Simon: Le Beau Brothers: New Orleans Billionaire Shifters with BBW mates Series (Le Beau Series) (26 page)

“Wow.”

“Yeah, wow.”

“Does that happen a lot? A shifter
’s mate coming to them before they even meet?”

“No. Actually, I’ve never heard of it before. Just another unique thing about m
y mate.” He chuckled and took her face in his hands and kissed her.

“I’m not a weird shifter freak
, am I?”

“No, cher. You’re perfectly normal. I think the wolf goddess sent your wolf soul to me to help me survive. That lack of contact is what made me so ill. When I came home I shifted to wolf and wasn’t able to shift back. Anna worked on healing me for months before you appeared and the rest is history.”

“So that’s what you guys were talking about.”

“Yes, I couldn’t explain it to you until you accepted the mating. Humans aren’t supposed to know about us.”

“Well, if I’m ever going to shift outside I better get this clothing problem handled.” She giggled as she looked down at her naked body.

“You should really practice a few more time
s, I sure don’t want Stefan seeing you in your birthday suit. He might get ideas and then I’d have to kill him. My mother wouldn’t appreciate that.”

She closed her eyes again and breathed deep to relax herself. Next thing she knew she was a wolf again.  She wagged her tail and hopped from the bed to nip at his toes.

“Hey, cut that out.” He chuckled pulling his feet up. “Now imagine yourself human again but fully clothed.”

She stopped teasing and closed her wolf eyes. A second later, Rose stood before him in a sexy sundress from her closet.

“Very good,” he reached for her running his palms up her legs to find bare cheeks in his hands. “Uh oh, you forgot your panties.”

“No
, I didn’t,” she said biting her lower lip.

His eyes glowed hot and he gave her a love tap on her bare right cheek. “You are terrible to tempt me like that when we have serious work to do. Practice one more time and then we have a date
to play pool with Cade and Anna.”

Rose closed her eyes
… and nothing. “What happened?”

“Nothing, you just need to practice and concentrate. The more you practice the easier it becomes.”

A few minutes later Rose’s wolf stood before him and gave him a big wolf grin before she shot from the room. He found her in the living room jumping from one piece of furniture to the next. When she spied him she stopped, gave a playful yip and crouched to play.
Want to play with me?
She wiggled her butt in the air still crouching.

“Cher, I’d love to play but we don’t have the time
, right now. When we get back if you’re not too tired we can go for a run and have some fun.” He scratched her wolf’s ear affectionately. “Now shift back and give me a kiss, woman.”

She concentrated and she was a human again, and completely naked. This was going to take a lot of practice.

Simon sank the eight ball for the win. “YES! That’s two in a row.”

Cade was glowering at his brother, apparently he really didn’t like to lose. It didn’t help that Stefan had dropped by and had been poking the grumpy wolf with barbs all night.

Anna stepped in. “How about one last game?”

“Yeah
, Cade, I want to see Simon and Rose beat you a third time,” Stefan teased.

“How about you go home instead,”
he growled.

“Aw
w, come on, you big baby,” he goaded. “Speaking of babies, how’s my nephew doing?”

When he reached for Anna’s belly Cade launched himself at him.

Simon struggled to break them apart as Rose squeezed her eyes shut and prayed for the fighting to stop. And for everyone to get along again. She really wanted Cade to be in a better mood.

Suddenly the men stepped back from one another and laughed.

Cade shook his head. “What just happened?”

Simon rubbed his heart
. “I have no idea, but I feel great, like I’m crazy happy.”

“Yeah
,” Stefan agreed.

Cade cocked a brow
. “Has Rose’s gift manifested yet?”

“No, we were just talking about …
”

They stopped laughing and turned toward the women.

Anna looked at Rose with her brows raised too.

“What?”
she squeaked as she suddenly felt like she was in a spot light.

“Sweetheart, when
we were fighting what were you doing?” Simon asked.

“Nothing.” She shook her head.

“Were you thinking anything?”

Rose felt the heat rise up her neck to her face. “Yeah, kind of.”

“What exactly?”

“I just wanted the fight to stop and for you all to get along.” Then she whispered, “And for Cade to be in a better mood.”

Simon grinned at her, and the look in his eyes was kind of unnerving.

I want you to try something for me, think that you want Stefan to be really sad.

“That’s ridiculous,” she protested.

“Please
, baby, just do it for me.”

She breathed a big sigh and closed her eyes.

A few seconds later, Stefan started to cry. “What did you do?” He glared at Simon through the tears.

“Rose is my mirror opposite. She can control emotions.”

“No way!” Rose and Anna said at the same time.

“Yes
, way,” Simon chuckled.

“Too bad your gift didn’t manifest until after the conversion. That would have come in handy against Travis
,” Stefan sniffled.

“Huh, I wish I
’d gotten something cool like Anna did.”

“You have no idea how powerful that gift is
,” Cade said. “You can walk into any situation and change the emotions, effectively changing the minds of any person there.”

“Now it sounds kind of creepy
,” she said with a leery expression.

“Trust me
, babe, it will be great.” Simon wrapped her in his arms.

Thomas and John walked in from the guest suite wearing serious and determined expressions.

John went to Rose and gave her a hug. “I’m so glad we got you back, Momma Rose.”

“I’m glad you’re all here. We’ve decided to petition the wolf goddess for conversion.”

You could have heard a pin drop, no one breathed.

“Are you absolutely sure about this?” Anna asked.

“Yes, we discussed it and decided joining the family completely and moving here is what we want.”

“The situation Rose was just in isn’t clouding your judgment?” Cade asked.

“That was just one of many factors, I don’t care to give a laundry list of reasons. This is what we want. So, what do we have to do?”

“Nothing. I
’ll tell Emma you’ve requested the petition and she’ll take care of it,” Anna assured them.

“Okay, so how long does that take?” John asked.

Cade shrugged. “Don’t know. We’ve never done it before. I guess we’ll find out as we go.”

“Oh, so now what should we do?” Thomas frowned.

“Stay with us, we can talk to Isaac about work for you and you can decide if you want to build a house here or live somewhere else.”

Thomas stuck his hands in his pockets. “That sounds like a plan.” He nodded.

He tipped his chin toward the table. “What ya’ll got going on here?”

“We’re just playing one last game before Simon and Rose head home.”

“If you want another game, we will take you on after they leave,” John offered.

“Perfect
, you guys can re-inflate my manly pride when these two beat me again. Now, how about that game?” Cade said.

They secretly let Cade win the last game before they went home.
They could’ve won all three games against Cade and Anna, Rose was a regular shark. He’d have to use that against Stefan someday soon and beat him too. Watching him lose to a woman would be priceless. “How are you feeling, cher? Are you tired?”

Rose yawned
. “A little.”

“Unless you want to spend the night as a wolf I wouldn’t chance a shift
,” he warned.

“I certainly don’t want that. I can practice again tomorrow.”

Simon held his mate on their newly installed porch swing. The moonbeams shone through the trees, ethereal streams glowing in the darkness. As a human, you couldn’t see them so clearly. The night birds were singing, and a light breeze caressed his skin bringing the perfume from the magnolia tree across the yard. Life was pretty great. He rubbed his chin in her silky hair, ran his palm up and down her arm, and pulled her closer.

“Cher, I’ve been thinking about what I want to do with my time. I don’t want to go back to the Le Beau Corporation, at least not
, right now.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I made a few calls. There is a desperate need for posttraumatic stress disorder dogs and other psychological and physical needs of returning veterans. I’d like to start a charity to help the men.”

“That sounds great!”

“Would you be interested in doing that with me?”

She raised her head from his chest. “Really? You want me to help?”

“I won’t do it without you, cher.”

Snuggling again. “All right, I’m in. What do you want me to do?”

“I’d like to provide trained PTSD dogs free of charge to the men. We’d need to fund their travel and housing expenses for an extensive stay. I think we should consider building a training and housing compound.”

“Do you have a property in mind or do we need to see
what is available as options? Have you researched or visited existing facilities?”

“I haven’t visited any in person
, but I’ve done extensive research. My old commander Mark Anderson just retired and he’d like to work with us. I asked him to visit the top locations and report back to me.”

“That’s a great idea, we can take the best operations and duplicate or improve on
them.”

“I
’d also like to have a branch of the charity to locate and ship the dogs that soldiers adopt while on deployment home to them. I can’t begin to explain how important those dogs are to the men and when they are sent home they have to leave them behind. It’s traumatic for both the man and the animal.”

“I recently saw a special on television about that. There are people in the war zones
who’ll locate the dogs and help ship them back. It was forty five hundred dollars per animal. That would be the easiest service to start and could be offered right away.”

“Great, let’s get that up and running while we put the rest in place.
We’ll need experienced trainers and psychiatrists at the compound. The men will need medical assistance as well as learning how to handle the dog they’ll receive. Plus, applicants will need to be screened for their physical and psychological needs. Every dog will then be trained for their owner’s specific disability so it helps its owner with their exact needs. I want to provide the best help while protecting the dog’s safety.”

“I can look into that and interview candidates
,” Rose offered.

“Perfect
. Eventually I want to expand to physical service dogs and seeing-eye dogs. Mobility service dogs are trained to work with wheelchair-bound clients, walkers, and people with balance issues, things like that. They can even do cool stuff like get the remote or turn off a light. Can you verify the trainer can do all that?”

“Absolutely.”

“When we choose a site for the project, I want to leave room for a breeding kennel and puppy building. That way we can pinpoint the perfect breeds and bloodlines we prefer and raise them from birth. I know labradors and golden retrievers are excellent, but I’m sure there are other breeds too.”

“I love puppies! So, what does a PTSD dog do?”

“They sense when a person is experiencing panic and alert them to this change in mood. The dogs do this by physically providing a “shield” either in front of or behind the client to make them feel protected.  The dogs also nudge their owner or alert them in other tactile ways so the client uses the dog as a comforting presence, stroking the dog or talking to the dog gently.

“I
’d like you to organize a fundraising ball to kick off the charity. Your experience and expertise will be invaluable.”

“Oh, that sounds like fun! I love organizing fundraisers. Is there a wealth base in the area to support a ten thousand dollar a plate dinner?”

He Laughed. “No problem, there is a lot of money in New Orleans. What about the dance?”

“I
’m thinking a glamorous ball, not a costume affair. If we want the big money we need to let them show off their wealth and bling. No hiding behind a mask.”

“I like that.”