by Ami Snow
Reeling with revelation after revelation Rick seems to be struggling to hold onto his sanity.
“Attempted murder? A fatal blow out? And all since leaving my home just last night? Plus figuring out how to save my son. Brett don’t lose this girl, she sure is a keeper mate, and maybe you should marry her!”
In my periphery vision I saw my boss glow scarlet from the neck up at Rick’s blatant statement. Muttering something about workload and needing to get back he rushed out of the court room without taking his briefcase.
“Kathleen how can we ever repay you? What you have done this day will stay with my family forever. No blemish or stain on my son’s record cannot be repaid in mere dollars. I am forever in your debt and you can recall this favor at any time during I or my son’s life time, right Garrick?”
With no hint of the smartass and in a deadly serious voice Garrick walked up to me and shaking my hand restated Ricks promise.
“At any time during my life Miss Donaldson I will pledge that I will do anything you should require of me.”
I attempted to be as serious as they genuinely were, but this whole “pay forward” thing was becoming to dramatic for me. I showed them Brett’s briefcase and said I needed to get it to him post haste and we said our goodbyes and I bundled everything into Brett’s case and headed for the office.
Pretending not to have notice his blushing or hurried departure I began teasing him unmercifully.
“The entire judiciary system will honor you and carve your statue in white marble for providence your worship.”
“The world Medical Council will preserve that magnificent brain for future generations to venerate and study your honor.”
“Good grief Rick how on earth did you have the courage to make plays on the man like that? How did you know he was a Cretan and would not see through you in the first sentence? I cannot accept your offer, I am never going to able to do anything like that, I am just not clever enough?”
In a quiet calm voice Brett spoke,
“Kathleen come and sit down and pay attention, this is going to come as quite a shock to you.”
I walked confidently over to his desk and sat in the comfortable leather armchair in front of it. After the last twenty four hours I doubted there anything left on the planet to move me even, let alone shock me.
“Number 1. Only two people in the room realized I was playing the judge, who is no Cretan by the way. In fact he is a very smart and able man.
2. Both of those people have a genius intellect in the 160s.
3. I had your IQ tested before you left college.
4. I am in love with you.
“Genius? Me? Brett loves me? He had my IQ tested without me ever knowing, how? Brett loves me? Genius? Pay forward? Fuck the cunt I am going to kill her! Fuck me Herb, deeper harder. Brett loves me. Genius? Brett loves me?
The room leaned to the right, further. Then spun entirely around me and went black.
“Breathe darling, breathe into the paper bag. Again, breathe. Come on Kathleen a deeper breath. That’s it girl. Good girl. Here drink this brandy.”
The calm soothing voice of my boss brought me around; I was now lying on his leather chaise-lounge as he held my hand and encouraged me to drink more of the brandy.
“Hell of a court room manner boss, but your bedside manner tops it.”
I attempted a shot at levity but my voice was still echoing in my head and I think I failed dismally.
Smiling Brett stands up and goes to the liquor cabinet.
“I think I will join you in a small victory celebration drink then we will go and get your car and take the rest of the day off. What would like t0o do darling.”
How natural that word sounded from Brett now. I opened my eyes and gazed deep into his. I saw the genuine concern behind the calm exterior and quiet voice. His love is real and deep and my heart surges as I reach out for him and hold him close.
“Oh Brett I love you too my dear heart, I think I always have, but just never dared hope you felt the same.”
My world is complete.
THE END
The Alpha’s Love
Paranormal Romance
By: Jennifer Mckenzie
The Alpha’s Love
Chico found the woman for him the day he came to town. She had plenty of meat on her bones and a big heart to match. He didn’t even have to assume his bear form to find the love she had to offer.
He’d made the trip alone every year. The men of his clan once migrated with the Grizzly Bears into the hills of the Rocky Mountains. They had followed the big creatures, no one knew how long they had been doing it, and no one cared. It was their way. The bears supplied them with food and pelts. They admired the huge animals.
To earn a place as a man, he’d killed a bear with a spear, all the young man had to do it and not show fear. Chico had tracked the beast across the forest where he battled it to the death. But, in its dying eyes, Chico saw something: he saw the man who the bear had been. And he was cursed by the bear as it died to take his place. During the light of the full moon he would become a bear and hunt as one. If he died, he would die as a bear. It had been this way for centuries.
But he couldn’t die unless he found someone to take his place. Chico had never found someone to curse with his condition. It didn’t matter how bad the person might be in real life. It had to be someone who would slay him while Chico was in bear form. Few people wanted to go anywhere near him as a bear. And so he waited until the time was right.
He prowled around the town of Grizzly Gulch the final night of his bear form. The hunting was good and no one would go near him. A few hunters had stalked him, but Chico had avoided them. They weren’t the kind of people who needed to have his affliction. So he waited until it was time for the moon to shift.
He woke to find himself naked in a grove of trees. Good, he had re-transformed back to a human with no interference. Chico had learned where were the best places to do this and would leave his human clothes hidden away. He stood up and walked over to the rock cavity where he’d stashed his clothes and money. In a few minutes he had his poncho and hat on, the boots he slipped on a few minutes later. The pistol was still in good shape. He’d taken it off a confederate officer ten years ago at the first battle of Mesilla. The officer hadn’t needed it anymore.
His boots crunching the ground, Chico walked into the main street of the former mining town. Grizzly Gulch had been a big town when the gold was plentiful, but it had run out. Most of the miners had moved on, looking for new fields to prospect. All that remained were a few hold outs and plenty of boarded up wooden store fronts. There was still the saloon and sheriff’s office, but most the other business were getting out.
It resembled any number of other places he’d visited on his travels over the past hundred years. Men with no luck trying to find the one strike which would pay for a lifetime of disappointment. The Europeans had driven his tribe out of the valleys, but he remained. He was feared by his former tribe and the new settlers left him alone. There was always another war which needed guns, men didn’t ask too many questions when they needed bodies to toss against the enemy. He couldn’t be killed by conventional means and few people knew it took a silver bullet. There was always the problem of how to explain his absence during the full moon, but during the heat of battle anything could happen.
He was thirsty after all the walking. A horse would’ve been nice to have, but how do you find someone to care for it while you’re in bear form? So Chico had accepted his fate a long time ago. Until the curse was lifted, he would travel the world alone. At least it couldn’t be passed on to children: he was barren.
He noticed her while passing the sheriff’s office. It was small and wooden, just like a thousand frontier law offices he’d seen before. Chico stopped for a minute to look at the law man standing on the porch. He was tall, about six feet and hefty, not someone he’d want to engage even in his other shape. Then Chico looked again: the sheriff was a woman. He s
topped dead in his tracks.
“You have a problem stranger?” the sheriff asked in a definite female voice. She stood there in her canvas pants and cowboy boots looking at him. She wore a gun belt and carried a shot gun. Her shirt was cut for a man, but the badge was almost obscured by her cleavage. She took off her hat and a rain of brown curls fell out.
“I think,” Chico said, “this is the first time I’ve ever seen a woman as a sheriff.”
“Keep moving or it will be your last,” she snapped at him. “I don’t need problems with drifters. You have a reason to be in this town?”
“No, ma’am, I am just passing through. I was headed over to the saloon to get a drink. I will be on my way as soon as my thirst has been satisfied.”
“I’ll expect you out of town by sundown,” she told him.
“I will comply. But if you are in need of some help around the jail I would be more than happy to…”
“Just keep moving.”
Chico was in heaven and had no way to show it. Countless possibilities played through his head as he walked to the saloon. All of them involved the sheriff and himself. In most of them she kept the boots on. The jail cell featured prominently, with leg irons provided.
The saloon had seen better days, much like the town itself. Chico walked through the swinging doors and looked at the inside. The roulette wheel might’ve seen some use in the past year, but he doubted it. There was a piano, but no one to play it. The stairs leading to the second floor were falling apart and there was a lack of women in the place anyway. Other than the cowboys playing cards by themselves at the table near the front, no patrons were evident at all. He looked again and saw a man polishing glasses behind the bar, but there weren’t too many bottles to pour from. Another glance showed three men in suits at the far end of the bar, but they weren’t drinking.
Chic walked up to the bar, his boots clumping loudly on the floor and echoing all over the empty saloon. The bartender, excited for a customer quit polishing the glasses and put his hands on the counter. Chic walked up to him and tossed his poncho back.
“What will you have, mister?” the bartender asked.
“Beer,” Chico responded. “I just want to take the dust out of my throat. I’ve been on the trail for too many days.”
The bartender filled a mug and handed it to him.
“House specialty. Until it all runs out and I have to close the place.”
“Business bad?” Chico asked.
“Terrible. Ever since the gold ran out. The prospectors never did find all that much. I’m about ready to close this place down and move on. You want to buy it?”
“Sorry,” Chico apologized. “I was never much of a businessman myself. Thanks for the offer.”
He tipped the mug back and enjoyed the sensation of the warm beer as it rinsed his throat.
Just then he over heard a commotion at the table where the cowboys were sitting. An argument had broken out over someone’s war record. Given the veterans from both sides of the Late Unpleasantness roaming the west, it was bound to happen. Chico had tried to avoid any discussion of his record. He’d been in plenty of battles, but sooner or later someone would start to wonder how he’d survived so many engagements. He’d already had to deal with a former officer who accused him of desertion. How do you explain to your commander you had to leave because the moon had turned full?
The cowboy was absolutely certain the union army had turned tail and ran at Chickamauga Creek. He was convinced the only reason the southern army hadn’t obliterated the union was confederate general Longstreet’s compassion in allowing the union army to retreat to Chattanooga.
“There I was,” he bragged. “I was telling General Longstreet the yankees were on the run and we could finish them off. But he said not to and waits till another day. We shoulda taken them all out when we had a chance.”
The other cowboys murmured an approval and sipped their drinks.
“You wouldn’t have had a chance with our Spencer rifles,” Chico said. He’d materialized out of nowhere near the table and was standing right next to the cowboys. “We would have ripped your Johnny Reb guts right of your shirts and mailed them to Jeff Davis.”
The cowboy swerved around and glared at Chico. He looked a lot more mature at a distance. From up close, Chico could see he wasn’t older than eighteen.
“Are you calling me a liar, yank?” the cowboy said as he started to rise up from the table. His friends had ceased drinking and were slowly moving their hands in a downward motion.
“No, I am not,” Chico said. “To be a liar you would have had to have been there. The war ended ten years ago, cowpoke. The only war you were fighting was in your pants.”
The cowboy jumped up from the table and whipped out his pistol. Before he could scream his rebel yell, Chico had shot the pistol out of his hand. Then Chico pointed both of his revolvers in the direction of the cowboy’s friends.
“I think you all have had enough excitement for one night, amigos. Just get your friend and get out of here.”
Grumbling, the cowboys grabbed their loud-mothed buddy, still holding his bleeding hand, and backed out the door. They yelled a few threats at him, but did nothing. Chico waited until he heard the sound of their horses leaving town before returning to the bar.
The bartender was staring in disbelief at Chico and holding a fresh mug.
“On the house,” he said. “I was fixing to call the sheriff about that bunch.”
Chico laughed and tossed back the second beer. He handed the bartender a stack of silver dollars.
“Here. Maybe you’ll have better luck when you open your next place.”
Chico started to walk out the door when he heard a voice behind him.
“You looking for a job, mister?”
He turned around to find himself facing the three well-dressed men who were at the end of the bar when he’d came in the door. They looked to be about fifty years old apiece and as wealthy as the local economy would allow. He’d encountered their types before: men with just enough cash to feel rich in a crappy town.
“I might,” Chico replied. “Did you have something in mind?”
“Why don’t we sit down at the table the cowpokes were using and talk about it?” one of the men said to him.
They walked over to the table as a group, pulled out the chairs and sat down.
“So what do you gentleman want to talk about?” Chico asked.
“Let us all introduce,” a man with a white mustache began. “I’m Shane Michaels, the mayor around here.
“I’m Tom Wetzer, I own the only bank in town,” said a man in a vest and suspenders.
“Dave,” the final man introduced. “Dave Winters. I run what’s left of the general store.”
“Chico. Just call me Chico; it’s all you need to know. Now let’s get down to business. I assume this has something to do with the way I handled those fakes?”
“It was some mighty fine shooting!” the mayor exclaimed. “I’m always glad to see a man who knows how to use a gun.”
“I know my way around one,” Chico answered. “Did you have need of my services?”
“Well…” Tom Wetzer started to say, “We do and we don’t. We still have s sheriff in town.”
The three men across from Chico broke out in laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Chico asked. “I saw your sheriff as I came into town and she strikes me a woman with a lot to love, if you understand what I mean.”
This provoked more laughter from across the table.
“Oh, Mary Ann is a right fine lady,” Dave Winters tried to say with a straight face. “And I think she takes her job a little too seriously.”
“The problem is,” the mayor began, “there isn’t a lot left in this town to justify keeping a sheriff. She’s always on the lookout for troublemakers, but they’ve all moved elsewhere. We probably would never have replaced the last sheriff, God rest his soul, but she was sure she could find the man who killed him.”
“Her father was the last sheriff,” Winters explained. “He was a good man; just made somebody upset and was shot one night locking up his office. She came back from the east and swore to find the man who did it. We couldn’t think of anything else to do, so we made her sheriff.”
“You still haven’t told me what you want,” Chico stated.
Tom Wetzer became serious and looked around to make sure the bartender wasn’t listening.
“I’m fixing to move the money in the bank out of town in a few weeks,” he told Chico. “There’s no reason to keep it around here in this dying town. I’m going to be opening up a new bank in a city with a future.”
“You want to hire me as a bank guard?”
“No,” he continued. “I want you to prevent something. I’ve had word the Brownington boys are headed this way; they might be here in the next few weeks.”
The Brownington gang was a band of thieves who had been robbing banks all over the southwest for the past two years. Consisting of war veterans, there were three of them and they all knew how to use guns. The Texas Rangers were supposedly closing in on the gang, but no one knew where they might strike next.
“We need you to stop them before they get to town,” the mayor told him. “If Tom can move his gold in the bank out of town, it won’t be a problem. They’ll show up and find an empty bank. But we can’t risk them getting their hands on the bank deposits. We’re all investors in the bank and will lose everything we have if they show up before it’s moved.”
