Joss (Were Zoo Book Nine)

by R. E. Butler

  “Sounds dreamy,” Regina said with a laugh. “I can fix you up with someone. My cousin Dell is a truck driver, so he’s only home on weekends.”

  “That’s a selling point?” she asked with a laugh.

  “Well, if you like your space, yeah.”

  Jeanie shook her head at her friend. “Thanks anyway, I’m good. This time I’m going to wait for Mr. Right to sweep me off my feet, and I’m not going to rush into anything.”

  “Good for you.”

  Saying goodbye until her shift on Sunday morning, Jeanie got in her car and drove to the split double she rented. On the other side was a young woman named Glennis, who’d been on vacation for the last week and had asked Jeanie to feed her temperamental Persian, Mr. Pickles. She pulled into the driveway and parked, smiling when she saw Glennis waving at her from the open door.

  “You weren’t supposed to be back until tomorrow. How was your vacation?” Jeanie hugged her.

  “Great. We had a chance to take an earlier flight, so we figured why not. How was Mr. P?”

  “Sassy as ever.”

  “I have a surprise for you, come on in.”

  Jeanie walked into the other side of the split house and shut the screen door so the wily cat didn’t escape.

  “How was work?” Glennis asked as she busied herself at the kitchen table.

  “Same old, same old. Did you do anything extra fun on vacation or just hang out on the beach?”

  “Just the beach. We did eat at some great restaurants, though. Oh, here it is!” Glennis turned around and handed Jeanie a small gift bag.

  “You didn’t have to get me anything,” she said as she took the bag.

  “I know, but you’re my friend and you did me a huge favor taking care of Sir Sassy Pants.” Glennis smiled at her cat who was sitting with his back to her on the couch.

  Jeanie opened the little bag and pulled out an envelope and a clear cellophane bag of salt water taffy. “My favorite!”

  “I remembered. And I only got the fruit ones, because you said you liked those best.”

  Inside the envelope was a ticket for a free safari tour at Amazing Adventures Safari Park.

  Glennis put her hand on Jeanie’s. “Now don’t go thinking I’m super wonderful for getting you the tour ticket, it came in the mail to me and I can’t use it because I work when the tour is, and I can’t take off any more time for something like that. Even if it does sound fun. So you can use the ticket on my behalf.”

  Jeanie looked at the ticket for a moment, tempted to tell her no thanks.

  “Don’t say no,” Glennis said.

  Jeanie looked at her. “I was thinking about it, but it might actually be fun. I’ve never been to the park or on any kind of safari tour.”

  “I went when I was a kid, it was fun. But this is a private tour. Free parking, free admittance to the park, and you book your tour time online, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.”

  Jeanie hummed. “I’ll do it.”

  “Take lots of pics.”

  “I will.” She gave the young lady a cheek kiss and thanked her again for the gifts, then headed home.

  She had a date with a big bowl of popcorn and a new sci-fi show, and then she’d maybe see about booking the private safari tour. Who knew what adventure might be waiting for her?

  Chapter Three

  Jeanie handed her ticket to a woman at the park entrance and placed her sunglasses on her head.

  “Welcome,” the woman said with a smile. “Do you know where you’re going?”

  “No.”

  The woman opened a park map and ran her finger along one of the pathways. “It’s through the gates and to the left. Stop at the ticket booth, tell them your reservation time, and they’ll take it from there.”

  “Great, thanks.”

  “Have fun!”

  Jeanie took back her ticket and the map, and walked into the park. She couldn’t believe she’d never been to the park. There were certainly parks around New Jersey, but both her parents worked when she was growing up and weekends had been for working around the house. In high school, she’d gone on a class trip to the aquarium, but that wasn’t quite the same as an actual zoo.

  Humming a tune, she followed the path to the ticket booth, where there were two young men wearing blue park uniforms. They smiled at her when she walked up to the booth and laid the ticket down.

  “I’m here for my three o’clock reservation.”

  “Welcome,” one whose name tag read Jasper said. “I just need your ID.”

  She took her ID out of her wristlet and handed it over.

  Jasper frowned, tilting the ID and ticket toward the other man, whose nametag read Greg.

  “Your ID and ticket don’t match.”

  “My neighbor gave me her ticket. It doesn’t say on the ticket that it’s not transferable.” She’d double-checked when she made the reservation, and there was nowhere on the ticket or the park website that said one person couldn’t gift another person the ticket.

  “But it’s not your name,” Greg said, his brows lowering.

  “And?”

  “Hold on, we need to call our boss,” Greg said.

  He and Jasper stepped away from the booth, and Jeanie felt her cheeks heat with embarrassment. She didn’t like being put on the spot. Fortunately there was no one around but the two young men; still, she was uncomfortable.

  And then she overheard it.

  “She’s too old,” Greg whispered, not quietly enough for her not to pick up what he said.

  “I know, I know,” Jasper said, sighing.

  Jeanie’s mouth fell open and she sucked in a sharp breath. Her cheeks heated further as mortification filled her. She was only forty-four, hardly old by any stretch. She blinked away the tears that surged, angry at herself for being embarrassed by two kids who didn’t know how to properly whisper.

  “I’ll call the boss,” Jasper said.

  Greg turned to Jeanie with a tight smile. “It’ll just be a sec.”

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She fully wanted to crawl in a hole and never show her face again.

  * * *

  Joss grunted in annoyance as he headed up to the safari tour booth. He wasn’t really irritated by the issue at the booth – someone using someone else’s ticket – it was that his wolf had been bugging the hell out of him all morning. He’d gone for a run in his shift early in the morning, pacing the entire paddock several times in an attempt to wear out his beast – but it had done nothing but agitate the creature. He’d never felt so on edge, and he couldn’t figure out why.

  And then, as he’d been trying to focus on a spreadsheet detailing the operational costs of the tours for the third quarter, he’d gotten a damn call about the safari.

  The tickets had been sent out to eligible males and females between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. It didn’t matter to him that the female who came in with someone else’s ticket was over the age; it wasn’t a hard limit as far as he knew. But Jasper and Greg weren’t wrong – the tickets weren’t intended for use by anyone but the person they were mailed to. The fact the tickets didn’t have printed on them that they weren’t to be shared was something the alphas and marketing team had overlooked.

  He’d been tempted to tell the males to just let her on the damn tour because there wasn’t any harm in it, aside from the fact that it was possible the female intended for the tour actually was someone’s soulmate. For some damn reason, his wolf demanded he go to the tour booth and handle it in person.

  As he strode swiftly to the booth, he first saw her long, dark hair. It fell past her shoulders in thick, chocolate waves with little highlights of caramel and red in the strands. She was wearing jean shorts with embroidered flowers on the pockets, and a red short-sleeved shirt. His wolf went quiet within him, an intense connection between himself and the woman blooming immediately.

  It wasn’t possible, was it?

  Had a transferred ticket brought Joss his soulmate?

>   Swallowing against the sudden lump in his throat, he stopped next to the female, inhaling her scent. She smelled like coconut, a scent he’d never cared for before but suddenly was his favorite. She turned and looked up at him, her hazel eyes luminous with unshed tears.

  “Did you come to send me home for being too old?” she whispered harshly, her kissable mouth turned down in a frown.

  He wanted to reach out and comfort her, but she was human and humans didn’t necessarily understand a mate connection. Hell, Joss wasn’t sure he believed it himself until this very moment.

  “Absolutely not.” His mind raced, his wolf not wanting anyone else near her. “I came to take you on the tour myself.”

  Her brows winged up. “What?”

  “If you’re too old for this, then I am. I’m forty-seven, and the boss. I’m going to encourage my employees to apologize for being assholes, and then I’m going to take you for a tour.” He glanced at Jasper and Greg, who were staring at him with mouths open and eyes wide. He let out a short growl that he knew to her ears would sound like a grunt. The males snapped into movement.

  “We’re really sorry,” Jasper said. “We were rude, it’s not acceptable.”

  “Sorry,” Greg said. “We didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  Jasper handed her back her ticket and ID.

  “I’m Joss,” he said, offering his hand after she’d put her things away.

  She took it, an electric jolt racing up his arm at the contact. “I’m Jeanie. I really didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

  “You didn’t, I promise. Let’s head down to the jeeps.”

  “Joss, there are people waiting,” Greg said, his voice a submissive murmur.

  “And?” Joss looked hard at the young male, who turned his head down and tilted it, showing deference to his alpha.

  “Nothing. Sorry.”

  “Come on, Jeanie.”

  Joss took her to the front of the tour where four females were waiting. He told Jeanie to wait and walked over to the next jeep idling near the waiting females.

  Silvanus gave Joss a curious look when he walked over to him. “Hey,” he said. “What’s up?”

  “I’m going to take this jeep out myself,” he said. “For a private tour.”

  The young male hesitated. “We... you do know there are people waiting?”

  Joss didn’t say anything; he simply waited for Silvanus to realize he was contradicting his alpha. It was almost comical when the realization occurred to Silvanus, because his eyes went really wide and then he scrambled out of the jeep. “Sorry, sorry,” he murmured, his voice low and his head tilted to the side.

  Joss nodded. “If anyone asks, tell them that she missed her time slot and we wanted to fit her in. Be sure to offer those waiting a chilled bottle of water – it’s hot as hell out here.”

  Silvanus nodded enthusiastically. Joss returned to Jeanie and brought her to the Jeep, helping her to climb into the passenger seat. Normally, two wolves went on the tour – a driver and a guide – with the human sitting in the back seat. But he didn’t need or want a guide with him, not only because he’d helped draft the script the guides used to talk about the animals, but because he wasn’t sure how his wolf would handle another unmated male so close to his newly-found soulmate.

  Pulling the jeep up to the entrance of the tour, he idled, waiting until the first paddock was clear. He nodded to Brent who was part of the tour’s security team, who then pressed the button to open the gate. It creaked as it opened, and Joss drove through, waiting until it was fully closed before he continued on.

  “So,” Joss said, “have you ever been to the park before?”

  “No,” Jeanie said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. She gave him a tentative smile when he looked at her, and it warmed his whole body. Damn she was beautiful.

  “I’ve been here for thirty years.”

  “I take it you don’t always drive people on tours?”

  “No. I oversee the tours and work in the finance department. What do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a cook at a diner in Barreston.”

  “Do you enjoy it?” He pulled to a stop in front of the wolf paddock.

  She hummed and looked toward the fence. “I love cooking, but I went to college for finance. I just can’t... work in that field anymore.”

  He didn’t care for the way her voice lowered in defeat, as if someone had purposely caused her to not be able to work where she wanted to. She folded her arms over her chest, and he got the distinct impression she didn’t want to share any more about work with him. While part of him wanted to know everything about her immediately, he couldn’t order her to tell him. She was human. And he was trying not to be an ass.

  “Let’s go see the wolves.” He put the jeep in park and got out, jogging around to help her. He grabbed the camera from the bag in the seat next to her and walked her to the fence. He told her a little about the wolves and was happy when she seemed to relax, finally rewarding him with a smile when he told her he was going to take a picture of her at each paddock for the keepsake photo album she’d be presented with before she left the park.

  “I didn’t get you in trouble, did I?” she asked after she smiled for the photo and then turned back to the paddock.

  “Of course not. The perk of being the boss is I get to help out lovely ladies when they need it.”

  She chuckled. “I’m sure they’re all very grateful to be rescued by a handsome guy like you.”

  His wolf was practically prancing in his mind like a show horse at her praise.

  “To be honest, you’re my first rescue. How am I doing?”

  “Really well.”

  He grinned and led her back to the jeep, where they continued on to the next paddock once the vehicle ahead of them had moved on. He radioed to the security team that he was finished at the first paddock. “Why do you have to wait for the other jeep?”

  “It’s a private tour,” he said. “We don’t want to encroach on anyone else’s time.”

  “Has it always been a private tour? I don’t remember ever seeing a commercial on TV for it or hearing about it.”

  He explained that until about a year ago, they hadn’t had the private tours, but had decided sending out coupons for them would be a good way to bring people back into the park. “A lot of people say they came to the park when they were young, but not as adults. We wanted to remind people that we’re here.”

  The tour was over all too quickly, even though he’d done his best to stall for time. He wanted her to stay with him as long as possible, but he didn’t want to come on too strongly. He parked in line at the start of the tour and grabbed the SD card from the camera. His mind raced as she got out of the vehicle, tugged on her shorts, and gave him a curious smile.

  “Thanks for the tour, Joss. I really enjoyed it.”

  His wolf howled. Don’t let her go!

  “It will take an hour for the photo album to be ready. Would you like some company? We can get something to eat.”

  She looked at him, tilting her head as she seemed to study him. “I’m not upset about what happened with the ticket. I mean, I was fully mortified when I overheard them say I was too old, and I still don’t understand why there’s an age limit on the private tours. But your workers were just doing what they’re told. You don’t have to babysit me or go to any extreme lengths to try to make me happy. I won’t sue the park or anything.”

  He let out an aggravated sigh. He wanted to beat those two males within an inch of their lives for making Jeanie feel bad. She wasn’t old, she was perfect.

  Perfect for him.

  If he could only figure out what to do next.

  The question was, how could an alpha wolf who didn’t believe he even deserved a soulmate go about romancing the alluring human before him?

  * * *

  Jeanie thought Joss was the sexiest guy she’d ever met. Tall, broad shouldered, wearing a golf shirt th
at stretched tight along his muscular upper body. His hair was dark blond, his short-trimmed beard sprinkled with gray that only enhanced the sexiness. Why was it women had to dye every last gray hair but men could let it go and looked sexy as hell?

  His left arm was covered with tattoos that disappeared up under the sleeve of his shirt. She had a tattoo herself, a small Monarch butterfly on her ankle. She’d gotten it when her divorce was finalized, and she was finally able to start a new chapter of her life. It seemed a fitting way to mark her transformation. Certainly, she wasn’t who she thought she’d be at this point in her life, but she liked who she was now. She had friends and a good job that she didn’t hate most of the time, and in general she was happy.

  “I’m not being nice because my people insulted you,” Joss said, drawing her attention from the tattoos on his arm to his face.

  “So why are you being nice, then? I don’t think that it’s normal for VIP tour drivers to spend a few hours walking around with their passenger.”

  “It’s not. But let’s just say that I’m not ready to say goodbye to you yet. If that’s okay with you.”

  She pursed her lips to hide the grin that wanted to break free. He wanted to spend time with her? Holy crap!

  “I’m not ready to say goodbye, either.”

  He smiled and it made her stomach flutter.

  Since she’d never been to the park, he took her on an official tour, taking her to every exhibit including a bird sanctuary that would be opening in the future. They finished the tour at a food stall that served baskets of fried chicken strips and french fries. They found an empty picnic table under the shade of a tree and sat across from each other.

  “What’s your favorite food?” she asked, cutting a piece of chicken and dunking it into a plastic container of honey mustard.

  “Steak. You?”

  “Mac and cheese. I make mac and cheese at the diner when I work the dinner shift, but Ron the owner only likes the classic style, not anything fun or different.”