Page 30 of Soul Deep
Chapter Twenty-Two
We set a trap. Lily growled as the words played again through her head and she had to resist the urge to slam her customer’s order down on the table. Yes, she was cranky. Very cranky. Yesterday she had had amazing, mind-blowing sex – or as Daisy would call it: hot monkey sex. Lily wasn’t quite sure what hot monkey sex entailed exactly, but she was pretty sure she and Christian had covered it. She should be floating around with a smile on her face and a song in her heart, right? But nooooo…That bearhad to go and screw things up with his big ideas. And he had actually looked excited when he’d laid out the plan.
Worse, she had called Daisy and the team, put the phone on speaker, and let them listen to Christian’s scheme with smug certainty that they would take her side and shoot down his plan for the nonsense it so obviously was. No such luck. The traitors had sided with Christian. Practically cheering his ingenuity. Bah.
“I have a bone to pick with you.” Sherry Pierce proclaimed as she marched through the door as if she were on a mission, one finger extended to point in Lily’s direction.
“Oh, yay!” Lily clapped her hands together with false cheer.
Mrs. Pierce narrowed her icy blue eyes and sniffed. “My, aren’t we snarky today.”
Lily just barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Sherry Pierce was the resident alpha female, and a hard ass bitch – pun intended. She had made no bones about the fact that she hadn’t wanted felines inhertown, but Lily had actually come to respect the older female.
And she was pretty sure Mrs. Pierce returned that respect once Lily had stopped rolling over and trying to please, fearing that at any moment the town would rescind their hospitality and toss them out. Sherry Pierce had constantly growled and snarled in Lily’s presence – until Lily had growled back. She had seen it in the older female’s eyes… Sherry may never admit it, but Lily was pretty sure that the female had started to like her that day.
“Is it true that you went to the police to be interrogated without me?” Sherry asked, hands on hips.
“I didn’t know it was going to be an interrogation.”
Unlike Lily, the alpha female didn’t bother to hide her eye roll. “You do know I’m a lawyer, right? I mean I passed the bar and everything. Hell, I even have an office with some nice little paper certificates on the wall if you need to come check it out.”
Lily ignored the obvious sarcasm. “It was just supposed to be some questions to help in an investigation.”
Sherry stepped right into Lily’s face and hissed, “Amurderinvestigation. Of which you are now asuspect.”
Lily grimaced and tried not to squirm. “I didn’t do it.”
Sherry cocked her head to the side and placed her index finger to her chin. “Oh, gee, you didn’t do it. Okay, I’m sure that’ll work.” With a snort of derision the older female threw up her hands in disgust. “You wanted to be a part of this pack, well youarepack and I’m the pack lawyer. What happens to you, happens to all of us. You do not say another word unless I’m with you. Are we clear?”
Lily couldn’t help the slow smile that spread over her face and seeing it Sherry snarled. “You find this funny?”
That smile morphed into a full grin, “You called me pack.”
Sherry let out another snort and her lips pressed into a hard line, but Lily couldn’t resist teasing, “You love me.”
“Oh, good God. I’m leaving.” But before the female made her exit, she turned and stabbed her finger once more in Lily’s direction. “You keep me in the loop and you call me if they contact you. Understood?”
Lily nodded, but she was still grinning, her mood greatly lightened by the unexpected revelation from the biggest opponent to the feline presence in Malsum Pass. “I’m pack.”
Her good mood lasted less than fifteen minutes.
“Morning, Lily.”
Turning with a smile from where she was wiping down a table she’d just cleared, Lily spotted Riley Cooper. It was unusual for him to be here without his mate Tara and their twin baby girls, but not unheard of. “Morning, Riley. Coffee?”
Coop nodded with a murmured “Please,” and took a seat at the counter. As soon as she sat the steaming mug in front of him, he nodded to the stool next to him. “Can I have a word?”
Lily felt dread pit in her stomach and she glanced around the diner. Not too many customers at this hour, and those that were here, had all been served and their mugs recently topped off. Taking a seat, she wiped her suddenly sweaty palms on her thighs. “What’s up?”
Riley stirred some cream into his coffee and took a sip. “You’re being watched.”
Well, that didn’t sound ominous at all. “Sorry?”
“Margaret Tully called me this morning. Two human men checked into The Cedars yesterday evening, nothing unusual in that, but they didn’t sleep in their beds and they’ve spent all morning in their car watching the diner as far as she could tell.”
Lily had to resist the urge to turn in her seat and look through the window to the bed and breakfast across the street that Mrs. Tully owned. Fact of small town life: no one could do anything without someone knowing. Fact of shifter life: A human on pack lands will be watched. So it was a safe bet that if Mrs. Tully thought something suspicious was going on, she was probably right.
Riley continued, breaking into her thoughts. “When her husband went outside to talk to them, see if they needed any help, directions or such, the men told him they were just admiring the scenery.”
