The Alpha Claims A Mate Page 2

  “Publicly insult…oh, please, he publicly insulted me! Did you hear how patronizing he was when he asked me to dance?”

  “Still. He’s the Alpha, you’re not.”

  “Hmmph. He needed to be taken down a peg or two,” Ginger grumbled. “Besides, I’m sure it will all have blown over by tomorrow morning.”

  Chapter Two

  “Why is everyone staring at me?” Ginger said self-consciously, running her hands through her rumpled hair. “Do I have major bedhead?” She hadn’t slept well at all; she’d tossed and turned all night, dreaming fitfully of the sheriff, imagining him running his hands over her body, his hot tongue tracing the curve of her neck...

  Funny, in all the time she’d been with Ashmont, she’d never had a single sex dream about him.

  Then she’d dragged herself out of bed at 6:00 a.m. because Marigold’s great-aunt Imogen needed someone to help her gather eggs from the henhouse for breakfast and her handyman had recently quit.

  Then she’d gone back upstairs to catch a quick nap while Imogen and Marigold made breakfast. She was not, by nature, a morning person.

  When she went downstairs to join everyone for breakfast in the dining room, they all turned to stare at her as if she’d accidentally turned and was walking in on all fours.

  “Is it true that you actually shot the sheriff down when he asked you to dance?” Miss Lamont, one of a pair of elderly twin spinsters who’d lived at the boarding house for forty years, asked Ginger. “In public? In front of everybody?”

  “Yeah, I can’t believe you did that,” added Brenda, one of the archeology students, who all sat together with the professor at the end of the long dining room table. There were half a dozen of them, all girls. “I’d totally have danced with him.”

  “You’d dance with anybody,” Tallulah, one of the other archeology students said snidely, earning a dirty look from Brenda. There was some odd kind of rivalry between the two of them; Ginger suspected it had to do with the handsome archeology professor Emerson Reese, who was leading the dig. He had wavy brown hair and wore glasses, and had kind of an Indiana Jones vibe going for him. He sat reading the morning paper, apparently oblivious to all the commotion around him.

  “Everyone knows about it?” Ginger asked, sitting down at the table next to Tallulah, who scooted her chair over to make room. Tallulah was pretty in a washed-out, nerdy way, her hair scraped back into a French braid that she wound around the top of her head, her eyes made owlish by huge glasses with thick lenses. Brenda was her complete opposite, with stylish streaks in her flat-ironed hair, clothing by Hollister and a full face of makeup even at the breakfast table.

  “Of course they do. It’s the talk of the town,” Imogen said cheerfully, setting down a steaming stack of pancakes at the table. She wore a floral a-line dress and her hair was styled in a white bouffant, courtesy of twice-weekly visits to the Kurl Up And Dye beauty salon.

  “Eat up, dear! You’ll need your strength to deal with this fiasco.” Her eyes were sparkling with excitement.

  “Who could have seen that coming? Oh, me. That’s who,” Marigold muttered into her eggs. Then she flashed a bright smile. “Who said that?”

  Ginger felt a ripple of unease run over her. She used her fork to spear a couple of pancakes, plopped them on to her plate, and poured a generous helping of syrup on them.

  “How did word get around so fast?” she asked, shoveling a forkful of pancake into her mouth.

  “Social experiments have determined that in smaller communities, this type of salacious news travels in a manner similar to a contagious virus,” Winifred observed. “Only faster.”

  “Also it was in the gossip column of the Tattler this morning.” Brenda waved a copy of the town’s newspaper in the air cheerfully.

  “What!” Ginger choked on her pancake. Damned small town busybodies!

  She poured herself some coffee and hastily took a swig to wash down the pancake. “Uh…I’m sure this will blow right over, right?” she said, looking around the table anxiously.

  “Sure thing,” Reese said absent-mindedly, still reading his morning paper.

  “Really?” Ginger asked hopefully.

  He glanced up at her and shook his head. “Nope. Sorry, my dear. He’s an Alpha. You’re an out of town werewolf from another pack. You made him look like a fool in front of about a hundred people, many of them from his own pack. He’ll never live it down.”

  Brenda nodded eagerly in agreement. He could have read the horoscope aloud and she would have nodded in agreement. Tallulah shot her a lot of contempt, and speared a sausage with a vicious stab of her fork, staring at Brenda coldly as she ate it with sharp little bites.

  Reese turned to Brenda and smiled benevolently. “Would you be a dear and get me some more coffee?” he asked, holding up a half full cup.

  Brenda and Tallulah both jumped to their feet. “He asked me,” Brenda hissed, grabbing the cup and rushing off to the kitchen.

  Ginger swallowed hard. Damn it. She’d made the news? So much for a relaxing, get-away-from-it-all vacation.

  “How’s the dig going?” she asked the professor, desperate to change the subject.

  “Oh, can’t complain, can’t complain. We’ve made some excellent finds, and incited the ire of small-minded locals. The usual.”

  She hunched over her plate and attacked her pancakes, but before she could swallow another bite, her cell phone rang.

  Puzzled, she fished in her pocket and pulled it out. Who would call her at this hour? Only her mother – but she had a special ring tone for her mother. It was the wedding march, which was a private joke between her and Marigold, because Ginger’s mother had been trying to marry her off since at least kindergarten. Probably since birth. Ginger could picture her mother wheeling her around in her stroller, cooing at the mothers of other babies, “Ginger’s single, you know.”

  The phone number was unfamiliar, but it had a New York area code.

  Quickly, she stood up, pushed “talk”, and moved away from the table. Could something have happened to her parents? It wasn’t anyone from the school, it wasn’t any of her friends, it wasn’t Ashmont Cheating-Pig-lowlife-scum Warburton…

  “Hello?” she said anxiously, as she opened the dining-room’s side door and stepped outside into the yard. Marigold followed her out the door.

  “What the hell do you think you’re up to?” the furious voice of the Alpha of her pack crackled over the phone.

  “Uhhh…good morning, Mr. Cruz,” she said nervously. “Whatever are you talking about?”

  But she had a sinking feeling she knew.

  “Publicly insulting the Alpha of the pack? Is that what you think is a good representation of the Red Wolves of the Upper East side?” he snarled.

  “You mean when I turned him down to dance? Seriously?”

  “Yes, seriously. The news travelled down here immediately and everyone is up in arms about it! You practically neutered their Alpha! This is not a small matter, Ginger.”

  Ginger’s heart sank to the bottom of her stomach. Her father worked as an accountant for Mr. Cruz’s public relations firm. Anything that she did had implications for her family, as well as for her entire pack. She just couldn’t believe that saying “No” to some stuck up, admittedly sexy as hell jerk, would have affected her pack up North. If she’d known, she’d have danced with the jerk and then hightailed it on home.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, appalled. “Is it really that bad?”

  “Is it really that bad?” Reynaldo Cruz echoed in horror. “Let me put it to you this way. Do you want to see me, as Alpha, challenged by the Alpha of Blue Moon Junction because one of my pack insulted him?”

  “What?” Ginger gasped, stunned. That would be a disaster. No, actually it would be a bloody massacre. The red wolves were the smallest of the wolf species. Sheriff Armstrong was twice Reynaldo Cruz’s size, and Cruz was a fuss-budgety, designer-suit wearing little city wolf. A Chihuahua shifter could probably kick his ass wi
thout much difficulty. In New York, the prestigious Alpha position tended to be held by those who excelled in business and social climbing. That clearly wasn’t the case here in the more rural areas of the country.

  “I’ll apologize to him, for God’s sake!” she spluttered. “This is being blown way out of proportion!”

  Marigold was eavesdropping avidly, arms folded, with an “I told you so” look on her face.

  Ginger glanced at the boarding house. The dining room windows were open and everyone was leaning out, craning to hear.

  “You’ll do more than that,” Mr. Cruz said icily. “When I asked him what we could possibly do to make up for your terribly inappropriate behavior, he said that he needs a new assistant because his assistant is out on maternity leave. I mentioned your particular talents to him, as well. You will be working for him for the next two weeks, and you will be VERY deferential. Do you understand? I do not want to hear any more complaints about you, or the implications for you and your family will be…unfortunate.”

  “What?” Ginger protested. “But I’m supposed to go back to the city next week! I can’t stay here – they don’t even have dryers! We have to hang our clothes out back on a clothes line! I ruined my best shoes stepping in a cow patty!”

  “Consider yourself lucky there was such an easy solution,” Mr. Cruz said, ignoring her protests.

  “I’m supposed to be teaching summer school in two weeks!”

  “That’s been cancelled. And the renewal of your teaching contract will depend on your ability to repair relations between our two packs.”

  “Cancelled?” Ginger wailed. This couldn’t be happening to her. She’d been counting on that money from the summer school job to pay off her credit card debt.

  “The sheriff will come by shortly to pick you up at the boarding house, so I suggest you get ready and make yourself presentable. Good day.”

  Ginger stared in horror at the phone, listening to the dial tone.

  “Wow. I will have to admit, I did not see that coming,” Marigold’s eyes were wide. “I thought we’d be ridden out of town on a rail, or tarred and feathered. But not that.”

  “How do you ride someone out of town on a rail, anyway? It might be a better alternative. I mean, if I got to choose,” Ginger said, mind reeling.

  “I always assumed that it’s like taking Amtrak. Probably a one way ticket.”

  Then, simultaneously, the wedding march ring tone sounded and the sheriff’s patrol car appeared, steering round the bend, heading right towards the boarding house.

  Sheriff Sexy-butt sure hadn’t wasted any time in coming to rub her nose in it.

  She heard the door to the dining room open, and the boarders trooped out onto the lawn, some of them still holding their coffee cups. This had to be the best entertainment in town, next to the drive in movie theater.

  She quickly put her cell phone on silent. Her mother would, of course, have heard about Ginger’s bad behavior and was now calling her up to have a long-distance conniption fit. Ginger didn’t have time for a conversation with her no-doubt-hysterical mother at the moment; she was too busy panicking.

  It suddenly occurred to her that she was still wearing her pajamas and slippers. Should she run inside and change?

  Too late. He was already out of the car.

  Mortified, she watched as the sheriff walked up the driveway and came around to the side of the house where she stood, cell phone in hand, future in doubt.

  He looked her up and down with that perpetual quirk of amusement to his lips.

  “Morning, Miss Colby,” he said. “I understand you’ve volunteered to be my assistant for the next couple of weeks.”

  Chapter Three

  He smelled masculine and earthy, with a hint of some woodsy-scented cologne. His uniform was pressed crisp and clean, the tan polyester molding perfectly to the curves of his biceps. It was obscene how good he looked this early in the morning.

  Her pink button-front pajamas were rumpled, and she hadn’t combed out her big mop of red curls after she’d climbed out of the shower that morning. She was wearing bunny slippers. With button eyes and little ears. A gift from Marigold.

  I am going to kill Marigold later, she thought irrationally. This is somehow all her fault.

  “Absolutely,” she said, pasting a big smile on her face. “The Red Wolf pack of the Upper East Side is happy to assist you in any way we can.”

  “You sure you know how to take orders?” He quirked an eyebrow at her skeptically. “Because I need someone who knows how to defer to authority.”

  Ouch. He wasn’t going to make this easy on her.

  “Your wish is my command,” she said with forced cheer, her smile still pasted on.

  “Is that so?” A slow, lazy grin quirked his lips, and she found herself blushing. There was something about the way that he said it, the way he rolled the words around on his tongue, that made it sound like she’d just offered up some kind of sexual invitation and he was delighted to accept.

  And she’d be darned if that pulsing hadn’t started up again, directly between her legs. Throb, throb, throb. Down, girl! She mentally scolded her private parts.

  As his gaze roved over her rumpled visage, she added quickly “I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting you. I’ll go change. Would you like me to come meet you at the sheriff’s office?”

  “No, that’ll be fine. I’ll wait right here and enjoy some of Miss Imogen’s fine coffee,” he said, nodding at Imogen, who tittered and scampered off to fetch him some coffee. Damn the man, he could even set the hearts of elderly widows to thumping. He was ridiculous.

  She ran upstairs, with Marigold following her, and quickly threw on a red dirndl skirt and white peasant shirt with red tulips embroidered on it. Then she stuck her feet into a pair of red espadrilles.

  “What should a sheriff’s assistant wear? Does this work?” she asked Marigold desperately.

  “I gaze into a crystal ball for a living. Don’t ask me.”

  Ginger quickly ran a brush through her hair, grabbed her purse, and rushed from her room.

  “I’ve got extra condoms if you need them,” Marigold added, following her down the hallway. “Do you want to tuck a few in your purse? How about a six pack? He looks like he’s good for at least a few rounds.”

  “Shhhh! If he hears you, I will kill you! And are you crazy? I am being punished, not seduced!”

  “Sometimes there’s a very fine line between the two. If you’re lucky,” Marigold said with wink.

  “She is lucky,” Brenda said as she passed her and Tallulah on the stairway. “I’d assist him any day!”

  “You’d assist anyone,” Tallulah sneered. Brenda stuck her nose in the air, sniffed “You’re just jealous!” and stalked off.

  “Jealous? He respects me too much to take advantage of me!” Tallulah hollered after her, fingering her gold purity ring.

  She turned to Ginger. “He’s just using Brenda for sex,” she confided. “He doesn’t respect her for her mind. Men prefer virgins, don’t you think?”

  “Errr…enjoy your dig today,” Ginger said to her. “Hope you find lots of old bones.”

  The sheriff was drinking coffee in the parlor, looking out of place and yet perfectly at ease in a floral pattered wing back arm-chair. The house was decorated in early 20th century style, with faded rugs, china cabinets displaying old bric a brac, framed needle-point pictures, and lots of ceramic roosters. The girls from the archeology class were all hovering around the sheriff and giggling; they scattered when Ginger came into the room.

  Ginger followed him silently out to his patrol car, where he held open the door for her and let her in, and they pulled away, heading towards town.

  They drove in uncomfortable silence for several minutes until Ginger couldn’t stand it any longer. He un-nerved her like nobody else ever had.

  “Realistically, I know that you don’t need me to be your assistant,” she blurted. “You just need to save face after I turned you down at t
he dance last night. So how exactly do you want to do that? You want me to follow you around and act deferential? Like walk 10 paces behind you, or hang my head and act submissive or something? I just don’t know how it’s done out here.”

  “How it’s done out here?” he echoed, looking baffled.

  “I guess I don’t know how anything’s done out here. In New York, if I turned a guy down for a dance it wouldn’t be a big deal. I had no idea that it would cause such a huge stir here.”

  “How about polite and respectful? You think you could pull that off?” he sounded exasperated.

  “Yes,” she bit out evenly. “I’m pretty sure I can manage it.”

  He fell silent, and they kept driving. She wanted to ask him what her duties were, but she didn’t seem to be able to speak without unintentionally needling him, so she kept her mouth shut.

  Sitting so close to him was terribly disconcerting. He oozed sexuality even when he was doing nothing more than driving and staring at the road ahead of him; it was like he’d been dipped in a vat of pheromones. She didn’t want to stare at him directly, so she pretended to look out the window while she watched him in the side mirror.

  His upper lip was curved like a cupid’s bow. The rational part of her brain knew that pretty much every attractive woman in Blue Moon County had sampled the sheriff’s candy; the irrational part of her brain just wanted to trace that curve with her tongue.

  The radio crackled to life. “Car 11, there’s a Code 33 taking place at the Wishing Well Motel, repeat, Code Five at the Wishing Well,” the dispatcher’s voice said.

  “I’m right around the corner, I’ll take it. On my way, ETA one minute,” he said, and activated the car’s lights and siren.

  “What’s a Code 33?” she asked, as they quickly turned down a narrow side road.

  “Burglary.”

  “Somebody’s burglarizing the wishing well?”

  “Happens more often than you’d think,” he said. “And it pisses me off every time, because those coins go to the local food bank.”