THE ALPHA’S MATE
By
Jacqueline Rhoades
Smashwords Edition
Copyrighted 2012 by Jacqueline Rhoades
Cover Art: Georgianna Simpson
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase ti, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
My Thanks
To my children,
not one of whom laughed when Mom said she was
writing a book.
God bless them, every one.
Welcome to Rabbit Creek....
City girl Elizabeth Reynolds hopes to find peace and contentment in the small Appalachian town of Rabbit Creek. Okay, so the bucolic cottage she’s rented turns out to be a dilapidated cabin without phone service, but the people she meets are wonderful. Friendly and down to earth, they welcome her with open arms. It’s just like moving to Mayberry… if Andy and Aunt Bea were wolves.
Only an outsider would call them werewolves. They’re wolvers, a community of man/beasts that have lived in these hills since their ancestors emigrated from Scotland three hundred years ago. And that gorgeous Chief of Police, Marshall Goodman, the guy she met while covered in mud and wearing granny underpants? The one who sends her heart spinning? He’s their Alpha and his pack is under attack from outside forces.
Elizabeth, being a sane and reasonable woman, wants no part of any of this, but if she refuses to risk her life and her heart, the people she’s grown to care about will lose everything and she’ll lose the one man she was born to love.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Books By Jacqueline Rhoades
Chapter 1
Okay, so it wasn’t exactly a dark and stormy night, but it was as black as pitch. The massive trees looming overhead, their branches swaying and dipping menacingly in the bubble of light provided by the car’s headlamps, were worthy of the Master of Macabre. Alfred Hitchcock had probably driven these back roads in the middle of the night to come up with those spooky ideas. Elizabeth had thought of several possible plots over the last few miles, including a murder mystery that starred Mr. Begley, her realtor, as the corpse.
“I wonder if I could write a first person account from the murderer’s point of view?” she asked aloud.
Of course, no one answered. Asking questions aloud was bad enough. Thank heavens she hadn’t yet succumbed to the spinsterish habit of answering herself, although the temptation was there.
“You either have to find a man or buy a pet, dear,” was her mother’s helpful solution. “Neither will answer your questions, but it won’t be as obvious you’re talking to yourself.”
It was a great suggestion, except Macy’s Men’s Department didn’t sell men and she wasn’t likely to find one walking into the library with a sign around his neck reading ‘Take Me I’m Yours’. No one questioned talking to a pet, at least not other pet owners, however the image of a librarian, grey haired and dowdy, living with a house full of cats was always in the back of her mind. In her mental picture, she wore a man’s frayed and oversized cardigan and sturdy, sensible shoes. Thick glasses perched on the end of her nose.
It was a ridiculous image based on fear, not fact. Her body might be a little plumper than was fashionable, but it was well toned and compact thanks to a daily exercise regimen. Her hair was shoulder length and glossy, dark brown without a speck of grey and Lady Clairol would keep it that way. She had better than twenty-twenty vision and there wasn’t a sensible pair of shoes in her closet. Still, at thirty-two…
The windshield wipers shifted from their lulling and rhythmic thump to the squeal that indicated there wasn’t enough water for them to clear. The rain had stopped hours ago, but the leaves had gathered all the water they could only to drop great blobs of it on her car. She imagined that above the thick cover of trees, stars were shining, maybe even the moon.
It was obvious the map makers who supplied her auto club hadn’t been down this way in a very long time. This hadn’t been a two lane road since the days of Henry Ford and if she met another car coming from the opposite direction, one of them was going to be in trouble. And she wasn’t moving.
She should have taken the advice of the friendly store clerk and back tracked the fifteen miles to the Starlight Motel, spent the night, and finished the last short leg of her trip in daylight. But no, why listen to sage local advice when you’d read all the books, studied the maps, had a set of handwritten directions and knew so much better. After all, these weren’t real mountains. Compared to the Rockies, they were mere foothills. How bad could it be?
“Oh, honey, these hills might not be as big as some, but those roads up there are twisty and there’s no place to pull off if you got trouble. Whose place you say you’re looking for?” The clerk seemed genuinely concerned.
The woman was tall, storklike, with a dress of tiny floral print cotton and a butcher’s apron wrapped around her middle. She was turning the sign on the wooden door from OPEN to CLOSED as Elizabeth pulled in, but she beckoned to Elizabeth and welcomed her with a smile.
“My place,” Elizabeth said proudly, “At least for the next year. I’ve rented it. Mr. Begley called it the Connor place. Do you know it?”
She set a bottled root beer on the counter along with a bag of chips and glanced around for a restroom, her real reason for stopping. There wasn’t one.
“No I don’t, and I don’t know Eugene Begley, neither, but I do know there’s been lots of unsuspecting folks sold a pig in a poke. You seen this place?” the woman asked suspiciously.
“No, but Mr. Begley described it in detail. It’s just what I was looking for, somewhere quiet, surrounded by nature.”
“Hmm.” And that was when the woman suggested the Starlight Motel. “It’s not fancy, but it’s clean. You ought to see your new place in daylight just in case there’s any problem.”
“I’ll be fine,” Elizabeth assured her and patted her pocket. “I’ve got my trusty cell phone if I run into trouble.”
The woman laughed at that. “Up in those hills, that thing’s good for nothing but a paperweight. You want that bottle opened?”
Elizabeth was beginning to think she’d missed her turn when, around the next curve, she saw the partially collapsed barn with the almost invisible Mail Pouch Tobacco sign on the side. She took a left and checked her odomet
er. Mr. Begley’s directions were somewhat vague with no road names or compass directions, only landmarks which was fine unless the old barn caved in completely or someone cleared away the fallen oak. And surrounded as she was by forest, how the heck was she supposed to recognize that one tree among so many. In addition, he must have calculated his mileage based on a crow’s flight because she’d already traveled a good deal farther than his estimate and still had a ways to go.
This road was even narrower than the previous one and its uneven surface was more potholes filled with loose gravel than blacktop. She slowed to a twenty-five mile an hour crawl in fear of bottoming out her overloaded car.
Elizabeth laughed with relief when she saw the fallen tree and stopped the car to take in the sight of the leafless monstrosity spotlighted by her headlights. No way could you miss that! It had to be a hundred feet long with a trunk so large it would take two of her to wrap arms around it. It had fallen into the woods and taken down a dozen more trees in its wake. The jagged stump, still rooted to the ground, stood at the very edge of the road, its rotting center clearly visible.
Her new life was just up the road. Two more turns and she’d be there. In her excitement, she plunged ahead, saw the turn and snapped the wheel to the right. She screamed and slammed on the brakes as a black shadow leapt from the darkness of the trees into the path of her headlights. The car fishtailed in the gravel. She overcompensated and the car swung the other way. Her left front tire slipped from the road and the car went bumping down a slope. It stopped with a jolt. Her body, however, kept going and her head smacked the steering wheel.
“Dammit!” One hand went to her bleeding forehead and the other punched the center of the steering wheel sounding the horn. The airbag went off. The horn didn’t.
She fought her way free of the bag using words she’d never used before and turned the car off. The lack of a running engine didn’t affect the horn. Her hand wasn’t doing much to stem the flow of blood so she reached for her handbag and the wad of tissues she always kept inside. It wasn’t there. Everything she’d piled on the front seat was thrown forward and jumbled atop the things she’d crammed into the floor space. She managed to find a crumpled fast food bag with a half dozen napkins still inside and slapped half of them to her forehead while using the rest to wipe the blood out of her eyes. The lights went out. The horn didn’t.
In the utter darkness, she fumbled for the dial to the left of the steering column and pushed upward until the interior lights came on again, tilted the mirror and took stock of her battered face. It wasn’t as bad as she expected from the amount of blood. A one inch cut was centered in the growing lump over her left eye. That was it. She shifted her shoulders, moved her legs and unbuckled her seatbelt once she was sure all her parts were in order. Easing her head back against the headrest, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath and tried to ignore the blare of the horn.
What the hell was that thing? It was smaller than a horse. A pony maybe? It didn’t move like one. It moved like a dog; the biggest damned dog she’d ever seen. Wolfhound? Mastiff? Newfie? None of them fit the shadowy shape. German shepherd? Maybe. Wolf crossed her mind, but that was ridiculous. There were no wolves in this part of the country and from what little she knew the average wolf wasn’t all that big.
Whatever it was, it had to be gone by now. Surely the crash and the horn had scared it off. She needed to assess the damage to the car and find a way to stop the damned horn. She flipped the lock, lifted the handle and pushed. The door opened about six inches and stopped with a thunk. She tried again without success. The bottom of the door cleared the ground so there had to be a rock or tree stump blocking the way.
In the confined space, it took another fifteen minutes to stow the things from the passenger seat elsewhere so she could crawl across the console to the passenger side door which opened enough for her to crawl out on her belly. She almost wished she hadn’t. The rain sodden ground squished beneath her palms and soaked a cold wet streak up the front of her t-shirt. Once she was standing, her pretty leather sandals with their row of white daisies made sucking sounds when she turned back to the car.
A tree trunk now stood where her left front bumper and headlight used to be and the right side looked firmly wedged beside another. The left wheel was canted at an odd angle and the right tire was a good four inches off the ground. As she had thought, a short, sawed off stump blocked her driver’s door and she suspected there might be others beneath the car raising it up. The back half of the car was undamaged and sat, jutting upward about six feet below the road bed. There was no way this car was moving without a tow truck. The horn stuttered and died out on a moan. Thank heavens for small blessings.
What should she do now? The house couldn’t be too far, only two more turns to go, but she didn’t trust Mr. Begley’s estimates and ‘just a short piece up the road’ could be four or five miles. And how much, exactly, was ‘a bit further on’? The flashlight that seemed more than adequate back in Ohio, would be about as useful as a penlight here in the woods.
It would make more sense to stay with the car until daylight. Maybe some late night traveller would pass and offer assistance though she doubted it. She hadn’t passed another car since leaving the little roadside store. At any rate, she would be much more comfortable in the car than at the side of the road.
She started shifting more of her things from the passenger seat to the driver’s side and the already bulging back seat. Visibility from the rear window wasn’t an issue now and if she had to spend the rest of the night in the car, the passenger side would be slightly more comfortable. The last thing she pulled out was the small carryall that contained the boxers and tee she’d used for pajamas while on the road and a clean set of underwear.
Clean clothes would make things a lot more pleasant. She eyed the surrounding darkness. If a car was coming along the road, surely she’d hear it or see the flash of its headlights in plenty of time. She peeled off her muddy tee and used it to wipe off as much muck as she could from her face and hands and then spread it inside out on the ground beside the door so she could stand on it. She then used her cotton shorts to wipe down her legs and feet.
Standing in only her bra and panties, the air was chilly enough to remind her of why she’d stopped at the little store. Elizabeth sighed. It was an incontrovertible law of the female universe that the more you tried to ignore the call of nature, the more you had to pee. She would get no rest until it was done. She grabbed a tissue from the pack she’d retrieved when she’d finally unearthed her handbag. Her cell phone was still MIA.
Rather than risk muddying her PJs, she stayed as she was, slipped her flip-flops back on and stepped a few feet away from the vehicle to squat. Of course, as soon as her panties were down and she was in position, the car lights went out. She finished in the dark and gingerly felt her way back to the car.
It wasn’t until she was back standing on her t-shirt doormat with her rear end in the air, reaching for the flashlight on the floor, that she heard the crunch of gravel above her and the beam from someone else’s light illuminated her cotton clad behind.
“You look like you could use some help,” said a very deep and very male voice behind her.
Chapter 2
Elizabeth screeched, jumped, and whacked the back of her head on the doorframe. Cursing, she whirled with the flashlight in her hand and aimed it in the general vicinity of the voice.
Standing in its beam was the most gorgeous man she had ever seen outside of a movie theater. Make that gorgeous with a capital G. Hard to judge how tall he was since he was standing uphill from her but he had to be at least six feet. His hair was dark, just long enough to run your fingers through and his t-shirt was tight enough to show each bulge and ripple of his chest and abs. A pair of form fitting jeans encased a set of narrow hips and long, long legs that ended in a pair of square toed boots.
The face matched the body; long and lean with high chiseled cheekbones slightly hollowed beneath. His nose
was straight and perfectly sized to the shape of his face and his mouth was wide and generous, the lips neither too thin nor too full. She couldn’t see his eyes. They were squinting against the light. He held out his hand, broad palmed and long fingered, against the glare.
“Easy now,” he said gently, “You need help. I’m coming down.”
“N-no! Stay there! And turn off that light.”
The only thing that could be worse than being rescued in your panties and bra by a handsome stranger would be if said panties were of the comfortable, but totally unattractive white cotton variety and said bra was something your grandmother would wear. When she chose them, she was thinking of comfortable driving, not being on display!
“P-please turn around,” she squeaked, “I’m not dressed.”
“So I noticed,” he chuckled, but he did as she asked.
“I was all muddy, you see. I-I had to crawl in the mud. I was trying to get rid of the mud,” she babbled as she pulled on the faded flannel boxers and bright orange tee with the words ‘Librarians Do It By The Book’ plastered across the front. The outfit was as appealing as the underwear.
Why did it matter? This was a rescue, not a date. The clenching in her belly and the rapid heartbeat was a simple physical reaction to the mental trauma of the accident. For heaven’s sake, she knew better than to fall all over a man. If you fell, it usually meant right on your face. Hadn’t she been there, done that, several times? She should be grateful for the rescue, not worried about how she looked. And this man was a stranger. He could be a good looking axe murderer for all she knew. She picked up the flashlight from the seat where she’d left it to get dressed and shined it back on the man.
As if that was the signal he’d been waiting for, he turned back to her and started down the slope. “Stay there. I’m coming down to help you up.”
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