Virginia was sensitive to people’s energies, and she picked up on a deep sense of exhaustion from this woman. She wouldn’t have the strength to do much healing.
Natasha apparently wasn’t one for social niceties. “Darlie mentioned that she’d asked you to come in here today. She shouldn’t have done that without consulting me,” she said without bothering to say introduce herself or say hello.
Virginia saw Darlie standing in the doorway with a frown on her face.
“I’m Virginia Battle. Pardon me, I mean Virginia Lawrence. Are you sure you don’t want me to stay? I don’t mind at all.”
She glanced around the waiting room. As usual there were a lot of children there. Shifter children hadn’t developed their full healing powers yet.About a dozen people were waiting, mostly with minor ailments. However, there were several families sitting there with young children who had measles. That was the kind of thing a healer would be called in for, because measles could cause serious complications. Lesser ailments were generally handled by regular medicine.
Natasha shook her head, her demeanor icy. “Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. We don’t need you.”
Wow. This was something Virginia had never seen before. Healers were a very supportive bunch, and they always helped each other.
The receptionist, a bobcat shifter, hung her head, looking embarrassed.
Darlie strode over. “Natasha, that was completely unnecessary. She came in here and offered to help.”
Anger flared in Natasha’s eyes. “No, Darlie, what was completely unnecessary was you disrespecting me and going behind my back to sneak this woman in here. If you do it again, I believe you should seek other employment.”
“How about today?” Darlie fired right back at her. “Because I can’t stand by and watch this happening.”
“Then don’t,” Darlie said coldly.
“Well, sorry to impose,” Virginia said, and she left with a sympathetic glance back at Darlie.
What the hell? she fumed as she let the door slam behind her. It wasn’t as if she’d been seeking to move into her territory permanently. Was that what Natasha thought, that she wanted to replace her? As if there wouldn’t be room for two healers, even if Virginia actually had wanted to move in on her.
As she walked out of the parking lot, she heard Darlie calling out behind her. “Wait up!” She turned and waited as Darlie jogged over to her.
“I’m going for breakfast,” Virginia said. “Care to join me? I hope I didn’t just cost you your job.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. This has been a long time coming, and I actually don’t think the firing’s going to last long,” Darlie said, shaking her head impatiently. “She doesn’t own the clinic, she just works there. Also my daddy’s the mayor – did I mention that? Anyway, I’d love breakfast.”
They went to the Café Edelweiss. After the waitress set menus and coffee down in front of them, Virginia said, “So what gives back there, anyway?”
A look of caution came over Darlie’s face. “It’s…Natasha is very proud. And stubborn. She insists on doing things her own way.”“What’s wrong with her? I couldn’t sense a specific illness in her.”
“Terminal bitch syndrome?” Darlie let out a semi-hysterical laugh, then clapped her hand over her mouth. “I shouldn’t say that – she’s really sick. Anyway, let’s look at that menu.”
It was obvious that she didn’t want to discuss it further, so they sat there and made idle chit-chat over breakfast. Darlie had grown up there, was married to a local lumberjack who, like Darlie, was a wolf shifter. They’d been married for five years and didn’t have cubs yet. Virginia privately wondered why. Did they not want them? Were they not able to? But that wasn’t the kind of thing one asked; if Darlie wanted to volunteer the information, she would.
They were finishing up when Carver walked in, looking annoyed.
Darlie glanced at him, then back at Virginia. “Husband? Trouble in paradise?” Darlie stood up quickly. “I’m going to pay for our breakfast. It’s the least I can do after this morning. No, I insist,” she added as Virginia tried to protest.
As Darlie left, Carver sat down at the table across from her. “Waking up to find my wife gone wasn’t quite the morning-after I was hoping for,” he said with an edge to his voice.
“I went into the clinic to help out because a nurse asked me to yesterday.” Virginia pushed her plate away from her. “But it turned out that the healer didn’t need any help, so I left.”
“And you didn’t think to mention this to me?” Carver raised an eyebrow. He was sitting up straight, body tense, forehead furrowed.
She looked up defensively. “I already told you I don’t need to have someone shadowing my every move.”
He shot her an angry look, and she could see a flash of hurt in his eyes. “This isn’t shadowing, Virginia. This is me expecting you to treat me with basic courtesy. I was worried when I woke up and found out you’d vanished.” Before she could answer, he stood. “Do you want a ride back to the lodge?”
“Thanks, I’ll do the ol’ shift-and-run.” The last thing she wanted was to be sitting next to Carver with him radiating anger and disapproval. She could hang out with her father if she wanted that kind of treatment.
He nodded curtly without bothering to reply, and walked out.
Chapter Ten
A sharp twinge jabbed inside her chest as she watched him leave. She suddenly realized that she wanted to tell him about how weird the village’s healer had behaved, and also talk about the strange smell outside their cabin. She wanted to just share her day with him, sit there and talk to him.
She spent the rest of the morning glumly wandering around the downtown area, then drove back to the lodge.
When she got there, Carver was gone. He’d left a note for her taped to their door – Gone for a run.
Just as well, she thought. He was probably still mad at her and she didn’t want to get in a fight.
She spent the afternoon reading. She didn’t want to go up to the main house by herself, because she was afraid it would look odd.
Around mid-afternoon, she called an older healer she knew, a woman who had been acquainted with Natasha back in the day.
“Virginia!” Leslie said. “What a surprise! Why are you calling me from your honeymoon?”
Oh my God, Virginia thought, stifling a groan. The woman lived in Wyoming and she knew about Virginia’s marriage? How was she ever going to explain this?
“I just had a quick question. I was going to help out at the local clinic here, but the healer there, Natasha Stinson, acted mortally offended and threw me out. It was weird, because she seemed really weak and tired, like she’d just healed a whole football team from critical injuries, but she wouldn’t accept my help. I know she used to be pretty famous in healer circles. What do you know about her?”
Leslie gave a snort. “Doesn’t surprise me that she acted that way. So, Honeymoon Mountain, that’s where she went. The thing with Natasha – she was very talented, but she was also far too aware of it. She just became more and more full of herself as more and more people started coming to her with the most difficult cases and she always healed them when other healers had failed. She just got so rude, and generally unpleasant to be around, that people began turning against her and gradually fewer and fewer packs invited her to visit. Last I heard, she seemed to have had some kind of mental breakdown.”
“What do you mean? Was she actually harming anyone, or threatening people?”
“Oh, no, she was going on and on about how she could bring people back from the dead and cure any disease, even the incurable ones, and then she had a big falling out with the Council of Elders for some reason. And disappeared. And we all said good riddance.”
The Council of Elders didn’t usually deal with healers; they ensured that all of the shifters followed their code of law. Then again, Natasha seemed as if she could pick a fight with just about anybody.
“Huh. I’d always
heard how brilliant she was, how she discovered new herbs and uses for them, and taught people to enhance their healing powers and all that stuff,” Virginia mused. “The healer from my pack was a big fan. Never heard what a bitch she was. But she really is.”
“Last time I saw her, which was eleven years ago, she came out to my pack’s lands to teach. While I was healing a young boy with pneumonia, she came over and literally pushed me out of the way and insisted on taking over, then told the parents that it was a good thing she’d gotten there in time or he might have died. I’ve healed plenty of people with pneumonia.” Leslie’s voice took on an offended tone. Virginia couldn’t blame her. “Hey, if you run into her again, would you please let her know that I said she can kiss my furry ass?”
“Tempting. I just might,” Virginia said with a laugh. “All right, well, I’d better get back to honeymooning. See you soon.” She winced as she hung up. Honeymooning. The lie was getting bigger and bigger. Now it was a nationwide lie.
And where the hell was Carver? Why wasn’t he here annoying her?
Well, she sure as hell wasn’t going to call his cell and try to track him down. She was right and he was wrong and she was not a stubborn ass.
Instead she shifted again and ran by herself until she was tired, then went back to the cabin and showered. Carver still wasn’t there.
It was late afternoon, and she felt annoyed. Shouldn’t he at least have told her how late he’d be out?
She wished she could call Sally and bitch about it, but she couldn’t tell Sally what was up. And she didn’t want to call her cousin, because then she’d also have to admit that she’d had super-hot sex with her husband, and Katrina would be unbearably smug.
All right, she grudgingly acknowledged to herself. Maybe she should have told Carver where she was going that morning. Maybe that was common courtesy between friends, which they sort of were. Friends who were married to each other and who had hot sex.
“When did my life get so weird?” she said out loud. Unfortunately, there was nobody there to answer.
Really bored now, she headed back to the main lodge. Carver was already there, sitting with Tricia and Devon and the hotel owners, sipping brandy from a crystal snifter.
“Done with your nap?” Carver called out to her. That was Carver, always covering for her.
“Yes, thanks. I feel utterly refreshed.” She sat down next to him on the leather sofa. She could tell he was still hurt; that mischievous gleam in his gaze had been replaced by a polite, social friendliness. He didn’t put his arm around her or do anything to sexually tease her, she noticed. Maybe he’d given up on her. She guessed that would be easier for them both, but the thought sent a surprising feeling of gloom and loneliness through her.
“I knew he was going to wear you out!” Tricia said with a wink as Delores poured her a brandy.
Virginia managed a weak smile.
“Delores, I smelled something really odd recently,” she said to change the subject. “I smelled it when I went for a run yesterday, and then again this morning right outside our bedroom window.”
“Define ‘odd’,” Carver said with a frown of concern on his face.
“It smelled kind of like an animal, but it wasn’t like any animal I’ve ever smelled before. And it smelled…off. Different. Wrong. I can’t even explain it. Did you notice it?”
“Now that you mention it, I did scent something kind of strange when we went for that run, but I didn’t really put a lot of thought into it at the time,” Carver said. “I didn’t smell anything this morning, but it was pretty windy for a while there, which might have dispersed the scent.”
“Ooh, it’s the return of the Monster of Honeymoon Mountain,” Clifford said dramatically.
“Oh, dear, don’t.” Delores shot him a reproving look. “It’s not funny.”
But he’d seized everyone’s interest.
“What monster?” Devon asked eagerly.
“Ten years ago in the village, there was a terrible fire at a local family’s house,” Clifford intoned dramatically. “The house was burned to cinders. The mother, father, and two children weren’t just burned, they were basically charcoal. And a local man swore that as the flames leaped higher and higher, before the firefighters arrived, he smelled something inhuman and saw huge, dark, monstrous shapes running away from the house.” Clifford’s voice grew deeper and more melodramatic as he described it.
“A drunk local man,” Delores added.
“Monsters that set fire to a house?” Virginia said skeptically.
“There were a few more sightings after that,” Clifford continued, undeterred. “There were different people who swore they saw these dark shapes that resembled some monstrous, distorted beast, lurking in the forest near the village. An evil, beastly pair. And the one thing in common that everyone mentioned was that odd smell.”
There was a long moment of silence, as the couples stared at each other, wide-eyed. Tricia clutched at her husband’s arm, and he hugged her protectively.
Finally Virginia cleared her throat and broke the silence.
“It makes a good campfire tale,” Virginia said. “You just need to throw in a hook hand hanging off someone’s car door.”
Delores shook her head. “That was all before our time, anyway. We moved here, bought the lodge and renovated it five years ago. And I’m sure there weren’t any monsters, because nobody has seen or spoken of them since the year of the fire, from what I’ve heard.”
“Nonetheless, if something strange is sniffing outside the bedroom window, you need to be careful. You shouldn’t run in the woods by yourself anymore,” Carver said.
“Oh, please, I can take care of myself,” Virginia scoffed.
Then she saw his expression change. “Yes. You’ve made that abundantly clear,” he said, his tone harsh.
Silence fell on the group.
“Well, back to the cabin!” Virginia said brightly. She stood. “Delores and Clifford, thank you for the scary entertainment and the drinks. We’ll see you tomorrow!”
She headed for the door with Carver by her side, simmering with resentment. Neither of them spoke as they walked back to the cabin.
“I’ll sleep on the couch,” she said when they walked through the door.
“Fine.” He nodded and headed straight for the bedroom.
Wow. He hadn’t even tried to argue. The honeymoon literally was over, she thought with a dull ache in her chest.
Chapter Eleven
She slept poorly, tossing and turning all night. Her mind knew that she and Carver weren’t speaking, but the animal within her screamed for release. And only Carver would do. She wanted to be in bed with him again, wrapped up in his arms, moving underneath him…
She woke up early to a knocking on the door. Who would be visiting her cabin here?
Hugging her plaid flannel pajamas to her, she padded over to the door.
To her surprise, Darlie stood there on the doorstep, wringing her hands nervously.
“I am really, really sorry to bother you again on your honeymoon. I wouldn’t come if it wasn’t desperate,” she said. “The clinic called me in this morning and un-fired me. Yesterday Natasha was only able to heal a couple of people and then she passed out. She had to be taken home, and she hasn’t come in today – her husband said she’s too sick. Several of the families with measles are back. They never got treated yesterday and now their kids are really, really sick. Like life-threateningly sick.”
“Good God, why are we still talking?” Virginia grabbed her purse and pushed past her, running out the door still in her pajamas and slippers.
“Do you want to get dressed?” Darlie asked, following as Virginia sprinted over to Darlie’s car, which was still running.
“Nope. I’m good. It’s an emergency – let’s hit the road. People may judge me if they choose.” She glanced back at the cabin. “Damn it. I didn’t tell Carver where I was going.”
She couldn’t take any time to run back insid
e, so she reached into her purse, grabbed her cell phone and called him as they drove; it went to voicemail. She hung up and sent him a text.
Going to the clinic again, some kids are really sick with measles. I’ll text you when I’m done.
Darlie steered expertly down the country roads, zipping around corners with ease, and they were at the clinic within minutes.
None of the cubs were past Virginia’s help, she realized with enormous relief. She quickly assessed which ones were the sickest, healed them first, and moved on. She knelt next to them, hands on their feverish little bodies, and poured all the strength from her body into theirs.
She healed all seven of the sick kids while their worried parents hovered over her and wrung their hands.
After she’d healed the last one and the grateful mother had carried her out of the examination room, she leaned back in her chair, dizziness swirling around her.
“Whoa. Maybe you should have paced yourself a little.” Darlie sat down next to her and handed her a big mug of coffee.
“Couldn’t. They were really sick – it needed to be taken care of immediately. I’ll be fine, I just need a few minutes to recover.” Virginia took a really big sip of the coffee, enjoying its bittersweet taste as it rolled down her throat.
“Take all the time you need. There aren’t any other urgent cases.”
Virginia nodded, took another swig, then leaned back in the chair, closing her eyes. “Darlie, I’m just curious. Some of the kids…there’s an interesting genetic mutation in their blood. Three of them. It doesn’t seem to affect them in any way, but it might be worth referring them for further testing.”
Darlie shook her head, looking hesitant. “In all honesty, the parents probably wouldn’t go for it. The town itself is also a fairly private community, in its own way.”
“Well, they seem perfectly healthy, so I guess there’s no need.” Virginia had obviously ventured into sensitive territory.
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