It was the robe that saved her. The wolf grabbed a mouthful of cloth where her legs should have been. It lunged again and she let the robe fall from her shoulders to tangle around the animal as she ran through the open doorway, grabbed the heavy inner wooden door and slammed it behind her.
She ran to the kitchen, grabbed the phone off the wall, dialed 911 and got… nothing.
“Someone help me,” she cried and then she saw the numbers printed neatly on an index card over the phone. Fire. Police. She dialed. Marshall would come.
“Marshall, oh god, Marshall, the horses are trapped,” she screamed into the phone, “There’s fire and wolves. Oh god, Marshall, there’s wolves.” She was sobbing, couldn’t make the words come out as she wanted them.
“Honey? Who are you? Where are you?” It was a woman’s voice.
“Where’s Marshall? He needs to come home!” Elizabeth was pacing back and forth. The adrenaline pulsing through her veins made her feel like she was going to explode.
“Honey, slow down. Where are you?” asked the voice again.
“I’m at Marshall Goodman’s house and there are wolves outside.”
“What are the wolves doing?” the woman asked reasonably.
“Other than trying to kill me? They look like they’re guarding the barn door. The barn is burning. The horses are screaming! Help me, please!”
The woman must have finally heard the panic and fear in her voice. “I’ll get someone out there as soon as I can. You sit tight.”
“Thanks.” She slammed the phone into its cradle. “For nothing.”
The horses. The poor horses. He said they were his babies and she was letting them die. She started searching the kitchen for something she could use as a weapon. Pots and pans were tossed to the side. A cast iron fry pan she thought might work was too heavy for her to swing. In a mudroom off the kitchen, she found what she needed. Not the baseball bat she was hoping for, but a shotgun. It rested on the shelf over a row of old coats hanging from pegs. She had to drag a chair in from the kitchen to reach the box of shells tucked into the corner. This was no time to worry about what her fellow members of Silverton Citizens Against Guns would think.
Elizabeth had never fired a gun before, but she’d read enough books about firearms and munitions to know which end was which. This was a single barrel pump action and she’d watched one being loaded at a hunting safety seminar at the library; something she’d adamantly protested at the time. She was so glad her protests had been ignored. She shakily loaded three shells into the magazine, pumped one into the chamber and loaded a fourth.
Without the robe, she had only a t-shirt of Marshall’s for clothes, so she grabbed a coat from the rack not to cover her nakedness so much as for protection and a place to carry more shells and then threw it aside when she realized the too long sleeves would get in her way. The sleeveless vest on the last peg would do the job. The quilted plaid fell mid-thigh and the armholes left her plenty of room to maneuver.
Armed and uniformed, she headed back to the front door. A glance at the mantle clock told her only seven minutes had passed since she picked up the phone. She hoped she wasn’t seven minutes too late.
Cautiously checking to the right and left, Elizabeth stepped out onto the porch. The purple robe lay muddied and torn at the foot of the stairs and she stepped over it carefully keeping her eyes on the barn. The window was now more orange than yellow and behind the horse’s screams she could hear the fire crackle.
All four wolves were pacing back and forth in front of the barn doors, snarling at each other as they passed and yipping pitifully at the doors. Elizabeth raised the gun to her shoulder with her finger on the trigger and moved closer. She couldn’t remember how far these things shot and she had to make this look real. She didn’t want to hurt them. They were a part of nature that should be preserved. She only wanted to scare them away.
The wolves were concentrating on the door and paid no attention to her. When she thought she was close enough, she took her stance, left foot slightly forward, butt snug against her shoulder seam. She aimed above the center of the pack and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
“Shit, shit, shit.” What did she do wrong? In the safety class… The safety! Her fingers scrambled over the trigger area until she found the button and pushed. She felt more than saw it poke out the other side.
The wolves must have heard her swear because now their heads swiveled from the door to her and back again as if they weren’t sure where their attention should lie. She thought she saw the barn door begin to open, but she clearly saw two of the wolves turn and take several steps in her direction.
With their wild eyes glaring and sharp pointy teeth jutting out from jaws large enough to make a snack out of her arm, she decided they were a part of nature she could do without. She swung the gun back to her shoulder, all thought of preserving life forgotten, and fired.
She had no time to appreciate the cries of the injured wolves. She was flying backward, the ground scraping the skin from her bare rear end. Her shoulder felt broken. She wanted to do what she always did when she was hurt; run around in circles yelling, “Ow! Ow! Ow!” until the pain went away, but the animals didn’t give her time. Two other wolves were coming at her and behind them a dark upright figure seemed to waver and fold in on itself in a strange play of firelight and shadow.
She pumped the gun, ejecting the spent shell and loaded another into the chamber. This time, she didn’t aim. She fired blindly. Pumped and fired again. Pumped and fired again.
A series of sharp howls behind her made her turn. Three more wolves charged directly at her from the curving drive in front of the house.
There wasn’t time to reload. There wasn’t time to scream. They were on her before she could draw breath. Elizabeth Reynolds raised her arms to cover her head and closed her eyes against the snarling faces of death.
Chapter 4
Elizabeth felt the soft brush of fur as the three newcomers flew past her. She watched wide eyed in amazement as they attacked the wolves beyond. Like a practiced battle maneuver, the two outside wolves flanked right and left while the larger, central wolf, its silvery coat gleaming in the faint light, leapt with a tackling blow to the center. The yard was suddenly filled with a snarling mass of fang and fur. How the beasts knew friend from foe was beyond her.
One, with a darker saddle over its grey sides, broke from the melee and slipped around the side of the barn nearest to where she still sat in the dirt. It stopped, facing her, and curled its lips back over vicious looking teeth. The animal seemed to grow before her eyes, broadening its chest and raising its tail in a low arc. It stared at her with bright, piercing green eyes.
Elizabeth reached for the shotgun that lay on the ground beside her. Slowly and deliberately she pumped the action, ejecting the last of her spent shells. She raised the gun to her shoulder and took aim. She knew the chamber was empty, but she remembered reading once that wolves shied away from hunters. They recognized guns. She hoped this one had read the same book.
The animal curled its lip and coughed almost as if it was laughing at her, turned away without fear and trotted off behind the barn and into the woods.
The fight in front of the barn suddenly broke apart with animals running in all directions and much howling from the woods.
She struggled to her feet, her shoulder aching in a painful throb and ran to the barn. Smoke billowed out the partially opened door, but the fire seemed contained to the right front corner by the window. She couldn’t see for the smoke and when she began to cough, she dropped to her knees and crawled to the nearest stalls. The horses were screaming and whinnying and the barn shook as their bodies rammed the sides of the wooden boxes.
She inched her way to the first stall door and reached for the latch. The door swung open with an easy push and she hugged the wall, her back against it and knees pulled to her chest, waiting for the frightened animal within to burst forth. She could hear it whinnying and stomping within,
but nothing emerged. Taking as deep a breath as she dared, she stood and entered the doorway of the stall.
A huge grey mass confronted her as she looked up and up. The creature’s neck and head towered above her. The head alone looked as big as the upper half of her body. Big black eyes rolled back in that head as the horse rose up, its front hooves pawing the air.
A huge arm swept about her waist and lifted her into the air. She screamed and kicked as she was thrown toward the door.
“Get out! Help Henry!” It was Marshall. He turned back to the horse. “Whoa there. Take it easy girl.” His voice was gentle but firm when he spoke to the panicked animal.
She watched for a moment as he threw a blanket over the horse’s head, grabbed the halter beneath and pulled. The horse pulled back and Marshall was lifted off his feet. He didn’t let go, but used the momentum to kick off the side of the stall and twist himself onto the horse’s back. Elizabeth didn’t wait to see what would happen next. She ran for the door. Horse and rider thundered past as she stepped aside.
Another man ran past her into the barn while a third was screwing a garden hose onto a spigot at the side of the yard. He kept losing his grip because he kept looking back at the open doors behind him. Elizabeth ran to him, grabbed the hose and pushed him aside.
“Get the horses. I’ve got this.”
She didn’t wait for his answer, but quickly went to work setting the hose in place and turning the handle as far as she could. Water spouted, soaking her face, vest and bare legs as the stiffening hose whipped about in front of her. She wrestled with the errant hose until she had the nozzle firmly in her hands and then she was running back to the barn. She paused long enough for another horse to pass, dragged the hose inside and sprayed the flames now creeping along the wall toward the stalls.
More men ran into the smoke filled barn and left on the backs of horses. More followed. Another came to stand next to her and beat out the small pockets of flame with a soaking blanket.
“I think you got it all, darlin’. Why don’t you quit and let me finish up here. You look beat.” He smiled and took the hose from her hand. “Go on, now. You go let the ladies take care of you. You done enough.”
She nodded gratefully and shuffled out the door, wiping the soot off her face with the grimy sleeve of Marshall’s t-shirt and following the movement of her bare toes in the dirt. The edge of the t-shirt, hanging just above her knees, was black. She’d never been so tired in her entire life.
A stout woman in jeans and a pink smock came hurrying over to put her arm around Elizabeth’s shoulder. “Come here, you poor sweet thing. You let me get that.” She began to wipe Elizabeth’s face with a damp cloth. “You’re gonna be fine, fine.”
Elizabeth looked up. The yard was full of people. Cars and trucks formed a half circle around men, women, and a few older children.
“Shouldn’t we call someone? Those wolves don’t belong here,” she mumbled.
“Sure as hell don’t,” someone agreed.
“They were too big… too…”
“Don’t you worry about it, hon. The proper authorities have been called and it’ll be taken care of,” the pink lady assured her. “Somebody find something for her to set on before the poor little thing falls down.”
“Welcome to Rabbit Creek,” someone called.
“Why, I think once she’s cleaned up some, she might be kind of pretty,” said another.
“Of course she’ll be pretty. You know Eugene. He don’t hold truck with no ugly women.”
There was general laughter.
“Pay them no mind,” her kindly caregiver said. “We’ll get you cleaned up and in some fresh clothes and then you can come back out and meet some of the neighbors. Once Harmony put out the call that Marshall Goodman had a woman living out at his place, they all couldn’t wait for an excuse to come say hey. That fire was as good as any.”
“I-I don’t have any clothes.”
Elizabeth stopped at the edge of the crowd gathered by the stairs. Her knees began to knock and her chin began to quiver. She hadn’t cried when her car went off the road or when she got caught by the handsome Chief of Police in her granny underwear. She hadn’t even sniffled when he had to wrap her in a blanket because she was too filthy to sit in his car. She hadn’t blubbered in fear when she was attacked by wolves or when she was almost trampled by a monstrous horse that looked like something out of Greek mythology. But here, confronted by a dozen of her smiling new neighbors, standing bare legged and bare assed in Marshall’s filthy t-shirt and a ratty old plaid vest, dirty and smudged and stinking to high heaven, she just couldn’t take any more. She bawled. Bawled until she was gasping for air and the snot was running from her nose.
The next thing she knew, she was being scooped up into Marshall’s arms and he was carrying her into the house and up the stairs. It felt so good to be held safely in his arms, so right.
“Whoa there, take it easy now girl,” he said to her just as he’d said to his horse. “It’s not as bad as all that.”
But it was. It was. And Marshall was part of it. The guy who could have been the man of her dreams was gay! Welcome to Rabbit Creek indeed.
He set her down in the bathroom. She didn’t move. He started the water running and pulled the stopper up for the shower. Then he turned and bent down until they were nose to nose. His hand rested on her shoulder.
“You’ll be all right once you’re clean. Right?”
She sucked her lips in between her top and bottom teeth, squinched her eyes shut and nodded.
“That’s my girl.” He kissed the top of her head and gently ruffled her hair. “You did a brave thing tonight, Lizzie. For a city girl, you did all right.”
She nodded her head again, but didn’t release her lips or open her eyes. If she did, one would release a fresh wail, the other a flood of new tears. He was so gentle and kind. The kiss had reached from the top of her head down to her toes, sending an aching tingle to all the right places or at least they would have been if the sender hadn’t been gay.
When the door closed behind him, she stripped off the filthy garments and stepped into the shower. Like an automaton, she started to wash away the grime for the second time that night. She shampooed her hair and shampooed again, silently blessing the creator of the cream rinse that would keep her hair from turning to straw. Her right shoulder was a muddied blotch of purple and blue and black.
“It’ll feel better in the morning,” she mumbled.
“The hell it will,” she answered back, which brought on a new bout of weeping. How far she had fallen in just a few hours. She was not only talking to herself, she was answering.
She covered her mouth and sucked in her breath at the ra-ta-tat of someone knocking at the door. Was there no peace in this place? The door clicked open.
“Don’t panic,” said a high feminine voice with a distinct southern twang, “I brought you some clothes. No bra though. I mean I brought one, but you’re way bustier than me and I figured it would be like pourin’ a gallon into a quart jar so I threw it back in the truck. The sweatshirt’s thick enough so nothing will show. I didn’t know if you wanted shorts or longs, so I brought them both.”
“Thank you.” Elizabeth was surprised at how steady her voice sounded. “Would you hand me a towel?” She finished rinsing her legs and turned off the water.
“Oh, sure,” the girl said and passed the towel around the curtain. “Here’s another for your hair. I’m Max, by the way. Marshall said you needed something to wear.”
Max was a girl. Elizabeth snorted, half laugh, half sob. “It doesn’t matter now, does it? The whole village has seen everything I own and then some.”
Max giggled. “It wasn’t that bad, just a little bit of butt when Marshall picked you up. GW said it put a whole new spin on the words sweet cheeks.” She giggled again at Elizabeth’s hiss of embarrassment. “Don’t worry, I smacked him a good one for you. Good thing Marshall didn’t hear him. He’d have sent GW home with hi
s tail between his legs, let me tell you. Marshall doesn’t hold with disrespect for women.”
Elizabeth stepped from the shower with her hair and body wrapped. “Who’s GW?” She pronounced both letters properly and then decided Max’s Gee Dubya was easier to say.
“My man,” Max said proudly. “We’ll be married three years come July.”
Elizabeth stared at the girl. She was taller than Elizabeth, but not by much, with a slender build and long, strawberry blond hair that didn’t come from a bottle. Her skin was pale, her cheeks rosy and there was an adorable sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She belonged on a poster advertising good health and she couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old. Max must have recognized the look. She rolled her eyes.
“I’m twenty six years old. Old enough to make up my own mind about spending the rest of my life with GW. I can’t help it if I look like I’m twelve. Mama said I’ll appreciate it when I’m older, but that don’t help the here and now. Shoot, we went over to Chattanooga once and I couldn’t even get in a damn bar, leastways not a nice one. They all said my ID was a fake.” She poked her chin toward the door. “They all make fun of GW for robbing the cradle, but the true fact is I’m two weeks older than him.”
“I see. So you might say the true fact is GW has a taste for older women.”
Max’s head bobbed and she laughed. “Exactly. But don’t be saying true fact anymore. It just doesn’t sound right coming out of your mouth. Sounds like Gee Double You.”
Elizabeth laughed, too. “Deal.” The young woman turned to leave but Elizabeth called her back. “Thanks Max. Not only for the clothes, but for making me smile. I needed that.”
Max waved her off. “Smiles don’t cost nothin’. You get dressed and fix your hair. It’s almost dawn and they’re fixing breakfast out there.”
Chapter 5
She was spending the night alone. Again. After the community breakfast in the yard, where’d she’d been introduced to everyone and couldn’t remember anyone except Max whose full name was Maxine, Henry, and Ma Gruver, the lady in the pink smock, Elizabeth went to bed and she didn’t awaken until almost six that evening.
The Alpha's Mate Page 3
