The Forbidden Mate: Claimed by My Ex's Alpha Uncle novel · Chapter 7 of 32

Chapter 7: Lucille's Table

Lucille's house was a yellow farmhouse at the edge of town with a sagging porch and six kinds of tomato plants dying in the yard.

I'd moved into her spare room Friday with two duffel bags.

The apartment I'd lived in for seven years was over Jarrett's garage.

He'd changed the locks before I got there.

On Sunday afternoon, a ranch hand limped up Lucille's front steps with his jeans stuck to his shin.

He was maybe twenty-five, with a sunburned neck and a cap he held in both hands.

"Doc," he said. "Sorry to bother you at home."

"You're bleeding on the welcome mat," Lucille said. "Get in here."

We put him on the kitchen table on top of a clean sheet.

Lucille moved the pie out of the way first.

I cut his jeans open from the knee down.

Under the denim was a barbed-wire gash four inches long, three days old, angry red and starting to smell.

"This is from Wednesday night," I said.

He went still.

"How'd you know?"

"A wolf heals a scratch overnight. This is fence wire, and it's been infected for days. You didn't come in because you were scared to."

He looked at the ceiling.

Lucille handed me the irrigation syringe and a bowl.

"Where was the fence?" I asked.

He didn't answer.

I flushed the wound.

He hissed and grabbed the edge of the table.

"North side of Cold Ridge," he said through his teeth. "By the old fire road."

Lucille stopped moving.

I kept flushing.

"That's pack land," I said.

"I know it's pack land." His face had gone blotchy. "There's elk up there. My boss pays me in a bunk and beans. I was hungry, okay? I wasn't hurting anybody."

"Nobody's turning you in," Lucille said. "Keep going."

He breathed out.

"I was in the trees waiting on a cow elk. There's a truck parked at the edge of the fire road with its lights off. Big white Ford with a chrome grille guard."

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