How could he have thought she was timid? As he remembered the light of battle in her eyes, it was a peculiar counterpoint to the lioness that chased butterflies. She was a complicated female, and she was all his.
He caressed the dark hair that translated into dark fur on an otherwise golden lioness and smiled. If he was honest with himself, he had been hers the moment that she had followed those two thugs out of the bar.
Give him a woman who could handle herself in an alley fight but was afraid of eye contact, and he was doomed to worship at her feet. What a way to go.
* * * *
Two weeks later
“Okay, Chuck. You only have one…what is the drink of the day?” Lee rubbed her hands together and watched as Chuck mixed, blended and twirled his way behind the bar.
“It’s a surprise. A little of this, a little of that and a lot of that.” He winked and produced a martini glass rimmed with graham cracker crumbs and the glass appeared to be filled with cream.
Lee was suspicious after the sour cherry debacle. On the other hand, she now knew that her spitting distance was twelve feet.
She licked daintily at the graham crumbs and found them sweet. A sip of the concoction and she smiled. “It tastes like cheesecake.”
Chuck grinned with triumph. “Good?”
She sipped and sighed. “Very good. What’s in it?”
“Two parts sweet and sour, one part limoncello, one part vanilla vodka and three parts cream.”
A young woman came to the bar and looked at it with longing in her eyes. “May I have one of those?”
Chuck chuckled. “Cheesecake in a glass. Yes, you may.”
He got to work, and in twenty minutes, all fifteen women in the bar were enjoying his concoction.
“It must be nice to have skills that are needed.”
Chuck paused. “In the last week, you have found more of that drug, set two broken limbs and engaged in twelve sets of stitches.”
Lee sighed, “Yeah, but I am not needed right now.”
He flicked his tongue out as he did when he was exasperated. “Go up to the office then. I am fairly sure that Jim needs whatever you have to offer.”
Lee haughtily lifted her glass and soared toward the stairs after throwing a wink at Chuck. Her husband would pretend to be exasperated by her appearance, but the moment she walked up and sat in his lap, he would take a well-deserved break.
She had her first foot on the stair when she heard someone call her. “Lee, a tree fell on Mark’s leg. We need help.”
She looked up at the stairway and the office door, sighing, she turned and passed the bar, depositing her glass near Chuck.
Nia’s brother Bronson was standing in the doorway. They broke into a run as Mark was being carried into the First Aide Centre. Lee knew that her equipment was waiting—drugs, x-ray machine and all the bandages that the shifters could handle. It was a tiny medical paradise, and it was all hers.
When she saw the mess that Mark had made of his leg, she slipped on her black scrub shirt and got to work.
Life was good at the Crossroads, and if she could help the inhabitants in any way, she would. They were her family now, and she was going to protect them from harm by any means necessary.
Author’s Note
We will see Lee and Jim in the next book,
Deer Heart
in spring 2013. A reindeer out of season heads to the Crossroads and falls for a wolf who can’t come to grips with what she is.
Reindeer are rare enough, but albino reindeer shapeshifters are one in a million. Will the wolf come to his senses before she stomps reason into his head?
Zenina Masters
About the Author
Zenina Masters was born in Canada and lives in Canada. She has a regular job and does nothing particularly exciting with her life. She enjoys fishing, silence and the ability to pick and choose friends she can trust. Life is too short to watch your back all the time.
Her writing life is a teeny bit of escapism, she would probably chicken out if confronted by three naked men and looks forward to one day finding out.