by M. L. Briers
He knew that conversation between them had gone from the sublime to the ridiculous, but he figured that every moment that he had her attention and kept her in place; it bought him more time.
“Okay, new plan. I’ll tell you what works for me — you can take your head and shove it up your big, furry butt,” Jordan said as she nodded her head in agreement with herself.
Her eyes were wider now, and she was back to throwing daggers at him with just a look. Harvey thought that he might be somewhat crazy, because when she looked at him like that, she was sexier than hell.
“Now, sweetheart, you might wanna take a closer look — my backside is neither big nor is it furry.” Harvey couldn’t help the crooked smile that formed on his lips. There was just something about her at that moment that touched his funny bone.
“Don’t call me sweetheart again. And for your information I absolutely do not want to take a closer look at your backside,” Jordan offered back with a look that reminded him of the time that he threw up in a friend’s boot.
“Are you sure?” He offered her something of a teasing sideways glance that was damn sexy.
“No, I have a decision-making disorder.” He’d never heard so much sarcasm in someone’s tone before, and that included the vampire.
“Isn’t that called being female?”
Jordan’s lips parted, but apart from a small squeak, she didn’t utter a word. She didn’t need to because everything that she wanted to say was written right there on her face.
“Did you know that you get a little pulsing vein in your temple when you’re angry? It’s kind of cute,” Harvey teased.
He had her on the back foot and right then that’s where she needed to be.
“You do know that shifter or not, a kick in the balls will still down you, right?” Jordan hissed back.
She was done being nice. She was done trying to reason with him. The man was obviously insane, and if this was his idea of a chat-up line then she hated to think of the women that it had worked on in the past.
“Yes, and it hurts like hell, but I can still recover fast and be back on my feet before your decision-making disorder allows you to decide which way is home.” Harvey grinned. It wasn’t just any grin, but one that he knew worked well with females.
At least it had in the past. From the look on his mate’s face, it didn’t appear to be working so well this time.
“Is that a threat?” Jordan hissed back.
“No!” Harvey almost bit his own tongue off in his rush to denial.
Mine… His beast growled within him.
“It sounded like a threat,” Jordan said narrowing her eyes at him.
“It was a warning,” Harvey tossed back at her.
“So, like a threat then?”
“Nothing like a threat!” Harvey growled, he couldn’t help the damn growl because it annoyed him that she would even think that he’d threaten her. Not to mention the fact that his beast was angry at him.
“Well, it sounded like a threat to me.”
“Well, the only person threatening anyone around here is you.”
“I did not threaten you,” Jordan said as she tossed her hands back onto her hips and offered him a steely gaze.
“You said you were going to kick me in the balls…”
“That wasn’t a threat — if you don’t get out on my way — it’s a promise.”
CHAPTER TEN
~
Harvey had to bite down on every curse word that he’d ever learned. His mate was infuriating. She was a stubborn, hard-headed woman, and she might have talked a good talk but he doubted that she could back it up with action.
Where he came from that was a dangerous combination, you didn’t initiate a challenge without being able to follow through. It wasn’t that he wanted a kick in the balls, he didn’t, and he’d damn well do everything to avoid it, but still, he kind of hoped that she would follow through on the threat just so that he knew she had in her to try.
“Look, Jordan,” Harvey said expanding his hands in front of him in the hope that she wouldn’t do anything too stupid.
“I don’t know you. I don’t know anything about you…”
“What do you want to know?”
“Gee, let me see — I have a list somewhere that I prepared earlier,” Jordan tossed back with another dollop of sarcasm and a look that asked what planet he’d come from.
“Cute,” Harvey tossed back, but she had a point, he had kind of dropped it in her lap. He was a shifter, and it had come as a surprise to him that he’d found his mate, he could only imagine how she felt about it.
“I thought so.” She shrugged.
“What I was trying to tell you before was that running from a mate will never end well.”
“For me.”
“For both of us,” Harvey said. He didn’t even want to think about what would happen if she ran and he couldn’t stop his beast from breaking free and hunting her down. “Please, let’s not test that theory.”
“Another please, careful, I might be impressed.” She might have said the words, but when she folded her arms, Harvey knew that she was still on the defensive.
“What are the odds?” Harvey allowed himself a small, smug grin.
“Cute,” Jordan said resisting the urge to smile.
The man was big. The huge broad shoulders and impossibly large chest muscles screamed strength and power. The double dose of muscles at his biceps meant that she wouldn’t be able to wrap her hands around them and make her fingers meet.
His height alone, at over six foot, should have been giving her pause for thought. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t used to a man throwing his weight around and intimidating her, and yet, she didn’t feel that way with Harvey.
There he was in front of her, all rippling muscles and manly man-ness, the kind of man that you didn’t want to run into down a dark alley at night, and yet, she still didn’t feel threatened by him.
If anything, every time their eyes met she felt a rush of excitement fluttering inside of her and a barrage of X rated thoughts slammed into her mind.
If she really was his mate, and judging by the look of him and the way that he was acting, she guessed that she was, then she needed to understand exactly what the hell it meant. Not just for her but for Macy.
~
~
~
Harvey had walked her home. In some ways, it had gone to ease the tension within her, but had only served to heighten the tension that was within him.
He’d taken her home, back to familiar ground where she could find her feet once more, but he had no idea if that was the right thing to do. Now that she was on solid ground again, would that only make her more determined to see him off?
Harvey hadn’t wanted to go inside. Jon was in there. Macy was in there. Without having solid ground of his own to stand on, he wasn’t ready to face her family. Even if it was his family as well now.
He was a big man. He’d gone up against some of the best bare knuckle fighters in the country without trepidation. But there he was feeling like a damn teenager on prom night, butterflies and all, pacing up and down outside of his date’s house.
But this was no teenage angst. This was no teenage crush. This was his mate and the rest of his life. Family.
“Grandpa wants to know why you’re trying to wear a pathway into his grass,” Macy’s voice startled him. He cursed inwardly at the fact that he hadn’t picked up on her presence.
“And you’re here to find out?” Harvey rallied towards her, and she looked kind of cute staring up at him with those big wide eyes, her hands on her hips looking like a mini me of her mother, and with that curly hair halo around her head again.
She looked kind of angelic, kind of precocious, and now kind of scary as Harvey realized that she was his family. His new daughter. And he knew he’d do whatever it took to protect her, from life, from boys, definitely and especially from boys.
It was little wonder then, knowing what he knew now,
that he and his bear had been so protective of her from the start.
“No,” she said as she swapped the hands on the hips routine for the crossed arms routine and stared him in the eye.
“Then why are you here?” Harvey decided to mirror her stance. He folded his big arms across his chest and stared down at her.
“You’re mummy’s new friend,” she said and eyed him for a reaction.
“Does mummy have a lot of friends?” Harvey hated to ask, but jealousy and the need to know got the better of him.
It felt like forever until she answered.
“Not like you.”
“A bear shifter.”
“A man.” Macy had said it so simply, as if her words were nothing at all, that took a moment for it to sink in. “Harvey…” She looked at him as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
“Aren’t you afraid of my bear?”
“He’s not going to eat me, is he?”
Harvey got the impression from her that she already knew the answer to her question. That didn’t stop his beast from grumbling within him. His bear already knew that she was family and he’d protect her with his life.
“No, Macy, my bear would never hurt you.”
“Then can I see him?” She offered him a look of expectation as if he was just going to let his bear burst from within him right in front of her.
Harvey had a feeling that if that happened it really would set the cat amongst the pigeons with her mother.
“What say we do that another time?” Harvey grinned.
Macy offered him the biggest, widest, cutest damn grin he had ever seen in his life. Harvey didn’t know about his bear, but his heart certainly melted just from that one look.
“When?” She demanded with a level of excitement that nobody had ever shown a meeting his bear before.
“We’ll see,” Harvey offered back.
“But that’s what grown-ups say when they mean no.” Macy was frowning now. He guessed he’d have to learn about this parenting thing and pretty damn fast because she was already about seven years ahead of him.
“I said you could meet my bear and I meant it. But your mother needs to say that it’s okay too or… ”
“Mummy!” Macy squealed as she set off on fast feet towards the house.
Now he’d gone and done it. His first test as a parent had failed and he’d sent her after her mother to get the okay.
Harvey had a feeling that he was going to get more than okay from Jordan.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
~
“Mummy — mummy! ” Macy squeal-called as she raced through the downstairs of the house towards the kitchen.
“Is the barn on fire?” Jordan called back. “Because if it’s not, then stop running.”
Macy ground to a halt the moment that she reached the kitchen door. She found her mother waiting for her with a look of expectation and the excitement rose within her again.
“Sorry,” Macy offered up, but Jordan could tell the child didn’t mean a word of it.
“So, did aliens land in our garden?” Jordan asked and regretted it the moment that her daughter's eyes widened, and she took one of those deep breaths that told her things just might get worse before they got better.
“There really are aliens?” Macy looked as if all of her Christmases had come at once.
“I’m guessing there are some things out there somewhere. But if it wasn’t aliens landing then why are you running through the house?” Jordan decided to cut the alien thing off at the knees.
“Harvey said I could see his bear…”
“He said what?” Jon demanded with surprise and a lot of disbelief as he strolled into the kitchen from the back garden and turned questioning eyes from Macy to Jordan.
“Maybe not right now,” Jordan offered to the child.
It was just her luck that her father had come in when he had, and now she was getting it from both sides at once.
“When?” Macy demanded with equal amounts of excitement and a childlike lack of patience.
“Not right now? Are you insane?” Jon demanded.
“When I say…” Jordan offered towards her daughter and then turned her attention back to her father. “Yes, dad, I’m insane.”
“When I say isn’t a real answer and you always say I should give a real answer to a question,” Macy tossed back, skewering her mother with the truth, and Jordan so wanted to roll her eyes back in her head and groan, but she told Macy off enough for doing that and that would make her even more of a hypocrite.
“Has the world gone mad?” Jon asked. “Why would Harvey say Macy could see his bear?”
“Dad, that’s something we’ll talk about when Macy goes off to play,” Jordan shot him a warning look with her eyes and got the stink eye back for her troubles.
“Can I play with Harvey’s bear?” Macy demanded digging her heels in and causing a little thud to start at Jordan’s temple.
Maybe Harvey was right. Maybe there was a little throbbing vein at her temple.
“No, you can’t play with his bear…” Father and daughter said as one.
“Then I don’t want to go out to play.” Macy crossed arms in front of the chest and gave Jordan the stink eye.
That was two for two. Both of them were mad at her and she had a mate pacing outside her front door — could her life get any more complicated?
“And why is there a vampire lurking around our property?” Jon said as he folded his arms across his chest and eyed his daughter for a long moment.
“Owen!” Macy was back to being excited again, and Jordan wanted to headbutt the nearest wall.
“I know who he is — I want to know why he’s there,” Jon didn’t take his accusing gaze away from Jordan for a second.
“Maybe he’s thirsty.” Jordan’s snarky tone got her the stink eye from her father once more, but it was Macy, who started across the kitchen towards the refrigerator that got Jordan’s attention.
“Macy, what are you doing?” Jordan asked.
“I’m taking Owen some water,” she announced and the sound of Jon almost choking on his own tongue was a moment’s light relief for Jordan.
“No, you’re not young lady!” Jon said as he scowled at Macy.
“But he’s thirsty,” Macy looked astounded at her grandfather.
“Macy, go play in your room, please,” Jordan said. Much to her daughter's annoyance.
“Can’t I go back outside and talk to Harvey?” Macy whined. “I promise I won’t ask to see his bear.”
“Not right now.” Jordan almost smiled as her daughter’s head went down, her shoulders came up, and she made a sluggish walk towards the kitchen door that made a snail look speedy.
The sound of little mutterings filled the air.
“Now, do you want to tell me what’s going on?” Jon demanded once Macy had disappeared from the room. Jordan waited until the sound of Macy’s bedroom door slamming signaled that she was out of earshot.
“I have a problem,” Jordan admitted.
“I’m guessing it has something to do with Harvey,” Jon offered back.
“Good guess,” the fake brightness in his daughter's tone told him that it wasn’t good news.
“Let’s hear it.”
“What do you know about mates?” Jordan asked and watched in surprise as the blood drained from Jon’s cheeks only to reignite them once more with a fiery red hue.
“Oh, God damn it to hell fire and back again!”
“Gee, dad, you say that like it’s a bad thing,” Jordan offered with as much sarcasm as she could manage to cram into her voice.
This time she didn’t just receive the stink eye from her father she got the death glare.
“This isn’t funny!”
“I never said it was,” Jordan scowled back at him as she tossed her hands onto her hips and assumed the position that she normally took when the two of them went toe to toe.
“You have to think of Macy,” Jon’s tone was both accusing an
d full of disbelief, but not as much disbelief as his words caused inside of her.
“I always think of Macy.”
“Then how can you have a bear shifter as a mate?” Jon demanded.
“How is this on me?”
“You’re his mate!” Jon tossed back, and Jordan went to speak, but that loud thumping sound of knuckles against the wood on the back door snatched both of their attention around to where Harvey was glaring in through the glass panel.
“I’m guessing that’s for you,” Jon grumbled as he stalked towards the refrigerator and yanked the door open. Then he wrapped his hand around an ice-cold beer bottle, and muttered under his breath.
“Come on in, Harvey,” Jordan said.
Harvey didn’t need any more encouragement than that. He’d heard Jordan and Macy’s conversation while he was outside the front of the house, and then he’d heard the rest as he was walking round the back.
“You wanna beer?” Jon grumbled.
Harvey really hadn’t needed to hear Jon’s side of the conversation with Jordan to know that the man was angry at him. It was written all over his face and in the tone of his voice.
“No.” Harvey gave a small shake of his head. He wasn’t about to drink a beer with a man who intended to stand in the way of his family’s happiness.
“You just come from my daughter and granddaughter then?” Jon bit out with a sideways glare at the bear shifter.
“Dad!” Jordan bit out in disbelief.
CHAPTER TWELVE
~
“What? It’s true,” Jon tossed up a hand in frustration towards Harvey.
Harvey squared his shoulders and planted his feet. The man was older, weaker, less agile, and above all human, but if he felt the need to take a swing at Harvey then he wasn’t going to lift a hand to stop them.
It was the way it had to be.
“Bit premature, don’t you think?” Jordan said the berating him with just a look.
“Well, that’s mates for you,” Jon tossed up his hand towards Harvey again. “When you know — you know.”