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“What a bitch,” Clara declared.
Jamie looked at Clara in shock. Clara seldom, if ever, cursed.
Clara caught the look and said, “What? She is.”
“You aren’t wrong,” Jamie said, laughing.
“Something needs to be done about that woman. Somehow, she needs to be knocked off her high horse and end up with her face in the mud.”
“There is no one to do it,” Jamie said. “Most of the people in Ivy Springs are either in awe of her or terrified of her. She is like the queen who could ruin someone’s life with a snap of her fingers.”
“Well, I’m not afraid of her,” Clara declared. “She is a bully who continues to act like a bully because no one has ever stood up to her.”
“There is also the fact that she and her family hire hunters who don’t seem to care whether they kill a human here and there on their hunt for shifters.”
“I’m surprised that the entire town doesn’t just pack up and leave, if everyone is that afraid of her.”
“She ignores most of the people in Ivy Springs. She has no idea they exist so she doesn’t bother them. For them, life is normal. The only reason she is on my case is because she thinks that I’m trying to lay claim to something that she wants,” Jamie said. “Besides, people have made their lives here for generations. It’s hard just to give all of that up and go somewhere else. That is why a lot of the shifters haven’t just gone to the shifter world.”
“I guess I understand that,” Clara said. “I still would like to take her down a peg or two.”
Jamie looked at Clara and smiled. “I do think that you are a little more irritated by her visit than I am.”
“I don’t appreciate it when someone insults and tries to intimidate someone I care about,” Clara said.
“Aw, shucks,” Jamie said. “I didn’t know that you cared.”
Clara lightly punched Jamie in the arm, and the two women got back to their duties. However, for the rest of the day, every time the bell on the door jingled, Jamie looked up to see who was coming in, half in anticipation and half in dread.
4
Luke
Luke was tired. He had spent all day helping his father at the hardware store. The work wasn’t hard, even though they had gotten in a truck of rock salt and another of Christmas trees, so he had been moving the merchandise around all day.
What had made him so tired was his father. Luke suddenly remembered why he had been so eager to leave home in the first place. His father was overbearing and wanted to run Luke’s life.
He suspected that all of Carl’s and Lucy’s missives about them getting older and needing Luke’s help was exaggerated. He was pretty sure that his father was just annoyed that he didn’t have anyone to boss around.
“Josh, what are you doing tonight.”
“Nothing, why?”
“I thought maybe we could go that that dive just out of town and play some pool. I don’t think that I can spend much more time in dad’s company.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Worse.”
“I’ll see you there in twenty,” Josh said.
Groaning at the empty gas gauge when he got into his truck, Luke said, “You had better make that thirty. I have to stop for gas.”
The gas station was empty when he pulled up next to the gas pump. He was staring off into space, wondering what in the world possessed him to move back to Ivy Springs, when loud pop music disturbed his thoughts.
He put his hand over his face and growled in the back of his throat.
Alexis had just pulled her black mustang in right behind Luke’s truck.
