Shifters of Silver Peak: Mate Marked

Copyright 2015 by Georgette St. Clair

This book is intended for readers 18 and older only, due to adult content. It is a work of fiction. All characters and locations in this book are products of the imagination of the author. No shifters were harmed during the creation of this book.

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Chapter One

The morning of May 15th started out like any other in Silver Peak, Montana, a shifter-only town made up of a scattering of houses and a cluster of shops hugging either side of the town’s main road.

A group of pack members were gathered at their usual table at the Chatterbox Diner, squabbling and worrying about their future, since their so-called Alpha had run out on them like a scared little pussy.

Erika Schmalz, aged twenty-three, was being chastised by her aunt Louise for slurping her soup and not sitting like a lady.

Barbara Tudor, owner, reporter, photographer, blogger, advertising manager and gossip columnist of the Silver Peak Signal, was glumly typing up the crop reports on her laptop and wishing for some real news.

The handsome wanted poster of Roman Kincaid, tacked up on the wall of the Chatterbox, glared down on them all, as he had for the last eighty-two days. Roman Kincaid was a hard man to arrest. He was also hard all over, if the rumors from his many female admirers were to be believed.

He had long, thick, dark hair that swung past his shoulders and cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. In the picture, he wore a black leather jacket and a rakish expression.

“That is one good-looking outlaw,” Erika said, glancing at the poster. “If I wasn’t practically engaged, I’d be all over that.”

“See, there you go, not being ladylike,” her aunt Louise scolded her, shaking her head. “What if Terrence hears you talking like that? You’re lucky he overlooks your terrible manners and your completely unfeminine behavior. Keep this up, and you’ll never get Mate-Marked.”

Louise glanced across the room at Sissy Castleberry, who had a big, giant Mate Mark on her neck from where big, dumb Roger had bitten her last week. Sissy kept simpering and tossing her hair to the side, to display the Mate Mark, which drew admiring squeals from all the girls at her table. Louise glanced over at Erika, made a clucking noise, and shook her head sadly.

Sissy had been a year behind Erika in high school, and she was now mated for life, as was everybody from Erika’s class – except, of course, Erika.

Erika winced. “First of all, I may be practically engaged, but I’m not dead. I can look. And secondly, it’s not my fault that Terrence doesn’t know how to change a tire and I do. If I’d waited for him to figure it out, we’d have been stuck by the side of the road in the hot sun for hours.”

Her aunt shot her a reproving look that said it would have been a better option.

“I only want what’s best for you,” she said, with a drawn-out sigh that would have been heart-rending if Erika hadn’t heard it so many times before. “Me and Herbert, God rest his soul”—pause for a quick heavenward glance—“had fifty happy years together. And I can tell you, in all that time, I never once used foul language, made”—delicate shudder— “bodily noises, or—”

A yell from the other side of the room made Erika jump. “We can’t go on like this!” shouted Lorena, the head healer for the Silver Peak pack, slamming her hand on the table. She also owned a gift shop. “The teenagers are running wild and we’ve got nobody to rein them in! My store’s been vandalized for the third time this week! Everything’s in chaos! We need to find an Alpha!”

Erika glanced up at the wanted poster on the wall. Yeah, as long as Roman Kincaid and his gang were hanging around the outskirts of town, that was gonna be a problem. Word had gotten out. No aspiring pack leader wanted to come to town just to get their ass handed to them.

And there she went, thinking unladylike thoughts again. Thoughts with swear words in them.

Anyway, with the town’s paper mill gone out of business after the earthquake and most of the pack having moved on, Silver Peak was hardly an attractive prospect for potential sheriff candidates these days.

Erika sighed, took a big swig of her coffee and let out a small burp, earning her a look of disgust from Sissy all the way across the room, so maybe it hadn’t been so small after all.

And then it happened.

They all felt it, even before she arrived. They were wolves, after all; they had that sixth sense.

It was a subtle change in the atmosphere, a lightening, as if a fresh spring breeze had blown into town carrying the scent of wildflowers with it.

They watched in astonishment seconds later as the car drove by. It was a VW Bug, it had big fluttery eyelashes on the headlights, and it was pink. And somebody had painted adorable purple cartoony flowers on it. The car was being driven by a woman with a big mop of red curls. Human or shifter? She almost certainly had to be a shifter; humans rarely visited shifter towns.

They all stared through the big picture window as she drove past.

* * * * *

Chelsea Wintergreen hummed the tune to Rocky Mountain High as she wound her way along Moose Antler Trail. True, they weren’t in West Virginia, but they were high up on a rocky mountain. The views were breathtaking; the icy cool blues and grays of the mountainside, the towering green pines whose tips brushed the azure sky.

“This is it, Pepper,” she announced to the fat old beagle who lay curled up on the passenger seat next to her. “We’ve finally found a home!”

She’d found Pepper abandoned in a grocery store parking lot the last semester of college, and she had gone through great pains to keep her hidden from the dorm monitor. But now, the days of rushing Pepper into her dorm room closet two or three times a week were officially behind her.

Pepper yawned and put her paw over her nose. She shot a reproachful look at Chelsea, a look that said, Let me sleep.

“No more hiding!” Chelsea said, trying to drum up some excitement in her canine companion. “You can roam wild and free! Well, in a fenced-in backyard, of course.”

She was rewarded with a gentle snore and a mild blast of flatulence that had her quickly rolling down her window. Realistically, it was hard to imagine Pepper roaming anywhere other than from her dog bed to her food bowl and back again. Also Chelsea was pretty sure that Pepper could fart at will, the rotten little beast.

Well, she wasn’t going to let anything dampen her enthusiasm. She was sure that Silver Peak was meant to be her home and her pack. Growing up in a foster home, without a pack or a family, had been tough. She’d learned to make the best of it, though. She’d pretty much had to, given her…condition.

She’d been worried, though, when she’d graduated from the Culinary Institute.

Like all shifters, she was required by law to sign up with a pack or pride as soon as she graduated from college or by her twenty-first birthday. Most shifters belonged to their family’s pack, but shifters like her, with no family, faced a dilemma upon reaching adulthood. Shifters who did not belong to packs or prides, and who did not have regular contact with other shifters, went feral within six months. The only way to ensure that no shifter went feral was to require that they be a member of a shifter group, and also to require that the leader of that group sent regular reports to the Council for Shifter Affairs certifying that all members were socializing like good little human-animals.

Of course, a lot of shifters resented having to report to the council in the first place. Humans had created shifters with the illegal experiments of the 1930s; there was understandable suspicion of any human agency overseeing them.

But, as compensation, the U.S. Government had given shifters enormous tracts of land where they could live completely free of human supervision or law, with one exception: monthly socialization reports. Or else.

Fortunately for Chelsea, as her twenty-first birthday had approached, the Council for Shifter Affairs had found a distant relative on her late mother’s side and put her in touch. Her choice was to join that relative’s pack or have the Council try to find her some random pack somewhere that was willing to accept a mutant strain of shifter like herself.

Well, the third choice was to live among humans, apart from all shifters, and go slowly crazy until she went feral and attacked someone and was put down with a silver bullet, but that didn’t seem like a really fun choice.

Mel, her third cousin twice removed, had responded to Chelsea’s phone call with great enthusiasm. She’d assured her that the pack would love her, and that Chelsea could crash on her couch as long as she liked and Pepper could come too.

This was it, then. This was the beginning of her new life.

One not-so-small ghost of worry nagged at her. She hadn’t yet told her cousin about her…condition. Not that it was so terrible, but it was something that put people off when they knew about it. It was why she’d never really had close friends in college, why she hadn’t yet found a pack to call her own.

Distracted, she almost missed the sign for Rural Route 501, it was so small. It was hand painted on a board stuck next to a towering Douglas fir tree.

“Here we go!” she sang as she drove down the narrow dirt road. And drove. And drove.

“Good heavens,” she muttered as she slowed to avoid hitting a deer. “Rural route? They weren’t kidding.”

Now she was starting to get a little worried. She’d passed 100 RR 501. It was a small log cabin style home with chickens pecking in the dirt out front. She was looking for 110 RR 501. But she passed by a big empty lot, and then came to 120 RR 501, a modular style house with floor-to-ceiling windows and a sharply slanted asymmetrical roof.

She slowed down, turned her car around and headed back to the empty lot. There was a mailbox there, with the number 110 on it. But there was no house behind the mailbox.

She climbed out of the car, standing there with her door open and squinting into the woods behind the empty lot. Was the house back there somewhere? She had pretty good eyesight, and she didn’t see it anywhere.

She heard rustling from the underbrush, and a woman’s voice called, “Hello?”

She felt a wave of relief roll over her. Maybe her third cousin twice removed lived in a tent? Or a treehouse? Whatever it was, she’d take it. She could hardly be choosy; she had eleven dollars left to her name, and everything she owned was crammed into two suitcases and two plastic bins.

“It’s gone,” the woman’s voice called from the shrubbery. Then the woman, who appeared to be in her forties, pushed her way through the underbrush, striding towards her. Too old to be her cousin; Mel was twenty-two.

She looked at Chelsea with her yellow wolf’s eyes, the only physical sign that she wasn’t human. Chelsea caught a faint scent of wolf as well, but unlike most shifters, she had a terrible sense of smell and wouldn’t have been able to scent her from a distance.

“I beg your pardon?” Chelsea said uneasily. “What’s gone?” Was the woman referring to her cousin Mel as an it?

“The house. It’s gone.”

The woman walked closer. She had brownish hair streaked with gray and yanked back into a bun, and wore a flowery apron over her jeans and T-shirt. There were suds on the apron; Chelsea must have interrupted her washing dishes.

“”I’m supposed to meet Mel today. She lives here.” Chelsea gestured at the empty lot, as if by waving her arms around she could conjure up a house and a person where there were none.

“Lived. The house is gone.”

Were the people up here crazy? Some strains of shifter were definitely a little weirder than others. That was what came of government experiments gone wrong.

“It’s a house,” Chelsea said patiently. “How could it be gone?”

The woman wiped her hands on her apron. “It was a mobile home. She upped and left yesterday. She’s always been kinda a rover. Comes and goes. There’s not much to keep a young gal here these days. There’s some gypsy pack in California she said she’s going to join up with.”

“Oh,” Chelsea echoed stupidly. “I see. She’s gone.”

The woman gave a short, sharp nod. “Ayuh. Gone.” Then she turned and walked back towards the underbrush.

Now Chelsea felt panic tightening in her chest. No house, no pack, no job. Half a tank of gas. And eleven dollars in her pocket.

Pepper wandered up to Chelsea, leaned on her leg in seeming sympathy, and let out another blast as if to comment on the general undesirability of the situation.

“Your sense of timing always was impeccable, Pepper,” Chelsea sighed.

Chapter Two

Sunday, May 16th

The sounds of snarling and snapping and the chants of “Fight! Fight! Fight!” yanked Roman out of a sound sleep.

He tried to sit up, but something was sprawled across him. No, someone. Someone with long hair and way too much perfume. He opened his eyes, his head feeling vaguely thick and fuzzy. What fucking time was it? It was still dark out.

He didn’t recognize the woman sleeping on his chest, which was nothing new. It was definitely someone he hadn’t slept with before. Maybe. Vague memories from the night before told him her name was something like Brittany.

He rolled her off him, and she sprawled on the mat on the ground, groaning and rubbing at her face.

“Washup? What time ishit?” she groaned, crawling back onto the bed as he stood up. His bed was a king-sized mattress on two wooden pallets which he’d made into a bed frame of sorts. A kerosene lantern rested on the wooden cable stool night-stand. He glanced at the clock, which hung from a hook on the tent’s wooden frame. 3:30 a.m.

One of the women who’d slept over a few weeks ago had informed him that his décor was actually very trendy these days. She’d called it rustic-industrial chic.

“Wash all that noish?” The woman currently taking up space in his bed was still drunk. She was pretty, but the beery fumes rolling off her, mixing with the thickly applied perfume, definitely dimmed her appeal. “No idea,” he grunted. “Be right back.”

“Hey, come back to bed.” She patted the mattress next to her.

He ignored her and headed out of his tent, not bothering to pull on his pants.

His tent was set high on a slope overlooking all the others, so he could keep an eye on his pack and see any threats that might be headed their way. A silver crescent moon hung overhead, and light from a dozen torches illuminated the clearing among the towering pines where they’d built a stone-ringed fire pit and placed tables and benches.

In the clearing, two of his pack members, Rafe and Corrigan, had shifted and were snarling and snapping at each other. They were panting hard, and Corrigan was bleeding from his flank.

His pack members backed off when they saw him approach, and the shouting died down.

Adrenaline raced through his veins, which sent Roman shifting in an instant, dropping to all fours. His night vision blazed to life and a million smells swirled through his nostrils. The woodsmoke smell from the fire, the tang of pine sap, the unique, musky scent of each pack member…

Rafe lunged at Corrigan again, and Corrigan dodged out of his way. Roman charged into the circle and knocked Corrigan and Rafe sprawling.

He threw back his head and let out an angry howl as they scrambled back to their feet. Then he shifted back into human form, and they did too, hanging their heads in a show of respect. The three men stood there under the moonlight, naked, sweaty and panting. They were half angry, half amused. The pack members and the women they’d brought home from the bar were laughing and enjoying the show. Typical Saturday night with the Kincaid Pack.

“What the fuck, you idiots,” Roman growled. “We have to work Monday.” If they hurt each other too badly it might take a couple of days to heal. Reginald Purcell had brought them up here to do a job, and his barn wasn’t going to build itself. They were ahead of schedule, sure, but Roman expected that of them. It kept them competitive, gave them an edge over other traveling construction crews.

“Rafe stole my girl. I wasn’t done with her yet,” Corrigan grumbled, but he still maintained a respectful demeanor as he faced his Alpha.

“He stole her?” Roman snorted. “Like, she was a car or a chest of drawers, and you owned her? Was your Mate Mark on her neck?”

“Hell, no!” Corrigan looked horrified at the suggestion. “She left my tent to go get us some more beer from the cooler and never came back. I thought she’d been eaten by a bear.”

“It wasn’t a bear eating her,” Rafe snickered.

“Fuck you, asshole! Don’t poach on my territory!” Corrigan barked at him. Then he resumed his lament. “So I go out looking for her and she’s getting busy with Rafe up against a Douglas fir tree.”

“Oh, a Douglas fir. Well, that had to be the last straw,” Roman said, voice laden with scorn. “I mean, a lodgepole pine would have been okay, but a Douglas Fir? Unacceptable. Listen, moron, if you haven’t Mate-Marked her, you’ve got no claim on her.” And if he had Mate-Marked her, he wouldn’t be a member of their pack anymore, but that went without saying. “Rafe, Corrigan, for waking up the entire damn pack with your stupidity, you’re both on latrine duty. Go scrub ’em out, now. They better smell pretty next time I step in there.”

The two let out loud groans of protest but headed resolutely off to the latrines, while the pack let out good natured jeers and their girls clung to them drunkenly and laughed.

The sun was peeking over the horizon now, and the pack members stumbled back to their tents to get dressed or, for those accompanied by women, have sex again.

Now that the fight had been broken up and the adrenaline was wearing off, Roman gave a rueful laugh as he glanced around the campsite, which was currently trashed just like every Sunday morning.

There were empty beer cans scattered around, and bottles, and fast food wrappers. His pack members hadn’t bothered to pick them up and toss them into the steel barrel trash cans that had been set out near the fire pit. A couple of empty coolers were overturned. Avery’s tent had collapsed on top of him and whatever pack groupie he’d brought home—and they hadn’t even woken up. He could hear Avery and the girl snoring underneath the collapsed tent. That happened a lot with Avery; his over-enthusiastic banging was the stuff of legend.

Paul and Leland, two brothers who’d joined the pack six months before, were the only other two pack members who were still asleep; he could hear them snoring in the tent they shared. They hadn’t brought home any women, so he wasn’t sure why they were still so wiped out. He’d go kick their tent in a bit and wake them up if they didn’t come out soon.

Benjamin, the pack beta, trotted up, barefoot and wearing only boxer shorts. A human would have been shivering, but the chill air didn’t bother any of them. Shifters had a high tolerance for cold.

“Want me to start boiling the water for coffee?” he asked.

“Go for it,” Roman said to him with a nod. “You’re the best. I don’t care what anybody says.” But he softened it with a wink.

Edward, a shaggy-headed blond who served as the pack’s cook, wandered over, yawning and scratching his stomach. He cast a glance at the beer cans gleaming in the dirt and gave them a sloppy salute. “To all the dead soldiers,” he said. “Last night was epic. At least I think it was—I can’t remember that much, but something about a blonde.” He let out another huge yawn.

“I’ll help clean up after breakfast,” Benjamin said, glancing around at all the clutter. He liked things tidy.

“Get some of the others to help you,” Roman called out after him, striding back towards his tent. “I’ll be out chopping firewood.”

As Roman passed Bertram’s tent, he heard a woman’s voice raised in shrill rebuke. Bertram was starting to get serious with some chick from Silver Peak. The two were already having problems.

“You can’t tell me to be exclusive if you’re still out chasing tail!” the woman yelled. “And don’t tell me you’re not—my sister told me about Friday night!”

Roman shook his head. This wasn’t going to end well.

He began taking a mental tally of all the pack members he’d already seen that morning; it was his job to keep track of them.

There were twenty in all. Marcus wasn’t there, and neither was Zeke, he realized. When they’d been out at the Hootenanny tavern the night before, Zeke had said something about spending the night with a girl in town.

Marcus hadn’t gone out with them, and his tent was set back from the others in the woods. He was an antisocial A-hole; a pack like Roman’s was his only hope of staying in the good graces of the council.

“Benjamin. How long has it been since Marcus checked in?” Roman called.

Benjamin, who was kneeling on the ground scooping beer cans into a trash bag—he just couldn’t help himself—called back, “Haven’t seen him since Friday night. I stopped by his tent yesterday; he wasn’t there. Pretty sure he’s been out roaming around the woods by himself.”

Roman let out a muffled curse. Marcus just had to push it. Always.

Roman was really trying to cut the guy some slack. His entire pack was a refuge for shifters who couldn’t fit in anywhere else, or who wanted to leave an ugly past behind them, so he tried to help out when he could. That was why Roman regularly faked the monthly reports he sent in to the council, pretending that Marcus was spending the allotted amount of time with the pack. He’d had Marcus put his paw print on multiple check-in sheets at one time to cover for the times that he didn’t check in, and he was almost out of the faked documents. This was getting old.

“Want me to go get him?” Benjamin offered.

“Nah, I’ll do it as soon as I call Zeke and see where he’s at.”

He headed back towards his tent, shaking his head in annoyance. Marcus was going to have to shape up, or…well, there weren’t really any other options.

Hell, he hated the council as much as anybody, but trying to ignore them was like trying to ignore gravity. They existed. You dealt with them.

They’d been created after the shifter experiments of the 1930s had been exposed—by terrorists. First a clandestine branch of the government had secretly used the genes of athletes spliced with the genes of animals to synthesize a substance that caused humans to morph into animal form. They’d planned on creating an army of soldiers with the strength of bears and lions, the scenting ability of wolves, the ability to climb like monkeys or burrow like moles…

Then a terrorist group had stolen the substance, manufactured mass quantities, and placed it in the water supply of several major cities around the globe. Tens of thousands of humans had been turned into shifters against their will—and it was a genetic mutation that was passed on to their children.

Chaos had resulted. Humans had formed mobs, had rioted in fear of these shifter creatures.

The council had supposedly been created to protect shifters, but really they were like an annoying government nanny, always poking their nose where it didn’t belong.

Roman shrugged. He’d known when he became Alpha that he’d have to deal with them from time to time. He’d figure out something for Marcus; he wasn’t giving up on the surly, annoying bastard.

He pushed aside the tent flap and climbed in.

He had a small generator set outside the tent to keep his mini-fridge going and his cell phone charged.

The girl was sitting up now, hair rumpled, sleepy.

“Hey, baby, want to go another round?” she slurred.

Moderately tempting.

He shrugged. “Sure, Brittany. Right after I make a phone call.”

“Brittany’s my twin sister! I’m Bethanny! Have you been sleeping with my sister?” she shrieked indignantly.

Roman had to pause to think. One thing about being a single Alpha, he never lacked for female attention.

“Screw you!” It came out in a shrill wail. She scrambled to her feet, and grabbed her clothes. She stomped out of the tent, naked, with her clothes in her arms, as he texted Zeke.

The reply came back a minute later. Hey, bro, be back in a couple hours. Everything’s good here. Not a lot of detail. Not that it was any of Roman’s business who Zeke was screwing or whether he showed up on time.

He wandered out again and began picking up crushed beer cans and tossing them into the garbage. Rafe strolled up, holding up a wanted poster with Roman’s face on it.

“Dude, can you go into town today and get some more of these? We’re running out,” Rafe said. “Either that or we need a toilet paper run.”

At that, Roman flashed a fierce grin. It was the camp joke that they kept a steady supply of Roman’s wanted posters to wipe their asses.

Chapter Three

“Don’t worry, someone will hire me,” Chelsea assured Pepper, who didn’t look at all worried. Pepper never looked worried. The sun was shining and her stomach was full—what was there to worry about?

They were sitting on a bench on Main Street. First thing in the morning, Chelsea had shifted and killed several squirrels for her and Pepper’s breakfast. Now she was sipping a small cup of coffee, all she could afford. And that left her with nine dollars to her name and her stomach was rumbling. Carbs. She wanted carbs, damn it.

She’d slept in her car the night before. That morning she’d walked up and down Main Street asking at every single business, and they’d all nicely but decisively told her they weren’t hiring. Several of them had shared the fact that business was so slow they might not even be open much longer. Apparently the earthquake that had ripped through the area a year before had knocked out the local paper mill, and the paper mill had ended up relocating rather than rebuilding. Half the pack and most of the jobs had gone with it. Houses stood empty, and the local merchants were on their last legs.

It felt like Silver Peak was a dying town, but that couldn’t be right. She’d been so sure. She’d felt like her destiny was inSilver Peak.

She was starting to feel a cloud of gloom descend on her, and that couldn’t happen. She hadn’t taken her weekly dose of medicine that morning; she was trying to stretch it out.

She shut her eyes and concentrated hard.

She imagined blue skies and rainbows, and peacocks with glorious fans of tails, and tables and tables laden with pastries and pies, and she felt her mood quickly turning around again. Whew. That had been close.

“Can I pet your puppy?”

Chelsea’s eyes flew open and her gaze lit on a tall, sturdy-looking woman in her early twenties, with straight, shoulder-length brown hair. She wore jeans and sneakers, and no makeup. She was already bending over and holding out her hand to Pepper, who was sniffing at it with interest.

Good. Now there was someone else to talk to, and it was someone who liked dogs. There was something else for her to feel cheerful about.

“Sure,” she said. “Pepper’s not a puppy. She’s actually a fat, lazy old lady. Don’t do it, Pepper,” she added as Pepper shot her a reproachful look and let out a vengeful blast of flatulence.

Yep. Pepper understood her and was revenge-farting for good measure, Chelsea was sure of it.

The woman burst into a peal of laughter. “I’m Erika,” she said, kneeling down and scratching behind Pepper’s ears. Pepper closed her eyes and groaned in bliss. “Your dog is hilarious.””

“I’m Chelsea Wintergreen. Pepper likes you. You must be a nice person.”

“I love your dog. She’s a comedienne,” Erika said with a grin. Then she grew serious. “My aunt would kill me if she heard me laughing at dog farts. Her mission in life is to make me more ladylike. She thinks my almost-fiancé is going to leave me if I don’t class up.” She glanced up at Chelsea. “You look pretty ladylike. How do you do it?”

“Hmm. I do?” Chelsea considered that. She didn’t specifically try to make herself look ladylike, but she tended towards the frilly and the cheerful. She was wearing a flouncy green skirt trimmed with dark green lace, and a peasant shirt with ruffles at the neckline, and she had a big green flower barrette pinning back her curls.

She was a larger girl, and she remembered the matron of the foster home where she’d grown up telling her that bigger women shouldn’t wear bright clothes because it drew too much attention. The matron had been one of those bony women who always stared hungrily at other people’s food and got really bitchy around mealtimes.

For a while, Chelsea had tried to take her advice. She had dressed to be invisible, wearing dark, plain, dowdy clothes, but that had made her depressed. And that wasn’t good for anybody. So now she dressed how she wanted, and she figured that if anyone didn’t like how she looked, well, they didn’t have to look at her.

“And you remember to sit with your legs crossed.” Erika made a rueful face. “My aunt says that I sit like a trucker. She thinks it’s because I was raised by my dad. Are you staying here in town? You could teach me to be classier.”

“Well, if I were sure I was staying, I could try,” Chelsea said doubtfully. “Unfortunately, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I was looking for a new pack to join and a job. I was going to stay with my cousin Mel, but apparently she and her house left town, and nobody’s hiring.”

“Yeah, we’re all pretty much dying here, business-wise.” Erika nodded glumly. “I work for my dad—he owns the garage—and he hasn’t had a customer since the day before yesterday. That’s why I’m out wandering around. I got bored.”

Then she glanced down the street, towards the Grocery Depot, which wasn’t hiring. A man had just climbed out of a beat-up old Ford pickup truck.

“Oooh, Roman’s in town! Let’s go admire the view.” Erika leaped to her feet, and Chelsea got up and followed her, because she liked Erika and she had nothing better to do.

They hurried down the street to catch sight of a man who, Chelsea reluctantly had to admit, was quite the male specimen. The reluctance came from the fact that he was far too self-confident. He walked with a swagger and his lip was curled in what looked like a smirk of self-satisfaction. As he headed towards the Grocery Depot, he winked at several girls who were gathered on a street corner, and the girls squealed like he was the second coming of The Beatles.

He wore a black leather jacket and jeans, and he had long, silky brown hairThe curve of his upper lip was sensual. He had a wicked gleam in his eyes.

Chelsea realized that not only was she staring at him, but he’d caught her staring. He looked her up and down appraisingly, his mouth curled in an insolent grin, and he winked.

“He winked at you!” Erika gasped. “It must be because you’re ladylike!”

“Erika, I’m the fifth girl he winked at already,” Chelsea said, watching his retreating back and his round, sculpted butt as he strode up the wooden steps and into the Grocery Depot. “He’d wink at anything female that walked on two legs. And then he’d do other things with them.”

“Still. He’s so sexy when he winks. But I’m almost engaged,” Erika added hastily. “I’ll probably be Mate-Marked any day now.”

Chelsea shook her head and walked away. A crowd of young women were hurrying up the steps into the Grocery Depot, practically elbowing each other out of the way in their eagerness to get to Roman, and Chelsea realized that for some reason this annoyed her.

“Maybe the Hootenanny is hiring,” Erika said, following Chelsea. Pepper trotted at Chelsea’s heels with a groan of protest. They were moving fast; Pepper liked to take it easy. “That’s the bar north of town. It’s on the outskirts of human territory, and it actually caters to both crowds, humans and shifters. They won’t open until tonight, though, like six p.m.”

“Thanks, I’ll give them a try,” Chelsea said. What could it hurt? She had no waitressing experience, but maybe she could bus tables.

“Erika! Who’s your new friend? I do approve,” an older woman said, walking up to them. She had a cap full of tight gray curls and was heavily rouged and lipsticked. She wore a pink polyester dress and matching pumps, and she clutched a pink purse with a pink leather rose on the clasp.

“You see?” she added to Erika. “She’s wearing a skirt. And heels. That’s how you catch and keep a man.”

“Aunt Louise, this is Chelsea Wintergreen. She thought she was going to stay with Mel, but Mel forgot to tell her she was leaving town. And I’ve got a man,” Erika protested. “Oh, there he is. Hi, Terrence!” She waved.

“For now.” Aunt Louise gave a disapproving sniff. “I’ll be at the Chatterbox.” She turned and walked off.

A tall, skinny man with a weak chin and sour expression walked up to them and nodded hello to Erika. Chelsea forced a smile as Erika introduced Terrence, but she thought to herself, You could do better. She tried to imagine him Mate-Marking Erika and figured his teeth might not even break the skin. She stifled a laugh behind her hand at the thought, pretending it was a sneeze.

Terrence glanced down at Pepper. “What is that?” he asked disapprovingly.

“Most people call it a dog,” Chelsea said, using her helpful voice.

He stared at her, baffled, trying to figure out if she was being sarcastic or not. “What is that smell?” he said suddenly, fanning the air with his hand. He took a quick step back.

“That’s Pepper. She farts every time someone says something she doesn’t like. She’s got perfect comic timing. Isn’t she great?” Erika said happily.

Terrence took another step back. “Yes, just great,” he muttered.

“If you’re really trying to be ladylike, say ‘breaks wind’ instead of ‘farts’,” Chelsea whispered to Erika.

“Got it.” Erika nodded vigorously. “Breaks wind. Much more classy. I’ve gotta stick with you—you’ll class me up in no time.”

“I mean, you’re fine the way you are,” Chelsea added. “But you asked.”

“Erika!” a woman called from down the street, hurrying towards them. “Is it true? Is he here?” She glanced over at Chelsea. “Hello, new person. I’m Barbara Tudor, owner of the Silver Peak Signal. Twenty-five cents a copy. All the news that fits, we print.” She said that all on one long breath. “Erika, I got some calls. Is Roman here?” she added.

“Yes, he is.” Erika pointed at the store. “He must be here on a grocery run. He just went into the Depot.”

“Oh, thank God.” Barbara breathed a huge sigh of relief. “I was going to have to lead with the crop report, but now maybe we’ll get something a little more interesting.”

A small crowd of shifters had gathered half a block from the store now, and they were crowded together, looking wary and watchful.

Why? He was just one man.

Two of the women in the crowd were arguing with each other. They were both in their fifties with graying hair. One of them wore a crocheted sweater and sandals and a dirndl skirt, and her untamed waves flowed down her back. The other wore a business suit, her hair was curled under in a sleek chin-length bob, and she held a stack of flyers. Their faces were mirror images of each other, despite their different styles.

“Susan, you did not actually bring campaign posters,” the wavy-haired woman said scornfully.

“I most certainly did. I’m the one with a work ethic,” Susan said.

“They’re twin sisters,” Erika whispered helpfully to Chelsea. “The one with the wavy hair is Lorena, our pack healer and owner of the Good Vibrations Crystals and More shop. Her sister Susan is an accountant. Also they’re both running for mayor. Election’s next month. I’m whispering. Is that ladylike?”

“Eh.” Chelsea shrugged. “Not really necessary under the circumstances.”

Erika frowned. “Hmm. Terrence told me I talk too loud and it hurts his ears, so I thought whispering might help. I just don’t get it, really. This genteel crap doesn’t come naturally to me.”

“Well,” Chelsea said, “If it doesn’t come naturally—”

There was a sudden outburst in the alley next to the store. There were loud, angry voices. Terrence flinched and ducked behind a lamp-post.

Oh, for the love of dog, Chelsea thought with contempt.

Barbara pulled a camera out of her purse but didn’t move any closer to the store.

“Wanna go see what it is?” Erika asked Chelsea cheerfully. Terrence shot her an appalled look.

“Be careful,” Barbara called to them. “He tends to throw things. And people.”

“Stay here and watch my dog. I’ll go,” Chelsea said. She had a feeling that if Erika got in a fight, it would make Terrence feel emasculated—not that it would take much to do that.

Nobody in the crowd was making a move to investigate the source of the noise, and now Chelsea could hear shrill wails of panic. Chelsea hurried down the alley and saw Roman, the sex-on-legs bastard, holding a tall, skinny teenaged boy up by the throat. He was doing it one-handed, without even breaking a sweat. The teenager was clawing at Roman’s hands and thrashing his legs, his eyes bulging out of his head. His face was turning bright red.

She strolled up to them, leaned on Roman and fluttered her eyes flirtatiously. She put her hand on his arm and squeezed; she could feel the bulge of his biceps right through his jacket.

“Ooooh, you are so strong,” she cooed. “I love a strong man. Can you put him down and pick him up again?”

“Sure thing, sweetheart,” Roman said with a grin. He set the kid down, and as soon as he did, Chelsea, still smiling, slammed him upside the head with her purse so hard that he staggered back a step, more in surprise than anything else. He also let go of the teenager.

“I’m sorry,” he gurgled, cringing away from Roman. “My friends dared me!”

“Run,” she instructed the teenager. The teenager turned and ran, clutching at his throat and making wheezing noises.

“What the hell was that for?” Roman demanded indignantly. “Sweetheart, if you want to score a date with me, that’s not the way to go about it. I do like it rough, but I’m the one who gets rough.”

“A date with you? Oh, the very thought makes me come over with the vapors.” She pretended to fan herself with her hand, then added, “Not. I don’t date bullies who pick on children.”

“That little bastard’s nineteen, and he defaced my poster. Nobody defaces my poster.” Roman gestured at the wall, at a picture that was completely covered in black spray-paint. A spray-paint can lay underneath it, along with a backpack, probably abandoned by the teenager. Great. So Roman was some kind of musician or something and the kid had sprayed over his band poster. Poor, poor baby.

“That must have really upset you. Are you going to cry? I’ve got some tissues in my purse,” Chelsea said, pretending to root around in there solicitously.

“You know, I like you.” Roman was looking at her speculatively now. “I like a woman who gives me a hard time. If you know what I mean.” He favored her with a slow, sexy grin, and stood there, thumbs hooked in his belt loops, waiting for her to melt into a puddle of lust.

Chelsea remained unmelted.

Oh, her loins were heating, all right, but her mind was sending stern signals downward: “No! Bad!”

“Yes, I do, unfortunately,” she said, frost dripping from every word. “Now let me give you a word of advice. Next time, pick on someone your own size, or I swear to God I’ll shift and we’ll throw down, and you’ll find out what kind of crazy bitches they breed in backwoods Wisconsin. Toodles!” Chelsea wiggled her fingers at him and turned and sauntered off.

“Toodles?” Roman said in astonishment.

The crowd of merchants, standing at the end of the alleyway now, watched her walk back to her car with Pepper trotting along behind her.

“Oh,” Elmer Winkleman, owner of the Grocery Depot and current mayor of Silver Peak, said happily. “I think we’ve found the solution to our problem.”

Chapter Four

“Let me get this straight,” Chelsea said again. She looked from the mayor, to Lorena, to Susan, to Calvin Castleberry, the president of the Chamber of Commerce. They had pounced on her as she was walking Pepper, several hours after her confrontation with Roman, and dragged her into the town hall, telling her it was a matter of great urgency.

She sat in an uncomfortable folding chair, surrounded by a half circle of the Silver Peak pack’s most important citizens. They were all staring at her with their hands folded in their laps and expressions of great eagerness.

“You want me to be your sheriff.” She said it very slowly. “You want me to enforce the law. And you understand that I have no law enforcement experience whatsoever. Half the time, I can’t even spell ‘Sheriff’ right. Is it two Rs or two Fs? Who the hell knows? I went to the Culinary Institute of Wisconsin, with a specialty in baking, and I know how to make twenty flavors of cake pops. Baking is what I’m good at. And yet you want to deputize me.”

“Exactly!” Mayor Winkleman beamed, nodding vigorously. He seemed delighted that she was finally getting it. “You know, it was very commonly done in the 1800s. The local citizens needed someone to enforce the law, so a committee of concerned citizens would select an appropriate candidate to help keep their territory safe.”

That was true, and in many ways shifters, living on their vast, ungoverned tracts of land and making their own laws, were like the pioneers of the Old West.

However, the fact that shifters were still working the kinks out of their legal system didn’t mean they should be drafting some totally inexperienced private citizen like herself to be sheriff.

“Wouldn’t law enforcement be the kind of thing an Alpha would normally do?”

Mayor Winkleman let out a disappointed sigh. Why couldn’t she just take the job already?

“We don’t have an Alpha. He left town.” He cleared his throat. “When the paper mill folded.” He didn’t meet her eyes when he said it.

“Or the beta?”

“Also left town.”

“Or anyone else in town who actually knows the pack members and the territory?” “But that’s why you’d be so good at it. You don’t know anybody, so you’d be impartial,” Calvin Castleberry wheedled. “And you said you were looking to be a member of a pack. You’d be a registered member of our pack.”

Well, there was that. Although she had the feeling that there was some kind of catch to this; she just hadn’t figured out what yet.

“How much does it pay?”

The mayor looked at the floor. Not a good sign.

“Right now, with the town about to declare bankruptcy, five hundred dollars a month—” He saw the look on her face and quickly added, “Plus free room and board. You can live in the house at 537 Scenic View as long as you’re sheriff, and you can also have a fifty-dollar-a-week grocery allowance at my store.”

Well. Maybe that was the catch; the terrible pay. But it was better than no pay.

Given her current circumstances, this was literally an offer Chelsea couldn’t refuse. Right now she didn’t even have enough money to pay for gas to make it to another shifter territory. And this was a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Other than some spray-paint vandalism and an arrogant, hot-tempered musician, whom she was more than capable of handling, how much serious crime could there be?

I’d love to handle him some more, a hormone-fueled section of her brain shouted out, and she mentally chastised herself. And him. That Roman was absolutely dreadful, invading her thoughts uninvited when she was trying to talk business.

“We’d love it if you stayed here,” Lorena said eagerly. “Honestly. There’s just something that feels really good about having you around.”

Well, that was true, although if they knew why they might not be quite so eager to have her there.

“All right,” she conceded with a sharp twinge of uneasiness. “I’ll do it. Pepper, really,” she added.

Pepper had let out a lengthy blast of flatulence so loud that it echoed throughout the room and made Chelsea’s eyes water. Everyone else must have heard and smelled it too, but their eager smiles never wavered. That should have been a clue.

Two hours later, she was standing in front of a podium in the town hall, holding her hand up, repeating an oath to uphold the laws of the Silver Peak Territory, with most of the pack assembled. The mayor and town council were watching her with looks on their faces that frankly made her more than a little nervous. Erika wasn’t there; Chelsea had asked where she was, and apparently they’d finally gotten some business at the garage, so she was helping her dad fix an old Chevy Malibu.

As the Mayor quickly pinned a big five-pointed star on Chelsea’s blouse, she looked down at Pepper, who refused to meet her eyes.

What exactly have I gotten myself into? she wondered.

* * * * *

On a small, pie-shaped wedge of land outside Silver Peak, sandwiched between shifter territory and human territory, a family of humans was dealing with their own problems.

Their house was falling down around their ears. The roof leaked, the water heater was broken, and the septic tank needed a new drain field.

Furthermore, more sheep were missing from the property of rancher Mitch Rodgers. His land bordered theirs. Sections of Rodgers’ fence had been torn down, and a wolf’s paw prints had been found in the area where the sheep had vanished. The paw prints had continued on to the Dudleys’ property, which was making the Dudleys very nervous. The mood in Juniper, a small human town located uncomfortably close to shifter territory, was turning ugly.

And to top it off, Edna Dudley was standing in the drawing room trying to have a conversation with her granddaughter Joyce, and Joyce was completely ignoring her.

“Joyce, don’t you try the silent treatment on me—it won’t work.” Edna, seventy-seven, glared at her granddaughter. “You didn’t get home until four a.m. last night, and today’s a school day. Why are you home from school? If your parents were alive, they’d tan your hide, and I’ve half a mind to do it myself.”

There was no response.

Edna folded her arms across her chest and glowered. “Not talking, eh? I can outlast you. I’ll stand here all day if I have to.”

Behind her, she heard the sound of laughter, and she whirled around to glare at her two grandsons, Ryan, ten, and Shawn, eight. They were standing in the living room, watching her chastise her granddaughter. When she turned to scowl at them, they both quickly ducked behind the sofa.

From the hallway, she heard footsteps thudding down the stairs in a big hurry. Joyce walked down the stairs, then turned to frown at her younger brothers. “How long were you going to let Grandma stand there and talk to her reflection in the mirror?” she asked.

“We were almost done,” Ryan assured her, at the same time Shawn added, “It’s his fault. I wanted to tell her.” The next moment they were slapping at each other, and Joyce crossed the room quickly, grabbing them by their collars and separating them.

Edna turned to look at the mirror.

“Oh, my, you’re right, that is my reflection. I was wondering when you got glasses,” she said, squinting at herself in the mirror.

“Also, I’m not in high school—I’m twenty,” Joyce said with exaggerated patience. “And I was at work last night. At the Hootenanny. I bartend and waitress there. Remember?”

“Well of course I remember, dear. You took that job so we wouldn’t lose the house. What do you think I am, senile?” Edna said indignantly. She looked around. “Now where are my glasses?”

“You’re wearing them,” Ryan called.

“Of course I am.” Edna fingered the stems of her glasses. “Isn’t he an angel?”

Joyce glowered down at her younger brother. She was still gripping his collar. “I’m not going to answer that question.” Then she glanced at her grandmother and her gaze softened. “Do you want to go out for a dip in the mineral springs before I start working on dinner?”

“That would be lovely. Let me just go get a towel.” Her grandmother scampered off, leaving Joyce shaking her head in frustration. Her grandmother’s mind was wandering farther and farther afield these days, and now all this business with the sheep and the fences being torn down, uncomfortably close to their house. It made her afraid to leave her family to go to work, but she had to go to work or they wouldn’t eat.

If only their house were worth a dime, she’d sell it so she could move them all out of there and go back to college. They sat on five beautiful wooded acres of property. However, they were completely landlocked between the Rodgers ranch and the wolf shifters’ territory. The quasi-legal dirt road that led to their house snaked right through shifter territory, and then onto the Rodgers ranch, and finally on to the main road. Nobody would pay them for an old, falling-apart ranch house that was practically on top of pack lands.

“I’m here!” Her grandmother hurried towards her. Wonder of wonders, she hadn’t wandered off somewhere; she’d shimmied into her bathing suit and sandals, and was holding a towel. She did love her dips in the hot springs that had opened up after last year’s earthquake; claimed they helped her “Arthur-itis”. Of course, the bad news was that she kept sneaking off to take mineral spring dips by herself; Joyce kept making her promise not to, and her grandmother kept conveniently “forgetting”.

Joyce glanced at her brothers, biting her lip. “Maybe you should come with us.”

“Wolves can’t come in our house,” Shawn told her. “We’ll be fine. And I know how to use the shotgun.”

“But they can’t come in anyway,” Ryan reassured her, then a look of doubt crossed his face. “Right? They can’t?”

“Right.” She nodded firmly. “But lock the door behind me.” They’d never locked the door before, not in her whole life.

Some people were whispering that the wolf paw prints came from the kind of wolves who could, in fact, open doors—from the shifters who owned the territory next to the Dudleys’ land.

But why would they suddenly start stealing sheep? She knew a lot of people were wary of wolf shifters, but they’d always been nice to her and her family. They were her best customers at the Hootenanny, and one of them…well, there was no point in thinking like that. He came from a pack that was moving on soon, and she was working seven nights a week to keep gas in the car and food on the table. She didn’t have time to think about a handsome wolf shifter with soft amber eyes who tipped his hat every time she walked by.

“And yet there I am thinking about him,” she muttered.

“Are you talking to yourself? Goodness, Joyce, you must be getting senile,” Edna said, looking at her with concern.

“Must be!” she agreed brightly. Then she called out to her brothers, “Keep that door locked, I mean it,” as she led her grandmother out the door.

Chapter Five

The Sheriff’s Department was located in a small, red brick building located next to the equally tiny town hall. The jail had one cell. Apparently the citizens of Silver Peak generally stayed on the right side of the law.

Heck, anybody could do this job, Chelsea thought as she flipped through the pages of the county’s book of criminal statutes. Why had they gotten such a bee in their bonnet about hiring a new sheriff? They barely even needed one.

“You’re a deputy,” she informed Pepper, who rolled over onto her back and waved her paws in the air to show how much she appreciated the new title. “It doesn’t come with any money, but I can promise you treats and belly rubs.”

It was five p.m. She’d already unloaded all her belongings at the small log cabin style building that would be her new home. It didn’t have an oven, just a hot plate and a microwave. She’d have to figure out how to finagle an oven out of the townspeople. Somebody must have a spare oven. She needed to keep her baking skills up, because one day, no matter how long it took, she would be opening a bakery of her own.

It was still early, and she’d already had quite the eventful day. She’d signed the papers that said she was a member of the Silver Peak pack, shifted, inked her paw print and stepped on the appropriate spot on the registration papers with her inky paw. The mayor had hurried off to fax the registration to the Council of Shifter Affairs.

There was a loud rapping on the door. “Come in,” she called.

Susan and Lorena walked in, each holding a coffee cake and arguing. Barbara was trailing behind them.

“She doesn’t need two coffee cakes,” Lorena was saying indignantly.

“Well, then you shouldn’t have copied me. This town needs a mayor who’s an original thinker,” Susan said.

“I copied you? Liar! Keep it up and you’ll get a smack.”

“Ladies! I love coffee cake,” Chelsea interrupted them quickly. “I’ll take all the coffee cake I can get.”

“You see,” Susan said triumphantly to her twin, setting the cake down on the table, “there you go stirring up trouble over nothing.”

“By the way, what does Mayor Winkleman think about you both running?” Chelsea asked. Lorena produced a plastic knife from her purse and began cutting slices of cake.

“Oh, he only became mayor because the last mayor left town in a hurry,” Lorena said. “He can’t wait to give up the job. Takes too much time away from his business and his family.”

The last mayor left town too? Chelsea thought uneasily. And in a hurry? What was it about Silver Peak?

Susan set out slices of cake on paper plates that she fetched from the cupboard . As they settled in and she poured the coffee she’d just brewed, Barbara pulled out her notepad.

“Now, what’s the first thing you’re going to do as sheriff?” she asked, pencil poised above the pad.

As if in answer, they heard angry shouting coming from the street outside.

“Arrest someone?” Chelsea sighed, setting down her coffee cup. Note to self, she thought; learn how handcuffs work.

She hurried outdoors, with Barbara, Susan and Lorena racing after her. To her shock, the commotion was coming from Erika, who was beating up Mayor Winkleman on the front steps of the town hall.

She ran over and grabbed Erika by the arm and hauled her off him.

“Erika! What the heck? Do you actually want to be the first person I arrest?” she demanded indignantly. “I thought we were practicing the whole ladylike thing! Beating up elected officials is not ladylike!”

“Tell her!” Erika yelled at the mayor. “Or I swear I’ll kick your ass from here to Billings!”

The mayor hung his head, glanced up at Chelsea and then stared down at the ground. “Well, there is one little thing that we may have forgotten to mention when we offered you the sheriff’s job.”

Oh, crud. Here it comes.

“What?” she demanded.

The mayor shuffled his feet.

The local merchants and their customers had run up and were gathered around, eagerly watching. Barbara was scribbling madly on her notepad.

The mayor opened his briefcase, pulled out a sheet of paper and held it up. It was a wanted poster of a shockingly handsome man with a sexy scowl.

It took her a moment to realize who the man was. It was Roman, the man she’d whacked with her purse the day before.

“He’s the Alpha of a gypsy pack which is camping out on our territory. There’s a warrant for his arrest that’s been sent to us from a shifter territory in Colorado, for grand theft auto. You’ve got to serve the warrant, bring him in and personally take him to Colorado,” the mayor said to her shoes, since he couldn’t meet her eyes.

So that hadn’t been a band poster the teenager had defaced. It had been a wanted poster. Awesome.

“Aren’t they trespassing, if they’re on your territory?” she asked, looking at the poster with dismay. “Couldn’t you have them all forcibly evicted?”

He sighed. “Technically, no. Gypsy packs can occupy land on any shifter territory for up to six months.”

“What happened to the last Silver Peak sheriff?” she demanded ominously.

A long, drawn-out pause and much foot-shuffling and fidgeting indicated that she really wasn’t going to like the answer.

“Mayor Winkleman. While I’m still young, please.”

“He tried to arrest Roman, and Roman broke his nose.”

“What happened to the Silver Peak Alpha?” she continued, although she really didn’t want to know.

“Roman knocked him unconscious, put a dunce cap on his head and left him on the town hall steps.”

“And the beta?”

“It had been raining a lot. Roman literally dragged him through the mud and ruined his clothing and sent him running back to town.”

“Why did the last mayor quit?”

“Roman came into town to go shopping and the mayor tried to tell him he couldn’t until he took care of the warrant and Roman gave him an atomic wedgie and hung him from a flagpole.”

“And, you think I can arrest him.” She stared at him stonily.

“I saw how you handled him with that kid!” he said. “And you’re female. I’ve never heard of him striking a woman. So you can probably arrest him without getting beaten up or killed. Maybe. Almost certainly.”

Erika shot him a look of disgust.

“Do not hit him again,” Chelsea said to Erika, who was balling her fists. “Can you go check on Pepper, please?”

“Fine,” Erika sighed, and headed off to Chelsea’s office.

“Has he killed anyone?” Chelsea asked the mayor.

“Well, a few Death Matches here and there, plus someone who came in guns blazing to try to arrest him and shot and injured one of his pack members. But that idiot didn’t use a silver bullet, so of course he didn’t stand a chance against them. We can give you silver bullets. I was going to give you ’til tomorrow to get settled in and then stop by with an assortment of weapons for you to use.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve called in the Council for Shifter Affairs on this?”

The mayor grimaced in distaste. “Good God, no.”

Not surprising. No shifter called in the council unless it was a last resort.

In an instance of serious shifter versus human crime, or vice versa, the council would be called in, but when it came to shifters having problems with other shifters, that was left entirely to the respective tribes and packs and prides. A shifter had to obey the laws of whatever pack he or she belonged to, and if they visited another pack, they had to obey those laws.

“The council’s already been out here enough recently,” he added, wincing in disgust.

“So they know about Roman’s pack?” Chelsea asked.

Mayor Winkleman shook his head. “No, no, it’s just that sheep have been disappearing from the Rodgers Ranch for the last few months, fences torn down, and there were wolf paw prints in the area. Our pack lands border the ranch. Mitch Rodgers, the ranch owner, has been lobbying to have a couple hundred acres of our property annexed, because he says that our pack members are the ones killing his sheep. He claims he needs the land as a buffer between his property and ours.”

At her look of surprise, he added, “It’s odd. He’s never had problems with us before. I mean, we don’t associate with the human town a lot, of course, but we do know all the major players over there. We do some business with them from time to time. Once a year we have a human-shifter social, and we visit each other’s towns to check out the Christmas decorations. In all the years I’ve known him, Mitch has never seemed prejudiced against shifters. Our people buy livestock and feed from his ranch. And yet all of a sudden, he’s insisting that we’re coming on to his land and stealing his sheep.

“Is the land valuable for any reason, the land that he’s asking for?”

“No, it’s just more forest land. He already owns a huge spread. Nobody’s clamoring for our property—we’re out in the middle of nowhere, not near any major roads or towns. However, we’re not going to shrink our territory and hand over a big tract of land just because he says so.”

“Well,” Chelsea mused, “I hate it say it, but times have been tight economically. And it sounds as if it’s out of character for him to just randomly accuse shifters of something without cause. Is it at all possible that he’s right, that it’s somebody from here stealing his sheep?”

“Not from here,” the mayor said, then flinched. “Don’t tell Roman I said that.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well,” the mayor said slowly, “the attacks started right after Roman’s pack showed up. But the council actually sent a shifter investigator out here twice because Mitch complained, and both times the investigator scented real wolves at the site where the sheep had disappeared. Not shifters. So the council declared the case closed.” He looked at her hopefully. “Maybe that problem will go away once you arrest Roman. Not that I’m saying Roman had anything to do with it,” he added hastily.

Of course you’re not saying that, Chelsea thought. Because it would take a set of testicles to say that, and clearly you’re lacking those.

Chapter Six

It was pitch dark out, the woods illuminated only by the silver crescent of the moon. Chelsea was sprayed head to toe with Wolf’s-naught, provided by Lorena, who had an herbal section in her store. The concoction would prevent her from being scented by the pack so she could sneak up on them.

She’d left Pepper at Erika’s house, and Erika had promised to take care of her until Chelsea got back. She’d also offered to go with Chelsea, but Chelsea had refused. This was Chelsea’s mess, she’d gotten into it herself, and she wasn’t going to risk anyone’s life doing it. Also, if she died during her attempt to bring Roman to justice, she needed someone to take care of Pepper.

She was wearing jeans, a button-down denim shirt and hiking boots. She’d pinned the sheriff’s star on her shirt. She’d been told that the sheriffs here wore civilian clothes, but she figured that her frilly, lacy outfits would be pushing it.

She was hauling along the non-lethal weapons she’d selected from the arsenal dropped on her desk the previous afternoon, courtesy of the mayor. She had refused the silver bullets; she wasn’t killing anybody.

She stood in the clearing and surveyed the camp.

There was a group of tents clustered together, and others scattered throughout the surrounding woods. There was a big ring of stones circling a fire pit. There were picnic tables with benches. The tents were all big and sturdy, canvas draped over criss-cross log tent poles, and elevated with wooden platforms. Everything looked well-constructed and solid.

She moved closer to the tent on the hillside that she knew was Roman’s. Erika had introduced her to some of the outlaw groupies, shifter girls who liked to visit the camp and have a good time with the bad-boy outlaws. For those girls who didn’t want anything serious, the fact that the guys would be moving on in a few months was part of their appeal. One of the girls, who was mad at Roman because he’d turned her down, had described the layout of the camp to Chelsea.

Fortunately, his tent was set a little distance from the rest of the tents. If she was lucky, she’d be able to disable him and get him into town without any of his packmates noticing.

She could hear sounds coming from his tent…sounds of sex. Roman was having very loud, enthusiastic sex.

She felt an odd sensation of anger and frustration curling up inside her, and she paused for a moment to get it under control. She envisioned her dark feelings as a spinning ball of matter, and she wrapped it in a white gauzy substance and then shrank it, smaller and smaller, until it was nothing but a point of light.

Then she began striding towards the tent.

When she reached it, she yanked the tent flap back and tossed in a small pepper spray bomb that the mayor had given her.

Within seconds she heard shrieks of rage, and a big, naked man and a woman came staggering out of the tent. Even better, they were tangled up in sheets, which made it easier for her to run over and slap copper handcuffs on the man.

The moon swam out from behind a cloud, and the sheet fell off of the man.

Chelsea looked at him.

The woman looked at him at the same time.

The man was tall and lean and muscular, and had close-clipped black hair and a hawkish nose.

“You’re not Roman!” Chelsea and the woman both exclaimed at the same moment.

Then the woman shrugged. “Whatever. It wash pretty good,” she slurred drunkenly. “I think.”

“Hello, sweetheart. And there I thought you weren’t interested.” Roman came strolling up, wearing nothing but boxer shorts and looking highly amused.

* * * * *

Well, well, well, this was a fun turn of events. The hot redhead from town had come back.

Roman had to admit, she’d been drifting through his mind surprisingly often since he’d first laid eyes on her. It wasn’t just the fact that she hadn’t rolled right over for him like most women did. It wasn’t her lush, full figure, with its sexy rounded tummy and broad hips that he wanted to grab hold of and pull up against him. There was something more, some mysterious quality that sent his pulse racing every time he remembered her fiery amber eyes glowering at him in that alleyway.

“Good evening.” He grinned at her. “You’re on my territory now, which means we play by my rules. I see you brought handcuffs. Ready to play?”

Then he caught sight of the five-pointed star on her shirt. She was wearing jeans and a button-down denim shirt which did things to her curves that made him slightly dizzy…and a sheriff’s star.

“Oh, come on. You’re the new sheriff?” he said as her face fell. He couldn’t help it. She was the sheriff of Silver Peak? This was the best they could come up with? God, that town was so screwed.

He burst out laughing. He laughed harder and harder as her expression grew more and more unhappy, and then suddenly she burst into loud, noisy tears, burying her face in her hands.

Oh, hell. She was crying so hard her shoulders were shaking.

He heaved a huge sigh, walked over and patted her on the shoulder. “Sweetheart, I don’t mean to be an asshole—well, yes I do, because I am. Which is why you shouldn’t be here. Bigger, stronger, meaner people have tried to arrest me, and they’ve all failed.”

In the blink of an eye, she’d slapped handcuffs on his wrists and looked up at him with an enormous grin. Copper handcuffs, so he couldn’t shift. Her eyes were completely dry; she’d faked the whole thing.

“What about sneakier?” she said sweetly. “Were any of them sneakier than me?”

Then he felt two sharp pricks, one in his collar bone and one at his waist, and he heard a crackling sound. At the same time his whole body cramped and he fell to the ground, muscles burning, body twitching. She’d tazed him. And then she tazed Leon. And now she was the one laughing her ass off.

Chapter Seven

The cool, crisp breeze rustled the leaves on the ground and ruffled Roman’s hair. This really was his favorite time of year, with the chilly nights giving way to mild, warm days. He let out a huge yawn and arched his back, stretching luxuriously.

“Stop that, you bastard!” Chelsea hissed at him. He responded with laughter.

“You doin’ all right there, darling? You’re starting to sound kinda winded,” he said, which earned him a sharp kick in the ribs.

“I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to abuse your prisoners, Miss Officer of the Law,” Roman drawled. “Or is that Mrs.? I didn’t see any wedding ring. Anyway, if you look in your Sheriffing 101 handbook, there’s a whole section about not kicking your prisoners when they’re restrained.”

“For you, I’ll make a special exception,” she growled. She tugged harder.

Sheriff Chelsea Wintergreen clearly hadn’t thought this through. Sure, she was a larger girl, but he had her beat. He weighed two-fifty, all muscle, and he was six foot five. As soon as she’d incapacitated him, she’d grabbed him by the arm and started trying to drag him through the woods. He hadn’t resisted; he was just lying there, enjoying the show. She was puffing and gasping, frantically trying to pull him.

Roman was hugely entertained and unreasonably turned on. He could feel the thick swell of his erection rubbing against his boxer shorts.

“You need some help there?” a voice called, and Chelsea jerked and looked up. They were now surrounded by his entire pack, who were standing there watching him with expressions of amusement on their faces.

“Who are you offering to help? Her, or me?” Roman called.

Avery laughed. “Her, you jackass. Why would I help you? You’re not a hot chick with a great rack.”

Roman felt a surprising flash of anger crackle through him like lightning, but he quickly swallowed it. So Avery was flirting with Chelsea. Big deal. Roman wasn’t dating Chelsea. He never dated anyone. Dating wasn’t his thing.

Roman moved quickly and tossed the handcuffs aside, then leapt to his feet. Chelsea stared at him.

“How in the hell did you do that?” she demanded, looking thoroughly miffed. Her hair was disheveled, her forehead was damp from sweat and she was breathing hard. God, she was hot.

He grinned at her. It was his own little trick and he wasn’t ever going to reveal his secrets. It involved breaking his thumb and all, but shifters heal quickly and have a high pain tolerance.

Leland sat up, still handcuffed. “Yeah, how?” he asked Roman. “And could someone for God’s sake un-handcuff me?”

Chelsea scowled, knelt down and undid his handcuffs. Leland grabbed the handcuff key and started to walk off with the cuffs and the key.

“Hey! Those are mine!” she yelled after him.

Leland tossed her an amused glance. “We’re outlaws.” He smirked. “You probably shoulda thought of that before you tried to arrest our Alpha.”

“Hi, I’m Avery and you’re gorgeous,” Avery said quickly, bustling forward and thrusting out his hand, which Chelsea refused to shake. Avery grinned, shrugged and didn’t move. He was obviously enjoying being close to Chelsea. Roman felt that murderous rage again but he swallowed it down.

Marcus was standing slightly apart from all the others, watching, with a mixture of annoyance and faint amusement on his face.

“You didn’t really put a lot of planning into this, did you?” he asked Chelsea, with a ghost of a smile.

Man. She almost had Marcus smiling? What the hell was up with that?

“I put plenty of planning into it,” she said indignantly.

“And it didn’t occur to you to bring some means of transporting him through the woods? He weighs a good two-fifty. Can you hoist that amount of weight normally? You should have brought an ATV with you. Or a posse.”

“Hey!” Roman said irritably. “Can you not help out the crazy sheriff lady who’s trying to arrest me?”

Marcus let out a rumbling growl. “Why, you scared?”

Roman gave an answering growl and glared at him. Marcus had taken it a step too far. Nobody spoke to the Alpha that way.

As if sensing it, Marcus threw up his hands and muttered, “You’re not scared of anything. Boss. Just came to see if I could help, is all. Since I’m not needed, I’m going back to bed.” He headed into the woods.

Roman turned to face Chelsea again. “Now, there’s the little matter of you trespassing on my property.”

“Your property!” she said indignantly.

“Shifter law, sweetheart—you really oughta study up on it. Gypsy packs are allowed to take up temporary residence on any unused portion of shifter territory, and everything within a one-mile radius of our camp falls under my domain.”

“Except that you’re an outlaw, wanted by the law,” she said firmly. “So I have the legal right to come here and arrest you.”

Her head was tipped back and she was staring up at him, and her breath was quickening. She was as turned on as he was. The spicy scent of her arousal tickled his nose, and he drew it in and felt warmth flood through his body.

God, she’s hot.

He grinned down at her, fiercely. “You can certainly try. By the way, do you know what happens when you embarrass an Alpha in front of his pack?”

She caught her breath and took a step back. Oh, no, she wasn’t getting away from him. He moved closer. “What?”

He slid a finger under her chin. There were numerous ways he could have punished her for her trespass, but he knew exactly which one he was going to choose.

“He returns the favor,” he growled.

* * * * *

What the hell had happened? One minute Chelsea had been kicking ass and taking names. She’d subdued the Alpha nobody else could even get close to.

And the next minute, he had completely turned the tables on her.

And now he had her slung over his shoulder as if she were a feather pillow, and was striding resolutely out of the woods.

The ground jolted at her with every step.

He sat down on a wooden bench and put her over his knee.

This couldn’t be happening.

But it was.

He raised his hand high and brought it down on her butt with a resounding smack. It was shockingly erotic. She squirmed underneath him and gave a hoarse cry that was half moan of pleasure, half yelp of outrage.

“One,” he intoned.

Then he did it again. His hand rose high and came down on her other butt cheek, and she cried out. “Oh!” The jolt of pleasure that shot through her body had scrambled her brains. She couldn’t even think.

With every smack, she squirmed and squealed and grew more aroused. Heat blazed through her body and moisture rushed between her legs.

He did it five times, counting each smack out loud. Then he dumped her off his lap onto the ground, and she scrambled to her feet. She was flushed and panting.

It suddenly occurred to her that at any time she could have shifted and probably escaped. Why hadn’t she?

He stood up and leaned in close. “Listen, beautiful, any time you want to come spend the night in my tent, be my guest. But this land is my pack’s territory for as long as we’re camping out here, and if you come here again, I’ll be the one placing you under arrest. You’ll be our prisoner for twenty-four hours. Now. You wanna join us for breakfast? Instant coffee, powdered eggs, plus wild rabbit.”

She couldn’t even speak, she was so furious.

She turned and stomped off into the woods. The fact that one of the pack members yelled, “Hey, come back any time!” didn’t help matters at all.

Chapter Eight

“Not now, not now, not now!” Chelsea pounded on her steering wheel in frustration. She was normally the queen of “look on the bright side”, but right now it was hard finding any bright side to look on. Her car had just broken down by the side of the road. After she’d been thoroughly humiliated by Roman Kincaid, and worse, that spanking had left her with a raging case of the female equivalent of blue balls.

How unprofessional could she get? Her va-jay-jay had the hots for the man she needed to arrest. Her brain didn’t, of course. Her brain knew he was an arrogant, obnoxious, stuck up, smug son of a bitch.

She heaved a sigh and leaned back in her seat. It was five miles back to town. Well, if she had to shift and run back into town, it was a lovely cool morning. That was a bright side.

Her emotions were in check, mostly. Her medication had arrived yesterday, overnighted to her, in a plain brown parcel left on her doorstep. She’d been able to pay for it out of the advance on her paycheck the mayor had given her.

Of course she was going to have to get her car towed back into town. Would she have to pay for that? That would bite into what was left of her meager paycheck.

No, no, she was finding things to be happy about.

She heard a car engine rumbling towards her, and perked up. See what looking on the bright side got her!

Then her smile faded when she saw who the driver was, climbing out of the pickup truck that had just pulled up behind her.

Roman.

That son of a bitch.

He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and lace-up boots now. A faint breeze rifled through his hair. He strolled up with a look of polite concern on his face.

“Having some engine trouble there, are we, sweetheart?”

“No, just pausing to enjoy the view out here,” she said, gritting her teeth.

He nodded. “Well, I have to admit, I am a magnificent sight to behold.” It was true, but it didn’t make it any less infuriating.

He walked over to the front of her car. “Let me try to give you a jump,” he called. “Go ahead and pop the hood.”

She thought about saying no, but she was tired and hungry and wanted to get the hell out of there. So, without a word, she pulled the latch that opened up her hood. Unfortunately, the jump-start didn’t work.

“Might be your alternator,” he suggested.

She just looked at him. “You’re speaking Martian right now,” she informed him. “I do not speak car.”

“Climb in,” he said, nodding at his truck. “I’ll give you a ride back to town.”

Cursing her luck, she did. She slammed her door hard and looked out the window, refusing to meet his eyes. He hitched her car to the back of his truck, and they began driving. She maintained a stony silence. He was infuriatingly cheerful as they drove.

“So,” she said finally, “What is it that you like so much about Silver Peak anyway? Why are you being so stubborn about sticking around?”

“Hoping to run me out of town?”

“Hell, no,” she said, and meant it. She was not one to run away from her problems, or to try to chase them away.

He shrugged. “Me and my pack, we’ll move on when we’re ready. Right now we’re here to do a construction job. When it’s done, we’ll leave town, go on to the next place. That’s what we do. Never stay in one place for too long.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Sounds lonely. Doesn’t your pack have families?”

A faint scowl creased his brow. “I wouldn’t know,” he said, and the lightness was gone from his voice.. We don’t discuss our pasts. Pack rule. We live in the moment.”

So families were a touchy subject with him.

“Living in the moment is great when you’re in high school,” she said. “Even college. At a certain point, though, I’d think it would get old.”

“Not for us,” Roman said with conviction. “What gets old for wolves like us is being stuck in the same place for too long. Besides, most of us didn’t do college. We didn’t have that kind of upbringing.”

He glanced out the window at the thick stands of trees that rose up on either side of the road, and the mountain range that stretched out into the distance. “If you’re going to pick a place to settle down, though, this is a nice one. So being a sheriff is your dream job?”

“No. My dream job would be owning my own bakery, but you gotta play the hand that’s dealt you,” she said.”

They were approaching Main Street now.

“Which way is your house?” Roman asked.

“That is top-secret information. You can just stop here. Thank you for the ride, but I’m still going to arrest you,” she said as Roman pulled over.

“Of course you are. Anything in particular that you want for dinner when I take you prisoner?” He grinned, baring perfect white teeth, and leaned in close to her. “I aim to please.”

She swallowed hard at the thought of him pleasing her, but she wasn’t going to let him see how much he rattled her.

“So you use aggressive flirting to ensure you’ll never experience real intimacy?” she said sweetly.

He climbed out of the truck.

“So you psychoanalyze men to drive them away when they start getting too close for comfort?” Roman said. He walked over to her car and unhitched it from his truck.

“Touché,” she said. “We’ve both got issues. We should continue to keep a healthy distance from each other. I’ll make an exception for the time that it takes me to drive you to Colorado to deal with that warrant.” She was answered with an amused snort.

The door to the coffee shop flung open. It was still dark in there, since it didn’t open for another half-hour. One of the waitresses stuck her head out of the door.

“Roman!” she simpered. “Can I make you some coffee? You like it black and sweet, right?”

Roman shook his head. “No thanks, Sheila.”

“Shirley,” she corrected him, looking a little hurt.

He glanced over at Chelsea as Shirley shut the door to the coffee shop. “She was just a one-nighter,” he said with what almost looked like an apologetic shrug.

“Your business, not mine. Our relationship is strictly professional. I’m the arrester, and you are the arrestee. Have a nice day,” she said, and walked away without looking back. But there was a small part of her that was secretly pleased he had wanted her to know he and Sheila weren’t a thing.

With a sigh, she started walking back towards her house, which was a mile outside town. A few minutes later, Erika pulled up, and she climbed in to Erika’s car.

“Gossip travels fast in this town,” Erika said. She seemed down in the dumps.

“Great. So, everyone knows that I failed to arrest Roman and my car broke down and he gave me a ride back into town?”

Erika nodded. “Pretty much. Don’t take it too hard. At least he didn’t strip you naked and run you up a flagpole, which happened at the last town when somebody tried to arrest him.”

Chelsea had to force herself not to picture Roman stripping her naked. Well, she tried to stop herself, but she didn’t quite succeed. Those strong hands roving over her body, tearing off her clothes…

“Anyway,” Chelsea said. “I’ve got plenty of free time today if you want to practice being ladylike.”

“No, thanks,” Erika said, sounding miserable, which made Chelsea turn and stare.

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s no point in trying anymore. Terrence dumped me. He said I embarrass him. My Aunt Louise is right—I’m never getting Mate-Marked. There’s not a single guy in town who likes me, and hardly anyone new ever comes to town. And if they do, they won’t like me. I’m going to die an old maid.”

“Did you like him?” Chelsea asked. “Did he make you feel special? Did he make you feel beautiful?”

“Me?” Erika sounded surprised at that. “I don’t know. Not really, but it’s not his fault. I never feel beautiful. He made me feel like I actually had a chance at getting Mate-Marked, finally, but I needed to try harder to stop embarrassing him.”

“And that’s what you wanted to be mated to?”

“Well… I mean…” Erika looked flustered. “I want to be mated to somebody.”

“So do I, someday. It doesn’t mean you have to settle for someone who makes you feel less than special,” Chelsea said passionately. “You never know what’s going to come your way.”

“Maybe.” Erika didn’t sound entirely convinced.

“Erika,” Chelsea said after a minute.

“Yeah?”

“If you’re not pretending to be ladylike any more, could you please fix my car?”

Chapter Nine

The Dudley house had clearly seen better days. The blue paint was faded and peeling, the roof was in crying need of new shingles, and two window panes had been replaced with cardboard.

Chelsea pulled up in front of the house, feeling butterflies fluttering in her stomach. She was always a little nervous approaching humans. A lot of humans were afraid of shifters, and humans who were fearful could get either violent or hostile.

However, as long she was sheriff, she might as well try to do something useful. If sheep were going missing, it could cause bad blood between the human town and the shifter town. Maybe she could do a little investigating and get to the bottom of it.

She could only hope that this went better than her fiasco of an arrest attempt the day before.

The woman on the front porch, an older lady who appeared to be in her seventies, was waving at her in a friendly fashion, so that was a good start. And she didn’t seem put off when Chelsea got close enough for the woman to see her golden-orange irises.

Of course, the woman had on two sets of glasses—one on her face, one on top of her head—and she was wearing a wool coat and a bathing suit. So she might not be entirely in possession of her faculties.

“Joyce, it’s about time you got here,” she said cheerfully. “What took you so long?” Then she looked Chelsea up and down. “My goodness, we really need to get some meat on those bones. People will think I don’t feed my family. Lunch is ready. Pot roast, your favorite.”

She seized Chelsea’s arm with a surprisingly strong grip and began tugging her towards the house.

“Hello, ma’am, I’m Sheriff Chelsea Wintergreen,” Chelsea said as she let the woman drag her up the front steps and into the house. The house was neat and clean, but like the exterior, it spoke of hard times. The yellow floral-printed curtains were faded, and the matching yellow living room sofa had mismatched cushions of different sizes, and patches of silver duct tape in a couple of places. She tried again. “I’m not Joyce. I’m the sheriff. I’m actually here to ask some questions about those missing sheep.”

“Oh, sheep, sheep, sheep.” The woman made an impatient gesture. “All this sheep talk is just—”

“Gramma! Gramma!” a frightened voice called from outside the house. It was the voice of a young boy.

Something changed on the older woman’s face. She straightened up and seemed to shed twenty years. She dashed into the living room with the grace and speed of an athlete and grabbed a shotgun off the wall. Then she ran out the back door, with Chelsea following.

Two tow-headed, freckle-faced young boys were standing there, and the older one was carrying a small white lamb. The lamb was bleating in distress, and there were splashes of blood on it.

“Gramma, there’s ten dead sheep out there,” the younger boy said anxiously. “Something ripped their throats out. This one was hiding in the bushes.” He stroked its head. “Can we keep it?” he added hopefully. “I’ll feed it. I’m going to name it Lamby.”

“Lamby is a stupid name, and we can’t keep it—that’d be stealing,” the bigger boy said.

“Your face is stupid.” The younger boy stuck his tongue out.

“Ryan! Shawn! Where are the dead sheep?” the older woman demanded. As she spoke, a younger woman came rushing out of the house.

The two boys glanced at each other.

“Where are they?” the younger woman said.

“Oh, hello, Joyce. I was just telling your twin sister that she needs to put some meat on her bones,” the older woman said. Then she looked puzzled. “Since when have you had a twin sister, anyway? I’m not sure that I gave permission for that. And you two don’t look anything alike. I’m not sure you’re even twins at all. Don’t think you can pull a fast one on me, young lady,” she said indignantly.

Chelsea thrust her hand out in greeting to Joyce, who looked as far from her twin as could possibly be. Chelsea was round and had a big mop of curls; Joyce was petite, pretty, and had an elfin quality to her little face.

“I’m Chelsea Wintergreen, from Silver Peak. I was just elected sheriff,” she said.

“I’m Joyce Dudley, and this is my grandmother, Edna.” Joyce made a quick twirling motion at her head with her finger as she glanced at her grandmother. Crazy.

“Pleased to meet you all.”

“New in town, I take it? That’s how they suckered you into that job?” Joyce said, shaking her hand.

“That’s about the size of it,” Chelsea said ruefully. “They got me but good.”

“Well, I waitress at the Hootenanny, so come on by some time. I have a feeling you’re going to want a good stiff drink,” Joyce said. She turned her attention back to the boys. “Where did you find those dead sheep?” she demanded. “How far did you wander from the house?”

“Uhhh…not far,” the older one said, avoiding her eyes, as the younger one said “Over by the Rodgers property,” and jerked his head towards the east.

“Tattletale!” the older one said angrily.

“Are you crazy, going that far? Do you want to end up like those sheep? You two are both grounded. No TV for a week. You are no longer allowed to leave the back yard without a grownup,” Joyce said angrily.

They both broke into noisy protests.

Joyce walked over and took the lamb. “Inside the house, now. I should whup your butts, both of you.” The two boys slumped off, their faces glum.

“Well, at least they fixed the fence,” Edna said suddenly.

“What fence?” Joyce looked puzzled.

“The fence between our properties and the Rodgers property, the one that was all old and rotten. It’s like new.”” Edna looked puzzled. “I wonder where the boys got the new wood.”

“Gramma, I’m sure the boys didn’t fix the fence. It must have been Mr. Rodgers. You aren’t supposed to be out walking alone either,” Joyce said, her voice rising in dismay. “What am I going to do with you guys? Why doesn’t anybody listen to me?”

“I came here to talk about the sheep, actually,” Chelsea said to her. “There’s been some talk that Mitch Rodgers thinks it could be Roman and his guys. Do you think that could be the case?”

“Oh, good heavens, no. None of them would do that. Definitely not. No way.” Joyce shook her head vigorously. “Why would they do that? It’s not like they need the money. They’re our best customers at the Hootenanny. They’re working over on the Purcell property doing a bunch of repairs, and he pays them well for it.”

Why indeed? Chelsea thought. Roman’s gang was the least likely group to be stealing sheep, since they weren’t as broke as the townspeople, but not all humans would necessarily know that. Some humans thought that shifters turned savage and killed at the drop of a hat, but that wasn’t true at all. Shifters hunted their food out of necessity, and they didn’t kill for pleasure.

Edna was looking bored now. She headed back to the house too.

“And now I have to go give the lamb back to Mr. Rodgers,” Joyce said, making a distasteful face.

“What’s he like?” Chelsea asked. Joyce clearly had a different impression of him than Mayor Winkleman.

“He’s…” Joyce hesitated. “He’s a very wealthy and powerful man and he’s one of the town’s major employers, so he’s got a lot of influence. He paid for the Juniper Police Department to get all new patrol cars this year. Also our land is right next to his.” The message was clear. She didn’t like him, but she didn’t dare speak badly of him.

So, maybe the meeting with Police Chief Tomlinson wasn’t going to go that well after all.

“Got it. I can take the lamb back to Mitch Rodgers if you like,” Chelsea said.

“That would be wonderful,” Joyce said gratefully. “I have to go deal with my rotten younger brothers.”

Edna was standing on the steps, watching them.

“Goodbye, dear! Don’t be a stranger!” Edna called out as Chelsea, holding the bleating lamb, headed for her car. “Well, of course you’re not a stranger, you’re Joyce’s twin sister. Funny how I can’t remember your name. Don’t be late for dinner!” she yelled.

The lamb sat on Chelsea’s front seat and bleated loudly as Chelsea drove over to Mitch Rodger’s property.

After that, she planned on going to the human town of Juniper to talk to the police chief about the sheep thefts. Hopefully he’d have a more neutral view on it than Mitch Rodgers would. Granted, he was human, but with luck he’d cooperate with her as a fellow law enforcement officer.

His home was an enormous luxury log and timber structure with saddle-notched corners, steep rooflines and tall picture windows. It was set in a small clearing, but most of the property was thickly forested.

A red Porsche gleamed in the driveway next to a mud-spattered monster truck. It was oddly out of place there; everything else had an “I’m a wealthy rancher” feel to it, and this looked like a little city-slicker car that wouldn’t last a day on pothole-riddled back roads. Chelsea made mental note of the license plate number; it was a California plate. Odd.

Chelsea carried the lamb up to the front porch and set it down. She rang the doorbell and waited, but nobody answered.

With a sigh, she picked the lamb up and walked down the front steps. With her sensitive shifter hearing, she could hear men’s voices through the woods to the east of the property. She began pushing her way through dense underbrush, calling out, “Hello? Anyone home?”

The voices fell silent.

“Stop right there,” an angry voice barked, and a man stepped out from behind a tree—with a shotgun pointed right at her head.

Chapter Ten

“Who the hell are you, and what are you doing spying on me?” the man demanded, his voice furious. “And what did you do to my sheep?”

“I’m Sheriff Chelsea Wintergreen of the Silver Peak pack, and I didn’t do anything to your sheep,” Chelsea said indignantly. He looked suspiciously at the star on her shirt as she set the lamb down.

“Then where did you get that lamb? And why does it have blood on it?” The gun was pointed right at her head, and he fixed her with a steady glare. “Did you bite it?”

“Did I bite a lamb and then bring it back to you?” Had he really just asked her that? “I’m not even going to dignify such a stupid question with an answer. And I don’t talk to people who are pointing guns at my head.”

“And I don’t cotton to people who trespass on my land and kill my sheep.” He stood there for a long moment, glaring at her, then a man’s voice called out from the woods behind him.

“Hey, Mitch, what’s going on? Is everything all right?”

“Fine! I’ll deal with it!” he yelled, and Chelsea found herself wondering what he’d have done if there hadn’t been witnesses nearby.

“Tell you what,” she said coldly. “I’m going to get in my car and leave now. If you plan on shooting me, you’re going to have to come up with a really good explanation as to why you shot a law enforcement officer in the back.”

She turned and walked to her car, tingling with anticipation the whole way.

“Don’t come back!” She heard the rancher’s shouted words as she slammed her door shut.

Right. Like she was likely to drop by for tea and crumpets tomorrow. Or to bite some more lambs.

She was fuming as she drove off, but only made it a couple of miles before a police car with flashing lights pulled up behind her. She pulled over quickly and climbed out as several officers scrambled out of their car, guns leveled

“Hands where I can see them!” one of them yelled.

Now she was really, really starting to get pissed off.

“I am the Sheriff of Silver Peak! How about if you put your hands where I can see them?” she yelled back angrily. Would they actually shoot her? This was insane.

One of them men stepped forward. Shorter, heavyset, built like a barrel. He had an army-style brush cut.

“I’m Chief Tomlinson,” he said. He looked her up and down. “Are you actually trying to tell me that you’re the sheriff? Driving that car?” He glanced over at her pink car with an expression of deep skepticism.

“We drive our personal vehicles,” she said indignantly. “I am the sheriff. I called you from city hall earlier to arrange a two o’clock meeting with you.”

“Oh. Yep.” He was still staring at the car as his men slowly lowered their SIG Sauer 229s and returned them to their holsters.

She scowled at him. There was no need for him to be insulting. “We don’t have a rich rancher to buy us a new fleet of cars—or to use us as his own personal police force.”

He flushed at the implication. “We’re not in his pocket, if that’s what you’re saying.”

“Five minutes after I leave his property, three of you pull me over with your guns drawn? Is that normally how you approach a fellow law enforcement officer?”

Chief Tomlinson looked a little discomfited at that. “He said you came onto his land and threatened him, and you injured one of his sheep,” he said defensively. “He also didn’t mention that you were the sheriff.” He stared at the star on her shirt as if he still didn’t quite believe it. She was really getting steamed.

“The Dudleys found a lamb on their property. The boys said they had found ten dead sheep with their throats torn out, and this lamb was hiding in the bushes nearby, right next to the Rodgers property. I was returning the lamb to Mr. Rodgers as a favor to Joyce, because she was busy.”

Now his expression turned to concern. “I’ll go check it out right now,” he said. “Sorry about the misunderstanding. Did they tell you anything else?”

“No, they did not.” Joyce climbed in her car, turned around, and drove off.

* * * * *

The next night…

“You’re jumpier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs,” Rafe said to Roman as they leaned back on the bar at the honky-tonk.

Rafe and his Southern-isms. His accent was pure Alabama, although Roman had no idea where exactly he was from or why he’d chosen not to stay with his home pack. Or any other pack in his state. And that was exactly the way Roman liked it.

Roman shrugged. He didn’t think he was jumpy. He just wasn’t feeling it tonight. Every time a woman brushed up against him, giggling and simpering, he kept seeing Chelsea, fiery and furious at him. He remembered her challenging him and his pack’s lifestyle as he gave her a ride back to town, and he found that it was making him feel unsettled and strange.

And now he was way too sober. Damn fast shifter metabolism.

“Beer me, sweetheart” he said to the bartender. She winked at him and set down an enormous mug, and he slapped a ten dollar bill down on the bar. The Hootenanny loved having shifters as customers, because shifters had to drink an enormous amount to get drunk, and they ran up huge tabs. He and his hard-drinking gang probably spent a third of their salary at whatever tavern they were camping out near.

“There is some fine, fine womanflesh in here tonight,” Avery observed, looking around the room. “Who are you going for?”

Roman shook his head. “Nobody. Taking the night off.”

“Are you kidding me?” Avery sounded mortally wounded, as if Roman had just personally insulted him.

“Hey, tomorrow’s a work day.”

“Like that ever stopped you.”

Roman shrugged. “I’m just not feeling it. What can I say?”

“Me neither.” Zeke, who’d been nursing just the one beer all night, set his mug down on the bar. “I’m heading out early.”

“Hold on a second,” Avery said with mock concern. “I need to take your pulse. Who the hell are you, and what have you done with my packmates?”

“Going to meet your new lady friend?” Roman asked Zeke, ignoring Avery.

A blonde in tight jeans sidled over and draped herself over Avery, who threw his arm around her waist and led her away.

“Yep.” Zeke nodded. He wasn’t bragging about whoever he was banging, which was unlike him.

“Be careful when you’re screwing around with humans,” Roman warned him. Human men tended to get jealous. And hanging out with humans was just tiptoeing through a minefield in general.

“She’s not human,” Zeke said, and turned and walked away.

Roman was puzzled. Shifter? Had Zeke started getting serious with one of the shifter girls from town? They pretty much knew all the single girls who liked to party by now. Most of them were at the bar that evening.

Was Zeke getting serious enough that he’d actually want to settle down and stay? Well, if that was the case, Roman would miss him. But not too much. He never missed anything too much; he didn’t let himself. He just concentrated on the here and now. How could he keep his pack fed, happy and safe? And how could he keep them from ripping one another’s throats out? That was enough to keep him busy.

He should have felt at least a little down thinking about the possibility of Zeke leaving, but he felt an odd lightness in his mood at the moment. He couldn’t put his finger on why, exactly.

“Hey, your lady friend is here.” Benjamin had walked up to them, his expression serious. He wasn’t flirting, but then he usually didn’t. Benjamin came to keep an eye on everyone and make sure they didn’t get into too much trouble.

“I don’t have a lady friend,” Roman growled, with more anger in his voice than he’d expected. Benjamin raised an eyebrow at him but didn’t look too shocked. They were all a temperamental bunch of bastards.

“I meant the lady sheriff.” Benjamin inclined his head to the other end of the bar, and Roman saw her and felt his gut tighten as he saw that a human ranch-hand was flirting with her.

The shifter named Erika was leaning on the bar next to her, with a glum look on her face.

“Who’s that?” Leland’s voice made him start. “Who’s that girl with the sheriff?”

“Her name’s Erika.”

“I’ve never seen her in here before,” Leland said.

“She doesn’t come here a lot. She’s not really the party girl type.” Roman shrugged. “I think she wants an actual life mate.”

“A life mate. Huh.” Leland looked at her with interest.

Roman found himself watching the sheriff closely, in case she made another laughable attempt to arrest him. Also, why was she still talking to that loser ranch hand? Roman had never met the guy before, but for some reason he could tell that he hated him.

Should he go warn her to stay away from humans?

Oh, who was he kidding, she was a shifter. She already knew that.

He saw her throw back her head and laugh, and then turn away and resume conversation with Joyce and Erika, and he felt himself relax a little bit.

Oh, come on, Roman, do you actually have a crush on the lady sheriff? He mocked himself, and took an enormous swig of his beer.

He’d been wondering why she hadn’t made another attempt to arrest him yet. Well, here was her chance.

And yet, she ignored him all night.

He moved closer, casually, and concentrated on filtering out all the other conversation in the bar so he could eavesdrop on her as she chatted with Joyce.

“I swear I don’t know what’s gotten into my family,” Joyce was saying to Chelsea. “Must be something in the water. They are all acting completely bonkers.”

“Like how?”

“My grandmother is obsessed with bathing in the mineral springs on our land, and she’s constantly sneaking out in the middle of the night for a dip. Makes me freaking crazy. She could drown! My brothers are sneaking around too, and I know they’re hiding something. I found them out in the cellar hiding some scraps of cloth and they wouldn’t tell me where it came from or why they were hiding it.”

“They’re probably just bored,” Chelsea said. “If you ever need help baby-sitting, let me know.”

Great. So she was a nice person, sexy as hell, he felt great every time he came near her, and of course, she had to be the local sheriff.

He went back to the other end of the bar, trying hard to ignore her. “Beer me some more,” he said, shoving a twenty at the bartender.

He hung out for another hour, waiting for her to make her move, and she completely ignored him. He thought about flirting with some of the women at the bar, just to see if that got a rise out of Chelsea, but he just wasn’t feeling up to it tonight.

Various men came over to talk to her, and she was always polite, but not particularly encouraging. Erika was ignoring all the men, and Joyce was trying to look as if she wasn’t checking out his pack-mate Paul, who tipped Joyce very generously, Roman noticed.

Roman finally got up and left, walking right past where Joyce was serving more beer to Erika and Chelsea, and Chelsea didn’t even bother to look up as he walked past. He deliberately brushed against her as he slid by, and he felt that pleasant rush of heat wash over him, the same one that he’d felt whenever she was near.

She didn’t react at all. It was like he wasn’t even there. Now he was starting to feel annoyance prickling at him as he walked out the front steps into the cool, dark night. He wasn’t used to women ignoring him.

Hell. He really needed to have a roll in the hay with her to get it out of his system, he thought, as he let the door bang shut behind him.

That is, if she ever came near him again. Apparently she’d lost interest in arresting him. He was surprisingly disappointed at the thought.

Chapter Eleven

Chelsea stood in the woods, carefully watching the passed-out pack members who lay sprawled on the ground, and listening for any sound at all.

They were completely still, their spilled coffee cups lying next to them.

Her stomach was twisting itself into knots, and her heart was pounding, but her plan seemed to have worked.

She’d really done her homework this time.

She’d asked around town and found out the name of a female shifter who had moved to town a year ago and forgotten to mention an outstanding arrest warrant. This female shifter was a frequent party guest at Roman’s camp. Chelsea had tracked her down at the Hootenanny the night before and offered her a choice: drug the coffee of Roman’s pack with a concoction provided by the mayor, or be arrested immediately.

She’d gone with drugging the coffee.

The pack members were knocked out, snoring loudly. Were they all there? She did a quick head-count and nodded. She was pretty sure they were all there.

Satisfied that nobody was awake to give her any grief, she turned and trudged back towards the road, where she had a pickup truck parked…with an ATV hitched to it.

Her lips curled in a smile as she walked. That had been a good suggestion from that big, surly shifter, bringing an ATV. This time she’d brought Erika with her, and now she was sure all the shifters were knocked out, she grabbed her cell phone and punched in Erika’s number. She was confident that she and Erika, together, could haul Roman’s unconscious body off the ground and onto the ATV. She’d handcuff that bastard with copper, secure his wrists with zip ties, and also use rope. She wasn’t taking any chances this time.

“Thanks, Marcus,” she said out loud with a grin just as Erika answered the phone.

“What are you thanking me for?” Marcus called from the brush.

Chelsea let out a small shriek and jumped. Damn her lack of a sense of smell! Damn it to hell! Any other shifter would have been able to scent that bastard before he snuck up on her. But not her.

“Abort the mission!” she yelled into the phone, and hung up quickly.

“Why weren’t you eating breakfast with everyone else?” she demanded as Marcus quickly moved forward and grabbed her by the arm.

“I work with them all day long. Why would I want to eat with them?” he growled as he hustled her towards the camp.

“Some people actually like eating with their friends.”

“I don’t have friends. And I’m not some people.”

He stared at the sprawled-out bodies of the pack members and his fingers tightened painfully on her arm.

“What did you do to them?” he demanded angrily.

“Ouch! It’s a quick-acting drug—they’ll wake up in an hour!”

His grip loosened a little. He dragged her over to a couple of chairs, shoved her into one and sat down next to her.

“Then we’ll sit here and wait.”

It was a very tense, unpleasant hour. Marcus apparently wasn’t much of a conversationalist. While he sat there glowering, Chelsea kept busy by cleaning up. She picked up all the spilled coffee cups and washed them out using the old-fashioned pump that was connected to a well. Then she started picking up beer cans and beer bottles that were lying scattered on the ground.

As she finished, the pack members were starting to sit up, groaning and rubbing their heads.

“What the hell did you do to us?” Roman demanded, staggering to his feet.

“Fast-acting sedative in your coffee. But don’t worry, there was just one bad batch. Can I brew you some fresh?” she asked, smiling sweetly.

“No thanks, I’ll brew my own,” he growled at her. “Psychopath.”

“Criminal.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“I’ll have some coffee,” Benjamin said to her. “Thanks for cleaning up, by the way. I try to keep up, but it’s hard to keep ahead of them.” He shot a glance at his packmates.

“Oh, my pleasure. I don’t suppose you have an oven? I could make muffins. I love to bake. Since I assume I’m going to be stuck here for the next 24 hours…”

“Muffins!” one of the pack members said happily. Paul, she was pretty sure his name was. Joyce had totally been checking him out the night before, and doing a terrible job of hiding it. “We never get muffins here. It’s all wild game and powdered eggs.”

“Screw you. Wanna be chef?” one of the pack members growled at him. Edward, she recalled from the bar.

“Is that what you’re calling yourself?” another pack member scoffed. Edward let out a growl and his face went all furry.

“Boys!” Chelsea clapped her hands to get their attention, and hopefully ward off a fight. “Muffins! Do we have an oven, and ingredients?”

“We’ve got an outdoor pizza oven,” Benjamin said, pointing at it. It was made of brick and actually very well constructed. Everything in the camp area looked sturdy and well made; they were certainly good at what they did.

* * * * *

The pack all went to take a swim in the nearby creek, which was icy-cold, to help them wake up faster. Marcus stayed behind to guard Chelsea.

Roman was the last one back. When he arrived, to his surprise, Chelsea was standing there giving directions to the whole pack, and they were scurrying around doing her bidding.

“No, put that garbage lid on tighter—if it’s not sealed you’re going to keep getting rats. Good job on the muffins—they’ll be done in another five minutes.” Apparently she’d figured out how to make the pizza oven work for her.

He sat down to watch her, with grudging admiration. For some reason her presence had his entire pack scurrying around cleaning the place up spick and span—and looking happy while they did it. They also cleaned up for him, but they bitched and whined under their breath.

Finally, he strode over. She was working with Edward, the pack’s cook, ladling out scrambled eggs to his happy pack. And there was some green stuff on the side. What was that? Asparagus. Why was Edward standing so close to her, with that stupid grin on his face? Roman stifled a growl. After all, he was the one who’d set the condition that Chelsea would now be stuck here for the next twenty-four hours.

“Thanks, Chelsea!” Benjamin said. Even though they were all going to be late for work thanks to her. That should have made them all royally hacked off at her, especially Benjamin, but Benjamin looked happier than Roman had seen him in ages. They all did, actually.

“You’re welcome. Eat your damn vegetables.” Even when she swore she sounded as sweet as sugar. “You can’t live off meat and carbs alone,” she said chidingly.

He wanted her to pay attention to him, to come over and give him a hard time, but apparently, she was more interested in baking. He must be losing his touch. She made sure that every pack member got a muffin, in between scrubbing dishes in the outdoor sink they’d rigged up.

He poured himself some of the coffee brewed by Edward, who was standing by their outdoor kitchen area serving up breakfast to the pack.

“You planning on moving in here?” he asked Chelsea. “A pirate’s life for you?”

“No, I’m planning to arrest your sorry ass, and then I can relax in my office and have a nice, quiet life writing the occasional ticket for littering.” She said it with a charming smile as she walked over to an empty chair and sat down. He had no doubt she meant to try, at least.

He sat down next to her.

“Good for you,” he said approvingly. “We’ve all gotta have an impossible dream to chase.”

She crossed her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him, which made him laugh.

“It’s really hard to take you seriously when you do that,” he informed her, shoveling delicious scrambled eggs into his mouth. He did miss fresh-cooked food, he realized. If only we had a real cook… He glanced over at Chelsea and then shook his head. Nope, it wouldn’t do to think like that.

The whole pack headed off to work late, having phoned in their apologies to Mr. Purcell. He wasn’t too upset, since they always arrived early, finished late and did excellent work.

Roman left Marcus to guard Chelsea.

The pack went straight out to the honky-tonk after work, and Roman went back to relieve Marcus of his watch. He wasn’t in the mood for the bar tonight. Also, some of his men had been checking her out appreciatively and had volunteered to stay behind and guard her, and he really wanted to kill them now. It would be safer for everyone if he stayed behind.

“So,” she said, sitting by the crackling fire. She looked around the campsite. “This is your life.”

“Yep. Feel free to mock.”

“No, it’s not bad. It’s beautiful out here. You’ve got the best view in the world.” She gestured at the majestic outline of the mountains, with their silver-capped peaks set against a darkening sky. “You’ve got all this room to shift and run. It’s close to town. The only thing I would personally miss is a nice baking oven.”

“Oh, we could build you that, easy,” Roman said without thinking, which earned him an odd look from Chelsea.

“Anyway,” he said, struggling to regroup, “other than the fact that you can’t arrest me, how are you liking Silver Peak so far?”

“Other than that, I’m loving it. The pack members are really nice, although that’s probably partly because they feel guilty about tricking me into taking the job. They keep bringing me ‘welcome to the pack’ gifts and stuff. Which is exceptionally generous given how much the town is struggling financially.”

“It’s not just guilt,” Roman said. “They are a pretty nice bunch, as far as I can tell.”

“What was your pack like?” Chelsea asked.

Ugly memories welled up and sweat beaded on his forehead. The funerals on a grey, rainy day… The angry pack members arguing about who was going to have to take him in… The accusing eyes that followed him everywhere he went… He felt a dark flash of anger shoot through him. “What part of ‘no talking about the past’ do you not understand?” he snapped.

There was dead silence for a moment, and he felt the temperature around them drop to sub-zero.

Chelsea stood abruptly. “Quite right. Totally forgot that having a normal conversation with you is off-limits. I’m going to go hang out in the party tent.” That was where they all hung out on nights when the weather was bad.

She got up and walked away.

It took about five minutes of Roman feeling like a horrible asshole and desperately craving Chelsea’s cheerful warmth before he got up and hurried over to the tent. He was about to do something he’d never done before—apologize.

She was inside with her back to him, sweeping the clean floor. He cleared his throat, but she ignored him and kept sweeping.

“The guys already did that earlier,” he said. “To impress you, I think. They like you.”

“I like them too,” she said, her tone wooden and unwelcoming.

But not me. Not anymore.

“Listen,” he said. “There’s a reason we don’t talk about our pasts. For anyone to want to join a pack like mine, they have to have come from a situation that was pretty bad.”

“I figured.” Was her tone softening a little?

“My father drank himself to death when I was twelve,” he blurted out suddenly, then braced himself for a smothering bout of self-pity. It never came.

“That must have sucked,” she said, continuing to sweep the clean floor.

He shrugged. “Not exactly a Norman Rockwell childhood, no.”

“Well, Norman Rockwell didn’t paint shifters, that I know of anyway.” Her tone was lighter now.

“I’m really sorry I snapped at you. My past was an ugly, dark place, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

His father hadn’t just drunk himself to death after the death of Roman’s mother, he’d taken others with him, and the pack had taken it out on Roman. For years and years, until he was fifteen and ran away from the pack. He’d spent years hiding from the law, traveling from one gypsy pack to another, until he turned eighteen and started to form his own pack. Long years of hunger and loneliness and anger. But he wasn’t going to burden her with that.

“Come outside with me again?”

“Why?” She glanced up at him.

“When you’re not drugging me, tazing me or handcuffing me, I actually kinda enjoy your company.”

She leaned her broom against the wall. “Maybe,” she conceded. “On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You find me the ingredients for some s’mores.”

“Some…what?”

“You know—s’mores? It’s a classic camping thing. Well, more for humans, but we lived near some humans who taught us how to make them. You’ve never heard of them?”

He shook his head.

“They’re awesome. You put marshmallows on a stick and set them on fire, then you make a sandwich out of chocolate and graham crackers— Stop looking at me like that! They’re the best thing since sliced bread!”

The way her eyes lit up when she was talking about s’mores…he wanted her to look at him like that.

“Well, if I can’t find any of those ingredients, will you come sit outside with me anyway?”

She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I dunno. I just set my terms and you failed to meet them.”

“But I’ll be lonely. And I had a terrible cubhood. You should pity me.”

“Oh, now you want to talk about your past?”

He flashed her a big, white-toothed grin. “If it gets me the pleasure of your company, I do.”

“Nice. You’ve got a PhD in flirting, I’ll give you that.” She laughed but made no move to head outside.

“I’m being one hundred percent sincere. It’s a beautiful night. Come out and shift and go for a run with me?”

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll outrun you and take off?”

He threw his head back and roared with laughter. Then he laughed even harder at her indignant expression.

“Oh, you were serious! Oh, that’s good. That’s really, really good.”

“I can run plenty fast,” she said irritably. “Are you saying that just because I’m a larger girl you think I’m slow?”

“No, sweetheart, I’m saying I’m the fastest thing on two legs or four. Except in certain areas. There are certain things I like to take my time with.”

He moved close to her and saw her eyes spark with arousal, and he felt heat flare through his body. He began stripping his clothes off.

“Let’s go for a run. If you get away from me, then you get to go home early.”

“Deal!” She began stripping too, and he felt all the blood leave his brain and rush south.

Chapter Twelve

They tore through the woods and he chased her, letting her get just ahead of him, again and again, then catching up and nipping at her heels.

The cool night breeze ruffled their fur as they ran. Chelsea leaped over fallen logs, tore through scrubby underbrush, and wove between the tall pine trees. All to no avail. He was always right on her tail, barking happily. If he were in human form he’d be laughing at her.

Chelsea didn’t mind. The rush of air delighted her senses. She drew the air in through her nostrils, the scent of moss and pine and loamy earth. In wolf form, she could hear the creak of every cricket and the rustle of every leaf.

Up ahead, she saw the campground. He was steering her back towards the camp.

Distracted for a moment, she tripped over a fallen branch and went sprawling.

Instantly, he was on top of her, straddling her and panting. His long pink tongue hung out and he had a huge, happy grin stretching his black lips.

Then he shifted to human form and he was kneeling over her on all forms.

She shifted to human form too, her fur melting back into her skin, her ears shrinking, her tail vanishing. Her bones shifted and rearranged themselves. And there they were, panting, naked, tangled up on the soft, mossy forest floor.

Chelsea looked up into his golden eyes and knew she was lost. She’d never wanted a man so much in her life. He was terrible for her—he was terrible in general—and he was leaving. And she wanted him.

Roman stared into her eyes for a long moment and then cradled her face in his hands, surprisingly gentle, and leaned down to kiss her. And the world fell away. There was nothing but Roman, his hard body against her, his thick erection pressing into her stomach. It was for her. He wanted her.

He kissed her deeply, his tongue sweeping through her mouth, probing. She let out a low moan of pleasure and kissed back, hungrily. She imagined him plunging inside her, his thick cock thrusting in…

And suddenly he jerked away.

“What?” she said, dazed. “Did I do something wrong?”

She was suddenly terribly self-conscious about her nudity. She moved her arms to hide herself, rolling to the side and bringing up her knee to cover her soft stomach.

“Of course not. You do everything right. Well, except trying to arrest me.” He scrambled up off her and she realized they were right near his tent. “And don’t hide your body—it’s incredibly beautiful.”

“Then what is it?”

“You can’t scent them? Some of the pack are back from the bar already.”

“No, I didn’t smell them.” She climbed to her feet and followed him into his tent, where she accepted a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants as he quickly dressed.

“Really? We’re downwind.”

She shrugged. “I’m a wolf who can’t smell. It’s a genetic anomaly.”

“Ahh, gotcha.” He didn’t seem too put off by it…but he was getting dressed, covering his magnificent body.

He looked at her with great regret. “Well, I guess that’s that.”

She bit her lip and nodded. He wasn’t going to try to seduce her anymore? Well, it was for the best. She tried to tell herself that, anyway.

He let out a sigh. “You’re too good for me, and I’m no good for you. I’m no good for anybody,” he said in a tone of deep regret, and walked away.

* * * * *

Was that Erika’s voice that Chelsea heard? Chelsea had spent a sleepless night tossing and turning in Roman’s bed, with him sitting outside the tent guarding it. Or so he said. Apparently he didn’t want to be anywhere near her anymore. Maybe he didn’t want his pack to think he liked her in that way.

That was fine, she thought, ignoring the tight ball of pain that had settled deep inside her. She was there to do a job, not get seduced.

She got up and walked out of the tent. She’d fallen asleep only two hours before, and she was exhausted.

Erika was lying on the ground underneath Leland’s car, Leland squatting next to her, handing her tools.

“Almost got it!” Erika called.

Chelsea walked over and waited for Erika to finish. She finally slid out and handed a wrench to Leland. “Oh, hey, good morning!” she said to Chelsea as she climbed to her feet. She had smudges of grease on her face.

“What are you doing with that car?” Chelsea asked.

Erika responded with something that sounded like, “The thinginator was making a vermilacious exponater noise,” and Chelsea remembered that she couldn’t speak car.

“Anyway, she fixed it,” Leland said happily. “Very nice! Sure you don’t want to join our pack of outlaws?”

“Oh, I can’t go travelling.” Erika laughed. “I have to work at my dad’s garage, or at least hang out there in case a customer ever shows up. But thanks anyway.”

Erika turned to Chelsea. “I came to give you a ride home. The pack already towed your pickup truck back to town.”

Chelsea looked around. Roman was nowhere in sight. She felt a sharp twist of disappointment.

“Let’s go,” she said abruptly, and she saw Erika suddenly look very uncomfortable. Leland frowned and walked away.

She’d been taking her medication, so if she was letting her mood affect them, she must be feeling it really strongly.

She paused for a second and made a strong, conscious effort to banish the dark cloud that was wrapping around her emotions.

My new pack bringing me home-made soap that smells like roses. The scent of fresh bread in the oven. Pepper curled up in my lap while I watch a rom-com and eat ice cream.

Her mood lightened, and Leland gave them a jaunty wave as they walked to Erika’s car.

“You know, I was fixing his car and thinking about how everyone there would know I’m not ladylike, and then I remembered I don’t care anymore because I’m going to die single anyway,” Erika said, sounding cheerful. “It’s great to be able to relax. I even burped, and nobody gave me a dirty look.”

“You do realize Leland has the hots for you, right?” Chelsea said, looking out the window and trying not to think about what it had felt like to have Roman’s mouth on hers.

“Me?” Erika let out a loud, braying laugh. “Ha! As if. I’m embarrassing and I sit like a trucker. Remember?”

“OK, Erika. You’re my pal, but seriously, for a smart girl you’re kind of a stupid-head,” Chelsea said, and leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes.

Chapter Thirteen

It was mid-morning by the time Chelsea made it in to her office. Lorena and Susan were waiting for her as she walked up the steps. Lorena had an apple pie and Susan had a jar of preserves. “You’ve got a visitor,” Lorena rushed to tell her.

Oh, thank heavens. He’s regained his senses, is turning himself in on the warrant—

She saw Susan nod at the Juniper Police Department car parked nearby. So it wasn’t Roman.

Chelsea swallowed her disappointment and accepted the pie and the preserves, thanking them both. “I would invite you in, but I’m assuming he’s here in an official capacity to discuss law-enforcement issues.”

Susan nodded. “We took down the wanted posters of Roman, including the one in your office,” she said. “No sense letting the humans know our business.”

“Good thinking.” Also, that meant she wouldn’t have to sit there and look at Roman’s face staring at her with that sexy scowl.

“Come by the store later and tell me all the gossip,” Lorena said.

“I’ll tell you what I can,” Chelsea said. She stifled a yawn as she went up to her office. She hadn’t slept well at the outlaws’ camp the night before. She’d gone home for a quick shower, and Erika was still taking care of Pepper, so she’d just dressed quickly and headed in to work. Maybe she’d have time for a nap later.

Chief Tomlinson was sitting in her office, and on her desk was a large wicker basket full of sausages, jams and jellies.

“Well, thanks,” she said, surprised.

“That’s from Mitch Rodgers, actually. It’s kind of an apology, after I read him the riot act,” Chief Tomlinson said.

“Kind of?” She sat down behind her desk.

He sighed. “He still insists that someone from your pack is behind all this,” he said. “But he recognizes that his treatment of you when you brought back his lamb was inappropriate.”

“Big of him. What did your investigation turn up?” Somebody had come into her office and started fresh coffee, Chelsea saw. Probably Susan and Lorena. It was that kind of town.

As the chief spoke, she went over and poured herself them each a cup.

“Well, like last time, we had an investigator fly in from the shifter council. A guy with bloodhound genes. He scented pure wolves, not shifters. He also scented the Dudley boys, but they already said they were there. He didn’t scent them on the dead sheep, just in the general area. He scented Mitch Rodgers and a couple of the ranch hands from Rodgers ranch, but since they’re his sheep, any of them could have handled the sheep recently.”

He frowned, pausing to take a sip of coffee, and looked as if he were considering what to say next. “There were a few things that were off at the scene. Some blotchy areas in the mud that looked as if someone had deliberately dragged tree branches over footprints. And Rodgers asked me several times how well we’d searched the scene. And he asked me if my men were there watching the shifter investigator the entire time he was there. ”

Chelsea Raised an eyebrow. “Did he say why?”

“No, he just said that he’s sure shifters always cover for each other. But my men were there the entire time, and the investigator didn’t alter or hide any evidence.”

“It’s odd that wolves would keep attacking Rodgers’ sheep,” Chelsea mused. “Game is plentiful in the area. I don’t know what to think at this point. I’ve asked around, and I’m not aware of any potential suspects in town.”

“We’re setting out traps for the wolves, and increasing patrols, and Mitch is hiring a few more guys. He’s also starting to talk about how he may have to close up his ranch operations if this keeps up, which is stirring up some ugly sentiment in town, just letting you know. He’s one of the major employers, and if he closes down the ranch it will really hurt the town. He’s going around getting people to sign a petition that will allow him to annex that shifter land he’s been after.”

“He might need to close up because he lost a few sheep?” Chelsea raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“He claims he’s also worried about the safety of his ranch hands, but yeah, it seems a little over the top to me too.” He frowned. “Another odd thing. Someone has been building new sections of fence along the boundary between his property and the Dudleys’. He denies having built it. Joyce Dudley thought it was him doing it, and she was surprised when I told her it wasn’t. Apparently there have been some other repairs made on their property, and all along she thought it was Rodgers, because he’s kind of sweet on her, but he’s saying it’s not.”

“That is odd. Okay, here’s something else strange, not that it necessarily means anything. Do you know who might have been visiting him from California, driving a Porsche?” Chelsea asked him. “There was a little red Porsche there the day I dropped by, and he accused me of spying on him and got really defensive.” She recited the license plate number to him.

“I’ll run the plates,” he said. “Couldn’t hurt. Makes sense to check out anything that’s out of the ordinary. I understand that there’s a newer pack camping out on Silver Peak property, kind of near the Dudley ranch?”

She hesitated. She wasn’t surprised that he was just now finding out about Roman’s pack. She personally didn’t like revealing information about shifters to a human law enforcement officer, but she had to give at least a little bit. He was here trying to cooperate, and he seemed like he was actually a good guy. He wasn’t letting Mitch railroad the local shifters or swing the investigation.

“There is. They’re working for Mr. Purcell right now. They’ve already been here a few months without causing any trouble.” Well, that was mostly true. At least, they hadn’t been causing any trouble for the humans, that she knew of. “They make good money, and I don’t have any reason to think they might be involved.”

Chief Tomlinson nodded. “I’ll go talk to them. If they’ve been here a few months…that is around the time that sheep started disappearing.”

She nodded unhappily. “I understand.”

* * * * *

Shawn and Ryan crept through the underbrush. “We shouldn’t be here,” Ryan said nervously.

Shawn scowled at him. Yes, they did so have to be there. They had to be on the lookout.

“You didn’t have to come,” he said to his brother. “Go back now if you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared. Joyce told us not to come,” Ryan said indignantly, keeping his voice low and looking around. They were right near the fence line that ran between their property and Mr. Rodgers’. “Joyce is not the boss of me,” Shawn said, puffing out his narrow chest and trying to pretend that he’d say that if Joyce was standing right there.

Ryan gave a small snort of scorn. “Yes, she is.”

“Then go back already,” Shawn said irritably. “Go tattle. Or be quiet and help me. We need to see if they’ve come back.”

“There.” Ryan pointed ahead, his hand shaking.

More sheep, with their throats torn out. Right on the property line between their land and Mitch’s land. And there was more.

Shreds of cloth, scattered around the bodies. And wolf pawprints and human footprints. Like before.

He had to erase them, quick, before the police got there.

“Go back, Ryan,” he said urgently. “Go get help. Now.”

For once, to his enormous relief, Ryan did what he was told. He turned and ran back towards the house.

Shawn bent down to snatch up the shreds of cloth, and stuffed them in his pocket.

As he turned to go, he heard the click of a rifle.

It was pointed right at his head. “I knew it was you little bastards.”

He heard bushes rustling and then Ryan, the little fool, came flying out, screaming “Get away from my brother!”

Chapter Fourteen

Zeke lay next to Holly, stroking her arm and staring down at her. She was beautiful, with bee-stung lips and high cheekbones, and silky black hair that fanned out on the bed like an ebony waterfall.

They were in the cabin that Holly was renting, on the edge of Silver Peak. When the paper mill closed, the young man who had been living there had moved on. Holly had come to town a few weeks ago, looking to start a new life after the death of her husband.

“I can’t wait for you to meet the pack,” Zeke said. “I’m just warning you that since you’re gorgeous, they’re all going to hit on you.”

“Jealous?” Holly said, looking amused.

“A little,” Zeke said. “Just let me know if any of them gets fresh, and I’ll knock them on their ass.”

“But what if I like it?” Holly said, her full lips curving in a teasing smile.

“Very funny,” Zeke said, trying to disguise that he felt faintly hurt. He and Holly had talked about getting exclusive. Once shifters got to that point, they were expected to forsake all others and definitely dial back on the flirting.

Hell, Holly should know that. She was a young widow. Her husband had been killed in a challenge. She still bore his Mate Mark on her neck.

“Just kidding,” Holly said. “Don’t be so sensitive.”

“I know, I know. It’s just that I’m crazy about you.”

“Well, you should be. I’m amazing. Tell me more about your Alpha,” Holly said. “Are you sure he’ll be okay with me joining your pack?”

Zeke started to relax. She wouldn’t be talking about joining their pack if she wasn’t interested in moving on to the next level in their relationship. They hadn’t gotten quite that far, but Zeke’s plan was to someday place a Mate Mark on top of her old one.

“He’ll be fine with it,” he said. “Like I told you, he’s generally too busy chasing tail and working ’til he drops to pay much attention to anything else.” He paused. “Although that might change soon—the part about him chasing tail, I mean.”

He felt her tense up beside him.

“What do you mean? What’s going to change?”

Zeke kissed the top of her head. “Nothing that will affect you. He just met some woman that he seems interested in. The local sheriff, actually. It’s funny as hell, because she keeps trying to arrest him. But I can tell there’s something there. When he’s with her, when he talks about her, he acts different than I’ve ever seen.”

“Maybe she won’t like me. Maybe she won’t want another female in the pack. She’s probably the jealous type.”

Zeke wrapped his arms around her. “Sweetheart, if it comes down to it, you and I could just stay here together,” he said.

She sighed and relaxed in his arms. “That’s sweet of you to say. And now, it’s been ten minutes since you last made me come, you lazy bastard. Why are you talking so much? I want you to fuck me now, big boy.”

* * * * *

Chelsea had an odd feeling as she pulled up in front of Joyce’s house, but she couldn’t have said why. Something had been bothering Joyce the night before at work, but Joyce had brushed off all Chelsea’s attempts to find out what was wrong.

She’d also been downright curt to Paul, who’d looked crestfallen and finally left.

Did that mean Roman’s pack was somehow behind the sheep thefts? Was that what was bothering her? Either way, it was obvious she didn’t want to talk about it at work, but maybe she’d feel more comfortable discussing it at home.

Or not.

When Chelsea approached the house, the front door opened right away. Joyce walked out and quickly shut the door behind her.

She had circles under her eyes and she looked tired and stressed out.

“Hey Joyce, is everything okay?” Chelsea asked. “I could tell something was bothering you. Is it anything I can help you with?”

Joyce ran her hands over her face, and nodded with a grimace.

“Everything’s fine,” Joyce said. “I’m just tired. I’ve been working a lot of shifts, and you know those boys and my grandmother. They wear me out.”

It seemed like more than that, though. Joyce was nervous about something. She was shifting from one foot to the other, and acted as if she wanted to glance back at the house but was restraining herself.

“Are you sure that’s it?” Chelsea asked.

“Positive,” Joyce said.

“Okay. And there haven’t been any more sheep killings? So far, it looks as if a regular wolf, not a shifter, killed those sheep. The police chief is stepping up patrols and putting traps out.”

“That’s great. I’m glad to hear it,” Joyce said. “There haven’t been any more sheep killings that I’ve heard of. I knew it wasn’t Roman’s pack. Everything’s been quiet here, nothing to worry about.”

She was fidgeting, anxious, clearly wanting Chelsea to leave. She did seem sincere when she said that she knew it wasn’t Roman’s pack, though.

“All right. Well.” Chelsea wished she knew what was wrong, but it was clear she wouldn’t get anywhere by sticking around.

She hesitated a moment, then shrugged. “If you need anything, you know where to find me,” Chelsea said, and she turned and headed back to her truck.

Joyce quickly stepped back inside. She stood peering out the window past the small lace curtain and watched Chelsea pull away, feeling sick.

“Nice job,” Mitch Rodgers growled in her ear. She started. He was standing uncomfortably close to her, his hot breath on her ear, leaning in. She took an involuntary step back, which made him scowl. He moved forward, crowding her. Her grandmother wandered by them, holding a pot of hot coffee.

“Tea, dear?” she said cheerfully to Mr. Rodgers, and began pouring coffee on his foot. He let out a scream of pain and jumped back.

“Grandma! Not now,” Joyce said, grabbing her grandmother by the arm and dragging her into the kitchen. She was secretly pleased, however. Not just because she wanted savage, painful revenge on Mitch Rodgers for threatening her family. She also wanted him to stop staring at her in that creepy way, making her stomach churn.

Mitch Rodgers stormed into the kitchen after them, swearing.

“She does that on purpose!” he howled.

“No, she doesn’t! She’s senile! She does not have any clue what she’s doing!” Chelsea said, quickly stepping in front of her grandmother. “And you are not to harm anyone in my family. You promised.”

“I’ve got my eye on you,” Mitch growled at Edna.

“Tea, dear?” she began pouring coffee again, but this time he managed to jump out of the way just in time, swearing. Joyce took the coffee pot away from her grandmother.

“I did what you asked. I got rid of her. Now I want my brothers back,” she said, her stomach churning. She was sick with worry.

Mitch had grabbed them two days ago. Said that they were trespassing on his property; she didn’t know if that was true, but either way, he had them. She didn’t know where they were being held. If she called the police, Mitch had sworn that her brothers would be dead long before the police could find them.

“You’ll get them back when all of this is done,” Mitch growled at her, limping towards the back door. “And it would be a smart idea for you to start being a little nicer to me.” There was a leer on his face this time, and the way that his gaze roved over her body made her feel physically ill.

Chapter Fifteen

The school bus echoed with the shrill sound of “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”

“Almost!” Chelsea yelled for the millionth time.

“He’ll never know what hit him.” Erika snickered. Chelsea grinned. She’d decided to switch tactics. She’d also decided it would be fun to play dirty.

It was obvious she wouldn’t be able to physically subdue Roman and drag him off to jail, so she was bringing his pack’s worst nightmare right to their doorstep.

What’s the worst nightmare of a commitmentphobe? Children.

Fifteen of them. So many that they’d had to borrow a school bus to transport them all.

Erika had gathered up all her nieces and nephews and younger cousins, who apparently were a wild, out-of-control handful. So far, they were living up to their reputation.

Pepper was enjoying a visit with Lorena, who liked having her in her store. The pack members would come in and give her treats.

They drove down the dirt road that led to the camp. The sun had just risen; she wanted to make sure she got there before the pack headed off to work.

Chelsea parked by the side of the road, flung open the door and waited as all the kids scrambled out.

“Remember, everybody, outlaws like lots of noise!” she called to them as she led them along the dirt trail towards the encampment.

They were hollering loud enough to wake the dead. In case anybody was still sleeping, she shouted, “Good morning! Rise and shine!” at the top of her lungs. The pack members were staggering out of their tents already, half dressed.

“Hello, everybody! Newsflash!” she yelled. “These kids wanted to come meet some real, genuine outlaws. Hey, Rafe, how you doing today?” she asked, as a young boy named Harvey shifted into cub form and hurled himself into Rafe’s arms. Rafe caught him and stumbled backwards, too shocked to speak.

“So here’s how it’s going to be,” she continued, as Roman strolled up to her. He was wearing khaki shorts and sandals and nothing else. She blinked, trying not to stare at the swell of his biceps and his lean, muscular frame.

Everybody was staring at her. Waiting for her to speak.

She cleared her throat.

“We’re going to be hanging out here all day. And probably all night. School just let out, summer camp had to close because of lack of funds, and these cubs are driving their parents up the wall. They told us we’re welcome to stay here as long as we like. Weeks. Months. In fact, they’ll come here and join us for cookouts. Pansy, stop biting Benjamin’s ankle! Go for the thigh, much meatier.”

“Ouch?” Benjamin winced as he tried to pry the little girl from his leg.

“Wow,” Roman said admiringly to her. “You’re no quitter, I’ll give you that.”

“Damned straight.”

“Watch your language, there’s children present.” He said it with a smirk.

She snorted. “They are uncorruptible. They’re a bunch of little savages.”

“Chelsea, I’m surprised at you.” He shook his head with an expression of mock disapproval. His silky hair flowed over his shoulders, and she swallowed hard, imagining what it would feel like to run her fingers through it. “Where are your maternal instincts?”

“You didn’t just spend the last hour with them.” Then she flashed him an evil grin. “But you’re about to.”

She turned and yelled out to the pack, who now had children swarming them like ants at a picnic, “You’ve got another alternative, if you don’t want to play kindergarten cop all summer long. Roman can come with me, deal with this warrant, and come back when he’s done. Benjamin can run things perfectly well until I get back! Until Roman comes with me, the kids and I are camped out here permanently. That’s going to put a real crimp in your social life. What do you say?”

Marcus was the only one who hadn’t been swarmed. He scowled at any of the cubs who tried to come too close, and they turned and happily ran off to bother other pack members. Climbing up them Nipping at them. Hanging on their hands.

She saw a couple of stragglers, Leland and Paul, heading towards the clearing. They were yawning and rubbing their eyes. They looked as if they’d just woken up.

“Those two,” Roman muttered to himself. “Always sleeping in these days.”

“Hey, Erika!” Leland called out. “What is this, field trip day? My car’s running great now, by the way.”

Chelsea repeated her little speech for them. “So what’s it going to be?” she called out.

A little boy whose nickname was Tom-Tom shifted to cub form, jumped into Leland’s arms, and began chewing on his hair. Leland let out a loud whoop – of joy.

“Kids? We love kids!” he yelled. “We never get to hang out with kids! We’re a week ahead in our work—we’re taking the day off! Who wants to go down to the waterfall and do cannonballs into the lake?”

Apparently, according to the children’s deafening screams of excitement, they all did.

“Cannonballs? Waterfall? That doesn’t sound safe,” Chelsea said nervously.

It was too late. Several of the pack’s girlfriends were already coming out of their tents, and Erika was enthusiastically joining in with the whooping and carrying-on.

“Tonight we’ll have a cookout. Hot dogs and hamburgers!” a shifter named Petrov yelled. More screams of excitement ripped through the air. Chelsea winced.

“Last one to the waterfall’s a rotten egg!” Erika yelled.

“Erika! You can’t go! You…you didn’t bring a bathing suit!” Chelsea protested. “It’s not ladylike!”

“Aw, the heck with ladylike. There’s no place for being ladylike out here,” Leland snorted, and Erika beamed, and Chelsea reluctantly found herself really liking him.

Except that now Erika and Leland were leading the happy gang of children and shifters away.

“But…but…” she protested. Everybody was already heading out of the camp.

“You didn’t eat breakfast!” Chelsea yelled after them.

“We’ll hunt our breakfast!” somebody yelled back.

Son. Of. A. Bitch. Her carefully thought-out plan was going down in flames. She could not possibly have failed any harder.

“Why aren’t you going with them?” she demanded of Roman.

He grinned at her fiercely. “Somebody’s got to watch our prisoner.”

Okay, so apparently it was possible for her to fail even harder.

“Prisoner? But…come onnn!” she groaned. Talk about adding insult to injury.

“Hey, sorry, but this was clearly another arrest attempt. On my property. I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them.”

She scowled at him. “Um, you did, in fact, make that rule.”

“Oh, right, so I did,” he said with a laugh “And I could break it if I wanted to. But I’m not going to. You know why?”

“Because you have to prove what a macho badass you are?”

“Everybody already knows that, trust me. It’s because I like your company. Now, let’s make coffee. And by the way, do you want s’mores for breakfast?”

“But you don’t have the ingredients,” she protested as they walked over to the pack’s supply tent.

“I got the ingredients. I knew you’d be back.”

Despite herself, Chelsea found that she was flattered. He hadn’t forgotten about her after all.

“Should we eat all that sugar this early?” she wondered.

“Better eat them before the kids get back and gobble up the rest of them.”

“Stealing candy from children,” she said, shaking her head chastisingly.

He laughed. “Hello, have you met me? Alpha asshole here.”

Minutes later, they were sitting by the fire-pit, setting marshmallows on fire. Roman watched in admiration as she built a gooey s’more sandwich and handed it to him. He bit down deeply and a look of bliss appeared on his face.

“Right?” she said.

“How have I lived without this in my life?” he asked, looking straight at her in a way that made her heart stutter.

She knew he was talking about the s’mores.

Wasn’t he?

“Now I get to make you one,” he told her. He stabbed a marshmallow with a piece of tree branch and shoved it into the fire, and together they watched the flames turn the marshmallow’s shell bubbly and crispy-brown.

Then he built her a s’more, and fed it to her, and she leaned forward, biting down until melting chocolate oozed from her lips.

The sticky sweetness invaded her senses, but even the richness of the chocolate was not as intoxicating as the sensation of his fingertips, slightly rough from manual labor, lingering on her lips. She caught her breath as a trickle of wetness escaped from her core and shivers of sensation danced up her spine.

Roman’s eyes were dark and intense as he slowly drew his fingers away from her lips and replaced them with his mouth, kissing her with slow, drugging intensity. She parted her lips on a sigh and his tongue tangled with hers, her senses overwhelmed by the flavors of chocolate and marshmallow and Roman’s musky, masculine scent. He wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close, and she could feel his heart hammering fast and hard in his chest in counterpoint to the lazy self-assurance of his kisses.

He tumbled her back onto the ground, one hand cradling her head to protect her from the impact, and ran his hands down her sides, over the plump outer curves of her breasts, the dip of her waist and her soft, generous hips.

She was achingly aware of the rigid length of his erection pressing against her core, and found herself rolling her pelvis against him, seeking the heady friction her body yearned for, cried out for. She flushed, feeling wanton, but she couldn’t help herself.

Roman drew back and deftly unbuttoned her shirt, slipping it from her shoulders and weighing her heavy breasts in his big palms. He lowered his head to suckle on the pale, creamy flesh where it spilled over the top of her lacy bra—the one hidden touch of frilly femininity she’d allowed herself when donning her practical, no-nonsense sheriff’s outfit that morning.

His low groan, almost a growl, rumbled through her, making her nipples furl and bud against the fabric of her bra and lighting up her nerve endings. White-hot licks of lust ignited and tumbled through her like shooting stars.

Roman ripped away her bra and discarded his shirt, then returned to her, suckling at her throat, massaging her breasts wrapping his arms around her back and holding her close so she could feel the hot, hard planes of his muscular chest and taut stomach against her skin. His breathing was rapid and as he pressed his hips against her he made low, effortful noises of hard-won restraint. A pulse throbbed between her thighs and she moaned, running her fingers into his long, silky hair and holding his head against her breast, where he played his tongue over her nipple and tweaked it gently between his teeth.

Roman’s hands went to the fly of her jeans, and shame hit her like a dash of cold water. She sat bolt upright. Roman drew back as if stung, as if smarting from rejection. But then his eyes softened as he took in the way she’d crossed her arms defensively over her body, turning her face away to hide the tide of hot blood she could feel rising in her cheeks.

“Why are you hiding yourself from me?”

Because you’re so gorgeous. So sexy. Because you’re toned and tan and delicious. Because you have a body made for sin. Because you’re sex on legs and I’m…not.

She swallowed and forced herself to speak. “It’s just…your reputation precedes you.”

He gave an irritated little growl. “Is this about the whole outlaw thing again? Because I thought we were past that.”

“No! No… It’s just I’ve heard about your love life. Leggy blondes. Beautiful brainless bimbos. I’m not exactly your type.”

“That’s true.”

She nodded dully.

“You’re definitely not brainless. You are beautiful, though.”

She glanced at him. The firelight reflected in his eyes made him look as if he were burning up from within.

“It’s okay,” she muttered, reaching for her shirt. “You don’t have to say it. ‘You have a beautiful personality. You’d be so pretty if you just lost a few pounds…’”

Roman’s hand clamped around her wrist like a vise, bruisingly tight. “Don’t you dare say that about yourself,” he said, and there was real anger in his voice. “Who told you that?”

She swallowed. “Oh, you know, ex-boyfriends…”

He snorted. “You might not be brainless, but you obviously have terrible taste in men.”

She ventured a shy, tentative smile. “Nothing’s changed there, then.”

His eyes narrowed and she felt a thrill run through her that was part fear and part excitement. “It seems to me that you need to be taught another lesson,” he said, his voice almost a purr, and before she knew what was happening he’d yanked down her jeans and panties and pulled her across his lap, her bare rump in the air.

She squealed and wriggled, then quieted when he gave her a light, brisk tap on the ass.

“I’m going to spank you three times,” he told her gravely. “Once for the smart remark about me. Once for the stupid remark about your body. And once for fun.”

As he spoke, he ran his fingers down between her buttocks to part her pussy lips, which were swollen and slick with desire. She shuddered and squeezed her thighs together against his fingers, wondering if she’d come before he even got inside her. Her body was thrumming with arousal and need.

Roman brought the flat of his hand down on her buttock with a sharp crack, making her squeal and writhe in his lap. His huge erection twitched against her belly through the denim of his jeans and he gave a satisfied grunt.

A second slap in the same spot as the first stung her sensitized skin, sending a wave of heat washing over her and making her bite her lip and squeeze her eyes shut as she fought for breath.

A third blow, swift and sweet, had her tensing and moaning, teetering on the verge of orgasm from the mixture of pleasure and pain and the unbearable anticipation.

Then Roman was discarding his jeans, positioning her on all fours and drawing her back against him, rubbing the head of his cock against her swollen slit and whispering incoherent words of encouragement and desire into her ear.

One side of her body was hot, glowing with the flickering heat of the fire, her buttock singing from the spanking Roman had given her. The other was caressed by cool breezes, a sensual contrast that made her all the more aware of the warm skin of Roman’s belly and chest against her back.

He worked the head of his cock against her, using the slickness of her arousal to lubricate himself, then pushed inside in a slow, steady motion that stretched and filled her.

Chelsea moaned and clenched around him, her orgasm building inside her in magnetic waves as she pushed back against him, desperate to have him all the way inside her.

Roman stilled for a moment, his chest heaving against her back as he fought for control. Then he began to move in smooth, confident thrusts that stoked her passion steadily higher until she shuddered and cried out, spasming around him in overwhelming muscular waves.

Roman let out a low growl and slipped his hand over her soft belly and down between her thighs, finding her clit with his fingers. As he upped the pace of his thrusts, driving into her with a series of harsh groans, he rubbed her to climax, locking his arm hard around her waist as she crested again. He thrust into her with mindless abandon, burying his face in the hair at the nape of her neck, shouting out his release as he came explosively inside her, his whole body shuddering and sheened with sweat.

Chapter Sixteen

“Those kids are gonna be back any minute,” Chelsea sighed, lying there in his arms.

“I know. We need a proper house; there’s no damn privacy around here,” Roman said, his fingers tangling in her hair.

“A house? Aren’t you allergic to those?” she asked.

Roman shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, they make caravan houses…” He buried his face in her hair. “You could stay with us, you know. Travel. It’s never boring. And the pack loves you, despite the fact that you keep trying to arrest me. Or maybe because of it.”

The pack loved her. Not him.

This was a man who moved on all the time.

And for that matter, he didn’t know everything about her. She’d left out one important fact, and it was the one that tended to set men running. Well, it set everyone running, really.

Chelsea swallowed hard.

“I want to settle down,” she said. “I want a home. With a regular pack, where I could hope to start a family someday.”

There was a long silence.

“I see,” he said. “I understand that. It makes perfect sense.”

But he didn’t say what she longed to hear. What she needed to hear.

He didn’t say, me too. He didn’t say, I’ve changed. I want a family too. I want to settle down.

She felt a cold, dark loneliness descend on her. As if sensing it, he tightened his arms around her and pulled her close, but it wasn’t enough. She was with him now, but for how long?

They could hear the voices of the kids coming through the forest; they were headed back. With a sigh, she sat up and began pulling on her clothes.

* * * * *

Roman thrashed on his bed, then sat bolt upright, breathing hard. Chelsea was already sitting up, watching him.

“You all right?” she asked him.

He nodded abruptly, sweat beading on his forehead.

Images flashed through his mind. His father showing up drunk to his mother’s funeral… The day Roman’s mother had died of an undiagnosed heart defect had been the last day he’d ever seen his father sober.

Images from the wreck… Roman’s father, drunk and driving a pickup truck, had plowed in to a van returning from a shopping trip and killed the entire family inside as well as himself.

Bodies scattered across the ground. Pack members looking at Roman, who was the spitting image of his father, with hatred in their eyes.

His mother’s pack had offered to take him in, but he’d refused. Roman hadn’t wanted to be near anyone or anything that reminded him of family.

Breathing hard, he looked at Chelsea. “I don’t know if I can do this,” he choked out. She laid her hands on his arm, and he felt the panic and pain start to subside.

“You’ll be all right.” Her voice was calm and soothing, like balm on burned flesh.

“I’m not all right, that’s the problem. I’m just… You’re good. I care about you. I don’t want to hurt you,” he groaned. “That’s why I can’t have a family. I’m not strong enough for it.”

And he didn’t want her to hurt him. What if something happened to her? Could he survive the loss of his mate? His father hadn’t.

She looked him in the eyes.

“Roman Kincaid, you are stronger than you know, and I don’t just mean physical strength. You fear nothing. You care about your pack. You may bitch about what a pain in the ass they are, but you love them like family. So you do have a family. Whether you’re with me or not, you’ll be okay, because you’re the kind of person who carries on to protect what he cares about.”

“Thank you,” he whispered hoarsely. His heartbeat was returning to normal. He’d never calmed down that quickly after a nightmare before.

He lay down and pulled her up against him, and within minutes, amazingly, he drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Seventeen

Chelsea sat up and yawned and stretched, working out the pleasant aches in her muscles. She could hear the happy chatter of children outside, and she scrambled to get dressed so she could go out and join them.

Roman and most of the pack had already left for work. Roman had left her a coffee can vase filled with wildflowers.

Erika was sitting outside by the campfire, with the children. Several of the children’s parents had come to join them for breakfast. Everyone seemed to be having a great time.

Roman had told her that they always left at least one pack member at the camp site to watch over their stuff during the day. They used to leave the camp empty, but odds and ends had started vanishing from their camp. They’d scented a human having gone through some of their tents after their stuff was stolen, and hadn’t wanted to deal with the human authorities about it. Instead, they just took turns guarding the site.

Today was Marcus’ turn. He was glancing around the camp site at the kids and parents with a wince of dismay on his face.

He grunted a greeting, and handed her the cup of coffee.

“Morning,” he muttered, and walked off without bothering to pour himself a cup.

“Yes, it is,” she said to his retreating back.

He grunted a greeting and handed her the cup of coffee.

“Morning,” he muttered, and walked off without bothering to pour himself a cup.

“Yes, it is,” she agreed.

“Good morning, Aunt Chelsea!” Pansy called happily.

“Oh, so it’s auntie now, is it? Yesterday I was lunch,” she said, settling down next to the little girl.

“Sorry about that—she’s still got those puppy teeth,” said the woman sitting next to Pansy. “I’m Rosie. It was lovely for my husband and me to have a night off. Did it work? Is Roman going to turn himself in?”

“Apparently not.” Chelsea sighed. “And these tiny terrors don’t scare the pack at all.”

“Hey! I am very thcary!” a little boy with a lisp said indignantly. “Benjamin thaid I thcared him when I howled!”

“You are scary,” Chelsea agreed with a somber nod.

“Roman’s a stubborn one.” The woman shook her head. “Well, I guess we’ll have to take the little monsters back, then.”

This was met with yips and groans of disappointment from the cubs, but after breakfast, the parents shepherded their reluctant children back to the schoolbus, leaving behind Chelsea’s car, which they’d driven up there for her.

Erika stayed behind to help Chelsea clean up. Marcus came to join them, but resisted all efforts at drawing him into conversation, answering only with grunts when they spoke to him.

“Do you think Leland really actually likes me?” Erika asked Chelsea. “He keeps talking to me. A lot. Like he likes me. But it’s hard to believe that a guy actually likes me. Maybe he just likes me as a friend.”

Before Chelsea could answer Erika, they heard the sound of an approaching car. The car was driving towards the campsite.

“Who is that? Is this another one of your tricks to arrest Roman?” Marcus growled at her.

“Uh, nope. I’m all out of tricks,” Chelsea said, shaking her head.

The car parked, and a woman climbed out and began heading towards them. She was voluptuous and stunning, and had long, wild dark hair. Her painted-on jeans accentuated her slim figure, and her red lycra top plunged deep, displaying her cleavage. She walked with the smug confidence of a woman who knew how beautiful she was.

When she reached the clearing, she paused for a moment, looked around, and then her gaze lighted on Chelsea. She walked straight towards her.

“So, you’re the whore who’s been sleeping with my mate,” she smirked at her.

She gestured at her neck. There was a mate mark there, clear as day.

“Mate?” Chelsea echoed faintly, as Erika let out a threatening growl.

“Yes, as in, the woman he’s committed to for the rest of his life.”

“I know what being mated means,” Chelsea snapped, scrambling to her feet. Erika joined her. “Don’t hit her,” she added to Erika.

“I wasn’t going to hit her hard,” Erika muttered, glowering at the woman. “I probably wouldn’t have broken any bones.”

“Helen,” Marcus growled, folding his arms across his broad chest. He didn’t look too pleased.

“Holly,” the woman corrected him indignantly. “I’m the Alpha’s wife. Get it right.”

“Is she really his mate?” Chelsea asked Marcus, her stomach clenching. She thought she’d be sick. She’d slept with a man who was already mated? Roman, the king of no commitment, had mated a woman—and it wasn’t her?

“He never mentioned it to me.” Marcus didn’t look entirely convinced.

“Nobody mentions anything to you, because they’re all too busy trying to avoid you,” Holly said scornfully. “Bad vibes. Please call my dear mate and ask him to come greet his wifey. I’ve missed him.”

So Holly knew Marcus. She’d been with the pack before.

“Excuse me, I need to be going,” Chelsea said tightly.

Erika followed her to her car in silence.

Chelsea blinked back hot tears of humiliation as she drove. God, how stupid could she be to have fallen for Roman’s smooth talk?

“I can’t believe Leland didn’t tell me,” Erika said, her tone wounded. “I thought he liked me.”

“He more than likes you—he’s crazy about you,” Chelsea said. “You should keep seeing him. And he may not even have known. Marcus didn’t seem to know. Roman may have mated in secret and…run out on her.”

As she said it, nausea filled her and she almost gagged. Erika made a retching sound too. Shifters took mating extremely seriously; the idea of a shifter cheating on or abandoning their mate was literally, physically sickening to them.

* * * * *

Holly sat on a folding chair by the fire, sipping a cup of coffee, looking lovely and smug. Half the pack had come rushing back when Marcus had called up and barked out that there was an emergency. Marcus probably should have been more specific, but communication wasn’t his strong suit.

“You mated her and didn’t tell us? None of us can pick a mate but you did?” Leland demanded furiously of Roman.

Since when did any of them want to mate and settle down?

Paul and Leland, especially, had been acting extremely strange lately. He knew they’d been sneaking off in the middle of the night, when they thought everybody was asleep. Where did they go? Why were was Leland talking about picking a mate?

Paul strode up, standing next to Leland protectively.

“Roman, up until now, I would have laid down my life for you. But if you truly mate-marked a woman and then abandoned her, I can not follow you any more,” he said to Roman.

The fury that swelled up in Roman threatened to choke him, and he had to fight to keep his wolf inside his skin. But it wasn’t really his pack he was mad at.

Chelsea. This woman had hurt Chelsea. The thought made him burn with rage.

“At least someone takes Mate-Marking seriously,” Holly said in wounded tones as she strode over to Roman. She flipped her hair to the side and gestured dramatically at the Mate Mark on her neck.

“See that?” she called to everyone. “He Mate-Marked me. Yes, he was drunk off his ass when he did it. Doesn’t matter. Shifter law. I am now the Alpha’s Mate. I am his woman.”

“Holly,” Roman snarled. “What the fuck? You know I never did that. How dare you come here and lie to my pack?”

“Oh, please,” she said scornfully. “Do you think I Mate-Marked myself?”

“I did not Mate Mark you. Trust me, I’d never get that drunk,” he said nastily, and was rewarded by seeing her pout, but she still stood her ground.

“I don’t even recognize her,” Petrov yelled as he came striding up, looking annoyed.

“I do,” Zeke’s voice rang out grimly. He’d been the last to return from the job site, and he walked up to them, fists balled, his expression a mixture of rage and hurt. “She’s the woman I’ve been seeing the last few weeks. The woman I was going to propose to.”

“What the hell?” Roman was so angry that his claws shot from his fingernails and his voice ended on a lupine growl.

“Colorado, ten months ago,” she called. “After the Shifter Festival. Gathering of the packs. I didn’t get a chance to meet all of you, but I sure met Roman. He came to my house and we did it all night long, and he Mate-Marked me. I woke up with a scarred neck and an empty space in the bed beside me. I came out to your campgrounds to find my new darling mate, and surprise surprise, all of you were gone. You’d packed up and fled town.”

“We didn’t flee town,” Benjamin said indignantly. “We travel. That’s what we do. We were planning to leave that day, and we did.”

“You lied to me,” Zeke said in tones of bewilderment, striding up to her. “You told me you were a widow.”

She shrugged. “I did what had to be done. I’d finally tracked you down, and I needed to do some recon. Find out what I was dealing with. Find out if he’d Mate-Marked anybody else.”

“She told me she was shy about meeting all of you,” Zeke said bitterly. “But now that I think about it, she was always asking about the pack…and about you.” He looked at Roman with deep hurt.

“What does shifter law say about cheating on your mate?” Benjamin asked, folding his arms across his broad chest and glaring at Holly.

“She is not my mate!” Roman roared, and fur shot through his skin. He felt his fangs itching, burning in his gums, desperate to descend.

She smirked. “I am an abandoned spouse. I needed to gather some intel before I rejoined him. If challenged, I will simply explain that I was willing to do anything possible to reunite with my mate.”

“Including me, obviously,” Zeke said.

Holly walked up close to Roman and began stroking his arm. He furiously batted her away and took a step back.

“Don’t touch me,” he growled.

“I will take this up with the council. You will be my mate,” she told him, and her eyes gleamed with a crazy light. “Come on,” she crooned, leaning close to him. “You and me together? We were incredible. We’ll be incredible again.”

“I’ll die first, you crazy bitch,” Roman growled, and backed away from her.

“You leave me no choice! You have until tomorrow morning to agree to honor your commitment to me, or I will report you to the Council for Shifter Affairs!” she yelled after him. “You will fulfill your duties as my mate! That means everything, lover! You will fuck me, you will satisfy me, and you will father my cubs! You will treat me with respect! And I better not catch you cheating on me with that fat bitch ever again!”

There was a chorus of furious growls from the pack, and Roman whirled on her with such an expression of rage that she whimpered and cringed. She’d gone too far.

“Don’t even mention her. She’s worth a million of you, you lying, crazy bitch.” And Roman stormed off to his tent, shaking with fury.

If she reported their pack to the Council For Shifter Affairs, God knew what would happen. The warrant for Roman’s arrest was the least of his worries. He’d been fudging paperwork for his pack members. There were a few he didn’t report on at all, at their own request. As long as they spent enough time with the pack to stay sane, he didn’t care if the Council knew about them. Some of them were there under false names. They were probably fleeing something dire. They might be facing serious charges somewhere.

And deep in his mind he was wondering – was it possible that he could have Mate-Marked her? It was hard for him to believe. He did get blackout drunk from time to time, but to the best of his knowledge, it was not physically possible for a shifter to Mate-Mark when in that state.

To Mate-Mark, the shifter had to deliberately flex a set of glands that were meant for only one purpose. The glands released a substance that flowed through the teeth and caused permanent scarring on a shifter. It might be done in battle to mark up a foe, or in the heat of passion to mark a mate. The passion, either rage or sex, had to be there, and the conscious will.

He couldn’t have. Could he? Dear God, what if he had?

Chelsea. Chelsea was what he wanted. She was all he wanted. He wanted to Mate-Mark her. If he couldn’t, life wouldn’t be worth living, he realized. He’d never be the suicidal type, but life without her would just be going through the motions. She brought everything to blazing, Technicolor life; without her, everything would be dull shades of gray and white.

And yet he didn’t dare beg her to stay with him forever and accept his Mark unless he could straighten out this horrendous mess with Holly.

Chapter Eighteen

Mitch Rodgers sat at the kitchen table, looking Joyce up and down in a way that filled her with loathing and dread. She was standing by the stove, as far away from him as possible, rigid with anger and struggling to keep her expression neutral when all she wanted to do was grab a kitchen knife and bury it in his heart.

I have to stop him. I have to. But how?

She glanced at the boiling stew pot next to her. Could she dump it on his hand and scald him to death? She could, but then what would happen to her brothers?

“Lunch ready yet?” he demanded.

“Almost,” she said curtly, looking out the window.

“Don’t worry, this will all be over soon. I’ll have that land, and those shifters will be out of my hair.” He bared a big, snaggle-toothed grin. “And then finally you and I can get a chance to know each other better.”

the time he was speaking, her mind raced. She had to find a way to get out of this—a way that did not involve luring a shifter to his death, and lying down next to a man at least thirty years her senior who had kidnapped her family members.

She turned back to face him. “You know, you always got along great with the shifters in the past,” she pointed out. “Why are you turning against them now?”

“Of course I didn’t have a problem with them in the past. The shifters were some of my best customers.” He shrugged. “I don’t need them anymore. I just need their land. They should have given it up when I asked for it the first time. They’ve got thousands of acres—what’s a few hundred?”

She still wasn’t entirely sure what made him think their land was so valuable. He’d been hanging around her house for the last couple of days, ever since he kidnapped her brothers, and he’d taken a few phone calls while he was there. She’d eavesdropped on his phone conversations. He was talking to some developers from California, and she gathered that he planned to open up a hotel—half on her family’s property and half on the shifter pack’s property. He’d talked about some tests he’d run. Tests on what?

It didn’t make any sense to her. They were so far out in the wilderness, so remote. Who would come stay at a hotel here?

Whatever the reason, he’d really been working hard on it for a while. He’d captured a few wild wolves, used them to kill his own sheep and tried to pin it on the shifters, several times now. He’d stolen items of clothing and shoes from the shifters’ camp on one of the rare occasions they’d left it unguarded. He’d planted the items, along with shoe-prints from the stolen shifters, next to the dead sheep, but apparently her brothers had found the sheep first and had erased the shoe-prints and stolen the pieces of clothing from the site. They’d been trying to protect Roman’s pack.

That was why Mitch had been raging about the shifter investigator covering up for the pack—because he’d kept expecting there to be incriminating footprints and shreds of the pack’s clothing at the site of the sheep killings, and there never had been.

Why had her brothers done that, and why hadn’t they told her? Why were they trying to protect Roman’s pack? She desperately wished she could ask them.

They’d been doing it again a couple of days ago when he’d caught and kidnapped them. And now he was holding them hostage while he planned his next move.

He’d found out that Paul had a soft spot for her, apparently. Mitch was going to force her to lure Paul to the property, and then he’d kill Paul and plant his body next to more dead sheep. Mitch would claim that he’d caught Paul in the act of slaughtering the sheep and had no choice but to shoot him.

She’d managed to stall for the time being, saying she didn’t have Paul’s number and she’d have to get it from him when she ran into him at work. But she couldn’t stall much longer, she knew.

He slapped his hand down on the place setting in front of him on the table. “Where’s that stew?” he demanded. “I do like a woman who cooks for me.”

She swallowed hard and began ladling the stew into a bowl.

“I need to go find my grandmother,” she said, her hands shaking. Some of the stew splashed onto the counter. “She keeps going out to the mineral springs. She shouldn’t be alone in her condition.” For a senile old woman, her grandmother was amazingly good at sneaking off. If Joyce survived this, she swore she was going to put a damn bell on Edna.

He flashed an ugly smile as she set the bowl down in front of him. “I’ll go with you. Don’t like you wondering around out here by yourself. It’s not safe.”

The back door banged open, and Mitch started and reached for the gun he kept holstered at his side, but it was just Edna.

“What’s not safe?” Edna yelled. Apparently there was nothing wrong with her hearing. Her hair was dripping wet, and she wore a terrycloth bathrobe wrapped tightly around her as she walked in. Joyce thought that Edna seemed to be moving much more gracefully than she used to, so maybe the mineral springs were helping her a little bit.

“It’s not safe for you to go wandering off alone,” Joyce said, exasperated.

“Well, come with me next time, dear. Who’s this you’ve invited over for lunch? Shall I brew him some tea?” She moved towards the coffee pot.

“No!” Mitch barked, involuntarily flinching and fixing her with a steely glare.

“Listen,” Joyce said quickly, to distract him. “The thing you asked me to do. Calling Paul. I’m not going to do it unless you bring my brothers back here.”

His lip curled up in a sneer, but she rushed forward with her argument. “Don’t bother to threaten them again, because if you hurt them, you’ve got nothing to use to force me to cooperate. I will never sign the land over to you.”

“I’ve got your grandmother.”

“If you touch her, I’ll kill you with my bare hands or die trying.” She glared at him. “Getting this land is so important to you? Bring the boys back here, or you’ll get nothing from me.” She paused, swallowed hard and made her voice softer. “Besides. You keep saying that you want us to be friends. You want to get to know me better. Do you really think that will ever happen if you hurt my brothers? I can’t concentrate on anything until they’re back here. Then we can talk about the hotel and all the money you’re going to make from it. I do like a man with money.” She thought of how much she wanted to see her little brother’s faces again, and forced a smile. “Maybe we could talk about it over dinner.”

“Really?” His face lit up.

“Honest,” she lied through her teeth.

* * * * *

The sheriff’s office phone blared, startling Chelsea. She set down her coffee cup and grabbed it as Pepper waddled over next to the desk and settled into the little dog bed that Esther, the town’s seamstress, had made for her. The caller I.D. told her that it was Chief Tomlinson. With a sigh, she picked it up.

“Hello, Chief,” she said glumly. Hello, Chief, I’m quitting my job today. Why? Kinda hard to explain…

“Chelsea, I’m glad you’re in. I ran that license plate number you gave me, and what I came up with was…interesting. I think it might explain what’s going on with the sheep. Porter, what is it?”

There was a pause, and she could hear a voice in the background.

Then Tomlinson came back to the phone. “Sorry, there’s been a robbery, gotta go. I’ll call you back,” he said.

“Hold on,” she said, but he was already gone.

She hoped he didn’t need her help, because she wasn’t going to be sheriff much longer.

And she had no idea what she was going to do for work now, but she clearly couldn’t carry on as sheriff. Not that she’d ever wanted the job in the first place. But to fail like this… Roman, who was already mated, had seduced her on purpose to get her to stop trying to arrest him. The thought was like a stab to the heart.

She’d let her new pack down and made an utter fool of herself.

“What did he want?” Erika asked.

“I don’t know—he got interrupted and said he’d call me back. Hopefully he doesn’t need my help with anything, because I don’t know how long it’s going to take for the pack to find a new sheriff.”

“Months. Don’t feel bad,” Erika said. “Nobody else was able to arrest Roman either. And for the record, I don’t think you should quit.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I feel really bad right now.”

“Sorry,” Chelsea said without thinking.

“Why are you sorry? It’s not your fault. Roman manipulated you, and Leland never even told me that Roman had a mate, and he knew Roman was flirting with you. Dickwad.”

Chelsea closed her eyes for a brief moment and concentrated hard on banishing her bad mood. She was still taking her medication, but when her emotions were too strong, they broke through. Within a few seconds, the meditation techniques were working and she’d tamped down on it.

She opened her eyes.

“The mayor’s coming now. Wow, he brought quite a crowd with him,” Erika said. There were around twenty pack members headed up the steps towards her office, arguing with each other and gesturing wildly. “I bet they’re going to beg you to stay.”

“They look pretty mad.” Chelsea was taken aback. “They’ve got to understand that I can’t keep a job I’m not suited for.”

“They've got nothing to be mad about,” Erika said indignantly. “They tricked you into taking this job in the first place.”

The front door banged open and Mayor Winkleman, Louise, Barbara, Lorena, Susan, Rosie, Esther and Mr. Castleberry, along with more than a dozen other shifters from the pack, barreled in.

“Calm down, everybody!” the mayor yelled at them in tones of distress.

Chelsea glanced at the crowd in confusion. Why so many? And why were they all so excited? “Mr. Mayor, I apologize, but I really do need to hand in my resignation, effective immediately,” Chelsea said uneasily.

“You think?” Mr. Castleberry snarled at her.

So they’d heard she was quitting? She was surprised by the venom in his voice, and by the way they were looking at her. With disgust and wariness.

An odd sensation prickled on the back of her neck.

“What exactly crawled up your ass?” Erika snapped at him.

He looked down his nose at her. “My daughter is right. You are crude and extremely unladylike.”

“So the fuck what? Being a lady’s overrated.” Erika shrugged. “I’m myself, which is good enough for me.”

“No wonder no wolf wants to mate you.” His nose wrinkled back.

“That’s it!” Louise barked abruptly, and everyone turned to stare at her in surprise. “Do not speak to my niece like that,” she said heatedly. “Since Chelsea has come to town, she’s happier than she ever was before, and she deserves to be. Forget trying to make her into someone’s perfect idea of how a girl should be. She’s a wonderful daughter to my brother, she’s a hard worker, and she’s got a good heart. Someday she will find a wolf who appreciates her for what she is.”

“A bulldog in a dress?” Castleberry looked Erika up and down in contempt.

“Cecil Castleberry?” Louise smacked him across the face with her purse, so hard that he yelped in surprise and pain. “Blow it out your ass.”

The entire crowd gasped and fell silent. They all turned to stare at Chelsea to see what she would do.

She gave a brisk round of applause.

“Hear, hear,” she said. “And no, I can’t arrest Miss Louise for assault, because I just resigned from my job.”

“If you hadn’t, we’d have run you out of town,” Castleberry sneered at her. “That new girl, Holly, contacted the mayor’s office this morning to file a complaint,” he said to the crowd of shifters. “She said that Chelsea has been having an affair with her mate.”

Several of the pack members made involuntary retching noises and clutched at their stomachs.

“She did not have an affair with anybody’s mate!” Rosie said, stepping forward. “If Roman was mated, she didn’t know about it. Nobody in town knew about it. He’s the one who takes the blame there!”

The room was dividing up. Half the pack was moving to one side, with Rosie and Louise and Erika, glaring at Mr. Castleberry. Barbara was snapping pictures. Erika was looking around with her fists clenched, deciding who she wanted to punch.

The rest of the pack was crowding arouhnd Cecil Castleberry, but they were starting to look doubtful. He saw that he was losing his audience.

“Anyway! That’s not all Holly had to say! She also did some research and found out some interesting things about Chelsea,” he continued haughtily, rubbing his injured cheek. “Things you didn’t tell us,” he added, addressing Chelsea directly. “Like the fact that your mother went feral and you’re a psychic.”

There was a collective gasp from the crowd.

Chelsea felt the blood draining from her face.

It was true. Her mother had gone feral.

Her mother had been psychic, but she’d been the opposite of Chelsea; she didn’t broadcast her emotions. Instead, she’d been bombarded by other people’s emotions all the time. Eventually it had driven her mad.

Her father hadn’t been able to handle having a crazy mate, and he’d run out on his family when they were young.

Chelsea’s mother had turned feral right in the middle of a grocery store and attacked several shoppers, gravely injuring them. She’d been taken out by a police officer’s silver bullets. Chelsea had been three at the time. She’d spent the rest of her childhood and teenage years in foster care; nobody had wanted to adopt a child with her history, and her powers, which most people didn’t understand.

“So,” Esther said indignantly, “You’ve been reading our minds all this time? And I even made you a dog bed!”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Erika interrupted, looking annoyed.

“You could have told me Susan’s campaign strategy,” Lorena added, looking wounded. “And who’s going to vote for me. I mean, I brought you coffee cake.”

“I have not been reading anyone’s mind!” Chelsea cried. “I’m not even capable of mind-reading, not that I’d do it if I could. I’m classified as being a member of the psychic family, but I’m not a mind-reader. I’m a type of empath. A reverse empath. I don’t sense other people’s emotions; I broadcast my own. Other people tend to feel some of what I’m feeling. But I take medication to control it.”

“I don’t believe you,” Mr. Castleberry said, his expression wary. “Are you reading my mind right now?” He clapped his hands over his ears and began backing up. “You are, aren’t you? Stop it!”

“Why? What do you have to hide?” Erika called. “I’ve heard rumors that you were misusing chamber funds. Is that true?”

“Lies! All lies! Stop it!” Mr. Castleberry shrieked, backing all the way up to the door. He flung the door open and turned and ran. Outside, he tripped, scrambled to his feet and then got back up and kept running.

“I will leave tonight,” Chelsea said, standing up abruptly.

“But we don’t want you go!” Rosie protested, and there was a chorus of agreement from half the pack. “Even if you don’t want to be sheriff. We like you. You should stay.”

“She’s a mind-reader!” one of the crowd members yelled. “She can’t stay here!”

“She doesn’t read minds, and we all turn into animals and howl at the moon, so we’re not exactly the ones to point fingers at anyone who’s different,” Barbara said.

“We shouldn’t make any hasty decisions.” Mayor Winkelman was trying to be heard above the din. He looked distressed. This was not a man who enjoyed conflict.

Chelsea had brought conflict to the pack.

She pushed back her chair and stood.

Tears burned Chelsea’s eyes. She should have told everyone up front—but she’d been afraid of exactly this reaction. She’d thought that moving to another state and a brand new pack would be a way of leaving the past behind. She’d been wrong.

“There’s no decision to be made. I’ll be gone by tonight,” she said. Before she started crying and blasting everyone with negative vibes, she turned and hurried out the back door, with Pepper indignantly trotting at her heels, wheezing and farting in protest.

Chapter Nineteen

A beautiful sunset, a crackling fire, the pack gathered around the fire pit after hard day’s work…usually these were the things that made Roman smile.

Today he just felt sick.

He’d tried texting and calling Chelsea, and she was ignoring him. She must hate him right now.

Holly sat on the opposite side of the fire pit, drinking a beer. She’d tried to sit next to Roman, and he’d gotten up and walked away, which had earned him shouted threats about calling the council.

The pack members were avoiding looking at her or speaking to her. Benjamin was walking around clearing up the campsite, picking up fallen branches and sweeping away leaves with a grim intensity. Cleaning and organizing was how he coped with stress.

They could all sense the bad changes that were headed their way; a visit from the council would doom their pack. Roman could agree to be mated for life to a woman he clearly loathed, or the pack could disband.

And now Marcus was stomping up to the group, with an ugly look on his face. Roman tensed, in case Marcus actually tried to assault Holly. He couldn’t allow that, no matter what his feelings about her were.

But apparently Marcus wasn’t planning a physical assault. He had something far more deadly in mind.

“Bad news for you, princess,” Marcus growled at Holly.

“Watch how you speak to the Alpha’s mate,” Holly said icily. “You will treat me with respect.”

“The Alpha’s mate, sure, I’ll respect her, because it’s going to be Chelsea,” Marcus said.

Her eyes blazed with rage and she sucked in an angry breath. Before she could reply, he continued, “I made some calls today. I did some research on what happens when a shifter challenges a claim of Mate-Marking. It’s very, very rare, but sometimes it happens. We can expect a visit from a forensic odontologist real soon. He’ll be checking the bite mark on your neck.”

She clapped her hand over her Mate Mark.

“A furry sick what?” she squeaked, setting her beer down with her free hand.

“A. forensic. Odontologist. Basically a dentist who does criminal investigations. He’ll take a mold of the bite mark on your neck. Compare it to Roman’s teeth. And then we’ll get to the truth of the matter.”

Roman watched Holly’s face with interest. She looked horrified.

“That’s not even legal. That’s ridiculous. It doesn’t mean anything,” she said, her hand still hiding the mark on her neck.

“Oh, it sure does. It’s acceptable in court, and it’s backed up by science. Now, faking a Mate Mark claim—that is a very serious criminal offense. We all know that Roman didn’t Mate-Mark you. We all know that you like to lie and manipulate.” He glanced over at Zeke. “So you manipulated some poor sucker into Mate-Marking you when Roman was blackout drunk. Thought you could trap Roman that way.”

Holly burst into tears of rage, leaping to her feet.

Roman felt as if a thousand-ton weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He hadn’t Mate-Marked her.

“You can’t let him do this to me!” she screamed at Roman. “I’m your mate! You were meant for me! You’re mine!”

“You’re crazy, and I loathe the sight of you,” Roman snarled. “You hurt the woman I love. The woman I’m going to Mate-Mark, if she’ll have me. Get in your car and get out of here before I do something I’ll regret.”

The rest of the pack let out a huge cheer; Roman could see the looks of relief on their faces.

Holly left, screaming and swearing revenge. She was crying so hard that black rivers of mascara ran down her face and dripped off her chin, splashing on her shirt.

She drove off in a spray of gravel, tires screeching.

Leland slowly walked up to Roman.

“Don’t,” Roman growled, holding up his hand as Leland started to speak. “This is one of the rare occasions when I accept you questioning my leadership. If I had Mate-Marked a woman and abandoned her, then I would not deserve the title of Alpha.”

“I should have known better,” Leland said. “For that, I apologize. Want me to go scrub the porta-potties?”

“Some other time. Right now I’m in more of a mood to celebrate than punish. I’ve got to admit, she had me worried.” Roman shook his head.

Then he glanced over at Marcus, who was headed out of the circle. Probably back to his tent.

“Hey, you can cancel that call to the forensic whatever the hell.”

“Oh, I didn’t really call one,” Marcus shrugged. “Why draw official attention to our pack? But they’re real—I would have called one in before I saw you mated to that she-beast.”

“Aw, Marcus, I didn’t know you cared.”

That earned him a dirty look.

“I don’t,” Marcus growled at him. “But this is the only pack I can handle, and there’s no way I could stay here with that lying hellhound as your mate. Now go apologize to Chelsea before it’s too late.” And he headed back for his trailer in the woods.

* * * * *

“Am I making a mistake?” Chelsea asked Pepper, who lay curled up on the front seat, looking forlorn.

She was sitting in her car, parked in front of her house. What had been her house.

Everything she owned was packed up in her suitcases and plastic bins. It was depressing how little time it had taken to pack up her entire life and stuff it into the back seat of her VW bug. So much for putting down roots.

Pepper let out a groan.

“But what can I do? I should have told them, Pepper. Now I’ve got the whole pack fighting with each other, and I’m an idiot for actually thinking Roman cared about me, and oh for God’s sake be quiet,” she finished up by glaring at her phone, which was chirping with a text message notification. Roman had tried to call and text her a dozen times in the last hour.

It was a text message from Chief Tomlinson. “Meet me in one hour by the old Big Bob Dairy on Route 37,” the text said. “Please come alone. There’s something shady going on, and I need your help.”

Chelsea looked at the text message and tried to consider what to do next. She’d done research on the town of Juniper after she’d agreed to be sheriff, wanting to get to know the entire area. The dairy was closed—it had gone out of business years ago. So he wanted to meet her where there was no chance anyone could see them.

Well, she might as well tell him in person that she was quitting. And whatever he told her, maybe she could figure out who to pass the information along to.

I’ll be there, she texted him back.

As she texted, a car pulled up behind hers, and Erika climbed out and walked up to the driver’s side of her car.

Chelsea rolled the window down.

“I really don’t think you should leave,” Erika said to her. “The pack is starting to come around. Loretta’s been talking to them about psychics—she’s got an empath on her father’s side of the family. Now that she’s explained it to them, I’d say three quarters of the pack have come around.”

“But a bunch of them still don’t want me here, so my staying here will just cause dissension in the pack,” Chelsea protested. Still, she felt touched that Lorena had taken the time to argue her case. And that Erika had come to talk to her. Nobody had ever tried to get her to stay before.

Erika shrugged. “So? There’s always dissension in the pack. When do you ever get one hundred percent of everybody agreeing with each other?”

Chelsea had to admit that was true. Still. “I wouldn’t have a job. Or anywhere to live.”

“You could stay with my family,” Erika said. “And you could probably do some odd job stuff around the garage for the time being. We really want you to stay. It’s not just me talking—the pack sent me because they know I’m your friend and they figured you’d listen to me.”

Chelsea felt her resolve start to weaken. The Silver Peak pack might be one big, squabbling family, but they wanted her to be part of that family. They’d gotten to know her, and now they knew everything, and they wanted her to stay.

“Of course, there’s El Jerko,” she said. “Him and his”—nausea gurgled in her stomach— “mate. I’d have to see them around town until he decides it’s time for the pack to move on.”

“The hell with him, and his pack,” Erika said. “We’ll just give them the cold shoulder. They’ll be leaving soon enough anyway.”

“I’ll make you a deal,” Chelsea said. “I’ll stay if you promise not to give up on Leland. Listen, we have absolutely no reason to think that the pack knew about this,” she pointed out quickly as Erika started to argue. “Leland is a great guy. He’s handsome, he’s sexy and he clearly likes you. Also he can burp the alphabet—I forgot to tell you about that.”

“He can?” Erika cried.

“True story. I heard him when they were holding me prisoner one of the times I tried to arrest He Who Shall Not Be Named. A guy like that doesn’t come along every day.”

“That is very true. I mean, I can burp ’til ten, but that’s as high as I go. Wow.”

“If you guys had cubs, they could probably burp the entire constitution of the United States,” Chelsea pointed out. “How can you deprive the world of such talent?”

“True, true,” Erika mused. “All right, I’ll go talk to him on one condition. Come with me and talk to Roman. Look him in the eye. Ask him if he Mate-Marked that bitch. And if he did, for God’s sake, tell him he’s an assface or punch him or something. Get some closure.”

“Well.” Chelsea hesitated. Over the years, she’d gotten so used to moving on that she’d never even thought about fighting to stay somewhere she felt unwanted. But here she had people asking her to stay. And Erika was right—she shouldn’t let Roman get away with screwing her over. She wanted to look him in the eye and tell him how much his lies had hurt her. If he didn’t care, that was on him.

“I can’t come for at least a couple hours,” she said. “I have to go meet Chief Tomlinson behind the old dairy in Juniper in an hour, and tell him I’m quitting. Watch Pepper until I get back?”

Chapter Twenty

It was pitch black out. The night sky was dark and sullen, the moon hidden behind thick clouds. Chelsea had arrived fifteen minutes early, but the chief had arrived earlier still. His car was parked all the way at the back of the lot, by the woods.

As far as Chelsea could tell at a glance, his car was empty. She idled in her car, looking around the lot. Where was he?

Something felt wrong. A sensation of uneasiness rippled over her, sending icy chills shooting through her veins. She glided to a stop and parked by the road in case she needed to make a quick getaway.

A chilly breeze rushed through the air as she walked towards the police chief’s car. Then she paused.

She tipped her head back and sniffed. Her sense of smell was no better than a human’s, but she could still smell it, so the odor must be very strong—the breeze carried the coppery scent of blood.

“Chief?” she called out into the silence. “Are you all right?”

She stood still, listening hard.

Nothing but crickets chirping in the background.

She rushed around to the other side of the patrol car, and her blood froze at what she saw. Chief Tomlinson lay sprawled on the ground, his throat ripped out. His unseeing eyes were wide open.

Bloody shoe prints tracked away from the scene.

She knelt down next to him and placed her fingers on his neck in an attempt to find a pulse, but it was pointless and she knew it. His body was already cool to the touch. The blood around him was mostly congealed, and the blood on his throat was dry and crusted.

She stood, grabbed her phone from her pocket and tried to dial the Juniper Police Department. There was no cell phone signal.

Her stomach churned as she trotted back towards her car, debating what to do next. She was already on the outskirts of Juniper, so she should probably go there, but she wondered how the humans would react to her going into town to announce that their chief was dead. Would they blame her?

Off in the distance, she heard the sounds of approaching vehicles, then the sound of sirens. The dairy was on top of a hill, and she could see the road from town below. There were three police cars heading up towards the parking lot, lights flashing, sirens blaring. That was the entire Juniper police department headed her way.

Who had called the police? What had the police been told? Whoever had called them was most likely the killer, and this entire meeting had been a setup. Nobody else but the killer would have known so quickly that the police chief was dead, or sent them there at the perfect time, just when she was showing up.

She quickly shed her clothing, shifted and ran from the parking lot just as the police cars pulled up. She knew that leaving the scene would make her look as guilty as hell—and dear God, she had just walked through a pool of blood to get to him, making things look even worse. But she also remembered how the Juniper police had reacted when Mitch Rodgers had sicced them on her. Officer Porter in particular had looked as if he’d have been happier putting a bullet in her head than letting her go.

And now her car was parked in the same lot as the dead chief’s body—with all her stuff packed up as if she were fleeing town.

Panic and anger burned through her. Chief Tomlinson had been a good man, and his death had been brutal. Whoever had done this wouldn’t get away with it as long as she had breath in her body.

She raced through the woods, not knowing where she was heading. Just away. She needed to get away.

There were angry voices coming from the parking lot now, and flashlight beams stabbing into the forest. She heard barking. Oh, good, now police dogs had been thrown into the mix.

She ran faster, legs slashing through the underbrush, her sides heaving. There was a river nearby. If she could get to the river, she could wade in the water and lose the dogs, because they wouldn’t be able to scent her.

The voices were getting farther away, she was outrunning them…

She kept running. She couldn’t hear barking or yelling anymore. She’d given them the slip, at least for the moment.

But where would she go? Back to Silver Peak? That would bring the Council for Shifter Affairs down on the pack. But where else could she go?

Something knocked her flying, and she rolled over several times and scrambled to her feet, to come face to face…with an enormous gray wolf.

It was Roman.

And his muzzle was covered with blood.

* * * * *

Before she could run, he’d shifted back into human form and was crouched there, naked and panting. She shifted too.

Roman reached out his hand to her, to help her to her feet. She took it warily.

“I am not mated to that woman! She admitted that she faked the Mate Mark!” he said breathlessly.

She shook her head in astonishment. “Seriously? Chief Tomlinson’s throat has been ripped out, your face is covered with blood, there’s a posse with dogs running towards us, and that’s what you want to talk about?”

“It’s important,” he said. “Since we might get torn apart in the next few minutes. You need to know that the only woman I’d ever Mate-Mark is you.”

“I… Thank you? How did you know I’d be here?” she asked between deep gulps of breath.

“I went to your house, and when you weren’t there, I went to Erika’s house to find out where you were. She told me you were coming here to meet the police chief. I thought I’d get here early and surprise you.”

Chelsea glanced behind her, into the dark, dense woods, in the direction of the parking lot. She looked back at Roman. “I am definitely very surprised right now,” she said. “Why is your face covered with blood?”

“I was scenting around the chief’s body. I wanted to find out who killed him.”

Was he lying? Chelsea’s gut said no. She just couldn’t believe that Roman was a cold-blooded killer.

“Did you pick anything up?” she asked. “My sense of smell’s not that good.”

“Right,” Roman said. “The empath thing.”

“You know?” she said in surprise.

“Yeah, I read it somewhere a while ago. The genetic anomaly that causes an empath is tied in with the sense of smell.”

“I should have told you,” she said, feeling shame wash over her. “People usually freak out when they find out about it. They think that it means I’m a mind reader. I’m not. I’m someone who broadcasts my emotions to others. I’ve spent a lot of time learning how to deal with it, doing meditation and taking medicine to help control the effects.”

He nodded. “That’s okay. There’s something that I should have told you.”

She stiffened. “The Mate Mark?”

“Will you move past that?” he said indignantly. “I did not Mate-Mark her!”

“Kind of a hard thing to move past,” she said, brushing leaves and dirt off her legs. She still didn’t hear any dogs. They were in the clear for the moment.

“It’s about the warrant. It’s from my mother’s home pack, and they did it because they want me to come back and visit. My cousin is getting Mate-Marked in a few months. They figured that if they filed a complaint, I’d have to go back to the county and deal with it.” He grimaced. “I’ve avoided my mother’s pack ever since she died. Brings up bad memories. My aunt looks exactly like her.”

She stared at him in shock. “It’s a trumped up warrant?”

“No, no, I really did steal my uncle’s pickup truck ten years ago and went on the run. I mailed him the money for it a few years back. They kept trying to get in touch with me, and I kept avoiding them.”

All those people trying to arrest him, and he could have solved the whole mess with a simple phone call to his mother’s pack. “You are really an ass. We’ll deal with that later. Who did you scent on Chief Tomlinson?”

“One of his police officers, a guy named Porter. His scent was all over Tomlinson. I recognized his scent because I’ve encountered him a few times, at the Hootenanny. He’s no fan of shifters, and he’s very close to Mitch Rodgers.”

Off in the distance, she heard the faint sound of barking again. The dogs were back on their trail.

“We need to go,” Roman said quickly. “I’m going to lead us back to shifter territory. If anything happens, I’ll distract them and lead them away from you.”

Before Chelsea could argue, he shifted back into wolf form again, enormous and gray. She quickly shifted too, dropping to all fours. They ran at full speed through the woods until they reached the river. Then they waded through the icy-cold water until they’d finally lost the baying hounds and the pursuing humans. Chelsea’s paws were numb and she was shivering when they climbed out of the water and began running again.

They ran through the woods for what felt like an eternity, and Chelsea’s lungs were burning when they finally stopped. They were next to what looked like a vine-covered hillside. Roman forced his way through the thick vines, and she realized it was the entrance to a cave. She followed Roman inside and they both shifted back into human form.

Chelsea crouched down in the dark, sucking in great gulps of air.

“Oh my God, my muscles are on fire. I really need to do more cardio. Where are we?”

“You’ll see. One sec.”

She heard rustling, and then a light clicked on. Roman was holding a flashlight lantern.

There were several plastic bins stored at the back of the cave. Roman opened one and began pulling out clothing, blankets, boxes of granola bars and cans of soup.

“We’ve got to lay low for now,” he said. “Tomorrow morning we’ll figure out our next move.”

“What is this place?” Chelsea asked as she pulled on a man’s oversized blue T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants.

“This is a pack hideout, in case anyone needs to suddenly lie low,” he told her.

She gave him a suspicious look. “Why would your pack suddenly need to… You know what, never mind.”

They ate cans of cold soup and granola bars, and washed their dinner down with a couple of bottles of beer from the case that he had tucked away in a cover of the cave.

“I’m glad to see you remembered the essentials,” she said, holding up her beer.

“Always.” He raised his beer and clinked it against hers. “What fun’s being on the run from the law without beer?”

“Right,” she said drily. “Because now that we have beer, it’s all a barrel of laughs.”

“I’m in a cave with the woman I love,” he said. “The woman I’m going to mate-mark.” Her breath caught in her throat.

“You lo…you lo…”

“You heard me. And if you want to get to know me a little better before you say it back, that’s fine, but I know how I feel, and there will never be another woman for me now that I’ve met you. You’re beautiful, and sexy, and kind, and funny…and did I mention sexy?”

“You did. You…” She blinked back hot tears, then forced a smile.

“Do you have anything you want to say back to me?” he asked, his voice gone low and husky.

“You already know you’re as sexy as all get-out.”

“True. But I really like hearing you say it.” He grinned at her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

“It’s not just the fact that you’re sex on legs, although it certainly doesn’t hurt,” she said, looking into his caramel-colored eyes. “You’re actually a really good man.”

He snorted. “Let’s keep that a secret, shall we? Don’t want to ruin my reputation.”

Chelsea flashed him a wicked smile. “So now I have something to hold over your head. Anyway, where was I? You make me laugh. You make me feel beautiful and desired and safe. I’ve never felt that way before. You feel like…” She blinked again. “You feel like home. You are my home.”

He cleared his throat and looked away, and she realized that he actually had tears in his eyes.

“Damn cave dust,” he muttered, and pretended to sneeze. He took a long pull of beer.

Then he looked at her again. “The Mate-Marking. I want it to be tonight.”

“Tonight,” she echoed dumbly.

“Now.” His voice had gone low and husky. His eyes gleamed with hunger.

This was it. The man who ran from commitment was now running towards it, full speed.

“That other woman…she’s definitely dropping her claim? And you swear to me that you didn’t Mate-Mark her?”

“I most definitely, positively did not,” he said. He explained to her what Marcus had done, and how Holly had fled when confronted.

“Marcus did that for me?” she said, touched. “That’s amazing. Out of character, isn’t it?”

“Most of the time, Marcus is a flaming dickhead, but every once in a while he’ll do something that surprises me,” Roman said.

“After you Mate-Mark me…then what?” she asked. “Where would we live?”

“We’ll stay here,” Roman said. “We’ll apply to share pack land and we’ll start building houses. The other pack members want to settle down. They’ve been hinting at it for a while, I realize that now, I just wasn’t ready to hear it. We’ll still be a pack that’s a refuge for misfits and outcasts. I hope you can live with that.”

She laughed. “Live with it? I’m a misfit and an outcast myself.”

“Not an outcast anymore.” He cupped her chin in his hand and tilted her face up towards him, and plunged his mouth hungrily onto hers.

His kisses were slow, sweet and drugging as he stripped away her sweatpants and T-shirt, leaving her naked to his gaze. This time she felt no self-consciousness. He loved her. Even if he hadn’t said the words, the look in his eyes would have been enough. His gaze lingered adoringly on her full breasts, the soft curve of her belly, the patch of reddish curls between her plump thighs. His erection stood up stiff and proud, a single, pearly drop of precum at the tip a testament to how badly he wanted her. She felt so weak with desire she was surprised her legs were capable of holding her up. Her heart tripped erratically in her chest.

He’d said their pack—their pack—would be a haven for misfits and outcasts. It was all she’d ever wanted. A place to belong. And Roman wanted her not in spite of her oddities, but because they were part of who she was. Her heart swelled as he lifted her gently in his arms and laid her down on the smooth stone.

His lips were firm and commanding as he explored the contours of her body, suckling her nipple, then lapping at it with the flat of his tongue. He ran his fingers over her skin with whisper-soft tenderness, chuckling when she squirmed wantonly beneath his touch and parted her legs. He inhaled deeply, a growl rumbling in his broad, muscular chest when he scented her arousal.

Chelsea stroked his hair, half-swooning with pleasure as he worked his way down her body, settling between her thighs so he could lap at her core. Chelsea moaned and thrashed her head from side to side as he circled her clit with the point of his tongue then sucked hard as her she pulsated against his lips.

He drove his tongue between her slick folds, strumming her clit with his fingers until she arched against him, gasping and crying out as judders of sensation rocked through her body and she clenched and throbbed against his mouth.

He continued to lick her until her tremors subsided and she was left limp and satisfied, her eyes fluttering closed as she gave a final, heartfelt groan.

As she allowed her eyes to drift open again, Roman settled himself on top of her, a warm, welcome weight. He gazed down at her with a lovestruck intensity that made her heart skip a beat. His mouth and chin were shiny with her juices, and when he kissed her, she could taste herself on his lips. Their tongues tangled and dueled, and then Roman was positioning himself against her entrance, and she felt her pussy clenching greedily, eager for his intrusion.

She parted her legs further, welcoming him inside, and he pushed into her with a gentle strength that made her cry out softly, wrapping her arms and legs around him to hold him close.

He moved smoothly inside her, each thrust driving her higher, the sensations delicious and bewildering and like nothing she’d ever felt before. Though gentle, his possession was thorough and absolute. He filled her, completed her, driving her to breathless heights of excitement that had her digging her fingers into his taut, flexing buttocks and urging him inside again and again.

His breathing was labored, and he buried his face against her throat, groaning softly with each fresh intrusion into her tight, wet core.

Chelsea hooked her knee high on his hip, opening herself to him even further, urging him on with sweet, incomprehensible words of encouragement and desire.

And then, just as she was trembling on the edge of an orgasm that threatened to whip away her senses, she felt the sharp edge of his teeth against her throat.

It was unbearably intimate. The sense of vulnerability. The sheer trust of allowing this huge, dominant male to hold her pulse point between his teeth. She tilted her head to one side in an unmistakable message of surrender. I’m yours. Do whatever you want to me. Kiss me. Kill me. Mate me. Mark me. Take me.

Roman nuzzled against her throat, then sank his teeth into the soft flesh. A quick, sharp pain, then a wave of bliss washed over her and she came, over and over again, sobbing with sensation and love and relief as Roman drove inside her, teeth locked in her throat, tremors of sensation racking him until he stilled and groaned, releasing her from his mouth. He thrust once more, his face drawn in lines of agonized bliss, then howled his release, clutching at her damp skin, wild and utterly lost in her body.

Later, as he tenderly kissed the fresh Mate-Mark on her neck, soothing the bitten and bruised flesh with delicate brushes of his lips, she stroked the smooth skin of his back, heart full with the knowledge that for the first time in her life she’d found somewhere she truly belonged. With him.

Chapter Twenty-One

Something off about the death scene… The dried blood on the chief’s body, the congealed pool on the ground…

She knew how to prove she’d been set up.

Chelsea sat bolt upright, and the blanket fell off of her. Peering through the vines that covered the cave entrance, she could see that it was still dark out. The cave was dimly lit by a battery-operated lantern. Next to her, Roman stirred.

Her Mate Mark still tingled and ached. She reached up and stroked it lightly with her fingers, just to reassure herself that it was real.

“Morning,” Roman mumbled into his pillow.

“I just thought of something,” she said.

“How incredibly happy you are to be mated to me, the handsomest Alpha in the West?” Roman sat up too, yawning.

“Yeah, yeah, that too,” she said impatiently. Roman tossed the covers off himself, looking insulted.

“Is the honeymoon over already?” he asked with mock hurt.

She flashed him a brief smile and touched her Mate Mark again. “It will never be over. If we survive this, I plan to misbehave on a regular basis, which means you will be forced to think up ever more creative ways to punish me.”

“I’m down with that. How about right now? You just mildly offended your Alpha and your mate. That calls for at least a spanking.”

“Listen, this is important. Something just occurred to me. When I found the chief’s body last night, the blood around his body was mostly congealed. And the blood on his body was completely dried and crusted over. That would take a couple of hours, I’d think. Could you scent how long he’d been dead?”

“At least three or four hours.”

“Well, that’s interesting. He sent me a text about forty-five minutes before I arrived at the parking lot,” Chelsea said. “Or somebody did, using his phone.”

“There is absolutely no way he was alive when that text was sent.” Roman said, his tone going grim.

“Well,” Chelsea mused, “I spoke to the chief on the phone earlier in the day, and he was going to tell me something interesting about the license plate of a car that had been parked in Mitch Rodgers’ driveway. Before he could tell me, Officer Porter interrupted him. So we can’t talk to anybody in the Juniper police department.”

“Not like I’d trust the human police department anyway,” Roman said.

Chelsea frowned in thought. “The town of Juniper will already have the chief’s body back at their morgue. They might have accidentally, or deliberately, washed Porter’s scent off of his body before a shifter investigator could get to it…or they could try to claim that of course his scent was on the body, because they worked together. But they can’t conceal the time of death, and they can’t change the time that text was sent.”

“True. It’s just a matter of who we can trust to do a fair investigation.” Roman scowled. “I don’t place a lot of faith in human authorities.”

“If we can just tell someone about the text coming to me when the chief was already dead, we’ll be in the clear as soon as they verify it,” Chelsea said. “We just have to stay alive long enough to tell someone about it. Right now, the police don’t have any reason to investigate too much, because they’re pinning it on us. But if we contact the Council for Shifter Affairs and tell them about the text message, then a full investigation will be launched.”

“Unfortunately, yeah, that’s probably our best option. We need to find a safe place to go to call them, though. We can’t go into Silver Peak, or back to my pack,” Roman pointed out. “There will be law enforcement watching.”

“Hey,” Chelsea suggested. “We’re actually pretty close to Joyce’s house, and nobody would think of looking for us there. I bet she’d let us use her phone if we explained the situation to her. This pretty much points back to Mitch Rodgers, and I know she can’t stand him. She’d be glad to help get rid of him.”

They ate a hasty breakfast of granola bars and washed it down with bottled water.

Then they rolled up their clothing, stuffed it into a bag and shifted. Roman carried the bag in his jaws as they raced through the woods.

When they reached the Dudleys’ property, they changed into their clothes and strolled into the yard.

Joyce was standing by the clothes line in the front yard, hanging up towels. Chelsea paused. Something was wrong. Joyce’s whole body radiated tension.

Joyce looked over and spotted them, with a look of surprise. They started walking towards her. She just stood there, staring at them, not moving, not saying a word.

“Hold it. I scent Mitch Rodgers and Officer Porter,” Roman said, stopping in his tracks.

It was too late. The two humans stepped out of the front door—guns aimed at Chelsea and Roman.

“Silver-coated bullets,” Roman said grimly. “I can scent it.”

Joyce started crying. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “But they’ve got my brothers held hostage inside. I couldn’t warn you, or he’d kill them.”

“Get over here, now,” Mitch called out from the doorway.

“Do as he says for now,” Roman said. “When I get closer to them, I can take them out, and you need to run for it.”

Chelsea didn’t bother to argue; they didn’t have time. But when Roman made his move, she’d also attack. Joyce and her family might have a chance that way.

“What is this all about?” Chelsea demanded of Joyce as they headed for the house.

Tears ran down Joyce’s face. “Mitch wants the shifters’ land,” she sniffled, wiping at her nose with her arm. “He’s got some crazy idea that he’s going to open up a hotel here. He said something about those mineral springs that sprang up a year ago—how they’re healing springs. He’s had the water tested and everything, and he’s got some company from California ready to give him millions. He just needs to frame the shifters so he can get their land.”

They’d reached the doorway of the house.

“Shut up! Don’t tell them anything else,” Mitch growled.

“Why not? You’re going to kill us anyway,” Chelsea said angrily.

“True,” Mitch said with an ugly smirk.

Joyce flashed Chelsea a look of despair. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I should have warned you. I should have said something.”

“It’s not your fault,” Chelsea said, shaking her head.

Inside the house, Ryan and Shawn stood in the hallway with Edna. The boys’ hands were bound with zip-ties. There was dirt on their faces, and they looked pale and tired.

As they walked in, Chelsea heard the sound of howling and snarling coming from the pantry.

Mitch slammed the front door shut and locked it.

“Wolves,” Chelsea said. “Wild wolves.”

“Those are the wolves you used to kill the sheep. And Chief Tomlinson,” Roman said.“I killed the chief,” Porter said smugly. “Just used the wolves to add the final finishing touch.”

Roman tensed, and Chelsea held her breath. He was going to make his move now.

I’ll die mated to the man I love, she thought to herself. If only they’d had more time together.

Before Roman could do anything, Edna left her grandsons’ side and walked up to him with a pleasant smile.

“Oh, I do love having guests. Can I make you some tea, dear?” she said to Roman. She walked even closer until she was right up against him, staring at him with a quizzical look, and then leaned in close and murmured something to him, too low for anyone to hear.

Then she turned and wandered off, humming happily to herself. Rodgers hesitated. He was holding the gun on Joyce; he moved, aiming it at Edna, and then when Joyce stepped in front of her brothers, he quickly aimed the gun at her again. Porter kept his gun pointed at Roman.

“Get back here, you old bitch!” Rodgers screamed at Edna, but she kept walking down the hall, and turned a corner, heading into the kitchen.

“I’ll go shoot her,” Porter said to Rodgers.

“No,” Rodgers said. “That’ll look suspicious. It’s got to be the wolves that take her out. Don’t worry, she won’t get far.”

Porter glanced over at Roman. “Stay where you are,” he ordered him. His gun was aimed right at Roman’s head.

“The rest of you. Into the bedroom. Now,” Mitch snapped.

As they were led off, Chelsea looked over at Roman, and he gave her a slight nod.

He was planning something.

Mitch hustled Joyce and her brothers and Chelsea down another hallway and into a bedroom. It looked as if it was the boys’ bedroom; there were bunkbeds with blue plaid blankets, a battered old wooden desk, and a telescope in the corner.

He stood in the doorway as they walked in.

Chelsea flashed an involuntary glance at the bedroom window.

“I nailed it shut,” Mitch sneered. “Sure, you could pry it open. If you had time. But five minutes from now, you’ll all by dead. Or dying.”

“No! Not my family!” Joyce cried out, frantic. “You said you wouldn’t hurt my grandmother and brothers if I did what you told me!”

Mitch bared his jagged teeth in an ugly grin. “And you said you’d like to get to know me better. And you said you weren’t sweet on that shifter Paul. We both know those were lies, don’t we?”

“What are you going to do to us?” Joyce’s face was pale and her voice trembled. Chelsea glared at Mitch with murder in her eyes, but he ignored her and spoke to Joyce.

“Those wolves you hear howling? No food for a week. They’re going to tear you to pieces. And your grandmother. Then I’m going to shoot Roman. Then I’m going to set up the scene just right, so they’ll know it was shifters, and this time you little bastards won’t be alive to mess things up for me.” He said that last bit to Ryan and Shawn. Then he stepped out and slammed the door.

As soon as the door closed, Joyce ran over to the desk, grabbed a pair of scissors and cut the zip ties on the boy’s hands.

As she freed them, Chelsea ran to the window and desperately tried to push it up.

“When I get the window open, you boys are going to run,” she said to Ryan and Shawn.

“We’re not leaving you,” Ryan said stubbornly. Shawn burst into tears.

“Are wolves going to eat you? I don’t want wolves to eat you,” Shawn cried.

Joyce looked around the room for something to smash the glass with. She grabbed a heavy hardcover book and hurried over to the window.

And they heard gunshots and screams of pain.

It wasn’t Roman screaming. It was Officer Porter.

Footsteps pounded down the hallway, and Roman flung the door open and quickly ushered Edna in. The confused expression was gone from her face. She was holding a revolver, and her eyes were blazing with triumph. Roman held a gun too; it appeared he’d taken Porter’s gun.

“What’s happening?” Chelsea asked, stepping in front of Joyce and her brothers.

“I shot that bastard Porter right in the family jewels,” Edna said with a satisfied smile. She held up the gun. “Your daddy’s pistol. Kept it hidden in my room in case of emergency.”

They heard the baying and howling of the wild wolves, and then Porter’s screams of agony rose higher and higher.

“Looks like Mitch released the wolves. Thought it would slow me down,” Roman said. He shrugged. “Never met a wolf I couldn’t handle. Chelsea, stay here and keep an eye on the ladies. Don’t argue,” he added sternly. “Wait for me.”

He left the room, and they watched through the window as he ran outside. Mitch had climbed into his pickup truck and was driving off in a hurry. Roman aimed at the truck and shot out both tires. Half a dozen wolves raced out the front door and surrounded Roman, but they didn’t harm him; they stood by his side, howling.

Mitch’s truck spun out of control, skidded on the dirt road and landed on its side. It lay there, tires spinning. The driver’s side door flung open and Mitch stuck his head out. Blood was streaming down his face, and as soon as he spotted Roman and the wolves howling by his side, he ducked back into the truck and pulled the door shut.

“I’ll go call the police,” Chelsea said, heading for the door.

“You can’t,” Joyce called after her. “Mitch cut the phone lines and set up a signal jammer so I couldn’t use my cell phone either.”

“All right then. We’ll just wait for Roman to take Mitch prisoner, and then we can drive into town,” Chelsea said. “In the meantime, let’s get some food for those wolves.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Mitch lay by the side of the road, trussed up like a turkey, screaming threats and promises and pleas for mercy. He’d make them all millionaires! Multi-millionaires! He’d give them anything they wanted!

They ignored him.

They stood on the front porch, outside the house. Roman had found the signal jammer and disabled it, and they’d called the Council for Shifter Affairs. At this point, they didn’t want to deal with the Juniper police department. State Police had been notified and were on their way.

Chelsea was still shaken. She leaned on Roman, who had his arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders.

“What’s going to happen to those wolves?” Ryan asked. The wolves had been fed, and Roman had locked them back up inside the house. They’d followed him around in postures of submission; they could sense an Alpha, even one in shifter form.

“They’ll be treated by a vet, and then the Department of Fish and Game will release them in a wilderness area,” Chelsea said. “We’ll make sure of it.”

“Forget that,” Joyce said impatiently, fixing her gaze on her grandmother. “What exactly is going on with you? Talk. Now.”

“Those mineral springs, dear,” Edna said. “They were good for more than my arthritis. Ever since I started soaking in them, my head started clearing up.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Joyce demanded.

“Oh, I was going to get around to it, sooner or later. But it’s amazing how much people will say and do in front of an old lady when they think she’s addled,” Edna said cheerfully. “I’ve been having fun with it.” Then she cast a severe look at her two grandsons. “I’m on to you,” she said to them. “No more sneaking into the kitchen at two a.m. for thirds on dessert.”

Joyce gasped indignantly.

They both pretended to be looking at something off in the distance, and Shawn started whistling, hands stuck in his pockets.

“Speaking of sneaking off, you never told me why you went and destroyed the evidence that Mitch was trying to plant,” Joyce said to her brothers.

Shawn glanced over at Roman. “It was to protect the shifters. Paul and Leland. They were coming onto our property in the middle of the night and fixing things. They put up new fence, and they fixed the chicken coop, and they killed the fox that was eating our chickens. We saw them.”

“Those sneaky bas— uh, bass fishers,” Roman stopped himself just in time. “That’s why they were always tired in the morning. That’s where they were going at night.”

“Paul likes my sister,” Shawn added. “He made me promise not to tell. He said they had to leave town soon, so he couldn’t ask her out on a date. I wish he could stay, though. He was going to teach me how to use a bow and arrow.”

“He may still get the chance,” Roman said. “I’m going to be talking to my pack. I get the feeling that they’d like to stick around here for a while. Maybe permanently.”

Chelsea nodded, squeezing his hand.

They’d stay here. They’d have a house here. Together.

“You know what else is fixed up? My arthritis. It’s just about gone. I can skip around like a first-grader,” Edna said. She demonstrated, skipping across the lawn.

“Still a little touched in the head,” Joyce whispered.

“And my hearing is perfect!” Edna called out to her, shooting an annoyed look in her granddaughter’s direction.

Mitch’s screams had died out to despairing wails. They still ignored him.

Edna did a cartwheel across the lawn, and Ryan and Shawn ran over to join her, whooping and hollering. “If those mineral springs can really do all that…” Joyce marveled. “Think of how many people they could help.”

“You’re sitting on a fortune,” Chelsea told her. “And for that matter, so is the town of Silver Peak, since the springs are partly on their land. Everyone in the world will want to come here. My God, everybody’s problems are solved. You’re rich. The pack is rich.”

“You could go back to being sheriff and earn a real salary,” Roman mused.

“Oh dear God, no. But once business starts coming back, somebody could afford to hire me as a baker,” Chelsea said.

“In the meantime, you’ll get to enjoy the taste of powdered eggs and wild rabbit. And the joys of camp life.” Roman squeezed her shoulders, then looked down at her anxiously. “Won’t you?”

She leaned back. “Home is where you are,” she said. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

* * * * *

Three months later…

The soft opening of Wintergreen’s Bakery was a wild success. The entire pack was in attendance, as well as all the new townspeople who’d swarmed to Silver Peak when the news about the mineral springs had come out, and the construction workers who were building new hotels and a massive resort right next to the springs. It was like the gold rush of the 1800s. The town had sprung back to life, and every business was bustling with customers from early morning to late at night.

All of the Silver Peak pack members, and the Dudley family, had a share of the profits. And Chelsea had joined the pack at exactly the right time.

She’d used her share to open her own bakery.

Mitch Rodgers and a couple of the police officers in Juniper who’d conspired with him were in prison, facing trial and the death penalty.

Mayor Winkleman was now the ex-mayor. He’d finally been able to step down; Lorena and Susan had tied the vote, and were serving as the town’s first ever co-mayors. They squabbled constantly.

Barbara had so much front-page news she barely knew what to do with herself, and she’d hired a reporter and a photographer.

Paul and Joyce were dating, and he and the Silver Peak pack were now building a mansion-style home on the Dudley property. Ryan and Shawn were excited about getting their own rooms.

Benjamin was the new Alpha of the Silver Peak pack. He’d proven extremely popular. He was attending the bakery opening with the rest of his pack, maintaining crowd control and picking up trash.

Marcus had even stopped by early, and had gruffly shoved a couple of twenties at her to stock up on baked goods for the week. As soon as the crowds had arrived, he’d fled.

Roman’s family in Colorado had hired Chelsea to do the wedding cake for his cousin’s Mate-Marking ceremony. And they’d dropped the charges against Roman after Chelsea had nagged him into flying out there for a long overdue visit, so Roman was no longer an outlaw on the run.

Chelsea stood at the back of the bakery, watching the happy crowd and holding Roman’s hand. Erika and Leland were sitting at a table next to them, chowing down on brownies. Louise was beaming with approval, watching them. Erika had her hair pulled back in a ponytail to show off her new Mate Mark.

Chelsea had it all. Everything she’d ever wanted. A pack, a life mate, a best friend. Well, she had it all except for one tiny little thing. Not that it mattered, except she’d been up all night prepping for the soft opening and she was exhausted.

“No coffee, curse my ever-loving life,” Chelsea said to Roman. She hid a huge yawn behind her hand.

“You can have decaf,” Roman pointed out.

“Decaf. Feh. It is a terrible tease which fails to deliver on its promise. Unlike you,” she added, kissing him on the cheek. “You never fail to deliver.”

He winked at her. “Damn straight. Five times last night. I still got it.”

“Why can’t you have coffee?” Erika asked around a mouthful of brownie.

Leland gave him a quizzical look. “Is there something you want to tell the pack, Roman?”

Erika’s eyes widened. “Are you…?”

“Maybe,” Chelsea said, blushing. She glanced at Roman, who grinned at her. “It was a surprise. We just found out. So, yeah, approximately six more months of no caffeine. Or alcohol. But, you know, worth it.”

“Oh my God, oh my God, I’m going to be an aunt!” Erika screamed. She leapt to her feet and started dancing around and waving her arms over her head. Everyone turned to stare at Chelsea and Roman.

“Wait, what? Why didn’t you tell me?” Barbara complained, rushing up to them. “Boy? Girl? I need a proper birth announcement!”

“Guys, we just found out,” Chelsea said. Everyone was crowding around her now, hugging her, congratulating her. Roman let himself get pushed out of the way, content to stand back and watch. Tears burned in her eyes—happy tears. The pack was genuinely delighted for her.

“Boy? Girl?” Esther demanded, bustling up to her. “I need to know if I’m sewing pink or blue onesies.”

“Neutral colors for now, please and thank you. We’re going to let it be a happy surprise.”

Roman flashed them a huge grin. “If it’s a boy, we’re going to name it Jesse James,” he called out. “And if it’s a girl, we’re going to name it Jesse James.” He glanced at the shifters crowding around Chelsea. “Hey! Air! Pregnant lady needs air!” he yelled. They ignored him. She waved; he could just see her hand poking up out of the crowd.

“I’m fine!” she shouted above the din.

When the crowd finally parted, Roman found Chelsea sipping a cup of decaf and making a face of dismay. She broke into a smile when she saw him, though.

“Congratulations, Dad,” she said. “By the way, I haven’t given you the complete tour of the bakery yet.”

“I’ve seen it all,” he said, puzzled. “I helped build it.”

She quickly pulled him through the back door and shut it.

“There’s a part of my office that you haven’t seen yet,” she said, leading him down the hallway.

They entered the office, and she shut and locked the door behind them.

She gestured at the corner of the office, where she’d put in a soft, lush couch that he hadn’t seen before.

“I’m calling that the nooky corner,” she said cheerfully. She leaned up against him. “And by the way, I just locked the door because I’m taking you into custody.”

“You what? Come on. You try to arrest me, you know what’ll happen.” There was a roguish twinkle in his eye.

“Chelsea Wintergreen,” he chided her as he began walking her over to the sofa. “Abandoning your customers and trying to arrest your Alpha? You have been very, very bad. You know what happens next.”

“I do indeed,” she breathed as he pushed her down.

THE END

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