Mated to the Grumpy Alpha

Chapter 4

CIARA | CORBETT’S LANDING

THERE WAS A WOLF IN THE CLINIC PARKING LOT, AND I WALKED OUT TO IT WITH A LIVER TREAT.

“Ciara, no.” Nancy grabbed the back of my scrubs. “Look at the size of its face.”

It was Monday morning, and the animal sat at the edge of the lot by the cedars. It was grey from nose to tail and staring at our front door.

“It’s not wearing a collar,” I said. “It might be lost.”

“It’s not lost. It’s shopping.”

I took a leash anyway, because that’s my job. I got halfway across the lot before it stood up. Standing, its head came level with my ribs.

“Hey there, buddy.” My voice barely shook. “Remember me? I’m the one with the salt.”

It didn’t want the treat. It lifted its left front paw almost politely so I could see it. Half a toe was missing, and the stump was old and healed.

“Cee!” Theo shouted from the clinic steps. “Get back inside. Now, please.”

The wolf turned its head toward Theo’s voice. Then it trotted into the cedars without a sound. It left one print in the mud, with four toes and one of them cut short.

Nancy’s hands were shaking when I came back in. “I’m calling my sister. She keeps a rifle in her truck.”

“Please don’t call your sister.”

“Then tell me that was somebody’s pet.”

“I’d be lying, and you’d know.”

***

Declan had paid Sunday’s porch rent in rolled quarters he got from Maud. On Monday night he brought twenties, and he was in worse shape than I’d ever seen him.

He was hunched on the lowest step with his arms wrapped around his knees. The shaking ran through his whole body.

“You’re freezing,” I said. “It’s twelve degrees out.”

“I’m fine. Go inside.”

“Your teeth are chattering, Declan. I can hear them from here.”

I sat down beside him without thinking and put my hand on his forearm. Eight years at a clinic does that to you. You touch the patient.

The shaking stopped under my palm, all at once. He let out a long breath and shut his eyes.

I took my hand away to test it. Three seconds later his arm started trembling again.

“Put it back,” he said. It came out rough, almost an order.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I said.

He opened his eyes. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“How long have you known about this?”

“Since Saturday night, on your knee.” He looked at the cedars and not at me. “I wasn’t going to tell you.”

“Why on earth not?”

“Because then you’d have to decide whether to do it.”

I thought about that. Then I held out my hand between us on the step with my palm up.

“Twenty dollars,” I said. “That’s for touching. It’s on top of the forty.”

He looked from my hand to my eyes. He took out his wallet, put a twenty in my palm and closed my fingers over it. He kept hold of my hand afterward and put it back on his arm himself.

“Paid,” he said.

“You’re awfully bossy for a man who owes me money.”

His mouth did that almost thing again. “Count it.”

“There’s also the matter of the drool on my pajamas.”

“Jonah’s buying you ten pairs. He told the whole pack.”

***

I should have told him about Theo before the coffee. I waited until I’d brought it out in Gran’s old cat mug with the chipped orange tabby. I was feeling petty, and I wanted to see if he’d drink three sugars twice.

“Theo asked me to dinner,” I said. “Friday, at the Landing Grill. He says he’s wanted to since chemistry class.”

Declan didn’t say anything. His hand had found my wrist while I talked, and his thumb was moving over the inside of it. It went slowly back and forth, right where my pulse was.

“He set his sleeve on fire in chemistry,” I said. My voice had gone a little strange. “I put it out with my water bottle.”

“I smelled him on you when I got here.” His thumb didn’t stop. “On your arm, there.”

“He touched my arm. People do that.”

“Good,” he said. “He’s human, and he’s kind to you.”

The handle came off the mug in his other hand with a c***k. Hot coffee ran down his knee, and he didn’t even flinch.

“That was my grandmother’s mug!”

He stared at the broken handle in his fingers. Then he looked at me, and for the first time since aisle four he looked sorry about something.

“I’ll fix it,” he said.

“You can’t fix everything with glue, Declan.”

“I can try.” He tucked both pieces into his shirt pocket. “Ansel came to the clinic today, didn’t he? You smell like cedar and fear.”

“He sat in the lot and stared at the door. Then he ran when Theo yelled.”

“He won’t go inside the clinic. He can’t.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Your grandmother salted that doorway the year you started working there.” He looked at me. “Didn’t you ever wonder why she brought Amrit a bag of salt every spring?”

I hadn’t. I’d thought it was a Gran thing, like the jam.

***

The next day I locked up alone at five. A grey sedan was parked beside my Corolla. A man in a good wool coat stood beside it with his hands folded.

“Miss Cortez.” His voice was soft and unhurried. “My name is Silas Brandt. I speak for the Council on the Ridge.”

There was someone in his passenger seat. A young man with fair hair sat with his elbow on the window ledge, watching me. He didn’t smile.

“Who’s your friend?”

“That’s my nephew, and you needn’t mind him.” Silas didn’t look round. “Declan hasn’t shifted in five days, Miss Cortez. He sleeps on a stranger’s porch one hour at a time. It can’t go on.”

“Then tell me how to stop it.”

“You say four words to his face and mean them. I accept your rejection.” He took an envelope from inside his coat. “He’ll be well by morning. Nobody from the Ridge will ever trouble you again.”

“That’s it? Four words?”

“Four words, and you have to mean them. What he said in the feed store is waiting for your answer, Miss Cortez. Until you give it, he pays.”

“Why do you care what happens to a vet tech?”

“I care what happens to him. I’ve known Declan since the day he was born.” He set the envelope on the hood of my car. “Please don’t open it until I’ve gone.”

“What if I say no?”

“The offer stands until midnight on Sunday. After that it’s out of my hands.”

“Whose hands is it in after that?”

He didn’t answer. In the passenger seat, his nephew put his left hand flat against the window and spread his fingers. The tip of one was missing.

Silas drove away without hurrying. I waited until his taillights turned onto Main Street before I tore the envelope open.

It was a cheque from the Ridge Council, made out to me.

“Four hundred and twelve thousand dollars,” I read out loud to the empty lot.

I knew that number. It was the sale price on the fax Amrit had left in the printer tray.

On the memo line Silas had written three words in neat blue ink. For the clinic.