The Alpha's Mate

by Jacqueline Rhoades

  “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.”

&nbs
p; “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.

  “You weren’t supposed to meet them both,” Max said thoughtfully. “That has to make it so much worse for you.”

  “But why? Why is it worse for me? Is it because I’m human?” But she knew that couldn’t be true because she didn’t feel like this with any of the other wolver men she’d met.

  Max shrugged. “It’s because you’re an Alpha’s Mate.”

  “Mate! No one said anything about mating or marriage or even going steady. Marshall hasn’t even taken me to lunch at the Dizzy Dish!”

  Max laughed a little and patted her hand. “Remember how I explained about alpha with a little ‘a’ versus Alpha with a capital? You’re an Alpha’s Mate; capital ‘A’, capital ‘M’. It means you’re really rare and special. It means you were born to be the Alpha’s mate; capital ‘A’, little ‘m’.”

  “Marshall’s mate?” She rather liked the idea of being born to love him. “But what does that have to do with how I feel when I’m around Charles?”

  “Whoo-boy.” Max ran her hand over her mouth pulling on her lower lip. She sat back in her chair with a sigh. “I shouldn’t be the one telling you this. Maybe I should go get Maggie.”

  Elizabeth’s head snapped up and she grabbed Max’s wrist. “Don’t. You. Dare. Talking to you is humiliating enough. I’ll be damned if I’ll have the whole town know. You will sit there, Maxine McGregor, and you will explain as clearly and concisely as you can, just what the hell is happening to me.”

  “Okay, okay. You can let go my wrist now.” Max tapped the hand that held her.

  “Oh, Sorry.” Elizabeth let go and sat back.

  “Yeah, right. Now don’t get mad if I screw this up.” After a heaving breath, Max began, “An Alpha’s Mate is a human woman who’s born with something inside her that makes her… ah… perfect to be the mate of the Alpha of a pack. I don’t know what it is. I don’t think anybody does, but it’s there and you’ve got it.”

  “Am I marked in some way? How can anyone tell I’ve got this ‘it’?”

  “Well,” Max smirked a little. “It’s pretty obvious when you get all wild and horny around the Alpha.”

  “I do not get all wild and horny around Marshall,” Elizabeth denied indignantly. She might have felt that way, but she certainly hadn’t acted upon it. Then she remembered licking Marshall’s chest the first night they met. And the things they’d done on the floor of the Home Place. She felt the flush rise
in her cheeks.

  Max fluttered her hands nervously and did a little dance with her nails on her knee. “You keep saying Marshall, but it’s the Alpha of any pack who’s still unmated.”

  It took a moment for that to sink in and the result was horrifying. “You mean I would feel the attraction for any Joe Blow who walked in the room?” Creepy Eyes?

  “Only if Joe Blow was the Alpha of his pack.” Max shrugged timidly.

  “And would these Alphas be equally attracted to me?”

  “Yeah, pretty much.” Max swallowed hard. “The way I heard it, if you were to put a half dozen Pack Alphas in a room with you, they’d tear the place and each other apart.”

  “That’s barbaric!”

  “No, it’s wolver. They can’t help the way they feel any more than you can. Which is why you were only supposed to meet Marshall.”

  It was like pulling a plug from a drain and watching the water circle and disappear. These men weren’t attracted to her as a person. She hadn’t somehow freed an alluring inner self by running away. Marshall didn’t love her. He didn’t even have to like her. He was simply in the throes of some genetic lust that had nothing to do with her.

  “I’m not here by accident, am I?” She’d been delivered like a package in the mail, a lamb to the slaughter, a dog on a leash to a pack of wolves. “It was Eugene Begley.”

  “Yep. He’s a matchmaker. He was born with the talent for it. It’s a gift, like healing and folks say he can smell an Alpha’s Mate a mile off which is pretty funny when you think about it. Wolvers don’t track much by smell. We’re not bloodhounds. Wolvers hunt mostly by sight and sign. So when they say…”

  “Nothing about this is funny.”

  “I guess not if you’re you. Sorry.”

  “So what did Marshall do? Pay Eugene Begley to find him a mate?” Had she been bought and paid for, too?