Wanted by the Alphas (An Extremely Sensual Paranormal Shifter Romance) (7 page)

“You found it.” She gives them a winning
smile. She is a middle-aged woman. Heavily pregnant. Pleasant in a
marmsy sort of way. She would be the kind of woman who serves you
pastries the moment you step into her kitchen, Shannon decides.

“We did, thanks to my GPS,” Shannon says.

Jared rolls his eyes. “I would have found it
all the same.”

They exchange pleasantries all round.

“You’ll love the house,” Ellie gushes. “It’s
small but very cozy. Won’t require a lot of housekeeping if you are
a young working brother and sister pair. Come in and take a
look.”

A thought strikes Shannon.

“This property doesn’t belong to the Walker
family, does it?”

A cloud darkens Ellie’s face.

“No.” An unusually firm tone has come into
her voice. She leans over slightly as if to impart a secret. “Many
people in this town are not overtly fond of the Walkers, if you
know what I mean.”

Shannon has that suspicion as well after
seeing the hanged witch. “Why?”

Ellie shakes her head. “You both are new
here. It is not for me to fill your heads with local
superstition.”

Jared steps forward. “No, we’re really
interested in this. At least, my sister is.” He flashes a shrewd
look at Shannon, who scowls at him. “Please . . . why are people in
this town not fond of the Walkers?”

Ellie looks all around them. There is nothing
around them but the house – which is a small cottage covered with
vines and large, trembling leaves – as well as the backdrop of the
hills leading to the forest. They have no neighbors for at least
half a mile down the road.

“OK. But you mustn’t tell anyone you heard it
from me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Jared murmurs
sarcastically.

Ellie doesn’t seem to notice his sarcasm.

“The Walker family hails from New England.
They are a very old clan, dating back several centuries. They don’t
make their history known, but it’s in all the annals in the library
if you want to look back. Magda Walker, Julien Walker, Roderick
Walker, Cassandra Walker, Phineas Walker. They all share one thing
in common.”

Shannon feels a trickle of coolness despite
the fair weather.

“What?” she asks.

“They were all burned at the stake for
practicing witchcraft.”

Shannon’s mind fleets back to the hanging
witch. Hanging. Not burning, or the maze would be a crisp. Now she
understands the message for Lucien, if indeed it was intended for
Lucien.

Witch! You deserved to be hanged!

She remembers the change of color which had
come into Lucien’s eyes when he bested Jared at arm-wrestling. It
is very likely the witch genes were passed on.

But it still doesn’t mean Lucien is a
witch.

Jared begins to laugh.

Ellie says crossly, “There, I knew you folks
from out of town would react in that manner. That’s why we choose
to keep our secrets close.”

“No, no, you misunderstand me,” Jared says.
“My sister and I are completely attuned to superstition and
folklore. If you say the Walker family hails from witches, then we
completely believe you. After all, we are extremely superstitious
ourselves, aren’t we, sis?”

He winks. He is taking all this a little too
lightly, she thinks.

Shannon clears her throat.
I am not going
to have anything to do with Lucien Walker anymore, so what does it
matter?

“We would like to see the house, please,” she
says.

“Of course,” Ellie says, glad for the change
of subject.

The bungalow is small, with only two bedrooms
and a bathroom. As Ellie mentioned, cleaning this place would not
be an encumbrance. It is fully furnished with minimal, tasteful
furniture – all old, all inexpensive, as if the owner does not
intend to lavish a huge sum on tenants who might possibly tear down
the place.

The rent is within their budget as well. God
knows they have the money to afford something better, but it is
better to be prudent for now.

“We’ll take it,” Jared says.

Shannon knows why he circled this property
above all from the Dolphin Bay’s classifieds. The ad had boasted
‘natural forest tapestry behind the property’.

“Great,” Ellie says happily.

“When are you due?” Shannon says.

“Next month.” The realtor’s cheeks dimple and
she rubs her tummy with one ringed hand. “This is my fifth, would
you believe?”

“That’s amazing.” Shannon is not ready for
children right now, but she imagines that someday she would love to
have a child with a man who would love her forever. “Are there
usually such large families here?”

“We Fitzpatricks tend to have large ones. I
come from a family of seven myself. I am the second oldest, and my
sisters are all married with broods of four or five themselves. We
haven’t stopped yet.” She chuckles.

Jared has begun to unload their baggage from
the trunk.

“Hey, you wanna give me a hand instead of
gabbing in there with the realtor?” he calls.

“There are papers to sign and checks to be
made in case you don’t know how this works, Jared!” she calls
back.

“Then I’ll let you take care of all that
stuff while I break open a can of beer!”

Ellie smiles. She produces a large brown
envelope full of documents. “Let’s get the paperwork out of the
way. It’s always unpleasant, I know, but necessary. Do you and your
brother intend to find jobs here?”

“I know I do,” Shannon says. “I don’t know
about him.”

She rolls her eyes and the older woman laughs
as they adjourn to the kitchen with its dining table. They seat
themselves there. Ellie takes out the documents for her to sign and
explains the terms and conditions of each one.

“So what’s your line of work?” the agent
asks.

“I have a degree in Physiotherapy and I would
like to work with patients.”

Ellie sits back, thunderstruck.

“No way.”

“Why?” Shannon wonders if being a
physiotherapist is that unusual in Dolphin’s Bay. Surely they must
have a hospital?

“No.” Ellie pats her forearm. Her cheeks are
colored with excitement, and not because of her third trimester
pregnancy. “My younger brother runs a clinic here and he needs a
physiotherapist. Just so happens the last one quit on him to get
married, and he has been running the clinic with only two for the
past two months. It has been hell on his staff. He is an orthopedic
surgeon affiliated with the hospital. Would you like to meet
him?”

It is as though fortune has fallen on her
lap.

“Yes,” Shannon says, smiling. This is a
streak of good luck. Her gloomy spirits lift despite the pall of
the morning.

“OK, I’ll make a few calls. Give me a
moment.”

Ellie picks up her cellphone and punches in a
quick dial. After a few rings, someone on the other side picks
up.

“Kirk? Yes, honey, it’s me.” She rolls her
eyes and winks at Shannon. “Yes, honey, I know you’re busy and I
must never call you at this time of day unless it’s an emergency,
but I’ve got your new physiotherapist for you. You don’t have to
request one from upstate now.”

Pause.

“Uh huh, uh huh. She’s right here. That’s
right. She just happened to move into town yesterday and I rented
her the Pullnam place.” She scrunches her nose. “Oh, come on, don’t
say that. Send her to meet you? Super.”

Ellie rings off and claps her hands
delightedly.

“I have a feeling we are all going to see a
lot more of one another.”

THE CLINIC

It’s Shannon’s turn to take the Toyota out
while Jared goes to hunt for another car. That would keep him busy
and happy for the whole day, provided he doesn’t burn a hole in
their pocket right away. But he usually is quite careful with
money, so she isn’t too worried about it.

With her GPS, she soon finds the clinic,
which is called, perhaps uncreatively: ‘DOLPHIN’S BAY ORTHOPEDIC
AND REHABILITATION CENTER’. To her surprise, it is quite a huge
place with plenty of bay windows proffering light to the
interiors.

The clinic is quite busy with plenty of
patients either walking in and out on crutches and splints or being
wheeled by relatives and medical attendants. She parks and goes to
the reception.

“I have an appointment with Dr. Kirk
Fitzpatrick,” she tells the receptionist, a black lady with dyed
blond hair.

“He’s busy right now. Emergency case came up.
He had to schedule an urgent operation in the minor surgery
theater.”

“Oh.”

“It’s OK,” the lady says crisply. “You can
wait over there with the patients.”

There are plenty of patients seated in the
waiting area outside the clinics. Shannon notes the other doctors
working there – four names altogether. Dr. Kirk Fitzpatrick is
listed outside one of the rooms. Although he is the departmental
chief, his embossed sign does not appear to be bigger than the
others.

A girl in her early teens with gnarled
fingers and bent legs is seated at a corner, and Shannon takes the
empty seat beside hers.

“You all alone?” she asks the girl.

“My Mom had to go to school. She’s a teacher
there. She will come and fetch me during her lunch hour.”

Shannon observes the girl’s finger joints.
They are extremely deformed and her knuckle joints are very
swollen.

“That hurt?”

The girl grimaces. “Yes.”

“I’m Shannon.”

“Martha.” The girl waves her index finger.
“Sorry if I can’t shake your hand.”

“How long have you had it? It’s JRA,
right?”

JRA is juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

“Since I was eight. I started early. Guess
I’m one of the unlucky ones. It’s pretty bad today. I’m on so many
painkillers I’m practically a junkie.”

“Let me have a look at that. I’m a
physiotherapist. I came here to apply for a job.”

Martha slowly stretches out her left arm, her
face wincing. Her fingers remain curled and painfully immobile.

“They’ve tried everything,” she says.
“Anti-rheumatics. Penicillamine. Steroids. But the joint
destruction goes on. I can’t write anymore. The principal is trying
to let me sit for my SATs with a tester.”

“SATs? I didn’t think you were that old.”

“I’m eighteen.” When Shannon reacts with
surprise, Martha nods. “Steroids since I was nine. It retards my
growth. I don’t even have my periods like normal kids.”

With newfound sympathy, Shannon takes the
girl’s left hand.

“Maybe this will make it better,” she
says.

“I doubt it. I’ve been coming here for years,
and I’ve even gone to hospitals upstate, but nothing ever makes it
better.”

Shannon strokes the girl’s fingers and
knuckles gently, noting how knobby they are. Then she channels what
has always been within her – the healing power which has been the
crux and bane of her entire life. It’s subtle, and she sends a
spool of it into the girl’s curled hand.

Martha almost withdraws her hand in
shock.

“It tingles,” she says in wonder. “What did
you do?”

“It’s just my special massage. I have more
static electricity in my body than most people. Don’t worry, you’ll
feel better after a while.”

Static electricity is one way of calling it,
she supposes, though most people would have viewed her natural
gifts as anything but science.

Martha stills her hand, her eyes growing
rounder and wider as Shannon continues to massage her fingers and
send healing impulses into them.

“I can’t believe, but the pain is gone,” she
says.

More than that will be gone by tomorrow,
Shannon thinks. The joints and bones will need some time to remodel
and knit, but she has started the process and it is irreversible.
She dare not send too much power into Martha for fear of being
flagged. But she sends just enough so that Martha’s recovery can be
attributed to pharmaceutical science.

“Let me have your other hand,” she
instructs.

She is so focused on what she is doing that
she fails to register the presence beside them.

A throat clears and a deep voice says: “Peggy
out there tells me you’re looking for me?”

Shannon looks up.

Standing next to them is a gorgeous young man
of about twenty-eight or twenty-nine. His long dark hair has been
swept back and tied in a ponytail, and he wears the green scrubs of
a surgeon. His eyes are a startling sea-green, and his features are
so exquisite as to be almost pretty. But he carries himself in a
very masculine way, with his hands tucked into his pants pockets
and with his feet apart.

His beauty is so stunning that it immediately
hits her like a blow.

“You’re Dr. Fitzpatrick?” she says.

“Last time I checked.” His sharp eyes observe
Martha’s hands. “Making friends? My sister tells me you’re new in
this town.”

Shannon is a little flustered in the presence
of the man’s overpowering presence. She stands up and holds out her
hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Kirk Fitzpatrick shakes it. His
touch sends a delicious thrill coursing up her arm.

What’s happening to her? Yesterday, she just
had hot sex with a very hot man who made her feel like no one ever
did before. And today, she meets another hot man who does exactly
the same to her, only in a different way. And this new man might
just be her boss!

Are her hormones in ascendency or
something?

“How are you, Martha?” Kirk says in a kind
voice. “Been waiting long?”

“Um, great . . . I think, Dr. Fitzpatrick.”
Martha is still looking at her hands, which appear exactly the
same. Only she seems to have more mobility in the joints now. She
flexes her fingers in increasing wonder. Shannon reckons that to be
completely uninterested in Kirk, either Martha has to be a lesbian
or her joints have just been transmogrified in a manner unbeknownst
to her previously.