by Sable Sylvan
That left Cayenne working and living with the other second youngest sibling…Basil Scoville, a man who always managed to irk her. Alice and Herb had purchased an empty restaurant on Main Street, next to the store. They were planning on making the store into a gift shop for the restaurant. People could browse the gift shop while waiting to be seated and sample sauces by The Feminine Mesquite in delicious food. The only question was, what kind of restaurant should they open? That’s where Cayenne and Basil came in. As Cayenne was a hospitality major and Basil was the most well-traveled of the Scoville siblings, not as bound to responsibilities at Scoville Manor as his older siblings, together, they would be able to come up with an awesome dining experience. At least, that was the plan. So far, Basil had shot down all her ideas for a traditional American eatery, and of course, Cayenne didn’t approve of any of Basil’s weird suggestions for food. Molecular gastronomy, with hot sauce caviar pearls and foams? There was no frikkin’ way the people of Bright Star County would go for that.
She had to admit Basil wasn’t awful. They had their disagreements, but they didn’t exactly fight like Abigail and Clove had. It wasn’t as if he was intentionally trying to offend her, but he did. He was nearly more stuck up than he was handsome. They hadn’t talked more than they’d had to, because every time Basil made conversation with her, Cayenne gave polite responses, as Southern hospitality dictated, but did not engage fully in discussions with her counterpart. Every time he opened his mouth, he managed to stick his foot in it. It seemed as if every time that any of the Quincys had anything to say, he had to one-up them with a story of his own, about his travels. He’d been to more places in a year than most people went in their lives, jet-setting to different countries monthly for weekend trips. After all, he was a Scoville, and the Scovilles had a Viking heritage. They were hunters, explorers, and after the Viking Age ended, traders of exotic spices who hunted them to the ends of the earth. It was said once that there was nothing a Scoville loved more than spicy food except for spicy women.
The polar bear shifter was one of the heirs to the billions of dollars of the Scoville fortune, even though he was just the future delta of the clan, below even the gamma in the line of succession. The only bear shifter lower than him was Mace, the omega, the one who had nothing to lose. As one of the Scoville heirs, Basil was attending Bonimolean University with Clove and Sage. Sage and Basil would be going back to Bonimolean in the fall for their junior years while Cayenne was going back to her college for junior year. While Cayenne would be doing an internship as part of her studies, as she was a hospitality major, Basil would be doing study abroad, again. That’s right. Basil had just gotten back from Brazil and was sporting a golden tan and suitcases full of stories…while Cayenne wasn’t able to travel at all, given that her program was so rigorous and required that she remain on campus for all but her last semester. She wouldn’t be able to travel until senior year.
Basil was seated next to Cayenne, who was looking from the aisle seat at the siblings. He noticed her gaze. She looked like she was either bored or deep in thought.
“Hey,” said Basil, reaching his hand out to gently touch Kai’s arm.
Cayenne turned and looked down. Basil was touching her. His shifter paws were on her skin. All shifters had marks that denoted their species, and Basil, as a bear shifter, had two marks. The first was the mark on his chest, a mark that Cayenne had never seen. It was called a mate mark. Apparently, it showed up at around age eighteen and would tell a shifter who they were meant to be with. Cayenne wasn’t so sure that was true. It seemed like something out of a fairy tale. The other marks were on his hands. They were on his palms, on the bases of his fingers and over the flat of the palm. The marks were the marks of a bear’s paw. Basil’s hand was framed by his white shirt’s cuffs, linked to a sport jacket by Marsala ruby cufflinks.
“Can I help you?” asked Cayenne, forcing a smile on her face as she took out her earbuds.
“I was just wondering if you’d like to swap seats,” said Basil.
“Why would I want to swap seats?” asked Cayenne warily.
“Because you look like you want to watch something, and I’m sure the view outside is much more entertaining than the love fest going on between our older siblings, and the fight going on between Sav and Mace,” said Basil.
“Uh-huh, and you’d rather watch this than that?” asked Cayenne, motioning to the cabin and then to the window.
“Well, I’ve gotten to take in the view from a lot of airplane windows,” said Basil.
“And I haven’t,” said Cayenne. “Well, it’s fine, Basil. I’m perfectly happy sitting where I am. Thank you so much for asking if I wanted to swap seats, though. Bless your heart.” Cayenne put in her earbuds. Basil apparently had no clue that ‘bless your heart’ was Southern belle for, well, either truly ‘bless your heart’ or ‘fuck off.’
Basil sighed and kept watching Cayenne watch her siblings and her future in-laws. Kai looked radiant, even on an airplane. Her other siblings had opted for comfortable clothes, but Kai was wearing a business casual outfit that didn’t hide her curves but was still modest. She had on stretchy black slacks, a pair of black ballet flats, a lavender ruffled top, and a gray cardigan. Her hair was held back in a headband and was loose but still composed. Any hot-blooded man could see that a woman who wasn’t afraid to accentuate her ample bosom with ruffles, who wasn’t afraid to show off her thick thighs in tight pants, was a woman worth hunting for…but it wasn’t Kai’s curves that Basil cared about. They were, of course, amazing, but there was something else about Cayenne that appealed to Basil. He could only describe it as her ‘spice.’
Cayenne’s scent was overpowering. It was a scent that he was sure he could search the world for and never find again. It was a scent that was more enticing than anything that he’d ever scented before. After all, it was released by the one woman that had managed to capture his heart, who, as much as he wanted her, seemed to want nothing to do with him. Basil thought about that old saying about the Scoville Clan. He had never thought that the saying would apply to him, but Kai was proof that all the world’s spices had nothing on spicy women, especially the spicy, curvy, sassy women of The Feminine Mesquite.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Bear Buns: Denver. It was a club unlike any other, well, except for the original club back in Seattle. The large building was brightly lit and stood out against the downtown area of Denver. As the gaggle of curvy women and bear shifters in Cayenne Quincy’s group oohed and aahed over the pageantry, which even the usually possessive polar bear shifters could appreciate, Cayenne was more concerned with how the sexy shifters maintained the club, rather than how they maintained their firm physiques. A hospitality major who had just completed her sophomore year of college, she was interested in how any business in the hospitality sector operated, although her specialty was restaurant management. Plus, by spending her time admiring the inner workings of the club, she could get away from the one man in the group she couldn’t stand: Basil Scoville.
Basil. He was tall, blond, with blue eyes, like a typical polar bear shifter. While his older brother Herb had taken to flannel shirts and practical blue jeans like a pig to mud, and his older brothers Clove and Sage were wearing what their girlfriends had picked out, Basil had a style all his own. He was wearing designer clothing to a frikkin’ strip club, a male strip club. He was walking and talking with Cayenne’s sisters with the confidence of an alpha male, even though he was the future delta of the Scoville Polar Clan…which is why Cayenne couldn’t escape him.
It had been such a wild year. At the end of the last summer, Cayenne’s eldest sister, Alice, had been confronted by the eldest Scoville polar, Herbert ‘Herb’ Scoville, the alpha of the Scoville Polar Clan. What the heck had the Norwegian polar wanted with a curvy, sassy girl who was Texan through and through? Well, according to Herb, his grandfather, Morten Scoville, had been the victim of intellectual property theft by none other than their paternal grandfather, Eli
jah Quincy…and Herb and his brothers had confronted Alice with this accusation at the reading of Elijah’s will. After all, it was at the reading of the will that Alice inherited their grandfather’s small hot sauce company, The Quincy Hot Sauce Company.
Herb and Alice started as rivals but ended up having a literal Cinderella story. It turned out that they’d met years before and been separated, looking for one another for years. How come they didn’t recognize each other at first sight? Well, they’d met at a masquerade party. Neither one of them had seen the other’s face and Alice had been wearing a perfume that masked her scent. Fate gave that couple a second chance because Alice had challenged Herb to a cook-off, winner takes all (takes all the recipes), and they had tied for first…so Herb had leveraged that into a date with Alice, where he could show her how he felt about her. Once they came clean about their apprehensions, they realized that they were the missing pieces of each other’s lives that they had spent so long looking for. Herb proposed, and that should’ve been the end of it.
However, Fate had more in store for the Quincy Sisters and the Scoville Brothers…and so did Alice and Herb. Herb had bought a manor on the outskirts of town, revamped it and renamed it the Mesquite Manor, and Alice had renamed the hot sauce company The Feminine Mesquite. She retained full ownership of it but promised each of the Quincy Sisters their share if they helped the company become a success, and Herb had promised his brothers their shares of their inheritance if they put in the hard work to help his fated mate’s company become a success.
That winter, Cayenne’s second eldest sister, Abigail, had come home for winter break to work on her thesis, which meant that while Cayenne and her younger sister, Savina, as well as the middle sibling, Addison, had been put to work in The Feminine Mesquite’s store on Fallowedirt’s Main Street, Abby got to hang out with none other than Clove Scoville, the future beta of the Scoville Clan, the second eldest brother. Of course, Fate had made a match of them as well, and the beauty had managed to soothe the savage beast. They were also engaged to be married, but Fate wasn’t satisfied quite yet.
Addison had gone abroad, to England, to study at the prestigious Bonimolean University, where she had kept company with Clove and Sage Scoville. Mace had done something to be kept home that semester, and Basil had been studying abroad in Brazil, so Addison took Herb’s old room, as Mace had taken his things home to Oslo for the semester. Addison was the quiet, bookish sister, who was always daydreaming about something, but Sage, the gamma of the Scoville Clan, the middle sibling and the one with a bad boy rock star vibe, had awoken an inner fire in the sleeping beauty that Cayenne had to admit was refreshing. She had never seen her sister so happy and so full of life. If Sage was responsible for her happiness and willing to put away his alternative clothes for an evening and wear a tailored suit just to make her happy, then he had Cayenne’s approval.
Of course, each sister was a fated mate for their polar bear match, and they had all gotten engaged. There was to be a grand triple wedding at the end of the summer, and Cayenne knew that the eldest siblings were gunning to add a fourth and fifth couple to the wedding. Cayenne scoffed as she thought about their intention. Addison had more than hinted that she thought that Cayenne would be hooked up with Basil by the end of the summer, but Cayenne had told her no way, no how. After all, Cayenne might look cute and girly, but she was the hardest working of the Scoville Sisters. The only reason she even wore ‘fancy’ business casual clothes daily was that she had internships during the school year that she had to run to after class. Basil was different. He was carefree and had probably never done a frikkin’ day of hard work in his life.
Cayenne looked over to Basil. Who the heck wore a fancy suit to a strip club, especially a male strip club? Herb was dressed casually, as was Clove, and Cayenne would give Sage a pass for wearing a suit because it wasn’t his usual style and she knew he was wearing it because Addison thought he looked absolutely ‘ravishing’ (her words, not Cayenne’s) in a suit. Cayenne rolled her eyes, but Basil had spotted her out of the corner of his eye…and out of the corner of her eye, she saw him making his way over to her.
Cayenne resisted the urge to sigh. After all, she wasn’t just a hospitality major. She was a Southern girl with manners, like her maternal grandma Barbara. It wouldn’t do to be rude, even to a gentleman she didn’t fancy. Cayenne pretended to be examining one of the gaudy posters that lined the walkway to Bear Buns.
“Hey, Kai,” said Basil, using Cayenne’s nickname.
“Hello, Basil,” said Cayenne. “Are you enjoying yourself?”
“Believe it or not, yes,” said Basil. “I haven’t seen a male strip show before. I heard they’re good dancers. It’s not just going to be a meat market…or I guess, a mate market.”
“Ha-ha,” said Cayenne, forcing herself to laugh at the corny joke. “You know, I’m sure that Abigail wouldn’t mind if you went back to the hotel.”
“And miss her graduation party? I wouldn’t miss that for all the world,” said Basil. “Isn’t it funny to think that Addison will be graduating next year? So will Sage. Do you think that you’ll fly over to England to make the graduation?”
“Of course, I will,” said Cayenne. “She’s my sister.” Her inner Southern belle was reading Basil like a library book. What the heck did he mean, ‘do you think you’ll fly over to make the graduation’? Of course, she would. Why was Basil asking such stupid questions?
“I just didn’t know if you’d be busy or get out of school on time,” said Basil. “But of course you’d go. How do you like the menus?”
“The menus?” asked Cayenne.
“The menus,” said Basil, motioning over the posters. Each poster had a pair of shirtless men on it, and underneath, their shifts. The mate marks on the men had been removed with some photo editing software to keep things mysterious.
“Oh, I guess they are sort of like a menu, aren’t they,” admitted Cayenne. “I didn’t think of them that way.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be specializing in restaurant management?” teased Basil.
“Whatever,” said Cayenne. “I think the ‘menus’ are a little cheesy, don’t you?”
“Hey, go big or go home, right?” asked Basil. “It’s like peacocking.”
“Peacocking?” asked Cayenne.
“Peacocking is when a guy does something that’s visually outstanding to attract a mate,” said Basil. “Shifters do it a lot. After all, all the dancers at Bear Buns are looking for mates.”
“They are?” asked Cayenne.
“Yeah, it’s a huge thing,” said Basil. “Bear Buns started as a club in Seattle that had a touring show called ‘The Twelve Dancing Bears.’ There were six sets of two bears each. Each set of bears knew they were looking to share a fated mate. What better way to find a fated mate than to show off your mate mark every night to hundreds of women, hoping one of them might be the one? I don’t think I could ever do that, share my fated mate, but Fate works in mysterious ways.”
“That sounds crazy,” said Cayenne.
“It does,” agreed Basil. “But humans and shifters both do crazy things for love.”
“Basil, Kai, come on,” called Abigail. “We need to get our seats!”
“Thanks for filling me in,” said Cayenne, before she walked toward her sister. She’d let herself get roped into another talk with Basil. Of course, know-it-all Basil knew all about a frikkin’ male strip club. ‘Well-traveled,’ her butt. More like ‘has lots of free time and free money to do whatever he wants’.
Cayenne took in the splendor of Bear Buns as she entered the club with her sister. Strip clubs weren’t her thing because they were usually seedy and kinda sad…but it seemed like it must be impossible to be sad at a place like Bear Buns. It was like a theme park for horny women. There were cardboard cutouts of the dancers that people could take pictures with, as well as actual dancers putting on shows in the halls. The entire club was very well-lit, but it wasn’t bright enough to be glaringly brig
ht, uncomfortable to the patrons and unflattering for the dancers. There was even a merch store where one could buy totes, chocolates, shirts, and other goodies with Bear Buns logos, as well as posters of the dancers.
They walked into the main hall, a performance hall, and were led to a special VIP section behind forest green velvet ropes. Their table was large, made of hardwood, and had a pole in the center of it. There was a private bar in the VIP section, and after they had been seated, fresh mimosas were brought to the table. The table had a special chair for Abigail that was graduation themed, and she was given a black rhinestone graduation cap and sash. The VIP treatment was truly VIP, and not just a metaphor for illicit activity. Cayenne had studied luxury hotels, and this rivaled even the best of luxury hotels. It was obvious that the shifters that ran Bear Buns spared no expense in pampering their future fated mates.
“Do you think you’ll get called on stage?” asked Addison. She was seated next to Cayenne. The Quincys and Scovilles were ordered by gender and age from house left to house right. The youngest Quincy Sister, Savina, was to Cayenne’s right. Cayenne was between Savina and Addison, who was next to Abigail. Next came Alice and Herb, then the rest of the Scovilles by rank. There was Clove, the beta, then Sage, the gamma. Finally, there was Basil, looking smug as ever even as a delta, and Mace, the wildcard omega of the clan.
“No frikkin’ way,” said Cayenne. “Why would I? Why not Abigail?”