Page 5 of Curvy Nanny for the Cougar
I blink. “Magic, huh?”
Carina waves it off with a mischievous grin.
“Figure of speech. Kind of. Just give it a try. Beats eating alone forever, right?”
I glance down at my tablet again.
The ad is still glowing. Still pulsing.
Still calling to something a little bit lonely inside of me.
“Well,” I say slowly, tapping the edge of the screen, “maybe I’ll give it a peek.”
Carina winks. “That’s the spirit. Who knows? Your mate, er, I mean, match might just be one swipe away.”
Chapter 2
Dane
“Dad? Daaaaaad!”
Alex’s sing-song voice cuts through the living room like a siren—minus the car crash and more with the impending doom of spilled juice, or a Lego embedded in my foot.
“One second, pal,” I call back, not looking up from the brief I’ve been editing for the last hour.
Because this? This is important.
Not just billable-hours kind of important—but really important.
I’m working on a zoning case for my cousin Keeton and the Pride he’s built in the Panther Mountains of South Jersey.
Keeton’s ex-special ops. He was my team leader back when I served.
Plus, he’s a fellow Cougar Shifter like me. There aren’t very many of us and it didn’t take long for us to figure out we’re actually related.
I didn’t serve very long, an injury even my Shifter healing abilities couldn’t fix fast enough forced me out, but I still stay in touch.
Keeton is stubborn enough to try building a future for his mismatched crew of misfit Shifters.
It’s a real found-family type deal.
Honestly? I admire the hell out of it.
He found his mate, carved out a little piece of the world where no one messes with them, and now he’s fighting to keep it that way.
And me?
Hell, I’m the only lawyer in our not-so-sprawling, very-claw-happy family tree—so I always take Keeton’s calls and his cases.
They’re usually the ones no one else can or will do anything about. And really, it’s the least I can do.
Keeton always invites me and Alex up there for weekends, especially in the summer.
My kid gets to run barefoot through the woods with his cousins, wrestle in the mud, and come back smelling like freedom and not-quite-shifted fur.
It’s good for him.
“Dad, how much longer?” Alex whines, bouncing in place like he’s got extra springs in his sneakers.
