Page 10 of Chased

Good luck with that, Madison replied to her inner rabbit princess. It’s possible this town has never even seen a limo. Or an Uber.

On the other hand, there was a market, just down the block on the other side of the street. Perfect. She needed chocolate and a cold drink and breakfast and band-aids and a phone, to contact Outlaw Ridge and explain why she hadn’t showed up and hadn’t called.

Maybe the people up there could recommend a car repair place, too. If they weren’t too mad, they might even send someone to get her. A hot soldier in a Jeep.

Hot soldier in a limo? Vixen asked. Mimosas?

Our limo days are over, Madison told her firmly. We work for a living now.

Vixen was not completely onboard with working for a living. Maybe not? she asked hopefully. Renards fire people for being late.

Well, you’re just a little furry ray of sunshine, aren’t you?

Just as she was starting across to the market, a battered crew cab pickup roared down the street and pulled over in front of it, screeching to a halt in a No Parking zone. Three men got out.

They were scruffy and unshaven, scarred and tattooed, wearing ripped jeans, faded t-shirts with open shirts over them, and mirrored sunglasses.

And their body language just dared people to get in their faces.

The lapin part of Madison’s brain froze. All she could think was: Predators. She could feel it—smell it. For a second, she couldn’t even make her feet move.

Laughing and shoving each other around, the first two guys opened the old-fashioned wooden screen door and walked into the market. The third one, bigger and slightly older, stepped on the threshold and stopped.

Pulling off his sunglasses, he turned slowly and looked straight at Madison. They locked eyes.

She stopped breathing.

He was gorgeous, in a totally scary way. Dark brown hair and eyes, chiseled features, and a look about him that suggested he’d killed dozens of people. Probably recently.

His eyes narrowed slightly, as if he was trying to figure out why she’d drawn his attention. Not edible, she said mentally, trying to project the thought into his predator brain. Nothing to see here. Move along.

After what seemed like an eternity, he turned away and walked inside.

It was like a spell had been broken. Madison started walking again, furious with herself. She hated it when she did the bunny freeze, even if it was instinctive. She was not a timid little bunny. We’re a fox, Vixen said, which was easy to say when her fuzzy ears and cotton tail weren’t manifested. If they bother us, we will bite them.

Now that was a good idea. Because nobody was getting between her and chocolate. Not after the morning she’d had.

Madison straightened up her spine and strode—or rather, limped—into the store.

Inside, it looked exactly like a picture of an old-fashioned small-town market. Worn, wide-boarded wooden floors, wooden shelving stocked with everything you could imagine, and the smell of fresh coffee.

She could hear the scary mountain guys near the back, calling for someone named Samantha. The owner, presumably. There was no answer.

She circled around to avoid them. First she grabbed a juice from the cooler against the wall, and then she went looking for the drugstore aisle and band-aids.

She ended up by the shampoo and beauty products shelves, which was a bad choice. The makeup counter had a waist-high glass display counter topped with a decorative pyramid of fancy bath oil bottles. Lavender-infused bath oil.

Madison suppressed a sneeze. Rabbits in the wild detested the taste and smell of lavender, and a lot of lapins—including Madison—were allergic to it. Just walking past it made her eyes start watering.

She hurried on and rounded the corner—and right in front of her was the candy display. They even had Butterfingers—her favorite. There was one six-pack of them left, all alone on the shelf, as if it were waiting just for her.

The problem was, one of the predator guys from the pickup was standing right in front of it, browsing the revolving magazine rack. One of the younger ones, not the big one who’d stared at her in the street. He was leafing through the pages of a gun magazine, and he didn’t look like he’d be moving any time soon.

Okay, well, she could just walk up to him and say ‘Excuse me’ and ask him to move, right? It wasn’t like he would attack her right here in the store. Or, she could quietly walk over and slide the Butterfingers out from behind him, and not even bother him at all.

Madison had just eased the pack of candy bars off the shelf when the guy whirled on her, teeth bared. “Hey!” he snarled. “Those are mine!”

Madison jumped back reflexively, clutching the Butterfingers. “They were just lying there on the shelf!”