The Cougar's Mate (4 page)

“You’ve got that right.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Just stay away from me.”

“Glen—”

“No.” She picked her head up and held her hand up in time to see him heading over. “Just…stay over there. Give me some space. I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

“Just tell—”

“Nuh-uh. You don’t get to decide who gets to talk right now. You didn’t talk when it mattered, so right now, you don’t get to say anything.” She huddled against the wall beside the pallet and pulled the covers around her.

For a long while, she watched the rain and meditated on how the arrows of water were so quickly absorbed by the parched desert soil. The land was thirsty, and the bit of green that would appear on the pastures in the coming days would be a welcome sight to her father. If the cattle had grass, they’d need less grain and hay.

When Floyd shifted in her periphery, she turned her head just enough to see him clearly.

He sat cross-legged against the opposite wall, head hung and his curtain of dark hair shrouding his face.

At that moment, he looked approachable. Glen had always thought he was, but not too many of the girls in town would have agreed. He had a tendency to be surly and impatient with the people he didn’t want to be around, and he didn’t even pretend to be social. He
wasn’t
social, except with Glen, and that had never hit home for her in such a way before.

She leaned the side of her head atop her knees and watched him curl and uncurl his fingers against the cave floor again and again.

She wondered what he was thinking, or if he was even thinking.

What do Were-cougars worry about when they’re silent?

For that matter, she didn’t know what Were-cougars worried about at all. She didn’t know anything about them, and ignorance had always made her uncomfortable. Instead of trying to defeat it one fact at a time, though, she was willfully avoiding facts.

That wasn’t like Glen. She wasn’t that kind of coward.

Dragging her tongue across her dry lips, she cleared her throat.

He lifted his head just enough to raise his eyes to her. It seemed a submissive posture, and she’d never thought of Floyd as anything of the kind. She understood it, though. At the moment, he was yielding to her. He might have thought he was holding her there, but she was, for all intents and purposes, the one in charge.

“Do you…do you, shapeshift, or whatever, whenever there’s a full moon?” she asked, wishing that she
had
listened to Agnes. She’d know what questions to ask instead of having to rely on fictional portrayals she’d seen in movies or read in books. “Do you go wild like those creatures do in the movies?”

“I’m not that kind of shifter, Glen. The moon doesn’t pull us. We shift when we need to.”

“And there are…more of you? Or just…”

“The Foyes aren’t the only Cougars around, no. We’re just the dominant family.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’ve got old blood and my father’s the alpha.”

“Oh.” She twirled her thumbs and fixed her gaze on the pounding rain, hoping the roads didn’t flood, and that if they did, none of her reckless siblings were out on them at the moment.

“Siblings…” she whispered. The thought reminded her of another thing. “So,” she said, “Jesse’s wife, is she…”

“Yes,” Floyd said.

“Oh.”

That seemed to be all she could say to much of anything. She still didn’t know what questions to ask—didn’t know what was important.

Maybe the same things as before are important?

What had been keeping her from Floyd before were money issues and old grudges. Glen didn’t want to be the reason there’d be an even bigger rift between their families, and she didn’t want to be burden on anyone, either.

She didn’t understand what her role would be in a household full of shifters when she wasn’t one.

She sat up a little straighter, panic clenching her chest and paralyzing her tongue. She was afraid to ask, but she couldn’t leave the question unspoken.
I am not a coward.

“You wouldn’t…I wouldn’t have to…
be
that, would I?”

He shook his head slowly. “
No
, baby. I could turn you if you wanted me to. Some folks do turn their mates, but I don’t want that. I’ve never pictured you as that.”

“Why not?”

“I guess I always thought you were fierce enough already.”

She let out a strained laugh. “Right. The lady who just fainted upon realizing that her boyfriend was a cat.”

He shrugged. “It was just too much for you. I guess it’s not something most folks are prepared to see.” He grinned, but it was weak—not his usual sexy smile that made her knees weak and butterflies flit in her belly. “I happen to have it on good authority that you’re not one to faint.”

“When you grow up on a ranch, you’ve got to have a pretty strong constitution.”

He nodded. “And you do.”

She turned back to the rain.

He didn’t make her talk, and she didn’t have any more questions at the moment, but she was thinking plenty.

She wasn’t going to let fear chase away her curiosity about the day’s revelations. Thinking lead to understanding, and she needed to understand where they stood.

Love wasn’t something to be breezily thrown away. Though she may have been uncertain about many things, her feelings for Floyd weren’t one of them.

Glen was still for so long that Floyd wondered if she’d fallen asleep staring at the rain.

But then she raised a hand to scratch her nose.

And her stomach growled.

He got to his feet and moved to the crate of supplies at the end of the pallet. There was peanut butter somewhere in there, and he was pretty sure there were some crackers.

“Floyd?”

He stopped rooting and turned to her. “Hmm?”

“Why me?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

She closed her eyes and gave her head a slight shake. “I mean, why me and not a…a
Cougar
.”

“It’s always been you.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s not supposed to make sense. The cat wants whom the cat wants, and I’m not exactly upset about it. I’ve always seen you as mine, Glen.”

She passed her face against her legs and idly twirled the end of her ponytail.

Floyd went back to rooting in the crate and shortly found the crackers and a knife to spread the peanut butter with. “Hungry?”

She raised her head and nodded.

He handed her the food and then stuck his collapsible cup outside in the rain to gather some fresh water.

“Floyd?”

“Yeah, baby?”

She opened the cracker bag atop her lap and then unscrewed the lid from the peanut butter. “What would it mean?”

“What?”

“Being your…
mate
.” She’d said the word as if it’d required foreign pronunciation she simply couldn’t get her tongue around.

He let out a breath and scraped his hair back from his face. “In a lot of ways, it wouldn’t be much different from you just being my wife. But…as years go on, you’d have some extra responsibilities.”

“Cougar ones?”

“Yeah. Hard to get away from it. Folks would look to you for guidance for some things. You’d have to be an intermediary between the rest and me. You’d figure out what they want and whether or not I can do it for them. It’d be your job to tell them when I can’t.”

“Or find some other way to make them happy?”

He turned his hands over in concession. She could do as much or as little of that as she wanted. He
hoped
she’d be the kind of alpha’s girl who’d do more, but he couldn’t expect it of her. He had no right to.

“And…you need
me
for it?”

“I need you for
everything
, Glen.”

With her gaze unfocused as it was, and her lips parted winsomely, she seemed to be pondering that. She didn’t look mad or vengeful. Just curious.

Being a cat, he thought curiosity was a good thing.

After a minute, she blinked and started spreading peanut butter onto her crackers wordlessly.

Occasionally while she prepared the food, her brow furrowed and she’d shake her head. Then she’d go right back to spreading.

He didn’t want to jog her from her thoughts—didn’t want to interrupt what might have been her coming to terms with what he was and what it meant for them. He’d had his whole life to understand it. She’d known he was a cat for an hour.

He watched the rain until it slowed.

She put away her lunch.

He watched her swat the crumbs off her lap and look around the cave as if to take stock of what was there.

For a long time, she didn’t say anything, and neither did he, and that was okay. It’d never been uncomfortable between them when they didn’t talk. Just being near her had always been enough for Floyd.

“Come here,” she said softly.

He crawled over warily, afraid to meet her gaze—afraid to collect the rejection he thought was coming.

She lay down and pulled him next to her so they were eye-to-eye.

“You’ve got to tell me things,” she said. “You can’t keep secrets like this from me.”

“I don’t mean to have secrets from you.”

“I understand why you did, but no more.”

“Are you going to keep me?”

She closed her eyes and let out a breath. “I shouldn’t.”

“Glen,
please
. Do you want me to beg, or… Tell me what I have to do. I don’t know what else to do. You know I can’t make you do anything you don’t want, but—”

“Shh.”

He shut his mouth.

She opened her eyes and hooked her top leg around his. “I said I
shouldn’t
, but I’m going to anyway because I don’t want anyone else to have you.”

He shook his head hard. “There isn’t anyone else.”

“And now there
won’t
be anyone else. Just me. You’ve gotta promise me that I’m gonna fit there, Floyd.”

“At my place?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t want to lie to her. There was a chance things would be rough before they were smooth, and he could only pray to the goddess that Glen stuck it out.

He chose his words carefully. He knew what she wanted to hear, and he couldn’t give her that. He could only give her truth, but he could give it tenderly.

“You belong there with me,” he said. “But it may take a while for all the personalities to balance. That’s just the way it goes with Cougars. We love hard, and sometimes we fight hard. No matter what happens, I’m gonna do right by you. I’m not gonna give up on you,
ever
.”

“You promise?”

“You know that’s a promise. I love you.”

She made a choking sound. “You do?”

“You
know
I do.”

“You never told me.”

“Well, shit, honey. I’m telling you now. I love you more than anything. Don’t know what I’d do without you. I’ve never been able to picture having much of a life if you weren’t in it. From the time I was a kid, Glen, it’s always been you.”

“Well, kiss me, then, and make me forget how mad I am at you.”

And he did. He needed her like air. Needed to taste her and satisfy every sexual craving. Wanted to touch and love.

As his tongue probed her soft lips and sparred with her questing tongue, her fingers hooked beneath his waistband and popped open his button.

That was his cue to pull back from the kiss to grab her shirt.

She tugged his pants down his thighs, and he took over from there, scrambling out of them—panting as she wriggled out of hers.

He had her on her back with his fingers hooked beneath the elastic of her panties before she could do the job herself.

“Do you have a condom?” she whispered.

He rooted one out of his discarded jeans then pushed the garment off the pallet. He held the packet between his teeth as he wrested her panties off and quickly sheathed himself with the rubber.

“Need to be in you,” he said.

“Come on, then. Show me how much.”

Her legs parted, and he pushed into her slowly, his body shaking and lungs constricting as if it were the first time, and he wondered if it would always feel that way. She felt like home, and there was no one else he wanted to be with.

His mate, his love, his Glen.

He slipped his fingers through the back of her hair and locked his gaze on her stunning green eyes as he rocked in and out of her, already so close to completion. “Tell me you love me, Glen.”

“I love you
so
much.”

“
Gods
.” He closed his eyes and let his body move reflexively in response to his primal urges. She was gripping his shaft so tightly and holding him so tenderly in spite of his graceless thrusts, and that was Glen in general. Grace under fire. His perfect match.

“Come on, honey,” she said. “Let go of it.”

“No. Not until you do.” He worked his hand between their joined bodies and pressed his thumb to her clit. “Tell me what you need.”

She drew in a startled-sounding breath and clenched his cock so hard that he saw stars. “Keep doing that.”

“Okay, baby.”

He thrust and massaged. Devoured her lips. Groaned when she cried out and almost unsheathed him.

He kept rocking as she came, his legs shaking and unbalanced, his noises more animal than man, and balls tight enough to explode.

“Glen. You’re it, Glen. You and me.”

“You…and me.” She found his lips, but not for long.

He threw his head back and yowled as his orgasm ripped through him and tore him apart.

He collapsed onto the pallet beside her, and she rubbed his back until he caught his breath.

“You don’t get to do that with anyone else,” she said.

He chuckled and slung an arm over her waist. “I couldn’t if I tried. You accepted me. The magic says you own me now.”

She giggled and snuggled up close. “Own you, huh?”

“Until the day you die, honey.”

Her grin was soft, and sigh wistful. “I like the sound of that.”

Present Day

Glen had always thought Floyd’s words about her owning him were sweet, but she didn’t really understand what he’d meant until after he’d died. A heart attack took him far too young, and she’d been left with three adult sons to guide—including an alpha—and a teenaged daughter who had all of her father’s passion and none of his verbal restraint.

The first few weeks without him were hard, but she’d had to keep pushing on for those kids. She also had her family’s ranch to run and needed to guide the boys into keeping Foye Woodworks afloat.

She didn’t know anything about woodworking. That had been Floyd’s business. All she could do was give them encouraging words and try to help them ride out the financial storm.

The money issues hadn’t been Floyd’s fault. He’d dipped into the business to help out Glen’s family, even after the whole lot of them had turned their backs on her when she’d married him. Her sons didn’t know where the money went, only that it was gone, and Floyd never wanted to tell them where it’d gone. They didn’t know the reason for the estrangement, and Floyd had wanted to keep it that way, even if Glen didn’t. He didn’t want them hating their grandparents and hoped that one day they’d reconcile.

Glen scoffed, even thinking it. Floyd been gone five years, and things still weren’t that much better with her family. At least her brother Todd had come around, though, and every now and then her father would call from the retirement home and not leave a message. She knew it was him, but she never called back anymore because her mother was always the one to answer.

Her mother always hung up.

Glen sat in their cave, and shook her head.

Floyd gave her a gentle nudge, soft as feathers against her arm. He was just a shadow of what he was. Still Floyd, but no longer flesh and blood. He was tethered to the Earth for as long as Glen was on it. It’d taken her too damned long to realize he was still around.
Months
. He’d been secretive just like he had been when they were young and he didn’t want her family to see him. The situation had changed. Now, he didn’t want the
kids
to see him.

They’d made up for the lost time, though, and went back to their old ways. Just differently.

“Why’d you scoff?” he asked.

“I was thinking about my folks.”

“
Babe
, stop dwelling on it. You’ll be all right. You’ve got your brother, right? And his daughter in town.”

“It’s nice that she lives with Belle and that they take care of each other. The rest of them, though…”

“Can’t make folks do anything they don’t want to do.”

“True. We were happy. That was all that mattered.”

“Damn right.” He pushed his salt-and-pepper hair back from his face and leaned back onto his forearms. “The boys are going to be okay, too.”

Glen closed her eyes and let out a breath. “I hope so. I don’t understand why
La Bella Dama
would send them out on a mate hunt now of all times, though. Things are such a mess, Floyd.”

“I know. I see it all.”

“I keep forgetting. It’s hard to know what you see and don’t because you won’t get close to the kids.”

“If I did, they’d know I was around. Cougars are more sensitive to spirits than anyone else.”

“Makes me wish you’d turned me. Took me forever to pick up on your presence.”

“You figured it out, though, and as soon as you did, you could see me. You always figure things out.”

“I do a good job of pretending that I do, anyway.” She chuckled. “Eventually, those children of ours are going to wonder why I won’t remarry.”

He shrugged. “Well, if they do, tell them. I’m not telling you to lie for me, baby. I just want them to work out all the feelings they have without me getting in the way of it. I know I made a lot of mistakes as a daddy and as an alpha.”

“You did the best you could.” She laced her fingers through his, and he squeezed them gently. Always gently. It was all he could do anymore.

“Yeah. I did the best I knew how. Wouldn’t have even done that good if it weren’t for you. You hold everything together. You’re the glue around here.”

She sighed. “I’ll keep on being that.”

“Good.” He kissed the back of her hand. “So don’t get angry at me when I tell you this.”

She yanked her hand away. “What did you do, Floyd?”

He cringed. “I…might be the reason, in part, the goddess sent Mason, Hank, and Sean out to hunt.”

“Damn it, Floyd, what were you thinking?” If she had a dishtowel to flick at him at the moment, she would have. He’d endured many such flicks while he was alive and never quite learned how to steer clear of them. He might have been a cat, but her reflexes when she was pissed were inescapable.

“
Really
, Floyd. We’ve got an open portal to hell on the ranch the boys are struggling to keep demons from flying out of, folks won’t stop challenging Mason for the alpha job, Belle is in and out of heat, and we’re all just so busy.”

“That’s right, but it was
time
. I’ve never heard of any Cougar men who’d made it to their thirties without taking mates. The boys are wild and need help, and so do you.”

“But you know how they are, Floyd. I love those knuckleheads to death, but they’re not sweet and charming. They’re going to pick those women up and those women are going to reject them. I’m going to end up with three cursed sons who won’t be able to shift back into their human forms. Mark my words.”

“Have some faith, Glen. She’s sending them to their true mates. It’ll work out, just like it did with us. That doesn’t mean it’s gonna be easy. Just that it’ll be
right
.”

“You couldn’t have run this past me before you put out that plea to her?”

He grunted. “You would have told me ‘no.’”

Sighing, she leaned her head against his shoulder and took his hand again. “Yes, I would have.”

For a while, they stared out the cave at the stars, but seeing the lights of a plane passing overhead made her think to glance down at her watch. That plane went by at about the same time every night.

“Whoops. I better get back to the house. When Mason called earlier, he, Hank, and Sean had just crossed over the state line from Utah. They should be close now. I want those women to see a friendly face first thing. Not gonna scare them off like your mother tried to do to me.”

“She apologized.”

“On her deathbed.”

“Still, it counts.” He laughed. “Gimme a kiss.”

She bent and skimmed her lips across his. She wouldn’t lie and say it was anything close to as satisfying as it’d been with the flesh-and-blood man, but it made her feel good, anyway. It made her lips tingle and face a little numb. She’d be feeling it for hours.

Smiling
for hours.

“Bye, baby.”

She waved and started toward her truck. “See you tomorrow, cat.”