her enchanted

by Hartley, Emilia

  Nessa turned toward the back patio but ran into Miles. He leaned against the wall near the sliding glass door as if he too had been pushed from the spot-light.

  “You don’t want to hold the baby? I mean, you are Matilda’s aunt.”

  Nessa groaned at her sister’s choice in names. No wonder Lia kept the name so close to her chest. “I really hope you give her a nickname before she reaches grade school. Something like Mattie.”

  Miles laughed, a soft chuckle. “Seriously, why aren’t you up there with the rest of them?”

  Nessa shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest, locking in the words that threatened to fall out. “I don’t want to crowd Lia. She’s probably suffocating already.”

  Miles studied her. She tried to turn away from his prying gaze, but it didn’t stop him. He was her brother-in-law, not just the man that screwed her great success rate. It pulled them closer than Nessa would have ever thought. He fell into the role easily.

  “You’re lonely,” Miles stated.

  Nessa’s jaw clenched. Ready to rebuff him, Nessa realized he was right. It was more than being unable to pay the bills on one salary. It was the empty rooms and long nights. Loneliness was a cavernous echo that rang true, even if she wanted to deny it. She hated that Miles had seen through her, to things she hadn’t seen.

  “You’re a matchmaker, why don’t you make yourself a match? Wouldn’t that be the ultimate proof that you’re good at your job?”

  “It’d be the most difficult match in my life. Even harder than setting you up with Lia.” While Regina and Monica had come easily, Nessa falling back into her groove and immediately sizing up what the two women needed, she had no idea what she needed for herself.

  Her mom was a cat shifter, but her father was human. They’d met at college, like any other human couple might have. Nessa had tried that route. She’d tried the high school sweetheart thing, tried college love. No one had been able to handle her sleeping habits, much less get past the truth, that she was a shifter.

  Nessa had given up on humans, which left shifters. She’d looked over the profiles in her office but hadn’t been able to settle on a shifter. There were men that looked strong and capable but came with baggage she couldn’t deal with. Then, there were men who were elegantly beautiful, but she found she wasn’t attracted.

  “What if you let someone else do it for you? You’ve set up everyone else in our social circle. Hell, you’ve mated nearly every Alpha in Central California. Let someone else help you for once.”

  She snorted at his suggestion. “It’s not as easy as it looks. I know Monica and Regina seemed like easy matches, but they took a lot of thought and risk. What if those matches hadn’t worked? I could have had two upset Alphas barring their shifters from using my services.”

  Miles had an odd sort of look on his face, a mix between laughter and suspicion. It bugged Nessa more than she would have liked to admit. “Oh, just spit it out.”

  “Well, it sounds like you’re just looking for excuses. Instead of trying to date, you’re throwing obstacles in your own path, so you can hide behind them.”

  She groaned with frustration. A wave of exhaustion washed over her. The cat inside Nessa yawned and her limbs felt heavy. She knew she was overdue for a nap, but the conversation was exasperating the feeling. She wanted away from it as soon as possible.

  Why? Because Miles was right. It was the last thing she wanted, to admit that Miles was right, but once he pointed it out, she could see the constraints she put on herself. And, for what? What did she have to fear? If she didn’t make her own match, then no one could use it against her when it failed. She could leave her love life in the hands of others for a while.

  Right?

  The thought didn’t sit well with her. She didn’t want to know who Miles or the ladies would throw at her. Already, she could envision the failed dates, stacking up one after the other as they got their matchmaking bearings. Like she said, it wasn’t as easy as it looked.

  “I can see that you’re about to say yes. I’m going to go call Caz now.”

  Nessa spun on Miles. “Don’t you dare call Casimir Frost!”

  Miles smiled. “Why not? I want to see Nikolai’s face when you show up with the other shifter who kicked his ass.”

  “You are not using my love life as a way to make fun of Nikolai! You and Monica can do that on your own. I’m not going to help you deliver a freaking punch line.”

  No one wanted to date the hot head that was Caz Frost. Well, except for the cougar shifter who asked for the early morning meeting. Nessa growled with frustration, the sound echoing through her chest. Caz was infamous for flying off the handle, for ruling with a strong arm. While she knew Oscar had lived behind rumors, once she met him face to face, she’d seen he was a gentle soul going to extreme measures to tame his beast. Caz was different. He paced like a wild animal, roared his commands, and used brute force for everything he did.

  It wasn’t the right match, and Nessa knew it.

  Instead of storming through the beach house, she walked around it to get to her car. Her purse was on the seat, keys still in the ignition. Nessa would come back when the house was quieter. She would help her sister with housework and meal prep when there was no one else there to complain about Nessa’s love life.

  Chapter Three

  Nessa lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. The ceiling fan spun tirelessly, her eyes tracking the lazy blades. She’d gone home after seeing baby Matilda and crashed. Sleep claimed her faster than ever, but it didn’t keep her. She’d awoken with her thoughts already buzzing.

  Many shifters inherited traits from their beasts. The bear shifters were often grumpy and proud. Wolf shifters were undoubtedly pack creatures, preferring the company of their fellow shifters and growing sad when they were alone. Unfortunately, Nessa inherited everything that was inconvenient about being a cat.

  During the day, she was tired. She craved naps the way others craved vacations or cheesesteak sandwiches. More often than not, she slept in short bursts and woke as soon as the sun was down. Damn her nocturnal beast.

  With a sigh, she rolled out of bed. She knew she wasn’t going to go back to sleep unless she tired herself. So, she figured she would prep a jug of cold-brew coffee before jumping on the treadmill she’d put in Lia’s old room. It would make sure she had coffee come morning, at the very least.

  In the kitchen, she was measuring coffee grounds into a filter when she heard a crash outside. The metallic sound reverberated up and down her spine. She froze, rooted to the spot while her heart hammered.

  It was just a deer or a raccoon in the trash bin, she told herself. It was nothing to worry about. Still her heart raced. It thumped wildly as she padded into the living room. The beast inside her paced, eyes wide. It was alert, but unafraid, as always. She pulled back the curtain to peer out onto the car port and the street.

  The streetlamp illuminated nothing.

  Her car was parked under the port. The trash bin was where she’d left it, the lid closed. Even the street was blessedly quiet. She waited, straining to hear anything else as if whatever-it was might happen again. Nothing clanged, nothing thumped. The silence of the night fell over the world once more.

  Her lips twisted to the side. Just for good measure, Nessa checked the front door, making sure it was locked. She even went down to the basement to check the French doors of her office and make sure no one hid on her patio. Of course, the doors were locked, and the patio was empty when she stepped down.

  A strange feeling settled in her stomach. Nessa retreated to Lia’s old room but left the door open. Instead of putting in headphones and listening to a podcast, she left them on the table by the door. She refused to be caught off guard in her own home.

  It had been a long time since anything bad happened in Monterey. The rise of three Alpha Bears in such a small space had been protection enough from those who thought they might stir up trouble. It was one thing to challenge a single pack, a sin
gle Alpha, but it was a different thing entirely to cause trouble in the presence of three Alphas.

  Normally, that made pack-less Nessa feel safe in Monterey. Yet, now she knew two out of the three Alphas were busy with their mates. They had lives that distracted them, leaving an opening. She knew she was only giving reason to her fright when she truly had nothing to worry about, but she couldn’t help it.

  It would be just her luck that someone would mess with her first. She was under no one’s protection. Cats were solitary creatures and the idea of living under the control of a pack had left a bad taste in Nessa’s mouth. Now, she kicked herself for her own nature. It would be nothing to pick off a solitary shifter, especially one such as herself.

  As she ran, she imagined herself in cat form. She imagined a gator shifter bursting in and crushing her in its massive jaws. She imagined a wolf shifter bursting through the door and chasing her down. Of course, the cat’s defiance grew louder and louder the longer Nessa ran on the treadmill. The cat inside her wouldn’t be cowed by such things.

  It would chase the gator shifter out the door. It would show the wolf shifter that a cat was nothing to be messed with. Nessa wished she had the confidence her beast had. Instead, she was a small woman who worried far too much.

  Twenty minutes later, Nessa was covered in a fine layer of sweat and ready for bed. Nothing else had happened while she’d been running. There had been no sounds outside. The night was silent and begging her to slip back into a peaceful sleep. Before heading back to bed, she rinsed off in the shower, twisted her hair into a knot, and tugged on an oversized shirt.

  With wet hair and a damp shirt, Nessa fell into bed. Sleep rose and tugged her into darkness, the sound outside forgotten.

  Chapter Four

  The level of iced coffee in her cup was getting dangerously low. Nessa stood in the lobby of a mechanic’s garage. Not just any garage, but Casimir Frost’s. She was miserable, wanted to pull her hair out rather than deal with the day.

  Earlier, she’d had to call work and inform them that she’d be late because her car thudded and kicked all the way down the street. She’d barely managed to get it to Caz’s garage, letting it coast into the parking lot while sweat nervously trickled down her spine.

  Nessa growled. “I don’t know what’s wrong with it.”

  Caz nodded, sneaking a quick glance at her before looking down at the clipboard in his hands. Wildly colored tattoos crawled up and down his arms. There was a skull hovering over crossed wrenches on his shoulder and a flaming hotrod on the inside of his forearm. Nessa usually thought tattoos were crude, but she enjoyed the vibrant liveliness of Caz’s. “We could run a full diagnostic check. It won’t take more than a minute. All we do is hook it up to a computer that connects to a computer inside your car.”

  Fighting back her grimace, Nessa asked, “How much is that going to cost?”

  “The diagnostic check on the computer is thirty dollars. If we can’t find anything on the computer, then we have to do a manual check. That’s around sixty dollars.”

  Nessa wanted to throw her hands in the air. The day before, her car had been running perfectly fine. There hadn’t been any clunking sounds. Hell, it had purred. Now, Caz Frost was asking her to pay nearly ninety dollars just to figure out what was wrong with it..

  She didn’t want to admit it, but she would have to choose between paying the electric bill or fixing her car. Lights weren’t a necessity when you had cat eyes, but being able to run a fridge was kind of important. Nessa wasn’t about to give up on her homemade iced coffee.

  While she struggled with the price of a diagnostic, Caz looked over his shoulder. He barked at a young mechanic who then dropped the tire rim he’d been holding. The rim clattered to the floor and echoed alongside Caz’s voice. Nessa scowled.

  She hated that she had to come here. He was, undoubtedly, the cheapest mechanic in the city, but she really wished she didn’t have to deal with him.

  “How about this,” she offered. “A trade of services?”

  Caz looked back to her, brows furrowed. His eyes grazed over her, up and down.

  “Not like that,” she snapped. “I’m a matchmaker. If you fix my car, I’ll…” she looked around before lowering her voice. “I’ll find your fated mate.”

  Caz laughed in her face. She could feel her cheeks grow hot with indignation. She wanted to slap the humor off his smug face. What was so wrong with her offer? Did he not understand the undertaking it was to find a mated pair? It was far more than drawing names out of a hat.

  “You’re insufferable,” Nessa grumbled before crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Do you know how long you’ve had my profile?” His voice lightened. When she looked up at him, she found his face filled with an unexpected warmth. “I came to you a couple years ago, but never heard back. I’ve been paying the fee, of course, but I was honestly hoping to get something out of it.”

  Her jaw dropped, only an inch before she slapped it shut again. After Lia’s continual run-ins with Caz, she’d shoved his profile to the side. His behavior had turned her off, convinced her that a man like him wasn’t worthy of any kind of affection. All this time, he’d been paying her fee to be in the roster and hadn’t bothered her about it. He hadn’t called to check on the status, hadn’t asked her for ungodly early meetings.

  He looked back again before whispering. “I’ll check your car off the books if you agree to a trade.”

  She pulled her shoulders back. “I already agreed to one.”

  His eyes sparked with mischief. It made her heart flutter, something she cursed herself for.

  “I don’t want you to make a match for me. I want you to go on a date with me.”

  At first, she couldn’t understand his words. She’d heard him, of course, but it didn’t make any sense. For a long moment, she just stared at him. The spark in his eye twinkled before slowly fading.

  “Look, if I crossed a line, I’m sorry. I just thought…you know what? Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

  Finally, his words sank in. Caz Frost had just asked her on a date. A date. When was the last time she’d gone on a date with anyone? She arranged gourmet dinners and picturesque picnics for everyone else, while she was spending her nights alone with a handheld gaming system. The thought of a date, of being asked on one, made her heart flutter again.

  This was Caz, she reminded herself. Yet, when she looked back at him she couldn’t find a reason to say no. Even though he’d yelled at a young man moments ago, others came to him with questions and he spoke evenly with them. He even made them laugh.

  Just as Nessa was about to say no, on instinct alone, the door burst open. A woman barreled through with her arms thrown wide. She crashed into Caz. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her hair was a wild mess of dark brown curls that escaped her messy braid.

  “Tricia, calm down. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

  She pulled back and put her hands on Caz’s shoulders. A stream of Spanish left her lips, the words meaning nothing to Nessa, but Caz followed along.

  “Did you really think I’d let you drive that thing around with four kids in it the way you brought it in? I couldn’t let you guys get hurt if I could have stopped it.”

  She held a hand to his face, her voice becoming endearing. Nessa watched the scene unfold, feeling much like an interloper. The exchange felt private, somehow, as if this was a favored aunt greeting him for the holidays. Nessa suspected there was no blood between them considering Caz’s freckled skin and the blonde hair pulled back, out of his face.

  His grasp on Spanish surprised her. Though he responded in English, it seemed he understood everything the woman had said, no matter how quickly she’d said it. In the end, he promised her that everything was fine, even though she tried to press money into his hands. He pulled back and held his hands up, but she grabbed him by his pockets and began stuffing the bills into them.

  “Seriously, Tricia. It was no problem. Take this mone
y and treat the kids. Take them out to a movie or grab dinner.”

  The young man who’d dropped the tire rim earlier pinned Caz with his gaze. Nessa could feel the heat of the young man’s ire from where she stood, apart from it all. His eyes grabbed onto the money greedily before sliding accusingly over Caz. Her stomach turned.

  She wanted to run for the door and race all the way home. Could she pretend she’d never come at all? No, because she still needed her car fixed. So, she shifted from foot to foot, waiting for Caz to finish with the woman, so they could discuss her car.

  Chapter Five

  Caz cast a sidelong glance at the shifter woman in his lobby. Tricia spilled another string of Spanish, thanking him profusely, but his attention was still caught on Vanessa. She was small, with a mop of curly, chin length hair that was barely contained. Her shoulders were tight beneath her blazer and her eyes burned like a ticking time-bomb.

  Eventually, he broke away from Tricia. The woman managed to leave a wad of singles in his pocket that he couldn’t return before she left. The exchange left a smile on his face, despite everything that was happening. Tricia and those like her were the reason he did what he did.

  While Caz knew he wasn’t the best man, he could try to make up for it with everything he did. Even if it was as simple as making a few tiny fixes on someone’s car. He could see that Vanessa, too, was in a bind. He’d thought he was being nice when he offered to take her on a date.

  All he’d done was fuck that up, too. Caz needed to come to terms with the fact that he would never make a woman happy. The only woman he’d ever come close to making happy always tried to change him with her enchantments. Maybe that was all he deserved.

  “Look,” Caz began. “I’ll hook it up to the computer for free, but if we have to do a manual check then I’m going to have to charge you.”