Primal Song (8 page)

Unnerved by the attention, but doing his best not to show it, Ram smiled at the room. “Hi, I need a trim and a blow dry.”

A woman stepped forward. She looked older than the other women in the salon, but the scissors in her hand and the bubble-gum pink smock she wore over her clothes identified her as one of the stylists. She looked him over, even going so far as to sniff him.

“
Cher
, I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but lions do not cut their manes,” she told him firmly.

Beneath her stern regard, he felt a blush trying to form. Ram hadn’t blushed since he was a teenager and he damn well wasn’t going to do it now. Instead, he studied his adversary, ignoring the gaggle of females staring at them. The woman in front of him looked familiar, but he couldn’t place where he’d seen her before. She was tall like Daisy, but hadn’t been one of the women to welcome him to town.

“Ma’am, I was told this was the best establishment in the tri-parish area, but if you don’t think you can handle trimming my mane, I understand.” He purposely spoke loud enough for everyone to hear.

Of course he hadn’t heard any such thing. If anything, everyone he’d called had said The Hair Shack was the
only
salon or barbershop in an eighty-mile radius. He was stuck unless he went out and bought a pair of clippers to shave his head.

The brown eyes staring at him twinkled at the challenge in his tone. “Well now, it looks like you came to the right place,” she murmured. She closed her scissors with a snick and stepped back. “We’re a little short-handed today, but we’ll get you fixed up. I’ll give you your trim.” She looked around the shop. “Do any of you girls have time to give him a blow job?”

*

“Possible 103R and 82 in progress at the Hair Shack,” the dispatcher squawked over the radio. “Daisy, your mama’s involved, the sheriff’s already on his way.”

Daisy threw her lunch in the passenger seat, clipped her seatbelt into place and tore out of the shade of an oak tree. Her heart pounded the entire way to her mama’s beauty salon. Prostitution and a riot? God, she prayed her mama wasn’t hurt.

She saw her dad’s cruiser parked haphazardly in the middle of the parking lot and pulled in next to him. Daisy had her door open before she came to a stop. She threw her car into park and leapt out all in one smooth motion. She ran up the familiar steps of her mom’s shop and flung open the door.

Women were everywhere. They all wore capes. Some wore towels over their hair, some had aluminum foil sticking up all over their heads, and some were all fixed up. They stared at the center of the room where Daisy’s mom stood with her dad and a very familiar figure.

Two clients stood off to the side, their faces reddened and bruises shadowing their jaws. Three of her mom’s stylists looked even worse with bloody scratches, busted lips and tangled hair. It looked as if they’d gotten into a knockdown, drag-out fight and Daisy knew of only one person who could bring friends to blows. Ramsey Reinhardt.

His mane was even longer than the last time she’d seen him and her fingers itched to sink into the silky-looking strands, maybe guide him— Her mother called out to Daisy, breaking into her X-rated thoughts.

She shot Ram a glare as she headed over to her mom who was tearfully trying to explain herself to her husband. “I don’t understand, Thomas! I was just setting up this fine young man’s trim and blow dry and everyone went crazy!”

Her dad comforted his wife and shot dark looks at the much taller Ram. “Now see here, son, I don’t know what kind of place you come from, but inciting a riot in the middle of my wife’s place of business is frowned upon.” He caught sight of Daisy. “Deputy Picou, arrest this man.”

“But that’s not what happened,” Ram countered with a wild look in his eyes. “I came in here for a trim, wash, and a blow dry and this lady offered me a blowjob.”

Daisy stopped in mid-step as if she’d hit a solid wall. Her dad’s mouth opened and closed in shock, but from the corner of her eye she noted that most of the women in the place were nodding. She glanced at her mom, who wiped her nose with a piece of tissue and nodded.

Daisy closed her eyes and prayed for patience. Her mother wasn’t stupid, she was naïve. Their birds-and-bees talk when Daisy was fifteen had come with a lot of blushing and stammering and fanning until Daisy finally told her mom her Aunt Francine had told her all about sex— or “relations” as her mother called it. Daisy’s theory was that her mother tried so hard to ignore their illustrious connection to the notorious Fleur Lebeau she shunned anything sexual in nature. It was a wonder she’d managed to have a baby.

Daisy gave her dad a resigned look. He gently clasped his wife’s shoulders in his hands and raised his head to look her in the eyes. “Honey, do you know what that is?”

She shot him a dark look. “Well of course, I’ve only been a beautician for forty years, Thomas Paul Picou.”

He shook his head. “C’mere,” he muttered and tugged her closer for privacy.

Though he whispered, nearly everyone in the shop was a shifter of some kind and they all heard very clearly as Thomas described what a blowjob was to his wife. Claudette gasped as a tide of red crawled up her throat and settled in her cheeks.

“But—I—” Her mouth opened and closed as dawning horror darkened her eyes. She looked at Ram, then at the five women who’d been fighting and her blush deepened. She crossed herself and gasped, “
Cher bon Dieu!
”

Her knees sagged and Daisy leapt forward to help her much smaller father catch her mother. She shouldn’t have worried because Ram was there, his face gentle as he caught her swooning mother in his arms.

Daisy stepped up. “Follow me,” she ordered the lion shit-stirrer and started for her mom’s office at the back of the shop. She stopped at the door and swept a look over the room. “Y’all get back to your business now.”

She led a procession of Ram, carrying her mother, and her dad, who followed up the rear like a short caboose. Her mom’s office was free of clutter except for a small sofa and a desk. Daisy had spent nearly as much time in this office as she had the police station as a child and it always reminded her of her youth.

“You can put her on the sofa,” she directed Ram. “She should come out of her faint soon.”

He gently placed his burden on the cushions and straightened with a chagrined expression. “Does this happen often?”

Daisy shook her head. “Nah, Mama’s just delicate.” Which sounded stupid since she was one of the biggest bear shifters in the area. Daisy took more after the Lebeau side of the family than she did the Picous who tended to be on the small side like their bobcat animals.

“Mama?” Ram asked with wide eyes. He looked from the swooning Claudette to Daisy and back again. “This is your mother?”

Daisy frowned up at him. “What? Did you think I was an orphan? Yes, this is my mama.”

“And I’m her father, but who in the hell are you?”

Ram glanced from Daisy to the big female on the sofa to the small bobcat and wanted to laugh, but wisely fought to hide the humor he found in this situation. Daisy’s dad was a bobcat—a tiny one at that—and her mother was the biggest female he’d ever seen except for Daisy. She didn’t look much like her mother but he could see the resemblance in the shape of her eyes and mouth.

“I’m Ramsey Reinhardt,” he said in answer to the sheriff’s question. “I just moved here.”

The wily bobcat squinted up at Ram, his pale-brown eyes measuring. “You’re the lion who was singing last Friday night,” he said with a nod. “Never heard so much caterwauling except when William Fonseca went courting his mate. Son, I hate to tell you, but that ain’t music.” He shook his head for emphasis.

“We’ll just have to agree to disagree,” Ram said with a smile. It wouldn’t be the first time someone didn’t like his music. “I’m sorry about all of this, by the way. I don’t know…” He trailed off as he remembered the women fighting for the chance to give him a blowjob. In the middle of a salon. His cheeks burned with embarrassment but also a healthy dose of anger when Daisy continued glaring at him. He hadn’t done anything wrong. “It wasn’t my intention to cause any problems.”

“But that’s what happens when a healthy lion male enters a community, isn’t it?” Daisy said angrily. “The females start to fight for a place in his pride.”

Ram’s jaw dropped as he stared at his mate. “I don’t have a pride.”

“But you could if you wanted,” she shot back, her eyes glittering dangerously. “They’re all ready to join up, all you have to do is choose. Hell, you could probably fill Red House in a matter of minutes.”

Pissed beyond rationalization, Ram shot back, “What bothers you more, sweetheart? That you want to be at the front of the line, or that you might not even make the list?”

Her face paled, her pupils shrinking with the direct hit. Ram wanted to take it back, wanted someone to kick his ass for being such a bastard, but it hurt to know his mate thought he could so easily turn to another female.

Daisy looked away from him. “I’ll take statements and get back to the station. Mama, I hope you’re feeling better.” She started from the office without meeting Ram’s gaze and he wanted to go after her, but the set of her jaw warned him to give her time.

The silence when she left was uneasy. Ram looked back and forth between Claudette and Thomas, trying to read their expressions. Thomas looked as if he wanted to tear Ram limb from limb, but Claudette seemed thoughtful.

“I really am sorry about the misunderstanding out there,” he said in lieu of begging them to accept him as their daughter’s mate. “I’ll uh, just—”

“Why don’t you come to supper tomorrow night?” Claudette asked before he could say anything else. He blinked at her in shock. She smiled. “I feel like such an idiot for uh…well, saying that, and I want to make it up to you. Besides, I want to know what’s going on between you and my daughter.”

Thomas bristled, a wash of color rolling up his neck. “Claudette, I don’t know if—”

“You can’t tell me you didn’t smell him beneath all that damn perfume she’s wearing. This young man obviously marked her at some point and I want to know why she’s pretending like it never happened.” She pinned Ram in place with a hard glare. “And trust me, I will find out what’s going on.”

Chapter Five

Daisy roamed the woods after two long, horrible days at work. The scene in her mama’s office had only been the start of two days of hell. The perfume she’d put on to mask Ram’s scent had worn off in the middle of taking statements. That had led to a round of twenty questions by the females who’d been fighting over him. Was Ram staying permanently? Was he starting a pride? Would he consider adding a fox/wolf/falcon and any other number of shifters?

She’d fled her mama’s shop, feeling sick to her stomach. Then she’d run into Monk on a routine traffic stop and he’d had a few things to say about how wonderful it was to finally have Red House off his hands. She’d probably be facing an inquest if Monk filed a complaint against her. Daisy wouldn’t take it back though. The curl of his beautiful paint job beneath her claws had been the sweetest revenge she could come up with on short notice.

Her shift today had started off decently but gone downhill. Some reporters had called the station asking about Ram, if he was in town, where he was staying, and so on and so forth. She’d warned her dad that they might be facing a surge of media and he’d promised to handle it. Then she’d gone on patrol and thought the day could only get better until she’d come across an accident on one of Pointe-Aux-Chat’s back roads. The only reason she’d known an accident had happened was the broken vegetation and the flash of white in the water next to the road. She’d hoped like hell the driver had gotten out before the vehicle was submerged, but when they pulled the truck out of the bayou there was a human male slumped behind the wheel.

Her stomach cramped at the reminder but she shoved it away and concentrated on the beauty of the woods surrounding her. It wasn’t the first time she’d come across a dead body in her job and it wouldn’t be the last. The bayous were a lot deeper than they looked and some of the curves were deadly. South Louisiana was beautiful, but for those who weren’t careful, it could also be dangerous.

The minute she’d come home, she’d stripped and shifted, heading for the woods she’d sought solace in for most of her life. The familiar scents wrapped around her, comforting her and easing some of her bitterness over Ram’s barbed words and the waste of life she’d been witness to.

Unfortunately, Ram’s words continued to echo in her ears, muffling the ugliness of her job. She hated herself for almost not caring if Ram started a pride, just so long as she could be part of it.

It went against everything she believed in, everything she wanted for her life, but she couldn’t deny that her soul craved him any way she could get him. Her brain, though, forced her to remember her pride, her dignity. She might not be a prize to most males, but she wasn’t some weak female who begged for a male’s attention. Even if she wanted him more than she wanted air.

Daisy found her old log nestled deeply in the mud beside a shallow pond. She’d made it hers when she knocked it down as an exuberant cub and it was the one place she came to when she needed to think. Carefully easing onto the old wood, she stretched out her long body and rested her head on her paws.

The bear wanted to go find the lion, to mark him as hers before another female did. Daisy thought that was a stupid idea. If she could forget, just for a minute, that he was a lion, she still had to deal with the fact he was a famous musician. His life wasn’t here in south Louisiana. He was meant to be in LA with the rest of his band. He’d tour the country to support his albums and each place he went would have females willing to do anything to get into his bed.

Even if they could work out a relationship there was no way Daisy could go with him. She loved being a deputy in her small town, had always wanted to follow in her daddy’s footsteps. Leaving for a big city for short jaunts was a lot different from living in them, especially if she had to contend with gorgeous humans and shifters who wanted a piece of her male.