Unexpected Mates (Red Moon Shifters Book 1)

by Grace Brennan

  Parker looked around, wondering what all pigs ate. She’d heard people say slop a lot, but was that all, or did they get fed some type of pig food or something? And did they sell the piglets? She’d like to put them on the website. Cuteness like that needed shared.

  “What the hell are you doing, Parker?”

  Letting out a shriek of surprise at the sound of Ty’s voice right behind her, Parker jumped and found her foot slipping. Clutching onto the post, she wobbled as Ty came up behind her, grabbing her to stop her from falling before easing her to the ground.

  Parker let off a shaky laugh, fighting off embarrassment as Ty stepped back, keeping his hands on her arms.

  “Seriously Parker, what the hell? You shouldn’t be climbing on shit! You’re pregnant, in case you’ve forgotten. I don’t know, maybe you have. Not eating, trying to carry shit, climbing and almost falling and breaking your pretty neck.”

  Parker studied Ty’s face, frowning slightly. She’d wanted to laugh at his rant, but the urge went away when she saw the genuine worry on his face. “Ty. Take a breath. It’s okay. I don’t normally skip meals. I mean, look at me. Do I look like I don’t get enough to eat? I don’t carry anything heavy. I just wanted to carry my bathroom bag, which wouldn’t hurt me or the baby. I’m not fragile, and carrying stuff like that won’t hurt either of us. As for climbing, I was less than a foot off of the ground. And I would have been fine. The only reason I lost my footing was because I didn’t hear you approach and you startled me. Even if I’d fallen, the only thing that would have been hurt was my ego. It wouldn’t have been much of a fall. The baby and I are fine, and we’re going to stay that way.”

  Ty searched her eyes for a moment before sighing and pulling away to run a hand through his hair. “Okay. I probably overreacted, but I worry about you. Worrying isn’t something I’m used to doing, so I don’t always handle it well.” He shot her a look under hooded eyes, and she felt a zing go through her body, practically feeling that look down to her toes. “And look at you? I have looked at you, Parker. Every inch of you, and I can’t stop looking. You’re gorgeous, and if you don’t realize that, or haven’t noticed the effect you have on me, you’re not as smart as I thought you were. Now why were you looking at Franny?”

  Parker blinked, mouth opening and closing like a fish, taken aback both by his comment about how she looked, and the sudden change in conversation. He thought she was gorgeous? And she had an effect on him? She couldn’t keep up with him. One minute he was basically running from her and the next, he was telling her how gorgeous she was.

  And Franny? Who was Franny? Parker looked around, still disoriented, and realized he must be talking about the pig. “Franny is the pig?” She asked, wanting to make sure.

  “Yeah, the sow. Big old gal,” he said affectionately, going to stand by the pig pen.

  Parker fought to keep the amusement off of her face as she moved to stand by him. Big muscled tatted up bad boy, who loved his pig? Her amusement faded, replaced by warmth. Something about that combination was making her heart melt.

  “Sounds like you like Franny a lot,” she replied, moving to stand next to him at the fence.

  “Yeah, well,” Ty said, clearing his throat and shifting uncomfortably. “I’ve raised her since she was a piglet. She was the runt of her litter that no one thought would make it. I hand fed her and everything. She ended up being the best of them. We almost lost her last year, and we would have if Kendall hadn’t come to save her.”

  Parker felt her eyes narrowing as she heard the affection in his tone when he talked about Kendall. This felt a whole lot like jealousy, but who was she to get jealous over who Ty liked? She might be having Tyler’s baby, but she and Ty weren’t together. He could like who he wanted.

  Didn’t mean she had to like it, though.

  “Kendall?” She asked, fighting to keep the emotion out of her voice. Going by the amused glance Ty shot her, she didn’t succeed.

  “Yeah, Kendall Montgomery? You know who she is, right? Y’all are fairly close in age.”

  Parker nodded. She knew who he was talking about, although it didn’t make her feel any better. Kendall was very pretty, if she remembered right. Kendall was really nice, too, she thought, feeling slightly guilty about sending dagger thoughts the other woman’s way. “We never talked much, but I remember who she is.”

  “She’s a vet now. When Franny here was poisoned last year, Kendall left her family’s ranch to stay here and save her.” Ty sent her another look, amusement still dancing in his dark gaze. “That’s when she fell for Sam. Sam is Garret’s brother. They’re mat—married now. Sam lives on Bear Claw Ranch with her.”

  Parker pretended to study Franny so she could avoid the knowing in Ty’s eyes, wondering over the stutter on his words when he said married. Maybe it was stuff about his dual nature he was almost letting slip. She needed to pay closer attention; maybe then she could figure some of it out.

  “Franny was poisoned?”

  Tyler sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah. One of the women who worked closely to Sam with the animals had a crush on him. She thought poisoning the livestock was a good way to get his attention,” he added wryly.

  Parker shook her head. Women like that gave her whole gender a bad name, and perpetuated the crazy women stereotype. Although in her case, maybe she really had been crazy to do something like that.

  “I’m glad it all turned out okay,” she said quietly.

  “Speaking of Sam, that’s him over there,” Ty said, nodding to the big barn.

  A huge redheaded man, almost as big as Ty, was carrying a large bag of feed over his shoulder as he headed to the barn. He saw them and nodded, lips curved up in a grin. Parker raised a hand in a wave as Ty nodded back at him.

  She was instantly relieved when Sam didn’t look as if he was going to come over. She was doing so well, holding her own with Ty, and even managing to resemble a normal person with Chase, but her reaction to Garret last night had proven that her social skills were still sadly lacking. And selfishly, she didn’t want anything, or anyone, to interrupt the flow she was managing with Ty.

  Ty turned away from the fence, motioning for her to walk with him, and Parker hurried to follow before Sam changed his mind and headed over. She snuck a peek at Ty, wondering if he was moving them because he wanted to be alone with her as much as she wanted to be alone with him. It wasn’t likely, but it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility either, she supposed.

  “You never did tell me why you were watching Franny,” Ty said.

  “Oh! So I was thinking,” Parker began excitedly, “that I really could build that website for Red Moon. That way I wouldn’t be fibbing to Chase or anyone else about why I’m here.”

  Ty sent her a surprised look, putting his palm to the small of her back to guide her around some rocks on the ground. “I told Chase yesterday, actually. I’m not sure what we’d even do with a website.”

  Suppressing a shiver at his touch, Parker gestured wildly with her hands as she spoke. “Advertise! A website would get the farm’s name out there and potentially bring in more customers. I don’t know a lot about farming, but I’m sure you sell your crops and animals and such. Red Moon would have a larger reach, and if you hit the right target audience, the benefits could be a boon financially.”

  Ty shook his head as he rubbed his jaw. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about building a website”

  “Luckily, I do. It’s not really something I do, but I built my own, and it’s pretty successful. I know what I’m doing. I have my camera with me and I can take some photos for the graphics. I just need you to talk me through everything you offer here. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  “What about running it? Who will do that? It sounds like a full time job, and I don’t have time to do that. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

  Parker waved a hand. “Oh, I can do that. It’s not really a full time job, especially in the beginning. You need to build up
the website traffic before you spend a whole lot of time at it. Getting it designed and up and running is the hard part at first.”

  Ty halted and Parker turned to him in question. He had that intense look on his face, and his eyes had darkened. “You’ll be here to run it, Parker?”

  Her breath stalled in her chest. The look in his eyes said he wanted her to be, but… “I mean, yeah. For a while, at least. And you know, I don’t have to physically be here to run the website.” Parker watched him closely, and noticed that his face dropped slightly as he looked at the ground, shielding his eyes from her. Testing out a theory, she said, “I can always take new pictures of things when I visit with the baby.”

  Ty’s gaze snapped back up to meet hers, black eyes narrowed as he glared at her. She absently wondered if the color change was from his shifter nature or if they’d do that anyway. “Fuck, Parker. Are you going to make me say it so soon? I don’t want you to go home, okay?”

  Parker’s heart stopped in her chest and then began beating again in a furious rhythm. Those words, coming out of his sculpted mouth… They were potent. The experiment on the whole had been a bust, though. She still didn’t know if he wanted her to stay because of the baby or because he wanted her. Or both. She figured it had been stupid to try to find out, especially this soon, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself from trying. His ‘pull her close and then push her away’ actions were confusing, and she wanted to be on clearer ground.

  She couldn’t ignore the other truth, though. She wanted him, just as much as she wanted to know where they stood.

  She watched as he lifted his hand to touch her, before he clenched his fist and drop it back to his side. Parker squeezed her eyes shut in frustration for a moment before looking at him as he spoke again.

  “This website? It would require a lot of time at your laptop, right?”

  Parker cracked a genuine smile. “You mean keep me out of trouble? Sitting in a chair, not doing much of anything, like a pregnant lady should?”

  Ty chuckled, his eyes returning to their chocolate color as his smile reached them. “That’s basically what I’m asking.”

  “Yes, I’m sure it will keep me out of trouble. It’ll keep me busy, at least.”

  Ty hesitated for a moment, searching her eyes. “And give us one more reason to spend time together,” he said softly, almost to himself. “Okay, Parker. Go for it. I have to get back to work. I’m not done with my morning rounds yet. Just, promise me, if you start taking pictures this morning, you won’t go scaling walls or toting bricks around, alright?”

  She smiled at that. “I promise not to perform super hero-like acts while I’m photographing.”

  “Good,” he replied with one last lingering glance before he turned and headed away.

  Parker fanned herself as she watched him. He looked just as good going as he did coming. She just wished she could figure him out and know for sure what he wanted.

  Chapter Nine

  Ty walked toward the house from the fields, moving slow, trying to clear his head. His head hadn’t been in his work all morning, even before his run in with Parker; after that, he’d been good for nothing. She was all he could think about.

  And the pup was only part of it.

  He scrubbed his hands over his face. He knew he was confusing her, but he was confused himself. His reactions to her were never what he thought they would be. Everything about her was unexpected, from the baby to his wolf’s reactions to her. He was unsure of how to handle it.

  Ty wanted her; he knew that much. Wanted her with a passionate intensity that stole his breath. He wanted more than anything to explore the possibility of her being his mate.

  Two things were stopping him, though. Or at least making him hesitate.

  What if she wasn’t his mate? What if his wolf was more broken than he thought and just confused? They could both get hurt. Ty didn’t care much about hurting himself. He’d spent most of his life being hurt in one way or another and he was used to it.

  But he would never in a million years want to hurt Parker. He’d do anything possible to avoid hurting her in any way. It would kill him to see that happy light she usually had in her eyes fade or see the pretty smile she always wore go away. It was the last thing he wanted to do.

  We’ll never hurt her.

  Ty cursed and kicked at the ground. That. That right there. His wolf says shit like that, with an idiotic grin on his dumb wolfy face, but he was never clear. Ty wanted his damn animal to tell him why they’d never hurt her. Why he was so much saner while she was around. Not just saner, but downright content around her.

  Shouldn’t his wolf be telling him that Parker was his mate, if she truly was? Shouldn’t he be urging Ty to pursue her? Demanding that he claim her?

  Ty willed his wolf to speak more, to say the words, but he was silent inside of him. Tyler groaned in frustration.

  His animal’s reactions and lack of fucking telling him what was going on were only adding to the pressure of all of the concerns weighing him down.

  Which brought him to the second reason he was hesitating.

  What if he hurt her? He wanted to be with her, in every way, but she was pregnant, and he was so much bigger than she was. She was tiny, whether she believed she was or not. That bullshit he’d heard her say about being chubby and the vipers Wendy and Hannah’s words to her were absolutely insane. All of them were certifiable.

  Everything about her was gorgeous. From her raven black curls, stunning eyes and creamy skin, to her generously shaped body. Even those black framed glasses she wore were sexy as fuck. Yes, she was curvy, but it just made her look like a goddess, far above mere mortals like Wendy or Hannah.

  Curvy and short. So much smaller than he was. She barely reached his chin. He towered over her, and he had to be almost twice as wide as she was. He was heavily muscled, and she was so delicate.

  Add in his shifter strength, and he could break her without even trying. He hadn’t hurt her that one night back in March; at least he didn’t think he had, but she was carrying his pup now. Maybe having sex during pregnancy was a normal occurrence for humans, and nothing ever went wrong. But they weren’t shifters with inhuman strength, either.

  So many things could go wrong with the pregnancy. There was so much that could happen to Parker, with her fragile human body, and so many things that could harm the baby. He refused to be one of them.

  As much as he longed to take her to his bed, no matter how badly his body yearned for her and ached to feel her against him again, he was going to stand strong.

  They would do what he’d invited her to do to begin with. They’d talk, go slow, get to know each other. There was still so much he didn’t know about her, when he wanted to know everything about her. And maybe by the time she had their pup, he’d know whether they were mated and meant to be. Or whether they weren’t.

  Ty sighed heavily and nodded at Chase as he passed the equipment shed where his brother was tinkering on something. “Chase. Everything looks good. I’m going in to shower.”

  Chase waggled his eyebrows. “Want to look and smell good for your ladylove, huh?”

  “Fuck off,” Tyler said as he walked in toward the house.

  “Only if you answer me one thing, big brother. Why the hell was Parker asking me what pigs eat?”

  Ty grinned to himself as he let himself in the house. For being born and bred in a ranching and farming community, Parker sure was a city girl.

  Tyler sat back in his desk chair, impatiently waiting on the old desktop computer to boot up. He had the finances to deal with today and paychecks to pay out to the farm hands. All of them had direct deposit, which made things easier in a way, but trying to do payroll on the dinosaur in front of him could be a nightmare.

  Letting his mind wander once more while he waited, he thought back to lunch. Parker had just been coming in the house when he’d gone downstairs after his shower. She’d been slightly flushed, ponytail bobbing with the force of her enthusiasm
as she talked about the photos she’d taken of the farm.

  She’d been rocking the hell out of those shorts and the flowy, low cut tank top she’d been wearing, too.

  Ty shifted uncomfortably in his chair, adjusting himself in his jeans. He couldn’t allow himself to think about how delicious she looked, wouldn’t let himself go there. It would only make this harder.

  Pun intended, he thought this a wry smile.

  It had only been him, Parker, and Leah for lunch. He’d been surprised at how comfortable and at ease Parker was with Leah as he listened to them banter back and forth. He’d finally taken his head out of his own ass and paid attention to how Parker was around people. He remembered how she’d been so uncomfortable at Crazy Pete’s, both times they’d seen each other there. How she’d been around Wendy, Hannah, and even Garret.

  She was shy and a little bit awkward, but he thought it was cute. And it filled him with a weird sense of pride, because she wasn’t like that with him. She was open and herself with him in a way she wasn’t usually with others, and he selfishly wanted to keep it that way.

  Which was part of the reason he’d gotten her away from Sam. He didn’t want her uncomfortable and they’d been talking openly. He hadn’t wanted to ruin it.

  He’d never admit it out loud, but he hadn’t wanted Sam around her himself, either. Sam was a great guy and he’d never say anything to upset or offend Parker, but he was a handsome, charming bastard. At least the ladies seemed to think so, and Ty wasn’t taking any chances with Parker.

  The computer finally booted up and Ty opened the spreadsheet program, settling in to wait once again while it all loaded. He rubbed his full stomach, thinking again about lunch. The food had been good, but the best part had been seeing Parker relaxed and happy, a smile on her face like she was enjoying her time here.

  It had maybe been the best lunch he’d ever had in his life.

  Sighing, he decided to get something to drink while he waited for his program to load. He knew from experience that if he tried to rush it and start before it was done, it would go to hell fast. He walked from the room and then paused as he caught sight of Parker. She was in the sitting room, all scrunched up on a chair, laptop balanced on her knees. She couldn’t be comfortable like that.