It was his Great-Aunt Olive’s beat-up old pickup truck. The woman was so rich she owned half the damn county, but she still drove the same truck.
That was the familiar scent he’d smelled. Aunt Olive – she’d been here before.
She walked in the door, took one look at him, and burst out laughing.
“Uncuff me!” Knox barked furiously, pointing at the keys on the floor. “Now. You have a lot of explaining to do,” he added.
She snorted as she grabbed the keys and unlocked his handcuffs.
“I hear you’re running around looking for some poor little girl who got beat up,” she said. “I scented the girl here last night.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“That’s right. I didn’t.” His great-aunt met his gaze with defiance. Damn the woman. She weighed about ninety-eight pounds sopping wet, and feared nothing.
“Well, you will tell me why Heather moved here.” That came out in a growl.
She shrugged and sat down on the couch next to him.
“Well, Knox, you were the one who came home and told me that she was your fated mate.” That was true. When he’d returned home from the clan gathering in north Georgia, he’d been in a terrible mood, and then Olive had tried to fix him up with several eligible females, and he’d kept turning her down. He’d finally had to confess to her. “So,” Olive continued, “I paid for her scholarship at the college, on the condition that it was an anonymous donation. And when she moved here, I accidentally bumped into her and offered to rent her one of the properties I own.”
“Damn it to hell, Olive, she’s human! Why would you interfere in my life like that? Why would you bring her here knowing that we could never be together?”
“Oh, pish tosh.”
“Pish tosh?” he mocked her, because he was angry at her for meddling and for putting Heather at risk. Heather never would have been exposed to the shifter world and all its dangers if Olive had just let well enough alone.
“Kiss my furry ass. Is that better?” she snapped. “Don’t forget, my grandfather was human. I know of plenty of successful, happy human-shifter matings. I knew you’d run into her at the hospital. I kept waiting for you to ask her out on a date, and you didn’t. So I was planning on getting you two together at the music festival, but now I won’t have to.”
“Aunt Olive, do you understand how much danger you put her in? That’s why I never asked her out. For me to get serious with her, I’d have to tell her what I am, and then she’d immediately have to agree to be my mate – or be put down. I could never risk that. If anything happened to her, it would kill me.”
“But everything will work out, of course. You’re fated mates. And you’re welcome, by the way,” Olive said with maddening smugness.
Chapter Six
“I refer to shifts like these as the days of whine and roses,” Heather said to Kerry. It was 11 p.m., an hour after Kerry’s shift started. There were half a dozen people sitting in the waiting room who thought that their sniffles meant the doctors should stop attending the heart attack victim in the E.R. and run to help them immediately.
“Very poetic.” Kerry nodded approvingly. Was there a slight twitch at the corner of her mouth? Would that count as a smile? Probably not.
Kerry directed a severe look at the heavyset man with the blotchy, blistered hand who was pouting at her.
“Sir, my nurse’s aide told you five times, and I will tell you right now,” Kerry said. “It’s not first come, first served here. We treat people depending on the seriousness of their condition. The doctor will be with you as soon as he can.”
The man scowled and shoved his hand out at her. “It’s an emergency.”
“It’s a rash.” Kerry looked closer. “Poison ivy. You’ll probably live.”
Then, as she and Heather headed back to the E.R., she muttered under her breath, “Unfortunately.”
“Kerry, was that an attempt at humor? I think you just made a joke.”
“At work? Perish the thought.”
Kerry headed back to the nurse’s station, and Heather was about to make her rounds from room to room when she heard a familiar voice. Knox and his deputy Clarence had just walked in.
“You’re here,” Knox said to Heather, striding up to her with a worried frown wrinkling his forehead.
“Imagine that,” she said. “Finding me at the place where I work, during my regularly scheduled shift.”
Knox glanced at Clarence. “I’ll be right back,” the Beta said.
“We need to talk,” Knox said to Heather, and led her to the break room. He shut the door behind them.