Hometown pride, p.1
Hometown Pride, page 1
Hometown Pride
The Lion's Heart Book 1
Philippa Lodge
Copyright
Hometown Pride © 2022 Phyllis Laatsch
Cover Art © 2022 Phyllis Laatsch
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information browsing, storage, or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Contents
Dedication
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
Epilogue
Other Books by Philippa Lodge
About the Author
Excerpt from Secrets of the Pride, Book 2 of The Lion's Heart
Dedication
To Mom and Dad and to all my siblings, without whom I would have been an only child.
And to my writing group, the sprint subset of the writing group, and the editing subset of the sprint group. And to all those within one or more of those subsets who read my manuscript and critiqued it. Thank you!
Chapter one
“Wild lion prides keep their females close, but push their males out when they approach maturity. With few exceptions, shifter lion prides, similar to shifter wolf packs, keep all their members forever. Even those who leave the home territory for education, work, or to gain experience, nearly always come back within a few years or even within a few days or weeks."
Renard, Mary M, (2025) “Prides and Prejudice: The African and Asian Lion Shifters.” In M. Renard, L. Dugan, E. Ogden, et al. The Shifter-Watcher's Handbook: A Guide to North American Herds, Prides, and Packs. (3rd ed., vol. 1, pp 133-157). Random Penguin House.
As always, his arrival rippled through the tiny Freiburg, California library full of women and children. Angelica Kass, picking up various food-shaped wood blocks that had been scattered across the carpet, glanced out of the corner of her eye at the double glass doors where the big man was silhouetted. Yep. “Freight Train” Tremaine Jones. Contractor and handyman.
He swaggered inside until he wasn’t back-lit anymore and she could see the perpetual scowl on a face like he’d hit a few walls in his time, the worn jeans across muscular thighs, the middle a bit soft, and the shoulders and chest broad under a ratty gray t-shirt with brown paint or something icky splashed across it. Like her, he was half-human, half-lion shifter, but he reeked of dominance. He was a few years older than her, maybe three or four, which put him at just over forty, and maybe it was his constant frown or his serious air or the salt and pepper gray of his hair, but he seemed older.
As usual, the babies and toddlers running amok while she and the moms tidied up after story hour were quickly corralled and strollered and baby-carriered and whisked to safety outside.
Tremaine ambled away from the door, staying next to the magazine section as far from the kids’ area as he could get, nodding politely at the women who greeted him as they escaped.
Nobody could clear a room of women and children faster than a bad-tempered male lion shifter.
Angelica could feel Tremaine watching her as she rolled the bookshelves back into place, stacked the tiny chairs on their cart, and wheeled them into the small storage closet just off the children’s section. She glanced into the office. Her boss’ door was closed, but it didn’t smell or sound like she was in there with her mate. Where her boss was, Angel didn’t know. Maybe they’d gone out to lunch and some afternoon delight. She didn’t care, either, as life in the library was a lot easier without Lipstick Lyssa.
She sat in the checkout desk chair and spun it so her knocking knees were hidden. Face to face with the shifter she’d been imagining as she got off every night to ease herself to sleep, Angelica froze and held back a growl. As usual.
“Blues musicians,” he grunted as he plunked down the book about Middle East politics he’d checked out two days before. It was his usual demeanor, ever since a few weeks before when he strode into the library, fierce and rugged and covered in dirt, looking for information about Leonardo Da Vinci.
He scowled in response to her scowl. He was one grumpy bastard, Freight Train Jones.
But then, so was she.
She couldn’t fault him for his wide-ranging intellectual curiosity, either. He checked out a book or two every few days and always had something to say about them when he came in demanding something completely different.
At night, alone in her bed, it didn’t matter. She’d glimpsed him naked one time after he shifted, because clothes didn’t shift, they fell into a pile or tore. His shoulders were drool-worthy and his cock looked more than adequate. And then he turned his back and she saw his tight butt. In her imagination, he had stamina. Even in this pride of goddamn over-sharers, she’d never heard if it was true, but then again, he’d been back in the area for less than a year and hadn’t dated anyone as far as she knew. Since she would only ever experience him in her imagination, she didn’t care.
She told herself she didn’t care.
Not that she was bitter or anything.
“Lyssa is out and will be able to help you in a bit. In the meantime, music is 780.” Her boss had chewed her out for giving reference help twice that day already. She waved a hand toward the shelving and thumped her knuckles against her monitor. She jerked back her hand and knocked into the stack of picture books she needed to check in, sending them sliding to the floor. The metal cart overflowing with books to be shelved made a pleasant bonging noise when she hit her head on the side of it.
She froze. In the fading echo of the clanging cart, she heard the distant, rhythmic thump of her boss and her ex-boyfriend humping in the big storage closet by the bathrooms. Her goddamn shifter ears heard him moan.
Freight Train – and who the hell had that for a nickname? – stared in disgust as she sat up rubbing the bump on her head. Way to seduce him with your grace, Angel.
Abruptly, she’d had enough.
She shoved her wheeled chair back and stood. She strode toward the stacks and could hear Jones prowling after her. He probably thought she was going to help him. She diverted to the back corner and banged her fist on the supply closet door. “Would you goddamn stop fucking all the goddamn day and come out here and do your goddamn JOB?” she roared.
She spun around and crashed into Jones, who caught her as she stumbled. She shoved his hands off her and turned back to the door. “Forget it. I quit!”
She shoved past Jones, who let out an oof as her elbow accidentally-on-purpose connected with his belly, marched straight to her cubicle in the office, unlocked her desk drawer to pull out her big purse, into which she shoved the wedding picture of her parents and her favorite mug, then hesitated over the brightly-colored librarian platitude paperweights Carol, her former manager, had given her over the last three years. She shoved those into her bag, too, as they were hers and not the library’s, then grabbed her jacket and her spare sweater from the coat rack and headed for the door.
Jones was still there, arms crossed over his chest, watching.
“You know, the entire fucking library catalog for the entire fucking county system is on the computer right there.” She jabbed a finger at the console with the pride logo screensaver and the big, colorful sign over it announcing Catalog Search. She and Carol had discussed the sign, argued over it, drafted it, and collaborated on it. Angel had made it and hung it up. It was pretty and functional, unlike Lipstick Lyssa. She thought for a moment about taking it, too. “You just have to type in your search. Log in and request it if it’s not on the shelves and they’ll bring it from another branch. And if they don’t have it, they can get it on loan from elsewhere.”
Lyssa, her younger, boobier manager, skidded around the corner, still smoothing her skirt down. “Where are you going?”
“I quit.”
Lyssa wrinkled her nose. “You can’t quit.”
“Huh. Really? I just did because I’m not enslaved to you. I’ll send the board my resignation letter.”
“But you still have shelving to do!”
“Well maybe, Lyssa, you could do some fucking work instead of fucking at work. Oh, wait! Shelving is beneath you because you interned at the Library of Congress, I forgot. Never mind that Carol was eighty-five when she retired and did her share of shelving right up to the last day. Maybe if you hadn’t spent all day on TikTok and getting pounded in a closet, the shelving would be done already and we’d both be able to answer questions. Oh wait, I’m not allowed to answer questions because I don’t have a degree and didn’t intern for a couple of weeks in the Library of Congress, making coffee.” Angel was being bitchy, but she didn’t fucking care.
“I didn’t only make coffee! That was only one of my duties!” Lyssa gasped, part outrage, part oh-poor-me. “And it was a whole month. Almost a month.”
Angelica turned back to Jones in order to avoid peering into the shadows where they all knew Lyssa’s new mate was lurking. “Here you go, Freight Train. Here’s a real librarian . Ask your question quickly, because sex with my ex-boyfriend is so tempting she can’t do the job she’s overpaid for.”
She slung the bag’s strap across her body as she stormed out, then jogged through the patch of woods leading to her little house, the one she’d moved into when she became the assistant librarian. The one where she’d cared for her mother as she died, had mediocre sex with her ex-boyfriend, and cried on Carol’s shoulder after she lost both.
Tremaine, yes, he was sometimes called Freight Train, though not usually with as much of a snarl, watched her go, her ass twitching enticingly. He wanted to laugh, but she’d think he was mocking her when he really wanted to cheer for her.
Bradley, Lyssa’s new mate and third in command after the pride’s matriarch and her daughter, prowled up next to him reeking of sex. He crossed his arms over his chest, mirroring Tremaine as they watched Angelica disappear into the woods, trotting along quickly, her overstuffed bag banging against her side.
“Ex-boyfriend?” Tremaine hadn’t heard that Bradley and Angelica were together. Obviously, it was before he’d started coming around the library every day, drawn in by Angelica’s knowledge and her scent.
Bradley scoffed. “It was a while ago. It wasn’t serious.”
Tremaine turned his head slowly toward Bradley and met his eyes, staring him down, letting every bit of disdain show, every smidgen of knowledge that he could beat Bradley’s ass in a fight, but wouldn’t because he didn’t fucking want to be third in command of a dysfunctional, floundering pride in the backwoods of Northern California. “Let me guess: You broke up five minutes after Lyssa moved back.”
Bradley rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes darting away. “Well, it was the mate bond. Like, bam. And it wasn’t serious with Angelica.”
“You let her down easy, obviously.” Sarcasm. “And a couple months later, you’re banging Lyssa in the supply closet at Angelica’s work with everyone who walks in that door knowing exactly what you’re doing. At least you waited until story time was over. Very classy.”
Every fool in the pride was all excited that these vain and shallow assholes were mated with what they claimed was a true mate bond. After all, most everyone in the pride was a fool. The matriarch, Bradley’s aunt, had given a little speech at the mating ceremony about how precious the bond was, all the while smiling at her own mate. Tremaine had mostly been able to contain his gag reflex, though it got hard when the dancing started.
“Now what am I going to do?” Lyssa’s spoiled, petulant whine broke their standoff. How had he never noticed how whiny she was before? He had never talked to her, probably.
“Oh, baby, I don’t know. I’ll help you find a new assistant.” Bradley scurried to her and held her face in his hands, expression full of pity and adoration.
“It seems like Angelica ran this place by herself, so maybe Lyssa could do her job. Aren’t we paying you twice what we paid her?” He handled the accounting for the pride pro bono, so he knew exactly what she was being paid. “We could cut your salary in half and maybe then you could do it.”
“But I’m in charge of collection development and research. I have an MLS.”
Tremaine rolled his eyes. “I don’t even know what that is.” He did know but didn’t much care at that moment. “I know you have Instagram and an urge to fuck in closets and the only answers you give are ones you look up in the online catalog. Which, I’m reliably informed, I can do myself.”
Bradley swelled up like he was going to defend his mate, but Tremaine glared at him for several seconds before turning his back and strolling out, all interest in blues musicians gone. He had Google and Wi-Fi and routinely downloaded ebooks from the library system. He'd mainly come in to see Angelica, though he hadn’t admitted it to himself until that moment.
Surprisingly, it took almost an hour before Ella, the pride’s leader, turned up on Angelica’s doorstep. Surprising because Lyssa had probably been on the phone with her within seconds, whining.
Ella had probably given her time to cool off a little. Didn’t work. She’d been banging around her house, sorting through the accumulation of three years and everything her mother had left her, deciding what she was going to move and what she would give away once the pride took the house back.
The firm knock at the door was only necessary because Angelica had not chosen to run out onto the porch as soon as she scented her alpha. She did open the door within seconds because she wasn’t completely stupid. “I was in the back of the house.”
Ella was sixty-ish, well past cub-bearing years, but still in her prime for a shifter. She was tall and willowy with muscular grace, strict and bossy, and feigned empathy well. Mostly. Now, she was just plain pissed.
“The mate bond is a precious thing.”
Angelica couldn’t meet her eyes, being just medium as far as rank went. Medium as far as anything went. “Yes, but—”
“Lyssa and Bradley are very upset.”
Angelica gritted her teeth and swept past Ella’s eyes to her forehead. “The poor, selfish babies.”
“They’re in the first throes of mating, we make allowances.”
“WE make allowances? Only WE aren’t the ones who have been doing two people’s jobs for the same pay. WE aren’t the ones with a boss who treats US like an idiot. WE haven’t been required to do everything for the person who came in and took my life away. I have been doing that. Alone. I’m supposed to sit there and smile and do her job and mine, getting paid half as much? And clap for their magical mating?”
Ella stared at her for a while, that fierce, powerful brain churning.
So Angelica went on. “Not all of us find mates, Ella. Not all of us are dominants. Not all of us got to finish college. Not all of us get everything we want. Some of us don’t get anything we want.”
“You’re still pride. You’re still ours.”
Angelica almost cried tears of rage. “You keep saying that.” Somehow, Ella didn’t give a flying fuck that Angel had dropped out of college to care for her mother, then once her mom had gotten better, there was no budget for Angelica to go back to college. There weren’t even a few dollars here and there to help pay for the online classes she was taking one at a time, trying to get that bachelor’s degree so she could get a Master’s in Library Science. There was barely any money in the library budget and this house to take them both in when her mom’s cancer recurred.
Ella’s eyebrows went up and her lips curled in something smirky that was probably supposed to be a smile. “It’s true. Think very carefully about what you want to do next.”
Angelica had had enough. “Is that a threat? If I don’t put on a happy face, you’ll kick me out? Or make my life more miserable?”
Ella looked shocked for only a moment, before the sneer came back. “Don’t back me into a corner, Angelica. Don’t back yourself into a corner.”
“Right. Well, let me get back to packing and figuring out what I’ll do next.”
“Packing?”
“Well, I’m not the library assistant anymore. Not as long as Lipstick Lyssa the Lusty Librarian is there, anyway. Maybe you could hire a competent head librarian and I’d come back. I suppose the pride will want the house for whoever takes my job. You might hire two assistants, in fact, because the library needs two people to run, really, and all Lyssa does is fuck around, literally. It’s a two-bedroom house, so that would work.”
Ella glanced into the open doorway.
Angelica’s stomach dropped as she knew the real reason Ella had popped by. “Oh my god. You're going to give my house to Lyssa. Sure, why not? She stole my boyfriend, my job, and now she can have my house. Whatever.”
“We’ll find someplace for you to live. We would never—”
“Never leave me homeless. Right. You would just shunt me into a dark, moldy studio apartment, the way you do to the other pride members you don’t like. It’s just Angelica, she doesn’t need anything nice.” No one interrupted the alpha, so she had a twinge of uh oh, but barreled on. “I’ve got feelers out already. I’ll let you know. Thanks.” She closed the door in Ella’s face. She half expected it to come blasting back open under the force of the lioness on the other side and she would be eviscerated. She went back to throwing books with unnecessary force into the big box she was using for everything she was giving away.
