“I want to more than anything in the world,” she said. “But I can’t make any promises right now. We’ll have to take things day by day.”
He let out his breath in a frustrated hiss. “I think you’ve just earned yourself another spanking,” he said.
Chapter Thirteen
The setting sun lit the horizon on fire, painting the tips of distant treetops red and yellow. Marigold stood in the backyard staring into the distance, arms folded, a frown creasing her face.
“That’s not how you’re supposed to look when you’re standing out here in God’s country, watching a beautiful sunset,” Ginger said.
“I told Henry I couldn’t see him any more.” Marigold’s face was a mask of misery. Her eyes glittered with angry tears.
“Oh,” Ginger said. “Was he bad in bed?”
“No, he was incredible. Ten out of ten. Wait, make that twenty out of ten.”
“Was he rude while you were out on dates? Flirted with other women?”
“No, he held the door open for me, acted like I was the only woman in the world, and seemed fascinated with everything that I said.”
“Wow. He sounds like such a douchebag. I’d have dumped him too.”
“I know, right? What a dick.” Marigold sounded aggrieved.
“Remind me again why we’re mad at him?”
“Because he’s acting like the perfect guy and then he’s going to do whatever it is that he does that breaks my heart.”
“Right. Of course. Dick.” Ginger turned to walk back to the house, but then she stopped.
Just because her relationship was doomed didn’t mean that everybody else’s relationship had to be doomed. She tried to think about how to diplomatically approach the situation. How to get Marigold to see how foolish she was being.
“Marigold, you’re being a total, pig-headed dumbass.”
Oops. That hadn’t come out in the loving, supportive manner that she’d meant it to. Maybe she was a teensy bit crabby because she was still stressed out about the situation with the sheriff.
“What?” Marigold said, shocked.
“Listen. Did it ever occur to you that you can affect the outcome of your psychic visions?”
Marigold started to protest, but Ginger held up her hand. “Hear me out. You’re so burnt out and bitter from having lived through your mother’s world-record-breaking number of divorces that you go into every relationship expecting it to fail. What if you decided to try your hardest to make this work?”
“Well, I-“
“I happened to have asked Loch about Henry. He said that word among the shifters is, Henry’s talking non-stop about how much he likes you.”
“Really?” Marigold blinked back tears. “But I already broke up with him. And he was really upset. It’s probably too late.”
“He was upset because he really likes you, you moron! Call him back and be honest with him. Tell him that you really really like him too, but you’ve been through so many bad relationships that it’s hard for you to trust anybody.”
“I saw myself in the future, going back to New York, alone!”
“But that’s what happens if you have the mindset that no relationship is going to work. Look, happy relationships are out there. We’ve both seen them. My parents are a perfect example. Change your mindset, for God’s sake. Go apologize to him now. Do something crazy, show up wearing lingerie under a coat or something like that.”
“I – I - ”
“Go! My love life may be screwed because apparently I’m the wrong color of wolf, but that doesn’t mean that everybody else has to suffer.”
“Well, if I’m a dumbass, so are you. You’re giving up way too easily,” Marigold said, and marched back to the farmhouse, leaving Ginger standing by herself watching the sun sink lower and lower into the horizon.
A sudden noise coming from behind the outhouse made Ginger start. She couldn’t quite figure out what it was; it sounded like two raccoons fighting, but the scent from behind the outhouse was definitely human.
Carefully she crept behind the outhouse, peeking behind bushes to see…Winifred and the handyman, buck naked, on the ground. Their clothes lay in a pile next to them. Winifred was on top, straddling the handyman, head thrown back in ecstasy, riding him like a cowboy on a bucking bronco. Her hair flowed down her back and over her small breasts like a golden waterfall.
“Harder!” the handyman yelled. “Ride me like a bull!”
Good lord, she thought, even Winifred’s got a better love life than me.
With a sinking heart, she turned and walked back to the boarding house. The wedding march ring tone sounded, and she reluctantly answered her phone. More bad news?
“You are not coming back to New York,” her mother said. “You are going to stay there and marry that sheriff, and that’s final.”
“Hello. By the way, that’s how normal people start their phone conversations. They say hello. Maybe exchange a few pleasantries. How’s the weather in New York?”
“Cloudy, with a chance of weddings. Listen. I spoke to your father. We are not going to allow Reynaldo Cruz bully us like that. He hasn’t even given your father a raise in years. Your father is already updating his resume and putting out feelers with other firms.”
“If the Alpha fires him and puts out the word not to hire him…”
“We could relocate to another pack, if we had to. This wedding is happening, damn it!”
“Mother, why are you so insanely determined to see me married?”
“Because meeting your father was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I have been ridiculously happy every day that I am married to him. Even when he annoys the living crap out of me, which is fairly frequently. I want that for you. The happy part, not the annoying part, but I think they go hand in hand, unfortunately.”
“Oh.” Sudden tears sprang to Ginger’s eyes. It was true. Her parents were a living testament to the power of love. She yearned for what they had. “I could swear you just used a cuss word. You’d wash my mouth out with soap if I said that!”
“Well, I’m frustrated. This is ridiculous! Some jealous cow is trying to ruin your relationship because you and the sheriff are different types of wolf? I’m a witch and your father is a shifter. We couldn’t possibly come from more different backgrounds, and we’ve been ridiculously happy for 30 years. And we have four of the most beautiful daughters any family could hope for. And I want some damn grandchildren to spoil while I’m still young enough to bend over and pick them up!”
“Good gracious, mother. Language. Watch your language. You really think that you and dad will be all right if I stay here?”
Her mother had already mentally moved on to more important matters. “I’m trying to decide what type of paper you should choose for the wedding invitations. Also, there’s a lot of different styles of calligraphy to consider and I think-“
“I am officially hanging up on you now. I love you, and you’re insane. Seek professional help.” Ginger clicked the “off” button, but as she walked up the back stairs, she allowed a little flutter of hope to quiver inside her heart.
Maybe she could stay here. Maybe she could keep Loch. Maybe her heart didn’t have to break into a million pieces.
Chapter Fourteen
“So if you get married, can I be a bridesmaid?” Lola was leaning back in her chair with her combat boots propped up on the desk, flipping through the pages of a bridal magazine.
Ginger grabbed it away from her. “My God. You, my mother, Loch’s grandmother…Why is everyone in the world so obsessed with marrying me off?”
Then she peered at the page Lola had been looking at. “That is a beautiful dress. Wow. Ivory silk. And look at those hand embroidered roses. You know- no, damn it! I will not be sucked into this madness! It is way too soon to be talking about weddings!” She threw the magazine back down on Lola’s desk.
“Not around here. When the Alpha claims a mate, it’s pretty much bam, boom, done. And an Alpha wedding is amazing. A
ll the packs from all over the state come, and the party lasts for days. Think how many hot guys I’d meet.” Lola pouted. “I’m bored with all the guys in Blue Moon. I need fresh flesh. Why can’t you think about my needs?”
Ginger walked away, laughing. Then she glanced at the corner of the room and saw Jax glaring at his computer, lips pressed together in an angry line, and she sobered up a little. She had a feeling that one way or another, Jax wasn’t going to last with the sheriff’s office much longer. He was a man of action, he had the temperament if not the self-restraint of an Alpha, and there was no way he’d put up with a desk job forever.
She looked up to see Loch walking out of his office, towards her.
“There’s been a break in the case,” he said.
“What break?”
“We got an anonymous tip from a disposable phone, telling us to search Tommy Deerkiller’s house. And Montgomery actually agreed to let us come on to Panther Nation property so we could do the search; he agreed this case needs to be resolved. We found the professor’s clothes hidden under Deerkiller’s bed. They were shredded, as if by panther claws, and they’re blood-stained We’ve been investigating Deerkiller for some time now, even before the professor’s disappearance, for suspicion of dealing in stolen Panther Nation artifacts.”
Loch didn’t look happy as he said it, though.
“What is it?”
“I just don’t like it.” Loch shook his head. “I don’t know why, because everything ties together neatly, and we do know for a fact that Tommy deals in stolen goods, but something doesn’t smell right here.”
“I agree, there’s something off about it. Who made the anonymous call? Why would Tommy hide the professor’s clothes at his house? And if he was the professor’s inside man, why would he kill him?”
“Theoretically, they could have argued over money. The professor could have threatened to blackmail him.” He sighed and shook his head. “Nothing we can do about it right now, anyway. Tommy’s lawyered up. My grandmother’s holding a barbecue at her place tomorrow afternoon, by the way. She invited you.”
She held up her hand to argue with him, and he shook his head. “Ginger, let me worry about the pack. Just come, all right?”
“That’s a very public statement you’d be making.”
“Yes it is.” He looked at her steadily, and she felt her heart swelling in her chest. He wanted her, and he wasn’t afraid who knew it. He’d be proud to be seen by her side. The thought took her breath way.
Still, when she went back to the boarding house that evening she felt strange and unsettled. She felt as if they were missing something important. And she knew damned well that the professor wasn’t dead. Her powers had never steered her wrong before.
Tommy Deerkiller had, of course, vociferously denied knowing anything about the bloody clothes in his room. He’d denied killing the professor, communicating with the professor about selling him icons, or seeing him on the night the professor disappeared.
But he admitted that he’d been dealing in stolen property.
Odd, Ginger thought.
When Ginger walked in the door, Marigold was waiting for her.
She told her that three of the archeology students had gone home already. There was no point in staying; it was pretty obvious that the professor wasn’t coming back. “Also, heads up, Brenda and Tallulah are in a snit because you told them the professor was alive and now the bloody clothes make it look like he’s dead.”
Brenda and Tallulah, their rivalry apparently forgotten, were sitting on the living room couch crying on each other’s shoulders.
They both looked up and glared at her when she came in.
“Fraud,” Brenda hissed, her eyes swollen into little slits from crying.
“You got our hopes up for no reason,” Tallulah sniffled self-righteously.
Ginger tried to speak, but they both got up and flounced out of the room.
“Damn it,” Ginger said unhappily. “I know that I’m right. He’s not dead.”
“I have news that might cheer you up,” Marigold said. “Not professor-related news, but still…”
Ginger peered at her closely. “Oh my God, you’ve got that I’ve-just-had-multiple orgasms look about you. Henry forgave you and you had makeup sex. In the middle of the day. Only a complete floozy does that. I know from personal experience.”
“It’s even better than that.” Marigold was glowing with satisfaction.
“Better? What’s better than you and Henry and makeup sex?”
“Winifred and the handyman. Sittin’ in a tree.”
“Okay, explain this to me, without the use of nursery rhymes. I could desperately use some good news.”
“Yesterday Winifred came to ask me if there was any hope for her and the handyman. I looked in her future and saw Winifred crying in her room and the handyman driving off in frustration.”
“Okay. And this is good news because?”
“I was about to tell her that, but then I thought about what you told me. Winifred was asking me for a reading, in her own barely comprehensible geek speak, because she was afraid that it wouldn’t work out. She was afraid that they were too different. And you were the one who told me that when you expect the end of a relationship, you end up unconsciously sabotaging yourself.”
“True.”
“So I asked her if she wanted it to work out with him, and she said yes. I asked her what she saw as the potential barriers to it working out, and she told me. Then I told her to pretend she was writing a thesis on why it could work out, and to come up with solutions to all of the problems that she found.”
“And?”
“And then I looked into my crystal ball again and I saw them, I am not kidding you, with wedding rings, and each of them holding a twin baby in their arms. And I told her it would work out. And this morning she told me that apparently you don’t have to connect intellectually with a person to be happy, as long as you connect emotionally. Well, she said it much geekier, but that was pretty much the gist.”
Her smile grew mischievous. “And she had bite marks on her neck this morning. And her shirt was buttoned up wrong.”
Ginger gasped. Winifred was an obsessive neat freak. “It must be love!”
“I know, right?” Then her face fell. “But Ginger, if I can affect the outcomes of my readings, than I’ve ruined relationships for no reasons. I’ve broken up people who might have gotten married! Oh, my God-”
Ginger quickly made a shushing motion. “Don’t do that to yourself, Marigold. There’s no guarantee that you could have talked those people into trying to work things out. Most of them probably would still have probably gone on to ruin things for themselves, and you know what? People can survive a breakup. The question is, what are you going to do with your new found powers, now that you’ve found a new approach to your love readings?”
“Well, Henry would like me to stay here and give things between us a try. And Winifred told Imogen about how well things worked out with my reading, and Imogen spread the word, so I’m getting a lot of requests.”
“Would you miss New York?”
“Sure. But it’s not like a prison sentence. I can visit. And there’s things that I like about it here, too.”
Marigold looked at Ginger through narrowed eyes. “And you’re staying, right? Because you’re not a complete fool?”
“It’s not that simple,” Ginger said.
“This is ridiculous,” Marigold grumbled. “What does that bitch of a council member think that she’d get if she broke up you and Sheriff Hot Stuff? It’s not like he’s suddenly going to turn around and marry Portia.”
“Maybe she’s fooled herself into thinking that might happen. Or maybe it’s just spite; if Portia can’t have him, she doesn’t want anyone to have him.”
“Maybe.”
The next day…
At 11 a.m., Ginger glided to a stop on the street in front of Willie’s house and parked Imogen’s pickup truck behind a pat
rol car. There were dozens of cars there already.
Everyone had congregated behind the house. As she strolled up, she could hear country music blaring from a boombox, and a happy babble of voices. There were easily a hundred people there.
As she walked up to a table laden with plates of corn on the cob and biscuits and bowls of fruit, she was surprised to see Cletus and his younger brothers and sisters there, sitting cross-legged on the grass hunched over their paper plates. Their faces were smeared with barbecue sauce and there were piles of gnawed bones on the plates.
He looked up at her and flashed her a big grin. “The sheriff invited me,” he said. “That was real nice of him. I guess he’s not all bad.”
“Not all bad,” she agreed. “He has his good points. Wipe your faces, kids.” She winced when Cletus obligingly wiped his face on his sleeve and his younger siblings followed suit, but she decided to give it a pass. He’d done what she told him to, hadn’t she?
She headed over to Lola, who was standing with her arm around a Goth-looking Coyote shifter.
“Hey, Ginger. Beer?” Lola said, holding up a bottle of Corona with ice chips clinging to it.
“Give me that.” Ginger grabbed it from her hands as a group of wolf shifters headed straight for her. “I’m going to need it. And more. Are they all going to interrogate me?”
“But of course. His parents will be here soon.”
“What?” It came out in a squeak. She downed half the bottle in one gulp.
“Remember. Bridesmaid. And don’t be picking any butt ugly bridesmaid’s dresses, either. I don’t look good in yellow. Washes me out.”
“The world has gone mad. You must have something better to do than planning my non-existent wedding for me.”
“Not really, which is actually kind of sad when you think of it,” Lola said cheerfully.
The wolf shifters crowded around Ginger, peppering her with questions.
“Are you moving in with him right away, or are you going to live somewhere in town?” A heavy-set woman with a bouffant asked her.
“Are you going to marry my uncle?” a little boy said, yanking on her skirt.
Fated Mates: The Alpha Shifter Boxed Set (12 Book Bundle) (Insatiable Reads) Page 150