Chapter 6
SAM
“David Marsh. Dude, the guy’s a limp noodle. And way older than her. Seriously, why would she accept a date with that cheese ball over me?” I sent a hay bale soaring through the air to the barn loft, knocking Johnny backward when he caught it.
“You trying to take me out up here?” Johnny stacked the bale and returned to the edge, glaring down at me. “Because I can throw them back down, you know. It would be so easy to knock you down like a bowling pin.”
I frowned and wiped the sweat from my brow. “Shut up and catch.” I lobbed another one.
He caught it, rotated, and stacked it in a smooth motion. “I imagine she accepted the date with the limp noodle because he’s also a single parent. I would think a single mom would be looking for someone who gets kids. A guy who wouldn’t be threatened by her kid and–”
“Threatened by her kid?” I sputtered, sending a bale up so hard it hit the stack behind Johnny and rebounded back at me. “Fuck.” I caught it, and hurled it up again.
“You need to chill out.”
I paused, set my hands on my hips. “My mate… my unmarked mate is going out with your fucking dentist. Imagine if it was Emma.”
His eyes went dark, and his jaw clenched. “Right. That is a problem.”
I grunted.
“All I’m saying is that Dave the Dentist is no competition for you.”
“She thinks I’m too young.”
“So?”
“So, I can’t age.”
“You can change her mind.”
“But she’s going out with–”
“She’s going on a date. It doesn’t mean she stays on the date.”
My mouth hung open, then I snapped it shut. “What am I supposed to do until tonight when this date is gonna happen? I might go moon mad before then,” I grumbled. My wolf was not happy, and my balls were going to fall off from being so blue.
When Ernie’d all but manhandled me into the office yesterday, telling me to leave the lovebirds alone, I almost lost it.
Lovebirds? Anyone with working eyeballs could see that the guy who looked into people’s mouths for a living wasn’t the one for Clio. I’d wanted to storm back in there and kick Dave the Dork to the curb, but no.
No. I’d had to listen to every word they said–because a pane of glass couldn’t keep me from overhearing–and do nothing but smile. Fucking smile.
“Come up with a Plan B,” Johnny called.
I took off my hat and ran my hand through my sweaty hair. “Plan B? There is no Plan B for shifters.”
“You could pull a Cody and kidnap her.”
I imagined tossing Clio over my shoulder and carrying her off mid-date. I smiled.
Now that was a good idea.
“Who are you going to kidnap?” Charlie, Levi’s human mate and the ranch’s vet, asked as she came in with Wes. She went to check on Spirit, and Wes joined me in throwing the bales up to the loft.
“His mate,” Wes called, so she could hear. “He’s been grumpy ever since he met her on Wednesday and couldn’t get a date.”
“That says a lot coming from you,” Charlie said, looking at Wes over Spirit’s low back.
“Me?” Wes pushed his hat back a touch.
“Yeah, you, Mr. Grump,” she said with a smile.
“I’m all happy now,” he replied. “Got my mate and my little girl. What else could I want?”
I glared at my boss. “Seriously?”
“What?”
“I don’t have my mate or my pup. My mate is going on a date with the town dentist tomorrow night, and I–”
“Have your thumb up your ass.”
“I do not.” I sounded like a five-year-old. “I’ve got a kidnapping plan all laid out.”
“No kidnapping,” Charlie repeated. “Stalking’s not a good look either if you’re trying to win her over.”
“Too late,” I said. “But she hasn’t seen me.”
She rolled her eyes as she ran a hand down Spirit’s gray back. “Next you’re going to say you stalk the elementary school. Levi’s going to have to arrest you.”
“I only passed by once yesterday when all the kids were on the playground.” I smiled like a proud dad. There was no way I could keep my distance from the little guy. “Man, my pup is the best on those monkey bars.”
My phone rang, and I fished it out of my pocket and looked at the number. “Hey, Ernie, how’s it going?” I walked out of the barn, even though a private conversation around shifters was practically impossible.
“It’s going well. How are things over at Wolf Ranch?” he asked.
In a small town, chit chat was required before any business got discussed. Especially with the older generation since they loved to hear the good gossip first.
“Yeah, they’re good. We have a new foal that Charlie’s looking at.” An idea came to mind. “Say, I’ll bet JT would like to see her, too.”
“You leave Clio and JT out of your plans,” Ernie chuffed. “You have plenty of other women falling all over themselves for you in this town and every town you hit when you were in the rodeo. Leave my mechanic alone.”
I smiled with zero amusement. “Did you get that part in?”
“Yep, I got it here. Nothing like the old days when it took weeks. Now with the computer things are sent overnight, which is good ‘cause I bet you want to beat the weather.”
“Sure do.”
“You can pick it up anytime.”
I looked out to the field where the tractor was still sitting, and an idea sprouted. “Yeah, I was hoping you could send Clio over to install it. This one seemed a little tricky for me.”
“A PTO shaft? A little tricky for you,” Ernie repeated, obviously not believing me. I’d been fixing my own vehicles since I was a teenager, and he knew it.
I appealed to his business sense. “Yeah. I know you probably charge a lot more to send someone out, but we can pay it. I can pay it,” I amended because I knew Rob would kick my ass if I tried to bill it to the ranch.
“Like you said, we gotta beat the rain, and there’s lots to do on a ranch this size. ”
“Yeah, okay,” Ernie agreed.
Ha. Got him.
“I could come out.”
“Not you,” I rushed in. “It has to be Clio. She, ah, she knows how to do this repair, I’m sure, and I thought you were retired. I bet Edna will be riding your rump, and it’ll be the talk of the town by dinner.”
I couldn’t miss the disgruntled grunt from the old man.
“Can you send her out?”
“All right.”
I grinned.
“This afternoon? Right away, if possible?”
My wolf prowled and howled. My dick stirred with the possibility of being close to my mate again. It was killing me leaving her be.
Ernie snorted. I wasn’t fooling him for a second with my eagerness, but the moment he realized he could bill an extra couple hundred for what would otherwise be an eight-dollar mark-up on a part, I had him.
Plus, there was no way he wanted his wife of at least forty years annoyed.
“Yeah, okay. I’ll send her over with it now.
But don’t think your flirting is going to get you anywhere.
Vera Marsh is playing matchmaker with her son. ”
No shit. “I have no illusions,” I promised instead and ended the call.
Clio was coming here, to the ranch. Where I had home arena advantage.
I grinned. Game on.