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“Yep. He just asked me if I’d consider leaving the bar and coming to work here full time.”
“He did?”
“Did you know he was going to?”
“I thought he might. He always hoped that whoever I ended up with would want to come work at the shop, too. He wants it to stay in the family. But you shouldn’t feel obligated.”
“I don’t in the slightest,” he said. “Your dad asked me if I wanted to be a bouncer my whole life. He didn’t say it like it was an insult – it was just an honest question. And I had to ask myself that same question. I mean, seriously, it’s not like I was a kid and dreamed about checking IDs and turning away assholes from a bar as a career. I was limited by my injury, but you make me feel like I’m not limited in any way.”
“You can do whatever you put your mind to,” she said. “And anyone who thinks your leg is a limitation is an idiot. You’re the strongest guy I’ve ever known.”
He smiled down at her and kissed her lightly. His lion let out a loud chuffing purr.
“So?” she asked as the timer buzzed. She took the sandwiches out of the oven, then deftly transferred them to plates.
“Do you want me here?” he asked as he carried the plates outside. She followed behind with bags of chips and cans of soda.
“Of course,” she said. She sat down across from him and opened a bag of sour cream and onion chips. “But I want you to be here because you want to be, not because you feel obligated or think it’s something I want. I think our opposing schedules will get in the way a lot. I mean, I can see you’re tired, and I love that you’re pushing through that exhaustion to be here.”
“I hate being away from you at night.” Possibly the most truthful thing he’d ever said.
“I hate it, too. Bed’s super cold and empty without you.”
“So, I can give my two weeks’ notice.”
“You will?”
“Yeah.” He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I can’t think of anything I’d like better than working here with you.”
Her eyes brightened and she stood and came around to him. He pulled her into his lap and hugged her tightly. She rested her head on his shoulder and said, “I can’t think of anything better, either. Just when I think I can’t possibly be any happier, you raise the bar.”
“You do for me, too, sweetheart.”
Chapter Eleven
Abbie Winchester sat in her parlor and looked through the binder containing all the eligible male and female lions who’d come to her looking for a mate-match. Mate-matching was an art form, a hereditary, supernatural power. Finding a perfect mate-match was something she took very seriously, just as her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother had before her.
She recalled sitting in the corner of her mother’s parlor and watching her choose mate-matches. All her mother’s matches had been successful with nary a separation among them. Divorce was a human concept, but occasionally a shifter couple who were not heart-matches would decide they weren’t meant to be and would separate. Traditionally, a mate-match was considered as binding as a heart-match. Once the couple mated and marked each other, that was it for them. But if one of them decided they wanted out, the other had two choices: let them go, or have the alpha enforce the contract.
It was the difference between an amicable split and a bitter union, and ego always seemed to be at the core of the decision to separate. The male or female who wanted out had their own reasons for taking off, and from what she’d seen and heard over the years about mate-matched splits, the reasons were usually selfish – they weren’t happy; they thought they deserved better; it wasn’t the life they’d have chosen for themselves.
It had happened only once in Abbie’s time as the pride’s match-maker with the Cowans, and she still couldn’t believe that the couple hadn’t been really meant to be together. The male had split for another pride and mated with a female there, saying he’d never been happy with Marlene. Abbie had been heartbroken – not that her record had been besmirched, but that the male had seemingly so easily cast aside his chosen mate and child. The fact that Marlene had never re-mated or come to Abbie for another match told her that she’d been right in the first place, but selfish desires had come into play on the male’s part.
But something had changed within the pride in the last month. Two mate-matches had been dissolved by one of the parties. The first had been alpha-to-be Duke, who had signed the mating contract with a female from another pride that Abbie had chosen for him. The same night, he’d gone to Tails and met his heart-match in a human female. The mating-contract was unbreakable save for one of the two lions finding their heart-match before the ceremony, and while the lioness’s father had threatened to go to war over the broken contract, Duke’s father had found another male to take Duke’s place. Diesel’s mating contract had been nullified when the female Abbie had chosen for him had declared he wasn’t a worthy candidate because of his limp.
It had been clear to her that Diesel was utterly destroyed by the lioness’s decision, but he hadn’t wanted her to find him another match. Then he’d gone to the bar for work and met his heart-match in a human female. He’d brought her to Abbie’s home to meet her and she’d been so tickled to see how happy the male was.
She was beginning to wonder if the three males in the pride who’d found their heart-match in humans were simply an oddity or a sign of things changing. She wondered, as she turned the pages and saw the photos and details of each unmated lion and lioness, if she should consider allowing humans to be part of her process. What if she was dooming lions to unhappy matings by looking at only lions as possible matches? What if she reached out not only to humans, but to the local wolf pack and offered to let a few of them in?
Ah, her mother would roll over in her grave at the thought!
But it was a different time, for sure.
And what was the saying? If you didn’t roll with the changes, you’d be squashed by them?
Her gaze landed on Diesel’s photo, which she’d moved from theeligiblesection to thematedsection of the binder.
A loud knock drew her abruptly from her musings, and she closed the book and opened the door. To her surprise, Valerie and her parents, Rick and Denise, were standing on the front porch.
