Free Broken Heart 10 Some Lycan Hot by Michele Bardsley Page A

Alaya 2.0 was a much better character, and certainly one I found easier to write.
     
     
     
    CUT SCENE 1: SANDRA’S ANGUISH
     
    “THERE’S NOTHING I CAN do, Sandra,” said the young woman. As usual Alaya Bennington had half her face covered with a head scarf, this one black and gold, to hide the ugliness of her scars.
    Mayor Sandra Ruthridge resisted the urge to rip off the covering and slap the otherwise pretty face. Instead, she pressed her manicured hands against the cool marble countertop, and leaned in.
    “You cured Dana. And Lee Stormwell. And Octavia. She’s been ailing for eighty years!”
    “They made the adjustments necessary to their recoveries. I did very little.”
    “That’s not what they say. You were given the credit for their sudden health. So help me.”
    “I cannot.”
    Well! Alaya could hide the horror of her twisted flesh, but not the hideousness that lay in her heart. Sandra knew there was something magical, otherworldly about the herb shop owner. She had given her gift of healing to everyone in town. Every damned one except for the person who needed help the most—Sandra’s beloved husband, Garrett.
    “You are lying!” yelled Sandra. She slapped both hands on the counter. “You can help him. I know you can!”
    “I’m truly sorry,” said Alaya. The sympathy in her gaze turned to pity. “If I had a way to save your husband from his cancer, I would.”
    Taking care of the town as the major, and of Garrett as his wife, had taken too large a toll on Sandra physically and mentally. She felt worn and ragged and furious. She and Garrett had been high school sweethearts. They were supposed to die together—when they were hundred years and a day.
    He had promised.
    And now he was leaving. Without her. They still had another forty-five years to go, damn it!
    “Please,” she said, her voice breaking. “Please!”
    “I can give you something to help you sleep,” said Alaya. “I have several kinds of tea that will ease your stress.”
    “I don’t need your herbs,” she said. “I have a cabinet full of prescriptions for stress and sleep and depression. Surely, you understand that I need him. Garrett. Have you never loved anyone?”
    The question startled the woman, and Sandra felt a surge of hope. Maybe she had connected with Alaya. Maybe she would hand over a secret, just one secret to reverse the cancer. To save Garrett.
    Sandra grabbed Alaya’s hand. “You do know, don’t you? To be in love. To have a soulmate. The world will not be the same without him in it. There is no world without him.” Sandra felt a sob catch in her throat. The tears gathered, but she held them back, and swallowed down the desperation. The anguish. The goddamned heartache.
    “He is past my help,” said Alaya softly.
    Sandra heard the finality in the woman’s tone. She dropped Alaya’s hand, and stepped back from the counter. Grief ravaged the last drops of kindness in her soul. “You bitch. You don’t deserve happiness. If you do have a soulmate, I hope you lose him. Forever. Then you’ll know my suffering. And no one will help you, either. You will know true agony.”
    “Sandra—”
    “I let you in this town! I signed your permits, sold you this building, and encouraged people to accept your ungodly ways because I’m open-minded. I’m a believer in tolerance. But you just lost your support. You won’t have friends. You won’t have customers. You won’t have anything when I’m done with you.” Sandra heaved her large purse over her shoulder, turned, and marched out. The bell above the door signaled her departure.
    Sandra made it to her car and slid into the driver’s seat. The tears came then, and the sobs, and the utter hopelessness that had paralyzed her when the doctors said they could nothing more. And Garrett … he had accepted that he would die.
    He’d always been the graceful one, the peaceful one. He had been her calm, her compass.
    Sandra wiped the tears away, and decided she