Loving Lachlyn (Ashland Pride Two)
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Authors: R.E. Butler
Loving Lachlyn
An Ashland Pride Novel
By R. E. Butler
Copyright 2013 R. E. Butler
Loving Lachlyn (Ashland Pride Two)
By R.E. Butler
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.
Cover by Ramona Lockwood
This eBook is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locations is coincidental.
Disclaimer: The material in this book is for mature audiences only and contains graphic sexual content and is intended for those older than the age of 18 only.
* * * * *
I would like to extend sincere thanks to Jennifer Moorman for editing this story.
To my Aunt B. L., for her encouragement and to my husband, B. B., I love you both. To my best pal Jacq, I wish FL wasn’t so far away! To Jackie G. who loves the lions at least as much as I do – thank you for beta-reading. To Amanda Pederick - thank you…not only for beta-reading, but also for your friendship and support.
Alek Fallon sat back in the desk chair and took a drink of coffee. His shift as a deputy for the Ashland Police Department had just started. It was June, and the local kids were about to finish school for the summer, which would mean that vandalism and curfew violations would rise for the next few months, and the normally rarely busy police department would be very busy indeed. He didn’t mind one way or the other. He liked all aspects of being a cop, even the paperwork. It was a proud Fallon family tradition. His grandfather, his father, two uncles, and his twin brothers were cops.
Alek worked the day shift, starting at seven a.m. and working until three p.m. It allowed him to get home about the same time as his cousins did from school and spend time with them. He lived in a boarding house in Ashland with his mountain lion pride that included uncles, cousins, and other mountain lions who had come from their former home in King, Pennsylvania.
He brushed a hand through his light brown hair and turned his thoughts away from his past and back to the schedule. His brother Eryx was the sheriff and had put Alek in charge of handling the schedule. Unlike Eryx, Alek didn’t mind paperwork. Eryx would do paperwork, but he always scowled. And when Eryx scowled, people scattered.
The small police station had two holding cells, a reception area, and three offices. Eryx and Alek both had an office and the third office was shared by the remaining officers. Most often only one officer worked each shift, but come summer break, their number would increase to two for the evening shift.
After finishing the schedule, he grabbed a walkie and climbed into a squad car to patrol. He meandered through the small town, which had only a few amenities including a greasy spoon called Cherie’s, one bank, one gas station and garage, Kickers Bar, the police station, and the city hall building. There was one school for grades kindergarten through eighth and high schoolers attended a regional school in the next town. Alek parked across from the school and watched the kids playing outside in the fenced-in playground. Teachers stood watching as the young kids played. Balls were bounced, ropes were skipped, and games of tag were started.
He had grown up in King, which was quite similar to Ashland in many ways, but it was also vastly different. Where King had been an industrial town, with many residents working at a tire factory on the outskirts of town, Ashland was a farming community. His Uncle Rhett owned a large farm in Ashland. Alek’s brother Ethan, his Uncle Grant, and two other mountain lion males who lived in the boarding house all worked there. Alek didn’t mind farming, or at least the results of farming, but he didn’t want to work on one. For him, it hadn’t even been a choice on what he would do when he graduated from high school. Being a cop was in his blood and he liked it.
The walkie squawked, and Pauline said, “Alek, your father wanted to know if you wanted to meet him at Cherie’s for lunch.”
Alek smiled. “Yeah. Tell him I’ll be there around eleven. I need to finish my rounds.”
“Bring me back some strawberry pie, okay?”
“You bet.”
Alek looked at the playground once more, watching as the kids lined up outside the double doors and then marched inside. Pulling away from the curb, he shoved the ache in his heart away, determined not to think about his mother, or having kids, or the hopelessness he felt, and concentrated on his surroundings.
At eleven, he parked in the lot next to the diner and walked inside. His dad was sitting in a corner booth, the newspaper spread out before him. He looked up when the bell jangled as Alek opened it, a smile lighting his face. Alek’s father, James, had dark hair and gray eyes. Alek’s brothers took after their dad. Although Alek had the same rugged facial features as his dad, his light brown hair and blue eyes were just like his mother’s.
“How was patrol?” his dad asked, folding the newspaper.
“Good.” Alek slid into the open booth seat across from his dad. Tapping his finger on the newspaper, he said, “You know they have this great thing called the Internet, and you can read the news on your phone.”
He smirked. “I happen to like how newspaper feels.”
“And the dirty fingers?”
He looked down at his black smudged fingertips and laughed. “I guess it’s a hazard. I’m traditional, what can I say?”
Alek smiled at his dad. When Lily came to the table with coffee for Alek and a menu, Alek didn’t need to look at it to know he would order his ‘usual’ western omelet and sour dough toast. After his dad ordered, Alek fixed his coffee. He could feel his dad’s eyes on him, so he looked up as he stirred milk into the coffee. “What’s up? Are you okay?”
Looking surprised, his dad said, “Yeah, I’m fine. Nothing’s up. I just wanted to check in with you. We’ve been on opposite shifts for a few weeks, and I haven’t gotten to see you. How are you doing?”
“Good.” The word drawled from Alek’s mouth with a suspicious tone.
Laughing, his dad said, “You look like you think I’m up to no good.”
“Alright.” Alek narrowed his eyes at his dad.
“But,” his dad started, and Alek groaned.
“I knew it! I knew you were up to something.”
Dropping his voice, his dad said, “I’m just worried about you.”
“I’m fine.” Alek’s shoulders hunched involuntarily. He didn’t like talking about emotions. It made him feel vulnerable.
His dad sighed. “Have you ever thought about asking Lily out?”
His head shot up in surprise. “No. Why would I do that?”
Shrugging, he said, “Well, she’s young and pretty and doesn’t have a problem with weres. You just seem so…lonely, Son. I worry about you.”
Alek’s cheeks heated. “I’m
fine
, Dad.”
Humming in his throat, his dad didn’t say anything while Lily set down their plates. When they were alone again, he said, “We’re having dinner with the Popes’ on Sunday. I’d like you to come.”
“Why?”
“Because they’ve been good friends of the pride.”
Don Pope was the fire chief, a were-bear, and the head of his den. They lived in Bracks, which was north of Ashland.
Alek could tell by looking at his dad that he wasn’t going to get out of going to the dinner. Ethan and Eryx took their family to visit the bear den once a month for dinner. Sarah Pope, Don’s sister, delivered Ethan and Eryx’s three children, and their mate, Callie, was close friends with her.
Narrowing his eyes, he said, “You’re not trying to fix me up with Sarah, are you?”
His father concentrated on his pancakes for a long moment and then said, “Are you so against relationships that you can’t see a sweet woman when she’s in front of you?”
Groaning, Alek dropped the fork to the plate with a clatter. “Sarah is nice, Dad, of course, she is. And so are the other women you’ve pointed out to me the last few months. But none of them make me feel anything. I see what Eryx and Ethan have with Callie, what Uncle Grant and Uncle Aaron share with Sam. I’m not going to settle for someone that isn’t my real mate, if it’s even possible for me to have one.”
“Why would you think you wouldn’t have a mate?”
“Because I’m alone. It’s just me. I don’t have another brother to share a woman with, or a cousin that’s old enough.” Emotions clogged his throat and tightened his chest. “I feel like I’m going to be alone forever. And you and the others constantly pointing out females and asking me what’s going on just makes it worse. Can we drop it?” His voice snarled at the end. He didn’t mean to snap at his father, but he couldn’t help it. Ever since his uncles had joined with their woman, Samantha, Alek had a front-row seat to all their newly-wedded bliss. Watching them together was like a knife in his gut every day.
He still wasn’t entirely sure that all lions were meant to have mates anyway. If that were the case, the females wouldn’t have been the way they were, would they? And the fact that his brothers and uncles shared mates led him to believe he was going to be the odd-man out forever.
His dad reached out and clasped his hand. “I’m sorry, Alek. I didn’t know what you were feeling. I won’t push anymore. You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”
Alek swallowed past the lump in his throat. “I know, Dad.”
The meal was finished in strained silence, and Alek paid the bill, grabbed a piece of pie to take back to the station, and said goodbye to his dad.
It wasn’t that he didn’t think Sarah was pretty and nice and sweet, because she was all of those things. But he’d seen what happened when a lion met his mate. There were sparks. Instant attraction. Heat. He wanted that. And he wasn’t going to settle for less.
He couldn’t.