After a day like today, Juliet could use some girl time with her friends. When Quinn said “us,” Juliet knew she meant the whole gang. She pulled on her raincoat and headed out into the misty evening of downtown Portland, Oregon. She trotted down the sidewalk to the local pub where she and her friends had been hanging out since college. Juliet swung open the heavy door and was greeted with the scent of bacon and craft beer. She took a deep breath, inhaled the flavors, and smiled.
Quinn waved from the table in the corner. Her sassy black friend’s bright brown eyes glinted in the dim light of the pub as Juliet made her way toward the group. Everyone was smiling, and it seemed like there was something going on. Juliet pulled off her coat and sat down just as Quinn poured her a pint of beer.
“What’s going on?”
Her red-headed friend Charlotte began to squeal uncontrollably as if she was trying to hold back the news of her life. That’s when Juliet spotted the giant rock on Charlotte’s finger.
“You did not get engaged,” Juliet said, reaching across the table to grab Charlotte’s hand. She examined the massive square diamond. “Holy shit, look at this thing.” She sat back down in her chair with good-humored disbelief.
“I know,” squealed Charlotte. “Harry proposed last night. I’ve been trying to keep it in all day, but now that everyone’s off work, I wanted to announce it to the whole gang at once.”
“When’s the wedding?” Juliet asked.
Charlotte and her boyfriend—fiancé—Harry had been dating for the past two years. Everyone knew that Harry was going to propose at any minute. Juliet felt ecstatic for Charlotte, but at the same time, she couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. How could she be jealous? Charlotte had been her friend since college and she deserved to have her happily ever after as much as anybody. More than anybody. Charlotte was an awesome girl and Juliet wanted nothing but the best for her. In the time that Charlotte and Harry had been together, Juliet had been in a shitty relationship with Ernest. Then she became single with her shitty ex-boyfriend as her shitty boss. It made it hard to be one hundred percent supportive. Juliet hated feeling that way.
“It’s going to be soon. We just have to decide on the location. I want you all to be my bridesmaids. And Juliet, I want you to be my maid of honor,” Charlotte said, gushing.
As much as Juliet wanted to be excited at the prospect of being a maid of honor in Charlotte’s wedding, it made her stomach clench with anxiety. As much as she loved helping her friends and being there for them when they needed her, Juliet didn’t love being responsible for events or being the center of attention.
“I would be honored to be your maid of honor,” Juliet said, putting her hand on her heart as she lifted the pint of craft beer to her lips. She took a deep swig and set the glass on the table. Juliet knew she would need a few more of these before the night was out.
The girls laughed and talked about the plans for the wedding into the night. Charlotte had narrowed down the venues to a church in Portland, a local garden, and a venue up in the mountains. Everyone cast their vote for what they thought would be the best place for a wedding and, of course, a bachelorette party. As much as Juliet wanted to participate in the festivities, she couldn’t help but feel a little depressed. She tried her best to hide how she felt because she didn’t want to bring Charlotte down on such an important occasion.
As everyone was leaving the pub, Quinn pulled Juliet aside.
“Are you okay?” Quinn asked her once everyone else had walked off down the sidewalk under the orange glow of the streetlamps.
Juliet stood on the damp sidewalk and faced her friend. She couldn’t lie to Quinn. They’d been friends longer than even she and Charlotte. As the two minority girls of the group, they’d always confided in each other about things the others wouldn’t understand.
“I’ve just been feeling lonely lately. And it gets harder every day to work with Ernest. You know? It’s just kind of depressing,” Juliet admitted.
“Girl, you need to quit that job,” Quinn said.
Quinn was tougher than Juliet, but she also had less to worry about financially.
“I can’t. You know how hard it is to get a job as a graphic designer in this town? For every one job, there’s a hundred applicants. I can’t. I just can’t.”
“Then file a harassment charge against the asshole,” Quinn said.
“I’m not going rock the boat,” Juliet said. “But…”
“What??”
“Have you heard about this new dating site called Mate.com? It’s for curvy human women who want to meet shifter men.”
“Are you seriously considering dating a shifter?”
Quinn was more outgoing than Juliet. As curvy as Quinn might be, it was much easier for her to find dates.
“Maybe. Dating a shifter is the new in thing to do,” Juliet said.
“Who told you that?” Quinn asked.
“That’s what everyone is saying. It’s all over the fashion and celebrity news right now. All the women’s magazines talk about it nonstop.”
“You know it’s all hype, right?”
“Of course but…”
“I’ve heard those shifter men are like wild animals.”
“You aren’t prejudiced against shifters are you?” Juliet asked.
“No. Although I was raised to be. I just think you have to be careful with any dating site, let alone one that caters to shifters.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Juliet said, before saying goodbye to her friend and hailing a cab to go home.
On the way home, Juliet opened the Mate.com app and started answering the many questions that were required for her to create a profile. Apparently, shifters weren’t just about having compatible personalities. Shifters were looking for something more. Something bigger. Something more permanent. Shifters were looking for fate.
Juliet made it home to her cold, little apartment. Her cat Snuggles rubbed around her ankles and meowed furiously until she picked him up and gave him a squeeze.
“Did you miss me, Snuggles?” she asked, cooing at her pet.
At least her cat loved her. That had to count for something, right? The fluffy white cat responded with a deep purr and rubbed his fluffy head under her chin and across her cheek, leaving a trail of cat slime on her skin. Juliet wiped her face and set her cat back on the ground. She had another kind of animal on her mind, a big, brawny kind of animal that made her friends question her sanity.
Juliet made a cup of tea and sat down at her computer, jiggling the mouse until the screen came awake. A moment later, she was back on Mate.com, answering more of the silly questions required for registration of a profile.
“If you were a vegetable, what kind would you be?” she muttered to herself.
This was ridiculous. But the preview pictures of the men on the site encouraged her to keep going. If she were a vegetable, what kind would she be? The choices were: squash, celery, cucumber, corn, sugar pea, or green bean. Juliet tapped her finger to her chin, pondering the question. What did this have to do with finding a date? It couldn’t possibly indicate anything of real value. Still, this was the way the site worked. She took a deep breath and chose squash. Squash included everything from zucchinis to pumpkins, right? At least, that’s what she thought. And Juliet liked zucchini.
Once she got through the rest of the questions, some that made sense and some, like the vegetable question, that did not, she was matched with the male shifters in the system. As the progress bar loaded, Juliet felt a sharp sense of anxiety tighten in her stomach. It was as if her entire life was going to change in the blink of an eye, or the blink of a mouse cursor to be more precise.
When the bar finished loading, she was given a list of male shifters who were good matches. She scrolled through them, not feeling any particular attraction or connection to any of them. This one was a ninety-eight percent match, that one was a ninety-seven percent match. Until she scrolled to the bottom where she found a photograph of a man wh
o was a one hundred percent match.
Juliet gasped when she looked at his picture. He was so…handsome. So perfect. His green eyes sparkled in the sunlight as a breeze ruffled his dark blonde hair. She liked it. She liked it a lot. This guy, whose name was Levi, stood in a snowy mountain paradise with the backdrop of a mountain behind him. His smile was infectious, even in the photograph. She couldn’t help but smile back.
“Hello, Levi,” she breathed.
Snuggles jumped in her lap as if to claim his territory, and Juliet hugged him to her chest as she read the rest of Levi’s profile. He was the owner of a lodge up on Fate Mountain. That wasn’t far from Portland. Only an hour’s drive out into the country. Her heart beat faster and Snuggles meowed as he rubbed his head under her chin. She could really meet this guy if she wanted. Just as fear began to gather at the back of her mind, making her move the cursor toward the exit button, she suddenly had a ping on her phone and a message in her Mate.com inbox.
She picked up the phone and carried Snuggles over to the couch. Her heart beating like a mad thing inside her, she flicked her thumb over the screen and brought up the message.
Hello, Juliet.
It was him!
3
Juliet Hernandez. The most beautiful woman Levi had ever seen. She was the woman he was matched with on Corey’s new dating website. He’d taken the chance to message her the night before and they’d messaged back and forth for hours until she finally said she had to sleep. Whatever secret sauce was in Corey’s algorithm, Levi could tell it was working.
During the course of their text conversation, he’d learned a lot about her. She worked as a graphic designer in a job she didn’t love, even though she loved what she did in general. He’d told her about his military career and the lodge and she’d asked him questions about what it was like to be a bear. He didn’t mind answering those questions, not when they came from Juliet. Usually, he would brush someone off if they asked about the life of a shifter. But something about her made him want to share those things with her.
In the few hours they’d texted each other the night before, Levi had come to feel a deep sense of connection to the curvy little human. He had no idea why. Was it because they’d both said they’d be a squash if they were vegetables? Or maybe he was just fascinated with the idea of finding his fated mate. Any of that could be possible. Regardless, he knew he was physically attracted to her. She was everything he liked in a woman. Sweet, smart, curvy, open to his bear.
When he finished dressing for a day of running the lodge, he picked up his cell phone and put it in his pocket, resisting the temptation to text her. He didn’t want to appear too desperate. As he walked down the hall to the elevator, he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He took it out as the elevator doors swished open and he walked inside.
On the way down to the lobby, he discovered a new message from Juliet.
Good morning, it read.
Good morning, he responded back. How is life in the city?
Good coffee, she texted.
The elevator door opened with a ding, and he walked out into the lobby of his lodge. Levi approached the registration desk, which was momentarily free of guests, and asked his human receptionist Kelly for the morning’s updates.
“We’ve had an inquiry about a wedding party. The bride is interested in using the atrium for the ceremony.”
One of the reasons Levi had bought the lodge was the huge indoor greenhouse they called the atrium. It housed a vast array of plant life that could never thrive in the mountain climate without it. There were palm trees, orchids, and a waterfall, all thriving under a glass dome that looked out onto the snow covered mountains and the lake below the lodge. Levi wasn’t a professional gardener, but he took joy in overseeing the cultivation of tropical plants with his horticultural crew. It added a sense of peace to his life that he needed after all his years of serving in the military and fighting a human war.
“When did she want to book?” he asked, wanting to respond to Juliet’s text at the mention of a wedding.
“In a few weeks.”
“That soon?”
“I guess they don’t want to wait. The entire wedding party would come and the bride and groom would both have bachelor and bachelorette parties here at the lodge.”
“Will we be able accommodate them on the dates she’s looking at?” Levi asked, skeptical that they would have enough room in the lodge for so many guests and several wedding parties.
“Since the ski season will be winding down by then, yes. We don’t have a lot of bookings during those dates.”
“Very well. Let her know we would be happy to accommodate her and her guests.”
Kelly nodded and began typing an email as a couple in snow jackets walked up to the reception desk. Levi walked down the hall to his office, his fingers itching to send Juliet another text. When he sat down in his high-backed leather office chair, he pulled out his phone and thought about what to say. Juliet was obviously not happy about something. She didn’t go into detail about what was happening at her job, but he could already tell it was leaving her dissatisfied. The thought of Juliet dissatisfied did something to him that made him uncomfortable. Why? Could this human woman really be his fated mate?
He wouldn’t know for sure until he’d smelled her. He knew he liked her looks. Really liked them. Her profile picture was of her at her office desk. It angled from above and showed an ample view of her cleavage in a modest scooped-neck shirt. It made him involuntarily stiffen. She had the most gorgeous figure and full, ripe, kissable lips. He flicked through his phone and brought up that photograph again. His inner bear began to race ahead of him, showing him images of those lips closing around his hardening rod. He growled at himself and put down the phone. It wasn’t professional to be aroused at work. He had a business to run, a staff to supervise, and possibly a wedding to plan.
Clicking onto his computer, he went to his bookkeeping software and studied his profits and losses for the last month. Corey had been responsible for installing all the software that ran his lodge, but Levi was the one who ran everything. The lodge was doing well. He’d had a good profit last quarter, and it looked like there would be even greater growth this quarter. Word had gotten out about new management, and people all over Oregon and the West Coast came to vacation at his lodge. They enjoyed the excellent service, comfortable rooms, and gorgeous views.
This was what made Levi the most excited and content in his life. But it was also the thing that made his bachelor status the most distressing. He needed someone to share all this abundance with. Without a mate, none of this meant anything. He wanted to build a legacy for his cubs, but he had no cubs. So what was the point of building anything at all?
Levi picked up his phone and quickly sent Juliet a text.
We have better coffee on Fate Mountain.
He looked at the message and hesitated. It almost seemed like an invitation. He clicked off the phone without sending it and stood from his desk.
Everything that he had learned about Juliet in the last day, he definitely liked. There was something about her, something sweet and sensitive that connected with the alpha bear inside him. At the same time, he knew this woman was human. In his experience, humans and shifters didn’t mix well, especially romantically.
In all his years in the military, he had learned exactly how prejudiced humans could be. He had dated a human woman fairly seriously while he was serving in the war. Many shifters were on elite fighting forces like his own crew had been in the Navy SEALs. But that didn’t stop the human servicemen from aggressively attacking any shifter who dared to date a human woman.
Despite his rank and his physical prowess, a group of heavily disguised human men had pulled him out of his bunk one night. As they beat him senseless, they made it clear that the reason behind the attack was his relationship with the human woman.
After that night, she wouldn’t speak to him. She didn’t say specifically why she didn’t want to see hi
m anymore. Nevertheless, Levi knew that they’d done it out of hatred and fear.
Human men just couldn’t measure up to shifter males when it came to strength, speed, or agility. Shifters even had heightened senses that humans would never understand. As long as Levi could remember, there had been serious backlash against his kind. Most shifters didn’t see humans as inferior, but that didn’t keep the humans from hating them anyway.
Even though the climate of the culture had changed since the war, Levi still had the scars from the brutal attack that had almost left him for dead. If not for his shifter healing ability, he probably wouldn’t have made it.
He’d been cut up with razor-sharp knives, and all of his ribs had been broken. He’d even been stabbed in the gut. His wounds would have killed any human, but Levi had managed to crawl to the med tent and get the help he needed to recover. Within just a few weeks, he was back out in the field leading his crew, but that was the last time he had tried to date anyone, shifter or human.
Since returning from the war a year ago, he’d built his business and worked with his crew on search and rescue missions. For the most part, that had filled the hole in his soul that could only be filled by a mate and a family. Yet, the more settled and more successful Levi became, the more apparent it was to him that his work and his rescue missions would not fill that hole forever. The need for a mate was growing stronger every day.
As he walked around the indoor swimming pool in the basement of the lodge, he inspected the cleaner that needed to be replaced, according to his maintenance team. After assessing the cleaner, he picked up his phone and sent a text to his maintenance crew that he was approving the funds for the repairs.
After he was done sending the work text, he opened his Mate.com dating app and finally sent the text he had been hesitating on all morning.
A few minutes later, a text popped up on his screen from Juliet.
What is the best place for coffee on Fate Mountain?
Now Levi had to decide if he was going to tell her that the best place for coffee on Fate Mountain was, in fact, his lodge. The café manager took great pride in ordering the best beans in the region and training the staff to pour immaculate shots of espresso.