Hometown Pride, page 5
The smile slid from his face. “You think I don’t have reasons to resent the pride, too?”
She paused, looking at him, assessing his fierce expression. “I’m not surprised. I mean, you said you do the books and have donated labor, but you don’t sound happy about it. Lion prides are supposed to have some magical pull on their members, but half the apartment complex where Carol lives is empty because so many people have moved away. My best friend’s way out on the East Coast, thousands of miles from home. So many others have left. Your mom never came back.”
He closed his eyes over the pang he felt for his parents, his late mom a powerful lioness, his dad a burly human with arms full of tattoos, a tendency to talk in grunts, and the softest heart. “Dad thinks I’m crazy to have come back. He keeps asking me to go back to Washington.” He sat back. “And yeah, the apartment complex comes up in almost every board meeting. Real estate prices are too low in town to make any profit selling it. No one from outside the pride wants to buy the empty units as condos. We don’t really want it full of non-shifters anyway. And it’s getting shabby.” Unlike the Alpha House, which had had a complete redecoration with the priciest fittings the year before he'd moved to town.
“So they raise prices and don’t do repairs.”
“I do repairs,” he snapped. Then he sighed. “I replaced most of the roofs last summer at cost.” He’d eaten into his savings instead of making money. “But I’m not a plumber or electrician. I mean, I can sort of diagnose those things, but I’m not the guy to fix them.”
She held his gaze for a few seconds before flicking it to his chest and shoulders and then back to her coffee, her cheeks pink again. He wanted to lick her up like lemon ice cream. What were they talking about? Repairs. He leaned in so his mouth was an inch from her ear and murmured, “So does Carol’s place need any work done? I could schedule a few days to fix things while you’re there.”
Her cheeks went redder and her breath accelerated. She smelled good and the fire burned in his gut to strip her naked and take her. He eased back instead of diving in further when she leaned away from him.
She was a lioness shifter, a strong-willed one in spite of being half human, and as such, was never going to be a doormat. She also had anger issues, though probably justified ones. He had anger issues, too, but was mostly trying to get along and get the lay of the land – the lie of the land? – and more details about what was wrong with the pride before he decided his next move.
She also hadn’t called or texted since that morning ten days before when she sent him a note in the mail with a terse Thank you after driving off like her tail was on fire. He’d been leaving it up to her, but her frosty welcome probably meant he should have pursued her.
He sighed in loss as she scooted her chair and turned her knees away from his. He realized she was watching someone who had just come in. A tall, dark-skinned woman with blonde highlights, a sleeping baby in a sling, and a small child of maybe four years old clinging to her Capri-length yoga pants approached the counter, looking over at them, expression completely bland. She looked familiar, like he knew her family or had met her in passing, and he squinted to see the shimmer of a huge shifter aura. Definitely from the pride. The child lifted his head, scenting the air, then trotted toward them, but the mother let loose a sharp growl and the kid stopped in shock and hustled back to his mother, hiding behind her legs, a cloud of black curls and huge, dark eyes peeping out.
Tremaine knew why they looked familiar now; this was one of the young mothers of the pride who had been at the library for story time. She was watching Tremaine, glaring balefully, which was all instinct, he knew, but which still hurt a little. He wasn’t about to steal her from her mate and kill her children so she would come into heat, the way wild lions did when a new male took over a pride. Even so, lion shifters made terrible stepfathers – not that human ones were always that great. Lions couldn’t even be relied on to be decent fathers, some of them.
Angelica shoved away from the table and approached them, smoothing down her tight skirt and distracting his eyes toward her ass. The mother hugged her with one arm, never moving her eyes from Tremaine. Angelica crouched down and the little boy dove into her arms, nearly head-butting her. She stood, squeezing him tight as he nuzzled into her neck. She petted the baby’s head as she chatted with the mom. He heard her say something about the interview at the library and the mom squeezed her into another hug, declaring she hoped Angelica got the job and asking if she would be doing story time.
Tremaine checked the time. He really did need to go make an estimate on adding a covered porch to a house, since he’d already pushed the time back as far as it could go. He bussed their table, then approached the little group carefully, hanging back with his hands in plain sight, not making any aggressive moves.
The little boy growled at him and Tremaine was tempted to growl back, but only smiled down at him. The kid didn’t break eye contact, so was going to be pretty dominant one day. His mother was only standing her ground because Angelica was there, he was sure, nodding to him offhandedly, which stung, but which also demonstrated how he wasn’t at all dangerous.
“Hey babe,” he said, to stake a claim that would get whispered around. Angelica narrowed her eyes in warning, which made him sweat in anticipation of retributive sex. “I have to get going to give an estimate, then hit the hardware store for fencing. Dinner tonight?”
The woman’s wariness at his approach was sliding into amusement and her half smile looked a lot like someone else he knew who smiled a lot.
Angelica blushed again and shifted the preschooler to her hip before saying. “I’m really busy.”
He couldn’t keep the smile from forming. “You have to eat, right? And I can cook, so I’ll hit the grocery after the hardware store and meet you at Carol’s place?”
When Angelica glanced at her friend, the friend smirked and tipped her head.
Angelica sighed. “Give me a call when you’re on your way over. I should be there.”
He kissed her cheek and tousled the boy cub’s hair without the kid’s mom tearing off his arm, which counted as progress. He nodded politely and walked out, knowing the ladies were watching him go.
“So…” Mellie took on that teasing lilt friends got when there was a boy you had a crush on. “That was a lot of pheromones.”
Angelica realized that Mellie was her friend, even if they hadn’t hung out outside the library. She usually stayed after story time and chatted while Angelica tidied up the kids’ area, Vince helped put away blocks, and Nevaeh nursed, sometimes as a cub and sometimes a baby girl.
“He started coming into the library about a month ago, maybe two. You saw him there a few times, right? Grumpy and annoying, but almost every damn…darn day, you know? He was there when I quit. I yelled a lot, so I was surprised when he turned up later.”
Mellie finally strode to the counter now that the threat was gone. She paid for her stuff and said, “You were surprised? You know a dominant male likes nothing better than a lioness standing up for herself. You should have told Lipstick Lyssa to get lost a lot sooner, but good choice on doing it in front of him.”
Angel glanced around, but there were only the teenage lynx barista and her lynx boss in the shop. “Yeah, well, I loved the job in spite of her, until it just got to be too much.” Her anger over it was fading. Braindead and Lipstick were a mere annoyance already, in the greater scheme of things. Sure, they had pushed her to breaking point, but she had only lost her job and her home and…
Yeah, no: she was still majorly pissed off.
“She’s already fired the teenager she hired to do the shelving. He lasted about three days before he announced he was quitting, so she fired him before he could reach the door.”
“Which teenager?”
Angelica found herself gossiping at the same table she had been at with Tremaine, but now with a baby on her lap and a preschooler with a sticky face under the table growling up at his sister, making her chortle and kick.
“So, you and Tremaine.” Mellie said with that same teasing lilt.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. It might just be a bit of fu…” Saying fucking in front of a child wasn’t a great idea, though she’d never been very careful outside of the library. “Fun. He’s been back for a year or so, right? He never paid me any attention when we were younger, and not until a few weeks ago, either. I guess we’re both desperate for company that can understand us.” And she wanted a cub, as long as the cub’s dad stuck around and parented. Her dad had died, so it wasn’t his fault he left. Maybe she should find someone younger than Tremaine.
Mellie’s eyes darted around the bakery. Some regular humans in the area knew there were lion and lynx shifter packs around, but didn’t know anything about them, really. Or knew one or two personally. For the most part, shifters blended in pretty well when necessary and were insular the rest of the time.
With the concept of shifters and magic being blasted across the news and modern social media and electronic surveillance, who knew what that would mean for all of them? Probably right-wing conspiracy nuts and evangelical pastors showing up in town to condemn them, as if shifters had a choice in their genetics.
Mellie leaned forward and murmured, “Are you looking for a mate, Miss Angelica?”
Angel shook her head, though her gut answered Yes.
Chapter five
“Lion shifters are loyal to their family first – mate, children, parents, siblings, cousins – and to the pride second. Since many prides are insular and tight-knit and everyone is at least distantly related to everyone else, this is, in essence, almost the same as being loyal to the pride itself.” Renard et al, 2025, p133-157
After coffee with Angelica, Tremaine’s day went rapidly downhill. The homeowner who wanted a new porch said he was going to go with another contractor unless Tremaine did the work practically for free. The sort of low-ball bid the guy was looking for would mean that after paying for materials and one guy to help him, never mind his usual two employees, Tremaine wouldn’t be able to pay himself anything. There was no fucking way he could frame a porch without another guy to help – especially if he was going to get it done as fast as the guy wanted. He only did free work for the pride and even there, he was pushing back about needing to make his house and truck payments.
When he’d found himself trying to think of how to do the job without Perry and DeAnthony, the two lions in their twenties who worked for him part time around their classes at the community college, he knew he was going to have to walk away. He wrote the bid for as low as he could go and handed it over, sure he was going to lose out. He wondered who the hell was going to do that work for less and how shitty it was going to be. He could pick up a few odd jobs around the area and make more. He could sit on his ass for a couple weeks and not lose as much money as doing a good job on this porch would.
He could court Angelica, use those two weeks wisely by keeping her in his bed. That cheered him up a bit.
Then he’d gone to the hardware store and found they’d raised prices on the fence planks he needed for the job he was starting the next day, so he’d underbid that job, too.
Then he went to the grocery store and realized he had no idea what she liked, other than chocolate ice cream. He bought two big steaks and a jar of spaghetti sauce – the good kind that cost four bucks – and spaghetti and mozzarella and chocolate ice cream. And lettuce, because they were humans, too, and she was probably going to be like most of the women he’d dated and want salad.
He went home to shower and change, even though she hadn’t seemed to dislike his sweat earlier and had instead smelled like desire.
Still, it was going to take more than pheromones to have anything long term with Angelica. That they’d had transformative sex bent over the back of her couch hadn’t been enough to keep her from avoiding him for a week and half. At least it had been transformative for him. Maybe it was just another fuck for her and she was choosing who would fertilize her eggs from a wide field of applicants. Maybe she was giving lots of men a chance to fertilize her eggs.
He shook off the jealousy as he buttoned his best tailored shirt, a relic of his accounting days. From the gossip he’d pried out of his sister, Vera, Angelica hadn’t dated anyone for a long time before Braindead Bradley and certainly no one since. Of course, with all the prying and the woman in the coffee shop, there was sure to now be gossip about him and her together. It would probably piss her off, but was fine with him, because keeping her off limits to anyone else while he tried to court her was his main goal at this point.
That last thought brought him up short. He wouldn’t even have moved back to Freiburg, probably, if it weren’t for his other goals and certain people pushing him. He should stay focused.
He packed all the food into his big cooler and slid it into the backseat of his truck, wishing he had an actual car, which would be classier. He’d sold the BMW he had in the city and used the money to buy the truck and tools from the previous handyman and get started as a contractor. He could go back to the sports car lifestyle if he wanted, though he’d never loved working at a desk. He might still go back someday, once he’d figured out what the pride needed. And what Angelica needed.
He texted Angelica: On my way
She replied immediately: OK
And then, as he reached the foot of the drive, his phone buzzed again and she wrote: On 2nd thought, I’ll come to your place, if that’s OK
He replied: Of course. Come on over, and reversed up the 200 yards of gravel to park in his garage.
He hauled his cooler back in and replaced everything in the fridge and freezer, including the bag of ice, then did a bit of crisis cleaning, rushing through the public areas and, with a bit of hope for the rest of the night, his bedroom and master bath, picking up random loose socks, books, hammers, and papers, and hiding them more or less where they belonged. He’d just turned off the vacuum when he heard her car coming up the driveway and realized he had sweated through the pits of his shirt. He raced upstairs and yanked the shirt off, washed his pits, and reapplied deodorant, only to find none of his other button shirts were ironed.
Her car door closed, so he grabbed a wrinkly one – his mother would have scowled, God rest her soul – and yanked it on, buttoning it as he ran down the stairs. He took a moment to catch his breath, but only a moment, as Angelica was coming up the steps onto his porch. He opened the door as she approached and his breath caught. She was still in the skinny skirt from earlier in the day, the one that outlined her curvy hips and small waist, but she was wearing a loose shirt with deep cleavage – enough for him to fall into. She probably had a face and feet, too, but between the hips and breasts, he was hypnotized.
It took him a few seconds of shock to drag his eyes up to her face. Ah, there was her frown with that lush lower lip pouting.
He forced a smile, forced himself to relax a bit. He grunted, “Come in. You want steak or pasta?”
She came in and looked around like it was a new place, even though she’d been there ten days before. Her nostrils flared as she sniffed. As far as he knew, he was the only one who'd been in here since she left. “You haven’t started cooking yet?”
“No. I had to clean the house when you were on your way over. Steak or pasta?”
She nodded. “Steak, of course.”
“Keep me company while I cook?” He turned and strode down the hall to the house’s big kitchen. The sun was streaming in through the big glass patio doors, the ones he’d replaced when he moved in and had cost more than he wanted to pay, but had steel framing around small, thick panes and bolts that went up into the steel frame and down into the floor. It was worth it for Angelica’s reaction as she steered around the kitchen table and stopped to look out at his big, ragged yard and the forest beyond.
He opened the fridge and got out the steaks, eyes still on her cloud of dark hair, strong shoulders, and the curve of her waist.
“Nice, huh?” he finally asked. “I need to cut the grass now that it’s so tall. In case of wildfire, I need defensible space.”
She nodded, then looked at him over her shoulder. “So practical.”
“I build stuff. I don’t want it to burn down.” He shrugged. “It’s a pity, though. The grass is waist high.”
“Crouching lion high.” She turned back to the view.
“Yeah. It’s pretty awesome. I get bugs and snakes back there, though.” He forced himself to turn away to the cupboard and drag out the big cast-iron frying pan. “I thought of planting hay so I can sell it, but it’s not economically viable for just an acre.”
“And the wildlife wouldn’t be the same.”
He looked over and watched her watching swallows as they swooped around, catching bugs. Another half an hour closer to dark and the cloud of bats would flow out of the forest. Half an hour after that, the owls would start hooting. He thought of the wildflowers and bees and nodded, though she wasn’t looking. Yeah, the wildlife was pretty awesome.
“Go ahead and open the doors,” he said.
She immediately turned a handle and pushed outward, letting in a hint of warm evening breeze and the smell of the grass and woods. The smell of home that he’d almost forgotten, living in the city for so long, but which had come back to him a few years before when he was between jobs and came up to work for Hank that summer. He’d fixed up Carol’s house and she’d welcomed him and fed him cake and listened to him when he talked about life outside the boundaries of the pride.
He put the pan on a burner and turned it on, pouring oil in. He figured he should put something on as a side, so grabbed rice and a pan and started that, too, thought about how it took longer to cook than steak and turned the burner under the steak pan off. He opened the fridge to get lettuce and looked out into the yard – and paused.
