“Anyway, I found her sad story about ten years later when I started clipping interesting stories about Earth and Colonization. Way back then Alphas coming to Earth was big news. When I moved to Earth, I brought all my scrapbooks with me. I had to dig the articles out of my attic from my bargain sea trunk.
“Anyway, then I looked on the internet machine for any recent information and found a picture of Constance in the local newspaper with her husband from two years before. They had been married for seventy-five years, and she still looked great. I thought she might have had some work done, because no one can look that good, right? But then again, Alpha genes are really awesome…”
“Anyway,” Diesel prompted.
“Anyway, her husband was a grandson of Lukas Marek, the Guardsman who never returned from his surveillance trip, a.k.a. Delvin Miller. Miss Penny said the grandson, Lukas Marek the Third, a.k.a. Delvin Miller the Third, was the spitting image of his grandfather. And she would know.”
There was silence in the room as everyone seemed to digest her fantastical information.
Wyatt cleared his throat, and said, “Both of my parents were born and raised in Suspicion, Minnesota. I was born there, too, but we moved here when I was a kid. I was too little to remember anything like psychics roaming around town. My mother’s people are Millers.”
Valene grinned at her. “Thank you, Aunt Dixie.”
“Don’t get too excited about this,” Diesel said, throwing cold water on the possibilities like he always did on all of Dixie Lou’s fabulous money-making ideas. “We don’t know anything yet.”
As if it were staged to provide the best timing in a drama, Gage’s phone let out a loud bong, startling everyone in the room. “It’s the notification of the test I ran on a sample of Wyatt’s blood to see if he’s part Alpha.”
“You have my blood?”
“I usually take a sample from everyone who comes through my lab…for my research database.”
“Is that legal?” Wyatt asked.
Gage shrugged. “No one has ever complained about it before.”
“They might if they knew you were doing it.”
“Typically, I only take samples of Alphas. But when you took the beanbag in the belly for Diesel, I grabbed a sample. Besides, I don’t share the information with many people, certainly not any humans.”
Wyatt shook his head, but didn’t seem too worried about his blood being tested by Alphas without his permission. “Okay. Whatever. What does the report on my blood say?”
“I don’t know, I’ll have to go look.”
“Great. I’ll go with you,” Wyatt said and winked at Valene.
“I want to go, too.” Valene clung to Wyatt’s hand, their fingers still laced.
Dixie Lou moved closer to Gage. “I think I should get to go. I was the one who cracked this case wide open.”
“What case?” Diesel wanted to know.
“The case where Valene gets to marry her sheriff because he’s part Alpha, just like your wife Juliana.”
Wyatt perked up. “If I’m part Alpha, I can marry Valene? And we can stay here in Arkansas? Is that true?” His sweet loving gaze was only for Valene. They stared at each other silently for several seconds, until Diesel broke the spell.
“I know. Let’sallgo to Gage’s lab, shall we?” Diesel quickly headed for the conference room door with everyone trailing behind him.
Dixie Lou trouped along with them, then passed everyone, beating even Gage to his lab because her feet wanted to do a dance of joy.
This was only the first of what would surely be many exciting and interesting stories to come out about the Lost Colony Legend of Alpha-Prime and the secret Alpha psychics in Suspicion, Minnesota.
Valene squeezed Wyatt’s fingers again and again as they walked to Gage’s lab. Aunt Dixie practically sprinted that way. Amazing, given her age, which no one really knew until now because that was the only information she would never spill.
Wyatt pulled on her hand, letting the rest of the pack get some distance away.
“Does this mean what I think it does?” he asked in a low tone.
