Curse of the Alpha: Episodes 1 & 2: A Tarker’s Hollow Serial (11 page)

A
insley and Carol
stopped on the way home for groceries. The Co-op was in full swing and Ainsley was grateful for the older woman’s comforting presence.

As they walked the aisles, Ainsley received many glances and stares. Most were very friendly.

“Ainsley Connor, it’s a pleasure to see you,” declared Anna Rodin with a little wink.

“Carol,” Trudy Weiss nodded approvingly. “Ainsley.”

There were the less grandmotherly stares of the young men, too. Several of them gaped at Ainsley in open admiration.

Ainsley smoothed her skirt and tucked her hair behind her ear. Carol gave her a sympathetic smile.

“They can’t help it, Ainsley,” she said. “It’s instinct. You’re going to draw the alpha. This whole town is buzzing with male energy.”

Ainsley did a double-take.

“Are… are you saying…that you…?” Ainsley couldn’t finish.

“Of
course
I’m a wolf.” Carol whispered. “Good heavens! Did you not even know
that
?”

“Hi, Carol. Hi, Ainsley,” Stan Snyder said with a leer. He tried hard to catch Ainsley’s eye.

“Good-BYE, Stan,” Carol said firmly.

“I had no idea, Carol,” Ainsley said. Her heart lifted as she realized she might have found a confidante who could give her answers. One who wasn’t trying to get into her pants, that is.

“Well, I’m starting to realize that there’s a lot you don’t know. At any rate, your mere presence in town is stirring up the wolves. You’re going to have to choose as quickly as you can. Do you want my input?”

“Uh…”

“I personally can’t say enough good things about Erik Jensen. I know he’s not as good-looking as Clive Warren but he’s smart and everyone respects him.”

Wow. Ainsley didn’t know what to say.

“I know you still may have, er, wild oats to sow, dear,” Carol said uncomfortably. “But I might suggest avoiding the human men. I don’t think many people in town know that you spent time with Julian Magie yesterday, and I know you only did because you miss your dad. But it would probably make the men crazy if they found out. We’re a quiet town but we can only take so much. I hope you don’t think it’s sexist. It’s only because we need an alpha so very much.”

She looked searchingly at Ainsley.

“Carol, I’m only beginning to realize what a big deal it is for me to be here. But I need you to understand that I’m just here to pack up the house and get it sold so I can go back to New York. Whatever wolf issues there are, they will need to be worked out by the wolves. I’m not part of it.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Ainsley. I don’t know what we ever did to disappoint you. I know we’re not ‘normal’ here, but you are one of us and we love you. And our community is in danger. If you think we can work it out without you, you’re wrong.”

“Carol, what would have happened if I’d died in that accident too? You can’t tell me that the town would be wrecked. There has to be someone else.”

“Hello, Myrtle,” Carol called.

Myrtle Turner smiled shyly at Ainsley.

“This probably isn’t the best time to talk about it, Ainsley. But the short answer is that you didn’t die, thank goodness, and no – there is no one else to take your place. Now, grab a cart, honey, there’s no rush and I’m sure you’ll need your energy to clean out that big house.”

Ainsley tried to concentrate on shopping. Everything at the Co-op these days seemed to be grass-fed, organic and gluten free. And the new building was cheerful and so well-lit. She remembered the days when the Co-op was housed in a dark fishy-smelling storefront next door. Some changes in this town were for the better. She remembered that Erik had said the pack owned the majority of shares in the Co-op and she felt an odd little twinge of pride.

Erik. All roads led to him. Ainsley was going to be face to face with him in just an hour. Though she knew it did no good to befriend him if she wasn’t going to stick around and be his mate, she couldn’t help feeling a rush of excitement at the thought of seeing him again.

As her heartbeat quickened, several young men turned to her. Could they have noticed?

She could suddenly smell arousal, thick in the air. There was a thunder of hearts beating in response to hers. The air was practically reverberating with it.

Fuck.

A young man with a Co-op sweatshirt rounded the corner of the dairy cabinet and stopped just short of knocking her over. He stared into her eyes with unveiled longing.

Ainsley caught her breath and tried to slow her heart. The young man gained control of himself, barely.

“Can I help you find anything, miss?” His pulse throbbed in his neck and a bead of perspiration appeared between his forehead and the dark brown curls of his hair.

She shook her head mutely.

Carol took her arm and firmly marched her to the line.

“Was that because of me?”

“Yes. And that is going to get worse as the moon waxes. What were you thinking about?”

“Nothing…just…Erik.” Ainsley blushed.

“Good girl.” Carol smiled, but her lips were pressed together in concern.

B
y the time
they got back to the house, it was nearly 5:00. Ainsley thanked Carol and explained that Erik was coming to help move some furniture.

“That’s wonderful, dear. It’s just like him to want to help and maybe it’s a good way for you to get to know him.”

“Carol, you’ve been so kind.”

“It’s my pleasure, Ainsley. Please let me know when I can stop in to check on you”

After the niceties had been said, Ainsley had only a few minutes to run a brush through her hair and smooth on a touch of lip-gloss. When the cuckoo clock announced the hour, she was back in the kitchen putting away groceries.

The doorbell rang and she did her best not to run to the door. She opened it to find two young men. They were clean shaven, but big, and both had their fair share of tattoos. They looked like extras in a prison movie. One of them removed his battered T-Wolves cap respectfully and stepped forward.

“My name’s Jake and this is Joe,” he said. “Mr. Jensen sent us over. He said you had some furniture you needed moved?”

“Oh, thank you so much for coming. Let me show you.”

Ainsley tried to control her disappointment. Had Erik really not come himself?

Actually it made perfect sense. She had kicked him to the curb so angrily last night. And besides, he had Cressida to spend his evenings with.

She showed the men to the third floor and indicated the items to be moved. They sent her back down to open doors for them.

The men were strong and fast. A few trips later and the third floor was nearly empty.

The final item to come down from the attic was an ancient walnut hope chest with a sulfur inlay design of howling wolves. Ainsley eyed it with appreciation. This was one piece of furniture she didn’t remember from her childhood, even though it looked like it had been sitting upstairs forever.

“Please leave that in the study.”

“Sure, Miss Connor.”

Ainsley ran her hand over the clasp that locked the lid down. There was probably a key somewhere in the house, but so far she hadn’t uncovered it.

“Would you gentlemen happen to know how to jimmy one of these open if you don’t have the key?”

“I don’t know if you can, ma’am,” Joe said. “That’s an Amish chest. It’s well-built.”

“Just smash the lock. I have a wrench in my truck. Hang on!” Jake said.

As soon as he was gone, Joe confided in her.

“Miss Connor, I don’t think you should smash that lock. A chest with a sulfur inlay is rare and probably worth something. Most of them were made before the Civil War. I’d take it to an antique dealer when you find the key.”

“Thank you, Joe. I’m sure you’re right.”

“My aunt had one like that. She gave it to GoodWill and then we saw something like it on
Antiques Roadshow
. She still talks about it.”

Jake returned and shrugged when she told him she’d changed her mind.

“How much do I owe you?” she asked.

“We’re taken care of, Miss Connor,” Jake replied.

“Mr. Jensen gave us an hour of overtime,” Joe added.

“Well, thank you very much for your help.” Ainsley tried hard not to think about generous ‘Mr. Jensen’ too much – who knew if these young men were wolves? The last thing she wanted was any extra attention from them.

She sent them each out with a cold bottle of Coke. As they hopped into the pick-up truck out front, a little green MG pulled into the driveway.

Who could that be?

Julian hopped out and smiled at her. He looked like a Banana Republic model. His snowy white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the top to reveal a few inches of his smooth, tan chest. He removed his sunglasses and she could see the sexy little creases under his eyes.

She couldn’t help smiling back.

He gestured for her to wait a moment and he grabbed a re-usable canvas bag from the passenger seat. He strode up to her at a leisurely pace.

“Miss Connor, I understand that you had a lot to accomplish today. But there is no reason to be anti-social.”

His mouth quirked up in that knowing half smile, and she knew that she would let him in. But she stalled for time anyway, fixing him with a cool gaze.

“I’m new to town, Ainsley,” Julian said in a low teasing voice that was full of promise. “You won’t abandon me to that lonely cottage, will you?”

“Depends on what’s in the bag,” she teased with a straight face.

“So pert, Miss Connor. Lucky for you, I’ve got just the thing to melt your defenses – a homemade hummus and pita tray, fresh from Caspian. And a bottle of shiraz.”

Nice.

That was a soft spot. Tarker’s Hollow Mediterranean restaurant, Caspian, had fantastic, fresh food. And she hadn’t had a glass of wine in a long time.

He smiled that enigmatic smile again and she broke and smiled back. He reached out and slowly tucked her hair behind her ear. Then he took her arm and guided her into the house.

T
he kitchen was suffused
with the warm light of the setting sun. It bounced off the coppery highlights in Julian’s hair, reminding Ainsley briefly of an alpha being drawn.

He had uncorked the wine as soon as he arrived. They sipped and chatted as Ainsley set the oak table.

“So, how did you spend your day?” Julian asked.

Ainsley pursed her lips as she peeled the plastic wrap off the hummus platter. Did she really have to go into the break-ins? How could she tell him what was going on in her life without talking about giant wolves?

And Erik?

And bad, bad dreams?

“Is something wrong?”

“When I got home last night, someone had been in the house.”

“What?”

“I had all my father’s books organized in his study. When I got home they were spread all over the floor. At first I thought the study was just trashed. But then I realized the books were spread out in such a way that they must have been looking for something.”

“What did they take?”

“I’m not sure. So far everything I’ve thought of is still here. All the first editions and valuables are here.”

“Well that’s very lucky,” Julian said solemnly. “But I’m concerned about what someone might have wanted with your father’s things. Do you have any idea of what they might have been looking for besides books?”

Ainsley shook her head and got out serving utensils. She hadn’t thought of anyone wanting anything of her father’s other than books.

“Maybe it was a random break-in. Maybe they were looking for cash and they didn’t know the books were valuable,” Julian suggested.

“I thought the same until this afternoon.”

“What happened this afternoon?”

Ainsley smoothed her skirt down. Instantly, she remembered Julian running his hands down her thighs last night. She blushed and caught him following her movements out of the corner of her eye. She deliberately ignored him and turned to grab glasses for ice water.

“I went to visit my dad’s office at the college. It’s been ransacked too.”

“Oh dear.”

“I didn’t know as much about what he had there, but I could see that there were a ton of valuable books left behind.”

“What would they have been looking for, Ainsley? Was your father working on something new for publication?”

It was an idea.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But wouldn’t they have stolen his laptop if that’s what they wanted? They didn’t touch the computers.”

Julian shook his head.

“What do the police say?”

“They have no idea. They’re going to catalogue what they find on campus and get back to me.”

“And at home?”

Ainsley looked down.

“I, um, cleaned up the study before I thought to call them this morning.”

“Are you telling me that you left me in the middle of the night, came home to discover that an intruder had been in the house, cleaned up the evidence, and went to sleep alone without calling the police?”

When he put it that way it sounded seriously reckless. She couldn’t exactly tell him she could turn into a gigantic wolf at any sign of danger.

Instead she shrugged.

“It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time. Besides, what are the police going to do?”

“Well, I can’t believe they’re going to let you stay in the house after what’s happened.”

“No one has threatened me. It seems like they just want something of my dad’s.”

“Why didn’t they look for it before you came home. Wasn’t the house empty for a couple of months?”

Ainsley froze. She hadn’t thought of that.

“Why don’t you stay with me for a few days? Thayer House isn’t exactly crowded.”

“I’ve really got to get finished with this house. I can’t spend the rest of my life here. I have to get back to New York.”

“Those penthouses won’t sell themselves, eh?”

When he put it that way it sounded superficial. But those penthouses were her career.

“What about you?”

“What about me what?”

“How long are you going to be in Tarker’s Hollow?”

“I’ll be here for the fall semester.”

“Then what?”

“Wow, we really didn’t devote much time to conversation last night, did we?”

Ainsley smiled wickedly and shook her head.

“You were all business, Miss Connor.”

Ainsley smirked.

“Did you just
smirk
?”

She shrugged and laid cloth napkins on the table.

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her closer. She thought about resisting, but the wine was making her lazy. And besides, she was curious to see what would happen next.

“Why are you so obedient in the bedroom and so saucy outside of it?” he whispered in her ear, tickling her neck with his warm breath.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she said lightly, pulling her wrist out of his grip and sliding into her seat at the table.

“Impudent. American. Girl,” he declared with a smile.

“Hungry too,” she replied, piling her plate with cucumbers, olives and a stack of warm pita wedges. “And what do you mean ‘American’?”

“I’m from England.”

“Where’s your sexy accent?”

“Seemed pretentious to hold onto it when I’ve lived here so long. I’ll tell you what,” Julian said, as he topped off her wine glass. “You can eat, and I will fill you in on the minor details, so that our fuck tonight doesn’t have to be so goddamned anonymous.”

Ainsley tried to be annoyed at his presumptuousness but couldn’t. Instead she smiled at him, popped an olive in her mouth, and gave him a queenly gesture to proceed.

“I grew up in rural England,” he began. “My mother was a seamstress. My father owned a small farm that had belonged to his father. We had a happy life until a lady moved next door. She was a widow.”

Ainsley looked up.

Oh shit. It was going to be a my-parents-got-a-divorce-and-I’ll-be-forever-traumatized story. What a shame that everyone Generation X and younger had one. She prepared herself for a whiney evening.

“Her name was Eugenie. She was lovely. Long black hair, soft white skin – just like yours, Ainsley - and a smile that would make your stomach do flips.”

He paused to dunk a baby carrot stick in hummus and offer to feed it to her. She accepted and let her lips graze his fingers as she sucked the carrot out of his hand.

“I was only twelve, but I would have done anything to earn one of her smiles. And I had plenty of opportunities. My mother felt dreadfully sorry for her and would send me over to do every kind of menial task.”

Okay. Right. Ainsley adjusted her expectations. It was going to be one of those braggy I-had-sex-when-I-was-twelve-because-ladies-can’t-resist-me stories.

“One day when I was there to trim her hedge, I heard a small sound inside her cottage. At first I thought it might be a kitten but as I listened it sounded more like crying. I went inside to see what was wrong.

“When I got inside, I saw Eugenie curled up on the sofa crying. I didn’t know what to do. I was twelve and very stupid socially. But the sight of her broke my heart and so I naturally did just what I would have done if she had been my own mother. I ran to kneel by her side and put my arm around her as best I could and patted her back.

“She looked up at me in surprise, and the smile that came through her tears was the most beautiful I had ever seen.

“ ‘Do you miss your husband very much, Eugenie?’ I asked her.

“ ‘Oh, my friend,’ she said kindly. ‘I do, but I’m not crying for him.’

“ ‘Then why are you crying?’ I asked.

“She lifted her hand, and in it was a little book.
The Cherry Orchard.
”

“Oh,” Ainsley breathed.

“And that is the story of how I met the love of my life. Russian lit.”

They smiled at each other. Then he selected a cucumber, dipped it in hummus and offered it to her.

Ainsley slowly licked a drip of hummus off the underside of the cucumber. Then she snatched the whole thing from him with her front teeth.

Julian’s eyes flashed.

“Behave! I’m not finished.”

Ainsley gave him an innocent look.

“My father wasn’t wild about me reading so much – he wanted me to be more interested in small dairy farms, like he had been when he was a boy. And my mother realized how attractive the widow was and stopped sending me to Eugenie for errands. But it was too late.”

He paused and pulled a triangle of pita across the bowl of hummus. It left a wake behind it like a little sailboat. He ate it, sipped his wine, and continued.

“I was hooked, and I couldn’t stop. We read them all together: Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov. They broke our hearts, they made us laugh, they seemed somehow familiar to us in our lonely, country life.

“I ignored my parents and my chores and spent all the time I could with Eugenie. I would sit on the floor by her sofa and read to her. Sometimes she would read to me and carelessly run her fingers through my hair while she did.”

Ainsley leaned forward a bit. Maybe this was the part where the story would turn in one direction or the other.

“I ended up at university for Russian Lit and never looked back. Ultimately it led me here.”

“What about your parents. Have they forgiven you?”

“They died a long time ago. But yes, they wanted me to be happy.”

“And Eugenie, what happened to her? Did you ever…” Ainsley couldn’t finish.

“Stop with your endless questions, woman. I’m hungry!”

Ainsley realized he must have decided not to tell her the whole story. It actually made her curious even though she was pretty sure she knew where he was going with it. She decided the best way to get at it was to back off and get to it from another angle, another time.

Instead, she swept a baby carrot through the hummus and fed it to him. He took it and licked at her fingers. The unexpected tickling contact made her giggle.

“I love that sound,” Julian said simply, looking into her eyes.

Ainsley felt almost uncomfortable under the sincerity of his gaze. She liked him a lot, she really did. He was everything she’d dreamed of.

What was holding her back?

Maybe it was just the strain of so much happening at once.

She dismissed her doubts and returned his intense gaze with a shy smile.

He rewarded her with a smile so warm she felt it in her belly. The smile lines at the corners of his eyes were so sexy. He must be in his mid-thirties, at least. How old was he?

And how much wine had she had?

As she wondered, he poured the rest of the bottle into her glass.

Oh well, it had been a long day. It was nice to relax. And it wasn’t like she could get really drunk anyway. Another benefit of being a wolf.

She swirled the wine in her glass and took another sip.