Somehow, that thought offered me no comfort at all.
I went into the kitchen to find that he’d left a pot of fresh coffee for me. I was kind of hoping for a note saying that he was incredibly sorry, and he’d been an ass, but there was nothing.
Fine, I thought, as I sipped my coffee. So here I was sleeping in a house with a man who already couldn’t stand me, no cell phone, no car, and if I left the compound and went home, I would be risking my best friend’s life.
Sad, angry, and disappointed, I decided to walk down the road into the main family compound. I wore the tie dye dress again, since the only clothing I had with me was the few outfits that had been dropped off for me by Lance.
The main compound area was a collection of houses and buildings, all in rustic style, with a lot of log and flagstone construction. There was one huge house up on the hill, where Max’s mother, father, and siblings lived. They would most likely live there until they started families of their own.
The other houses belonged to cousins, aunts, and uncles, or to other families who were members of the pack.
Some of the buildings were set aside for things like canning and preserving, or preparing meat. There were chicken coops, and neatly laid out vegetable gardens and herb gardens to the side of many of the houses. It was a beautiful, bucolic scene, and everybody but me looked happy.
A group of people were gathered around a picnic table on the lawn in front of a sprawling log home. Nearby, an older shifter was cooking on an elaborate outdoor stove. The shifters at the table spotted me and happily waved me over. When I got there, they poured me coffee and served me up fluffy scrambled eggs and delicious bacon.
I put on a happy face and pretended everything was fine. Everybody was gossiping and chattering and including me in the conversation. They were all getting ready to clean up the reception hall after the wedding festivities, and then head off to their various jobs, either on the compound or in town.
Cody, the shaman, was there. He waved at me from across the table. “Did everything go okay with that human family?” I asked him.
“Sure did. We called the sheriff, had him follow them out of town just to make sure they found their way back okay,” he said. “That was a close one. Can’t really blame the coyote shifter, I guess, we don’t normally get any humans just wandering in like that. Turns out, he had a cold, that’s why he couldn’t scent them right away.”
After breakfast, I helped carry the dishes into the big flagstone house, and then I insisted on helping to wash them, which apparently was a big deal since I was married to an Alpha. Everyone apparently expected that I’d just sit there and be catered to.
“I like that one,” I heard a woman whisper, which made me smile, but then I reminded myself that I wouldn’t be here much longer.
Lance’s little sister Virginia came over to help me dry the dishes. She had her pouty face on.
“What’s up?” I asked her.
“Sometimes the men in my family can be total caveman asshole bossy dickheads,” she grumbled.
“No kidding! You noticed?” I said. “What’s the problem?”
“I want to go shopping, and I don’t want them coming with me and following me around. They don’t want me to go into town without a damn escort. They treat me like I’m twelve.”
That sounded ridiculous to me. She was eighteen, for heaven’s sake! Why would she need an escort?
“Hmm. What if you pretended you were going for a walk with me, and once we got out of sight, we shifted and ran into town together?” I suggested in a low voice. “Then technically you’d have an escort.”
Her face lit up. “Really? You’d do that?”
“Heck yeah. Max ran off somewhere, I’m bored, let’s do this. We’re goin’ over the wall, kid.”
She giggled, looking around furtively. “You’re my favorite sister in law ever. Well, so far you’re my only sister in law. I hope all the other ones will be as cool as you, but I doubt I’ll be that lucky.”
I wondered if this was the kind of thing that would anger my lovely husband, but the way I was feeling right then, I didn’t particularly care.
Half an hour later, we were trotting up to the outskirts of town, our clothing hanging from our purses around our necks. If we were male shifters, our clothes would have been clutched in our mouths.
With Green Street in view, we shifted into human form and quickly got dressed.
We went to the mercantile and Virginia insisted that I pick up a few outfits. I resisted, but then I rethought it. I was going to be there the next few weeks, and I didn’t want to have to wear the same outfit every day. I picked out half a dozen outfits and a couple of pairs of shoes, and then we headed to a coffee shop.