The Fox and her Bear (Mating Call Dating Agency, #2) (4 page)

“Oh hell,” she said when she saw a note on her desk that said a certain Dawson Lex – who she figured must be the new bear – was coming in just an hour. “Guess I better hurry.”

*

I
t took ten minutes and five bucks, but she made it back with all the necessary hangover curing accoutrements in tow. Dora laughed again to herself when she noticed Eve was in exactly the same position she’d left her in – hunched over, head in hand. For a moment she thought about announcing herself with a loud honk of the car horn, but decided that even if it
was
funny, she couldn’t do that to her friend.

Stepping out of her old – she called it classic, but... uh... – Ford Focus, Dora took a deep breath of White Creek air. There was just the first hint of incoming fall chill in the air, and when she filled her lungs it tingled a bit, like electric fingers tickling her nerves. Either way, when she finally got Eve to drink the seltzer water, and got some Gatorade down her, things started looking up.

After another fifteen minutes of stormy-eyed glaring, Eve finally reappeared from her office and even had a small smile on her face. “Thanks,” she said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. I feel like a truck hit me in the face and then pulled me along after it for a mile or two. How do you
do
that every weekend?”

Dora smirked. “Actually I tend to
not
get shitface-wasted every weekend. Turns out, when you only have a few drinks, you don’t end up sucking the toilet seat the next day.”

Eve scrunched her forehead. “Oh. Huh. I guess I’ll try that next time.”

“You still haven’t told me why you went to that bar in the first place. Were you meeting someone?” Dora’s pulse quickened when her old friend started averting her eyes. “Oh
shit
! You had a date! The legendary Yvette Lorraine has finally managed to get a man of her own!”

“No one bear could tame this, girlfriend,” Eve said, sliding her hand in a comically non-sexy way down her sides. “I got a tip about the piano bear at the piano bar. Bear bar. Bar bear,” she snorted and laughed at herself. “You ever say a word over and over again until it starts sounding really funny?”

“Er, right, so you’re huffing nitrous now?” Dora asked. “Or have you just entered the delirium phase?”

“No, no,” Eve said, growing more manic by the second. “Listen, try this one. Pump. P-u-m-p pump pump,” before long, she descended into a cackling madness that reminded Dora of a witch in a bad b-movie. At the same time though, it
was
kind of funny when you said it over and over like that.

“Pump,” Dora said, joining in the wonderful idiocy. She drew the word out like she was Southern, and added an “ew” sound to the middle. Before long both of them, normally dignified and even elegant women, were laughing themselves stupid. Dora turned deep crimson in her cheeks, and Eve had gone almost purple when there came a gentle tapping, a tentative rapping, at their office door.

The two of them shot each other a confused glance, and then proceeded to crack right back up. By the time the man at the door got brave enough to come on in, Dora was doubled over, repeating ‘pump’ like she belonged in a padded white room, and Eve was clutching her friend with one hand and the desk with the other.

“Oh, uh,” Dawson said, chuckling softly. “I didn’t realize we had legalized.”

The two women grew silent for just a moment, looked at the huge bear with the gorgeous eyes and the high cheekbones, and exploded again. This time, he caught the fever.

“Why am I laughing?” Dawson choked out in between violent guffaws. “What’s so funny?”

“Pump, pump, pump,” Eve said, changing the tone in her voice slightly with each recitation of the word. She let out a long, hissing sigh that sounded a whole lot like the air going out of a tire. “Pump. It’s a funny word, and good lord am I embarrassed at myself right about now.”

Dawson furrowed his brow and started to repeat the word to himself. Before long, his scowl turned to a smile, and a second later, he was howling with laughter.

“We better stop before Marsha at that hair salon next door blows a gasket and calls the cops,” Dora finally said, sucking in a deep breath to steady herself. “They’d never believe we weren’t on
some
kind of drug.”

Slowly, the laughter faded, and all three participants took a deep breath and let out a sigh. “Well then,” Eve said, immediately serious, “I’m glad you came, although you’re a quarter-hour early. I thought we agreed on half-past one.”

“Er,” Dawson was caught off guard. “Sorry, I didn’t think being early would get me in trouble. Tenner told me that you hate people being late, so...”

“If you’re a half hour late, you’re pushing someone’s patience. If you’re early, you’re saying you’re more important than whatever they were doing.”

Dawson’s face got a bunch of deep lines when he frowned. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

Before he could finish his apology, both Dora and Eve erupted into laughter again. Dawson smiled, then started shaking his head. “You two are something else, you know? I was all nervous about coming in here, but now I think I might be the only sane one in the room.”

“Says the bear who walked into an office and started laughing even though he had no idea what the two others were laughing
about
. Sounds totally sane to me,” Eve said with a sly grin. “I’m just messing with you. But seriously, with Mating Call, you’re in good hands, even if it seems like we’re about four bricks shy of a load.”

After the three of them finally calmed down enough to hold a civilized conversation, Dora excused herself to do some filing, and Dawson followed Eve back to her office. As soon as she plunked the pile of papers labeled ‘INTERVIEW’ on the desk, Dawson took a hard gulp.

“You okay?” she asked. She rubbed her eyes and took another gulp of Gatorade. “Seem nervous.”

“That’s just quite a pile of papers,” he remarked, trying to stay casual. “Do we really have to go through all that?”

“Not if you’re willing to play me a song...
Piano Man
.”

Dawson gritted his teeth and scrunched up his eyes. “Okay fine, let’s do the thing. I’d rather end up answering a hundred thousand interview questions than having to play Billy Joel on my time off.”

She snickered. “Right, well, most of it is just for my notes. I do a lot of interviewing and a lot of sorting and a lot of matching. I like to keep a nice catalog of menfolk to match ladies with, but right now we’re running a little short on the fellas. Maybe because I’m so good at what I do.”

She smiled with pride at herself. It
was
true though. The town of White Creek had rarely been as coupled up and happy as it had been since Eve started her service five years before. But, her success did come with a few problems. Predictably, when everyone was matched up, there aren’t too many people looking for matching.

“What’s your name?” Eve asked.

“Dawson Lex.”

“Middle?”

“Nada.” Dawson looked at her as she scribbled. “I mean I don’t have one. Nada isn’t...”

“Yeah, sure, I know,” Eve said, scratching out what she had written. “I totally didn’t write that down. Good, so, job?”

“I play piano at Tenner’s Bar every night. Sometimes I help in the kitchen if he’s shorthanded, but no, I’m a piano man.”

Eve was shaking her head slowly. “You’re a hell of a catch, you know that, right? Big, handsome bear who plays piano, sings like an angel and cooks?”

“Well to be fair, my specialty is hamburgers. Not exactly a gourmet cook. I’ll take the compliment though.”

Eve scribbled a few more notes. “Hobbies?”

“Well,” he took a moment’s thought. “I don’t really have any. Read a lot, I guess. Fix motorcycles when I get the chance. To be honest with you, most of my free time is spent staring at a wall and trying to get rid of my constant headaches.”

“Interesting,” Eve said, in a clinical sort of voice. “And what is it you’re looking for in a mate?”

Immediately, and probably completely unbeknownst to himself, Dawson’s eyes flickered to life. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said.  “Listen, it’s hard to do much thinking when that tray of roast pork hasn’t been mentioned. The smell of that pork is really, really distracting.”

“I almost forgot!” Eve said. “If I give you some, will you tell me about what you’re looking for in a mate?”

Dawson looked back over his shoulder, obviously excited about the prospect of eating something besides breakfast cereal and hamburgers. “I can’t believe you tricked me like that,” he said with a slight grin. “Yeah, well, like I said I don’t really know.”

“I think you do.” Regardless, Eve buzzed the intercom and called Dora, and the pig, into the room. She unveiled the feast, and although Eve’s stomach roiled at the thought, Dora and the bear both dug in. Eve watched out the corner of her eye for a moment, and then had to hide her face from the destruction.

He chuckled. “Yeah, well, I might have been thinking about this for a while now. Roasted pork, I mean,” he looked around waiting for a laugh. “Uh, that’s a joke. Anyway, I don’t really talk about it with anyone, I... yeah, I might have been stewing about this for a long damn time now, come to think of it.”

Eve looked over the top of her reading glasses at the bear sitting opposite her. “You just got all growly,” she said. “Was it something I said? By all means, keep being growly.” She coughed. “Uh, I mean, if that’s how you feel then do whatever feels right. Not that, uh, it does anything for me, in particular.” She adjusted her position on her chair, making sure to cover up her blushing by letting her hair down around her face. “Right, so, hobbies?”

“We already did that one. You were asking me about what sort of mate I want.”

“Sure,” she said with a laugh. “That’s what I meant. So, go on?”

“Someone I can talk to,” he said, smiling into the distance. “Someone that’ll sit around and watch the entire run of
The Wire
with me over a weekend.”

“Is that a specific requirement? That one show?” Eve looked very serious.

“Well, no, I mean just that kind of girl. I don’t want anything big and wild, I just want someone to
be
with. I’ve always been sort of lonely, sort of distant, I guess is the right way to put it.”

Eve scribbled furiously.

“And I knit.”

That got a raised eyebrow. “Wouldn’t that be under hobbies?” she asked.

Dawson shrugged. “More of a habit, really. Some people drink, some people constantly listen to the radio, I knit to keep my hands busy. Keeps my fingers limber too, good for the piano bit.”

“Tell me more about the lonely business?”

Dawson leaned forward, putting his chin into his hand and resting his elbows on Eve’s huge desk. “It’s nothing surprising or even interesting really. Grew up on the run, never had many people around. These days my only friends are Tenner and,” he thought for another few seconds, “my dad, I guess, but that’s a weird situation.”

“Upon which I’m guessing you don’t want to expound?”

A smile crossed Dawson’s lips. “I just take care of him sometimes. Old bear without a mate, I just... don’t want to end up like that, I guess. But like I said, nothing out of the ordinary. I’m not getting any younger, and at some point I’d like to take the piano thing to another level. Although I’m pretty sure at this point I’m too old for that sort of thing.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Eve said. “When you were playing I was a little amazed that you were sitting there in that bar. You seem like the sort of person who could really go a long way. Talented, I mean. But let’s go back to this dad thing.”

Dawson grumbled. “I’d rather not. It isn’t very happy.”

“Well, I need to know what I’m dealing with. You don’t have to give me the details if you don’t want to, but it’ll make this go easier.”

“I was,” he swallowed. “Not from around here, I’m from out west.”

Eve nodded, scribbling on her pad.

“My dad got caught up in some bad scenes. He was kind of a small time drug dealer, nothing serious. But he got mixed up with the wrong people. Started getting more serious about his choice of profession, and that ran him against one of the gangs out that way.” He sighed heavily. “My mom died of a heart attack when I was six, so the family was just dad, brother, me. My brother getting caught up in the gang thing almost killed my pops. And then...”

“Take your time,” Eve said. “I know this is difficult.”

Dawson clenched his fists and relaxed them. “They killed him to convince my dad to get the hell out of the dealing business. He’d gotten too big, and was cutting into their profits big-time. I, uh, I didn’t know what to do. I went to the cops and told them what I knew. Knowing how furious I was, they got me to go undercover to try and bust up the gang.”

“That explains the whole bridge issue a few years back?”

Dawson arched an eyebrow. “The... how did you know about that?”

“I take my job seriously, Mr. Lex,” Eve said. “I’m not known for setting people up with felons. Er, not that I’m saying you’re a felon, just that I do thorough background checks.”

“The bridge thing was... yeah, that’s one reason I don’t go much of anywhere. I was trapped on a bridge, those guys that killed my brother had me cornered and knew who I was. I think they knew all along, but just played with me for fun. The four of them made a move to put me out, and instinct took over and... well, I made it out and they didn’t.”

“The report I read said that you disappeared for a while afterwards, and the next place you showed was Tenner’s.”

“I’m not sure what this has to do with,” Dawson trailed off as he noticed that Eve wasn’t going to stop without an answer. “Yeah, okay. Tenner is an old friend of my dad’s. He kinda raised me when my mom died and dad ended up falling down a bottle. Tenner moved out here when my dad got better, and Tenner was getting serious with a girl. They broke it off, but he took me in, and after my troubles, he let me crash in his place for a time. I needed work, he needed a piano player, so it just clicked.”

Eve set down her pen. “That’s a lot more honesty than I was expecting,” she said. “You have no idea how many people have
honesty
as their first requirement. Lots of bad stories.”