I might come across as the quiet one. The peacemaker at the ranch. The calm cowboy.
Little did they fucking know.
In the truck, I poured water over the wound, trying to wash away the silver dust or whatever the tip of the knife had been poisoned with.
The edges of the gash were already pulling away, angry and red, the opposite of how a shifter wound normally behaved.
Fuck.
It would heal, but it would take time. I’d have to hide it from my brother and the rest of the ranch hands. My parents. Even if I got gored by a fucking bull like Boyd had, the wound would heal quickly. I couldn’t explain this one away.
Sighing, I started the truck and took off. My job was done. Five hours and I’d be back in Cooper Valley. I could report to Rob and glue the edges of the cut back together with superglue. Colton had said that was something humans did when in a situation where they couldn’t stitch a wound although I was sure no shifter had ever tried it. Or had need.
We had a doctor—Audrey—living right on the ranch, but I couldn’t even ask her for help. She might be able to stitch me up since the wound was behaving more like I was human than shifter, but she’d know something was up. Boyd’s wound from the bull goring had healed before her eyes. She’d seen a teenaged shifter get shot by that fucker Markle. She’d even helped a child at her own wedding reception to know shifters healed differently. She’d question this. Not even her mate knew my role with the council. Hell, I doubted she even knew there was something called an enforcer.
Thinking of the human doctor brought back thoughts of her friend, Becky, the lovely nurse I’d hooked up with at the bachelorette party.
As I drove north on the two-lane road, I imagined Becky’s nimble fingers sewing up my wound. Forget about the damn wound, I’d like to see those nimble fingers wrapped around my dick again, tugging hard, asking for a hard fuck. But that wasn’t going to happen, and there were several good reasons why.
I sighed, wiping my face, then wincing as lifting my arm tugged on the oozing wound.
A male like me couldn’t mate. Not with the role of council enforcer. My job was my life, even if it was a secret. If anyone ever found out, I’d have assholes out for revenge climbing out of the woodwork. I’d heard enough about enforcers and how they were hated for serving justice so ruthlessly. And anonymously. My role was needed—and hated—among all species of shifters. Because of that, any mate of mine would never be safe.
Becky wasn’t mine. She never had been. My wolf didn’t recognize her as my mate. She was just a gorgeous human who’d gotten under my skin just as much as this poison in my side. It was taking a long time to heal from a quick encounter in a storage room.
3
BECKY
I pushed the cart through the produce section and stopped in front of the avocados. I gave one a gentle squeeze, then another, finding some that weren’t too firm or soft. I added a bunch to my cart. I never used to like avocados, even avoiding guacamole at Mexican restaurants as if it were some kind of green slime.
Now? I couldn’t get enough of the things, which wasn’t helping my bank account. November in Montana wasn’t the best time to get them, but my body wanted the dang things, and they stayed down. At least it was healthy, unlike my ridiculous craving for cocktail wieners.
I’d only thrown up once today, which was a miracle in itself. I worked on the labor and delivery floor at the hospital. I knew all about pregnancy. Well, I thought I had, until I was pregnant myself. My OB assured me that while having morning sickness into my second trimester was perfectly normal, it wasn’t fun.
No shit, Sherlock.
It wasn’t too severe that I worried about nourishment or being dehydrated. My little peanut gave me a reprieve for most of the day to get food down. And keep it down. The rest of the time? People needed to watch out.
It just seemed like a long time since the nausea began. Since I found out. Even longer since that night. That night.
The night that Clint the Hot Cowboy and his super sperm got past a condom and knocked me up. Not only had the wild ride he’d given me in the storage room been a surprise—I’d never had a quickie before in my life—so were the two blue stripes on the pregnancy test I took a few weeks later.
I’d worked at a clinic telling people the importance of using condoms, that they weren’t a foolproof method of birth control.
Again, no shit, Sherlock.