A Grizzly Kind Of Love (The Mating Game Book 3) (3 page)

“You’re not making a very good first impression. And you should remember that prison stripes aren’t flattering on larger women.” She gave Wynona’s figure a nasty glance, then screamed and hopped back, glaring at Sprinkles. Gillian snatched him up protectively.

“He bit my ankle!” Cecily shrieked.

“I’ll wash his mouth out with soap,” Wynona said. “So he doesn’t get food poisoning.”

Cecily, nose in the air, stalked out of the office with Tiffany and her assistants following her. Tiffany was loudly complaining. “My purse smells like pee! Take me to the Coach store. New rule for my mate. He has to hate dogs!”

Gillian picked up the list and started to read it, then turned to Wynona with tears in her eyes.

“He takes care of the cubs I doant chang diapers we get three nannees for kids. Wynona, this woman is a monster!”

“I know, right?” Wynona’s lip wrinkled in disgust.

“I mean, look at her spelling! And the punctuation! Don’t get me started on the punctuation!” Gillian let out a small, miserable sniffle.

“Riiiight.” Wynona buried her face in her hands. “Forget about how she’s going to mate a man for his money and prestige and then farm their cubs out to a nanny. The punctuation – that’s the true mirror of the soul.”

“
Precisely.
” Gillian dropped the list as if it were dog poop. “I mean, if she could find a mate, anybody could find a mate. Right?” She looked at Wynona with that odd expression on her face again.

“Time will tell.” Wynona looked down at Sprinkles, who had just lifted his tiny leg to wee on her desk. Then he looked up at her and grinned, with his little pink tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth. Wynona sighed. “Yes, Sprinkles, that about sums up my day,” she said.

The first thing Wynona had to address was Zane’s wardrobe. She personally loved the scruffy, sexy bad-boy look, but Tiffany wouldn’t. They were going to have to get him some custom-tailored suits if he was to take Tiffany out to the type of restaurants she normally frequented. Cecily and Hubert agreed wholeheartedly; they were mortified by his regular attire and were more than ready to pay for a new, more respectable wardrobe for their troublemaking nephew.

There were three gentlemen’s tailor shops in Cedar Park that made bespoke suits for bear shifters. She had booked a ten a.m. appointment at the most prestigious one, and was standing in front when Zane roared up on his Harley Road King, parked, and took off his helmet.

Zane was even more stunning in person. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a commanding presence. He was wearing a black T-shirt, motorcycle boots, and jeans with motor oil on them, and he had a sexy scruff on his square jaw. She stood there watching him swing his leg off the bike; despite his muscular bulk, he moved with the grace of a panther.

Behind him, the sun blazed brightly, casting him in a golden light that made him look even more like a Greek god. He stood around six foot five and weighed at least two-fifty.

He stalked over to her and took off his dark mirrored sunglasses to stare down at her. She looked up at him and blinked in the sun, wondering what he thought of her. She’d spent far too much time thinking about what to wear, and finally opted for a simple ensemble; a pink scallop-necked T-shirt and a flowing flowered skirt of light jersey material, with pink low-heeled strappy sandals.

She desperately tried not to hear her mother’s voice in her head –
Wear dark colors to hide your size, and don’t wear anything that clings to your rolls.
And she mostly succeeded.

“You ready?” he grunted, glancing at the shop’s mirrored window.

She stifled a flare of annoyance at his ungracious greeting.

“Hello, I’m Wynona Bennett,” she said, extending her hand. He looked down at her hand, then up at her.

“I know.” Another grunt.

Well, this was going to be even more delightful than dealing with Tiffany. What a fun three weeks she had to look forward to.

She looked up at him. “Do you want me to teach you how to be an acceptable date, or not? Because it starts with first impressions, and so far, you are making a terrible one.”

“Is that so?”

Screw this – she wasn’t going to waste her time being grunted at by a sexy Neanderthal. No, just a Neanderthal – forget the damn “sexy” part.

“Listen,” Wynona said, struggling not to lose her temper. “Are you all right with this arrangement?” Because if not, she could just turn around, go home, and pray that the court would allow her a work release program. Or that she’d be found not guilty, but she wasn’t feeling that optimistic this morning.

Zane shrugged and looked her in the eyes, his expression cool, mildly amused. “Are you?”

What an odd question. Why should he care what she thought of the arrangement? “What do you mean by that?”

“Just what it sounds like.”

She stifled a groan. “I mean, you and Tiffany are both adults, and nobody is holding a gun to your heads. As long as you want to enter into an arranged marriage with her, then I’m willing to work with you so you can behave in a semi-civilized manner.”

He snorted at that. “Nice of you.”

I should be getting hazard pay for this,
she thought with annoyance.

“And I didn’t say I wanted to do it,” he continued. “Bear clan law says that I have to pick a mate by the end of my thirtieth year if I want to inherit my family’s property.”

“So why let your family do the choosing?”

“I don’t care who they pick. It’s not meant to be a love match.”

“Shouldn’t you have picked a mate earlier?”

He met her gaze, his expression giving away nothing. “Didn’t really come up until now. The Coventry Clan found out that I wasn’t mated, reported us to the Bruin Council, and I was given until the end of the year to pick a mate.”

“Well, if you want to have the slightest chance of mating with Tiffany, or any other eligible shifter, then you’re going to need to greet her politely. Please shake my hand when I hold it out, and after I introduce myself, tell me that you’re pleased to meet me.”

She stuck out her hand. “Hello, I’m Wynona Bennett.”

He took her hand and pumped it once. “So you told me.”

“That’s it! Screw it. Even Tiffany Charles doesn’t deserve to be mated to a jackass like you.” She turned around and stalked back to her car.

“Where you going?” he called after her.

“Anywhere that you’re not!”

She got in the car and pulled out. A minute later, she saw him following her on his motorcycle.

She pulled over to the side of the road, fuming, as he glided to a stop next to her. She rolled down her window, ready to rip him a new one, and he stuck his hand through the open window.

“Hello, I’m Zane Shepherd,” he said politely, looking her right in the eye.

She hesitated, then took his hand and shook it.

“Wynona Bennett,” she gritted through her teeth. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

He raised an eyebrow, and his lip quirked up in a charming smile.

“Well now, Miss Bennett, it don’t sound like you mean that.”

She held her gaze steady and said, “Good, then I can tell Tiffany there’s nothing wrong with your hearing.”

Then she backed up so he wasn’t in her way, made a U-turn, and went back to the shop. Zane pulled up beside her as she parked.

The tailor shop had a subtle masculine fragrance, something woodsy and leathery and smoky that spoke of class and style and lots and lots of money. Zane sniffed and scowled, and Wynona shot him a fierce look,
daring
him to say anything.

The walls were lined with racks of beautifully tailored suits in expensive fabrics, arranged in a somber rainbow of black, navy blue and shades of gray. Here and there a muted pinstripe or an exquisitely coordinated silk lining drew the eye.

Towards the rear of the room, behind a long table, a slender man in a snowy-white shirt was cutting a pattern with an enormous pair of silver shears. He held a row of pins in his mouth. When the bell over the door rang, he transferred them to his lapel and hurried over to Wynona and Zane.

She explained to the tailor what they needed, and sent Zane off to the fitting room to be measured.

A short while later, the tailor ran out screaming.

“He tried to bite me!” the tailor wailed. He ran out the front door of the shop, and it banged shut behind him.

She stormed into the fitting room, where Zane was casually cleaning his nails with a pen knife, which he shoved back in his pocket as she stalked right up to him.

“What the hell?” she yelled. “Do you want the damn inheritance or not?”

He scowled at her. “Guess so,” he said with a shrug.

“Then why did you try to bite him?”

“I don’t like some strange guy fumbling around my crotch. And I just growled, I didn’t try to bite him. If I had, I’d have swallowed him in one gulp.”

She could feel her blood pressure rising. “He’s measuring you, not trying to feel you up!”

A sullen shrug. “Same difference.”

She really, really needed to get him fitted for a suit. She also really, really needed a good stiff drink, but that would have to wait ’til later. “Fine. What about if I measure you?”

At that, his eyes glinted with amusement.

“Go for it.”

She instantly regretted offering, but took the tape measure from where the tailor had dropped it on the floor, knelt down next to him, and began measuring.

As she got close to his crotch, she found her cheeks flaming with embarrassment.

He was unashamedly erect. And huge.

She looked away. Her hands were trembling. Somebody was going to make use of their battery-operated boyfriend that evening. Somebody named Wynona.

“You okay down there?” He sounded amused.

She muttered a curse word under her breath that rhymed with “brother trucker”.

“What’s that?”

She glared up at him. Damn it, he might as well not be wearing any pants at all; his cock was so perfectly outlined against the fabric that she now knew he was circumcised. “You have shifter hearing. You know what I said.”

He laughed. “And there I thought you were supposed to be teaching me to be civilized.”

“Oh, did I scorch your innocent ears?”

He grinned fiercely. “That was hard for me to hear, yes, but with therapy and tender loving care, I may recover some day.”

“Shut up. And quit moving around. You’re trying to make it harder for me.”

“I’m sorry, what did you just say? I’m trying to make it…
harder
?” He guffawed at her. “Not possible, darlin’. Thanks to you. And I’m not moving. Your hands are shaking.”

“They are not!” she yelped. They totally were. “I’m done now.”

Had he just told her that she made him hard? Was he actually flirting with her? No, she wouldn’t even acknowledge that thought. She’d been imagining things.

She stood up and walked over to the table where the tailor’s pad and pencil rested. She felt lightheaded, her panties were embarrassingly damp, and her nipples had swelled into sensitive nubs.

Damn it. She’d forgotten the numbers.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and counted to ten. Then she stalked back over to him, refusing to meet his gaze. “I have to take the measurements one more time.”

His honey-colored eyes gleamed with amusement. “Take all the time you want, darlin’. I got all day.”

She knelt down and forced herself to get the measurements.

Then she went back and wrote them down.

She stood up, letting out a deep breath. “I have a feeling that your aunt and uncle are going to be paying a real premium for those suits,” she said as they left the fitting room.

He responded with a shrug of his burly shoulders. Oh, what a shame to hide them under a suit. “Not my problem. They’re the ones who want to dress me up like a circus bear.”

“Circus bears are much better behaved. All right, I’ve had as much of you as I can handle for one day. I will see you tomorrow night for dinner. We’re going to start out at my house, because you’re not ready for a restaurant yet. I’ll text you the address.”

And without looking back, she stalked off to her car, cursing her ex-husband, cursing her luck, and cursing Zane Shepherd.

The next morning, Wynona stood next to her car in the parking lot behind her office, trying to keep Sprinkles from peeing on her car’s tire as she talked to her lawyer on the phone.

“Stop that!” she said with exasperation. He looked up at her with his big black marble eyes, lifted his leg, and peed on the tire. Then he grinned and wagged his tail. “You are the devil!”

“Me?” Roland sounded mortally offended. “I mean, I know a lot of people don’t like lawyers, but I think that’s a little—”

“Not you! I’m talking to my dog.”

“You have a dog? Since when?”

“Since Gillian and me rescued it from a psycho. Some demented socialite who named it Sprinkles. I tried changing its name to Hercules, to make up for its tiny stature, but it ignores me unless I call it Sprinkles. Can we please stick with the program here? My lousy ex – what have you got on him?”

A man was strolling through the parking lot just then. Wolf shifter – not a gray wolf like her, but a Yukon wolf from Alaska; she was close enough to scent that. Tall, lean, and his haircut and posture said ex-military. There was something a little alarming about him – he had an air of coiled menace. She’d bet that when he’d been in the military, he’d been a sniper.

He paused and gave her a chastising look. “What do you have on him?” he corrected. “Also, Gillian and I, not Gillian and me.”

Okay, now her alarm was fading and being replaced by annoyance. Ex-military turned schoolmarm? She shook her head and turned her back on the man.

“So far, I’ve managed to trace your ex-husband to Mexico. The shell company is owned by another shell company, which is owned by a Delaware corporation. You know how strict their privacy laws are. That’s going to be a tough one to crack.”

“Figures. Roland, just find the bastard. I don’t care what it takes. I’m madder than a bag of cats.”

She turned to look and realized that the man was frowning at her in disapproval.

“You are not angrier than a bag of cats How can a bag be angry? And what kind of person ties up cats in a bag?” he was starting to look indignant. Sprinkles ran over, sniffed at him eagerly and wagged his tail. Wynona knelt down and picked him up, then scowled at the guy.

“Listen, bub. Ix-nay on the eavesdropping-ay. Nobody likes a drive-by grammar Nazi.”

He was shaking his head slowly back and forth.

“I am not driving, I am walking. Good Lord. This presents a dilemma of a type I’ve never faced before.” He thrust his hands in his suit pockets and frowned in thought. “On one hand, your speech is both inaccurate and ungrammatical. But on the other hand, you are female, and you also rescued a dog.”

Wynona stared at him for a long, long moment before she figured out what was going on.

He had been considering hitting on her.

In about the least flattering way possible. And also he was one of those compulsive correctors of other people’s grammar. Not bad looking, but clearly crazy.

“No thanks, not interested,” she called over her shoulder as she opened the door to her car and put Sprinkles in his little dog crate.

“Not interested in what?” he said. “Be more specific.”

She stared at him. “Not interested in crazy men who follow me around parking lots correcting my grammar.”

She shut the door and drove away.

* * * * *

Wynona lived in a small two-bedroom bungalow-style house in a suburb of Cedar Park, bordering conservation land. It was the perfect place for her to shift and go for a run on evenings when she was feeling stressed.

Zane showed up on time at her house that evening, she had to give him that much. Unfortunately, for a hostess gift, he presented her with a dead squirrel, which he held by the tail and tried to hand to her.

She jumped back in horror.

“What the hell?” she shrieked.

He looked at her with an innocent expression. “You told me that I should bring a present. I was going to cook it on your grill. You do have a grill, don’t you?”

“Yes. For hot dogs and hamburgers. Go throw that in the garbage right now.” She pointed at the garbage can on the curb.

“If you insist. Waste of good food.” He shook his head at her, but went to throw the squirrel away.

Annoyed, she went into the house, where Zane joined her a minute later. Sprinkles greeted him by dancing and yipping, but it was his “I like you, scratch my butt now!” tone, rather than his “I will savage your ankles!” tone.

Zane looked down at Sprinkles in puzzlement. Sprinkles was so excited that he was turning in circles now.

“What is that, exactly?”

“It’s a dog named Sprinkles. Don’t look at me like that – I didn’t pick the name. Or the dog.”

“He followed you home?”

“Oh, no, I took him away from Tiffany because she said she was going to return him to the pet store at the mall where she got him from.”

“Huh.” He frowned slightly.

Oops. She shouldn’t be making him dislike Tiffany. She was trying to get him to marry Tiffany, because that bitch Cecily was actually right about one thing – prison stripes would not be a good look on her.

Zane bent down and held out his hand. Sprinkles licked it, and Zane stood back up.

“He likes you? He has questionable taste,” Wynona observed.

“Or maybe I taste good.”

“Zane Shepherd, did you just make a joke?”

“What’s a joke?” He stared at her in bafflement. “Is that something you can eat?”

She let out an exasperated breath. “Zane, sometimes you take the feral backwoods shifter act a little too far. All right, let’s get this over with. Please follow me to the dining room.”

He obliged, strolling through the house, looking at the pictures that lined the hallway walls. “Family?” he said.

“My niece Daisy and her husband Ryker, and their son Jasper. They were my first clients at the agency.” She couldn’t keep the pride from her voice. “Oh, and that’s Daisy’s best friend Cadence, also a client, and her husband and dragonlings.”

“Nice-looking family.” Good heavens, a spontaneous compliment. She wasn’t getting her hopes up, though. One compliment did not a civilized shifter make.

She gestured at the dining room table, an old oak farmhouse table which she’d set up as if they were at a formal restaurant. She’d used her Lenox China and flatware. She had dinner simmering on the kitchen stove, and the salad in a big wooden bowl resting on a buffet table.

“All right, have a seat. We will now discuss the silverware.”

He barely concealed an eye-roll as he settled into his seat. “That sounds fascinating. Can’t wait.”

Did it say anything in the etiquette books about stabbing a guest with their own salad fork? And if the issue wasn’t specifically addressed, did that mean that it was permitted?

He picked up his dinner plate and looked at the plate underneath it. “Why are there two dishes here?”

“The one underneath it is called a charger. It serves as a decorative base.”

He just looked at her skeptically, as if she were playing a joke on him, then carefully set the dish back down.

“You eat like this every night?” he asked. “All those forks and spoons and knives?”

“Oh, no, I’m pretty informal. We’re not training you to be my perfect mate, though. We’re trying to introduce you to high society.”

Three weeks isn’t enough. My entire lifetime wouldn’t be enough.

Gamely, she forged on. “With the silverware, basically, one works from the outside in.” She identified each piece, starting with the salad fork, working her way through the bread plate with the bread knife set on it at an angle. She demonstrated how to properly hold each implement. She looked at the blank expression on his face and despaired.

“Well, here goes nothing,” she muttered to herself, and served him his soup and salad.

He picked up the soup and drank straight from the bowl, slurping loudly. Sprinkles sat by his feet and watched with apparent approval. Then Zane began eating the salad with his hands.

“Stop,” she said.

“Okay.” He tossed the salad back into the bowl. “Not much of a veggie eater anyway.”

She grabbed the soup and salad bowl, went into the kitchen, and brought out the prime rib and mashed potatoes she’d made for the main course.

He picked the meat up with his hands, tore a piece off, and stuffed it into his mouth.

“Zane, cut that out!” she cried.

He chewed and swallowed. “Lady, do you want me to eat dinner with you or not?”

“Not like that! Use a knife and fork!”

He picked up the salad fork, held it the wrong way around, stabbed it into the prime rib, and picked the whole piece up.

She slapped her hand down on the table. “Zane! You are doing this on purpose.”

“Am I?”

“Quit acting like an ass,” she snapped at him.

“Hmm. What’s in it for me?”

“Other than your inheritance?”

“Yes.” He met her gaze boldly.

She rolled her eyes at him. “Fine. What’s it going to take to get you to actually eat in a civilized fashion?”

“Go fishing with me tomorrow. We have to start out early. I’ll be here at five a.m.”

That was an odd request, but at this point, she’d jog naked down Main Street with him if he’d just eat his damn dinner correctly. Maybe he figured that if he had to suffer doing stuff he hated, then so should she. Well, joke was on him – she loved being outdoors, and she’d always wanted to learn how to fish.

“All right. If we start over from the beginning and you follow my instructions and eat like a gentleman, I will even bait the hook for you.”

He proceeded to eat dinner with the manners of an eighteenth-century nobleman.