Chapter 8: Unless One of Us Is Bleeding

"Don't panic," Lorna said, closing the stockroom door behind her. "I'm not going to tell anyone."

"Lorna," Rhett said.

"I mean it. I came in for birdseed, and I'm leaving with birdseed."

I had never been so grateful for a person in my life.

I was also bright red, and she knew it, and she was being kind about it.

"But I should say," she went on, "my father's driver is parked across the street."

"Why?" Rhett asked.

"He's been following me since breakfast."

Rhett went very still.

"Because my father likes to know where everyone is."

She smiled, and it was her thin smile.

"Be a little more careful. Both of you."

The bell rang again in the shop.

A man's voice called, lazy and loud.

"Alpha! Heard you were here. Heard you wanted fence wire."

Rhett turned his head, and I saw his jaw go hard.

It was the taller of the two men from the border hill.

He leaned in the stockroom doorway with a little smile and his hands in his pockets.

"Small town," he said. "Everybody knows everything."

"You're a long way from your side," Rhett said.

"Mr. Pierce likes us to shop local."

"Then shop, and go."

The man's eyes slid to me.

They ran down, and back up, slowly.

"This the one?" he said. "The girl who can't shift? Funny. She doesn't look broken."

Rhett moved.

I had never seen a man cross a room so fast.

But he did not hit him.

His fist closed and his arm drew back.

I watched him stop it an inch from the man's face.

The man's smile widened.

He had been waiting for exactly that.

"Go on," he said softly.

"The treaty says no Cedar Ridge hand touches a Blackwater man before the wedding."

"I'd love to see you try."

"Rhett," I said. "Don't."

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