On the Growl: A Shifter Romance Anthology

by Lynn Red

  But first, she needed to make sure Miss Prodo wasn’t throwing her under the bus right now. No one knew about the kiss, and she didn’t think Arnaud would blab about it. If she could head off disaster with that bitch of a panther, she might just salvage her job.

  As early as it was, she knew Mr. Roarke, early riser that he was, would be in his office. She’d only had the pleasure of going there a few times — not that this time could be considered a ‘pleasure’ — but each time was more awe-inspiring than the last.

  Taking up the entire top floor of Haven’s central building, the office was really more of an oasis. Filled with almost as many plants as were outside, the huge room was a mini-jungle. A handful of birds chittered away near the ceiling and a small waterfall had been constructed off to one side to feed the small pond near Mr. Roarke’s work space. No one — not even the gardeners who tended to the plants — knew for sure what kind of animals did, or did not, live in the office.

  The man himself was an enigma if ever there was one. Rumors ran rampant about what his shifter animal was but no one knew for sure. Some said he was a tiger shifter while others claimed he was a honeybadger shifter and still more said he was a bull. The silliest rumor was that he was a T-rex. Yet not a single person at Haven could claim to have seen him shift.

  Whatever his inner animal, the man was alpha through and through. Not in a puffed up, blustery kind of way, but more in a quiet, deadly manner. He ran Haven kindly and fairly, but heaven help you if you openly defied him. She once saw him reduce a burly polar bear shifter into a simpering puddle of tears with just a look.

  As she pushed her way through the dense foliage, she could hear Miss Prodo’s high-pitched, angry voice yammering away. Katie didn’t have to hear the words to know her supervisor was ratting her out in an effort to get her fired.

  “Something has to be done, Mr. Roarke. She’s openly insubordinate, she doesn’t respect my personal space and now this. It’s outrageous and I demand you fire her!”

  Breathless, Katie burst through the final wall of plant life and into Mr. Roarke’s work area. He was sitting behind his desk, leaning back as far as his expensive leather desk chair would allow, fingers linked across his stomach. His bright tropical shirt — were those hot pink skull and crossbones? — nearly seared her retinas. To her immense relief, he looked bemused rather than angry, but with an alpha like him, one never knew precisely what he was thinking, so she didn’t get her hopes too high.

  “Miss O’Meghan, what superb timing. Miss Prodo here was just regaling me with wild tales of your alleged extracurricular activities with Mr. Simpson. Perhaps you can shed some light on the situation.”

  Katie tried to speak but she was out of breath from her sprint over. Panting, she held up one finger as she doubled over, elbows on her knees, trying to catch her breath.

  “See? She’s so unfit she gets winded on the short walk over here,” sneered Miss Prodo.

  Mr. Roarke quieted her with a look and patiently waited for Katie to speak. As she was hunched over, she thought about what to say. She wouldn’t lie to him, that much she knew. But if he didn’t specifically ask if she kissed Arnaud, she wouldn’t offer up the information.

  “What Miss Prodo saw was perfectly innocent, Mr. Roarke. As you know, Ar— um, Mr. Simpson rarely comes down from his Eyrie suite. When he does, I try to tempt him into joining some activities but he never accepts. Yesterday, after he…helped me out of a jam—“

  She cast a sly look at her supervisor who looked away quickly, reddening slightly.

  “—he agreed to come to my morning yoga class. Unfortunately, he pulled a muscle in his groin and a muscle in his back spasmed. As you know, Doc Murphy doesn’t get to the infirmary before 9 a.m., so I took him to our office. I gave him ice for his groin and found some Haven Heat for his back. I was simply trying to work out a spasming muscle when she walked in and accused me of…things.”

  “Tell him where you found the cream!” Miss Prodo screeched. “Tell him!”

  Katie could only gawk at the woman’s lunacy. She was acting absolutely nuts.

  “In her desk,” she replied, addressing Mr. Roarke. “I searched the entire office but couldn’t find any. I don’t make a habit of searching other people’s desks but, then again, I don’t hide important supplies under lock and key either.”

  He searched her face for a moment before turning his attention on Miss Prodo. The woman shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other under his gaze. Finally, he leaned back, tucked both hands behind his head and watched some tiny birds flitting around above.

  “As you know, we have very strict standards here at Haven. As much as I find it distasteful to fire anyone, I will not hesitate to do so if I believe rules have been flagrantly broken.”

  Miss Prodo sneered at her. When Mr. Roarke brought his gaze down to look at them, she smiled sweetly, nodding as if it would break her heart if Katie got fired. Manipulative bitch.

  Mr. Roarke’s gaze settled on Katie. “Sometimes we have to set aside what we think we want for what is right. The trouble comes in figuring out which is which.”

  Then he turned to his computer and started typing. The two women stood there for a moment, expecting something else, maybe a decision on Katie’s job status, but he acted as if they weren’t there. Katie was just about to say something when her supervisor said, “Well?”

  Without so much as looking at them, he said, “That will be all, ladies.”

  Joy burst inside her but it was tempered with confusion. Clearly she still had a job but the entire interaction was a little strange. Consider yourself warned, she thought as she and her nemesis turned in unison to whack their way out of the jungle. Before she lost Miss Prodo in the dense foliage, Katie heard her mumbling.

  “If that little slut thinks this is over…”

  Chapter 7

  “Katie, where the fuckity fuck have you fucking been?” Brutus hissed when she finally made it back to the bluff.

  Class was long over but she knew she’d find her friend there meditating. It was his routine, and Brutus didn’t like his routine to be thrown off. He used meditation to temper his hummingbird’s high-strung nature.

  She nudged him with her shoulder as she settled in next to him on the spongy turf. He responded by crossing his arms in a huff.

  “You asked me to help with class today, not fucking lead it. Then Mr. Yummypants makes a sad face and you run the fuck off with him. Just what the fuck have you been doing all this time? No, don’t tell me! I’m all about plausible deniability.”

  Katie was shocked. Normally he wanted to hear every detail of everything that ever went on in her life. “Really?”

  “Fuck no! Spill, slut.”

  She smiled at his endearment for her. For some reason, when Miss Prodo called her that, it wasn’t so cute.

  Ten minutes later, she’d spilled her guts, including her amazing kiss with Arnaud. She had dozens of friends at Haven, but only a couple she trusted with potentially life-altering information. Brutus and Jezz were her two best friends.

  “Fuck me,” he whispered. Some people didn’t like Brutus’s filthy mouth but she came from a rough background so it barely registered with her.

  “Yeah. So what do I do?”

  “Are you fucking with me right now? You go fuck the guy’s dick off, that’s what you do! He’ll be gone soon enough. Just make him promise not to tell. And make sure you get yours, okay?”

  Katie chewed her lower lip as she gazed out over the idyllic bay. “I don’t think I can, Brute. I mean, I’m sure I’d be able to, you know, get mine or whatever. I don’t think I could just sleep with him like that. Not him.”

  Brutus pulled back and eyed her up and down. “Ohmigod! You’re in love!”

  “No!” she shouted, perhaps a little too loudly. “Not possible. I barely know the guy.”

  “Hmmm, what does KatieKat think?”

  Katie chuffed. “What does she know? She’s just a dumb tabby.” Her inner kitty his
sed at her. Ooh, she was going to pay for that little comment later. KatieKat could hold a grudge like nobody’s business.

  “Darlin’, let me tell you something. Our animals instinctively know a fuckload more than our human side could learn in a thousand years. Only a fucking idiot doesn’t pay attention to what her animal is feeling.”

  “Or his,” she chided.

  “In this case, it’s definitely ‘her’.”

  She poked him for his jab but smiled wanly. He was right. KatieKat had never steered her wrong before, and she was dying to tear into Arnaud. But Katie’s logical side objected.

  “Okay, Brute. Say I have a passionate love affair with Arnaud and, by some miracle, no one finds out. What then? I’m just supposed to say ‘Thanks for the good time, see ya’ when he leaves?”

  Brutus cleared his throat. “Well, um, ideally he’d fall so fucking desperately in love with you, he’d see that you’re meant for each other and take you out of this hell hole.”

  A flock of brightly colored parrotfinches chose that moment to swoop down the bluff in front of them, landing in a cluster on a Red Ginger bush, the flowers of which were so vibrant they could sear your retinas if you looked at them too long — sort of like Mr. Roarke’s shirts. Diamonds of sunlight sparkled on the clear blue-green water below and a gentle breeze cooled their skin. It was perfection.

  “You were saying,” she teased.

  “Listen, I don’t have all the answers, kiddo. I’d just be worried that, if you didn’t take a chance with someone you and your kitty have such a strong reaction to, you’d live the rest of your life wondering what might have been.”

  “Wow, I think that’s the longest you’ve gone without cussing, Brute.”

  “That just means you should listen to me. And fuck off.”

  Normally she’d be rolling on the ground in a fit of laughter but her day had started out so rocky that the most she could muster was a wan smile. Her two best friends were split on what she should do, making them completely useless as advisors.

  “It’d be so much easier if life came with a user’s manual, you know?”

  Brutus wrapped a big arm around her shoulders and pulled her into a half-hug. “Fucking A.”

  It had been hours since Arnaud and Katie had been locked in a passionate embrace, and his body still ached for her, even while he was hunched over his desk reading a document. He had no idea why she ran off the way she did but suspected it had something to do with what her supervisor said about Haven’s rules against staff and guests hooking up.

  The rule itself made perfect sense for an upscale, respectable destination resort, but at the same time, every hot, tingling part of his body rejected it as total and utter bullshit. He wanted to track down Mr. Roarke and beg for special dispensation — he wasn’t a ‘real’ guest, after all — but Arnaud wouldn’t do anything if it had the slightest chance of risking Katie’s job.

  When he realized he’d read the same paragraph of legalese for the tenth time, he slapped the contract down on the clear glass desk in his suite and stalked over to the windows. A flock of birds — all of them non-shifter, as far as he could tell — swerved and flitted above the treetops, riding the tradewinds that blew off the ocean.

  Simply watching them soothed his agitated eagle, but it also brought back a flood of memories of Ann. Aside from his work, they’d done everything together, from exercising to cooking to joining a wine club. Unless he was at the office, he was with her. And he cherished every minute of it.

  But that was, of course, why he spent so much time working. It was the only thing that didn’t make him think of her. Naturally, it had been hardest immediately after the cancer finally took her, when walking through his front door could nearly paralyze him with grief. That had eased over the last two years, but his home — their home — was now just a place to sleep and store his clothes.

  Ann would have loved Haven, especially this suite. The minimalist decor, the encircling view, the cushy furniture — that a beautiful cat shifter had been lying on naked the day before…

  Arnaud tried to shake the image of Katie out of his head but it was impossible. Then he remembered her arms wrapping around his neck as they kissed, and her supple lips yielding under him, and…no! Thinking about his dead mate and Katie in nearly the same thought was bad. Very bad.

  But why? Hadn’t Ann told him many times before the end that he should do everything he could to find someone else. “It won’t be easy — it never is for our kind,” she’d say, “but crazier things have been known to happen. Promise me you’ll at least try.”

  He knew he should have promised, granted her one dying wish, but he couldn’t. How could he promise to try to find a new mate when his heart was dying right along with Ann?

  Shaking his head again, this time to rid them of sad thoughts, he strode out of the suite and, ten minutes later, found himself at the poolside bar, a gin and tonic in his hand. Condensation dribbled down the side of the glass and over his fingers as he sat there looking at it. How long had he been sitting there like that?

  “Something wrong with the drink, sir?”

  Arnaud looked up to see a genuinely concerned look on the bartender’s face. The young man looked barely old enough to shave, much less serve alcohol.

  “No, it’s fine,” he mumbled, bringing the drink to his lips. It was sweet and bitter and, quite honestly, disgusting. Just the way Ann liked it. Grimacing, he set the drink down and ordered a Scotch, neat.

  “Most guests order fruity umbrella drinks, especially at the pool. In fact, I don’t think I can remember a single one ever ordering straight Scotch. That’s a drink for thinking, if you ask me.”

  Arnaud grunted. “I’m trying not to think.”

  The bartender — Reflex, his name tag read — grabbed a towel and started wiping down the counter. “Oh, yeah?”

  Arnaud shrugged. “Females.”

  Reflex raised one eyebrow and smirked. “Plural?”

  Sighing, Arnaud stared into the amber depths of his drink. He was mesmerized by the barely visible waves of alcohol swirling in the glass. “Not really. One real, one ghost.”

  “Ah,” intoned Reflex, as if he had a clue. He tended to a guest that walked up to the bar and ordered a Sex on the Beach. Of course.

  “So you were saying…” he prompted after he cleaned up from making the deliciously disastrous drink.

  Arnaud couldn’t help smiling at the not-so-subtle prod. “I wasn’t.”

  Reflex leaned back against the shelving full of bottles, crossing his arms casually. “Sometimes talking things through helps. And who better to talk to than the bartender?”

  Arnaud shook his head, defeated. “It’s complicated.”

  “No shit. If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t be sitting here with two drinks in front of you.”

  The kid had a point. “Tell me something, Reflex. What are some of Haven’s most important staff rules?”

  Reflex thought about it for a minute. “Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not be rude to guests, thou shalt eat all your vegetables. Those are the biggies.”

  For a brief moment, hope flared inside Arnaud. If those were the big ones, maybe the ‘no fraternization’ rule wasn’t such a big deal after all.

  “Of course, that’s not counting Rule #1: ‘Don’t fuck the guests’. That’s the grand-daddy of all rules.”

  Cold water doused the tiny flame of hope. “And what happens to a staff member who breaks that rule?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.

  “They get the boot. Like, immediately. And they’re banned from ever returning to Haven, even as a paying guest. Mr. Roarke is very adamant about that rule, if you couldn’t tell.”

  Arnaud skimmed his finger around the rim of the glass, pondering. “And no one ever breaks it? Not ever?”

  Reflex was quiet for so long that Arnaud looked up to see if he was still there. He was staring at Arnaud with curiosity and maybe a little suspicion. His answer was only one word but it spoke volu
mes.

  “Never.”

  Arnaud nodded, expecting as much. “Doesn’t matter anyway.”

  “Hmm, the ghost? Is she why it doesn’t matter?”

  The kid was bright. Arnaud squinted at him from over his drink. “Maybe.”

  Reflex lit up. “You’re that eagle shifter lawyer dude Mr. Roarke brought in, aren’t you? Oh, man, you’re the talk of the island!”

  Arnaud’s chest tightened with worry that somehow word had spread about him and Katie, as unlikely as it seemed. Thoughts of disemboweling a certain mouthy panther with his talons flitted through his brain.

  “They say you hide up in your Eyrie suite all day, every day. What’s up with that?”

  Arnaud downed his drink and nodded for another. As Reflex poured, he thought about his answer.

  “I guess…I guess there’s just not much down here for me.”

  “What?! Haven is anything you want it to be. You want a summer fling? No prob. There’s enough hot shifter ass here to last a lifetime, no strings attached.”

  He gave Arnaud the side-eye as he sliced limes. “Hmm, but maybe you’re not interested in one-night stands. Maybe you’re a long-haul kinda dude. Also, no prob. Loads of babes looking for love.”

  Arnaud shook his head. “Not for me. I’m an eagle, remember? We mate for life. My mate died so that’s it for me.”

  Reflex stopped cutting. “No kidding? That’s so whack!”

  Arnaud managed to not snort Scotch all over the counter, but just barely. Grimacing at the resulting sting in his sinuses, he nodded. “Agreed.”

  As the bartender puttered around the small bar, Arnaud took a moment to look around. It really was beautiful here. His eagle was also feeling peaceful and content. More so than either had felt for a couple years. Other than his suite, nothing here reminded him of Ann. As much as he loved remembering their life together, it was a relief.

  “Wait a sec,” Reflex said, whipping around to face Arnaud. “Are you sure about that? About the ‘only one shot at love’ thing? Because I swear I met an eagle couple in here not two months ago and it was the second pairing for the male.”