The Fox and her Bear (Mating Call Dating Agency, #2) (13 page)

They just wanted to
be
. And for minutes that seemed like hours, that was enough.

Finally, Angie sat up with her bear still inside her. She sighed when he slid away, and reached down for him, softly dancing her fingertips across his softest skin. “I’ve been thinking,” she began, then left off, shaking her head. There was just the slightest stir in Dawson.

“About doing that again?” he asked. “I think the doctor said we shouldn’t get too wild, you know? I’m thinking going at it
again
might constitute reckless. Although I think I might want to risk it anyway.”

She snorted a laugh. “No, I think even if
you
survived, I might keel over dead. I think we’ve had enough hospital visits for a while, huh?”

“Well if it’s as good as the last one, I might be amenable,” Dawson said, that playful half-grin crossing his lips again. “But I think we better look out for the future. After all, those drunks at Tenner’s aren’t gonna entertain themselves.”

With another soft laugh, Angie pushed herself up on an elbow, letting the air dry the sweat that gathered between them. She took another long pull of the air, letting their mixed scents fill her nose one last time – for now, anyway, she was sure a repeat performance wouldn’t be long behind.

“You’re probably right,” she said, “but that’s not what I was thinking about either.”

“No sex,” he said, counting on his fingers, “and not thinking about the bar... that only leaves one thing. Algebra. You must’ve been thinking of the formula to find the mass of a pyramid.”

“Right,” she said. “E equals MC... whatever. Pancakes, you jackass, you said you had pancakes and then—well, and then you distracted me with something way better than pancakes. Of course, I didn’t
know
it could be better than pancakes until just then, but hey, when you stop learning, you’re dead, right?”

The big bear heaved himself to his feet, thought about pulling his pants back on, but then just tossed them across the back of a chair. “I’m gonna get a shower,” Angie said. “Watch out for popping batter. I don’t want anything happening to that, uh, thing, that I don’t do.”

He let out a booming laugh and watched as she walked, similarly naked, back to the hallway and disappeared. Dawson turned back to the stove and busied himself mixing the flour with the sugar and the baking powder, then adding a dash of cinnamon and—this might have been when Angie realized she was going to love him forever—chopped up a banana and dropped it in the mix.

“I don’t know how I found you, Dawson,” she said to herself as she watched him from the shadows in the hallway. “And I have no idea how you found me, but for right now, for as long as I can, I’m just going to let things be how they are.”

Her whispers felt like the last drops of rain in a thunderstorm after the sun had already broken through the clouds.

“I’m gonna do the same thing,” he said, startling the living hell out of Angie. “Sorry, bear ears. We hear everything. But I’m going to do the same thing.”

“Promise?” she asked.

“Are there bananas in these pancakes?”

“I knew I loved you from the second I saw you in Tenner’s, Dawson,” Angie said. “But when you put those bananas in the pancakes? That’s how I knew it was
real
.”

He went back to stirring, and threw a towel over his shoulder. Angie plodded softly to the shower, turned it on, and let the steaming water clean off the day. But there was one thing that wouldn’t ever be the same. One thing she didn’t
want
to ever be the same.

After a few minutes, she’d almost fallen into a shower trance when the glass door swung open, and Dawson stepped in. “Pancakes are ready,” he said. “But I think the first thing we need to do is test what that doctor said.”

“Deal,” she said with a laugh. “Oh God is it ever a deal.

*

“W
ell, well, where’s the big guy?” Dora asked, throwing her purse on the bar and looking around the joint. “I was told you had a big, hot, piano playing bear in here looking for a mate?”

“I think he found one,” Eve said, perching herself on a stool next to Dora’s. “At least, that’s the last I heard. You heard from either of them?”

“Not since they left a couple days ago,” Tenner said, still holding his side, but slinging drinks as well as ever. “Damned if it didn’t take me every day of those two months to heal up. You know him and Angie kept this place going while I was gone?”

“Not just them,” Colton said, humping up to the bar. “I had no idea how hard it was to run a place like this and not want to kill half the customers.”

“They got their own charm,” Tenner said with a smile that almost peeked out from under his mustache. “So it really worked, huh? I almost can’t believe it.”

He poured four beers, and took his own stool on the business side of the bar. “Almost seems like plans like that never go right, and if they do, it ain’t for long.”

Dora and Eve exchanged a glance. “Well,” Eve said after taking a long pull, “with friends like you two, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Although really, I had a feeling about those two from the second I laid eyes on ‘em. Sometimes you just get that feeling, you know? Actually, do you know the address for the hotel they went to? I almost had a heart attack when I heard they went to
Branson
, but you know, what the hell? I guess
someone
has to keep that dancing water thing in business.”

The four of them laughed for a second, and then fell silent, each staring at their own drinks. Dora took a sip, Eve took a longer pull. Colton pushed his mug back and forth between his hands, sliding it on the ancient oak bar, and finally lifted it to his lips.

“I got it back there somewhere, I think,” Tenner said. “That damned bear, he left the address and phone number, and told me if anything happened to give him a call and he’d take care of it. Halfway across the country, on what may as well be a honeymoon, he’s still taking care of me. How the hell that works, I’ll never know. Why do you need it?”

“Oh,” Eve said, “just a thing I do. I’ll give you something to send later. Why isn’t Colton drinking?”

“Colton isn’t drinking,” Colton announced in third person, just before taking a swig, “because Colton has to go run the dispatch tonight. We’ve got a couple trainees down there, but none of them hold a candle to Angie. Hell, I don’t either, but at least I can fake it enough to get by.” He checked his watch and saw it was a quarter to seven. “Speaking of, I gotta get out of here.” With a certain dramatic flair, he polished off his beer and put the glass back down with a decided
thunk
.

“Give us a call sometime,” Dora said. “We’ll all go out for dinner when they get back. We like to... you know, check up on our matches.”

Eve lifted an eyebrow, but said nothing.

“Sounds good,” Colton said as he stretched his back and headed for the door.

“And as for
you
,” Eve said to Tenner, “I thought you weren’t supposed to work until you were completely healed up? Living dangerously?”

“Nah,” Tenner shook his head. “I got the kind of injury that never heals.”

Eve and Dora exchanged another telling glance.

“Old,” he said with a smirk. “That’s all it is.”

Eve pulled a letter from her back pocket and went to hand it to the bar man, but held off when he reached for it. “Let me check something,” she said. “Gotta make sure I didn’t misspell any names. Here,” she handed it to Dora, “make sure I didn’t do anything grammatically awful.”

As Dora slid open the envelope and unfurled the thick, marble-looking paper, Eve climbed off her perch and headed to the ladies’ room.

“You can’t always see what the future holds. Sometimes you can’t even see it when it’s right on top of you, and there shouldn’t be any way to miss it
.” Dora’s eyes scanned the words, letting each of them soak into her brain. These letters were Eve’s way of not only imparting some fleeting wisdom, but also her way of telling people that once they were in her heart, they weren’t getting out. She kept reading.

“
Once, there was a little girl who reminded me a lot of you, Angie. She worked herself to the bone, she did everything she could to help other people, and when love—a love a whole lot like you, Dawson—she had second thoughts. She tried to make herself let it in, but just couldn’t do it. There was too much work to do, too many matches to make, too many people to help be happy. She convinced herself never to take the chance. She kept telling herself that she’d make it up someday, when there was time.
”

Dora felt her eyes getting a little misty, and wiped it away before anyone noticed. She sniffed, but smiled as she continued. “
Time doesn’t matter
,” the letter read, “
and it isn’t ever right. Not really. There’s always something to trip you up, something to make you stop and think that hey, I’ve got to wait a while, I’ve gotta make sure things are all lined up. Listen to someone who’s been there. They never line up, not perfectly. But when you have someone like Angie, Dawson, you don’t need things to line up. And when you’ve got someone like your big, burly, piano-playing bear, Angie? Don’t ever let your brain outthink your heart. Brains know a lot of things, but they don’t know love.

We’ll see you when you get back. Have fun, somehow, in Branson
.”

Dora held onto the letter for a second, and when Eve emerged from the back, hurriedly stuffed it into the envelope, licked the glue, and handed it to Tenner. Eve sat, and Dora grabbed her old friend, hugged her tight and held her for a few seconds. By the time she let go, the old walrus had disappeared into the kitchen.

“That was perfect,” Dora said. “They’re lucky to have found someone like
you
to help them.”

Eve nodded slowly. “Yeah, well,” she said, “it wasn’t just for them. I have perfect grammar, so I think I just wanted
you
to read it and see if I got too sappy or anything. And,” she paused. There was just the slightest hitch in her voice that no one except Dora would ever catch. “I guess the advice was for me as much as it was for anyone. Anyway, enough of all that.” She raised her glass, “here’s to the best friends anyone’s ever had,” Eve said. “Tenner, get out here you old son of a bitch!”

He reappeared, slightly red-eyed and sniffling.

“Not a word,” Eve said with a smile.

“Yes ma’am,” Tenner said. “And here’s to friends.”

“To friends,” Dora agreed, “and everything else we are all thinking about, but not allowed to say.” They all clinked their mugs together and drank.

The jukebox that rarely got used began to hum, and when the three looked over at it, old Wally raised his glass too. The theme from
Cheers
started up, and even though they all knew it was cheesy as hell, there wasn’t a pair of lips in the whole place that wasn’t smiling and singing right along.

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––––––––

Mating Call Dating Agency

W
hen you’re a shifter who don’t have the first clue where to find the love you need, WHO YOU GONNA CALL? Mating Call Dating Agency!  

Fate is nice and all, but in the busy worlds of journalism and professional wrestling, sometimes a rabbit needs a hand, and a bear needs a place to grab.

Garnet Pendleton is a freelance journalist, and moonlighting as a librarian gets the bills paid, but barely. It’s a busy life, but it’s hers. Lately though, she’s felt like something was...lacking. With her life absorbed in pounding pavement and wrestling with the Dewey decimal system, Garnet hasn’t had time for something she’s starting to get REALLY edgy over – finding a mate.

Stacy Graves’s entire life has been lived in a ring. He’s big, muscled up, and can bodyslam and headlock with the best of ‘em. But he’s also not getting any younger. Stacy’s mind is starting to drift in the middle of matches. Instead of being worried about pinning his opponent, he can’t stop thinking about settling down and finding himself a mate.

Will Garnet’s journalistic drive for truth and Stacy’s life on the road be too much of an obstacle for them to overcome in the name of love? With mating experts Yvette and Dora on the case, Garnet and Stacy just might stand a chance.

The Kendal Creek Bears

R
aine Matthews used to be quirky, fun and slightly goofy. She’s not allowed to be any of those things while she is firmly under her husband’s thumb. Her only reprieve comes from distant memories of a man she saw only once six years ago. In that instant, Raine knew there was something special about him. The memory of that twinkle in his eyes, of his careless smile, gives her a shot of hope at her darkest moments.

She knows the only way to survive is getting away from her husband, no matter what. And in the back of her mind, she can’t shake the feeling that somewhere, somehow, she’s going to see that mysterious stranger again.

Daxon Mark is the frustrated, irritated, sexy-as-hell alpha bear of the Kendal clan. Trapped between shuffling truces with other bear clans, and the meddling of an overbearing shifter council, he can’t shake the feeling that the woman he saw six years before is what he needs to stay sane. He's teetering on the edge and when a bear as big as Dax goes nuts? THAT ain’t something anybody wants.

With Raine on the lam and Dax trying to escape the confines of small town politics, the two of them finally meet again – in the most romantic of places – in the toilet line at a concert.

With a glance, he steals her heart, and with a word she sets a fire in his soul. But with trouble brewing back in Kendal Creek and Raine constantly looking over her shoulder, will these two fated mates find their peace? Or will fear, loss, and murder rip the pair apart before love is allowed to bloom?