The Fox and her Bear (Mating Call Dating Agency, #2) Page 2

  “Why can’t I get my mind off this guy I’ve never known?” she asked her toe. It was painted nicely, a purple background with a swirly white thing on top. “I’m going nuts. Must be. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be talking to my damn foot.”

  She got up after a long moment of watching the rain, and a couple good blasts of lightning that arced across the sky. “Well, not like I wasn’t a little nuts before.”

  With a quick twist of her back, and a pair of satisfying vertebral pops, waves of intense exhaustion coursed through ever shred of Angie’s being. It felt like heaviness weighed her down inch by inch, like she’d taken a handful of Xanax and sat there in place watching TV until her eyes closed on their own.

  Luckily, she had enough time to wander to her messy, unmade bed and nestle into the covers before she fell completely dead to the world. Angie arranged her nest of blankets around her in a big, fluffy, goose down heap. Angie hadn’t ever been one to use pillows; they always made her feel too propped up and hot, so her beloved massive blanket mound was perfect.

  Just perfect.

  Just... like him. Whoever the hell he was.

  *

  Rude, violent beeping woke Angie and immediately infused her with something approaching demonic rage. She grabbed her phone in a half-conscious stupor and hurled it at the wall nearest her bed, leaving a black streak. There was a reason she spent so much on protective cases.

  Heady orange light leaked in underneath her blackout curtains. She blinked a few times, rubbed at her eyes and reached for her glasses. As the world came into focus, she groaned, popped her neck, then her knuckles, and sat up. A red curl fell down in front of her face, which she ejected with a puff of air. She tried to run her fingers through her hair.

  “Oh son of a bitch,” Angie swore.

  Tangles. Tangles everywhere. Her giant, copper-hued mane was a rat’s nest that no amount of detangling spray was going to do a damn thing about. She rolled around and grabbed her phone off the floor and smiled at what she saw. That was just the first alarm. She had two more to go.

  It’s important to treat yourself every now and then, she’d learned a long time ago. In her case, it was important to treat herself every single time she went to sleep. After all, what’s better than getting to go back to sleep three times every day without ever being late?

  She was snoring again before her knotty, tangled mass of octopus-like curls hit the pillow.

  *

  “What the hell? Who is it?” Angie sat bolt upright to her phone vibrating so hard it was about to jettison itself off the nightstand. Then she remembered she needed to answer the phone before she could talk to whoever was calling.

  “Hello?” she asked again, this time after actually answering. Her voice was thick and sleepy. “Who is it? Talk!”

  “Hey, uh, it’s Colton. You okay?”

  “Shit, sorry,” Angie said. “I’m not exactly good at waking up. What’s going on?”

  He laughed under his breath. “Look, I’m not sure I even want to ask anymore. I’m kinda scared of you until you’ve had a pot of coffee.”

  “Yeah, yeah, lay it on me. Someone not show up? Do I need to get there early? Just tell me the bad news.”

  “First of all, I’m okay, nothing’s wrong, and everyone’s safe,” he said.

  “Oh right, how are you?” she yawned and then chuckled. “So what’s up?”

  “Yeah, uh, Millie didn’t show. Sergeant Nichols wants you to get here as soon as you can. He’s buying donuts.”

  With a hand over her open mouth, Angie yawned again. “Tell him to get me pancakes and bacon. From Al’s. Otherwise, no deal.”

  “I think he’ll be amenable. See you in... half an hour?”

  “How busy is it?” she asked.

  “Not very. You’ll have time for the pancakes before anything crazy happens, I’m guessing.”

  “Good,” she said. “Make it fifteen minutes, and add a large coffee to the order.”

  2

  “I don’t think I need any more of this.” Dawson Lex took the comically small – in his paw, anyway – shot glass, considered it for a minute, and then tossed it back. “But hey, I’m not gonna make you waste a drink.”

  He sighed, took a swig of water, and sat back down to let his fingers bounce over the keys for a second.

  “You still good?” Tenner, the bartender named after his favorite tip, looked in Dawson’s direction. “Seems like after about twelve of those, you wouldn’t be able to tickle them keys the way you do.”

  “Nah, just gets me ready. Anyway, I’d be surprised if more than ten people showed up tonight.”

  “It’s Saturday, and this is one of four bars in White Creek. Where else are they going?”

  Dawson shrugged. “I dunno, heard something about a fight in one of those towns down the road. Archer Park, Holton, one of those.”

  “Cock fight? I thought those were illegal.” Tenner took a rag off the bar top and used it to scrub the last of the wet beer mugs to a fine sheen before he slung it up onto the hook over his head.

  “Man fight. You know, when a couple shifters hammer at each other for a while, one of them gets a concussion and the other one goes and gets drunk.”

  Tenner grunted. “Sounds sad.” He poured himself a beer. “Which is funny coming from me, I guess. But concussions? Those can be serious.”

  “Oh come on, Ten, you’re an entrepreneur. Small business owner. You’re literally the American dream. Maybe with a little extra weight, I guess. And anyway, you know that bears can end up giving themselves concussions just putting their pants on in the morning.”

  “Watch your damn mouth, bear,” Tenner said with a wry grin. “That’s just how walruses carry muscle. Anyway, what the hell is it to you? You types end up all saggy and baggy when you get old.” He pulled at one corner of his mustache. He wasn’t nervous – Tenner wasn’t ever nervous – but Dawson saw the glint of worry in his eye.

  “People will come, don’t worry. And once they get in the door, you know I’ll keep ‘em here all night.”

  “Play us a song—”

  “Don’t even start,” Dawson said. I get that joke enough from the drunks. I don’t need it from my friend, too.”

  The two of them fell silent for a moment. Tenner considered his beer, took a drink, and plunked it down on the bar top just as the door jingled, signaling the first visitor for the night. A short man, five feet high at the most, wandered up to the bar, ordered a drink that required Tenner to hollow out a coconut, and sat back watching the muted television.

  “You think he’s gonna want anything else?” Tenner asked Dawson, who had started warming up his piano fingers. “Seems pretty absorbed in that Dick van Dyke re-run.”

  Dawson shrugged. “What kind of night you think we’re gonna have tonight? Buncha sad songs? Some jazz? Some Miles Davis? Maybe some weird piano renditions of 80s heavy metal? I’ve been waiting for someone to ask for me to play Holy Diver on the ivory.”

  “Shit,” Tenner said, hunkering down over the bar. “That’s really ivory? I know I bought an old one, but I didn’t think it was that old.”

  Dawson’s fingers danced across the keys, playing out a couple scales. He closed his eyes and found himself drifting along on a pillow of musical notes that enveloped him, carrying him off to a place far from Tenner’s bar.

  He took in a deep breath, letting the scent of pleather seats, stale smoke and old beer drift into his nostrils. For most people, he figured, those smells weren’t exactly pleasant. But for Dawson, who had spent the entire first half of his life constantly on the road, with his parents running from one place to the next to keep ahead of the bill collectors, it was the acrid, oddly sweet smell of home.

  “Daws?” Tenner asked, sliding on his elbows down the bar to where the piano sat. “You listening? Or are you on one of your space trips again?”

  Space trips. What Tenner had named Dawson’s semi-regular habit of drifting into a trance as he warmed up his fingers. With them dan
cing over the cool composite material of the keys, going from A to F-sharp, and back down again, it was a kind of hypnosis. He never had been able to clear his head, not since coming up in the world he had – a world of manic movement, near panic at some points – taught him to be constantly vigilant.

  As he tinkled out a C minor scale, his thoughts drifted to a girl, one he didn’t know. He had dreams like that from time to time, of walking hand in hand with someone he’d never met. At the end of the dream they always just faded off into the ether, never to be heard from again – except maybe in another nighttime drifting. But this one was different, somehow. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but Dawson thought there was more to this little day dream than just a flitting fantasy. She had green eyes, burning green eyes, and red hair so shocked through with the color of fire that he had to touch it to make sure her head wasn’t on fire, like in that one Lady GaGa video.

  But just as suddenly, he was gone, and he was once more in Tenner’s bar, the place he called home, the place he made enough of a living to keep his bear stomach filled. Which, by the way, is no easy feat for a bear who needs more than most normal humans need for a whole day, just to get out of bed in the morning.

  The little drifting quilt of notes that carried him was a comfort. A much needed comfort. The door jingled again, jarring Dawson out of his moment of quiet reverie. The door chime was a bit of an odd curiosity. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but Tenner liked it, so what the hell.

  Dawson snorted like someone just waking up and getting the very last snore of the night out of their system. “Whassat?” he asked with a start, and then shook his head. “Oh, it’s Jimmy.”

  Jimmy Delfort, a crocodile-shifting barfly with the consumption habits of Norm from Cheers, and the physique to match, sauntered in and chug-a-lugged the glass of beer Tenner poured as soon he recognized the round-belly.

  When Tenner returned his attention to Dawson, the big bear was still poking away at the keys, creating a comfortable, Muzak-like sound. If someone were crooning the words to some wholly non-offensive light rock ballad, it would’ve been right at home.

  As the night went on, the bar filled up more than either Tenner or Dawson expected. The fights down the road must not have been much of a draw. The shifters of White Creek drank their fill, ate a disgusting amount of Tenner’s perfected poutine, and even managed to get through the whole night without once knocking over the antique popcorn machine next to Dawson’s piano.

  He took requests that made him happy, some that made him sad, and others that he didn’t actually know, but pretended.

  “Hey man,” someone he didn’t recognize, whose breath carried the spicy-sweet aroma of bourbon in heavy, heavy doses, came up and clapped Dawson on the shoulder. “Look at you. You’re sad.” Except it came out lookhs at you, you’re shad.

  Dawson was used to random bar patrons giving him advice, but not really this direct. She was smaller than the usual member of Tenner’s crowd, and vastly more attractive, but that wasn’t saying much. Anyone that happened to be female would have stood out in that crowd. It might’ve been a sad sausage party, but damn it, it was their sad sausage party. “Do I know you?” Dawson asked, as politely as he could manage after a night of Billy Joel requests that he dutifully granted.

  “No,” she said. “Maybe. I’m not sure. Do you?” this was followed by a long, trailing giggle. He could always tell when someone wasn’t in their element, and this lady was definitely not. She had a certain elegance and grace to her that didn’t seem to make a lot of sense in this old, wood paneled joint. “I’m Yvette.”

  She stuck out her hand, and Daws shook it. “Nice to meet you ma’am, you doing all right? Seem a little liquor-struck.”

  “Oh you know,” she said, exhaling with a sigh. “Sometimes life just makes you need a drink, yanno?”

  “I hear you,” Dawson said. He patted her shoulder. The woman had enormous eyes, almost comically so. And when she turned her head it went further than he was used to seeing a person’s head turn. “So, what brings you in tonight?”

  “Huh? Oh, aren’t you busy or something?”

  “Nah, last call’s in about ten minutes. People don’t normally get too interested in piano music at this point. And if they do have the wherewithal to ask, they always want to hear Freebird. And, uh, yeah, I’ll break a nose before I play Freebird again. So, what’s shakin’?”

  She shrugged. “To be honest with you, I was just looking for someone. I’ve been running low on bears in my Rolodex and I don’t think I’ve ever met one of you that could actually play a piano without breaking it.”

  Dawson shot her a confused, cocked eyebrow. “For your... Rolodex?”

  “Oh, right,” Yvette said. “I run a dating service. Mating Call. Heard of it?”

  Dawson nodded to Tenner, who deposited a thick, oily-looking stout on top of his bear paw coaster on the piano. Taking the mug in his hand, the bear took a small swallow, then a longer, deeper one. “No,” he finally said. “I don’t get out much. How does it work?”

  “The dating agency?” Yvette accidentally laughed. “Sorry. That’s just not something I generally have to explain. A girl calls, a guy comes in for an interview, and when we find two that match, we... match ‘em. Mate ‘em, whatever you want to call it.”

  Immediately, Dawson’s thoughts started wandering, the way they always did. It was the green-eyed girl again. Her nose was small, round, perfect. Her cheeks were sort of thin, and her flame-red hair framed a face covered in freckles. It was like she was inches away from him, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t touch her, couldn’t take her hand.

  Yvette slapped him on the shoulder, jolting him out of the short fantasy. “You keep doin’ that, buddy,” she said. “It’s like you’re daydreamin’ about... hey, wait a minute.” Her eyes started sparkling with something that even not knowing her, Dawson immediately recognized as ‘hatching a plan.’ “You with anyone? No, you’re not, what am I saying?”

  He scrunched his eyes, wrinkling his forehead. “What are you talking about? How do you know I’m not seeing anyone?”

  “You’ve got a blue shirt and slightly less blue pants. No self-respecting girl would ever let you leave the house like that.”

  Dawson looked down. “They look the same to me,” he said. “But wait a second, how do you know I’d live with whoever it was I was dating?”

  “You’re a bear, bears like to make very strong decisions without much thought. Thankfully it usually works out for the best.”

  He shrugged. “Okay so even if you—”

  “Look, this is what I do for a living.” She plunked a card down beside the half-full beer glass. “When do you usually wake up?”

  “I help Tenner clean, get to bed around four. Usually up about noon. Why?”

  She smiled. “Because you’re coming in to my place tomorrow at one-thirty. Address is right there. I’m going to interview you, and we’ll find you someone that’ll match those pants for you.”

  “I, uh,” Dawson was stumbling over himself like his lip was lying on the ground. Tenner, for his part, was laughing almost hysterically. He was just about purple. “Hey! Wait! I never said I’d come!”

  Yvette was halfway out the door already, but she turned her head all the way around. “Your mouth might not have said anything, but those eyes sure did. Like I said, I do this for a living.”

  She was the last one out, as it happened. Somehow, Dawson had lost fifteen minutes talking to the woman with the strange accent and the slight slur in her voice. He stared, mouth agape, at his old friend, who was just then recovering his breath and his normal pallor. “You did this, didn’t you?”

  Tenner shrugged. “Did what?”

  “Set me up! You got her to come over and hoodwink me, shanghai me, bamboozle me into—”

  “Jeez, welcome to 1946, Beaver,” Tenner said, tears leaking out the corners of his eyes. “You’re the only bear in the world I ever knew that started talking like he was living on Nic
k at Nite when you get mad. It’s kinda cute.” The bartender fluttered his eyelashes, which were not at all luxurious, and sat atop ruddy cheeks and a giant mustache. Dawson glared.

  “Why? I mean, what the hell? Why’d you do that?”

  “Look, kid,” Tenner said. “You’re a nice guy, a little gruff, sort of a temper, but you’re a nice guy. You deserve better than sitting in a bar, noodling at a piano and playing Billy Joel covers for the rest of your damn life. And anyway, she was right. You’re a damn eyesore with your mismatched pants. Somebody’s gotta fix that.”

  As defiantly as he could, Dawson swallowed the rest of his beer. “Yeah? Oh yeah?” he stood up, a smile betraying his true feelings, but he was doing his best to look angry. “Well I’ll show you, you old son of a bitch, I’ll go to that woman’s place, and... wait, what the hell am I saying? I can’t do that.”

  Tenner got quiet all of a sudden. “You... can’t? Why not?”

  “I’m not the type to do all that sort of thing. I can find my own mate, thank you very much. It’s just that I’m not looking, is all.”

  “Right,” Tenner said, drawing the word out to about thirteen syllables. “So when you’re sitting there playing that piano—which by the way is just about the best mate-catching skill I’ve ever heard of, and it’s going completely to waste because you’re playing to a bunch of dudes—and you zone out, you gonna tell me you’re not thinking of some girl?”

  Dawson shrugged. “I don’t think of anything. I just zone out. What’s it to you anyway?”

  Tired, grumbly and grouchy at having been caught red-handed in his slightly-pitiful pining, Dawson got up and bid his friend farewell. “I’m going upstairs,” he said. “I got some thinking to do.”

  “Yeah, well,” Tenner said. “If I was you, I wouldn’t be late tomorrow. You really, really don’t want to be late.”