Then she shook her head. What did a person do in an emergency? In the city, they called 9-1-1. They would most likely do the same here, wouldn’t they? Someone was going to think she was nuts when she reported a polar bear or two, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was saving her men’s lives.
Her men?
Damn right, her men.
They’d have to throw her out on her ass to get rid of her after this. For just a second, she froze, thinking they might, but she’d deal with that later. Sure, Clark said stay forever. She’d have to see if he meant it.
After she saved them from polar bears.
Giving her arm a sharp pinch, she jumped. Okay, not a dream. Because the whole weekend so far had an air of unreality.
Call for help. Jenni stumbled on feet only now recovering sensation even in the lambskin-lined boots and found her purse on a table by the door. Fishing out her phone, she jerked back when it rang.
The caller ID showed the one person she’d want to talk to besides a 9-1-1 dispatcher. “Matilda, Oh my god. I have to call you back. The guys are out there in the wilderness and there are polar bears. I have to call emergency and get someone out here to save them before they are eaten alive. Matilda, I love them, and we had sex. I have to tell you all about it later. It was awesome. But now I have to hang up and—”
“Jenni?”
“I have to get help.” Her voice cracked, her hands trembled, and she ran over to peer out the window. “What if they killed them? I just found them! They can’t be dead.”
“Jenni. Calm down, girl. Do you hear me?”
Why didn’t Matilda understand the urgency of the situation. “There are P-0-L-A-R bears out there in the forest. And the guys are naked. In the snow. Well, Ty was naked. I didn’t see Clark. They were going out on a search and rescue and—Matilda, I have to call 9-1-1. I’ll call you back.” She poised her finger over the disconnect button.
“Jenni, no! I will take care of everything, but first I need you to sit down. Are you inside? Is there a chair or something?”
She searched around as if she had never seen furniture but finally flopped into the straight-backed chair opposite the sofa. “Okay. I’m sitting. Will you call the police for me? Or the fire department”
“Jen—”
“Wait, I think I need animal control.”
“Shut! Up!”
Huh? “You were the one who wanted me to go on this date, and now they’re dead, bear meat, and you don’t even care.” The tears she never cried before last night, the ones she’d learned not to cry as a kid in the system who never knew how the parents she was currently with would react, flowed again. “If anything happens to them, I want to die,” A sob broke free, and she drew a shuddering breath. “All right. I’m calm. Now, are you going to call for help, or am I?”
“Neither.” Matilda spoke in a clear, firm voice. “You are going to go in the kitchen and get a glass of water and drink it.”
“But I haven’t even had coffee yet.”
“Okay, coffee, is there some?”
“Yes. On the stove.”
Okay, so you’re going to sit down and drink a big cup of it while I explain some things to you that I probably should have a long time ago. Tell me when you’re ready. Maybe you should have toast, too?”
“Toast?” Her men were bear bait, and Matilda wanted her to make a snack? While not calling for help? If she hadn’t known her friend for so many years, she’d have hung up on her already, but she did know her. Matilda was the one person to call in any emergency. Her cool lawyer mind guided her, and she had the kindest heart of anyone Jenni had ever met. “Only because it’s you, Matilda. I’m pouring the coffee. Now I’m sitting at the kitchen table. So…why is it not a good idea to save my new guys from the polar bears. Don’t you think a zoo must have noticed them missing? They aren’t migratory animals, are they?” Now that she had a few sips of hot java in her, and was sitting in one place, she tried to insert logic into a situation none seemed to apply to.
“Okay. This is going to sound really strange. Do you trust me?”
Trust her? “Matilda, I’d never have made it in the model house without you. It was too much like those group homes I was in between fosters. Crowded, competitive, but with way more makeup and fights over the bathroom. Of course, I trust you.”
She heard the long breath her friend emitted. “Jenni, I’m a wolf.”
“No, you’re not.” Although, why they were discussing character traits right now, she had no idea. “You’re a lamb.”
The sharp bark of laughter startled her. “Hardly. But I don’t mean I behave like one. Honey, I turn into one.”
“What?” She choked on a mouthful of coffee and took a moment to go on. “So, I call to tell you I have a problem—”
“I called you.”
“Not the point, Matilda. You think it’s funny to pretend to be a werewolf right now?” Sometimes her friend’s sense of humor escaped her.
“No, Jenni. I am not a werewolf.”
Hah. “I thought not. So are you going to call for help? I don’t have a lot of battery left, and this cabin has no electricity so far as I can tell.”
“Where are you? Alaska?”
“Mammoth Lakes.”
“The ski resort?” Matilda’s voice held shock. “Why there?”
“Because this is where the date was set up for. The guys live up here, a distance away but that’s the closest spot I can name. They are a pair, by the way, with each other. So if the polar bears only got one of them, the other is going to be heartbroken. Can we save them, now?” Her head was going to explode.
“Jenni. The polar bears didn’t eat your dates.”
Now, she was mad. “How the hell do you know that. You’re not here.”
“No. No, I’m not. But I told you. I’m a wolf. A wolf shifter. And the PDA is an agency that sets up shifters on dates. So while nobody told me what your guys turn into, it stands to reason it’s something. And since polar bears in the wild in California are kinda not a thing, those bears are your guys.”
Her friend had lost her mind. “Matilda, have you hit your head on something?”
“Honey, if I was there, I’d shift and show you.”
“But the full moon was yesterday.”
She snorted. “Fairy tales. We shift whenever we want to. Look, I feel fairly confident of this, but have you looked around where you saw the bears.”
“Yeah.”
“Any blood? Body parts? Brains spattered across the snow.”
Jenni winced. “Eww. No.” She refilled her cup and sat again, warming her hands on the ceramic.
“Then describe to me exactly what you saw.”
And Jenni did just that. By the time her phone went dead, she was convinced her friend at least believed she was a wolf. She’d never said anything like that before. In the modeling world, where ego held sway and lots of women they knew were very good at convincing themselves they were things they were not—like supermodel material—Matilda had always had a cool head.
Still. She dropped her face to the table. If she was wrong, or out of her mind on some kind of drug somebody spiked her drink with, Jenni had just lost her one chance to get help. And if that matchmaker was all about shifters, why did she take on Jenni?
At this point, all she could do was pray. For Matilda’s sanity, her guys’ safety, and the existence of shifters.
Clark
It took all day and all night to dig everyone out. As the sun pierced the cloud cover with its first morning rays, though, they had a full head count. Nobody had died. The avalanche had been total surprise to the inhabitants of the trio of cabins who had never seen it coming and had been having a birthday party that weekend, so many more of the pack had also been visiting. In the end, there were some serious injuries the healer needed to tend. As the elderly bear shifter started to follow the stretchers toward her home, where she had all her equipment and medications, she paused and waved him over. He finished donning t
he clothes one of the families had given him so he could stay warm until he was ready to shift again and joined her.
“It was a shame to interrupt your mating weekend.”
“Healer, we just met Jenni.”
But she ignored his protests. “You know. We always know. Even when our mate is a human. The question is, does she?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not like we do. But I think she likes us.” He grinned, cheeks heating in memory. “A lot.”
She patted his hot face. “Ah, you young people. I remember when I met my mates. We rarely slept.”
“I suppose things cool with age,” he said, offhand.
“You should hope not.” Her eyes glittered in her wrinkled face. “We are still more than able to rattle the bed slats.” With a sigh, she started off again. “Go to her and ensure she knows who and what you are. She is the one for you. Make sure you are the two for her.”
Ty arrived at his side, also dressed in borrowed winter garments. “Ready? Jenny must be frantic by now.”
“Hopefully not. She knew we were on a rescue.” He had his work phone on a lanyard around his neck as he’d loped off. Unfortunately, he hadn’t put Jenni’s number in it. So, the only way to talk to her was to shift back and go home.
“We’re going to have to tell her about us, you know. Waiting any longer is not going to make it easier.” Ty shifted and waited for him to do the same.
“I know, mate.” He shifted, too. I hope she’s not too freaked out. We’ve been gone a long time.
Ty took off, big paws eating up ground. She’s a strong lady. And if she’s our fated mate, which she is, it will work out.
Snow’s coming down harder. Let’s get home.
Chapter Eight
Jenni
Jenni spent the night curled on the sofa, drowsing and waking at every sound. Not that there were many, since the falling snow muffled a lot of it. But branches snapped outside from time to time, unable to bear the heavy wet stuff weighing it down, and the wind rose and fell, howling as it whipped around the eaves of the cabin. But since the structure had stood for a century or two, she never doubted it would continue to do so. Her concerns were entirely for her men who were out there somewhere. She made hot tea half a doze times, coffee twice, and heated a can of soup.
And thought. She’d had more than enough time to think and she remembered some things. Things about Matilda back when they were roommates. She’d caught glimpses of a large “dog” coming and going from the building, yet dogs were not allowed, and nobody admitted to having one.
Nobody had ever made an impression on her like Ty and Clark. She’d never been willing to change her life for anyone before, but she already knew if they asked her to stay forever, and if they really meant it, she’d do it in a heartbeat.
Malinda for all her quirks had never lied to her. Not once. It seemed everything about this weekend was new and different and life altering. If she could put aside her reservations and make love to two men and have almost instant feelings of deep caring for them, how much more impossible was it that things existed outside the realm of what she’d been raised to call “normal.” She just felt bad that her friend had needed to hide it from her for so long.
By the time the sun rose, she had a plan in place. With her camera on the tripod by the front window, with the motion sensor-setting on, she waited to make a photographic record of her guys’ return. She sat in the straight-backed chair, watching for any sign of them. After an hour she began pacing in a big circle from the kitchen to the door, and after two hours, she reversed directions. She was so focused on walking and worrying, she almost missed their emerging from the forest. The camera’s soft clicks as it took a picture every ten seconds alerted her to their return.
Two polar bears ambled into the clearing and stopped. Before she could take in much about them, they dropped to the ground, shrinking, and then, and then Clark and Ty stood there, naked. They stretched and strolled toward the house, heads close together, talking to one another.
While she waited inside.
It was now or never, but as the door opened, her heart jumped in her throat. She stood, arms crossed in front of her chest. She had proof it happened. But she was a little worried about how she might react.
She shouldn’t have been concerned. As soon as they stepped inside, she flung herself into their arms. Their laughter surrounded her, and they hugged her back. This was how it would be if she lived here, if she did stay forever. They’d go out and do their work, and she’d be there to greet them on their return.
How could she feel like this so quickly? How could their arms around her mean home after only a couple of days, most of which they’d been away for?
They hugged her some more, and she sent them to put on clothes because they seemed a little chilled, and settled them at the table and fried up some bacon and eggs, brewed more coffee, made toast in the oven, and set piled plates in front of them then sat by them urging them to eat. She listened to them discuss the avalanche and how they’d worked, how they could have done better.
When they were full, sitting back in their chairs, relaxed, she got her camera and brought it to the table. “I want to show you something.”
They watched the playback in silence before looking up at her. Ty smiled. “We were trying to figure out how to tell you. What do you think? Are you okay with what we are?”
Clark dragged her onto his lap. “She greeted us with a hug, made us food. I think she’s okay.”
Jenni buried her face in his chest and breathed in his scent for a long moment. “You have a dangerous job, both of you. Search and rescue right? Like avalanches and lost hikers, injured skiers…thing like that?”
“Yes.”
“Then I have to tell you that your work is what gave me pause. The idea you were putting yourselves in such danger all the time. Learning you can turn into polar bears made me think you’re a lot safer. Polar bears are made for snow. They’re big and strong, and that has to be an asset right?
“Yeah,” Clark said, stroking her hair. “It is. But how did you figure it out?”
“Well, I saw Ty change, when you left. I didn’t understand it, but Matilda called and explained it all. She’s a wolf, my best friend. I never knew.”
“And did you she explain to you about mates?”
“No. Is that what you call a marriage? Mating?”
Ty cut in. “Not exactly. But we can do both if you like. Mating is private, just between the three of us.”
“And you want that with me? Really? You meant it when you said forever?”
“And always.” Clark bent and nipped at her collarbone. “Mating involves a little biting.”
She jumped to her feet. “Then let’s get started.”
She’d had hard time deciding whether to marry Harold, but as she scooted up the steps, followed by her mates, she realized she’d had no trouble picking them. If they couldn’t get good Internet here, she’d open a small office for her business in the town. And she’d get them to install those solar panels as soon as possible. But those were just details.
As she stripped off her clothes and jumped on the bed, all she could see was future. Happy future. She didn’t know what she’d done to bring such magic into her life, but she thanked whatever angel watched over her for opening her eyes to more than she’d known of. A whole world beyond the ordinary. And she was now part of it.
Her men landed on either side of her, ready to make her their own.
As their teeth sank into her shoulders she gave a soft whimper, but her love surged.
“Will I get to bite you back?” she asked, as they peppered the area with kisses.
“Yes,” Ty replied.
“And can I really ride a polar bear?”
Clark chuckled. “You bet.”
She slapped at him. “You know what I mean.”
He sobered. “Yes and it will be our honor to bear you upon our backs. Anytime you’d like.”
And she
was more grateful, happier, and more in love than ever in her life.
Claimed Stories in the Paranormal Dating Agency World
Claimed by Her Tigers by Ever Coming
Juniper Hiti calls to cancel her blind date. Gerri Wilder is having none of that.
When hyena shifter Juniper puts in an application at the Paranormal Dating Agency, she hopes to thwart her mother’s plan to arrange her mating. But according to her mother, the cackle’s alpha female, contracts have already been signed. Juniper sees only two choices: Agree to her mother’s plans and be sold to the highest bidder or disappear. She chooses the latter.
But when Gerri arranges a date for you, you’d better believe she’s going to make sure you attend.
When her two hot dates, Noah and Shane, come knocking on her door just as she is about to flee her mother’s arranged mating, she does what any woman in position would do. She agrees to one night.
Juniper soon discovers that one night with her sexy tigers will never be enough.
But with broken contracts come consequences, consequences all three will face. Noah and Parker are ready to claim her, consequences be damned. But can they convince their sassy hyena to agree?
Claimed by her Tigers is an MMF Dating Agency Shifter Romance featuring a curvy woman and two hot tigers ready to claim their third.
Claimed by Her Dragons by Kate Richards
Walter the Wizard/dragon shifter hasn’t poked his head outside his cave in weeks.
With his current project going every which way but right, his client breathing down his neck, and the neighbors complaining about the odors, you’d think you could skip your mumble mumble year reunion—especially when you don’t have a lady in your life at the moment. And you’ve bragged otherwise. But you’d think wrong.
Conflagration Brown’s very nervous about leaving his hoard to attend an event in a nearby city. The wizard who moved into the cave next door is not only absolutely the noisiest neighbor anyone could ever be cursed with, but the guy he competed against in everything in high school. And nearly had a thing with. Once he learns Walter is not only attending but bringing a stunning date, he has to top him. What better reason for two dragons…whose rivalry masked an attraction neither was ready to acknowledge way back when…to call Gerri Wilder at the Paranormal Dating Agency for help.
Paranormal Dating Agency: Claimed by Her Polar Bears (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Claimed Mates Book 4) Page 6