The Alpha's Mate (9 page)

“No!” That came out clear enough. Elizabeth
pulled his arm to prevent him from going forward. Instead, she
found herself pulled along in his wake, her hand seized by his.

“Where is it?” he asked again when they
reached the porch.

“K–k-k-kitchen.” She was still attempting to
move in the opposite direction. He wasn’t gripping hard enough to
hold her. She didn’t want him to let go.

“Stop,” he said firmly and tugged her hand.
Like jitterbug dancers, the tug brought her swinging around and
into his chest. He wrapped his free arm around her shoulders,
holding her in place until she gave up the fight. The hand holding
hers he used to lift her chin. “It’s just a snake. I’m sure you’ve
seen one before.”

“O-only very briefly in the zoo and I never
invited him home for supper.”

He laughed and gave her a quick squeeze.
“That’s my girl. Not so scared you can’t make a joke of it.”

“I wasn’t joking.”

Elizabeth followed him into the house,
peeking out from behind his broad back. She wasn’t proud. If that
snake came slithering across the floor, she was going to climb that
broad back until she was sitting on his shoulders. He, after all,
was wearing boots.

Marshall walked easily across the living room
to the kitchen door and looked inside. He stopped and looked back
over his shoulder and spoke to the top of her head.

“Lizzie? Honey? He’s over in the corner
looking as happy as a well fed snake can be,” he whispered. “Seems
like you invited him for supper after all.”

“Very funny. Can you get rid of it or not?”
She was pressed up against his back, using him as a shield between
her and the giant serpent in her kitchen.

“Well ma’am, I could, but it’s a might hard
for a man to move quick and concentrate when a lady’s got her hand
down his pants.” His shoulders shook in silent laughter.

Good heavens! He was right. Without thinking,
she’d gripped his belt and her fingers were half way down his
backside. She snatched her hand back and held it to her chest.
“Sorry!”

“No need to be. Pure pleasure on my part.” He
stepped away from her and into the kitchen.

She leaned in to watch, saw him bend and his
hand flash out faster than an ordinary man’s should. He stood up
straight and turned to her, grinning like a boy.

“It’s just a little one,” he said of the two
foot black rope hanging from his fist.

The snake hung there, docile, its beady black
eyes staring straight ahead. She could see a slight bulge in its
body below where Marshall gripped it firmly behind its head.
Hanging from Marshall’s ham sized fist, this snake didn’t look very
threatening at all.

“That is not the snake that crawled out of
those cupboards.” She pointed to the open doors and started to
laugh. “The one I saw was much, much bigger, at least eight feet
long. Okay, maybe six. Probably that one’s father.”

“Why don’t I set this fella on his way and
come back and take a look around. Pa could be hiding under your
bed. You never know.”

He winked and she felt the flush rise to her
cheeks. Cassandra would invite him to check between the sheets as
well, but as much as Elizabeth wanted to follow her bold and sexy
character’s example, she couldn’t. Her tongue was stuck to the roof
of her mouth and she was having trouble swallowing.

“Coffee?” she croaked.

“Sure,” he said, nodding at the snake, “Let
me take care of this.” He raised the snake in a semi-salute and
headed for the back door.

“Oh, uh, let me get that for you.” Elizabeth
reached around him and the snake to push back the bolt on the door.
It was a tight squeeze between the counter and the wall and
Marshall stepped back just far enough to give her room to open the
door and reach for the hook and eye that served as a lock for the
screen door. She held it open with her back as Marshall and his
captive walked out. He paused next to her and leaned down to
whisper against her hair.

“If all you’re offering is coffee, you might
want to put on a robe.” He chuckled at her soft intake of breath
and continued on across the porch and into the yard.

Elizabeth looked down through the sheer,
silky fabric of her nightgown. Even in the dim light shed by the
single kitchen bulb, she could see everything she owned and then
some. She’d been standing in the kitchen offering him the same
view.

“Ack!”

The screen door slammed behind her as she ran
for her room where she quickly stuffed herself into a pair of jeans
and a sweatshirt.

She had the water in the coffee maker – never
leave home without one – and the coffee can in her hand when
Marshall returned empty handed. He replaced the hook on the screen
and shot the bolt on the door.

“Is this all right?” she asked stupidly and
held up the can. It wasn’t like she had a variety to offer.

“I suppose,” he said, “Though I thought the
little pink roses were kind of cute.”

“I meant the coffee.” She felt the blush
rising again and that fluttery feeling in her stomach was making it
difficult to concentrate.

“I know.” He took the mug from the counter
where she’d left it while she took another from the cupboard.

They stood side by side, inches apart,
watching the coffee stream into the pot.

“So, other than the snake, how do you think
you’re going to like living in the Home Place?” He continued to
stare at the filling pot.

“If you’d asked me this morning, I would have
said I had no choice. The money was paid. The place was mine like
it or not. But then Max’s friends showed up with the men you sent
and they all worked so hard to make it right. They wanted me to
stay.” She straightened her shoulders. “They taught me how to kill
mice.”

Marshall smiled, but still didn’t look at
her. “A major accomplishment?”

Elizabeth laughed. “Baby steps, okay? I’m
working my way up to snakes.” The coffee maker sputtered the last
drops into the pot. “In my world, mice are something you read
about. They live in other people’s houses. And if one happens to
sneak into yours, you run screaming to the building superintendent
and he’ll call an exterminator. Someone else would take care of my
problem. Today, I learned how to take care of it myself. My mother
would never believe I could do it. But Max did. She cheered me on.
So yeah, for you it’s another mouse in the cupboard. For me, it’s a
step toward independence.”

She poured coffee into his mug and then into
her own.

“Snakes, on the other hand, live in the zoo
where you can walk right by the Reptile House and never look in.”
She smiled at her ignorance. “All the things I read about these
mountains and I never thought to look up snakes. I never thought to
look up wolves either. I’ve read a lot about them, but that was
long before I thought about moving here. I even had a picture of
one on my wall when I was a teenager.” Until her mother took it
down because it didn’t match the French Provincial décor.

“None in the zoo, huh?”

“Oh no. It was a very small zoo. They had a
camel though.”

“No camels around here.”

“Good thing. They spit.”

“So do a lot of folks up here.” He raised his
eyebrow at her questioning look. “Chewing tobacco. We call it
chaw.”

“Do you chew tobacco?” She didn’t like
kissing smokers and she imagined chewers wouldn’t be much
different. Not that it mattered. She wasn’t going to be kissing
Marshall Goodman.

“Nope. Never took up the habit.”

Then again… “Good,” she said with a nod.

Chapter 9

Things were quiet over the next few days. Max
and her crew helped her finish the painting and brought bits and
pieces from their own homes that they thought she might need; extra
dishes, a pretty glass pitcher -for sweet tea Gwenna explained-, an
extra side table and two table lamps that were greatly
appreciated.

They also unloaded cartons of glass canning
jars filled with every fruit and vegetable grown in local gardens
along with an assortment of pickles and sauces. The shelves of the
closet in the corner of the kitchen, which Vickie referred to as
the larder, were packed with enough food to last her for a
year.

She lost track of the names of the donors. It
seemed that everyone in the community had sent something and she
was touched by their welcome.

Even her landlord, the Chief of Police,
stopped by twice to see how she was getting along. The first time,
she made him lunch; eggs and a slice of ham, because that’s all she
had to offer. He didn’t seem to mind. They talked about many things
and nothing in particular. He told her about the Mill and the
furniture that was built from the wood they harvested.

“Some of what we cut goes out to fill orders,
but we needed more than that to fill the need for employment up
here. So we built a small workshop. There’s a lot of talent up
here; men who, given the time and the tools, can create beautiful
pieces of furniture. Works of art. We have carvers and men who
whittle bits of wood into things of beauty. We make bowls turned
from a single block of wood. And each piece is done by hand. Some
of our lathes are still worked with foot pumps,” he laughed. “Once
we found a few dealers on the outside who were willing to carry our
goods, things took off. We’ve expanded twice and now, between the
mill and the shop and the office help and finishers and shippers,
we keep about a hundred people working. Doesn’t sound like a lot,
but up here… I’m boring you, aren’t I?

“No, you’re not,” she said truthfully. She
liked to hear him talk. He sounded so proud of what ‘his’ people
had accomplished. She knew from Max that it was his ideas and his
money that restarted the mill and built the shop. He was the one
who found the dealers and paid the up-front costs, but he never
took credit for it. It was always ‘we’ and not the royal kind that
many of her mother’s friends used. ‘We’ meant all of them together
and she liked that about him.

She still felt that unnerving tingle if she
got too close, but if she kept the table between them, everything
was fine. She was still disappointed that he wasn’t available, but
that was her problem not his, and it shouldn’t get in the way of
their being friends.

The second time he stopped by, he was in
uniform and she served him iced tea on the porch. He said he
couldn’t stay and laughingly admitted they were running a speed
trap out on Route 7 and he had to go check on the boys, which was
how he always referred to the deputies who worked for him.

One glass of tea led to another and he stayed
for two hours, his feet propped on the rail and his head resting
back on the rocker. She got the impression he didn’t often get the
chance to sit back and relax.

This time, he asked about her and she told
him a little more about her life in the city and a little less
about why she left.

“Sooner or later, you’ll miss your life,” he
said and he sounded a little regretful.

“There are things I’ll miss,” she told him,
“Like good coffee and good wine, but it wasn’t my life. It was only
the way I lived.”

She still didn’t have a car and it bothered
her a bit that she didn’t have a phone, but George assured her both
problems would be rectified in the next few weeks.

All in all, and in spite of the rough start,
she thought she was going to enjoy being a part of Rabbit Creek for
the next year.

On the fourth day in her new home, she
followed the path Max had pointed out down to Rabbit Creek. The day
was warm and sunny and the downhill stroll was a pleasant walk
through the trees though she expected her legs would feel the
uphill climb coming back. Her laptop in its satchel rested
comfortably on her shoulder.

Max had told her the Dizzy Dish Luncheonette
was now billing itself as an internet café. It was a good excuse to
check out the town while doing some research and sending her mother
a long overdue email.

Rabbit Creek was little more than a village.
Hadley’s Garage –George’s place, she assumed- shared one side of
the street with two churches, a grocery, Post Office, and a squat
brick building officially proclaimed Town Hall by a flagpole and a
big white sign on the lawn. The building also housed the Fire and
Police Departments along with whatever offices the township
required and something called Mayor’s Court with sessions held
Tuesday evenings at 7 PM.

Marshall’s SUV was parked in a reserved spot
on the street. Elizabeth wondered if she should stop in and say
hello. She knew there was no future with Marshall, but she missed
him on the days he didn’t stop by.

Her dreams had become disturbingly erotic
since she arrived in Rabbit Creek and eighty percent of them
involved the unavailable Marshall Goodman. She wondered what old
Sigmund Freud would have to say about that. The other twenty
percent starred Charles Goodman, a man she’d only met once. It was
all very strange.

The other side of Main Street consisted of a
strip of small businesses, the most prominent of which was the
Dizzy Dish. Red and white checkered curtains framed the windows and
red leatherette booths lined the window wall. Mismatched tables and
chairs dotted the black and white tiled floor. A long counter with
a series of permanently set stools ran across the other side with
equipment and kitchen behind. A bell over the door tinkled merrily
when she entered.

The place was almost empty at this hour
between breakfast and lunch. Two middle aged women, one sitting,
one standing, were at the end of the counter, both wearing blue
uniforms with white aprons. An old man sat at the other end,
drinking coffee and reading the paper. He looked up and smiled when
she walked in.

“Sit wherever you want, hon,” the standing
woman said when she saw Elizabeth hesitate inside the door. “That
booth over in the corner’s always nice for private conversations.”
She winked. “Chief Goodman usually sits there.”