Mate Marked(39)

“Really?” His face lit up.

“Honest,” she lied through her teeth.

* * * * *

The sheriff’s office phone blared, startling Chelsea. She set down her coffee cup and grabbed it as Pepper waddled over next to the desk and settled into the little dog bed that Esther, the town’s seamstress, had made for her. The caller I.D. told her that it was Chief Tomlinson. With a sigh, she picked it up.

“Hello, Chief,” she said glumly. Hello, Chief, I’m quitting my job today. Why? Kinda hard to explain…

“Chelsea, I’m glad you’re in. I ran that license plate number you gave me, and what I came up with was…interesting. I think it might explain what’s going on with the sheep. Porter, what is it?”

There was a pause, and she could hear a voice in the background.

Then Tomlinson came back to the phone. “Sorry, there’s been a robbery, gotta go. I’ll call you back,” he said.

“Hold on,” she said, but he was already gone.

She hoped he didn’t need her help, because she wasn’t going to be sheriff much longer.

And she had no idea what she was going to do for work now, but she clearly couldn’t carry on as sheriff. Not that she’d ever wanted the job in the first place. But to fail like this… Roman, who was already mated, had seduced her on purpose to get her to stop trying to arrest him. The thought was like a stab to the heart.

She’d let her new pack down and made an utter fool of herself.

“What did he want?” Erika asked.

“I don’t know—he got interrupted and said he’d call me back. Hopefully he doesn’t need my help with anything, because I don’t know how long it’s going to take for the pack to find a new sheriff.”

“Months. Don’t feel bad,” Erika said. “Nobody else was able to arrest Roman either. And for the record, I don’t think you should quit.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I feel really bad right now.”

“Sorry,” Chelsea said without thinking.

“Why are you sorry? It’s not your fault. Roman manipulated you, and Leland never even told me that Roman had a mate, and he knew Roman was flirting with you. Dickwad.”

Chelsea closed her eyes for a brief moment and concentrated hard on banishing her bad mood. She was still taking her medication, but when her emotions were too strong, they broke through. Within a few seconds, the meditation techniques were working and she’d tamped down on it.

She opened her eyes.

“The mayor’s coming now. Wow, he brought quite a crowd with him,” Erika said. There were around twenty pack members headed up the steps towards her office, arguing with each other and gesturing wildly. “I bet they’re going to beg you to stay.”

“They look pretty mad.” Chelsea was taken aback. “They’ve got to understand that I can’t keep a job I’m not suited for.”

“They've got nothing to be mad about,” Erika said indignantly. “They tricked you into taking this job in the first place.”

The front door banged open and Mayor Winkleman, Louise, Barbara, Lorena, Susan, Rosie, Esther and Mr. Castleberry, along with more than a dozen other shifters from the pack, barreled in.

“Calm down, everybody!” the mayor yelled at them in tones of distress.

Chelsea glanced at the crowd in confusion. Why so many? And why were they all so excited? “Mr. Mayor, I apologize, but I really do need to hand in my resignation, effective immediately,” Chelsea said uneasily.

“You think?” Mr. Castleberry snarled at her.

So they’d heard she was quitting? She was surprised by the venom in his voice, and by the way they were looking at her. With disgust and wariness.

An odd sensation prickled on the back of her neck.

“What exactly crawled up your ass?” Erika snapped at him.

He looked down his nose at her. “My daughter is right. You are crude and extremely unladylike.”

“So the fuck what? Being a lady’s overrated.” Erika shrugged. “I’m myself, which is good enough for me.”

“No wonder no wolf wants to mate you.” His nose wrinkled back.

“That’s it!” Louise barked abruptly, and everyone turned to stare at her in surprise. “Do not speak to my niece like that,” she said heatedly. “Since Chelsea has come to town, she’s happier than she ever was before, and she deserves to be. Forget trying to make her into someone’s perfect idea of how a girl should be. She’s a wonderful daughter to my brother, she’s a hard worker, and she’s got a good heart. Someday she will find a wolf who appreciates her for what she is.”