Free The Alpha's Daughter by Jacqueline Rhoades Page B

interrupted, "The ones you have scattered all over the
house." She'd taken a peek at some of them, but couldn't make heads
or tails of what they meant. "Those are your notes and
observations, your data." She silently congratulated herself on her
use of the fancy words.
    Doc nodded. "I started jotting stuff down
about a year and a half ago after I moved up here permanently."
    So he wasn't born here as she'd thought.
"Where'd you come from?" she asked and she could tell the question
threw him. He wasn't expecting it. His eyes shifted over and down
before he answered and she knew his answer was the truth, but not
the whole truth.
    "I was born and raised in a place much like
this only out east in the Appalachian Mountains. My brothers still
live there. Same place Eugene Begley was sending you."
    "Which is probably why he sent me here, so
you could give me a heads up on the place." Jazz started clearing
the table.
    "Which I just did," Doc said as he rose, too.
"You cooked. I'll clean up."
    "Oh no you don't. I've seen how you clean up.
You wash. I'll dry. You sweep. I'll put away the leftover meat and
wipe the counters." She poured water from the kettle that was
already simmering on the stove.
    "You're awful bossy," he complained, but he
went to the sink and did as he was told.
    "Not bossy, organized. That's what I'm going
to do for you in exchange for my room and board. I'll get your shit
together; clean up the mess, sort your papers, that kind of stuff.
Of course, in two weeks when I'm gone…"
    "Three weeks," he corrected. "Two weeks with
Ellie, one with Donna." He cut her off again when he saw her mouth
open to protest. "Maybe more if the weather goes bad. It's too
early to put most of the garden in," he explained.
    Jazz's first instinct was to protest, but she
remembered that she still didn't have a plan for leaving and when
she finally got around to making one, it was going to involve
money, of which she had very little. And money, it seemed, was not
easy to come by in this little mountain community. She nodded her
head to show she understood.
    "Three weeks isn't that long," she said
resignedly.
    "For who?" he said, but his whiskers twitched
when he said it.
    As he had the night before, Doc retreated to
his office to work, only this time he took the papers Jazz had
gathered from the kitchen with him.
    Kitchen clean and bedroom reasonably
presentable, Jazz started in on the living area which was larger
than the other rooms combined. Starting at one end, she shifted
through the debris; papers in one pile, garbage in another, and
clothing sorted into most likely clean and definitely dirty.
    The man probably had no idea just how large,
but limited, his wardrobe was; Tee shirts, Henley's, thermals, and
flannels, four pairs of jeans, one set of denim overalls she hoped
to never see him wear, assorted socks and an array of boxers from
snowy white to plaid. This was going to be a problem since there
wasn't a closet or a chest of drawers to be seen. Surely she could
find some baskets or boxes to impose some order.
    That started her thinking about her own
wardrobe or lack of one. These people must shop somewhere. Maybe
the grizzly would loan her a few dollars to purchase a package of
undies and an inexpensive bra.
    Her musings were interrupted by a knocking on
the door. She waited for a moment to see if Doc would come from his
office to answer, but when the door remained closed and the
knocking became more insistent, she opened the front door a crack
to see a tall, towheaded boy nervously shifting from one foot to
the other. He looked about ten and had recently suffered a growth
spurt evidenced by the new looking jeans that ended above his
ankles.
    Opening the door fully, she asked, "May I
help you?"
    The boy looked startled to see her and he
opened his mouth twice before anything came out. "Ma says be there
by seven-thirty." He bobbed his head and started to turn away.
    "Wait! Who's your ma, I mean mother? Are you
Ellie's boy?"
    Jazz