The shop was located on the edge of a small lake, and there were picnic tables in the back. They sat at a table and she ate her hot dogs and fries and then licked ketchup off her fingers. Then she looked at Zane, who was watching her with amusement.
“Shut up. Do as I say, not as I do,” she said sternly. “You are not allowed to do that on a date, ever.”
He scoffed. “I’ll try to remember that, thanks.”
“All right, there are a couple of things we need to go over,” she said. “First of all, I assume that Cecily and Hubert told you they want you to have lunch with Tiffany Charles on Saturday.”
“Who?”
“Tiffany Charles, the bear shifter they want you to mate with?”
He shrugged and wiped his fingers on a napkin. “Whatever. I don’t answer Cecily or Hubert’s calls most of the time.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like them.”
“Well, that’s…honest.” She met his gaze. “I mean, though, they are your family and all that.”
He shrugged. “Didn’t grow up with them. My parents were my family. My parents didn’t like them either.”
That took her aback. She wondered if he was being a bit harsh on them. Granted, they were awful people, but they were his only family. Cecily and Hubert had been among the searchers who’d rushed out to the cabin as soon as they realized that Zane and his parents were missing; she’d read that in the news article. That had to count for something; the two of them were the ultimate city shifters, and yet they’d been willing to tramp around in the woods for days trying to find their family.
“What about the rest of your clan?” she asked.
“There were a few decent ones. After my parents died and Hubert took over, they scattered around the country, joined new clans.”
“Anyway,” she resumed. “The lunch on Saturday. Noon. Are…are you okay with it?”
“Are you okay with it?” he echoed.
“Are you making fun of me?” she asked.
“No. I’m asking you a question.”
“Well…” She paused, trying to think of how to answer that question. She didn’t want to lie to Zane, and she had a feeling she wouldn’t be able to put anything past him anyway. “I mean…not really. I just, uh…” She didn’t want to openly bash Tiffany. It wasn’t her place to do that, or to make his decisions for him.
“I don’t like teaching someone to be something they’re not,” she admitted. “This isn’t how I normally do things. I normally interview prospective clients, and get to know them, and get a feel for who they would be compatible with.”
He raised an eyebrow and looked her right in the eye. She looked away.
“So why did you agree to work with me?”
She felt her cheeks heat up. The Shepherds had insisted on a non-disclosure agreement. She couldn’t tell him about their deal.
“Reasons,” she muttered. “Admittedly self-centered reasons.”
He didn’t argue the point. He just shrugged indifferently. “Fine. Those suits should be ready by Friday. You can pick one for me.”
She nodded, feeling faintly queasy at the thought of him actually going out to lunch with Tiffany. Wooing her. Flirting with her. He could be very charming when he wanted to – and she knew he had incentive, because he didn’t want to lose the clan land.
But this was what she’d been hired for. Well, blackmailed for.
“All right,” she said. “Oh, and there’s one other thing. The fish and game department called me, and they said they found silver bullets at the site where we were fishing. I guess they’re considering the possibility that whoever shot at us was deliberately targeting shifters.”
He straightened up at that, and stared at her, shaking his head. “I don’t like the sound of that. You should stay with me until they get to the bottom of it.”
“Stay with you? Where?” Wait, what? She hadn’t meant to say that at all. She’d meant to tell him that it was out of the question.
“My house.”
“I can’t,” she said with regret. “It wouldn’t be professional. I have an alarm system at my house – I’ll be fine. And Gillian and I are taking turns having Sprinkles for the night, so if it’s my night to have him, you know I’ll be safe.” She smiled at that, but he didn’t.
“You’d be safer with me.”
“Cecily and Hubert would have a fit,” she said. “And really, I think we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time that morning.”
“You sure you don’t want the chance to make my house over too?”
She grimaced. “No, I’ll settle for your personality and eating habits and wardrobe, I guess. Am I pretty terrible?”
“Nope. If you were, I wouldn’t be here.”
She looked at him in surprise. “Really?”
His sensual lips quirked in an amused smile. “Course not. Do I strike you as the kind of guy who does anything he doesn’t want to?”
She felt a sudden warm glow spread through her.
“No, you don’t,” she admitted. So…that meant he liked spending time with her?
No, that was a treacherous road – she couldn’t let her thoughts travel there.
As they walked back to the front of the diner where his bike was parked, she thought she smelled something familiar. It smelled like…the guy from the parking lot, the one who’d eavesdropped on her. The one who had corrected her grammar.
It was just the faintest whiff, and then it was gone so quickly she wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it or not.
She put on her helmet and climbed onto the bike behind Zane, settling in comfortably and trying not to think of his lunch with Tiffany as they drove. Why spoil an otherwise delightful ride?
As they headed towards the city, she heard the screech of tires and then the crash of two cars colliding, far behind them.
Zane heard it too. He pulled over immediately and called 9-1-1 on his cell phone. Then he turned around and headed back, getting just far enough to see a car crashed into a tree, consumed in flames.
There were already police and a fire truck on scene – they’d gotten there quickly.
There was only one car there, overturned and in flames. The driver hung upside down in his seat, limp and unmoving. The firefighters were backing away from the car. Zane and Wynona scrambled off his bike.
In one fluid movement, Zane shifted into bear form. Now he towered seven feet high at least, with paws the size of dinner plates and thick brown hair rippling over his massive body.
Without thinking, Wynona shifted too, feeling her clothing explode off her as she dropped to all fours. She followed Zane as he raced over to the burning car, not sure what she could do to help but sure, somehow, that she should be by his side if there was danger.
Zane grabbed the driver’s side door with his paws and, summoning his enormous shifter strength, pulled it off with a hideous screech of metal. Then he tore at the seatbelt, and carefully lifted the driver out as the flames from the engine leaped high in the air. Standing on his hind legs, he cradled the limp man in his arms, ran over to the ambulance, and set him down on the stretcher.
Wynona trotted over to where Zane stood. The air stank of blood and gasoline and motor oil. She felt a pang of sadness when he looked down at the limp man and shook his head.
The driver hadn’t survived.
Zane shifted back to his human form, fur receding, snout shrinking, claws retracting. In a minute he stood there tall, stark naked and magnificent, with the vehicle flaming and crackling behind him.
Wynona followed suit. She walked over to where her clothing had fallen off her and made the remains of her shirt into a kind of sarong, hiding her crotch, then stepped into her shoes, which fortunately had survived the shift. She wasn’t too terribly embarrassed, because shifters were used to being naked around people. Then she remembered that Zane was there and she was fat, so she sucked her stomach in and tried to cover herself with her hands.
Zane walked over to h
is motorcycle, opened up the small chest that he had strapped on the back, and pulled out a spare outfit. He handed Wynona a T-shirt and stepped into his jeans. One of the police officers questioned them as they got dressed, but all Zane could tell him was that he and Wynona had heard the accident as they were driving.
The police officer shook his head. “Well, appreciate the help. Too bad the guy didn’t make it. It was a hit and run. Hope they find the other driver.”
She tipped her head back and scented the air. The dead guy was not the guy from the parking lot. Something felt off about the accident – just too coincidental and weird – but she couldn’t imagine what.
Feeling uneasy, she climbed back onto the bike with Zane. Now she was hugging his bare skin, and she felt her nipples harden, pressing into his back. She could smell the musk of his arousal, and realized with mortification that he must be able to smell hers as well.
It doesn’t mean anything. He’s a guy. They get turned on if the wind blows the wrong way.
He drove her back home, where she slept poorly that night, dreaming that she scented Zane just outside her window. So close, but just too far away to touch.
Chapter Nine
The next morning Gillian, who was usually highly unflappable, looked quite alarmed when Wynona told her what had happened.
“Did you tell the police about the man from the parking lot?” she asked.
“No, what would I tell them? Last night I thought I caught a faint whiff of some guy who eavesdropped on me almost a week ago and corrected my grammar? And then a little while later there was a car accident? I’m not even sure it was him I smelled.”
“He corrected your grammar? You didn’t mention that part.”
“Yes, he did,” Wynona said, shaking her head in annoyance. “More than once. In the span of a very short conversation.”
“Well, your grammar is frequently quite atrocious,” Gillian mused. “He can’t be all bad.” Then she pursed her lips. “But someone tried to shoot at you the other day, and then there was a car accident right behind you.”
“But how could those two things be connected? Honestly, I think that working with Zane and having to deal with the Shepherds just has me rattled in general,” Wynona said.
As they spoke, a man walked through the door, good-looking enough, wearing a crisply pressed suit. He had an impatient look on his face. Before he could speak, Sprinkles looked up from his dog bed by Gillian’s desk and growled at him, fur rising in an angry ridge down his back.
“I’m sorry, sir, we’re not accepting new clients at this time,” Wynona informed him.
“Well, not all clients, just specifically you,” Gillian explained helpfully. “Since Sprinkles doesn’t like you.”
“Gillian. Do you remember how we talked about the fact that honesty isn’t always the best policy?” Wynona said through clenched teeth.
“Of course.” Gillian stared at her in puzzlement, her eyes huge behind those owlish glasses. “It was less than a week ago. You know I have an excellent memory. Why do you ask?”
“Forget it,” Wynona sighed.
“Hey!” the man snapped. “You can’t turn me down just because some rat of a dog doesn’t like me.”
“Get out!” Wynona and Gillian said at the exact same time, both pointing at the doorway, and he glared at them and walked out the door, muttering, “Crazy bitches.” That only reinforced Sprinkles’ original assessment of him. Men who called women bitches did not get to sign up with Wynona.
She spent the rest of the day interviewing prospective clients, talking with current clients, and running errands. Throughout the day, she felt an odd, hollow feeling, as if she were missing something.
Finally she figured out what it was. Zane. She didn’t have anything scheduled with Zane that day. It felt weird to go all day without him. She wouldn’t be seeing him until tomorrow at lunch, when they practiced eating at a restaurant in public. Then the next day, he’d have lunch with Tiffany.
The realization that spending an entire day without Zane could cause these feelings filled Wynona with dismay. Whoever he ended up mating with, whether it was Tiffany or someone else, it wouldn’t be her. She found herself wishing that she could tell him why she was really doing this, but she’d given her word and signed that non-disclosure agreement.
The rest of the day felt dull and heavy, and she went home right at five, which was unusual for her. She usually worked until seven or eight. Not that she had no social life.
Oh, who was she kidding? She had absolutely no social life.
She put a few hamburgers in the frying pan, but she was so distracted that she forgot about them and accidentally set them on fire.
She put out the fire, set the frying pan in the sink, then opened the window to let out the smoke. Then she went into the living room and plopped down on the couch and tried to think of what to do with herself. Sprinkles was spending the night at Gillian’s; Wynona wished she had him with her instead. She could use a little company.
Suddenly she heard a bang coming from the kitchen, and leaped to her feet.
At the same moment, she smelled Zane. She ran into the kitchen. The back door was open, practically hanging off the hinges, and Zane was standing by her refrigerator.
“What are you doing here?’ she demanded.
“I thought your house was burning down. Kicked open the back door.” He glanced at it, then walked over and set it back in place as much as possible. “I’ll fix that for you tomorrow. Needs new hinges. And a stronger lock. And a better door. I’ll get you a steel door.”
She stared at him in bewilderment. “I mean why are you at my house at all? Why were you close enough to smell my burned dinner?”
“That shooting’s got me worried for you. I’m here to keep an eye out.” He began rifling through the fridge and pulling out ingredients.
“What are you doing now?”
“Cooking dinner for us. I’m hungry.”
“Oh.” She didn’t have an answer for that.
“You go relax,” he said. “I’ll have something whipped up in half an hour.”
“You know how to cook?” she asked skeptically. “I mean, in a real kitchen, not on a grill?”
He glanced at the frying pan sitting in the sink. The remains of her hamburgers sat there like little lumps of charcoal.
“I think I can manage,” he said.
She started to leave the kitchen, then paused and glanced back at him. “You didn’t by any chance sleep outside my house last night, did you?”
“Course I did. Somebody might be trying to shoot you with silver bullets.” He gave her a fierce grin. “But they’d have to get through me first.”
“Well…thank you. I mean, you didn’t have to do that, but I appreciate it. It’s very nice of you, in a stalkerish kind of way, that is.” She shook her head. “Okay, so I really did smell you outside my bedroom window.”
“Why didn’t you invite me in for a cup of coffee, then?” He looked mildly offended.
“Because I didn’t think you were really there! I thought I was dreaming!” she said with exasperation.
“So me being at your bedroom window is a dream come true, huh?” His smug grin sent a flare of annoyance through her.
“It is not! It’s…it’s a nightmare!” She stomped off to her living room.
That was really smooth, Wynona. Great comeback.
She sat down in the living room and turned on the TV to distract herself. A few minutes later the smells of lemon and butter swirled through the air.
Zane called her in to the dining room about twenty minutes later. He had cooked a delicious lemon-butter tilapia and rice.
They sat down and ate dinner in companionable silence. Zane was actually an amazing cook. Every lemony bite of tilapia was tart, buttery heaven, and he’d cooked it just right, so it practically melted in her mouth.
How had he learned that? And how had he managed to convince everyone that he was a grunting boor, one step up from a
real bear?
“By the way, I made it through the whole meal even though you only put out one set of forks and knives,” Zane said. “What kind of lousy restaurant is this?”
She shook her head. “Damn it, I missed a chance to practice civilizing you.”
“You’ll have to make it up to me. Dance with me,” he said.
She stared at him as if he’d taken leave of his senses.
“Dance with you?”
“Yeah. Don’t civilized people waltz or something?”
He had her there – she should teach him how to dance. Even though that meant she’d have to be uncomfortably close to him.
“I’ll teach you a box step,” she said. “Tiffany and her crowd go to a lot of formal dances.”
She put a record on her record player.
“You have a phonograph,” he said, nodding approvingly. “Nice.”
She began demonstrating the steps, then watched him repeat them perfectly.
As they danced, he moved with such grace and confidence that she was astonished. Zane apparently was full of surprises.
Then he stumbled and accidentally pulled her into his arms. She slammed against his chest and stared up into his eyes.
“You did that on purpose!” she accused.
“Yep,” he drawled, unashamed.
He leaned down and kissed her.
She would have expected his kiss to be aggressive, unsophisticated, maybe even a bit rough, but it wasn’t. It was magical.
His lips were firm and commanding on hers, and he kissed her with a mixture of passion and finesse that made her toes curl and her panties dampen.
She parted her lips and he stroked her tongue with his, wrapping one arm securely around her waist and using his free hand to cradle the back of her head. With each slide and flick of his tongue, shivers of electricity coursed through her body. Her breasts were crushed against his broad, muscular chest, and she wondered if he could feel her heart’s frantic tripping.
He gentled the kiss, grazing her lower lip with his teeth then barely smudging her mouth with his, leaving her breathless and aching for more.
A Grizzly Kind Of Love (The Mating Game Book 3) Page 6