“He’s not 18 for another six months. Legally, there needs to be an adult in that house.”
“If you take them away, you take away his incentive to work, to straighten out his life. Have a heart,” Ginger pleaded.
“I’ll think about it. But my ultimate duty is to uphold the law.” He didn’t look happy.
Her phone jangled, and she recognized the number as her Alpha’s. She stood up and walked away from the table, clicking the “talk button”. She was ready to accept the lavish praise he’d heap on her for saving the day and improving relations between the Gray and Red wolf packs.
She’d be humble about it, of course. Nobody likes a gloater.
“Are you completely off your rocker?” Reynaldo hissed into the phone.
“What?” she gasped, shocked.
“Don’t you ‘what’ me. I just heard from a Florida council member, Aurora Sinclair. She says you’re just about ready to start a war down there! She says you’re offending absolutely everybody with your boorish behavior, and they want you out of town immediately! I expect you on the next train back to New York, and when you get here, you are in serious trouble. As is your family.”
“She’s lying!” Ginger turned pale.
Willie and Loch both rushed to her side. “What is it?” Loch demanded.
“It’s my Alpha,” Ginger managed to sputter, weakly. “Aurora Sinclair told him that I’m offending everyone down here and –“
Loch grabbed the phone from her, his face like thunder.
“This is Loch Armstrong. What did you just say to my fated mate?”
Ginger’s eyes widened with surprise at his public declaration.
“Goodness, what took him so long to realize it?” Willie whispered.
Ginger could hear Reynaldo spluttering on the other end of the phone, stammering out apologies.
“Aurora Sinclair does not speak for my pack. Our pack has been delighted with Ginger’s company, and we are hopeful that she’ll consider our offer to permanently relocate down here. You may consider Ginger to be under my protection.”
More spluttering from Reynaldo.
“I don’t care that Aurora’s a member of the council. She is the only one who’s unhappy with Ginger’s presence here, and that’s because she’s trying to arrange a marriage between me and her niece. If you have any problem with what I’m saying, you may name the Challenge location of your choice.”
Reynaldo’s spluttered quickly changed to apologetic mewling.
Loch hung up, and turned to Ginger. “How did that man ever become Alpha?” he asked, amazed.
“It’s different in New York.”
“Obviously.”
Ginger managed a weak smile. “Thank you for defending me.”
Loch peered at her with concern. “What’s wrong?”
“Council members have a lot of power. She could cause you a lot of harm. For that matter, she could cause my family a lot of harm. I know she’s a member of the Florida Council, not New York, but still…”
Loch shook his head angrily. “She won’t ruin what we have. I won’t let her. Nobody is taking you from me.”
“But it doesn’t affect just you. Depending on what action she takes, it could affect the whole pack. And my parents. My father has worked for the Alpha for years, and if he were fired from that firm…my parents have a mortgage and three more kids to put through college.”
Willie laid her hand on Ginger’s arm. “Believe my grandson when he says that he won’t let her take you from us. Everything will work out fine.”
Hot tears of gratitude burned Ginger’s eyes. Willie had said “us”. As if Ginger belonged there.
Could it be true? Ginger had never really belonged anywhere before. Not all wolf, not all witch, with her large size always outing her as a genetic anomaly who straddled two worlds.
But the very fact that these people were so kind to her was the reason that she should leave town, she realized with a sinking heart. A vengeful council member could cause all kinds of grief for a pack.
“We should go,” Loch said, draping his arm protectively around Ginger’s shoulders. “We have work to do. Let’s concentrate on that.”
She nodded, and tried to force a smile on her face. When Loch had his arm around her, she felt so safe and protected. She felt as if she were exactly where she’d belonged. The thought of walking away from him made her feel small and cold and alone.
They headed over to the community center. Cletus was standing there talking to Elmore Bishop, the center director, while two little girls and a little boy played on the jungle gym. They were coyote shifters; clearly they were Cletus’ younger brother and sisters.
The sheriff frowned when he saw them. Ginger shot the sheriff an indignant look.
“There’s got to be an alternative to foster care,” she said. “Besides, you have enough on your plate as it is right now. Can you just give it some time? Their mother could come back.”
Privately she wished she could track down their mother and smack her upside the head for what she was doing to her family, but she put a big smile on her face, walked over to where Cletus stood, and handed him the plastic box of sandwiches.
“I’m practicing my sandwich making skills now,” she told him. “You need to test these out for me. Everything going okay?”
“It’s going great. Mr. Bishop here said I could stay on and help out with the maintenance. He said I did a real good job,” he said, with an undertone of defensiveness, as if he expected her to challenge him.
“Of course you did,” Ginger said soothingly, and he relaxed a little.
“Sheriff Armstrong doesn’t mind me bringing my brother and sisters here, does he?”
“Nope. It’s fine,” she said firmly, praying she was right.
The sheriff dropped her off back at the office. “I’m headed out to speak to Montgomery now,” he told Lola. “I’ll be back shortly.”
Jax stood up from his desk. The sheriff turned to him and shook his head. “You’re not coming with me,” he said. “You are not to speak to any of the panthers until you learn some diplomacy.”
Jax let out a low growl of displeasure. “We need to take a firm line with the panthers. They’re making us look weak.”
“Following the law, and the boundaries of their nation, isn’t weakness.” The sheriff stood up straight, his eyes taking on a warning glow. “It’s respect.”
“The species that deserves respect is the one that proves its strength,” Jax snapped, his shoulders hunching up defensively. “The only way to earn respect is by establishing who’s top dog. You’re letting the panthers-“
“Enough!” Loch roared, and everyone in the room fell silent. “I am the Alpha. You do not argue with me. If you want to hold a Challenge, we can do it right here, right now. Otherwise, you’re on desk duty. Permanently. And if I hear of you challenging the panthers, or my word, again, you face expulsion from the pack.”
Jax’s eyes blazed with fury, and his body shook with the effort of restraining his inner wolf. His muscles swelled and rippled, and Ginger held her breath for what seemed like forever, before Jax finally nodded his ascent.
Clearly furious, he walked stiffly back to his desk, sat down, and turned his computer on.
“Do you want me to come with you to meet Montgomery?” Ginger asked.
Loch shook his head.
“No, it’s best if I go alone. I know how to handle him.”
The sheriff came back an hour later, his face was creased in a frown.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into Montgomery,” he said to Ginger. “He really wasn’t himself today. He says we absolutely can not come on to panther nation territory. And he’s still claiming that there’s no sign of the professor on their land. That’s got to be a lie. By now, with all the hoopla around the professor’s disappearance, they would have searched the land thoroughly. They would have followed the professor’s tracks to wherever they ended.”
“So what now?”
“We’re working on figuring out who the professor’s inside man was. We’ve got some leads, but I can’t discuss them yet.”
The Panther Shifter council were still considering the matter, and hadn’t given the sheriff an answer yet. Loch confided to Ginger that he suspected they were going to stall for as long as they could. They were being placed in a difficult and politically uncomfortable position. They were supposed to do what was best for the panthers, but what was best in this case?
Over-ruling Montgomery’s decision would be perceived as an attack on his authority – but the refusal of the Panther Nation to allow anyone to look for the professor was hurting the reputation of all the panthers.
Towards the end of the day, Ginger’s phone rang. Her father was calling.
Worried, she quickly answered. These days, phone calls from home never seemed to bring good news.
“Ginger, what is happening down there?” he asked, his voice shaking. “Reynaldo is talking about laying me off. Saying he can’t afford to have me associated with his firm, with the way my daughter’s behaving. What is going on?”
“What? Oh my God. I’m so sorry.” Her heart sank. She could just picture her father, pacing in the living room. He was a small, perpetually anxious man, with thinning red hair and worried little eyes peering out behind gold-rimmed spectacles. He was the kind of man who lived for his family, who worried about their safety all the time, who tortured himself by calculating the statistical probability of every possible disaster that could happen to them, from getting salmonella from a bad tomato, to getting hit by a meteor. He worked overtime so his daughters could do to private school and college. The desk at his office was crowded with pictures of him, Ginger’s mother, and his four daughters.
She looked across the room, at Loch sitting in his office. He was so handsome, so perfect, so right for her…and she was going to have to say goodbye to him.
“Dad, I’ll fix this,” she promised. Her eyes burned with tears as she hung up the phone and walked over to Loch’s office. Her stomach churning, she opened the door.
“Loch, we need to talk,” she said.
Chapter Twelve
“You’ve got to stop her!” Tallulah said, grabbing Ginger by the arm.
Ginger cursed under her breath. After what had happened yesterday, she was not in the best of moods. She was trying to make her way to the dining room, but clearly she wasn’t going to get a chance to eat breakfast.
Tallulah was standing there blocking her way.
“What? Who am I stopping?”
“I mean, she’s a bitch and a whore, but I don’t want her to get herself killed,” Tallulah added.
“Oh. Brenda. What is she going to do?”
“She said she’s going on to the Panther Nation territory to find him herself!”
Ginger rushed into the dining room to find Brenda in a heated argument with one of the other students. Brenda swung towards Ginger. “You said that he’s still alive, right?”
“Yes. Most definitely.”
“Then I’m going to find him,” Brenda said defiantly, and turned and strode towards the door.
“No, wait!” Ginger pleaded. “The professor went on their property, and disappeared. What do you think they’ll do to you?”
“I don’t care.” Brenda’s chin quivered and her eyes swam with tears. Her eyes were bloodshot and ringed with runny streaks of mascara and eyeliner. “None of you even care. None of you are doing anything to help him.”
That wasn’t true, but Ginger knew it was pointless to argue.
“Listen,” she said, “Let me go talk to the panther nation’s souvenir shop and talk to Tommy Deerkiller. Maybe he’ll listen to reason, or have some ideas on how to talk to Montgomery. He’s the one who stands to lose the most from this, because the disappearance is going to hurt the tourist industry.
“You promise you’ll talk to him today?” Brenda sniffled, wiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand.
“I’ll go right after breakfast.”
After she ate, Ginger got the keys to the pickup truck and headed over to Tommy Deerkiller’s. She had an uneasy feeling that this wouldn’t sit well with the sheriff.
After the phone call from her father the day before, she’d told him that she needed to go back to New York right away. He’d begged and pleaded, and finally she’d told him that she’d give it a couple more days and think about it, but she’d asked for the day off from work to clear her head.
The truth was, she was trying to build up her resolve to leave town, but she couldn’t do that if she was working twenty feet away from Loch’s office. Her heart melted and her shirt wanted to unbutton itself every time she looked at him.
The souvenir shop was located on Rural Route 220, right near the entrance to the Panther Nation property. It was a weather-beaten, one story wooden structure with a picture of a snarling panther on the billboard sign out front. “Authentic Panther Nation Souveneers!!!” the misspelled but enthusiastic sign advertised.
There were necklaces of fangs and claws, painted pottery, hand-made leather and wood drums, moccasins, packages of venison jerky, and thousands of other knick-knacks and odds and ends cluttering the shelves inside. Tommy Deerkiller was stocking the shelves when she walked in. He lit up at the sight of her.
“Well, if it isn’t the beautiful red wolf,” he said. “How may I serve you today?”
“Actually, I came to talk to you about Montgomery,” she said. “I’m worried about what’s going to happen if he continues to refuse to allow us to investigate the professor’s disappearance.”
“I agree,” Tommy nodded, frustration creasing his forehead. “People will be afraid to do business with us. Our sales are already down, because of it.”
“Is there any way that you could persuade him to reconsider? Sheriff Armstrong has always been very respectful of the panthers, from what I understand. Maybe if Sheriff Armstrong went on the property by himself?”
Tommy frowned. “Normally, I’d say yes. The problem is, ever since the professor’s disappeared, Montgomery has been acting…different. Not himself. There’s no talking to him or reasoning with him. Frankly, a number of us are concerned.”
“What’s he doing that has you concerned?” Ginger felt a ripple of unease shudder through her.
“A lot of things,” Tommy said vaguely. Clearly he was uncomfortable discussing it.
“So what could you do about it?”
“We’re debating that. But don’t say anything to anybody; challenging Montgomery or going over his head isn’t something that can be done lightly,” Tommy said, lowering his voice and glancing around fearfully. “If you could tell the sheriff that we’re working out how to address the matter, and ask him to be patient?”
“I could try.” If Loch was speaking to her.
At the sound of a truck pulling up outside, they both glanced out the window. It was Montgomery’s pickup truck, and he had two young women in the front seat with him.
“I better go,” Ginger said. Tommy nodded, looking worried. “Not a word,” he said to her anxiously.
“Of course.”
As she walked out, Montgomery saw her and waved at her from the truck window.
She paused, waiting as he climbed out and walked over to speak to her.
“How are you doing, Ginger? Come to buy some souvenirs?” he asked cheerfully. It was as if he had no idea there was a potential war brewing and he was the cause of it.
“I’m fine, thank you. How are things with you?”
“Can’t complain. So what brings you to our territory?”
She took a deep breath and thought fast. “I was looking for you, actually.”
“Really?” he looked delighted at the prospect. “Would you care to join me in a drink? We could go to the Panther Lodge, if you like.”
“On Panther territory?” she asked, startled.
“Certainly. I know you’ll be respectful of our property and our people. And I’d love to
introduce you around.” He glanced at her with a gleam in his eye and a curve to his lip, his gaze roving over her body.
Good heavens, he certainly acted differently when Loch was around, she thought. Should she go? Maybe it was a way to encourage friendlier relations with the Panther nation.
Then again, he was acting downright flirtatious. Exactly how friendly did the panther leader want to get with her?
Ginger never had a chance to find out, because at that very moment, the sheriff pulled into the parking lot, and he did not look happy.
He glanced over at Montgomery, and nodded at him.
“You’re needed back at the office,” he told Ginger. “It’s urgent.”
She smiled apologetically at Montgomery. “Perhaps some other time,” she said.
“Any time at all. You know where to find me.”
She climbed into the sheriff’s car, baffled by the odd change in Montgomery’s demeanor.
As they pulled out of the parking lot, the sheriff snapped “What the hell was that? He was flirting with you!”
Ginger nodded, bewildered. “He was, wasn’t he? That was a really strange encounter.”
“Why were you even talking to him?”
She related what had just happened that morning, and the sheriff shook his head angrily. “That was a terrible idea, Ginger. By the way, Tommy Deerkiller is the one that we suspect of being the professor’s inside man.”
“What?” Ginger gasped. “I had no idea!”
“I can’t tell you everything that’s happening with the investigation. You shouldn’t have gone out there without consulting with me first.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I was worried that Brenda would go onto the panther’s territory and they’d kill her or kidnap her, like they did the professor.”
“I don’t think they would. The professor was deliberately antagonizing them, and he clearly went on their property to steal artifacts. That wouldn’t be the case with Brenda.” The sheriff sighed. “Not that it would be a good idea to have her go on their property when tensions are running so high.”
Ginger suddenly realized that they were driving down an unfamiliar road, headed for the driveway of a blue clapboard bungalow-style house.
The Alpha Claims A Mate Page 10