Page 6 of Wrong Number, Right Lion

I walked up the steps to the front gate, and there stood a sexy omega. But more than that—my mate.

My beast scented him instantly, proclaimingmine, mine, mineover and over again in my head.

Yes, he’s ours.

I half wondered if my lion had sensed it earlier, simply by listening to his voice. Was that why he pushed so hard for me tofollow up? It would explain the erratic behavior of my beast, that was for sure.

My mate introduced himself, and I did the same. We even had some small talk, but my mind wasn’t fully present. I was too busy in my head trying to figure out what to do next.

The sexy human was my mate. Of that I was confident. But honestly, I didn’t know how to make any of this work. If he was a lion, or even a squirrel, or a chipmunk, or a woodpecker—whatever animals lived around here that liked trees—I’d have just said, “You’re mine.”

He would have said, “You’re mine back,” and we’d be starting our life together already. Or we’d at least be naked by now.

Instead, I was standing there in sweatpants with a semi-hard-on, unsure what to do and trying my hardest not to push too fast.

But as confused as I was on how to go from stranger at the door to telling him we were mates, one thing was for sure—I had to help him. This disaster was huge and had to be dealt with ASAP. The problem being, of course, that every other house that had a tree on it needed help too. There would be a wait, and time wasn’t something he had. Every rainfall until the tree was removed was going to increase the damage.

The entire situation was bad. There was a lot of water damage, roof damage, outdoor damage. A ton was going to need to be done.

I wasn’t an expert by any means, but growing up in the pride, I had helped with a lot of things—a lot of repairs, a lot of renovations. Sure, there was always someone telling me what to do, but I had paid attention. And now that I knew this was my mate, I felt like it had to be me.

He deserved a mate who would take care of him.

And part of that meant getting his house back in order. I started with calling in a favor to get the tree removed. It was outside my skill set and needed to be done before anything else. I could help, but I didn’t have the supplies to do it myself.

“How much is this going to be again?”

He kept asking about costs, and I didn’t really have an answer for him. Obviously, I was only going to charge him for supplies—maybe not even those. But that didn’t seem to work for him, and it made sense. There were a lot of scammers out there. You didn’t just want to give carte blanche to someone when it came to your finances.

“We’re gonna have to figure things out after your insurance company comes and looks at everything,” I told him. “They’ll do a better job seeing if there’s anything deeper than what we do, right?”

“But that’s not answering what it’s going to cost. If they say they’ll give me $500, I can’t handle that.”

“Please, let’s not worry about money. It’ll all work out.” I’d make sure of it. “This was an act of God, and everything about that tree was healthy. I need to go outside now and look at the tree from that angle.”

He nodded, and then his hand just came out—almost as if he was going to take mine. But then he snatched it right back and said, “Follow me.”

Maybe I was reading too much into that moment, but it felt like he was sensing it too—that he knew I was his and he was mine. Or maybe that was wishful thinking.

Whatever the case, going outside was a good idea because in here, his scent just wrapped around me, called to me, and had me wanting to do things that really needed to wait.

He needed help, not to be hit on. And that’s how he would see it.

I needed to call home, talk to one of my brothers, ask them what to do, because I had always assumed that if and when I found my mate, they too would be a shifter. And I was woefully unprepared.

“We need to get this tree down first, and once the guys are done with that, I’ll be able to tarp it and stop the influx of rain.”

I would’ve offered to do this part myself if the tree had been smaller. But it wasn’t and removing the maple was tricky at best. It wouldn’t take much to increase the damage, and then there was the whole safety aspect.

“Yeah, I need to get the tree down and tarps up, first and foremost.” He was talking more to himself than to me.

He shoved his hands into his front pockets, biting his bottom lip. Gods, I wanted to be the one doing that to his lip… and more. How could he be so freaking adorable in such a time as this?

“I’ve done trees before,” I told him. “And this one is more than I can handle, but if they want, I can help. We’ll know soon enough.”

“And how much is this going to be?”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Listen, I know you don’t know me at all, and I deserve zero of your trust, but please, in this—trust me. It will all work out. I know these guys, and they will wait for the insurance to pay out.”

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