Hare Today, Bear Tomorrow (Mating Call Dating Agency #1)(4)
He just smiled. She stared at his hands. “So, Stacy—is that what you like to be called?”
“Variations on a theme are what I’m used to, and most of them vulgar, which I won’t repeat. Anyone who really knows me usually ends up calling me Blade.”
“Middle name?”
He grinned again. “Either that or I remind them of that comic book movie from the 90s.”
“You don’t look much like Wesley Snipes,” Eve said. “So I’m guessing it’s the former. Right, so, you’re... a grizzly?”
“Would you believe Red Panda?”
“Ha!” Eve burst out with a thunderclap of laughter. “Uh, no.”
“Would you believe overgrown raccoon?”
“All right, let’s cut the Get Smart routine. We’ve got a bunch of questions here, but... you know what?” Eve pushed the reading glasses back up the bridge of her nose, where they’d fallen just slightly. “I think we can skip most of them. Why are you here, Mr. Graves?”
“Blade.” He was growly and serious all of a sudden.
“If you insist. You’re a professional athlete, you obviously have no problem talking to women and charming them. What on earth does a guy like you need from a gal like me? Don’t tell me you have some weird thing for ferrets? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you.”
He shook his head, tossing dark curls in both directions. “I’m... not very social. I talk, I joke, but I can’t ever connect with anyone on a level past them rubbing my arms. It sounds ridiculous to complain about, but, there it is. And even though I said I wanted to cut back on the road trips and settle down some, I still want adventures. I’ve seen the inside of every wrestling venue from here to Madison Square Garden, but I’ve barely seen any place I’ve been.”
Eve scribbled furiously, jotting down the most important of his remarks. Her list, when he stopped talking, was simply ‘adventurous’ and ‘grizzly’ and the word ‘muscled’ crossed out, but then re-written.
“Any species you’re incompatible with?”
“Uh, grizzlies?” he said with a charming smile. “We’re sort of territorial. Also, bugs are out. I don’t even know if bug shifters exist, but centipedes make my damn skin crawl.”
“Right, I have no idea either, but they’re out regardless. Anything else?”
Before he could respond, even though his mouth was wide open and he was beginning to gesture, Eve cut him off. “I forgot one thing – since I’m sure you read your informational packet thoroughly when you signed up for this interview, you know we don’t do anything on the basis of appearance. We find that at least shifters tend to find mates based on useful things like personality compatibility and... you’re getting up?”
Blade, Stacy, whatever his name was, stood up, stretched his arms above his head and yawned mightily. “Sorry,” he said. “Like I said, we’ve really been beaten to hell lately. Look, I just want someone that can keep me on my toes. Someone who isn’t scared to take a chance on a person like me. Hell, I just want to meet someone who won’t stare at my neck and ask how I got it so thick. You got anyone like that?”
Without missing a beat, Eve bent over and pulled open her locked file cabinet where all the women’s profiles were kept. She was serious about security. “You in a hurry?” she asked. “Because it’s gonna take a while to find anyone who won’t be fascinated with your muscles.”
He let out another booming laugh. “If you got someone for me, I’ve got as long as it takes. I’m gonna go harass your secretary.”
“Assistant!” Dora shouted from the other room, through the intercom.
“Sorry, sorry! I always do that!” Stacy laughed.
The thundering, giant, wild man who had just strode through her door and confused the living hell out of Eve – a first, almost certainly – was just what she’d been looking for.
Garnet, she thought. I think I finally found the bear for you.
3
“I’m sorry, what?” Garnet Pendleton answered Yvette’s call right when she had two fists full of ketchup packets. Hurriedly, she stuffed them into her fridge and shut the door. “Did you say you found someone?”
“I’d say I found someone, yes,” Eve said, barely concealing what Garnet took as either excitement or terror. In all the times she’d met the Mating Call proprietor, she’d never been anything other than cool, calm and collected. This time though, she was much more like a really tart dill pickle than a cucumber. “Although I did have some reservations.”
Garnet reached into the grocery bag, grabbed a handful of mayonnaise packets, and then decided just to stick the bag in the fridge. It’s not like she sorted the huge piles of condiments she helped herself to every time she got a deli sandwich. And hey – they said take as many as she wanted. Truth was, this was one of the little ways that Garnet managed to keep herself in the black. Freelance journalists who moonlight as super low-paid librarians had to cut corners.
“Is he a murderer or something?” Garnet faked a laugh. “Not that, you know, that would stop me if he was nice enough. Sorry, that sounded really desperate.”
Eve let out a muffled laugh of her own. “No, no he’s not a murderer. I like to think I’m better at my job than to set clients up with serial killers.”