Tropical Leopard's Longing (Shifting Sands Resort 8)

“Distantly,” Eugene said quickly. “My mother was Mrs. Grant’s second cousin.”

This was the man who would marry Darla if Breck challenged for her and lost. For the first time since he had first laid eyes on Darla, Breck and his leopard were in perfect instinctive agreement: this man was absolutely, in every way, their enemy.

So it was unexpected when Eugene seemed friendly. “Hey, I’m really sorry for her interference. She’s a little… old-fashioned, you know? And it doesn’t help that she’s trying really hard to impress the dragon high society with this wedding. I hope you won’t lose your job over this.”

“Shouldn’t,” Breck said shortly, and he edged past Eugene to go into the kitchen without encouraging further conversation.

To his alarm, Eugene followed him. “Glad to hear that,” the man said cheerfully. “Say, have you met the groom yet?”

“Liam?” Breck said in surprise.

“You’d like him,” Eugene said jovially. “He’s a great fellow. Did you know he was a dragon shifter? Big surprise to his parents. They come from lines of wolf and genet shifters, there hadn’t been a dragon in their lines for generations.”

“I heard,” Breck said, putting Mrs. Shandy’s tray on the counter and unloading it. Chef and the few people working in the kitchen were at the other end of the big room, working noisily with mixers. Chef was singing a booming opera over the sound.

“Handsome guy,” Eugene said, as if he were sharing a great secret. “And I don’t swing that way myself.” He laughed a little and seemed to think that Breck should be laughing with him.

Breck gave him a hard look, trying to make sense of this baffling conversation. “Miss Grant is a lucky lady,” he suggested, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice and failing.

“Undoubtedly,” Eugene agreed. “But I’m not sure Liam’s… heart is in it, if you catch my drift.”

Breck rolled up his sleeves in order to wash the few dishes that had accumulated while he was away. “Alright then,” he said dismissively.

His unfriendly responses to Eugene’s attempts at conversation finally got through, and Eugene, frowning, gave up at last and left the noisy kitchen.

It was only after the man had left that Breck realized it sounded almost like Eugene was trying to interest him in Liam. Was he trying to sabotage the wedding by setting them up? Breck chuckled. He could have told Eugene he was wasting his time barking up that tree.

Not only had Liam shown no interest in Breck, Breck was not sure anyone in the world would ever interest him again after meeting Darla.

Chapter 21

Darla crept out as her mother was talking over the menu with Madame Nadine on the phone and made her way back up to the restaurant. She paused to make brief, polite conversation with the bridesmaids who were gathered at the bar. They were talking about the cute bartender, and the hunk of a landscaper, and the gorgeous native handyman, but they changed the topic when she joined them, and she heard them start it back up as she left once she’d managed the minimum social niceties.

At least they were enjoying her wedding celebration.

As she had hoped, the restaurant was nearly empty outside of her mother’s dictated meal hours.

Nearly empty. Sitting at the table next to the one she had been at that morning was a woman so large that Darla had to do a double take.

No one, she was very sure, had ever insisted on a personal trainer or a diet to this woman. And Darla thought, enviously, that she didn’t look as though she needed it.

She was, despite — or possibly because of — her great weight, the most arresting woman Darla had ever seen, health and self-confidence like a crown on her head. The chair she was on seemed barely capable of holding her, but she was holding court as if she owned the place, every gesture full of strength and grace. She had waves of thick auburn hair past her waist, and Darla was sure that hours with Lydia and Laura at the spa would never give her such perfect nails.

Chef was sitting across from her, gazing at her in unabashed adoration as they spoke. When he saw Darla, he stood. “Miss Grant,” he said politely.

“Sorry, I’m only here to get my purse,” Darla said, honestly sorry to disturb them. “I must have forgotten it earlier…”

The large woman turned to see her, and her chair gave such a groan that Darla thought it was surely on the verge of collapse. “Ah, you are the bride I’ve heard so much about,” she greeted.

What had she heard? Darla wondered, heart in her throat.

“I am Magnolia,” the woman introduced, offering a bejeweled hand that Darla wasn’t sure if she was supposed to shake or kiss. She settled for giving it the slightest fingertip shake, and Magnolia seemed to accept that as her due. “Come, sit with me, darling. Chef was about to run off and abandon me to start the samples for your harpy of a mother.”

Chef made a noise, as if he didn’t approve of the frank description but didn’t want to come out and say so.

“She is!” Magnolia insisted. “She’s so strict about when the rest of us can come to the restaurant, Lydia says she’s terrible to the staff, and Gizelle is frightened half to death of her, the poor dear.” She gave Darla a sly look. “And banning Breck from serving altogether. We’re all outraged by her self-righteous attitude.”

Darla fell obediently into the chair that Chef had just abandoned.