Page 29 of Arctic Panda's Secret Mate
“Don’t think that I’ve forgotten or forgiven that mate comment,” she added tartly. “I don’t know what kinky stuff shifters are into, but I’m not that kind of girl. Probably.”
It was hard to think of Tristan as anything but totally vanilla—he had a country boy sort of earnestness to him that made you want to hug him and tell him was good.
Kind of like a panda bear.
Haisley’s life had definitely taken a very surreal turn.
25
TRISTAN
Cooking with Haisley was inexplicably comfortable.
She took complete charge of the task, giving him very specific decisions to make, and otherwise she ran the show. They measured and mixed and shaped and kneaded. At first, Haisley stayed carefully out of his reach, and Tristan was equally careful to not reach for her, but after a few batches of dough and a pan of hot cookies that nearly fell to floor when they both flinched back from contact, Haisley was touching his shoulder to direct him and they were brushing against each other a little more than was strictly necessary in the roomy kitchen.
“Tell me more about being a shapeshifter,” Haisley said, when they finally hit a natural break in the cooking. “Were you bitten by a panda at a zoo?” She had a bowl of chocolate batter and was using her finger to clean it. “Mad scientist experiments?”
“Nothing so dramatic,” Tristan said. He had a stirring paddle from the same batch and was trying to figure out how to lick the sweet batter from between the vaneswithout getting it on his nose. “My dad was a panda bear shifter. My mom was a squirrel.”
“It’s hereditary, then? Is it a dominant gene?”
“It seems to be, yes. There aren’t many textbooks on it, of course.”
“Well, are there a lot of you? I mean, for all I know, there’s a whole underground civilization of shifters with their own shifter universities and academic publishing. You said the resort was exclusive, what else is there? How blind have I been all my life?”
“You haven’t been blind at all,” Tristan assured her. “It’s a very closely-guarded secret.”
“You’ve got chocolate on your nose,” Haisley pointed out.
Tristan’s efforts to lick the paddle without getting on his face had been in vain. He went to the sink to wash his hands and nose. “You’re taking this very well,” he said, too soon.
26
HAISLEY
There were often little lulls in baking, and at the second one—when a bar cookie still had twenty minutes to go and the dishes were all washed up and dried—Haisley turned to Tristan and gathered her courage. “I have more questions.”
Tristan was putting away the potholders they weren’t using, and he looked up from the drawer. “What about?”
“You’re a shapeshifter. And you said that I’m your mate, whatever that is.” Haisley knew she sounded annoyed. “It seems obvious that you still have a lot of‘splainingto do, still.”
Tristan gave a cautious half-smile. “I suppose I do. You’ve been very patient.”
“Cookies always come first,” Haisley said. It was hard to be mad at Tristan when he was so good looking andnice. “And, I’d like some proof of these wild claims, if you don’t mind.”
Tristan looked like his brain went to a very different place than hers had, and he stepped forward as if he might kiss her.
Haisley was pretty sure she was going to have to deck him with a baking tray again, which would be unfortunate, because she’d already dented her favorite cookie sheet, but he seemed to realize at the last moment that it wasn’t thematepart of his outrageous claims that she wanted him to demonstrate.
“I’d have to take off my clothes.”
Maybe hehadn’trealized which part of this she was asking him to substantiate after all. Haisley grasped behind her for a tray. Her fingers found a metal trivet. Good heft, but no reach.
Tristan held up his hands and spread his fingers in a gesture of surrender when she brandished at him. “You don’t have to watch, I’m not saying that! It’s just that I’m a lot larger as a panda. I’d split all my seams,” he stammered. “These are nice clothes, I don’t want to ruin them.”
“Can’t you just magic your clothes along with you?”
“Only magical shifters can do that.”
