Page 4

Harper

“Hey, Nanna.”

After a power nap and a whole lotta coffee, later that day I walked in through the door of my grandmother’s assisted living unit, only to find she had a full house.

She and her fellow octogenarian partners in crime were sitting around her dining room, guarding their playing cards like they were in Vegas and in a high roller room.

I pressed a kiss to Nanna’s cheek, and while she leaned into it, her eyes remained narrowed as she eyed the other women.

“Hey, honey. Pull up a seat. You always help turn my luck around.”

“Harper’s not gonna be able to help you.” Gladys was an older lady with a too-tight perm dyed a strange shade of faded purple. Her cards were fanned out on the table. “Read ‘em and weep, girls!”

Apparently her hand was excellent as the other women all groaned, tossing their cards into the centre then pushing piles of coins Gladys’ way.

“Hey, those better be tokens.” I pointed to the pile. “We talked about you ladies gambling away your pension cheques.”

“Hush, you,” Nanna said, grabbing the pile of cards and shuffling them expertly, despite her swollen knuckles. “So what’s happening with you, kid? Got a man yet?”

“Not right now,” I said, getting up and collecting all of the teacups. The kettle was turned on and I started brewing a fresh pot of tea. “Men are pigs.”

“Don’t I know it.” Sally was another one of Nanna’s friends and she had the gravelly voice of a habitual smoker. Sometimes I caught her loitering at the back of the facility, sneaking a cigarette her daughter smuggled in for her. “Lemme tell you about my ex husband.”

“Which one?” Nanna dealt the cards swiftly and the women all picked theirs up, keeping their faces perfectly smooth as they checked their hands. “One, two, or three?”

“One—” Sally started to say.

“Drained your bank accounts,” Gladys said. “Two slept with your sister. Three…?” She looked at Nanna.

“Liked guys and nearly gave Sal VD,” Nanna replied. “But not all men are arseholes.” She fanned her cards out, glancing at them, then studying the others. “Are you on those dating apps? Kindle, is it?”

“That’s the book app.”

Sally tossed a card into the central pile and then nodded at Nanna, who dealt her another one.

“Do you mean Tinder?” I had tea bags in the cups and then poured the hot water in once it boiled.

Some slices of lemon, a bowl of sugar cubes, and a small pitcher of milk was brought over to the table.

The ladies smiled up at me as I set it down.

“I think I prefer Kindle. The guys in books are a whole lot better than in real life.”

“What happened this time?”

Nanna paused, her entire attention on me, because no one got anything past Agnes Quinn. The cards began to sag forward and the other two ladies leaned forward, ready to take a peek. I reached over and tilted them back towards my grandmother.

“Guy was married,” I said.

“Harper!”

“I didn’t know. He said he was single, then that his sister was at his place and that’s why we couldn’t…

” I trailed off, realising that confessing to having sex on the first date probably wasn’t appropriate in this context.

“Then I worked out he was married. When he said he was in an open marriage, I jumped in my car and took off, blocking him on everything.” I shot my grandmother a meaningful look.

“You know I wasn’t raised to be a cheater. ”

“Just as well.” She stirred her teaspoon through her drink a little too vigorously, the metal colliding with the porcelain. “You’re a good girl.” Her head shook from side to side. “Not like your mother. You just need a man to look after you.”

“Pretty sure I do an adequate job of that myself.”

I leaned over and wrapped my arm around her shoulders, trying to ignore how thin and frail she now felt.

“You know I can’t die without knowing you’re settled.”

“Nanna!” I cried, grabbing my own teacup and splashing some milk in.

“I won’t live forever and it’d be nice to be able to walk down a church aisle on my own two feet, not stumping along with a Zimmer frame.”

We were in well-worn territory here. Nanna was a different generation, one where men were expected to be providers. My grandfather wasn’t, leaving her with three kids to raise on her own, so she always wanted better than that for us. She looked me over closely.

“You’re a beautiful girl.” A shake of her head. “When you brush your damn hair and pin it back. You have a pretty face. Don’t be afraid to show it!” Her eyes slid lower. “And put a nice frock on for once.”

“I’ll have you know this ensemble got me not one, but three guys’ numbers today.”

Shit. The cards were tossed down on the table, all pretence of playing abandoned. These ladies were all well over seventy, but their minds were like steel traps.

“Which men?” Nanna snapped. “Do I know them? Have you mentioned them before?”

“Don’t worry about that.” Gladys waved her hand. “Do you like them? Are they hot? Are they open to hooking up with you at the same time?”

“And with each other,” Sally purred, then took a noisy slurp of her tea.

“Oh my god, are you fantasising about me having some kind of polyamorous bisexual harem thing?” I paused for a moment, considering the idea and damn.

Those guys were freaking huge and all I could see was a sea of muscle rubbing against me and then each other…

I shook my head, coming back to the room to see the ladies had caught every second of my minor aneurysm.

“Pretty sure that’s not what shifters do. ”

“Shifters?”

Uh oh. Nanna sat bolt upright.

“That’s a man that turns into an animal on the full moon,” Sally supplied helpfully.

“I know what a…” Nanna shook her head. “Three shifter men gave you their number?”

“Um, yeah.” I grabbed the card out of my phone case and tossed it onto the table. Gladys and Sally pounced on it like flies on shit. “They offered to put some picture hooks in for me.”

“Pfft…” Gladys made a rude noise. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

“That’s why I dropped around.” I pulled my phone out and opened the camera app. “I said I had some pictures to hang, so now I need pictures of my best girl.”

My hand went out, holding the camera out to take some pics, but she waved me away.

“I can’t have photos taken.” Her voice turned into a low growl. “I don’t have my face on.”

“Pretty sure you do.”

I reached over to grab her cheek, but my hand was knocked away.

“I need to put some makeup on if you’re going to take photos,” she announced. “But…” She shot me the same canny look she’d worn when watching the others playing cards. “These men, shifter men. They’re very loyal, aren’t they?”

“Loyal as dogs,” Glady said, waving her tea cup around. “That’s what they say on the current affairs show.”

“Love only their fated mate forever.” Sally clasped her hands to her chest with a swoon. “But don’t they all have weird dicks?”

“Sally McIntyre,” I said. “You did not just say dick.”

“What kind of shifters are they?” Gladys peered at the business card and then started typing furiously into her phone. For someone who struggled with phone banking, her Google fu was impressive. “A tiger shifter, a bear shifter?—”

“And a wolf.” My facial muscles resisted my attempt to smile when I remembered Mack’s thunderous expression.

The guy had these weird pale eyes that were almost yellow and he’d stared at me like I was something on the bottom of his shoe.

“But it’s OK. They’re not my fated mates. Trust me on that one.”

“Only one way to find out.” Nanna snatched my phone and leaned in close, the two of us staring at the lens as she snapped off a few shots before handing it over. “You get those photos printed and some nice frames to go with them.”

“Oh-kay…”

“Let these men come around and ‘put up some pictures’ for you.” I blinked, not daring to contradict her. “Then you bring them around here and introduce them to me. I’ll work out whether or not they’re good enough for my granddaughter.”

“Do you think tiger shifters have spiky dicks?” Sally mused.

“What about this baculum thing?” Gladys showed her a photo on her phone. “It’s a dick bone.”

“OK, that’s enough Animal Planet for today,” I said with a shake of my head. “I’ll bet you ten bucks they won’t even call.”

As if to contradict my statement, my phone buzzed. Every woman in the room stared as I unlocked it and then looked at my messages.

Hey, just touching base to see if you still wanted to hook up. My eyes went wide. Shit, put those hooks up. This is Tor, the tiger shifter. I watched yet more bubbles appear as he typed something else. The guy from Bunnings.

Oh, I knew exactly who he was. Dark hair with golden tips, he had the greenest damn eyes I’d ever seen. How the hell he masked what he was before the Great Reveal, I had no idea. I could almost see the same cocky smile he’d bestowed upon me the moment we met in my mind.

“Type something back!” the ladies ordered as I stared at my phone screen.

“Yes, ma’ams.”

My thumbs moved like lightning.

I remember you.

That smile, I could almost imagine it widening right now.

Would his eyes be going all heavily lidded, like they were when he took his time to inspect every inch of me.

I admit, it’d been a long time since anyone looked at me with that kind of fascination.

It was kind of nice, if I was honest. Like the big kitty wanted to eat me all up, one lick at a time.

Which made me wonder, did he have a rough tongue like a cat?

As if sensing my train of thought psychically, a response came through.

“What did you say?” the ladies demanded. “And what did he say?”

“She’s playing hard to get.”

“Nanna!” I jerked my phone away from my grandmother’s prying eyes to read what felt like a stream of consciousness text.

Cool, so me, you, some big power tools, and a date to hang some pretty pictures on the wall?

I didn’t get a chance to respond as another text came through.

We’re professionals, so satisfaction is guaranteed.

I snickered at that, which just had the ladies staring harder.

We could come by tonight if that works for you.

Bring our toolbox, some good Indian curry and a bottle of wine. Are you a red or a white girl?

Easy, tiger , I replied.

Ohh, so we’re making shifter jokes now? Shit, was that like the equivalent of racism or something? Funny as well as beautiful. I like it. So, tonight?

“Say yes.” Nanna was almost gruff as she stared at me, making clear she’d read everything. “You’re all pink in the cheeks, which tells me you like this… tiger boy. Say yes and then report back.”

What was I supposed to tell her? That it’d been way too long since someone had called me beautiful and that was enough to make me blush.

“I guess I will,” I said with a fake sigh. “Just so I’ve got something to talk to you lot about next time I’m over.”

Throw in some garlic naan , I tapped out, and you’ve got a deal.

Before I could think twice about it, I sent him my address. My phone was shoved into my pocket and then I collected my teacup and set it on the sink after I rinsed it, then gave my grandmother a kiss.

“I’ve got to go if I’m to get those photos printed.”

“And buy some frames,” she said, turning back to her cards. “Nice ones if you’re going to hang photos of me on the wall.”

“You got it. Play nice, ladies. I don’t want to come back here and find out one of you has bankrupted the others.”

“We will if you let us know what makes a tiger shifter different to a normal man,” Sally said with a wiggle of her eyebrows.

With a laugh, I walked out and to my car, only to send a message to Daria when I got there.

Looks like your plan worked. The hot shifter tradies are coming over tonight.

So I need to make myself scarce? she asked. Can do, babes.

That wasn’t what I meant. I was relying on her to be my wingman.

What the hell was I going to do with three strange men, shifters, shifter men in my apartment on a Sunday night?

My mind instantly supplied me with a long list of options.

I shook my head and threw the car in gear, taking off down the road to the nearest shopping centre.