by Zoe Chant
The Snow Leopard’s Mate
By
Zoe Chant
Copyright Zoe Chant 2016
All Rights Reserved
Ali Parker surveyed the mountain of dishes in the kitchen sink.
It was a true Everest of dishes, worthy of miniature backpackers and tiny frolicking mountain goats. It had been growing for a couple of days because everyone in the house had been working late this week. When you got home from work at 10:00 PM, you wanted to microwave something and go to bed, not wash dishes.
Ali lived with her brother, Paul, and his wife, Molly. It seemed like three adults should be able to do the dishes regularly, but both women had a lot of evening shifts, and Paul didn’t seem able to cook or clean.
Ali figured it was because he’d spent his time outdoors when they were kids, instead of staying in and doing chores. Her brother had been born a bear shifter, like their father, so he’d been taught hunting and woodlore and shifter customs. But Ali had turned out to be a human, like Mom, so she’d stayed home and done human stuff.
At the time, she hadn’t been jealous or wanted to be a shifter herself. Back then she’d mostly been interested in slumber parties, makeup, and clothes. But nowadays, sometimes she thought wistfully about what her life might be like if she too had gotten the shifter gene.
It would’ve had some downsides, she supposed. If she’d ever left town, she’d have had to keep it a secret. Most of the world didn’t know about shifters. But it was different in the little town of Prescott, tucked away in the Colorado Rockies. There were enough shifters there that most people at least knew that they existed. But the town kept to itself, far away from anything resembling civilization, and so shifters stayed Prescott’s secret.
They still kept to themselves. Even Ali, who’d grown up with a bear for a brother, didn’t know much about shifter culture. Paul didn’t talk about it. Their father had left when they’d been little, leaving her brother to be taught by the Prescott shifters, so it had never been a family thing so much as a Paul thing.
Ali put an end to that train of thought. She wasn’t a shifter, and that was that. Dreaming of things she could never have wouldn’t get the dishes done. She rolled up her sleeves, determined to conquer Everest tonight. It would be nice for the family to have a clean kitchen for a while.
She’d just reached for the tap when her phone rang. She looked at the screen. Denise.
Denise had been Ali’s best friend in high school. At twenty-six, she was still the fun, party-loving girl she’d been at sixteen. If it weren’t for her, Ali would probably have become a homebody by now.
“Ali!” Denise said. “You have to come out to Ryder’s Lodge with me tonight. I got you a date. It’s Ted Elton.”
“Ted Elton? I’m pretty sure I’ve never said anything to you about wanting to date him.” From what Ali remembered, he was a mousy, scruffy guy a couple of years younger than they were.
“Well…” Denise dragged the word out. “Mac Elton said he’d only go out with me if I brought a friend for his brother.”
Aha, Ali thought. “I don't know, Denise, I was thinking about staying in.”
Everest beckoned to her. Doing the dishes seemed like a nice, calm, simple way to spend the evening. Unlike going out to Ryder’s Lodge on a semi-blind date.
“Stay in?” Denise went on, oblivious. “I know you better than that. You want to be where the party is.”
Once upon a time, that had been true. But Ali’s time as a party girl hadn’t done her any favors. These days, she’d rather be where the clean dishes were.
Although, to be fair, that wasn’t her kitchen right now.
“So I’ll pick you up in an hour, okay?” Denise asked. “We’ll pick the boys up at their place and head over to Ryder’s Lodge in time for it to really get going. I can’t wait, can you?”
“Actually, I think I can.” Ali wasn’t talking to Denise so much as the world around her.
That was okay, though, because Denise wasn’t listening anyway. “Great, see you soon!” Denise burbled, and hung up.
Ali slid her phone into her back pocket and stared at the dishes again.
It could be fun, she told herself.
Ryder’s Lodge was the logging town a twenty-minute drive past Prescott. Ali and Denise and their dates had lived in Prescott for their entire lives. Ali was sick of it. The same people, day in and day out, the same grudges, the same gossip.
The same reputation following her wherever she went.
Ali was twenty-six, and more than ready to settle down in her own place. She was tired of living with her brother and sister-in-law in the spare room of their tiny, messy house. But she couldn’t afford to move out on her part-time waitress salary, and there weren’t a lot of better jobs in Prescott.
And the better jobs that did exist sure wouldn’t hire the woman they thought of as Ali Parker, the unreliable flirt.
She only went out when Denise pressured her, these days. It had been years since she’d last gone home with a guy. But once you got a reputation in Prescott, it stuck for life. That was how small towns worked.
So anything that got her out of Prescott, even for a night, was bound to be a good thing.
Right?
“Are you doing the dishes?”
Ali jumped at Molly’s voice.
Paul’s wife stood in the doorway to the kitchen. She looked tired. “I was hoping to start on them before Paul got home, but…” Molly sighed. “I haven’t gotten to it yet.”
Maybe Paul could do some of the dishes himself once in a while, Ali thought. But it was pointless to say it out loud. Trying to guilt her brother into chores never worked.
“I was just starting them,” Ali said.
“Can you think about what we’re making for dinner while you’re at it?”
“I can’t. I’m going out with Denise in an hour.”
Molly rolled her eyes. “Of course you are. Have fun with whatever men you meet, I guess.”
Ali flinched at the words. It shouldn’t bother her. People had been saying similar things to her for years. She was used to it, even from Molly and Paul. But it still bothered her how people assumed they knew everything about her. Ali didn’t know why, but today it stung extra-hard.
Ali turned on the tap. It didn’t matter what Molly thought of her night out. She’d go and enjoy herself, and she’d come home from a fun night to a clean kitchen. She nodded firmly, and picked up a pot.
***
Grey Landin stretched hard, hands far above his head, and then down to his feet. It had been a long, hard logging day, coming at the end of a long, hard logging week.
Logging was one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, and this week had proven it. One of their crew, Danny Reed, had gone to the hospital yesterday with a serious leg injury.
Being a bobcat shifter would help Danny’s healing, but that wasn’t always enough. Grey was thinking as many good thoughts as he could; Danny was one of the few tolerable guys on the crew.
They were all shifters, which the company had done on purpose. They were faster, stronger, and more resilient than ordinary workers.
Unfortunately, they were also more volatile, especially in groups.
Today, everyone had been tense as hell, understaffed and ready for a follow-up injury caused by the workers’ excessive twitchiness. Nobody had been hurt, but the worry and stress had taken its toll on them all.
“Look at the kitty stretching his little paws out,” said a voice by Grey’s ear.
He twisted and growled instinctively. Grey got himself under
control again fast, but the damage was done.
“Oh, the kitty’s got claws!” said Matt Finch, laughing.
It was funny. Grey had thought that joining a logging team that was known to employ shifters—known in the underground rumor mill that kept track of these things, anyway—would’ve helped him fit in, for once in his life.
Turned out he’d been wrong. Partly because these guys knew what made him an outsider, instead of just thinking he was a bit strange. He was a snow leopard, and none of them liked cats.
Cats were loners. Shifters who spent more time in groups or packs, like bears, wolves, and smaller animals, didn’t like them much.
It also didn’t help that shifters who’d mostly grown up in the same area—for example, these Colorado mountains—didn’t like shifters who moved in from out of state—for example, Grey—and took a job they thought should’ve gone to one of their buddies.
The nail in the coffin was that most of these guys were rough, hard-drinking, macho-posturing sorts, and Grey had left that behind him long ago. These days, he wanted to keep to himself and just maintain a certain level of politeness with everyone else.
But of course, not all of his fellow loggers felt the same. Most of them left him alone, but some, like Matt Finch, were assholes about it. It made him long for the day when he could leave this job and this town far behind him.
Hopefully not too far in the future, now.
For the moment, he just stared at Finch, meeting his eyes in a clear challenge, and waited.
Matt tried to hold the eye contact, but only managed a few seconds. He broke away with a muttered, “Kitty’s going to get what’s coming to him one of these days.”
Grey shook his head and turned to packing up his truck for the long drive home to his cabin.
There was nothing he would’ve liked more than to challenge Matt to a real fight. And he was confident he could win.
After all, he’d seen Matt’s bear form, and it wasn’t impressive. Snow leopards might be more compact than bears, but he bet Matt didn’t know how to use what bulk he had.
Still, Grey wanted to keep his job more. It had been made very clear to him when he was hired that any fighting among the workers—in any form—was grounds for immediate termination. So he couldn’t fight Matt.
But there weren’t any rules against thinking about it really hard.
“Hey.” It was John Olsen, a badger shifter, coming up on his other side. He normally wasn’t part of the hostile crowd.
“What?” Grey asked warily.
“Don’t listen to that guy, he just likes to hear himself talk. Come to Ryder’s Lodge with us. We’ll drink to Danny’s health.”
About to refuse automatically, Grey hesitated at the mention of Danny.
“No need to stick around for the fights and the throwing up and the passing out.” John’s mouth twitched wryly, acknowledging that these nights maybe weren’t as fun as all the guys always insisted they were. “Just a round or two for Danny.”
Grey stayed silent for a moment, thinking it over…then nodded once. He could make an appearance in Danny’s honor, then slip out before the drinking got too intense.
“Great.” John slapped Grey’s shoulder, grinning at the look Grey sent his way for it, and sauntered off to his own truck.
Great, Grey echoed to himself. He’d just agreed to go hang out with a group of men who at best tolerated him, at worst hated his guts.
Sounded real great.
***
Denise honked outside, and Ali grabbed her purse and headed to the door at speed.
Any reservations she’d had about going out had vanished. Paul had just gotten home, and he and Molly were arguing. She didn’t want to get pulled into it, but if she stayed home, she probably would be. If her chances at a quiet night were disappearing, she might as well go out and have a good time.
Denise glanced over at her as she slid into the passenger seat. “Looking good, girl.”
Ali was dressed in a flared skirt and a top that showed off her extremely generous curves, and super-high-heeled sandals that she was proud to say she could walk in like they were sneakers.
It was one of her standard going-out outfits, and she’d thrown it on without thinking too hard about it. Now she hoped that it wouldn’t give Ted Elton the wrong idea. Ali hadn’t wanted to go home with any man for a long, long time. And she wasn’t planning on breaking a years-long celibate streak tonight.
Five minutes later, they’d reached the Eltons’ place, and Ted Elton was sliding into the backseat with her while Mac got into the front with Denise.
“Hey, baby.” Ted grinned at her.
“Hi, Ted,” Ali said.
Ted had been a couple of years below Ali and Denise in school, with the result that neither of them had ever paid attention to him when they were teenagers. Mac, on the other hand, had been three years above them, a senior in high school when they were freshman. The freshman girls had worshipped him.
Ali had been right alongside them back in those days, but unlike Denise, she didn’t see the appeal anymore.
But maybe Ted would have something interesting to say. She supposed she wasn’t giving him much of a chance. They’d never gone out before. Maybe he’d surprise her.
“Wow. That’s a nice, uh, outfit.” Ted’s eyes were glued to her chest.
She wasn’t surprised. But to be fair, the girls were kind of on display. “Thanks.”
“I bet it’s going to be a good time tonight, right?”
“Hope so.” Make an effort, Ali told herself. “Do you guys go over to Ryder’s Lodge a lot?”
Ted straightened his shoulders. “Oh yeah. All the time. Last time we were there, Mac got into a fight with this logger. Huge guy, just really enormous, right? And Mac pasted him one right in the face! It was epic.”
He hadn’t looked anywhere north of her collarbone yet. Ali suppressed a deep sigh—she didn’t want to make anything more interesting in her chest area—and nodded and smiled while Ted told his clearly-exaggerated story.
She didn’t know why she’d thought that tonight might be different than other dates she’d been on. Prescott guys were all the same.
Ali thought wistfully about moving. She’d love to pick up and go somewhere she’d never been, far away from the people she’d grown up with.
But moving took money, and money took a better job, and in order to get a better job, she’d have to move.
So until money fell out of the sky onto her head, she was going to have to make the best of what she had. She brought her attention back to Ted’s story.
***
Maybe this wasn’t so bad.
Grey was seated at the bar next to John, who was telling him about his mate and little twin cubs back home. The cubs were almost two and were apparently possessed of a secret ninja magic that allowed them to get into anything and everything that could be dangerous.
“The other night, I kid you not, I look away for five minutes and when I look back, Annie’s on the counter reaching for the knife block. The knife block! She’d pushed a kitchen chair over and climbed it up like it was nothing. I think there must be a monkey shifter somewhere in our family.” John shook his head in amazement.
On the surface, John’s stories seemed to confirm what Grey had already thought, which was that having kids was more worry than it was worth. He’d given his own parents enough sleepless nights when he was an angry, rebellious teenager, out doing all sorts of dumb, dangerous shit.
He’d always thought having kids was asking for trouble. Any cub of his would come out wild as hell. But right now, the idea of little toddlers charging around the kitchen getting into trouble was weirdly appealing.
But it was a moot point until he met his mate.
If he ever met her. Grey was a solitary man, like most big cats were. Logging was the most social job he’d ever had; he far preferred ranger work, where he was out on his own in the middle of a wide territory for most of the workday. And logging was
n’t going to introduce him to any women. It was a backbreaking, dangerous job, and he’d never seen a woman on any of the crews.
Plus, most of the women who came into bars like this one, where the loggers went after work, weren’t looking for anything more serious than a drink and maybe a good time in bed.
Grey could sympathize with that, but his days of drinking and good times with strangers were over. More and more, these days, he found that talking to women in bars just led to frustration that there was no real connection there.
So he sat and listened to John talk about his toddlers instead.
The bar slowly got rowdier as the night wore on. The voices got louder, the women slowly seemed to be wearing less clothing, and the occasional shoving match started up.
Grey started glancing at his watch, trying to judge when he could leave without insulting John. Pretty soon, he reckoned. His beer was almost gone, and he wouldn’t be ordering another.
As John wound up his story, Grey finished the last of his beer and pushed the glass away from himself. “Well, it’s been a good time…”
He’d been afraid John would protest, try to convince him to stay for another round, but instead John just glanced around them and nodded.
“Better get out of here while the getting’s good.” John stood up.
Grey followed him away from the bar, relieved.
There was a crush of people now, way more than there had been when the loggers had poured in at quitting time. It was a real Friday night crowd, looking to unwind after a long, hard week, and Grey couldn’t think of anything he wanted more than to escape into the crisp night air.
He’d drive his truck back to his cabin and go for a run up into the mountains, he decided. An area that hadn’t been logged yet, the deep forest. That’d be a nice, solitary finish to what had actually been a pretty pleasant night so far.
But as he was pushing through the crowd to the door, following John, Matt Finch appeared in his path.
“Hey there, kitty cat,” he said, a grin spreading across his face. “You think you can drink in this bar? This is a bar for bears, not for little cats. You might get your tail stepped on.”