Page 4 of Claiming Her Cougar (Shifting Pines #2)

LIAM

I am a maintenance guy. For now. My job is to travel to our properties and make sure they’re running smoothly and safely.

If things need to be upgraded, I evaluate the options and present the best choices to the board for consideration.

Hell, I change light bulbs and empty trash cans if necessary—whatever it takes to keep things moving smoothly.

I’m a maintenance guy with an MBA from a prestigious university, a trust fund, and a very healthy bank account.

But I’m going to be more than that. Even though my dreams of playing hockey are over because of a really bad car accident eight years ago, it doesn’t mean I can’t still be involved in the sport.

For years, my involvement with hockey was purely as a spectator.

Now, there’s talk about the formation of the Paranormal Hockey League, where shifters and other paranormal folk can play hockey on a professional level, and I want in on it.

Atlantic City would be a great spot for a franchise, and I’m going to purchase one with my best friends, Teagan and Jake.

I want to create something that’s just mine, not my family’s.

At Morgan, I just keep the existing sites going.

Sometimes I scout for a new center location, but that hasn’t been happening much lately.

I don’t want to maintain the status quo; I want to be responsible for something new, and I want to help it grow.

The plan is to do a joint venture with Morgan Development and buy an old pier across the boardwalk from the casino Teagan owns and refurbish it to be the home of our hockey team.

Teagan will have the largest ownership stake and be the face of the ownership too.

Jake will be the general manager, and I’ll be the coach.

That needs to be my focus. Now is not the time to pursue any kind of romantic relationship.

Get the team going, establish my career outside of Morgan Development, be here enough to make it logical to get my own place and move out of the pool house—those are the things I need to be focusing on, not reacquainting myself with the hottest girl I’ve ever been with.

Trust fate. Yeah, right. Trust her to have rotten timing.

* * *

“What the hell? I’m going to kill you,” Logan calls out as he approaches me in the Newark Airport. His girlfriend, Daphne, looks confused until she notices me holding a sign that says, “Congratulations! Can I be the godfather?”

“Not funny, dude.” Logan says as they walk up to me. With our tall, muscular builds and dark hair, we look like we could be brothers, not just cousins.

I shrug. “Who else should be the godfather of your firstborn?” I wrap Daphne in a hug. “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have gone to France, and you wouldn’t be home now.”

“Thank you for the ride ,” she says, “but you realize rental cars and Uber exist, right?” She gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. “If, or when, we have a baby, I’ll put you at the top of the list for godfather, no matter what your cousin says.”

“Taking you back to Daphne’s house?” I ask as we get in my old red-and-tan Bronco. It’s a more comfortable ride for three than my pickup truck. Old Fords are my weakness. I restored it so everything’s perfect. New vehicles have more bells and whistles but none of the personality.

“Our house,” Logan states firmly. “We’re going to surprise the family by showing up Thursday.”

“Wow. They’re going to love that. They still think you need to be in Europe until mid-December for the Christmas markets.”

Logan leans against the passenger door so he can face me.

“We had a great time and saw some cool stuff, but it turns out we both wanted to be home and with family to start our life together.” He opens one of the bottles of water I put in the center console.

“Daphne doesn’t have family. It’s just her.

I realized I missed being with all you jerks.

I know I’m fortunate to have you, and I want to share that with Daphne. ”

I wouldn’t be in a rush to come home if I finally had my dream girl with me in a romantic location.

Not that I have a girl. Not that I have time for any kind of relationship stuff.

What was I thinking, giving Mallory my number, pursuing her?

I don’t have time for that. But when I’m near her I don’t seem to be able to focus on ambition.

There’s only her curves and her hair and her smile.

Argh. I need to stop thinking about her like that.

I need to focus on the hockey team, the pier, and my career beyond Morgan Development.

I can deal with romantic stuff later. Maybe.

If Mallory’s still available. I hear a snore from the back seat and see Daphne is already asleep.

“Is Daph a shifter?” Normally I don’t ask about personal things like that, but it’s just us. Even if she wasn’t part of a pack or a flock, she’d still have a shifter community.

“Nope. Human. No pack or anything.” He chuckles. “She asked if she’d lay an egg when we had a baby. I guess she thought since I’m an eagle shifter, I was hatched?”

I glance back to make sure she’s still asleep. “Seriously? Hasn’t she ever known a shifter before?”

“Not really.” He shrugs. “Or not knowingly. You know, it’s only been the past few years since the shifter community has gone mainstream, and she’s a homebody.

She doesn’t have friends having babies. Until they make A Very Shifter Christmas movie or there’s a shifter hockey team, she’s going to be a bit clueless. ”

His mention of shifter hockey reminds me of the emails waiting for me at home.

“Is she cool with it all? The shifting?” I wonder if Mallory’s a shifter. I didn’t sense it or smell anything, but if she was an avian shifter like Logan, there wouldn’t be a scent like with a cougar or wolf shifter.

“Yeah, no problem. She’d never seen me in eagle form before, so I was nervous that was going to freak her out the first time I shifted in front of her, but she just wanted to touch my feathers.

The fact that I shift into a freaking golden eagle and fly around with my dad on weekends was a nonissue.

Or that my mom and brother and your family are cougar shifters.

She doesn’t care that our kids could be eagle shifters or cougar shifters. ”

“Or human,” I remind him. Me, my dad, and sister, Kendall, are cougar shifters.

Mom is human. I wonder if it bothered her, not being included in shifter stuff when we’d go for a run in the woods.

Growing up, it was hard. Shifters were still a secret.

Then that family of grizzly bears purposely shifted on camera for that Brides Behaving Badly reality show, and suddenly the world knew we existed and had been here the whole time.

Still, I had to be careful. I not only had to deal with normal puberty, but also all the changes being a shifter wrought on the body.

“Or human,” Logan agrees. “Or there could be something in her family tree that she doesn’t know about, and we end up with a wolf or a kangaroo or something.”

Shifter genetics are unpredictable, that’s for sure.

I’ve always assumed if I ever have kids, they’d be cougar cubs like Kennie and I were.

I know mixed shifter families are becoming more common now, but when we were growing up, Logan’s family of both eagle and cougar shifters was an oddity.

Shifters with humans weren’t a big deal, but two different shifter species mating and making a family got a lot of whispers.

But hey, love is love. I’d be fine with human kids or wolf pups or whatever, as long as they’re happy and healthy.

My mind drifts to Mallory again, and I yank it back.

We had one hookup and a lunch. There will be no happily ever after or babies or anything like that.

Still, when I think about Logan and Daphne and what they’re starting, there’s a pang in my chest. It’s probably indigestion from the extra hot peppers on my sub earlier. It’s not envy.

Right.