When the woman left the store, she grabbed her cell phone and thumbed through the phone log in search of the number to her retirement fund servicer. The last time, she'd told herself she wouldn't take another distribution, but if she didn't do something she and her father could end up living on the streets.
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Chapter 1
"Ms. Daniels, I’m calling to tell you that we won't be able to ship your last order to you."
"What?" Trina's eyes widened and her mouth fell open. "Hold on a second." She dropped a set of keys and handbag on the counter and took shallow breaths in an attempt to calm her escalating pulse. She pressed the cell phone to her ear to make sure she was hearing correctly. "Did you just say that you're not shipping my order?"
"That's correct. We weren't able to ship your order."
"There's a large convention in town all next week. I need those supplies on time to run my business."
The sound of the representative typing rapidly on the keyboard came through loud and clear. "We tried to process your credit card for payment three times between yesterday and this afternoon. Your bank declined all three transactions. Do you have another form of payment?"
Trina's heart dropped to her stomach. "You're kidding, right?"
There was money in her checking account. She'd just deposited the business earnings last week. How could the bank decline her purchase?
"I'm sorry, Ms. Daniels. Maybe there's a misunderstanding. You should call your bank. We can hold your order for an additional three business days so you can get this straightened out. I've notated on your account that you need the supplies as soon as possible. Just call us back when you have a valid form of payment and we'll expedite the shipping for you free of charge."
"Thanks," she grumbled.
Trina sighed in resignation and disconnected the call. Her laptop was in the back of the store and she rushed through the swinging panel doors to get to it. Her dad's old operating system couldn't power up quick enough and she drummed her fingers on the desk in the little back office as the CPU hummed to life.
This was ridiculous.
Last month she'd sat down with her accountant and they'd forecasted every single expense for the upcoming month. She'd gone completely broke before due to lack of budgeting and she promised herself that it would never happen again. But here she was…again.
Yet, once Trina was logged onto her bank account she realized her mistake. Her bank balance was lower than it was supposed to be. How could she have forgotten that she'd purchased emergency medication for her dad two days ago?
Money was tight these days and Trina and her father had been living from paycheck to paycheck for the last few months. As soon as earnings from the dry cleaning business rolled in, they rolled right out. Up until now, she'd succeeded in staying out of the red. It hadn't always been this way.
Her dad's untimely car accident had changed everything for them last year. The terrible crash had resulted in both of his legs being amputated. Without adequate health insurance or savings, the medical bills skyrocketed as a result of his recovery and the surgery. Trina's refusal to place her parent in long-term care led her to make the life-altering decision to quit a six-figure job to return home and help him through recovery.
The physical therapy, medications, and top-of-the-line prosthetics were expensive. The family dry cleaning business kept a roof over their head and food on the table, but month after month she pinched from her own retirement savings after all their credit cards were maxed out to pay for his care.
Trina picked up the purchase order for the overhead supplies for next week and compared it to her bank balance. She was a little over one hundred dollars short, which was enough reason for the bank to decline the charge.
She sat back in her chair and released an exasperated sigh. Something had to be done—fast. There was another ten days left until the end of this month and judging from the amount of money in her account, it was barely enough to get by and run a business.
The bell chimed over the entry door to the store. The first customer of the day. She should have been delighted to start the week off with the boost in earnings local businesses expected to bring in during the big convention coming to their small town of Cross City, but this morning's news had already put a damper on her spirit.
"Hello," the customer called out.
Trina rose from her chair and went to greet the customer, a middle-aged women with a pile of dresses in her arms. "Good morning. How may I help you?"
"I need these dresses cleaned and I'd like to pick them up in two days."
"No problem." Trina zoned out as she wrote up the order.
The woman looked around the shop nervously as Trina keyed the information into the system.
"How will you be paying today?"
There was a spark of gold around the woman's irises and her pupils narrowed as she observed Trina. It wasn't a natural reaction, but Trina had witnessed this type of response before. The woman must have picked up on how aggravated she was. Aggravated was an understatement, to say the least. But the reaction wasn't completely out of the norm. Her non-human customers were always very wary of their surroundings—just like the woman standing here.
Before Trina could stare anymore, the woman averted her gaze, looked down at the counter, and held out her credit card. "Credit, please."
On the card was an emblem in the corner unique to the non-human population in America, which confirmed Trina's suspicions. The woman was a shifter. Thirty years had passed since it had been discovered that shifters lived among them. To this day, no one could determine if the discovery of two wolf pups and a human-like baby left inside a bassinet outside of a church was by accident or intentional. Many concluded that some poor mother couldn't care for her child, so left the responsibility with the church. At the time, no explanation as to why the wolf pups were in the bassinet with the baby—except to keep it warm—was given.
The wolf pups were released to a wild life conservation center, but the baby was taken into the custody of Child Protective Services. When doctors investigated her DNA in an effort to find the parents, the results revealed some not-so-human qualities. The information was leaked by a scientist and the government had no choice but to reveal that non-humans lived among us. Just like the woman standing in Trina's dry cleaning store.
The woman cleared her throat and thrust the card toward Trina again. "Don't you still accept our payments?"
"Sorry, yes I do."
Trina completed the transaction at the cash register.
When the woman left the store, she grabbed her cell phone and thumbed through the phone log in search of the number to her retirement fund servicer. The last time, she'd told herself she wouldn't take another distribution, but if she didn't do something she and her father could end up living on the streets.
Chapter 2
Dane Magnus slid into a booth at The Hot Spot Diner the moment it became empty and picked up the menu from the table. He was so hungry that he could probably eat three full entrees. Breakfast and lunch had been missed courtesy of the lengthy business he'd had to tend to at the bank. His stomach had growled the whole time he was there scanning through pages and pages of documents. Although he was tired as hell, sleeping on an empty stomach never did him any good.
He scanned the various dishes listed on the menu and tried to drown out the sounds of the quaint little diner situated on the outer edge of Aspen Valley. Not only were the kitchen staff working furiously in the background trying to keep up with all the orders being shouted at them by the waiters, the place was jam-packed and the noise level was high. On any other day the crowd would have been an unusual occurrence, but at nearly midnight, the town had received plenty of guests courtesy of the big business convention held here every year.
The Hot Spot Diner catered to all, both human and shifter alike, so there was a mix of bodies in the place tonight. His belly rumbled on, reminding him that he wasn't
here to check out the scenery.
"Magnus." Sharon, the waitress, appeared by his side and set a glass of ice cold water down on a coaster. "I haven't seen you in a while."
Sharon Stetson was born and raised a small-town girl—a small-town shifter for that matter. Her uncle had owned the diner before he'd handed it over to the eldest son. From what he'd learned, Sharon had been working here since her fifteenth birthday, bussing tables and dishing out friendly smiles even to the most hostile customers.
Dane regarded her with a nod. "That's probably because I've been cross country for the past two months on business. I only just came back two weeks ago."
"Hmm, that's why your boys haven't been behaving themselves." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Brock, Raoulf, and Garrett have had several run-ins with the law. They've been in the news more times than I can count on one hand and the human police have been in here several times asking questions about their dealings and whereabouts."
He sat back and ran the pad of his thumb along his jawline. "You know how folks these days bend rumors. Don't worry about my brothers. If they've gotten themselves into any mess, I'm sure they can get themselves out of it."
She nudged him on the shoulder. "It's you I'm worried about. I don't want your brothers giving you a bad reputation with the humans. It's time they settled down with their Pack with you being the Alpha and all. Speaking of settling down…that Meredith chick was boasting about your skills in bed at Haney's party last night."
Dane flexed his jaw muscles in irritation. Evidently, bending rumors wasn't the only thing folks loved to do. People liked to spin tales out of rumors these days. "Not true. I can't remember the last time I've been with Meredith. It's been at least six months now."
Sharon and him and were cool like that, and being a woman, she always seemed to have all the latest gossip in their small community.
"There's talk in the village that you're looking for a mate," Sharon said in a teasing voice, quirking her eyebrows at him.
"Like I thought, rumors get bent."
"It would be so much easier on you if you had a woman to go home to tonight, don't you think?" She winked. "After a hard day's work…you wouldn't have to come to this noisy place anymore. I'd be sad about that, though…but I know just the woman for you."
He gave her a knowing look. "Who?"
"Cindy Porter. The judge's daughter. She came in here trying to sell us some fancy computerized order-taking system and had nearly every man in here drooling at the mouth. I have to admit, she's a cutie. Little innocent thang too."
He knew exactly who Sharon was referring to. He didn't want to bust her bubble by telling her that Cindy wasn't that innocent after all. He knew three shifters by name who had already bedded the chick, including his oldest brother, Garrett.
"Too young." Dane shook his head. "Stop trying to set me up."
Sharon had been trying to hook him up for months. Everyone in the pack knew he was mate-less. Of course, this fact didn't agree with many of his followers given the fact that he was the Alpha and leader of the pack.
An Alpha with no mate. He smiled inwardly. Heck, he'd take the title. After all, he'd been known to stir things up in and out of the shifter community.
"Well, the next time you stop by I'll have another candidate for you. Are you into cougars these days by any chance?"
He glared at her pointedly. "I'm a wolf. What would I need with a cougar?"
She put a hand on her hip. "I meant an older woman, Magnus."
"I know what you meant, but I don't like getting set up."
"Fine." She shrugged and dug a pad and pen out of her apron. "I've got eight tables to serve so I'll have to chat with you later. The usual?"
"Yeah. The usual." Dane's stomach rumbled once again just thinking about the T-bone steak with a healthy side of potatoes and cheddar-smothered broccoli florets.
As he waited, he pulled a small envelope from the inside of his jacket pocket. He swallowed in apprehension as he peeled back the broken seal and slipped the letter out. The words were already engrained in his short-term memory, but he read the note again.
Mr. Dane Magnus,
You are hereby called to appear before Judge Henry Wright at Tellevue County Court on October fifteenth at noon to settle the matter involving the property deeded to Debra Smyth Magnus located off 1806 Cedar Loop Trail. Failure to appear will result in all properties deemed abandoned and expropriated by the County. In addition, failure to present proof of rights to claim the property by this date will result in it being expropriated by the County…
Dane's blood pressure began to escalate yet again, and he crumbled the document in his palm. In fifteen days, the county court planned to take back the property his mother had worked so hard to keep. It wasn't fair that the humans could take something like his childhood home where memories lingered long after his parents had perished. It wasn't fair, but it was the law.
Debra Smyth was the only daughter of a farmer who owned the land in question before she became mated to Dane's father. When she became pregnant with Dane, they married with blessings from Debra's father even though a marriage between a shifter and a human was looked on as taboo. Since the land was part of human-marked territories as measured by each U.S. state's county appraiser's office, a shifter could not officially own human property unless they were married or mated to one.
When Dane was thirteen, he lost both parents. And because he was a shifter and his parents' will had never been endorsed, he was faced with losing their marital home. It took the humans seventeen years to dig up the deed and find out that the property wasn't legally his.
Word in town was that the county wanted to convert the whole lot into an industrial zone. They were trying to strip the property right out from under him. They didn't want to offer a fair price for his land…no…they wanted to take it.
And that wasn't going to happen.
Dane chewed at the inside corner of his mouth as his eyes drifted about the quaint diner and over to the door where customers walked in and out.
He wouldn't get his pack mates involved and he wouldn't cause an uprising. This was his personal matter. One that he should've taken care of over a decade ago, but now the situation had come back to haunt him.
He had a better plan. A plan that would involve what he'd been avoiding since he was awarded the Alpha position of the Aspen Valley Wolf Pack. Taking a mate.
In all of his thirty years, he'd never met his match. Maybe finding a true mate wasn't in his future. That was fine with him. He'd just play the cards dealt to him.
One thing was certain, he wanted to keep what rightfully belonged to him. To achieve this, he'd have to marry a human.
In this age, marriage between a human and shifter was considered legit after six weeks, at which time all possessions—including land—were said to be commingled and fair game to claim by either spouse upon divorce.
With marriage he could take a bride, have her sign the documents relinquishing all rights to claim his land, keep her for six weeks, divorce her, and then send her on her merry way. In the end, he'd have his property for good and no humans could claim it.
Chapter 3
Trina had a really bad feeling about this, but something told her this opportunity was her only chance. As she moved further into LIVE nightclub, the beat of the music pulsed through her veins, but she didn't care to dance. The place was extremely packed, which she'd expected given that it was the most popular nightclub in Aspen Valley. The large crowd helped her blend in with the bodies, but this also served to flare up her anxiety. She'd purposely chosen the nightclub because it wasn't in her town and that meant there was minimal chance that she'd bump into anyone who she did business with at the dry cleaners.
She couldn't miss this chance. However uncomfortable this felt to her, she saw no other way to quickly resolve her issue.
"We're hiring night waitresses and we expect to bring six or more on board starting next week. You must be extra easy on the eyes, h
ave experience as a waitress, and wear the uniform we supply. We're not a normal nightclub as I'm sure you're aware…" the hiring manager had said on the phone when she'd called about the job.
Trina spotted a waitress balancing a tray of cocktails in one hand and using the other hand to take cash and hand out drinks. The beautiful, buxom blonde did this all while maneuvering through the bustling crowd in an outfit so dainty it looked like something an exotic dancer would wear. The suggestive outfit or risqué atmosphere didn't surprise Trina. When she'd seen the ad in the newspaper, she made the drive to the city to scope out the place. Before she had even called the hiring manager, she knew what she was getting herself into.
"…the starting pay is thirty dollars an hour and you keep all your tips. You push drinks and our merchandise all night long. We have three, six, and eight hour shifts here. You set your schedule but you must come to work at least three nights a week."
Where else could she earn thirty dollars an hour working part time just a few nights a week? The money would be quick and easy, just like an old friend who used to pole dance to pay her college tuition told her. If Trina got the job and kept up the work for five months, she could make enough to pay for the majority of her father's next surgery. To make up the difference, she was certain profits from the business would kick in.
It seemed to take Trina forever to get through the swarm of bodies to the back office where the security guard told her to wait in line to meet Leo, the hiring manager. As soon as she made it, she realized that she wasn't the only one waiting to be interviewed. There were four women lined up, two of them leaning against the wall, and the other two standing with arms crossed, looking impatiently. They were young women, around her age group, with one of them looking at least a decade younger than Trina. As the fifth woman, Trina took her place.
The leggy redhead in front of her turned and sneered. After looking Trina up and down, she wrinkled her nose and then snapped her attention forward again in a dismissive manner. The redhead was thin and couldn't have weighed more than one hundred pounds, but Trina had to admit the girl had good genes going for her with her dainty model looks.
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