The checker just grunted and kept scanning items. The bagboy kept bagging but he was doing an awful job of it. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Sadie long enough to realize that the loaf of bread should go on top of the heavy canned goods and not the other way around. Sadie wanted to correct him but the situation was already so awkward she decided not to. She would fix whatever mistakes he’d made once she got her groceries outside and away from the strange, poisonous atmosphere in here.
Determined to get through this, she stopped trying to make conversation and just stood there, waiting to pay.
It seemed the rest of the transaction would take place in complete silence until the register beeped at the cashier as she was scanning the square plastic carton of blueberries Sadie had picked up in the Piggly Wiggly’s rather limited produce section.
“Says here these are buy one get one,” she said, frowning at Sadie. “You want another? Same price.”
“Oh—thank you but I don’t want to hold up your line,” Sadie said, trying to smile.
“No problem. Hey—Jess!” the checker called across the store. A boy who looked to be college-aged came jogging up. He had broad shoulders and light brown hair and he smiled at Sadie as soon as he saw her.
“Hello, how can I help you?” he asked, his voice already a deep rumble despite his relatively young age.
“Get this lady another package of blueberries and hurry up!” the cashier snapped.
“Absolutely.” He grinned charmingly at Sadie again and jogged off, headed for the produce department.
Jess came back just as the bagboy finished putting the last few items into the brown paper Piggly Wiggly sacks and stacking them in her wobbly grocery cart.
“Here you are, lovely lady.” He put the second carton of blueberries in one of her paper sacks and took the handle of the cart. “Let me help you out with that.”
He started to wheel the cart to the sliding front doors but the bagboy stopped him.
“No way, Jess—I bagged her groceries so I get to help her out.” He stepped over and tried to grab the handle of the cart but the older boy elbowed him, none too gently, aside.
“Don’t think so, Chad,” he rumbled, glaring at the bagboy. “The lady needs a lot more than you can give her. You just stay here and keep bagging groceries.”
“No! She’s my customer.”
To Sadie’s dismay, Chad the bagboy pushed Jess the college hottie—shoving the bigger boy as hard as he could and grabbing the cart.
“You little Beta, I said she’s mine!” Jess shouted. He punched Chad, who fell over, his nose streaming blood, and grabbed the handle of the grocery cart back.
To Sadie’s horrified surprise, the bagboy didn’t stay down. He popped back up again, his face a bloody mess, and ran at Jess, barreling into the bigger boy and knocking him to the ground.
Finally, Sadie found her voice.
“Stop it! Stop!” she cried, trying to intervene between the scuffling males. “I can get my own groceries to the car! Please—please, don’t fight!”
“Well, what do you expect them to do when you come in here flaunting yourself like this, Juvie?” The checker glared at her, raking Sadie with her eyes as though she were wearing a G-string and pasties instead of a modest cable-knit sweater and jeans.
“What are you talking about?” Sadie demanded. But just then the scuffling bagboy and college hottie rolled violently into her cart. The grocery cart, which was ancient and wobbly to start with, couldn’t take such a vigorous impact. It went over on its side with a loud metallic crash and Sadie’s groceries went everywhere.
Eggs spilled out of their carton to be crushed by the wrestling boys into slimy yellow smears. Her half gallon of milk split open and white liquid gurgled across the floor. Canned goods and produce went everywhere and the already much-abused loaf of bread was absolutely flattened when Jess rolled over it while trying to fight off Chad, who was proving to be surprisingly scrappy.
“Stop this! Stop it right now!” A middle-aged man in black polyester slacks and a short-sleeved white shirt came rushing up. His nametag declared him to be Gil, the manager of the Piggly Wiggly, but Sadie didn’t have much time to read it. Instead of going for the wrestling boys, who were still rolling around in the ruined remains of her groceries, he grabbed Sadie by the arm.
“Excuse me, miss,” he said in a low, grating tone. “But I think it’s time you left. Now.”
“What are you doing?” Sadie protested as he dragged her outside the sliding glass doors.
“Getting you out of my store.” Gil the manager stopped a few feet from the door and then stepped back from her hurriedly, as though she had a disease that might be catching.
“But . . . why?” Sadie shook her head, so confused she felt dizzy. “I didn’t make them fight—they just went after each other.”
“They went after each other because of you.” The manager glared at her. “And you damn well know it.”
“I don’t know any such thing,” Sadie exclaimed, but he paid her no attention.
“Now listen, miss,” he continued. “I know that Liam Keller has claimed you and given you his word that you’ll be safe anywhere in Cougarville and as the dominant Alpha in this territory, we all respect his word as law. But there are limits. You can’t just come into a crowded public area in the state you’re in! You’re lucky you didn’t start a riot in there!”
“How would I start a riot?” Sadie looked at him blankly. “What are you talking about?”
“I have nothing more to say at this time.” Gil the manager crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. “Except to ask you politely to stay out of my store until you’ve gotten yourself mated and gotten that scent of yours decently covered. After that, you’re more than welcome to come back. But not until.”
“But . . . but I . . .” Sadie shook her head. It was like he was speaking a foreign language—like all the townspeople were. What was all this talk of Alphas and Betas and Juvies? What did the manager mean when he said she should get mated and get her scent covered. What scent? And why had Jess and Chad been fighting over her? The way they acted, anyone would have thought that Sadie was some eighteen-year-old cheerleader, not a forty-year-old accountant. This was all crazy—right?
“Goodbye.” The manager nodded and headed for the door.
“Wait—what about my groceries?” Sadie protested. “I paid for those!”
But the door had already shooshed shut behind him. If he heard her question, he didn’t bother to answer it.
Sadie stood there for a moment outside the Piggly Wiggly, feeling like the world didn’t make sense anymore. It was the same feeling she’d had when Jeff had informed her he was divorcing her for a woman half her age. The same feeling she’d had yesterday after her strange stroll through town and finding the box of impossible pictures and her mother’s weird birth certificate.
Something was going on here but what? And who could tell her?
Fiona, she thought. Maybe it’s not too late to catch her. The Cougarville Chemist had still been open when she drove by it when leaving work. Maybe the eccentric pharmacist would be able to answer Sadie’s questions if Sadie asked the right way.
I won’t take no for an answer, Sadie told herself firmly. I’ll demand to know what’s going on in this crazy little town, and I won’t stop until she tells me.
She marched over to her car with her head held high but when she got to her little Honda Civic, her heart dropped and her determination melted.
Someone had slashed all four of her tires.
Ten
“Lady, could you maybe stand downwind of me?” The mechanic from Fox’s Auto Body Repair cocked an eyebrow at her as he crouched by her front passenger-side tire. “I may be an Alpha, but I’m not made of stone. I need to concentrate to get this done, and having you so close makes it damn near impossible.”
Sadie thought about asking what he meant but then she decided not to bother. The whole damn town was crazy and asking for
an explanation for that craziness clearly didn’t work. With a sigh, she backed away from him, wondering which direction downwind was. She must have managed to find the right spot because the mechanic nodded.
“Thanks,” he said and went back to studying her shredded tires. “Yup, somebody did a number on you here all right. I’m afraid none of these are fixable.”
“Do you have four new tires I can buy? And can you also put them on?” Sadie asked. She winced—damn, this was going to be expensive. “Actually, maybe used tires?” she amended hopefully.
He looked up at her briefly. He had light brown hair with a slight curl and big brown eyes that had laugh lines in the corners. Like many of the other men she’d met in Cougarville, he was extremely large—well over six feet—and the blue coveralls he wore were stretched tight across his broad, muscular shoulders. The name COOPER was stitched in red thread on the front of them. Sadie placed him around twenty-five or-six.
“No need for you to pay. I have four brand-new steel-belted radials in the back of my truck. Compliments of Liam Keller. He heard you were having trouble and wanted to help.”
“What?” Sadie protested. “No—I can’t possibly take such an expensive gift.”
The mechanic shrugged. “He wants you to have ’em. Besides, he told me you’d already accepted one gift from him today.”
“It was a cheeseburger,” Sadie exclaimed. “That’s not nearly as expensive as four brand-new tires! I have to insist on paying for them myself.”
“Then I can’t help you.” Cooper stood up, wiping his hands on a white rag he’d pulled from the pocket of his coveralls. “Keller said to refuse any money from you. Either you take the tires for free or you can’t have them at all.”
“What . . . so you’ll leave me here if I don’t accept his gift?” Sadie demanded.
Cooper shrugged regretfully. “I hate to leave a lady in distress but I’m afraid so.” He looked up at the sky where dark, threatening clouds were rolling in. “Could you hurry and make up your mind about it? I’d like to get home before that storm hits.”
Apparently there was no point in arguing. Sadie threw up her hands.
“All right—fine. I’ll take the tires and pay Mr. Keller back later on my own.”
“Good luck with that.” The mechanic went to his tow truck and rolled out the first of the new tires.
He worked quickly and efficiently and by the time the first cold droplets of rain spattered the cracked pavement of the Piggly Wiggly parking lot, he was done.
“Welp, there you go—good as new.” He stood up and wiped his hands on the cloth again. Sadie couldn’t help noticing that for a mechanic, his nails seemed extremely clean.
“Thank you so much,” she said gratefully. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come to help me. The other two auto shops I called wouldn’t come.”
“Well, those shops are both run by Betas,” he said, as though that explained everything. “They can’t trust themselves around a Juvie like you. I’m an Alpha.”
“Okay, sure.” Sadie was too tired and hungry to bother trying to understand the weird things he was saying.
Tomorrow. I’ll ask Fiona tomorrow, she told herself wearily.
“And now that Keller’s laid claim to you, nobody wants to risk pissing him off by goin’ after you,” Cooper went on. “So you really can’t blame those other guys for refusing to take your call.”
“What?” Sadie’s head jerked up. “What did you just say about Mr. Keller?”
“I said, he’s claimed you.” He frowned at her. “You know that, right?”
“I don’t know any such thing,” Sadie exclaimed. “Look, just tell Keller he doesn’t own me—I can’t be bought for a cheeseburger with a side of new tires.”
“Tell him yourself.” Cooper gave her an easy grin. “But I’d be careful how you say it. Cats are offended pretty easily, you know?”
Cats? Once again it was like he was speaking a foreign language. It was just another thing to add to her growing list of questions.
“Okay, all right,” she said, sighing. “That’s fine, I guess. Thank you again for your help.”
“No problem. Well, I’ll see you ’round.” The mechanic nodded in a friendly way, though Sadie noticed he was still keeping his distance, just like the store manager had.
It made her think of all those zombie movies her ex had been so fond of. The ones where the normal people tried to stay away from the “infected.” That was how she felt right now—infected. Like some kind of leper who no one in town wanted anything to do with. Well, except for a few inexplicably horny males who wanted way too much to do with her.
What a mess.
“I’d better go,” she said to no one in particular as it began to rain harder. The mechanic—Cooper—was already climbing into his tow truck, which held her four slashed tires in the back.
Wearily, Sadie climbed back into her Civic. It was late and she was hungry with nothing to show for her disastrous shopping trip. The ancient box of cereal sitting in her cupboard was beginning to sound, if not good, then at least edible.
I’ll go home and curl up on the couch and watch something mindless on TV, she promised herself. Tomorrow I’ll try to get some answers but for now, I don’t want to think about it anymore.
Or maybe she would just go straight to bed and huddle under the covers. To make a bad day worse, her headache was coming back. She could feel it pounding in her temples as she drove, trying to forget her crazy day. She was surprised that Samantha hadn’t called her again—probably she was stuck in surgery. Whatever—she could talk to her twin later too.
As she took the long twisty road that led from Cougarville to her little cabin, the storm that had been threatening with dark clouds and a few raindrops finally broke in full force.
The wind picked up until Sadie felt her little car rocking and the rain came down in sheets. Thunder boomed almost continuously and lightning flashed and cracked all around her, making her gasp when it struck nearby. By the time she finally reached the end of the winding driveway she shared with Mathis, her little car had slowed to a crawl.
“Finally,” she muttered to herself as her cabin came into view, almost obscured by the driving rain. “And I thought we had bad storms in Florida.”
She was just about to pull into her driveway when one of the Civic’s new tires stuck fast in a rut.
“Oh, come on!” Sadie moaned, gunning the engine to try and get it out. “Please, can’t you just move, you stupid car?”
Unfortunately it couldn’t. The wheel spun and spun, sinking deeper and deeper into the muddy road. Mud flew as she gunned the motor, trying desperately to get out, but nothing happened.
At last Sadie had to admit to herself that she was stuck fast and all her actions were only making things worse. Well, at least she was within walking distance of the cabin, even if it was a walk that was sure to get her completely drenched. Looking around the Civic, she saw she didn’t even have an umbrella.
“Great,” she muttered to herself. “Just great.”
She opened the door and stepped out . . . immediately sinking up to her ankles in reddish-brown mud.
“Son of a bitch!” Sadie wasn’t usually the cursing kind—having kids from an early age had cured her potty mouth pretty quickly when she realized they repeated everything she said like a couple of parrots. But now she just couldn’t help herself—today was so bad it didn’t seem it could get any worse.
She slogged up to her cabin, getting completely drenched with freezing rain as she did. At least when there were storms like this back in Tampa the raindrops were warm. Here they felt like little pieces of ice soaking into the heavy wool of her sweater and waterlogging her jeans.
Just as she reached her front steps, there was a brilliant flash of lightning and a tremendous boom as thunder shook the earth all around her. Sadie gasped and blinked, blinded for a moment by the brilliant flash. Her heart was racing—God, she really needed to get inside,
out of this awful storm!
Creee-ack! A deafening sound that wasn’t a normal part of the storm noise startled her into looking up. To her horror, she saw a giant tree branch headed straight for her cabin. Before she could move a muscle or even scream, it hit the roof of her home with a thundering crunch, making a huge hole.
“Oh no! No!” Sadie gasped, unable to believe this was really happening. Hadn’t she just been thinking that her day couldn’t get any worse? Why had she tempted the universe that way?
“No!” she screamed again, running forward. Everything she owned was in the cabin, including the box of strange, inexplicable pictures she’d found the night before. She couldn’t let it all get flooded and ruined. She had to go in and rescue her things before something worse happened!
She was just mounting the steps leading up to her cabin when a hard hand caught her by the shoulder and spun her around.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” It was Mathis, his forest-green eyes blazing.
“Getting my things before they get ruined!” Sadie raised her voice to a shout to be heard over the gale-force winds.
“Oh no you’re not!” he growled. “It’s not safe. That widow-maker could come right through the roof and crush you.”
“Why should you care if I’m safe?” Sadie shouted back. “You practically kicked me out of your house last night for the crime of kissing you.”
“Yeah, well . . .” He ran a hand over his rain-soaked hair. “I’m sorry about that. But you can’t go back in your cabin—not the way it is now.”
“Everything inside will be ruined,” Sadie protested.
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Yeah, and if you go back in and that branch decides to come down on your head you’ll be dead. Which is worse?”
“Fine.” Sadie shook her arm out of his grip and turned back toward her car.
“Hey! Where are you going?”
“Back to my car,” she threw over her shoulder. “It’s stuck in the mud so it’s not like I can go anywhere—but at least it’s someplace out of the rain. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”