Chapter 8
Why”s all your blood in your face? It makes my head hurt. The koala, which had been blissfully disengaged for entire minutes there, came back to attention in a way that Ollie felt he was alarmingly close to himself.
Well, no, in a completely different way, but ”standing at attention” had such a specific connotation when he”d just promised an incredibly beautiful woman that he”d have her any way she wanted him to…
No. God, no. He hadn”t been quite that blatant. He didn”t think he had. He”d been almost that bad, but not quite.
Because ”I”ll have any part of you that you want me to” was ever so much better than “I”ll have you any way you want me to.”
Ollie”s head was actually going to explode from swelling.
His larger head.
The koala was actually staring at him, as if it had never considered the possibility that Ollie had dirty thoughts of his own, independent of the koala”s own enthusiastic libido. Not that the koala had him chasing after girl koalas. No. It was simply supportive of his own, very human, desires. And had opinions about which women he should pursue. Although never ever as strong an opinion as it did about Tiffany, which made sense. She was, after all, his mate.
Looking at the petite, solidly built, strong-armed woman in front of him, Ollie thought he couldn”t possibly tell her that he was a koala shifter. She would laugh at him. Other people had…well. Magnificent shifter animals. Bears. Tigers. Wolves. Lots of wolves. Koalas were small, cute and surly. They did not inspire lustful thoughts, although Ollie sort of assumed it wasn”t really anybody else”s shifter animal that inspired the lustful thoughts in their mates. It would be the man, not the beast, who appealed to their mates” hearts and souls.
Which was bad enough. Tiffany was the kind of woman who threw annoying men over her shoulder onto the ground, and probably stomped on them with her steel-toed boots if they got out of hand again. Ollie…was an accountant. Mild-mannered. Calm. Boring.
But she had said verbal aikido. That seemed positive.
He was suddenly sure he”d been standing there, blushing silently, for a really long time. Tiffany was sucking her cheeks in like she was trying not to laugh.
Ollie wilted. Everywhere. At least most of the blood left his face, but all hope of standing at attention slipped away, too. He was just so…ordinary.
So what? She”s our mate. Drag her into the trees and KISS HER.
Ollie, weakly, said, ”There are no trees.”
Tiffany”s eyebrows went up. She glanced around the square, eyeing the small number of trees there were, scattered at both its ends, then shrugged and nodded. ”Not worth mentioning, no. Why, were you hoping I”d drag you into the trees and let you have any part of me I wanted you to?”
It turned out the blush had only retreated. It was there again, fully willing to re-engage. Ollie thought his hair might catch on fire, in fact, from the heat of the blush.
It also turned out that other wilting parts of his anatomy were fully prepared to return to duty.
It also turned out that given the slightest opportunity to do so, his koala could come up with much, much cruder suggestions than Ollie would ever permit himself to imagine, and would make a series of enthusiastic grunting noises to accompany those suggestions.
Ollie, trying to be a gentleman despite his entire body and his shifter animal being in full rebellion on the topic, said, ”Anything the lady wants,” in a rather desperate voice.
Tiffany burst out laughing. ”You really are sweet, aren”t you? Well, look, I”d consider it, but realistically, there aren”t any trees, and I”ve got a gazebo to rebuild by Saturday at noon—I don”t even want to think about how long you”d all already spent decorating it, too, so probably earlier than that to be safe—so we may have to put off the shenanigans for a while.”
”Can I help?” Ollie made a face. ”With the gazebo, not the shenanigans. Not that I don”t want shenanigans. I”m all for shenanigans.” He”d never said that word before in his life. Now he apparently couldn”t stop.
Tiffany”s mouth made that wonderful holding-back-laughter shape again. ”You can help.”
”Really?”
She pointed toward the considerable crowd of people who had gathered around the wreck of the gazebo at just enough distance to be considered safe. ”You can tell them what”s going on, and if that awful little Mr. West comes back out, you can run interference while we figure out what kind of work needs to be done to repair this thing properly. My God,” she added, taking a better look at the crowd. ”Is the entire town here?”
The gazebo-decorating team had certainly grouped together closest of all. Several were holding lemonades; one of them had an ice cream dripping over her hand, and Sarah, the town librarian and gazebo-decorating ringleader, had an expression close to tears. Behind them an ever-increasing number of people spread across the square, phones lifted to take pictures or to be talked into. Ollie could hear someone saying, ”How old was it?”
He certainly had no idea, himself. Old enough that the person asking was noticeably older than he was, at least, which suggested the gazebo had probably stood for sixty or more years. He turned to ask Tiffany if she knew, and discovered she had set her shoulders and started for the gazebo”s front steps, which most of the gathering were facing. Ollie blurted, ”Oh no, I said I would—” and chased after her, but Tiffany gave him a weary smile as she climbed the steps.
”Of the two of us, I”m the one with the hardhat. Step back, please.” She then waved a hand and lifted her voice. ”Folks, I”m sorry about this, obviously. I”m Tiffany Wright of Wright Construction, and my team is here to build the new playground.”
A shriek of childish excitement rose from somewhere in the gathering, followed by an audible squeak of dismay as the kid was cut off, presumably by their parent. Tiffany smiled briefly, but continued. ”My crewman driving the crane was stung by a bee and had an anaphylactic reaction?—”
Just like that, the murmur that arose from the crowd changed tone entirely, anger and outrage becoming concern and worry. Tiffany smiled again, just as briefly. ”He had his EpiPen with him and the medication was administered quickly, so it looks like he”ll be all right. He”s on the way to the hospital now to be checked over. But obviously we”re devastated to have done this damage, and our first order of business is going to be repairing it. We”ve asked for the blueprints, and if anyone has pictures, especially interior photos, that they”d like to share, you can email them to me at our website. Oliver Campbell will answer any other questions you have.”
She stepped down and gave Ollie a smile all for himself, instead of the quick, polished ones she”d offered the townspeople as she spoke. He breathed, ”I was going to explain for you,” but Tiffany shook her head.
”Better for me to do it, so it doesn”t look like I”m avoiding responsibility. Now I”ve delegated. Departments, remember?” She put her hand on his arm, and Ollie swore he felt heat spill through his whole body. ”Thank you for stepping up,” she said more seriously. ”My guys and I are going to be really busy, and having somebody who”s willing to talk to people for me right now is going to make a huge difference. I really appreciate it.”
”Anything you need.” Ollie reviewed that quickly, making sure it wasn”t anything that could be taken in more than one way?—
Like our sheila can!
Ollie closed his eyes. Not to envision multiple ways he might entangle himself with Tiffany, but because he couldn”t deal with the koala while actually gazing down at his fated mate. Not right now, at least. First: you”re nasty. Second: nobody calls women ”sheilas” anymore, you antiquated drop bear. Third: shut up.
He had no idea how he was going to introduce his shifter self to this amazing, tough, gorgeous, put-together woman without her drop-kicking him into the sun.
But that”d be hot, the koala said brightly, and Ollie was fairly certain it meant in the sexy appealing way, not the 5,600 degree way.
Tiffany had patted his arm and gone back into the gazebo to talk to her team while Ollie had been standing there scolding his koala like an idiot. He was never going to make a good impression if she kept having better things to do than stay with him.
Which clearly meant he needed to have nothing better to do than stay with her. And he didn”t. He knew that in his soul.
Except she had asked him to do something. Ollie shook himself and spun to face the gawking onlookers, prepared to take on anybody who wanted to speak with Tiffany.
Yeah! the koala said enthusiastically. We can take ”em!
Not…not that kind of taking on, fella…
For a moment he almost felt sorry for the koala. All it really wanted in life was to get into a really good bar fight, and there was stick-in-the-mud Ollie, making sure that didn”t happen. Granted, it was Ollie himself who would actually be doing the fighting, so he didn”t feel too sorry for the ornery little beast, but still.
The koala, mopeishly, said, I also wanna make Tiffany happy, and Ollie chuckled.
Yeah, mate, I know. We”ll get there, all right? We only met her an hour ago.
It had been a very busy hour. To Ollie”s relief, most of the next several weren”t quite as busy. Or at least, not for him. Tiffany, on the other hand…
The town planner arrived with blueprints and ideas that ended up spread all over the lawn. People came and went from the square, finding out what had happened, exchanging gossip, having picnics, bustling around in a cheerful, overheated, late summer afternoon kind of way. Steve returned with his fiancee, Charlee, who stared at the wrecked gazebo for three full minutes without expression. Then her chin quivered and she hurried away with Steve in her wake, promising everything would be fine.
Most of Tiffany”s construction team arrived. They all stood around together for a while, hardhats pushed back on their heads, hands on their waists, gazes fixed critically on the crane hook stuck in the gazebo”s roof. Apparently they had decided not to disengage it until they got support in place for the roof, so as Ollie watched in surprise and awe, they fetched scaffolding, safety fencing, ladders, and the kind of grimly satisfied determination that people sometimes got when they were faced with an improbable task and an impossible deadline.
They looked like they were having fun, in that don”t mess with me, I”ve got serious business going on here kind of way. Ollie was happy to both not mess with them, and to encourage picnickers and gawkers alike to move away so the construction equipment could be fenced in with the gazebo. He did murmur, ”And here we have a rare sighting of a wild gazebo inside a human enclosure. After being injured, this gazebo actually approached the humans to ask for help,” in his best David Attenborough voice.
Tiffany was, at that moment, close enough to hear him, beamed and sidled closer to him, dropping into her own announcer”s voice. ”The gazebo, although injured, waited patiently for hours while the humans called in an emergency construction team to assist with its healing. It must be emphasized that this is a wild gazebo, one that had never met humans before. We believe it must have learned from other gazebos in the wild that humans could help it. What”s even better,” she said in a more normal voice, ”is the poor guy who wrecked it is named Eric.”
Ollie hesitated. ”Does that make it better?”
”Oh!” Tiffany”s eyes widened. ”Do you not know the story of Eric and the gazebo?”
He gestured at the gazebo in front of them in question, and Tiffany grinned. ”No. Or this is act two, maybe. Look it up, I don”t want to spoil it for you. Oh, blast it—! Rick! Rick, are you—dammit, Rick!” She marched off, steel toes clumping up the gazebo steps while she went to discuss something with her team.
It was all mystifying in the most fascinating way. They were yelling at each other about support beams and dropping tools to one another in a way that looked psychic to Ollie: someone would yell wrench! Somebody else would hold a hand out, without looking, and release a wrench. The first person would put their hand out and the wrench would slap into it with effortless ease, like it was flawlessly rehearsed. Tiffany walked in and out of it all with absolute comfort and confidence, scrambling up the scaffolding they”d erected and taking measurements while somebody else wrote them down. It was all like numbers falling into place on a difficult accounting job, Ollie thought happily. Wonderful to watch.
The crowd who”d gathered to gape at the wrecked gazebo had mostly dispersed, and Ollie gradually realized the sun was coloring the western sky a riot of purples and golds. A big truck drove in through that sunset, carrying cut timber, and a cheer went up from Tiffany”s crew, which had more than doubled in size since that afternoon. Tiffany barked, ”All right, great, let”s get this unloaded so Jonesy can head back up north, and then we”ll get this show on the road.”
A little to Ollie”s surprise, her crew fell on the job with enthusiasm, moving the boards and beams into their own truck at speed. Somebody had set up floodlights as it got darker, but when Tiffany strode back toward the construction site, Ollie cautiously waved her down. ”I don”t mean to break the flow, but…it”s almost nine at night. If your crew wants to eat, I don”t think there”s much left open in a town this size after nine or ten.”
”Oh, b—” Tiffany cut off one curse, then stomped off in a flood of different ones, some of them so creative that Ollie thought she might be secretly Australian. The cursing appeared to stop as she spoke with her crew, and after less than three minutes, she was back, hands on her hips. ”The company”s putting them all up in a hotel for the night so we can get started early. Thanks. I got focused and wasn”t thinking. We all get like that sometimes with an urgent job, but I should know better. Boss is supposed to be better than that.”
”Does that mean you”re staying too?” Ollie asked hopefully. ”Because I”m at the hotel too, and I”d like to take you out to dinner.”