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.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Contact the Author
Other Works by R. E. Butler
Coming Soon…Marking Melody (Ashland Pride Book Three)
Chapter 1
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.
Chapter 2
Thursday afternoon Lachlyn Manning parked in front of her grandmother’s house and looked at the impeccable flowerbeds, overflowing with colorful impatiens, pansies, and daylilies. The house was empty, the windows dark. Her grandmother had died the week before, and Lachlyn had just come from the lawyer’s office. As the only living relative, it fell to her to pack up her grandmother’s things and settle the estate. Her grandmother had lived simply and planned her estate impeccably, so the only thing that Lachlyn needed to do was decide which items she’d like to keep. Afterward she would hand over the keys to the estate lawyer, who would handle selling the home and remaining belongings.
Lachlyn grew up in a were-bear den in the small town of Dory, Virginia. When she turned sixteen and had been unable to shift, everyone had assumed that she was just a late bloomer and would come into her bear shift in time. But one year passed, and then another. By the time her nineteenth birthday rolled around, it was clear to everyone in her family that she was a shifting dud, unable to transform from her human self into her bear self.
The king of the bear den, Detroit, had a strict policy that bears who could not shift were to be turned away from the den. Her mother had held hard to the hope that eventually Lachlyn would shift, that she just needed time. But each month that passed by only further solidified in Lachlyn’s mind that she’d never know the joy that came from shifting. And staying with the den and lying about her abilities was a sure way of inciting the king’s rage. Detroit had a nasty temper and ruled with an iron fist. Bears who went against him found themselves on the business end of his fist, and he was no male to be trifled with. To protect her, and give her time to shift, her parents sent her away to college in Georgia, moving with her so that they could be together. But her happiness was short lived, when her parents were killed in a car accident after their vehicle was struck head-on by a semi.
She’d stayed away from the den all these years, but now that her grandmother had died, Lachlyn returned to the den. It was as good a time as any to formally leave the den, a task she hadn’t done before now.
Lachlyn opened the front door and walked inside. The scent of her grandmother’s rose perfume nearly bowled her over and brought tears to her eyes. The keys dropped from her fingers as tears slipped over her cheeks. She frowned when she realized she hadn’t heard the keys hit the ground.
Turning around, she saw that the reason she hadn’t heard the keys hit the ground was because Jericho had caught them. Jericho Knight, her friend and sometimes lover, stood behind her on the porch with the keys in his palm.
“Jericho?” His name caught in her throat as she struggled to stop crying. She hadn’t seen him in nearly a year, although they kept in touch by phone and email. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized just how much she missed him.
He pulled her into a hug, and she squeezed him back tightly. He held her silently while she cried, until the wave of sorrow had passed and she could breathe again. Jericho always made her feel better. He was a balm for her soul.
His calloused fingertips lifted her chin, and he looked down at her with brown eyes surrounded with thick lashes. “I’m sorry that Maggie is gone, Sunshine.”
“I’m glad you’re here, Jericho.”
They walked into the small home together, and he shut the door, hanging her keys on the small hook in the kitchen.
“I just got in from a den in Washington.” He leaned on the laminate counter. He towered over her five-foot-six frame by eight inches. He was well built, with thick muscles and broad shoulders. His dark brown hair was cut short, and stubble covered his jaw.
She leaned her elbows across from him on the counter and looked at him. “Washington?”
His gaze shifted slightly, and she could tell that he’d been on unofficial business, not den business. Jericho, Detroit’s only son, was what was referred to among bears as the king’s hammer — the bear who carried out the punishments the king doled out. Detroit had no problem handing out his own punishments within the den, but he also used Jericho in his personal loan business. Jericho had grown up fighting. When they were younger, Detroit forced Jericho to fight against other young males in weekly fights. It hadn’t surprised her when Jericho went to work for his father at his loan business as well as taking the position of hammer within the den, but it did frighten her. She worried that some day he might come across someone who was a better fighter than him and lose. Glancing at his biceps and big hands, she couldn’t imagine anyone much bigger than him, though.
“How long are you staying for, Sunshine?”
His voice brought her out of her lusty thoughts. “Just for the night. I’m allowed to pack up whatever is important to me that belonged to my grandma, and then the lawyer is going to sell the conte
nts and house in a den-only auction. I hope it will sell.”
“I’m sure it will. Are you sure —” Jericho stopped speaking when his cell beeped. Giving her an apologetic look, he answered the call, stepping out onto the back porch.
She turned to the kitchen to look for her grandmother’s favorite coffee mug, leaving Jericho to his call. She stole a few glances at him through the sliding backdoor, admiring the way his jeans hugged his ass. His skin was tanned from the sun, giving him the appearance of a golden god.
They’d danced around each other for years. They’d been joined at the hip as youngsters, came back to each other again and again in high school, and then he’d started disappearing on jobs for Detroit, and she saw less and less of him. The times they were together had been wonderful, but things never seemed to gel quite right. It always felt to her that something was missing, but she couldn’t imagine what it might be. And at any rate, it had been a pipe dream to think that she might wind up mated to him. He was next in line to be king. His mate needed to be a she-bear who could rule with him, not a freak who couldn’t shift.
She found the mug on a low shelf in the cabinet next to the ancient coffee pot and held it in both hands. A black outline of a bear and forest was emblazoned on the sand-colored mug. Jericho came into the house as she shut the cabinet.
“Bad news?” she asked, judging from the look on his face.
“Yes and no. My dad has asked me to run an errand for him now, and I won’t be back until tomorrow night.”
Her face fell. She’d been disappointed when she arrived that morning to find he wasn’t around, and now to know he was leaving already filled her with sadness. His big hands cupped her face. “Don’t leave tomorrow until I come back, okay? We need to talk.”
Her heart sped up. “About what?”
She tried to squash the hope that bloomed inside her, but it was fruitless. The part of herself that was a bear, however lacking in shifting ability she was, roared in approval.
Loving Lachlyn (Ashland Pride Two) Page 1
