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“I-I’m sorry, Sheriff Wilkens, but the store is officially closed this evening,” I said. “If you’ll please excuse me.”
I started to push past him, but Wilkens gripped my upper arm, halting my clean getaway, making me drop and spill the entire pitcher in the process.
“You’re not going anywhere, witch,” he spat. “You’re done interfering in my business.”
My eyes met his and widened, my heart racing and thundering hard to see the raw hate the man fixed on me. It was different this time, too. He wasn’t merely trying to intimidate me to cower in front of him. He wanted to make sure I would never think about crossing him in any way ever again.
“Excuse me, sheriff, but everyone’s waiting for me.”
I tried to yank from his grip, but he tightened his fingers like steel talons.
“You’re not going anywhere, bitch,” he hissed in my ear. “This time you’ll learn—”
“I suggest you let go of my wife, sheriff, if you know what’s good for you.”
Enormous relief washed over me when I looked around Wilkens to see Bryant standing in the open doorway. The sheriff glared daggers at him for only three seconds before roughly letting go and pointing a warning finger at me.
“Stay away from Ruby, and quit putting ideas into her head. Next time, witch, I’ll make sure that your guard isn’t around you when—”
“That better not be a threat, Ray,” Bryant said, stepping up and pushing me behind him. “Because I don’t take kindly to threats against those under my protection. That goes double for my wife.”
Wilkens silently weighed his options, none of them apparently good. He sliced a deadly look at me that warned me that he would still make good on his threat at some point in the future.
“Have a good evening, sheriff,” Bryant said, broadening his stance in front of me.
He saw the man’s silent warning, too.
The sheriff turned and stalked out of the store, slamming the door after him. The very full contents of my stomach sloshed and roiled and threatened to make a vicious reappearance, just as Bryant relaxed and turned to face me.
“Alright, Callista. I’ve kept my distance in the matter,” he said. “But I think it’s long past time that you tell me what that was really about. What happened yesterday that’s got the sheriff in an uproar this time?”
I blew out a long breath, then broke down and told him about my conversation with Ruby. And what she answered me.
“Now he plans to really teach me a lesson not to interfere with him and his pregnant mistress,” I concluded. “He was two seconds from hauling me out back and doing so when you walked inside and stopped him. I can only imagine what he had in mind.”
So did Bryant, apparently. Because he muttered a curse, then announced we were leaving town. Now.
FATED MATES
CHAPTER 16
Eye of the Tiger
“Why can’t I come?” I said, annoyed at Bryant that he ordered me to remain at the cabin while he investigated this new outsider in the village that Tall Tree had come to inform him about. “I’m the one with the insider information on these alleged teachers.”
“But I’m the one who originally approached the elder council to toss out the last one,” Bryant argued. “I’m sorry, Callista. I know this goes against your own modern sensibilities, but they won’t listen to a woman’s advice in the matter.”
“They would if Flying Deer talked to them,” I countered.
“She’s different. She’s their medicine woman.”
“And I’m a school teacher. Who better to question this new school master from Seattle hovering around their village?”
Recalling Maggie Thunders’ history lesson on the abuses and atrocities that happened to indigenous children because of these monsters, I wasn’t going to stand by and let it happen without some sort of warning.
My moral dilemma rearing its ugly head again.
With my knowledge of future events, could I actually help stop the abuses about to take place, or was I only tempting fate?
