Reading Online Novel

Mate Marked(12)



There was a loud rapping on the door. “Come in,” she called.

Susan and Lorena walked in, each holding a coffee cake and arguing. Barbara was trailing behind them.

“She doesn’t need two coffee cakes,” Lorena was saying indignantly.

“Well, then you shouldn’t have copied me. This town needs a mayor who’s an original thinker,” Susan said.

“I copied you? Liar! Keep it up and you’ll get a smack.”

“Ladies! I love coffee cake,” Chelsea interrupted them quickly. “I’ll take all the coffee cake I can get.”

“You see,” Susan said triumphantly to her twin, setting the cake down on the table, “there you go stirring up trouble over nothing.”

“By the way, what does Mayor Winkleman think about you both running?” Chelsea asked. Lorena produced a plastic knife from her purse and began cutting slices of cake.

“Oh, he only became mayor because the last mayor left town in a hurry,” Lorena said. “He can’t wait to give up the job. Takes too much time away from his business and his family.”

The last mayor left town too? Chelsea thought uneasily. And in a hurry? What was it about Silver Peak?

Susan set out slices of cake on paper plates that she fetched from the cupboard . As they settled in and she poured the coffee she’d just brewed, Barbara pulled out her notepad.

“Now, what’s the first thing you’re going to do as sheriff?” she asked, pencil poised above the pad.

As if in answer, they heard angry shouting coming from the street outside.

“Arrest someone?” Chelsea sighed, setting down her coffee cup. Note to self, she thought; learn how handcuffs work.

She hurried outdoors, with Barbara, Susan and Lorena racing after her. To her shock, the commotion was coming from Erika, who was beating up Mayor Winkleman on the front steps of the town hall.

She ran over and grabbed Erika by the arm and hauled her off him.

“Erika! What the heck? Do you actually want to be the first person I arrest?” she demanded indignantly. “I thought we were practicing the whole ladylike thing! Beating up elected officials is not ladylike!”

“Tell her!” Erika yelled at the mayor. “Or I swear I’ll kick your ass from here to Billings!”

The mayor hung his head, glanced up at Chelsea and then stared down at the ground. “Well, there is one little thing that we may have forgotten to mention when we offered you the sheriff’s job.”

Oh, crud. Here it comes.

“What?” she demanded.

The mayor shuffled his feet.

The local merchants and their customers had run up and were gathered around, eagerly watching. Barbara was scribbling madly on her notepad.

The mayor opened his briefcase, pulled out a sheet of paper and held it up. It was a wanted poster of a shockingly handsome man with a sexy scowl.

It took her a moment to realize who the man was. It was Roman, the man she’d whacked with her purse the day before.

“He’s the Alpha of a gypsy pack which is camping out on our territory. There’s a warrant for his arrest that’s been sent to us from a shifter territory in Colorado, for grand theft auto. You’ve got to serve the warrant, bring him in and personally take him to Colorado,” the mayor said to her shoes, since he couldn’t meet her eyes.

So that hadn’t been a band poster the teenager had defaced. It had been a wanted poster. Awesome.

“Aren’t they trespassing, if they’re on your territory?” she asked, looking at the poster with dismay. “Couldn’t you have them all forcibly evicted?”

He sighed. “Technically, no. Gypsy packs can occupy land on any shifter territory for up to six months.”

“What happened to the last Silver Peak sheriff?” she demanded ominously.

A long, drawn-out pause and much foot-shuffling and fidgeting indicated that she really wasn’t going to like the answer.

“Mayor Winkleman. While I’m still young, please.”

“He tried to arrest Roman, and Roman broke his nose.”

“What happened to the Silver Peak Alpha?” she continued, although she really didn’t want to know.

“Roman knocked him unconscious, put a dunce cap on his head and left him on the town hall steps.”

“And the beta?”

“It had been raining a lot. Roman literally dragged him through the mud and ruined his clothing and sent him running back to town.”

“Why did the last mayor quit?”

“Roman came into town to go shopping and the mayor tried to tell him he couldn’t until he took care of the warrant and Roman gave him an atomic wedgie and hung him from a flagpole.”

“And, you think I can arrest him.” She stared at him stonily.