Mated to the Grumpy Alpha

Chapter 2

Ciara

"I am nice," Declan said.

He had his arms folded and his jaw set. I had met friendlier faces on a parking enforcement officer.

"You're more grumpy than nice." I turned to Dustin. "Does your uncle know how to smile?"

"At Christmas," Dustin said. "Mommy said it was gas."

Jonah made a sound into his fist.

"Ciara, listen." He wiped one eye. "People cross the road when this man walks up. You haven't blinked."

"Should I have?"

"No, it's great. It's why I'm telling you." He clapped Declan on the shoulder. "He's loyal and he cooks and he's never been late in his life. He just needs to get laid."

The room stopped. Dustin looked up. "Needs to get what?"

"Laid back," Jonah said. "He needs to get laid back. Hammocks. Naps."

Declan closed his eyes. "I'm going to pour you into a bridge footing."

"I deal in birds," I told Jonah. "Hammocks are outside my scope of practice."

A muscle moved in Declan's cheek and a dimple cut in on the left side. It seemed to hurt him.

"The adoptables are down the hall," I said. "Pick someone who likes you."

Dustin walked the row of cages with his hands behind his back. He passed the budgies and the cockatiel and stopped at the last cage on the left.

The finch inside sat on the floor with his right foot wrapped in blue tape.

"Him."

"That's Biscuit. He hit a window." I crouched beside the cage. "Three toes on that foot are crushed and one has to come off Monday."

"Does it hurt?"

"Less than it did."

"Does anybody want him?"

"Nobody's looked yet."

"I'm looking," Dustin said.

Declan crouched on the other side of the cage. Biscuit hopped up to the nearest perch and leaned toward his hand with the bad foot tucked in.

"He hasn't left the floor in four days," I said.

Declan said nothing. He was looking at me instead of the bird.

"He'll need a heat lamp and a low perch so he doesn't have to climb. Soft food for a week, and the tape changed every morning until the toe comes off."

"Are you listening, or should I write it down?"

"No." It came out hoarse. "I got it."

"Okay." I stood and held out the clipboard. "A grown-up has to sign the paperwork. Can you sign for him, or should I ask your friend?"

He took the pen without a word and signed. His handwriting was square and all capitals.

Behind us Jonah and Dustin whispered in the doorway.

"Is Uncle Dec broken?"

"He's buffering."

"What's that?"

"It's when you see something good and need a minute."

I pretended I hadn't heard. Declan handed back the clipboard and turned for the door, and halfway there he stopped.

Then he turned around and faced me with his mouth a little open.

Nothing came out. I raised an eyebrow.

"Did you forget something?"

He looked at me and then at the floor. He went out the door, and by the time the bell stopped ringing, he was running across the parking lot.

"Bye!" Jonah called, towing Dustin after him. "He does this!"

"Bye, Steve!" Dustin shouted.

"His name is Biscuit," I called.

"It's Steve now!"

I went to find the heat lamp.

* * *

Dr. Bhatt came in at seven with his thermos and the face he wore when he had rehearsed something in the car.

"Sit," he said.

"I have a dog at nine."

"Then sit fast." He unscrewed the thermos and did not drink. "Theo signs the papers Monday. I'm staying six months to teach him where everything is buried, and then I am buying a boat."

"You get seasick in the bath."

"It's a small boat. For sitting in, with a rod and no fish."

"What happens to me?"

"He asked for you by name." Dr. Bhatt smiled. "He said he can't run this place without the person who knows where everything is."

I looked at the floor so I wouldn't cry on a man holding a thermos.

He picked up the adoption form from the counter and the smile went away.

"Levesque," he said. "Ridge Road."

"The nephew picked a finch. The uncle signed."

"Check your grandmother's salt tonight, Ciara." He set the form down fast. "And if a man from the Ridge ever knocks at your door, ask him what he wants. Then count how long he takes to answer."

"Why?"

"A man with something to hide takes a while."

The bell rang and Theo Marchetti leaned in with a cardboard tray.

"Two coffees," he said. "An oat latte with two shots for the woman who keeps this place alive." He tipped his head toward the back. "And one for Amrit, who is pretending he doesn't want it."

"Ma called me at six," Theo said. "She wants you at the house Saturday for lasagna. I told her it was last minute and she said so is the Rapture, Theodore."

"I'll bring dessert."

"She'll say you shouldn't have and then eat it in the pantry." He had the grin on. "I'll pick you up. I've heard that Corolla."

"It does not honk."

"It honks, Cee."

He went out.

Nancy waited until the door shut.

"Grade nine," she said.

"No."

"You wrote his name on your binder in pencil so you could erase it."

"I erased it."

"Every Sunday night. With a fresh pencil." She tapped the lid of my cup. "Look at that."

It said Cee in marker, with a heart.

"He's kind," I said. "Amrit got one too."

"Amrit's cup says Amrit."

I smiled and let her have it. It was easy to smile about Theo, because he had been sweet and warm since we were kids.

But the face in my head was not his.

"You're sniffing your sleeve," Nancy said.

"I'm not."

"That's three times."

"It's the antiseptic."

"It smells like laundry soap. Who stood next to you this morning?"

"A man with a nephew and a finch."

I pushed the sleeve away from my face. "Why are you smiling?"

"Because that was a yes."

I reached for the chain at my collarbone and found bare skin.

"Where's Gran's necklace?" Nancy asked.

"The clasp broke this morning. It's in the dish by my door. I'm not wearing it until it's fixed. If I lose it, I'll never forgive myself."

Declan Levesque's dimple dug in on the left whenever he grimaced, and he had grimaced at me all morning as if I had set his truck on fire.

So he didn't like me. That was fine, and the feeling was mutual.

"Ciara!" Nancy called from the front. "We're out of senior kibble and Hollis's closes at five. The strays will riot."

It was a lie, the mutual part. His voice had followed me down the hall and I couldn't put it down.

Woodsmoke and rain. I smelled it on my sleeve and in the coffee and in the antiseptic, though he had never touched me.

* * *

I walked to Hollis's at four because the Corolla had made its goose noise at noon and I had left it at Ferris's garage. I was halfway down the kibble aisle with a hand truck when a man's voice came from the next one over.

"Tell your mother I said hello," Maud said.

"She's two hours north, Maud. You could call her."

"I did. She sends me to voicemail."

I knew that voice. The woodsmoke came with it, and this time it was not in my head.

I backed away from the end cap and put my boot in a drift of loose birdseed. The floor went out from under me and I went down backward with both arms in the air.

"Oh no," I said to the ceiling.

Two arms caught me. One locked around my waist and the other cradled my back, and I hung there dipped halfway to the floor.

Declan's face was an inch from mine. He was looking at my mouth.

"Mate," he said. He sounded surprised by it.

"Excuse me?"

Somebody dropped a bag of millet. Up at the register, Maud Hollis stopped counting change.

"It means friend," Dustin called from a cart. "Uncle Dec said so."

"That is not what it sounded like," I said.

Behind a stack of salt blocks, Corrie Pruitt's phone came up, and the red dot was already on.