7. Emma
CHAPTER SEVEN
emma
Six-Mile
The Next Day
“Wait. You’re sneaking out of here? With that guy?”
Well, damn.
Olivia had caught me before I’d slid into the passenger seat of Joey’s work truck and slammed the door closed.
I froze and took a deep breath before I turned around to face Logan’s beta. At least it wasn’t Logan. I didn’t have the bandwidth to start my day with an argument.
“Morning,” I said, glad the area around the manor was mostly devoid of spectators who might run and tattle to Logan.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked, her voice practically a growl.
I tossed Olivia an all-too-brightly innocent smile. “Bumming a ride. What else?”
After a long night of lovemaking, Logan had disappeared from the house before dawn on a mission to decide where to put up new housing, and I’d gone out to tack an invite-to-a-late-tea note to my mother’s cabin door.
Then I’d found the work truck parked in the driveway in front of the manor.
It had been easy enough to secure a ride with the shifter heading into Willow Creek.
Since I planned to return with my motorcycle, carpooling made the most sense.
The boards of the porch creaked as Olivia marched across them.
When she reached the top step, she put her hands on her hips and scowled down at me.
“Logan’s going to shit himself. Then he’s going to go alpha apeshit on everyone else.
” She gestured to the driver. “He’ll be lucky if Logan doesn’t rip him limb from limb. ”
Joey’s eyes went wide, the whites suddenly showing. He ducked his head toward Olivia. “I meant no disrespect, Beta.”
“I know you didn’t.” She shot a glare at me.
“And I’m the multimorph, and he was following orders, so we’re both in the clear,” I said, offering the Six-Mile employee an encouraging look.
Joey’s throat worked, and he nervously fidgeted a zip tie back and forth in his hand.
Olivia shook her head. “You know it’s not that simple. Logan won’t want you to go alone. He’ll want to take you or demand that Jasper does, or I do, or we take a whole army into Willow Creek to keep you safe.”
“I don’t want to do that.” I made a sour face. “I want to visit the people I care about, come home, and be normal for a second.”
She pressed her lips into a tight line, and her gaze narrowed as she considered me.
“Here’s a thought for you.”
“Yeah?” she bit out.
I arched an eyebrow, challenging her to argue with my logic. “Does Logan get off on riding bitch?”
She grimaced, the bright flash of her teeth contorting grotesquely in the morning sun. “How the fuck would I know what you two do in that bedroom of yours?”
A belly laugh worked its way up from my middle and spilled out, the sound sharp in the air. “No, no.”
“Then what?”
“My mate might like riding bitches or at least riding this bitch.” I gestured to myself provocatively. “But I’d be willing to bet he won’t ride bitch on a motorcycle, even if it is my motorcycle.”
She chuckled at that, and a smile twisted her face. “Yeah, but he could bring his own car and drive it back, you know.”
“I’m coming back to Six-Mile with my motorcycle, and if I’m honest, Logan is too big to ride bitch, so it makes the most sense to go alone.
Joey can drop me off at my house. I’ll grab a few things, including my wheels, and then I’ll zip around Willow Creek on my bike and get home at a reasonable hour. ”
“You’re really reaching on your reasoning there.
” She scrunched her nose, shaking her head as though she knew I’d never learn.
She dropped her hands from her hips. “Fine. Say the words and make it an order. Logan will still be mad, but he can’t argue with those four little words you use every time you want to win an argument. ”
I tipped my head to the side. “I… am… the… multimorph?”
“Those are the ones.” She winked. “Enjoy your day of masquerading as normal, Emma. God knows it won’t last long. Don’t make me regret letting you roll out of here without an escort. May the fallout be on your head.”
“I’ve got my cell.” I grinned at her and slid back into the passenger seat of the work truck. Then I punched the ceiling twice. “Come on, Joey. Let’s go.”
Joey turned twitchy the minute we got to the end of the driveway, repeatedly checking the rearview mirrors and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “Uhm, M-m-multimorph?”
“Yeah?”
“How m-mad do you think the alpha will be?”
“He’ll be furious, but Olivia will tell him I made you do it.”
“Will he believe her?”
“Of course he will.”
“Good. Good,” he said. Tap. Tap. Tap.
I wasn’t at all sure Olivia’s assurances would keep Joey completely in the clear, not when it came to me, but I wasn’t about to turn around and head back to Six-Mile.
After retrieving the bag at my feet, I dragged it onto my lap and dug out my cell phone. The wallet cover had one credit card and a bit of cash tucked into it. At least enough for a couple of lattes from the kitschy, sexy coffee place.
I tapped the cell phone screen. No alerts. Yet. It’d probably start dinging nonstop once Logan figured out I’d gone off on a rogue adventure, a side quest, in the calm before the shitstorm that was Acheron.
I glanced at my nervous driver and caught the glitter of sweat on his clean-shaven upper lip. “You like coffee?”
“Of course.”
No way to tell if he was simply being agreeable or if he actually liked the stuff.
“Have you ever been to Peaches & Melons?”
Even with a profile view, I caught the way his mouth slanted upward and his eyes squinted. He had a real smile this time. “Heard about it. Never been.”
“You’re in for a treat. My treat. It’s one of Jasper’s favorite drive-thru coffee places.”
The work truck jumped forward as Joey mashed a little harder on the accelerator, barreling us toward Willow Creek and what would probably be my last chance to “masquerade as normal” for months to come.
Joey dropped me off at the mailbox in front of my modest one-bedroom Willow Creek home with profuse thanks for the trip to Peaches & Melons. Then his tires squealed as he got out of my vicinity as quickly as he could, taking my empty iced latte cup with him.
Hell, I didn’t blame him. Crazy shit tended to happen around the multimorph, and crazier shit was bound to happen since he’d been hanging out with the fated mate of his alpha.
The lawn wasn’t overgrown, and the front flower bed looked freshly weeded. Way back when, Shannon, the office manager of my vet practice, kept the lawn service company paid for both of my properties. At least that hadn’t changed.
The short trek up the front walk brought a familiar rush of nostalgia.
I’d been so proud of the place when I’d bought it one year after I’d opened my vet practice.
Mom and Dad had been my first guests to dinner.
He’d gotten sick for the first time the following month.
We hadn’t known then it was the beginning of a long, drawn-out end.
Digging my keys out of the small bag I’d brought from Six-Mile didn’t take long, and I unlocked the door, turned the knob, and shoved the front door. It swung open slowly, and the hinges gave a long, horror-movie-ish squeak.
“Just to freaking add to the creep factor of being alone,” I muttered, rattling my keys as I tossed them back into my bag.
Since I hadn’t been home for weeks, I braced for anything. No inexplicable sounds greeted me, and I stepped over the threshold, then closed the door behind me before walking once around the place, taking in my surroundings.
Stale, chilly air. Dust everywhere. A pile of boxes rested inside the front door. Probably also thanks to Shannon. A dirty coffee cup in the kitchen sink.
Damn. I thought I’d taken care of that before I’d left last time.
How long had it been since I’d made my own coffee in my own home?
Come to think of it, besides that morning, I hadn’t really made much coffee in Six-Mile either.
People sometimes made coffee and brought it to me.
Food, drinks, anything I wanted. Housekeeping wasn’t even expected of me.
Yeah, saving the whole shifter world had been deposited on my plate, but outside of the daily threat of death by Acheron, I kinda had it made.
My life was waiting for me back with Logan. I switched the central air thermostat from air conditioning to heater and dropped the set temperature low enough to keep the pipes inside the house from freezing without keeping the place warm and wasting energy.
I glanced around and shivered with the weight of the sudden, overwhelming feeling that this used to be my home. Didn’t know how I felt about keeping this place now. I could put it on the market after New Year’s, sell it, pocket the money, and move everything I owned to the manor.
I could—should?—do the same with my practice.
Shit. That cracked my heart more than the house did.
I grabbed my phone. It still hadn’t buzzed or beeped with Logan’s freak-out. Nor had Olivia texted, so I pulled up Shannon’s number and typed out a message.
Me: I’m in town today. Wanna get together for lunch? My treat.
Shannon: My kids are in school today, and my boss put me on paid administrative leave so… yeah!
Me: Sounds like a heck of a boss. Lol.
Shannon: Where we going?
Me: Vixen’s.
Shannon: 11 too early?
Me: Nope. Sounds great. I’ll invite Riley too.
Me: Hey, Riley. Shannon and I are meeting for lunch at Vixen’s at 11:00. Wanna come?
Riley: Sure! Would be great to see you two.
Me: See you then.
I checked the time. Ten o’clock. One hour to kill.
A glance around the room reminded me of all the housekeeping chores that I hadn’t been doing.
At least I’d cleaned the place before I’d gone on my camping trip.
However, my search for “normal” only went so far.
Housework was my least favorite thing, and I had planned to contract it out once I hit an income threshold goal.
“So I’m not going to bother,” I said.
I jogged out to the garage. Dust covered everything in there, too, even my cherry-red imported Ducati sports bike. How sad.