Mated to the Grumpy Alpha

Chapter 8

CIARA | CORBETT’S LANDING

SOMEBODY HAD BEEN IN MY HOUSE, AND THEY HAD WIPED THEIR FEET.

At Ferrand’s Theo had said “I’ll still see you at seven, Cee” in his careful voice and walked back out. Declan paid for both coffees and left a hundred dollar bill under my saucer.

“For the fine,” he’d said. I wanted to throw it at him. I put it in my pocket.

I got home at half past five to change into a fourteen dollar dress from Value Village.

The back door was unlocked, and I always lock it.

“Hello?” I called into my own kitchen. “I’m home, and I have a skillet!”

Nobody answered. The spare key wasn’t under the clay pot anymore.

My fingers wouldn’t work, but I found his number on the second try. He picked up on the first ring.

“Ciara.”

“My back door’s open.” My voice came out thin. “The spare key is gone, and I know I locked it this morning.”

“Get out of the house. Stand in the road.”

“Not until I know what they took.”

“Ciara.” It came out as a growl. “Out of the house. Now.”

“I’m keeping you on the phone. That’s the best you’re getting.” I pushed the door open with my foot. “There’s mud on the mat, two boot prints together. Somebody stood here and wiped their feet.”

“Is the salt broken?”

Gran’s line across the back step had a gap scraped through it, clean as a ruler. “Somebody dragged a heel through it from outside.”

“Fix it first. Then look.”

I got the tin off its nail and filled the gap with the heel of my hand. Then I walked through my own house with the phone jammed against my shoulder.

“The kitchen’s fine. Gran’s skillet has the handle turned the wrong way.” I lifted the bread box lid. “Oh, that’s horrible.”

“Tell me.”

“My terms are lying on top of Silas’s cheque. They unfolded the invoice and smoothed it flat.” I swallowed. “They wanted me to know they’d read it.”

“Is the money there?”

“The cheque is, and so is the CLINIC jar.” I walked into the front hall and stopped. “Declan.”

The blue dish by the front door was empty. I had touched Gran’s chain in it that morning for luck.

“They took Gran’s necklace,” I said. “That’s all they took.”

My legs quit. I sat down on the hall floor with my back against the door.

“Are you hurt?” Declan’s voice had gone rough.

“No. I’m sitting on my hall floor in my scrubs.” I wiped my face with my sleeve. “Three hours ago you kissed me in Ferrand’s. Now you’re my emergency call.”

“You wrote that term yourself. I’m glad you used it.”

“It was a stupid chain. It wouldn’t get sixty dollars at a pawn shop.”

“It was hers,” he said. “That’s not stupid.”

“Where are you?” I asked him. “How far away?”

“Look out your front window.”

I got up on my knees and looked. Betsy was coming up Alder Lane far too fast with her lights on.

“How are you already here?”

“I was parked at the end of your lane.” He hung up the phone, and two seconds later the truck door slammed. “I’ve been there since Ferrand’s.”

***

He stopped at the bottom of my steps and didn’t come any closer. His chest was heaving.

“Come here,” he said.

“You come here.”

“I can’t come in your house, and you know why.” He held out one hand. “Ciara. Please.”

I went down the steps and walked straight into his chest. His arms closed around me so hard my feet left the ground.

I was shaking. I hadn’t noticed until he held me still.

“They were in Gran’s house,” I said into his shirt. “They touched her things.”

“I know.” His hand cupped the back of my head and held me against him. Under my cheek his heart was pounding. “Pack a bag. You’re coming up the Ridge tonight.”

“No.”

“That wasn’t a question.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not one of your wolves.”

He made a frustrated sound against the top of my head. “You’re the most stubborn woman on this road.”

“I’m the only woman on this road. Mrs. Dunphy moved to Minden.”

“Then you win by default.” His arms tightened. “I’m still not letting go.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

A second set of headlights turned in. Theo’s car stopped behind Betsy. He climbed out in a good blue shirt with a little red cooler in his hand.

He saw us, and he stopped.

“I nearly didn’t come,” he said from the bottom of the walk. “After this afternoon, I sat in the car for twenty minutes.”

I stepped back from Declan. His hand stayed flat on my lower back. He wanted Theo to see it there.

“Somebody broke into my house,” I said. “They took Gran’s necklace.”

Theo set the cooler down and walked past us both without a glance at Declan. He checked every room with the lights on, even the closets.

“Nobody’s inside,” he said when he came back out. “Did they break the door?”

“They used the spare key under the pot.”

“Then they knew where to look.” He took out his phone. “I’m calling the OPP.”

“And telling them what? A man stole a broken necklace and wiped his feet?”

“Yes. Exactly that.” He looked at me with his serious face, the one I hadn’t seen since we were kids. “Don’t make this small, Cee. I mean it.”

That got me more than the empty dish had. My eyes filled up, and I looked at the cooler on the grass so nobody would see.

The OPP said a car could come in the morning. The nearest one was out past Haliburton.

Theo put his phone away and looked at Declan for the first time. “You’re the man from the video.”

“Yes.”

“You humiliated her in front of half the county. Now you’re her emergency call?”

“She wrote that into her terms herself.” Declan’s hand didn’t move from my back. “And I’ll spend a long time making up for the feed store.”

“Then start by letting her decide where she sleeps tonight.”

That landed. I felt it go through Declan’s whole arm.

“I’m staying,” Theo said. “I’m not leaving her alone tonight.”

“Neither am I,” Declan said.

The two of them looked at each other over my head. Theo was kind, and Declan was something else.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” I stepped between them. “Nobody is having a duel on my lawn. Theo, your mother’s tiramisu is going to melt.”

“Ma will make another. She lives for an emergency.”

Then Theo went still. He was looking past me down the lane at the streetlight on the corner.

Declan had already stepped in front of me.

A young man stood under the light with his hands in the pockets of a grey coat. He was lean and fair. He kept his weight off his left foot, and he smiled when he saw us looking.

“Stay behind me,” Declan said. “Both of you.”

He took one hand out of his pocket. A thin gold chain swung from his fingers, and the light caught the broken clasp.

“Evening, Ciara.” Ansel’s voice carried right up the lane. “Looking for this?”