Maudlin's Mayhem (Bewitching Bedlam #2)(29)

He was human, and he was one of the bad ones. Our relationship had started out great, but then again, sociopaths are often charming. By the time I left, I felt like a shadow of myself, and I was embarrassed by how I had let him beat me down. But it happened. It happened to a lot of women, even strong ones, when they let down their guard. I knew one thing for sure: I’d never let it happen again.

I stared at my phone, debating. If I called him and asked him point-blank, of course he’d deny it. I needed to see him face to face to know if he was lying. And that was a trip I wasn’t sure I was prepared to make, yet.

I ran through my list of everybody who could want to hurt me, and it was a long one. From my vampire hunting days to now, I had acquired a number of enemies—on all sides of the fence. Finally, I decided there was nothing else to do but carry on with business as usual, as much as I could, while I tried to figure out who was out to get me.

As I stood and stretched, a wave came crashing in near my feet. I stared at the sea foam for a moment, then turned and crossed the beach back to my car. Even if I did have to cancel guests this week, there were still a gazillion chores on my list. I might as well get busy.





I WAS HALFWAY through grocery shopping when I came to a stack of canned diced tomatoes. Aegis had asked for three cans so he could make a spaghetti sauce. As I reached for the top can, someone pushing their cart down the aisle bumped into me and, instinctively, I jerked to get out of their way, stumbling into the stack of cans. Like a teetering pile of dominos, they came down, scattering across the aisle in a thunderous clatter of metal on linoleum. I groaned, trying to back away, when I accidentally slipped on one and ended up on my butt, in the middle of the floor.

“Fucking hell!” I didn’t swear all that much, but when I did, I went for it. “What the hell?” As I struggled to sit up, cans rolled every which way. The other shopper—I recognized her as belonging to one of the local weretiger packs—let out a snarl of surprise, but then instantly was on her knees beside me.

“Are you okay? Do you need help?” She helped me sit up, a look of concern on her face. “I’m so sorry—that was my fault! I didn’t think I was that close to you. I knew I should have worn my glasses. Stupid me.”

She sounded so concerned that I felt bad for my outburst.

“I’m… It’s all right. Accidents happen.” I tried to stand up, but as I put pressure on my wrists to brace myself, my right thumb sent a jolt of pain through my hand and I let out a cry.

“My thumb!” I held up my hand, staring at it. My thumb looked bent in a way it shouldn’t bend, and it was rapidly swelling and turning color. “I think…” I tried to move it. As I shifted it backward, the pain flared, throbbing, but it didn’t hurt the same way that it had when I tried to put weight on it. “I think it’s sprained.”

The Muzak playing in the background was annoyingly cheerful. Right about then, one of the stockers came running over, skidding to a halt when he saw the cans filling the aisle.

The moment he saw me, I saw the glassy hint of terror in his face. Lawsuit city, he was probably thinking. He quickly knelt beside me. “Are you all right? Hold on, please. Let me get the manager.” Before I could answer, he was gone.

“Afraid of a lawsuit,” my weretiger companion guessed. She winked at me. “You could make out like a bandit, you know.”

“I’ve had enough of bandits,” I said, feeling grumpy. “Can you help me stand up?”

She was athletic, and had no trouble bracing herself as she leveraged me to my feet. As I cautiously checked myself out, holding my thumb as still as I could, one knee began to twinge, and I tasted blood.

“You cut your lip,” she said. “I’m Rhonda, by the way. Rhonda Castille.”

“Hi. I’m Maddy Gallowglass.” I licked my lip and sure enough, that’s where the blood was coming from. At least I hadn’t broken a tooth.

Right about then, the manager came barreling around the corner. “Ms. Gallowglass, are you all right?” He kicked his way through the cans, barking an order for the stocker to clean them up. “Do you need me to call an ambulance? The medics?”

I stared at my thumb. Driving with that was going to be a bitch, at least until I got it splinted. “If someone could just drive me to my doctor, I’ll be all right, I think.”

“It was my fault—” Rhonda started to say, but I cut her off.

“It was nobody’s fault. An accident.” I stared at my cart ruefully. “I really needed to shop, too.”

“I’ll take you to the doctor,” Rhonda said. “It’s the least I can do.”

I let out a sigh, then nodded. “Thanks, then if you can drop me back here, I can finish getting my groceries and go home.” I turned to the manager. “Can you please put three cans of tomatoes in that cart, and keep it for me? I don’t think there’s anything frozen in it.”

“Will do. Here, Ted.” He turned to the stocker. “When you finish picking up those cans, put three of them in this cart and then tag it with Ms. Gallowglass’s name and put it in the back till she returns for it. And for the sake of the gods, clean this mess up pronto.”

Rhonda asked them to keep her cart as well and led me out to the parking lot. The back window of her Toyota Highlander had those stick figure decals—a mom, four kids, and two dogs. Which meant she was either a single mother, a widow, or she was pissed at her husband and had pulled his decal off.