I groaned as I ripped off my hat and stabbed my fingers through my hair. Maybe I should just abort this mission and head to Cody’s. Yeah, that’s what I should do.
Clint eyed me not as a threat but with curiosity. I got along just fine with his mate, but I didn’t often seek her out specifically. “Why? What do you want with Becky?”
I cleared my throat. “Well, ah…”
Clint’s protective streak kicked in—it had been warring with his gentler daddy side, but that disappeared as I hesitated. He stalked around the table and nearly bumped chests with me. “What do you want with my mate?”
Yeah, so much for not being threatened.
“Advice,” I mumbled, not quite meeting his eye.
Clint cocked his head. “Come again?”
“About my mate.”
Clint’s face transformed from the stern visage of the enforcer to one of celebration. “Rand! What the fuck? You found your mate?”
Lily babbled and slapped her tiny hands on the tray as if she was also happy for me.
A sputter of guilt flickered in me. I’d figured Rob would’ve told him by now. I should’ve told my brother sooner although I’d been pretty fucking busy trying to pin Red down.
“Yep. Yes. It’s Natalie. Natalie Sheffield.”
“No shit.” He grinned at me and gave me a slap on the shoulder.
“Listen, I’d love to stay and watch Lily throw peas at you, but my mate is stubborn as fuck and doesn’t think I love her.” Yeah, that pretty much summed it all up. “This is why I need to talk to Becky and figure out what the hell to do.”
Clint crossed his arms over his chest and laughed. Then he looked down at Lily and said in his ridiculous baby voice, “Your Uncle Rand’s got big problems. Yes, he does!”
I glared. “It’s really not funny.”
Lily laughed and threw a pea on the floor. Great.
Clint sobered. “Nope. I know. It’s definitely not funny at all. Well, why don’t you go down to the big house. All the women are there together. I’m sure they’d all be happy to school you on everything you did wrong.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I could probably kick your ass while you’re in daddy mode.”
Clint’s grin reappeared. “Try it, little brother. We’ll see how well that works out for you.”
I wanted to punch him—I really did—but Lily was babbling away so sweetly, waving her chubby little fist, it even had me turning soft. I settled for flipping him the bird as I walked out and got in the truck to drive down the road to Rob’s house.
When I got there, the women—Willow, Audrey, Marina, Becky and Charlie—were all waiting for me on the porch, wine glasses in hand, waving. I sighed, knowing this wasn’t going to be fun. At all. A prostate exam might be less invasive than what I was walking into.
“Here he is! We heard you needed the female perspective,” Marina called out as I walked up.
I groaned. Yeah, this was going to be painful. But Natalie sure as fuck was worth it. “Word travels fast.”
“Clint texted,” Becky said with a smile. “And we heard the news.”
“I learned yesterday,” Willow gloated, tossing me a wink. “Rob told me about Natalie. Congratulations.”
I shook my head. “Congratulations are definitely not in order.” I climbed the wooden steps of the huge wrap-around porch and leaned against the rail. The sun hadn’t set yet, but the heat of the day was dropping off to a cool Montana summer night.
“What’s the hang up?” Marina asked. She was the youngest of the women—younger than Natalie. She’d left college to mate Colton Wolf, Rob’s brother.
“The hang up is that she thinks it’s not love.”
“I’m guessing you got all hot and heavy since your wolf scented her,” Willow said.
I gave her a sly wink. “You know I don’t kiss and tell.” They all knew the truth. No shifter male could resist their female once she’d been scented. “Still, Natalie says I barely know her, and she’s afraid of being stuck in a loveless marriage.”
“You proposed?” Becky asked, eyes wide. “I’m surprised you told her about being a shifter.”
I closed my eyes for a second then opened them. “No, I didn’t propose, but she’s human, and that’s where her mind goes. Shitty parents who have a shitty relationship have made her wary.”
“Well, I can understand that,” Audrey said. She was Marina’s sister and our local OB/GYN who’d mated Rob’s other brother, Boyd. “It’s certainly hard for us to understand the whole mating thing when we don’t have the same recognition of mates that you do.”
“That’s just it. I didn’t tell her what I was. She already knew. She knows about the entire pack.”
It was almost comical the way their eyes widened in unison, so I filled them in on how she’d seen me shift all those years ago and what her uncle had shared.
“Wow,” Becky said. “That… that changes some things since she doesn’t need time to come to terms with the whole wolf thing. But I guess that makes more sense then, too. Let me guess, you went all P’s on her.”
I frowned. She ticked off her fingers as she answered. “Possessive and protective and pushy.”
“Of course,” I replied, almost offended I wouldn’t behave like that with my mate.
“That’s all wolf, Rand. Or mostly,” Charlie shared. She was the newest mate, having been claimed by Levi earlier in the summer.
“You have to give her time to fall in love with you. And to believe that your feelings, while biologically driven, are real,” Becky advised.
I took off my hat and rubbed my forehead. “Right. Okay. So dates? That kind of thing?”
Marina shrugged. “Whatever comes naturally. Just time. Spending time together.”
“I don’t have time,” I growled. The four human women drew back at the wolf-growl in my voice, and Willow stepped forward, the alpha female in her ready to give it right back to me. “Sorry.” I held my hands up. “I’m sorry. I’m just going fucking nuts. I’m crazy possessive of her. All of the P’s. And jealous as hell that she’s working down at Cody’s, with all those men eyeballing her. I can’t stand it.”
“You or your wolf?” Marina asked, cocking her head to the side.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, trying to rub out some of the misery. An idea struck me. “Maybe it would help if you all talked to her. If she met you? You know, to get some perspective on what it’s like to mate a shifter?”
“You want us to do your work for you.” Becky laughed.
“I’d do anything in the world for you if you could deliver my mate to me right now,” I admitted with a wry smile. My wolf and my dick both liked that idea.
The women looked at each other. “Sure, we can talk to her. If she wants to talk,” Willow said.
“She could join us for our next ladies’ night,” Marina suggested.
I groaned. “Can’t you see her sooner?” The thought of a whole week going by without me doing everything in my power to get my mate to agree to mating me was killing me.