by Sable Sylvan
“A ring?” asked Basil.
“No, silly, you think I care about a frikkin’ loop of metal and some rock?” asked Cayenne. “No…a proposal. You can’t just say, ‘hey, Kai, wanna grab burgers, oh, and make a pit stop at City Hall to get a marriage license, too? Or would you prefer Chinese?’.”
“Point taken,” said Basil. He got out of bed and walked to Cayenne’s side of the bed. Cayenne sat up, wrapping the sheet around her nude body, while Basil got down on one knee.
“Cayenne Quincy,” said Basil. “Ever since I met you, I’ve been enraptured with your beauty, your grace, your ambition. You have the curves I hope I deserve, a fire that inspires, and there’s not enough time for me to make another rhyme.”
Cayenne covered her mouth to hide a laugh as Basil mimed opening a ring box.
“Will you accept me as your husband, for all time?” asked Basil. “I promise to love you, to cherish you, to care for you, and to protect you. You are the only woman I have felt anything like this for, and the only woman I will ever feel these feelings for. Will you accept a polar bear who knows more about frequent flyer miles than about Texan traditions, who knows more about the spice trade than how to trade in an old pick-up truck, as your future husband?”
“That depends,” said Cayenne. “Will that polar accept a sassy girl with more curves than a snake shifter, more business sense than common sense, who can work too hard and play too hard, but is working on not doing as much of the first, and doing more of the second?”
“She’s the only woman in the world I can accept, who I love for both her strengths and for her all-too-endearing flaws,” said Basil.
“Then I accept your proposal,” said Cayenne. “But…you’ll have to pay a bride price.”
“A bride price?” asked Basil. “I guess the Quincys are more traditional than I thought. Name the price, and I’ll pay it.”
Cayenne leaned in to whisper something naughty to Basil and Basil lit up like a Houston Christmas tree.
“I think I can do that,” said Basil, before getting back into bed to fulfill every last one of Cayenne’s demands.
Epilogue
Two Weeks Later
The restaurant was a resounding success. People were coming from all over Bright Star County to try the churrasco. The format was novel, the food was good, and the price was reasonable. That was a recipe for success. The new ‘Fated Mate Sauce’ was flying off the shelves, and at the engagement barbecue, meat was flying off the Nordic grillhaus’s grill and onto people’s plates. Of course, the food was cooked churrasco style, with the new ‘Fated Mate Sauce,’ with a portion of the proceeds from the ‘Fated Mate Sauce’ going to the favela school that Basil had set up back in Brazil.
“Cayenne Quincy, we’re gathered here today because I love you so frikkin’ much that I couldn’t wait to ask you to marry me,” said Basil. “I know you must love me, too, because if you didn’t, there’s no frikkin’ way I could’ve gotten away with proposing to you without a ring…but that doesn’t mean I want you walking around without one.” Basil took something out of his pocket. It was a wooden box, engraved with runes.
“Your name is on this box,” said Basil. “It’s written in the Elder Futhark, the ancient Nordic runes of my ancestors. Words have power…and your name has power over my heart.” He opened the box, revealing a traditional diamond ring.
“This ring is for you,” said Basil. “Of course, the diamonds are ethically sourced, from my grandfather’s treasury. He’s got so many jewels that I swear he must be part dragon shifter, what with his horde.” The Scovilles laughed. It was a shifter joke.
Basil slipped the ring on Cayenne’s finger. It fit perfectly.
“Cayenne, I promised that as long as you are with me, you will never be cold or hungry, or bored,” said Basil.
“Basil…I trust you so much that I don’t need to hear you say those words out loud to know your promises are true,” said Cayenne. “I love the fact that you know that by saying them, you soothe my every anxiety, my every worry, and help me to calm the heck down.” The Quincy sisters laughed. They all knew that Cayenne could work way too hard. They also knew that Basil was the one person who could get her to slow her roll. He’d helped her take life one day at a time, one step at a time, hand in hand with the man who was confirmed to be her true love, and she, his fated mate.
“I have a gift for you as well,” said Cayenne.
Out of the house came Lauren, head of the staff, carrying a large wrapped rectangular item carefully. She passed it to Cayenne and stuck around to watch what would happen.
Cayenne passed the present to Basil and Basil unwrapped it carefully…and when he saw what it was, he nearly cried.
“Is it okay?” asked Cayenne quietly. “I hope it’s all right.”
“It’s perfect,” said Basil. He passed the painting to Mace, who held onto it for him while he gave Cayenne a hug.
“What is it?” asked Savina.
“It’s…my grandmother,” said Basil. “My grandfather Morten’s wife. She passed on when I turned eight. How did you paint this?”
“I looked at the photos of her downstairs on the family mantle in the living room,” said Cayenne. “I was careful and took pics of them so that I wouldn’t get paint on them, then printed those pics out to use as a reference. That’s why I asked you for privacy in the studio over the last two weeks. It wasn’t a matter of me needing a lack of distractions. I didn’t want the surprise to be ruined.”
“It’s perfect, so perfect,” said Basil. “And I know where we should hang it.”
“Where?” asked Cayenne.
“The restaurant, along with the rest of your paintings,” said Basil.
“That’d be perfect,” Herb assured Basil, patting Basil on the chest, over the mate mark. “It is a perfect way to honor our grandmother’s memory. She will always, and I mean always, be with us, in here. Our family and our shifts will always live in our hearts.”
“There’s one more gift,” said Cayenne. She lowered the shoulder of her shirt. She was wearing a string tank top underneath to cover up. Basil couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
His mate mark had been replicated in the center of her tattoo. The peach half now had a brown peach pit on it. Underneath the peach, there was a new date underneath the old date. It was the date that Basil and Cayenne had learned that they were fated mates.
“When the heck did you have time to get that?” asked Basil. “And…weren’t you afraid of the pain?”
“It was nothing a mint julep and a shot of bourbon couldn’t fix,” said Cayenne. “Remember when all us girls went into Dallas last weekend for wedding stuff? That’s when I got it filled in. Is it okay?”
“It’s more than okay,” said Basil. “It’s perfect, like everything you do.”
“Aww, you two are so cute,” squealed Savina. “I usually hate mushy stuff, but you two are suited for each other.”
“That means a lot coming from the head Quincy bridesmaid,” said Cayenne, giving her little sister a smile. Savina had been a champ. She was juggling not one, not two, but four hormonal Texan brides who were battling the vapors, the nerves, and spending every last minute either working on growing their company or planning the biggest wedding that Bright Star County would ever see.
“It’s too sweet,” said Mace. “It’s making me sick.”
“Mace, you don’t know the first thing about love,” said Savina, putting down her fork to put a hand on her hip.
“Says the last single Quincy sister,” teased Mace, eating more meat from his plate as he sat down next to Savina. After all, the other seats had all been claimed by the real Quincy-Scoville couples, leaving the Scoville omega and the sassy youngest Quincy Sister together.
“Says the only Scoville Polar without a mate!” retorted Savina.
Mace and Savina kept squabbling and Basil shot Cayenne a look. He raised his eyebrow, and Cayenne smiled and nodded. She knew what he was thinking. There was one last coupl
e that would need to realize they were meant to be before the wedding happened in the coming weeks. The only question was, would Mace and Savina be always the groomsman and bridesmaid, and never the bride and groom, or would they realize that what they had was more than just a fiery rivalry, but a spicy budding romance? The only thing that could bring these two together? A summer of hard work spent at…The Feminine Mesquite.
Part V
Little Red Hot Sauce
Prologue
Fourth of July
Savina ‘Sav’ Quincy looked around. This wasn’t the same backyard she’d been hanging out in last year. Last year, she’d come home from her summer job, some retail gig, and hung out in the backyard with her sisters until the stars came out, along with the mosquitos, and they’d gone inside the family’s house. The house had felt empty because their parents had left them the house when they’d retired to Florida, leaving the Quincy Sisters with their house and their old beat-up minivan.
The Quincy Sisters still had the house and the mini-van, but neither saw much use nowadays, although that’d change in the coming weeks. After all, there was a wedding coming up, with four Quincy brides marrying four Scoville grooms. All this had happened over the last year. Well, it had nearly been a year. Savina’s older sisters would all be getting married at the end of the summer in a group wedding. The wedding date was set for around the time that they’d met the Scoville Brothers in the first place.
It was such a weird story. The Quincy Sisters were of common stock, but of uncommon ambition. They had worked hard and put in the elbow grease ever since they were old enough to work, saving up for college. All four had gotten accepted to college, with Alice, the eldest sister, having graduated a little over a year ago. Abigail, the second eldest, had just graduated. Addison, the middle Quincy, would be graduating the next year from Bonimolean University, the prestigious shifter university in England, and Cayenne ‘Kai’ Quincy would be graduating the year after her, with Savina finally frikkin’ graduating a year after Cayenne. After all, Savina had only just finished up her freshman year. She still had three years left of schooling.
Alice and the other Quincy Sisters had met the Scoville Brothers at the reading of their paternal grandfather’s will. Grandpa Elijah, Elijah Quincy, had left Alice his company, The Quincy Hot Sauce Co. It was a hot sauce company he’d started after coming home from World War II, where he’d been captured by the Nazis and sent to a POW camp. In the camp, he’d met a young Norwegian nobleman who had run off to fight evil, like a knight of old or one of his Viking ancestors. That Norwegian’s name was Morten Scoville. He was a man with more than just a fortune to his name. He was a polar bear shifter, a man who could turn into a polar bear at will. That wasn’t much of an advantage when one was surrounded by Nazi wolves, bears, and others who could turn into animals at will, but it certainly leveled the playing field.
What the heck could a Texan who had never left his state, much less his country, before shipping off to Europe, and an old money polar bear shifter have in common? Well, they both liked the same things: spicy meat and spicier women. They traded recipes and tales that were spicy and delicious, and after the war, the two had lost contact…but Morten had kept tabs on Elijah. He’d learned that Elijah had started a hot sauce company and suspected that Elijah had stolen the recipes that Morten had given him during the war. Morten didn’t need the money from the company. After all, his family’s spice empire was worth billions. It was about the principle of the thing.
Morten sent his grandsons to Fallowedirt, Texas, to the reading of Elijah’s will, to have his grandsons confront the Quincy heir and retrieve ‘his’ recipes. Morten asserted that he had come up with the very recipes that Elijah used to make his sauces and demanded reparations. Of course, the billionaire alpha of the Scoville Polar Clan was in no need of the money. It was about the principle of the thing.
However, Morten hadn’t ended up with the recipes. He’d ended up with four curvy granddaughter-in-laws, as the eldest four Scoville Brothers all found their matches among the Quincy Sisters, matching up from oldest to youngest.
Alice had challenged Herb to a cook-off so that she could avoid going to court against him. After all, Herb was one of the Scoville heirs. He had billions at his disposal. She’d surely lose. Surprisingly, Herb accepted her challenge. They’d tied for first, so Herb had asked her on a date. He’d shown her a good time, but Alice had feelings for someone else, a bear shifter who she’d met one night at a New Year’s Eve masquerade party in New York City. She had been searching for him but had no clues to go off of. Herb had a mystery woman he was hunting, and all he had to go on was a ratty old sneaker that the curvy belle had worn to the ball, as her scent had been hidden by perfume and she’d used a fake name. It turned out that Alice and Herb had been searching for each other the whole time.
Herb proposed to Alice, but that wasn’t the end of the story. It was just the beginning of a series of fairy tale happily-ever-afters.
Herb had purchased an old mansion on the outskirts of town and renovated it, renaming it Mesquite Manor. Herb and Alice had invited everyone to the house for a housewarming party, and that’s where all eight of their siblings learned about their engagement…as well as some plans Herb and Alice had concocted on their own.
“And don’t forget our offer,” said Herbert. “The email we sent you before was serious. Elijah and Morten had one thing in common. They picked their eldest grandchildren to be in charge of the trusts for the younger siblings. That means that whether or not you get your shares of the Scoville or Quincy fortunes depends on following our pretty reasonable demands. We are not about to play games with anyone. At the same time, we want to ensure that there are fortunes for you to inherit, and give you the skills to manage your shares well. That’s why we’ve come up with a plan. We’ll pay off your entire college and your student loan debts…”
“…If you work for the hot sauce company while you are in college,” said Alice. “Just over breaks, of course. Your studies must come first.”
“There’s nobody we trust more with the future of this company than you lot,” said Herbert. “So don’t make us regret trusting you. After all…we are going to be a family.”
All the siblings would have to earn their part of their inheritances by working for Herb and Alice. There had been a squabble among the other siblings regarding the naming of the company, with the girls arguing it should be The Quincy-Scoville Hot Sauce Co., and the boys arguing it should be The Scoville-Quincy Hot Sauce Co. The sauce company was renamed ‘The Feminine Mesquite,’ but that’s not where Alice and Herb’s meddling ended.
“See, exactly, we can’t go a minute without fighting,” said Herbert. “That’s why…we’ve divided up the rooms ourselves.”
“We thought about putting Quincy girls in one section, Scoville polars in another,” said Alice. “But, one-half of the manor has larger rooms than the other, and we know that you would find reasons to fight over that.”
“That’s true,” admitted Basil.
“We realized that placing you all next to one another will hopefully ease the tension,” said Herbert. “That’s why we’re doing co-ed rooming arrangements, as the Americans do.”
“Excuse me?” said Mason. “You expect us to share rooms?”
“Nobody said anything about sharing rooms,” said Alice. “When we had the manor renovated, we pretty much gutted it and put it back together again. Now, each pair of rooms has two bedrooms that are the same size. Each pair is organized into a suite. Each suite has a pair of private bathrooms, with one shared room you are free to use for whatever you wish. Turn them into studies, libraries, walk in closets, it’s up to each of you…or rather, each pair of you.”
“That’s right,” said Herbert. “You’re all going to need to learn to work together. So, Alice and I, we’re going to be as hands off as we can possibly be. Come to us if there is a conflict you really can’t solve between yourselves, but otherwise…it’s time for everyone to g
et a grip. We want this hot sauce company to do well, and every cog in this machine must fit together, or else the entire operation will come to a grinding halt.”
“So how are we being paired off?” asked Cayenne. “Are we drawing straws?”
“We’re organizing you in pairs based on age,” said Alice. “The biggest rooms are going to the eldest. The youngest are getting the smallest rooms. That means it’s Abby and Clove, Addy and Sage, Kai and Basil, Savina and Mace. Your rooms have already been marked with your names on plaques. You’re welcome.”
That winter break, Abigail and Clove, the second eldest Quincy Sister and the future beta of the Scoville Clan, ended up rooming together. Abigail was home for the Christmas season, which she’d always spent with family, while Clove was looking to escape the hustle and bustle of Europe. Both were determined to work on their theses (as each was writing a senior thesis) in peace and quiet, but the last thing that they expected was that Abigail’s inner beauty would tame Clove’s inner beast. The two had turned out to be fated mates, the special soulmates that shifters had, and Clove had proposed to Abigail on Christmas Day. Of course, she’d accepted, and Alice had offered to share her wedding with Abigail.
Abigail wasn’t the only one who got a special Christmas gift. Herb had gifted Addison a semester at Bonimolean University, the university of her dreams, which meant she was off to England to spend a semester with Clove and the gamma of the Scoville Polars, Sage. Sage seemed to be a rock star bad boy, but it turned out that the only woman he wanted to make sweet music with was Addison. He’d known she was his fated mate from the start. His mate mark, the mark on a bear shifter’s chest that told them who they were meant to be with forever, said ‘Addison,’ for goodness sake. He’d taken things slow and played it cool to win his princess, before turning up the heat and awakening something that had been sleeping in his beauty, proposing to her after they’d gone to the Scoville Ball and finished their project on Pride and Prejudice.