
chamber, a hush passed through the crowd.

She aimed point blank at the woman’s chest.
“Get off the phone or I will blow you off.”

Elizabeth held the gun pointed at the ceiling
with her finger on the trigger as she dialed the cell phone number.
It rang four times before he answered.

“Charles. It’s Elizabeth.”

“… Goodman of Wolf’s Head Enterprises. I’m
unable to answer your call…”

No! She waited forever for the beep.
“Charles. It’s Elizabeth. I’m at Marshall’s and I need you to come
and get me. Right now. Please, Charles, please.” If she sounded a
little hysterical, so much the better. She would explain it all
once he was here. He would come for her. She was sure of it. She
wanted to believe he would come for Marshall.

She heard the whispers as she left the
house.

“She called
him
.”

“No shame for what she’s done.”

“Why is she still here? Let her go back where
she came from.”

Elizabeth told herself it didn’t matter what
they said. She could try to explain, but no one wanted to listen.
Let them think what they will. Saving Marshall was all that
mattered.

Small sacrifices.

Chapter 26

The barn was the only place she felt
comfortable. The waiting had placed her nerves on edge and the
attitude she found in the house was disconcerting to say the
least.

She’d gone to check on Marshall after the
phone call and the only friendly faces she saw were Henry’s and
Maggie’s. She consoled herself with the excuse that she didn’t know
the others that well.

Maggie insisted that Marshall’s condition
wasn’t her fault, but the looks she received from others told her
that was a minority opinion. She thought they were going to refuse
to let her see him, but Maggie stepped forward and opened the
door.

“You go on in, honey.”

“Why’d you let her in?” someone asked. “She
has no right.”

This was what she’d been afraid of. She was
fine for a casual affair, but they would never accept her as more
than that. She was an outsider and had no business here.

Marshall was lying in bed with the covers
pulled up over his chest. His arms lay at his sides. To some, he
might look like he was sleeping. To Elizabeth, he looked like he
was already dead. She crawled up beside him and curled her body
into his.

“Don’t leave,” she whispered, “Help is
coming. Don’t leave.” She stroked her fingers down his face and
touched the corner of his mouth that always turned up first before
he laughed. Whether wolf or man, his face was always animated. Even
when he slept, he would smile or frown and his brow would crinkle
with worry. She’d watched him closely that night they’d spent
together. She knew.

Oh God, she loved him. So much so, that the
thought of his dying knocked the breath from her.

“I don’t know if he can hear you,” said a
voice from the corner, “But it doesn’t hurt to try.”

Doc Palmer sat in a straight backed chair in
a shadowed corner of the room. “You love him? I mean beyond the…
ah, usual.”

Elizabeth sat up and nodded. Her eyes were
filled and her throat was closed with emotion.

“Then you stick with him girl. No matter what
those others say. You had a taste of what’s offered. No harm in
that. My Joan did a bit of tasting before she mated me.”

She assumed he was talking about sex. Surely
in this day and age no one was faulting her for having sex out of
wedlock? She smiled and nodded her thanks.

Now that she knew she had an audience, she
didn’t feel comfortable snuggling with the unconscious Marshall, no
matter how nice or how supportive that audience might be.

She snuffled and patted her mouth in an
effort to keep back the tears. “You’ll let me know if there’s any
change?”

“I will. Where will you be?”

“The barn.” It was the only place she could
think of where she might find peace.

Her peace didn’t last very long. She hadn’t
been there for ten minutes when Max entered with a tray loaded with
coffee and sandwiches.

“I don’t think I want any.” Elizabeth’s
stomach rolled at the thought.

“It’ll do you good. You’re looking a little
peaked.”

Elizabeth sipped at her mug and sighed as the
warmth and caffeine went down and stayed there. “Good,” she said of
the coffee, and to Max, “A night like last night will do that to
you.”

“You got away,” Max said. She looked
shamefaced at the floor.

“Sheer luck, Max, and don’t you for a minute
think otherwise. It doesn’t matter anyway. I got away, but Marshall
paid the price.”

“Folks are all talking about your phone
call.”

“It was important and she wouldn’t get off
the phone.” Elizabeth deliberately misunderstood. She picked up a
ham and cheese, noted the lettuce and smiled as she took a bite.
Max still liked her.

“You going to tell me who you called?” Max
took the other half and picked off the lettuce.

Who she called was common knowledge by now.
Max was politely confirming what she’ heard.

“Charles Goodman. Marshall’s brother,”
Elizabeth told her. No reason to deny it.

Max paused with her mouth open ready to bite.
She set the sandwich down. “Shut up. That the guy you got sloshed
with the other night?” And when Elizabeth nodded, “That explains a
lot. GW said Marshall was in a foul mood all day. How’d you meet
him? Did he just walk up and say, ‘Hey, I’m Charles’? What did he
look like? I heard he’s real good looking, but I’ve never seen him.
Last time he was here was way before I met GW. I know there’s bad
blood between him and Marshall though.”

“I know.”

Max waited impatiently while Elizabeth
finished her coffee and the half sandwich, refilled their mugs from
the carafe and said, “Tell me everything.”

Elizabeth started with the first times she
and Charles met.

“And you didn’t tell the Alpha?” Max sounded
incredulous.

“Number one, I didn’t know he was the Alpha.
Number two, I’m not used to telling every man I meet about every
other man I’ve met. Number three, other things got in the way and I
didn’t think it was important.”

Other things included thinking Marshall was
gay and being flattered and thrilled that two men found her
attractive and awakened feelings in her she never knew she had.

“How come he went right to you and didn’t
tell anyone else he was in town. How’d he find you?”

“I don’t know,” Elizabeth said wearily. “He
said he heard from someone. I don’t know how he found my mother
either, but I know it wasn’t by accident. And I never told him
where I was from. I’m sure of it.” She shook her head and winced.
“It doesn’t matter. They talked, had lunch and dinner and I’m sure
she encouraged him. He’s her kind of guy.”

Mother saw husbands as socially acceptable
conveniences. Unfortunately, Mother’s demands for perfection wore
pretty thin after a while and she hadn’t found a husband yet who
could survive more than six years.

Her mother’s life was fine for her mother.
Unfortunately, the woman wanted the same life for her daughter and
her daughter just couldn’t be squeezed into the mold. No matter how
Elizabeth tried, she couldn’t live up to her mother’s social
expectations.

By the time she was an adult, Elizabeth felt
like a puppet on a string. Unlike her stepfathers, she never
thought of escaping until she met Eugene Begley.

Elizabeth tried to explain her mother to Max
and ended with, “Charles is what she would consider the perfect man
for me.”

“But he’d know he wouldn’t have a chance with
you. Marshall’s the Alpha.”

Elizabeth smiled at Max’s loyalty to
Marshall.

“I don’t think Charles would see it that way.
He’s the Alpha of his own pack.”

Max’s head snapped back as if Elizabeth had
slapped her. “No wonder Marshall…” She thought for a minute and
asked curiously, “Did you sleep with him?”

“Yes I slept with him,” Elizabeth admitted
grudgingly. She didn’t see what sleeping with Marshall had to do
with any of this. Still, there was no point in denying it. “Hasn’t
Gwenna passed along all the lurid details yet?

“Gwenna knows?”

“She was there with George. I figured it
would be all over town by now.”

Max looked horrified. “George knew and he
didn’t tell the Alpha? Oh, this is getting worse and worse.”

“Why would George need to tell Marshall
anything? He’s a big boy. He knows the mechanics of sex. He managed
to muddle through it without anyone’s help.” She stopped and took a
breath. Her sarcasm made it sound like Marshall was an inadequate
lover and that wasn’t fair to him. “Okay, he didn’t muddle through
it. The truth is he was amazing, more than amazing.”

Max sat back and placed her hands on flat on
her thighs. She too, took a deep breath. “Who was more than
amazing? The Alpha or Charles.”

“Charles? Why would I have sex with Charles?”
Of course, she knew why and by the look on Max’s face, her friend
knew, too. “I slept with Marshall, Max, only Marshall.” She closed
her eyes and confessed, “But when Charles touches me, he makes me
feel… Oh god, Max, what’s wrong with me.”

Too much had happened to her since she came
to Rabbit Creek: sexual tensions, aggressive behavior, wolvers.
She’d killed a man… er, wolf! She was a librarian for heaven’s
sake! Elizabeth started to cry.

“This isn’t me. I’m not this person. I don’t
shoot guns and I don’t sleep with men on the first date or the
second or the third for that matter.” She looked at the young woman
sitting across from her, begging her to understand. “I’m not sorry
I slept with Marshall. It was wonderful. More than wonderful. But
why then, the very next day, did I want to jump Charles’ bones
simply because he held my hand. I know that sounds crude, but
that’s what these feelings are. Crude. I feel like an animal in
heat.” And it was worse when she added Creepy Eyes into the mix.
She’d never tell anyone about that. Not ever. It was too
sickening.