"Things are fine," Mitch said. "I've seen her around town. I even volunteered with her a couple of times. Remember when I told you about me volunteering at the Foundlings Thrift Store?"
"No, you didn't," Blue told him. "How long did you volunteer with her?"
"A few hours," Mitch said, thinking about how he’d fucked her amid the rows of donated furniture. "It was just fine."
Mitch hadn't told Blue about the time he and Tu had spent together in Mitch's bed, nor the agreement he'd made with Tu that it would be for the time they were snowed in. Blue had, oddly enough, not brought her up at all. In fact, Mitch had the feeling Blue was waiting for the right moment to bring up Tu again. "So... you haven't tried to make a move on her?" Blue asked.
Mitch scoffed. "Of course not," he said, his mind drifting to how wet, and soft, and tight her pussy had been around him. His dick stiffened instantly. "She's completely wrong for me."
"Is that right?" Blue said. "You're forty-three years old. When have you ever found someone who was right for you?"
"I'm not interested in a relationship," Mitch grumped. Although part of him recognized he was already in a relationship with Tu. A strange, dysfunctional relationship, to be sure, but definitely a relationship. "You know, minotaurs mate later in life," Blue said. "You're in your prime for mating."
"What? I'm not getting mated," Mitch insisted, thinking about how his dick seemed to home in on Tu's pussy like a heat-seeking missile whenever he saw her around.
"Famous last words," Blue said. "I thought the same thing before I met my mate."
Mitch didn’t want to hear any of this. "I'm hanging up," Mitch said. Then he did just that.
Mitch arrived at the Cotter-Greene home unsettled from his conversation with Blue. He felt foolish in the garish sweater, which depicted a Tyrannosaurus Rex wearing a red, fur-trimmed hat, with lights draped around its shoulders. The T-Rex attacked the North Pole, and elves ran in all directions to evade the fearsome creature. He parked in front of the house, ignoring the guest house which could be seen from the street around the bulk of the sizable Tudor-style main house. Just looking at the guest house gave him a boner.
The front door, stained a deep mahogany, had been polished to a smooth, mellow sheen. The brass door knocker depicted a lion's head with a ring in its mouth. The house and grounds were brightly lit for the occasion, the front yard filled with all manner of Christmas crap, including an inflatable Santa with sleigh and reindeer, a family of gingerbread people, hundreds of lights, fake presents, and assorted animatronic elves making toys.
Mitch heard laughing voices and music coming from inside. Christmas songs, of course. Agitated, he ran his hand through his hair, which he'd left loose in order to look less intimidating.
I don't belong here. I should go...
Before he could flee, he heard footsteps behind him, and he turned to see who it was.
There stood Bobby Lopez, grinning like a goddamn fool, and bearing a bottle of wine. He wore a green sweater festooned with sparkly garlands and miniature ornaments. Mitch thought of the Lopez boys’ reputations as womanizers and scowled into Bobby’s stupid face. Bobby had brought a bottle of wine, something Mitch hadn’t thought of, and that irritated Mitch even more.
"Hey there," Bobby Lopez said, smiling.
Mitch doubled-down with his own displeased expression, feeling smug when Bobby’s smile grew tight and assumed a brittle quality. In light of Bobby Lopez’s arrival, leaving the party—and Tu—seemed like a bad idea.
Bobby reached for the door knocker, and Mitch bellowed, "I already knocked." Bobby jumped, and his confident smile faltered.
Mitch studied Bobby’s only marginally ugly sweater and scoffed. He felt confident Tu would enjoy his T-Rex sweater more than she would Bobby's lame one. Mitch was also taller and stronger than Bobby, which gave him all sorts of satisfaction. Bobby gave up the pretense of cordiality, and the two men eyed each other warily. A young woman with brown skin and long, thin, multicolored braids opened the large door. Auntie Greene, Tu’s near-age aunt. Mitch knew she ran the apothecary in town. Everyone in town called her Auntie.
"Hiiiii!" she brayed with the enthusiasm of someone who had started drinking early. "Come in!"
Smiling, she took the wine from Bobby, and slid an arm around Mitch's waist. She jingled as she walked, and Mitch noted tiny, festive bells on her ankles, and she sounded like a miniature reindeer of myth. Her feet were bare. "I've been eager to meet you!" she told Mitch, steering him into the house. She ignored Bobby and set the bottle of wine on the entry table. Her rudeness pleased Mitch, and he smiled over his shoulder at the befuddled Bobby, as Auntie led him away. Mitch used his wide field of vision to low-key search for Tu in the crowd of people in ugly sweaters, to no avail. Auntie steered him to a quiet corner of a small parlor off the foyer and motioned for him to sit on one of the dainty couches, and she sat next to him.
Smiling, she took his hands and squeezed them hard with her much smaller ones. Puzzled, he squinted at the woman. Around town, she had a reputation for being "eccentric," which in some circles, equated to being Looney Tunes.
"So," she said, raising her eyebrows at him expectantly. "What are your intentions toward my niece?"
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ugly Christmas Sweater
Tu had poor cooking skills, with none of her sister Jasmine's natural ability to put meals together in a pleasing manner. It wasn't her fault. Her parents had never placed much importance on cooking skills. Jasmine had acquired her skills when their grandmother had taken her under her wing on weekends when their parents worked their real estate business and were too busy to take care of Petunia and Jasmine. Jasmine was six years older than her sister, and it turned out Jasmine truly enjoyed cooking, becoming the principal cook of the family early on.
Tu did not take to her grandmother's lessons as well, and by the time she was old enough to really learn, their grandmother had become frail from a stroke and could no longer spend hours at a time teaching her youngest granddaughter how to cook. Therefore, Tu had never really learned.
But since her sister’s resentments over their upbringing had recently come to light, Tu had become more determined than ever to learn how to cook. She’d even volunteered to make puffed rice treats for Jasmine's ugly sweater party. She had followed directions to a T, and she only had trouble when it came time to bake them. The recipe failed to include a baking time or temperature. It occurred to Tu that she might ask her sister for her advice, but her insecurities about her culinary abilities came to the fore. She was loath to ask Jasmine something that should no doubt be evident. So, Tu had ducked out of the festivities to finish the dessert. She decided to put the treats in the oven, then watch them to ensure they didn't burn.
The sound of footsteps behind her had her heart leaping with anticipation that Mitch had decided to attend the party, that he had sought her out, that he stood behind her, admiring her ass as much as he did her ability to bake sweet treats. Eexcited, she whirled around to see...Bobby Lopez.
"Oh...hi!" she said, disappointed, the smile on her lips faltering. Bobby’s smile faded a fraction, and that made her feel bad, because she had invited him, after all. So she rallied, recovered her approving smile, and said, "I'm glad you made it."
He stepped back and gave her a bashful smile. "What are you doing?"
She turned her attention back to the oven, her face flaming with embarrassment. "I'm making puffed rice treats. I'm just waiting for them to bake."
Bobby frowned. "You're...baking them?" He craned his neck to see into the oven.
"Yep, I sure am," she said. "For some reason, the recipe didn't say how long to bake them and at what temperature, so I decided to just keep an eye on them until it looked like they were done."
"I... don’t think you're supposed to bake them," he told her, his expression pitying.
"You're not?" She pulled up the recipe on her smartphone to show him. "No wonder they didn't include those details."
<
br /> Tu donned a pair of oven mitts and removed the treats from the oven. They smelled really good, baking unnecessarily in the oven. At no time did they smell burnt, and she assumed that meant she was following the recipe correctly. She pressed her lips together as the sense of failure assailed her. She'd never learn how to cook. Or bake. Or boil water.
Tu placed the baking dish on the counter, and Bobby used a wooden spatula to prod the treats. They were as hard as a slab of concrete.
"I guess that's why you don't bake them," she said, thinking about all the things she had tried to cook at Mitch's house and burned, setting off his smoke detectors. No wonder he didn't want her.
Well, so much for crisp rice treats...
Tu had spent the afternoon helping Jasmine get the house ready for the party. They had gone over the top with Christmas decorations, cleaning and putting out dishes of holiday treats, and cooking. Or rather, Jasmine and AJ cooked while Tu watched and offered moral support.
Tu tucked her arm into Bobby's and guided him to the rest of the group. Although she'd only been in town for a few weeks, Tu knew half the people in the room. She smiled and schmoozed with the guests, embracing hostess duties since successful food preparation continued to elude her.
When everyone wore an ugly Christmas sweater, small talk was easy. Tu had purchased hers at the Foundlings Academy Thrift Store, which had received a large shipment of last year's ugly sweater designs from a retailer in nearby Waco. She'd known the moment she'd bought it that she had to have it. Bobby's sweater was green and was festooned with sparkly garlands and small pom poms meant to depict Christmas tree ornaments.
"Where did you get your sweater?" Tu asked Bobby.
He grinned. "This is my family's designated Ugly Christmas Sweater," he told her. "It's been passed down for generations."
"Practically an heirloom!" she exclaimed.
"Exactly," Bobby said with a quiet smile.
As she moved through the crowd of a hundred or so people, Tu noted that Bobby followed her doggedly. Clearly, the man liked her. She wished she could get excited about him.
"What do you do, Bobby?" Tu asked. "We never really talked about it before. Someone told me you were on the Perdition Police Force. Are you a cop?"
"In Perdition, we call the police, enforcers," he said. "I've been a deputy enforcer since I finished high school."
"Wow," she said. "How long ago was that?" Bobby had boyish good looks with ridiculously cute dimples and mop of dark brown curls the color of espresso. His eyes weren't as dark as she'd originally thought. They were a dark hazel, more green than brown. And he had a lazy drawl.
"About eleven years," he told her, his shy smile becoming a lazy grin. "I'm twenty-nine."
Tu poured mulled cider for them both from a nearby carafe, then garnished their drinks with a stick of curled cinnamon bark.
Bobby nodded at a quiet bench in the family room, with a, "Let's talk," and the two of them sat and sipped their drinks.
"Any reason why you're interested in how old I am?" he asked, a teasing glint in his eyes.
She chuckled. "I wasn't fishing, I promise."
"Do you think I'd mind if you were fishing?" he asked, one eyebrow cocked.
"Okay, you got me," Tu said, playing along. What did it hurt if he thought she was interested in him? Maybe she should be interested in him.
Bobby scooted closer to her on the padded bench. "To tell you the truth, I'm pleasantly surprised to know I might have a chance with you," he said.
Tu found shifters to be pretty blunt about romantic relationships. Why was Mitch so different from other shifter males? She frowned and chided herself for thinking about another man while she should be getting to know the man in front of her.
"Why are you surprised?" she asked. "You're a good-looking guy, a nice guy from all accounts, and you have a good career. Why wouldn't you have a chance with me?"
"So... you think I'm good-looking?" he deadpanned.
"Of all the things I just said, that's what you focus on?" she chuckled.
His lips twitched with amusement. "Hey, I like my ego stroked as much as the next guy."
She laughed and placed a hand on his bicep, noticing how firm the muscles were. Firm, muscular, but more wiry than beefy like a certain bull shifter she knew...
"What?" Bobby asked, studying her face carefully. "What was that look on your face?"
Damn. She'd been caught thinking of Mitch.
"What do you mean?" she blinked at Bobby. He really was a nice guy. Shy, but friendly. Open about expressing his interest in her. She could take him anywhere without a second thought.
"I heard you might be involved with Mitch Wayne," Bobby said.
"Oh? What gave you that idea?" she faked nonchalance.
Bobby took her drink and set it on the floor with his. Then he took her hands in his, and looked into her eyes.
"I heard a rumor you were snowed in with him a while ago?" he asked.
"Yes..." she said. "My car went off the road a few miles out of town during that snowstorm a couple weeks back. He saw my headlights and came to my rescue."
"That's interesting," Bobby said. "Most wouldn’t go out on a night like that. Any idea why he would do that?"
"You know, I'm not really sure," she said. "I guess I just thought he made a habit of doing it whenever the weather is bad."
Bobby looked thoughtful. "If someone was stranded on the side of the road, wouldn't he or she just call for help on their smartphone?"
"Of course—" Tu started to speak, but a sudden thought crowded her brain.
I didn't have a smartphone.
She couldn't figure out what it meant. What could it mean that someone she'd never met before happened along and came to her aid, out of the blue? If he had been any later getting there, her headlights might have gone out and, unconscious, she might have frozen to death. Instead, Mitch had happened to come along after a passing semi's wake forced her off the road. It had to be a coincidence.
Didn't it?
She blinked out of her thoughts with a start. Bobby was still talking. To her.
"It seems like you and Wayne are often in the same place at the same time," Bobby said, still smiling. "Before we go any further, I wanted to know whether there was anything still going on with you and Mitch Wayne?"
Bobby’s eyes held an inquisitive, hopeful expression. He had used the word "still." Even if Mitch didn't want to admit they had something, and she didn't want to admit that it mattered, they did, in fact, have a relationship.
Tu sighed. Her hands trembled within Bobby's larger ones, and she gave him a meaningful look.
"There is...I mean, there was something between us," she said. "He… I mean, we decided it would just be a fling for as long as we were snowed in."
"Really?" Bobby asked her. "Because he doesn't seem to be on the same page with you. I've seen him checking you out in town."
Tu wrinkled her brow. "When was that?" she asked, then realized she might appear to be too interested in the answer. She needed to go back to ignoring Mitch, who couldn't seem to make up his mind whether or not he wanted to be with her.
"All the time," Bobby said. "I know because I check you myself,” he said with a broad smile. She blushed and looked away. "You can't just say things like that," she admonished him.
"You haven't lived in a shifter town before," he said. "You'll find we don't tend to beat around the bush when it comes to matters of mating."
"Mating?" she asked on a surprised gasp. "I don't think we're talking about mating."
"You sure about that?" he asked. Bobby's shyness melted away. He was remarkably direct with his next words. "Are you sure you and the Mitch Wayne aren't mates?"
Her mouth fell open, and her eyes bugged. She thought about Mitch's rejection of her. It didn't seem like the sort of thing someone who thinks you're his fated mate would do.
"I'm positive," she said.
Bobby squeezed her hands again and rubbed his thumb across the
webbing of her hands.
"Well, you might want to clarify that with him." Bobby said as he turned to look at something outside of her field of vision.
Not something. Someone.
Mitch stood about eighteen inches away from where Tu sat with Bobby. Her normally grumpy minotaur now looked between the two of them, then looked at their clasped hands, then to Bobby.
"Petunia," Mitch said, his voice dark and rumbling. He wasn't really angry. He was furious. Like, a red haze falling over his vision furious.
The air between the three of them crackled with alarmingly hostile energy. Bobby stopped caressing Tu's hands, abruptly dropping them and holding his up in a placating manner.
"May I have a word with you? In private?"
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
All I Want for Christmas is You
Mitch had no idea what got into him. Judging by Tu's annoyed expression, she had no idea either.
When he'd seen her sitting there with Bobby Lopez, he mentally went through his carefully rehearsed lines. "Tu! Great to see you! Are you two seeing each other? Congratulations! Tu's a great girl. Make sure you treat her well."
The rational part of his mind knew Bobby Lopez would be a good match for Tu. In fact, he might even be perfect for her. Perfect age. Perfect attractively tousled curly hair. Perfect teeth. Perfect job. Almost any woman would prefer to be with an enforcer more than they'd want to be with a guy who drove a tow truck. Even a rich guy who drove a tow truck.
Mitch should cede Tu to Bobby with his blessings and well wishes. That’s what a better man would do.
But Mitch wasn't a better man. He was a grumpy man. A possessive man. A man who wasn't rational when it came to this girl. This woman.
She rolled her eyes at Mitch and scoffed. "I'm busy."
She turned away from him.
"Tu, I need to have a word with you," he said, his voice deep and rough. And... filled with emotion. Some kind of emotion he couldn't examine in the moment. Is possessiveness an emotion?
She did not turn around to look at him again.
Her Mistletoe Minotaur: A BWWM Paranormal Holiday Romance (A Very Alpha Christmas Book 1) Page 16
