by Zoe Chant
He undeniably raised all the feelings of desire and lust that she had anticipated, but Lydia had never thought it would come in such a confusing package. He barely had a dozen words to string together, though to be fair, if he was feeling as gobsmacked by the meeting as Lydia was, it wasn’t really a wonder that conversation was a distant secondary concern in his head.
Maybe meeting for drinks was an error. Many confusions could be sorted with a simple roll in the hay, and as much as Lydia had secretly hoped for a little courtship, a slow burn, even a friendship first… maybe that wasn’t going to work.
She banished her thoughts as she entered the massage room, a private little alcove with a few high windows to let a cooling breeze in.
“Good afternoon!” she greeted the client, the slight little woman with a mane of white hair from the plane who was already undressed and face down on the table. “Dot, right? You requested a deep tissue massage?”
She always confirmed, never trusting the schedule or secondhand requests when it came to client preference.
“Really get in there,” the woman said firmly with no hint of recognition. “Don’t hold back because you think I’m old. It was a long flight!”
“Yes, senora,” Lydia agreed with a laugh. She could not help adding, “I have worked a long while at a resort for only shifters. I know that appearances can often be deceiving.”
She considered her own words for the length of the massage, wondering how it applied to her own situation.
Chapter 7
Wrench wasn’t used to being nervous.
He was the decisive sort. He got job offers and he accepted them, or he didn’t, if the money wasn’t worth the risk or regret. He didn’t spend a lot of time tying himself up in knots over maybes or might-have-beens, and he sure as spit didn’t waste his energy worrying about things before they happened.
But there was no contingency plan in place for Lydia, or her impossible brown eyes, or the way she moved.
The idea of facing her over a table, of ‘getting to know her,’ or worse, letting her know him, was more nerve-wracking than entering a bar already knowing that it was going to explode into a gunfight.
He pulverized a broken roof tile before he recognized that he was in no state to try to continue the mosaic. It had been enough pressure before, but knowing whose wall he was working on now made it seem like an impossible task.
He was glad to see that the thinset was nearly gone; he’d have to mix a new batch to work further anyway, and it would be best to stop now and rinse the bucket before it hardened.
There was a spigot in the courtyard, and Wrench filled the bucket at it and scrubbed harder than was required to wash the tools and thin what was left down to something that could be rinsed away and dumped into the bushes.
He was giving the bucket a second swirl of nearly-clear water when someone behind him growled, “What are you doing?”
Wrench looked around to find Graham, a trowel in one hand and a bucket of dirt in the other, glowering as if he’d just stepped in shit.
Panther snarled in his head. This was Lydia’s courtyard, his mate’s territory. He didn’t need another alpha male mucking around, and Wrench definitely didn’t want anyone to see the hash he was making of the wall.
“Just cleaning up here,” Wrench growled in return, moving to empty the second bucket in the greenery after the first.
“You can’t just dump that in the plants!” Graham’s outrage touched every raw nerve in Wrench’s head.
“What are you gonna do?” he challenged, and he deliberately finished tipping the bucket onto the broad green leaves of the underbrush.
He and his panther both took a deep amount of satisfaction from Graham’s snarl of challenge, and he threw aside the bucket in time to brace for the landscaper’s angry attack.
Wrench was more of a knives and gunfire fighter, preferring to take any advantage over an enemy that he could. But there was a certainly gritty pleasure to bare-knuckle fighting. Even as he dodged Graham’s fist as it came flying at his face, he caught himself grinning.
This made sense to him, it fit in his world order. A mate was confusion and levels of emotion that he didn’t want to face. A fight, though. A fight was a simple give and take. Dodge and strike, absorb the blow if it gave him an advantage, use his greater size against Graham’s greater speed.
The lion shifter was clearly a grade of fighter better than Wrench; the blows he landed were pulled, Wrench was sure, but still carried enough power to stagger him, which was no small feat. Wrench started by pulling his own return strikes, but Graham seemed unfazed, even when Wrench scored direct hits, and they stepped up their conflict, testing each other.
Graham was grinning, too, Wrench realized, and after they had each tallied several good punches, they slowed their circling and finally lowered their fists. Graham wiped blood away from the corner of his mouth. Wrench blinked and realized his vision in one eye was hazy from a good hit. He wondered if the black eye would be gone by the time he met Lydia. Not that a black eye was going to make or break his image of refinement.
One of his teeth was loose.
“I thought I was going to have to spray you two down like two fighting tomcats,” Travis said in disgust.
Startled, Wrench looked around to find that Travis and Breck were standing at the entrance to the courtyard.
“What is wrong with you two?” Travis scolded them. “You’d better get cleaned up before Scarlet sees either of you. You’re still on probation,” he reminded Wrench. “And I’m the one who vouched for you.”
He directed a chiding glare at Graham. “I was here to see if Wrench could give me a hand with some burst pipes in cottage five.”
“And I’m here to see if Graham can cram his surly self into a waiter’s uniform and help with the dinner rush,” Breck added. “We’re up a few guests and down a waiter.”
Graham shrugged an affirmative and followed Breck out of the courtyard.
Wrench cleared his throat. “I’ll be right there,” he said, bending to pick up the empty bucket and the scattered tools.
“Are you guys okay, then?” Travis asked in concern.
Wrench gave a rough laugh. “Never better,” he said sincerely.
Chapter 8
“What can I get you?” Tex asked as Lydia drifted up to the bar, butterflies in her stomach.
“A quiet table for two,” Lydia said, eyeing the crowd skeptically. There were a lot of people in the bar for dinner time, and she could hear the steady buzz of conversation from the restaurant deck above.
Tex looked at her quizzically, taking in the tight red dress she’d chosen, and the matching flower in her hair.
Lydia looked back, biting her lip. She was practically bursting with the need to tell someone—anyone!—her news.
“You could take a candle down to one of the tables at the far end of the pool,” Tex suggested. “It’s as quiet as you’ll get, but the drink service will be slow.” His face was alight with curiosity, but he didn’t pry.
“I’m meeting Wrench,” Lydia blurted, even though he hadn’t asked.
Tex blinked, and gave her a cautious smile. “I wouldn’t have guessed he was your type,” he said in neutral tones.
“How about a glass of wine?” Lydia said plaintively.
Tex grimaced. “Anything else? We’re out of white and nearly dry on the red, too. It’s been hard getting restocked since the storm, with no boat of our own.”
“Anything,” Lydia said, sinking down onto a barstool. “Not too strong. Well, maybe strong.”
“I’ll whip you up something perfect,” Tex promised, filling a glass with ice cubes and reaching for bottles. “And you tell me about your date.”
Lydia misheard date as mate, and said, “How did you know?” before her ears caught up with her brain. “Oh, you said… never mind.”
Tex wisely kept his mouth closed while Lydia twisted the hem of her full dress in her hand. It was a dress she often wore for the f
ormal dances held once a week, and probably overkill for this meeting, but it was what she had always pictured herself in when she had thought about her mysterious future mate. Probably the dancing through a garden and the poetry she imagined he’d whisper to her weren’t going to happen.
“Your mate then?” Tex prodded, putting the drink down in front of her.
“Don’t tell anyone yet,” Lydia begged.
“My lips are sealed,” Tex said gravely. “Nervous?”
“He’s not what I expected,” Lydia confessed. “He’s... so…”
She didn’t know how to finish the sentence. Her swan wanted to dwell on his strength and handsome face, but Lydia couldn’t put aside the things that Laura had told her. He kidnapped people and did who knows what else for terrible men. He wasn’t anything like the suave billionaire philanthropist she had always fantasized about.
“Complicated?” Tex suggested.
“That’s a start,” Lydia said hopelessly, taking a sip of her drink. It was light and fruity, with just a promise of warming alcohol behind the subtle fruit and bubble. “Bueno. This is good,” she said, determined to concentrate on the best before her.
“I’ll name it after you,” Tex said. He pushed a candle across the bar to her and lit it. “Now you take this and your drink to one of the tables on the pool deck and when Wrench shows up, I’ll send him your way.”
Lydia smiled. “Thanks, Tex,” she said gratefully.
“You’re going to be fine,” he assured her. “Mates always find a way to muddle through.”
“There might be a lot of muddling,” Lydia said faintly, remembering the way he had flinched away from her touch.
Someone down the bar called for Tex and he turned away to attend to them.
Lydia gathered up her candle and went to find the perfect place for an imperfect meeting.
Chapter 9
“What are you grinning about?” Wrench growled, pulling at the starched collar of his suit.
Tex didn’t pause in his mixing, giving a bottle an unnecessary flip as he topped off the concoction he was working on. “You clean up nicely, that’s all. Lydia’s going to be impressed.”
Wrench scowled at him. “What do you know about that?” he asked.
“I’m a bartender,” Tex said cheerfully. “I know everything.” He passed the glass across the bar to the waiting guest and turned to give Wrench an appraising look. “Yup, she’s going to find this quite acceptable.”
“So glad you approve,” Wrench said dryly. “Where is she?” He had scanned the crowd, but none of the milling women, despite the curious and interested stares he was receiving, held the slightest hint of interest to him.
Tex pointed, along the bar, out the deck. “Down on the far end of the pool deck. Take your own drink, the service is going to be lousy down there. Pour you a beer?”
Wrench’s heart did a little flip flop in his chest. Past the cheerful lights of the bar, he could only make out the vaguest impression of a figure sitting at a table lit by a single candle.
Ours, his panther purred. Only ours.
“Whiskey,” Wrench told Tex. “On the rocks. Make it a double.”
He stared into the darkness at Lydia while Tex poured it. “Good luck,” he said, and Wrench couldn’t doubt his sincerity… or his need for all the luck he could get.
The walk was agonizingly long. He elbowed his way through the bar crowd without really registering them, then faced the long staircase down to the pool deck. The splash of the pool water features turned the sound of conversations to a distant hum, and as he walked the length of the pool, the thrum of the ocean surf muffled both.
By the time he’d made his way past the lounge chairs to the end of the deck overlooking the beach, his eyes had adjusted to the dim light and he could make out Lydia, sitting at a round table with a candle in a jar, watching the flame. She was wearing a red dress, and her dark hair was swept back with a red flower. Candle light warmed the planes of her perfect round face. The dress was long, but slit up one side, and a long, strong leg ended in a high-heeled shoe.
She drew herself up as he approached, and Wrench almost faltered as she turned to look at him, before stomping to the far chair. It squeaked across the tile as he dropped himself gracelessly into it and put his untouched whiskey on the table.
“Hi,” Lydia said shyly.
Wrench made himself reply, “Hi.”
There was a silence that deserved no adjective but awkward.
“Great suit,” she finally said.
Wrench realized that he should have said something about how beautiful she looked, but the moment was long past. “I was supposed to be here as a guest,” he felt obliged to explain. “And sometimes I do bodyguard work at fancy affairs so I gotta be able to clean up and put on the penguin suit.”
“It looks good,” Lydia said warmly, and Wrench was astonished by how good her praise felt. Panther purred louder.
“So, what do you do when you aren’t doing bodyguard work?” Lydia asked, fingers toying with the condensation on her glass. Even her fingers were sexy, and Wrench had to focus with determination to stop imagining how they’d feel on his skin.
“I fix stuff for people. Independent hire for…” Wrench tried to figure out a delicate way to explain his work. “For when you gotta scare someone or need a guy who’s good in a fight.”
Lydia looked disturbed by the idea. “Did you… hurt people?”
“Yeah,” Wrench said, hating the way she flinched. “But I had a code, you know. I was careful no one on the side got hurt, and I was pretty picky about jobs. Not, you know, indiscriminate.” He hoped he used the word correctly. The line of her neck was distracting him, and the way her hair curved along it. Had it been straight before? Now it was in big waves.
Lydia took a hearty swallow of her drink, clearly not eager to pursue this line of conversation. “So, do you have any family?”
Wrench took his own sip of whiskey. It was warm enough that the ice had melted, watering it down just a little. “Sister,” he said briefly. It certainly wasn’t sisterly feelings that he was having now, watching the bounce of her dark hair on that tantalizing arc of her shoulder.
Lydia perked up at that. “Oh, what’s her name? Younger or older?”
“Renna. Younger. Foster sister, actually. Ended up in the same house when I was ten and she was eight. We looked out for each other. They were going to split us up after a couple of years, but I was big for my age and people were already paying me to, you know, walk ‘em down the bad blocks and remind people of their promises. It helped that I was a panther shifter. So we skipped school and took off on our own.”
“You lived on the streets?” Lydia’s expression in the flickering light could have been horror or pity.
Either emotion was unwelcome. Wrench wasn’t sure why they were talking so much about him. He supposed he ought to be asking her these kinds of polite questions.
“You got family?” It didn’t sound as polite when he said it.
Polite or not, Lydia grasped the effort like he’d thrown a lifeline. “I have six brothers and sisters, all younger. My mama and her two sisters live on the same block, so there have always been a passel of cousins and aunts and uncles around. Holidays and weddings are always madhouses, and there’s not a month that goes by without some occasion for celebration.”
Wrench stared. “That’s a lot of family.”
“I can’t imagine growing up without them. Even when they drove me absolutely crazy and made me long for the tiniest piece of privacy.”
She had relaxed when she spoke of them, and leaned forward to the table to include Wrench in her enthusiasm. He was helplessly enraptured by the way her whole face smiled, and the golden candle light over her generous cleavage. Then she reached across the table and put her hand over his and Wrench startled back, nearly spilling his whiskey as he scrambled up.
She rose to her feet and he stared across the table at her.
Every emotion she fel
t was bare on her face; she hadn’t spent a lifetime trying to shutter those thoughts from the world. Wrench could see her frustration, confusion, and hurt as clearly as if she’d spoken them out loud.
“I’m making a mess of this,” he said regretfully, and her face softened.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be talking,” she suggested, moving around the table towards him.
Her breath was ragged, Wrench realized. Could she be wanting him like he was craving her? The scent of her, the rustle of her skirt, it was like a net of feminine enticement.
“Wrench…” she said, then paused; it was a ridiculous name from her mouth. “Do you have another name?”
“Warren,” he said, and the name was as unfamiliar to his ears as it was to his mouth.
“Warren,” she tested it, and when she said it, it sounded respectable. “Warren,” she repeated, and then she was standing right before him, so close he could have bent down and kissed her if he dared.
“Do you dance?” she asked.
“Nope.”
“A shame,” she said. “I find that things are simpler when you dance.” She put a hand on Wrench’s chest. “I could teach you.”
“I doubt it,” Wrench said. Her hand felt like a brand, hot through the layers of his suit. The evening was comparatively cool, but he was sweating. She was so close, her toes almost even with his own. Even in heels, she had to look up from about the height of his shoulder.
“Warren,” she said warningly.
It didn’t feel like his name.
“You’re going to have to kiss me eventually, you know.”
He was dying to. He was ready to. Panther was panting and pacing and lashing his tail. Lydia was looking up at him with expectant eyes, her hand still on his chest, her red lips just parted. He had to know what she tasted like.