Once Upon a Shifter (95 page)

She laughed at him. Damn. “You don’t have to marry me to get me on your side,” she said.

The answer to his next question suddenly seemed vitally important. He looked her up and down, giving in and lingering on the sweet swell of her hips and the way her waist dipped in just enough, before slowly meeting her bright green eyes. “What do I have to do then? Cause right now, I’d do anything.” He let his voice drop, in hopes of making his meaning unmistakable.

Katie shivered, and his bear let out a growl of satisfaction. “Anything?” she repeated.

“
Anything
.” Their eyes locked until Rafe, the jerk, kicked him under the table.

“Can you two get a room or something?” Rafe didn’t look up when he spoke, busily pouring a small pile of sugar into his coffee.

“Sorry,” Katie said, her cheeks shading that delicate pink again. Jake wondered if the blush moved all the way down her body, then wanted more than anything to find out. Before he could say anything else, she excused herself and got back to work.

“Damn it, Rafe, I had something going there.”

Rafe wrinkled his nose and swallowed a gulp of coffee. “I know, I can smell the pheromones.” He lowered his voice with a glance around. “She’s shifter kin, did you smell it on her?”

Jake shook his head. Figures that Rafe, the wolf, would pick up on it before him. His sense of smell was better than Jake’s. “I don’t think I’ve ever met one before. She one of yours?” Shifter kin were rare, and usually treasured. They all had a shifter or two in their family tree, and mating with one had a much higher chance to produce a new shifter. In his hometown, kinfolk damn near ran the place, and anyone chosen to be their lover or, god willing, mate, was a lucky bear.

“Nah, man, I think she’s one of yours.” Bear shifter kin were rarer still. Well. That helped explain Jake’s instant interest in her. Even if she hadn’t been straight out of his dirtiest fantasies, he still would have felt that pull. “You know, if you were an alpha,” Rafe continued, “you’d know that.”

Jake wasn’t. He couldn’t be. Not ever. “What’s she doing here in the city?” he wondered instead. He tried to keep from watching her as she moved around the diner, and failed miserably.

“Dude, what are
we
doing here in the city?” Rafe retorted.

“Trying not to starve.” They’d met when they both tried to play the same street corner, Jake with his guitar and Rafe with his hand drums. Working together they pulled bigger crowds and a bigger payoff too. Most days were pretty good. Today wasn’t one of those days.

“Ennnh, we’ll be fine. Look at us, we’re having a real breakfast in a real diner, aren’t we?” Rafe waggled his eyebrows. “Rent’s paid. What else do you want?”

Jake thought briefly of the home he’d left in Montana, the big warm house filled with family. Even though he missed it every day, he knew he could never be what they wanted him to be. He just wasn’t alpha material. That had been Mark, his brother. Not Jake.
Damn it, Mark
. The loss hit him anew It had been over a year since Mark was killed in what his family called a “hunting accident”—and it was, sure it was, but Mark hadn’t been the hunter. What had he been thinking, running around as a bear during hunting season? Now that Jake was the oldest, he had the right to access the old ways, the line of power that stretched back longer anyone could remember. He had that right, but with it came the responsibility for taking care of his extended family, and he just couldn’t. They deserved better than him.

Jake dragged his thoughts back to the here and now, and refocused on the pretty girl nearby. “So you think she’s running from something too?” Maybe they could run together. Literally or figuratively. Jake knew he sure as hell was never going home, and Rafe
couldn’t
go home, not without getting ripped to pieces by an alpha wolf.

“Could be, could be. Are you gonna ask—”

“Shut up, she’s coming back.” Jake smiled up at Katie while she brought over their plates. “Smells good,” he said.

“Yeah, I’ll just bet it does,” Rafe muttered, and it was Jake’s turn to kick him under the table.

Unruffled, Katie smiled. “You boys need anything else?”

Rafe snickered. “Jake needs your phone number. Ow, damn it.” Jake might have kicked him a little harder that time.

“Well, if he does, he can just ask for it himself like a big boy.” Katie smiled down at him and Jake wanted a hell of a lot more than her phone number.

“My friend is rude and usually smelly,” Jake said, trying for a smooth recovery, “but in this case he’s not wrong. I’d love to see you again sometime.”
Naked, preferably, and beneath me.

Katie wore the same look of delight that every woman got when she realized she was being pursued. “We might be able to work something out.”

Sure enough, when the check came, there was an extra slip of paper with a phone number on it and a note:
I’m off work at 3 most days. Call me. -k

Screw playing it cool. Jake resolved to call her that afternoon.

Chapter Two

Katie checked the mirror in the tiny employee bathroom, freshening up her lipstick. She had the door open to the break room, where Anna was shrugging out of her uniform. Things has been nonstop all morning and through the lunch rush, and Katie’s feet ached. She’d be glad to finally get off them.

“I can’t believe you actually gave him your number,” Anna said. “Do you think he’ll call?”

“I’m not that lucky.” Katie inspected herself critically. Cute enough for Anna and her to go grab a late lunch, at least. “I mean, did you see him? Out of my league. I think he just asked because his friend gave him a hard time about it.” Still, just thinking about Jake’s gorgeous eyes and that sexy lumberjack thing he had going on gave her a pleasant little thrill.

“His friend was cute too.” Anna wriggled into a pair of skinny jeans and an over-sized sweater.

“I guess, if you like little guys.”

“It just so happens, I do.
I’m
a little guy—well, girl.” She was, too. They made a funny pair. Katie towered over Anna by a good seven inches, and Katie didn’t even want to think by how much she outweighed Anna, who was model-thin.

“Maybe we could double-date sometime,” Katie teased.

“I thought you said you weren’t that lucky.”

As if on cue, Katie’s phone rang. “Whoa,” she said, looking at it. “Maybe I am that lucky.” She cleared her throat and tossed back her hair, then answered in her best casual-yet-sexy voice. “Hello?”

“Katie? This is Jake—we met at your diner this morning?”

“Jake... Oh, yes! I remember you now.” Katie crossed her eyes at Anna, who was holding back a laugh behind her hand. Her heart was racing. God, that sexy voice, a sweet and resonant baritone that shot right to her gut and curled there like a cat. “Nice to hear from you so soon.”

“Yeah, me and Rafe had a few minutes between sets, and I figured, hey it’s after three, so I thought I’d give it a shot.” Traffic sounds filtered through the phone, and a distant chatter of a jackhammer.

“Sets? Where are you?” Katie picked up her jacket and purse, looking to see if Anna was ready to go too.

“Sidewalk, er, outside where we’re playing today. We’re musicians.” This time of day, he must be playing some sort of late luncheon gig, probably the kind with white tablecloths and bow-tied servers. That gave Katie the mental image of him all dressed up in a crisp white tuxedo shirt, with his bow tie hanging loose and his shirt partly unbuttoned...

“—hello? Did I lose you?”

Damn. “Sorry, I think my phone cut out.”

Anna mouthed,
Liar
.

“I was just wondering if you were free tonight.”
Tonight?
“The weather’s supposed to stay warm—I thought maybe a beach picnic?”

He was actually asking her out. Anna’s hands and feet felt tingly and her face was hot. “That sounds great. What time?” Oh god, what would she wear? The lake was still too cold to go swimming, so thank god no bathing suit, but...

“I lost you again. Seven-thirty okay?” He sounded amused, as if he could read her mind.

“Yeah, that’d be great.” She had a dorky smile on her face, she could tell.

“Where should I pick you up?”

Katie gave him her address, and they hung up. All she could think about was the way his eyes had traced over her body and how much she wanted his hands to follow the same path. She didn’t normally think of herself as a “sex on the first date” sort of girl, but damned if she wasn’t willing to make an exception for him.

“So?” Anna said. “Just how lucky are you?”

“Tonight.” Katie grinned at her. “Holy crap, tonight. You gotta come help me figure out what to wear.”

“So what’s special about this guy?” Anna asked as they were leaving the diner in street clothes. “You haven’t dated anybody since I’ve known you.”

“Uh, you
did
see him, right?” Katie said, but Anna wasn’t wrong. Growing up with the expectation that she would eventually mate with one of the crusty, nasty alphas that lived around Boone, Colorado had soured her on relationships from a young age. The youngest “eligible bachelor” her mother trotted out in front of her was at least thirty years older than her, and always smelled like a brewery floor. The way all the kinfolk in Boone held these men up on a pedestal had verged on cult-like, and Katie wanted no part of it.

In Boone, unmated bear kinfolk women got passed around from one bear to another in hopes that they would give birth to a new shifter. That’s how Katie had been born, and why her dad hadn’t stayed for long. He wasn’t Mom’s mate, just a stop for a few nights here and there. That’s why her mom pushed so hard for her to mate so young. Katie wasn’t so sure which proposition was worse. She might have been stuck in Boone forever, as an unwilling mate or plaything, if not for her grandma in Winslow, thirty miles off. Gran didn’t approve of Mom’s matchmaking, and eventually slipped Katie enough money to buy a bus ticket out of Boone.

No bears for her. Ever. And definitely no alphas. As soon as she could save up enough money, she was going to start taking photography classes at night school and she was going to be a
real
photographer. Her teachers in high school said she had talent, and she was going to prove them right. After that, she was going to have a perfectly normal life with a perfectly normal guy. Someday. Maybe someone like Jake, if she was lucky.

After lunch, Anna came back to Katie’s place to help her plan for her date. She left right before seven-thirty. Katie had just about finished primping when her door buzzer sounded. She smoothed down her bright blue dress with its springy pattern. It was short enough to be flirty, but long enough that sitting on the beach wouldn’t be a potential embarrassment. Grabbing her sweater, she checked her makeup in the mirror one more time, then noticed the pile of discarded outfits on the bed of her small studio apartment. Crap, what if he wanted to come back here after? She ran to the intercom by the door and pressed the button. “Just a minute!” Then she frantically shoved the clothing into her small closet. She re-straightened her dress and hair, then went downstairs to meet him.

***

Jake stood on her front stoop, trying not to shift his weight impatiently from side to side. He hadn’t been able to think about anything but her all day. Rafe had been patient all afternoon when Jake’s mind had wandered in the middle of a song. One good thing about performing in the middle of a sidewalk: usually nobody noticed if you flubbed a note here and there. But Rafe noticed. The other good thing about performing on the streets though: if you were charismatic enough, could you flub as much as you wanted and still make bank. And if there was one thing the two of them had between them, as a wolf and a bear, it was charisma.

Katie stepped out her door and his bear gave a loud, possessive growl.
His. She was his
. There was no mistaking it. Katie was meant to be his mate. He had to fight the urge to run his hand up the creamy length of exposed thigh that her dress revealed, and had to make himself stop thinking that the night just might end—if he were very very lucky—with that dress on a floor somewhere nearby. Her red curls were caught in a casual, messy bun and he wanted to run his fingers through it to feel it tumbling down around her shoulders.

He might have stood there staring at her all night, but then she laughed. “You weren’t kidding about having a picnic.” She gestured at the picnic basket he carried. She stood on the step above him, which put them eye to eye, and she impulsively leaned in and kissed his cheek. Jake had to take a deep breath to rein in the bear that wanted to grab her and run for the nearest bushes, and in so doing, inhaled her glorious scent: wildflowers and honey and clean female scent. Of
course
she was bear-kin, how could he have missed it in the first place?

“Nothing fancy.” He offered her his arm and they started down the sidewalk. “Good deli sandwiches and some cheap wine. That okay?”

“Sounds great.” Katie smiled up at him, squeezing his arm against her breast. “I’m so happy it’s finally spring. This was a great idea. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” They made it to the lakeside park in almost no time, only to find that every other Chicagoan was grimly determined to enjoy the first truly warm evening. “Well,” Jake laughed, “at least you’ll be well-chaperoned.”

“Damn,” Katie replied, looking at him from beneath her lashes. Her voice was husky enough to send a jolt right to his cock. Once again it took all his self control to keep from suggesting they go somewhere more private,
right now
. No, he was going to do this right. If she was his mate—and he was almost certain she was—then he was going to woo her socks off. He’d better, anyway. As a disgraced almost-alpha, he didn’t have much else to offer a mate as valuable as one of the kinfolk.

“Well, if you have other ideas...” he teased.

“We should probably eat first.”

They found a spot that wasn’t too crowded, and Jake pulled the blanket out of the basket and spread it across the sand. He gave himself the luxury of watching her settle on the blanket, eying the way her dress rode up before she smoothed it down over her legs. She took the corned beef sandwich without a qualm, and held the paper cups for him while he poured the wine.