Chapter Four
Harper
“You’re going where?” Jess asked, her gaze flicking back and forth between Harper’s face and the man standing behind her.
Toby, Harper couldn’t help but notice, was scanning the customers as if one of them might have brought a bomb into the coffee shop.
He had insisted on coming inside with her to ensure there were no wolf shifters present, much to her dismay.
She wanted to strangle her brother for putting her life in such danger, but after all the schemes he’d come up with over the years she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised.
Jack had never been concerned with her safety before so why would he start now?
Only this time, he had really outdone himself by bringing such dangerous creatures into her life.
…And Toby.
Harper still couldn’t believe that such a thing as wolf and coyote shifters actually existed, let alone the fact that she was supposedly mated to one.
The very idea seemed ludicrous, but something told her that Toby wouldn’t joke or lie about the mate bond.
His expression had filled with something bordering on reverence when he’d been talking about it, and she couldn’t deny that she felt an inexplicable pull to him, something that went beyond mere attraction.
“Houston,” Harper lied, unable to keep the wince out of her expression.
Lee frowned. “Let me guess, your brother has gotten himself into trouble again?”
“Something like that,” Harper mumbled.
Jess and Lee had worked for Harper for years now and were well aware of her brother’s tendency to find trouble.
She just didn’t want to admit to them how badly he’d screwed up this time or where she was having to go to try to get him out of it.
Besides, if she’d have told them that she was leaving the country to rescue Jack after having shown up at the coffee shop with a handsome stranger in tow, they would have likely called the police.
Lee and Jess would be more likely to believe this was some sort of organ harvesting abduction before coming to the conclusion that she was going away for a dirty weekend with a lover, which pretty much summed up the current state of her love life.
Jess let out a string of curses that would have been more in keeping with a drunken sailor.
Then she looked over Harper’s shoulder again at Toby and her eyes flickered with interest. Harper had seen that expression on her employee’s face before when she’d found one of their customers attractive.
For the briefest of moments, Harper was struck with a burst of white-hot jealousy.
She shook her head. Ridiculous. She barely knew Toby, yet she felt oddly territorial over him.
“Who’s your friend?” Jess asked.
“Oh, sorry. Umm, Jess, Lee, this is Toby,” she introduced, purposely omitting how she knew him which she was sure would pique their curiosity even more.
“Hey, it’s good to meet you both,” Toby said with a warm and friendly smile.
Despite the fact that color rose in Jess’s cheeks, Toby didn’t seem to notice or if he did, he didn’t care.
He didn’t glance at her for a second longer than necessary and for that, Harper breathed a sigh of relief.
She’d never been a jealous person. Did this have something to do with the mate bond?
She wasn’t sure she even believed it existed, but she’d never reacted like that before, and certainly not over a guy she’d only just met.
Lee’s expression clouded with suspicion as he regarded Toby, and Harper could hardly blame him.
She’d never mentioned Toby before, or any man for that matter.
She was sure that they would grill her about him when she got back, but at least that would give her some time to come up with a suitable explanation about their relationship.
“Will you be okay to take care of the shop while I’m gone?” she asked, looking at each of them in turn.
“Of course,” Jess said. “You don’t even need to ask.”
Lee nodded. “Don’t worry about us, we’ll have everything under control. When you see Jack, tell him I’m going to kick his ass next time I see him.”
Harper chuckled. “You can get in line.”
When they left the coffee shop, Toby went into protective mode, insisting on walking Harper to her car before he rushed back to his own to follow her home. She couldn’t decide if his caution was over the top or not, but part of her appreciated his concern for her safety.
Outside her house, Toby parked behind her car, and they entered the house together.
“Wait here by the door for a moment,” Toby instructed as he quickly swept through the house to ensure it was secure.
His thoroughness, though slightly unnerving in its necessity, also comforted Harper. He returned a few moments later, nodding to indicate all was clear.
“I don’t scent any wolves,” he said, “or any scent other than yours, so I don’t think anyone has been in here. Has it been a while since Jack was here?”
Harper nodded. “Over a month. He was staying at his girlfriend’s on the other side of town until a few months ago. They’re always on and off again so he used to come back occasionally, but then he told me about your parents and the job at the gallery.” Harper frowned.
“You know, I thought it was strange when he told me about it. I wondered why he had a sudden interest in antiquities.” She sighed. “I guess now I know why.”
“Do you have anything here that belongs to your brother?” Toby asked. “If I smell it, I’ll recognize his scent if I catch it again.”
Harper nodded then went into her brother’s bedroom to see what she could find. She returned later with a sock that had been sat in one of Jack’s sneakers. Toby wrinkled his nose as Harper handed it to him, eying it as if it might grow teeth at any moment and bite him.
“I nearly grabbed a sweater,” she said, “but I thought you might prefer something more…pungent.”
“Uh, good thinking,” Toby said.
However, the expression on his face told Harper that her good idea had been anything but.
Toby gingerly wafted the sock in the general direction of his nose and took a quick sniff of it. His wince deepened.
“That should do it,” he said, handing it back.
Rather than take it back to Jack’s room, Harper took it into the bathroom and threw it in the washing machine.
She quickly washed her hands then went back out into the living room where Toby was waiting for her.
Despite their very recent meeting, Harper found herself surprisingly at ease with Toby.
The danger that loomed outside made his presence a stronghold of safety in her home she hadn’t realized she needed.
Her encounter with the wolf shifters that morning had affected her more than she’d first realized, and her throat was still sore from the hands that had been wrapped around it.
She tried to push the mental image out of her mind.
“Can you tell me more about mate bonds?” she asked, her curiosity piqued by the intense connection she felt with Toby. “I…I want to understand.”
Toby smiled, a warm, inviting expression that eased any lingering tension she felt from the memory of her experience that morning.
“Hmm, mate bonds...” he said, his brow creased as he thought.
“Well, I suppose you could say that they’re like destiny, only more powerful.
You mentioned soul mates before, and it is kind of like that, but more.
There’s a deeper connection, a pull that’s both emotional and physical. ”
She frowned, trying to piece it together.
“It’s sort of like being tuned into each other’s frequency,” he continued. “Feeling what the other feels, wanting their happiness as much as your own. At least, that’s the way my parents and friends who are already mated describe it.”
“It sounds intense,” she observed.
“I suppose they can be although my parents have always described their bond as a feeling of contentment—an emotional or even spiritual connection that they never have to doubt. They just know that they have each other’s back and best interests at heart.”
“So, it’s not the same as love at first sight?”
“No, at least, not from my experience of witnessing them in action. I mean from what I’ve seen of mate bonds amongst my friends, the love grows with time.
The mate bond is more an acknowledgment of having found your person, but it’s not a quick fix.
The couple still have to put effort into their relationship to make it run smoothly. ”
Harper was fascinated by their discussion and relieved that Toby hadn’t described the mate bond as love at first sight because that would have felt too farfetched to her.
She didn’t know Toby, so there was no way she would have said that she loved him already.
Still, she couldn’t deny that the more time she spent with him, the more she liked him, and the more time she wanted to spend with him.
As she packed a bag for their trip, they fell into easy small talk, the conversation occasionally veering into playful flirtation. She moved around her bedroom, gathering essentials, while Toby leaned against the doorway, watching her with an amused yet somehow affectionate gaze.
At one point, Harper needed to get past Toby in the doorway.
As she brushed by him, the closeness seemed to send a shock of electricity through them both, and they gasped simultaneously.
The air between them charged with an unspoken attraction.
Toby leaned down and captured her lips with his in a kiss that was gentle yet fraught with all the tension of their unspoken attraction.
It was a kiss unlike any Harper had experienced, sending waves of warmth through her entire body so that she wanted to lean into him, wanted to taste and explore him, wanted to know every inch of his body and his soul.
But as quickly as it had begun, it ended when Toby stepped back, an apologetic look on his face.