Chasing Cristabel (Ashland Pride Six) (3 page)

A few regulars wandered in, and his cousins
disappeared to do their jobs, and Chase busied himself filling
drink orders and chatting up the customers. It wasn’t the most
glamorous job in the world, but it was honest and steady, and that
had to be worth something.

* * *

Dylan looked out into the bar to see how many
people were left after last call and was glad that there were only
a handful of regulars. He hadn’t gotten swamped, which happened on
Fridays and Saturdays when they were always packed, so he’d been
able to get his cleaning done early and close out the kitchen at
one a.m. Now he was waiting for dirty dishes so he could load up
the washer and call it a night.

A half an hour later, Dylan started the
washer and turned off the lights in the kitchen. He took off the
dark red apron and carried it into the owner’s office so he could
put it in the laundry bag.

Perry Gillette, the owner of Kickers, was
turning off his computer and rubbing at his eyes from under his
wire-rimmed glasses. “Hey, kid. How’re things?” Perry asked as
Dylan dropped the apron in the bag.

“Good, thanks. You?”

“Ah, I’m okay. I’ve got a new waitress
starting tomorrow. Her name is Theresa. I’ll have her start running
food orders for the first week or so, and when she’s learned the
ins and outs of things, she can start working the bar.”

Dylan nodded. “Sounds good. I didn’t know you
were looking to hire anyone.”

Perry leaned back in his chair. It creaked
under the weight of his large frame, and Dylan wondered if it might
actually be the night it would break. But it didn’t.

He shrugged. “Claire got in a car accident on
Tuesday. It was just my luck that Theresa came in looking for a job
right after I got the news.”

“Shit. Is Claire okay?”

Claire was a forty-something divorcee who had
been waitressing at Kickers for twenty years. She was as sweet as
they came, and Dylan hated to think of her being hurt.

“Broken leg, cracked ribs, busted wrist.
She’s out for at least two months. She’s gone to live with her
daughter in Virginia. I told her I’d hold the job for her, and that
Theresa was only temporary, but I’d be surprised if Claire actually
comes back.”

Dylan said good night to Perry, clocked out,
and went to find his cousins. It was three a.m. by the time they
got home to the boarding house, and Dylan couldn’t wait to get into
his bedroom on the third floor.

The hundred-year-old boarding house had three
stories and a ton of bedrooms. The kids – and most of the mated
couples – stayed on the second floor with their dads, and Dylan and
his cousins slept on the third floor. Dylan’s room was between his
cousins’ rooms, and the three of them shared a large bathroom.
After waiting his turn for a shower, so he didn’t go to bed
smelling of french fries and hot wings, he fell onto the bed and
closed his eyes, drifting swiftly off to sleep.

When he woke the next day, it was almost
lunchtime, so he climbed out of bed, slipped on a pair of track
pants, and hoofed it downstairs, hoping to score breakfast. It was
a school day, so the kids were gone except for Domino, who was
Rue’s son. Rue was the white panther shifter mate of James and
John. Domino had white-blond hair and a great sense of humor. The
teenager was sitting at the kitchen table sketching in an oversized
notepad.

“Morning,” Dylan said as he looked in the
oven and found a half-finished pan of breakfast casserole. Smiling
in relief that he didn’t have to cook, he pulled it from the oven
and plopped a big wedge onto a plate before putting it in the
microwave.

“Hey,” Dom said, looking up from his paper.
“How was work?”

“Work is work. What are you drawing?”

“I had a request for a howling wolf sculpture
on my craft site, so I’m doing some sketches. Scarlett said I could
call her brothers and have one of them shift for me, but I thought
I’d see what I could do on my own first.”

Dylan pulled the plate from the microwave,
grabbed a carton of orange juice from the fridge, and sat down.
“Looks really good,” he said as he glanced over the drawings.
“You’re very talented.”

“Thanks,” Dom said, smiling.

Dylan heard his cousins come downstairs, and
after filling their plates, they joined him at the table and said
hello to Dom.

Dom gathered his things. “I’ve gotta jam.
Class starts in an hour, and I was supposed to be painting this
morning and not drawing.”

“Good luck,” Chase said.

When Dylan and his cousins had finished their
meal, Hunter leaned back in his chair. “I was thinking about what
we scented yesterday.”

He didn’t have to explain – both Dylan and
Chase knew exactly what Hunter was talking about. They’d gone to
Cherie’s for lunch yesterday and had walked into the diner and
stopped to say hello to Ray, Wes, and Scarlett. All three males had
scented sunshine and tall grass. They’d puzzled over the alluring
scent while they ate lunch, and when they’d said goodbye to Lily on
their way out, Dylan had scented the same sunshine and tall grass
scent on the human. Immediately, he’d known that it was a person
they were scenting, someone Lily had been in contact with. As a
human, her senses were not as sharp as theirs, and she had no idea
about anyone she knew who smelled like sunshine and grass.

“What about it?” Chase asked.

Hunter’s lips pulled down and a crease formed
between his eyes. “You don’t think the scent is significant?”

Chase blinked in surprise. “No, I do. I just
don’t know what it means.”

Hunter said, “Look, the scent was the same
for all of us – sunshine and tall grass – and the scent definitely
came from a shifter. That all three of us liked the scent and were
intrigued by it tells me that it’s important for a very serious
reason.”

Dylan’s cat purred in agreement. “It belongs
to our mate. Our
shared
mate.”

“We don’t know who she is, though,” Chase
pointed out. “What if she were a female who happened to stop by
Cherie’s on her way out of town?”

“What if that’s not the case?” Dylan
countered. “I think we should talk to Lily again. We can ask her
what females came into the diner yesterday. It’s worth a shot,
isn’t it? Aren’t you tired of being alone?”

“I am,” Chase said, “but what if we meet her,
and she doesn’t want to be shared?”

A smile curved Hunter’s mouth, and he said,
“We’ll just have to convince her that three are better than
one.”

Dylan snorted. “I hope she doesn’t mind that
you’re an ass sometimes.”

With a laugh, Hunter stood and picked up his
plate. “I promise to not be an ass to our mate. You guys, though,
are an entirely different story.”

“Wonderful,” Chase said, shaking his
head.

When Hunter had left the room, Chase turned
to Dylan. “Do you think he’s right?”

“I think it’s worth a shot. I’m tired of
watching all of our friends find love and happiness and being on
the sidelines.”

“Aside from Holden and Jackson, we’re the
only single guys in the house.”

“Well, there’s Dom and Henry,” Dylan said.
Henry was John Fallon’s son and Dom’s step-brother. The two had
already figured out they would share a mate in the future, but
Henry was only sixteen, so they had a while to go.

“You know what? If Hunter is right and the
sunshine and tall grass scent is our mate and we’re meant to share
her, then I’ll be the happiest mountain lion in the world.”

“Me too.”

* * *

Hunter stretched as he got out of Chase’s car
in the parking lot of Cherie’s. He and his cousins were going to
drill Lily for more information. The more he’d thought about it,
the more he’d believed that whoever they’d scented was their shared
mate. He’d never considered sharing a mate until they came to
Ashland, but now it had become a part of life for their pride. All
the other couples had only two males to one female, so his group
would be a little larger, but he knew they could make it work. And
what female wouldn’t want three males seeing to her every need?

“Hey,” Lily called from behind the cash
register as she swiped a customer’s credit card. “Find a seat, and
I’ll be right with you.”

He and his cousins sat at the counter and
waited for her to finish the transaction. She bounced over to them,
her high ponytail swaying with the motion. “What would you guys
like? Grandma has BLTs on special today.”

“We wanted to talk to you about the woman we
smelled on you yesterday.”

Lily’s eyes widened, and the pen she had
poised on top of her notepad slipped from her grasp and clattered
to the counter. “What?”

Hunter grimaced. He was a big guy, and he
knew that he could be intimidating, even when he didn’t mean to be.
Smiling to soften what he said, he continued, “I mean, when we came
in here yesterday, we scented a female who smelled like tall grass
and sunshine.”

“I know. I said I don’t know anyone who
smells like that, and P.S. I don’t go around smelling
customers.”

“Of course you don’t, Lily, because you’re
human. But we’re shifters, and scent is a big deal to us. We just
want to know what females came into the diner yesterday before us.
It’s important.”

Her gaze flicked to all of them, and she
frowned. “Well, I remember Scarlett. The mayor’s wife had been in
earlier for breakfast.” She hummed and then a look crossed her
face, but it passed so quickly that Hunter almost doubted he’d seen
it. “I can’t think of anyone, but if I do, I’ll be sure to send a
message to the boarding house, okay? My order is up. I need to get
to the kitchen.”

She scurried away, but Hunter was certain he
hadn’t misread the secret smile on her face. Dylan opened his mouth
to protest, and Hunter shook his head. “Let’s go.”

“Just like that?” Chase demanded.

Hunter nodded. When they were outside, Hunter
zipped up his leather jacket and said, “Lily knows who we’re
talking about. I saw it on her face.”

“So we need to get back in there and convince
her to tell us,” Dylan said.

“For some reason, she doesn’t want to tell
us, and I think we need to respect that. Maybe she’ll call the
house later and leave a message for us.”

“You’re hoping for something we can’t
possibly know will happen,” Chase said.

“If she hasn’t called us tomorrow, then we’ll
come back and talk to her again. I just have a feeling that we
should leave it alone for today.”

“I hope you’re right,” Dylan muttered.

“Me too,” Hunter said.

Chase unlocked his car and said, “Let’s go
home and get ready for work. We can put in some overtime on
inventory. At least it will keep our minds off our mate.”

Hunter agreed. After stopping at the boarding
house to change, they walked back into Kickers a half hour later.
Dylan groaned slightly as the new waitress, Theresa, squeaked in
glee and rushed over to them. The woman had only started at the bar
the day before, but she’d taken an instant liking to Dylan.

Dylan pushed away Theresa’s hands before she
could lock him in a hug. “Hey. We’re heading back to the office to
talk to Perry.”

“Aw, can’t your brothers do that for you? You
can take me back into the kitchen, and we can get some
cooking
done.”

Hunter’s lip curled at her glaringly obvious
sexual invitation. Dylan, who hated confrontation, blushed brightly
and rubbed the back of his neck. “They’re my cousins, and geez,
this is a place of business.”

“We can get
down
to business,” she
said, chuckling lasciviously.

Hunter snapped his fingers in front of
Theresa’s face, and she gasped as she stepped back. “Dylan’s not
interested.”

“He can speak for himself,” she
harrumphed.

Chase shook his head. “Yeah, but you’re not
listening to him. Go back to work, or we’ll tell Perry that you’re
being inappropriate.”

She sniffed and smoothed her fingertips down
the front of her miniskirt. Seeming to shake herself out of her
annoyance, she winked at Dylan. “See you in the kitchen,
lover.”

“Damn it,” Dylan said after she spun on her
heels and strode through the bar, hips swaying exaggeratedly. “I
don’t want to get her fired, but she won’t stop this nonsense.”

Hunter clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re
just going to have to be firm with her. I know you don’t like
hurting people’s feelings, but you have to stand up for
yourself.”

“All right,” Dylan said, his shoulders
sagging.

After checking in with Perry, they busied
themselves in the storeroom, throwing away outdated ingredients,
organizing the shelves, and cataloging the supplies. By the time
their actual shift started, Hunter had become entirely obsessed
with the sunshine and grass scented female, even though he had no
idea what she looked like. It actually didn’t matter to him – he
knew she’d be perfect.

He leaned his back against the counter and
looked around the bar. It was only eight, and the bar was fairly
busy for a Thursday night. He rubbed at the back of his neck,
wondering – not for the first time – if he’d made a mistake in not
pressuring Lily about their mate. It hadn’t taken long for him to
start to think of her as theirs, and now that hours had passed and
Lily had left no message at the boarding house, and no mysterious
female came by looking for the three males meant for her, he was
beginning to think he’d made an error.

Dylan walked out of the kitchen with an angry
groan, stopping at the bar and asking Chase for a soda.

“What’s your problem?” Chase asked as he
filled a glass with ice and soda and slid it across the counter to
him.

“Theresa is being really clingy. Perry saw
her and told her to behave herself, but he said it like it was just
a joke.”

“You need to make her listen,” Hunter
said.