Samuel (Samuel's Pride Series) by Kathi S. Barton Read Free Book Online Page A

that’ll—”
    The growl slipped from his lips before
he could stop it. Jimmy wasn’t a lion like him, but he was a shifter. Wolves
were just as territorial as he was. When he didn’t say anything more, Samuel
did.
    “Just find out what you can about her.
Everything. I know that she has family in Ireland, so maybe you should start
there. It might be nothing at all, but she had an abusive dad, and he’s not in
the picture any longer.” Jimmy said he’d get back with him soon.
    Samuel tried to bury himself in the
files on his desk. He took three calls from Lilly and then one from Aggie.
Things were going well, but there would always be things he knew more about
than they did. Lilly asked him if he’d thought about finding a replacement for her
yet when she called him this last time.
    “You’re going to stay there?” She told
him she was thinking about it. “You know that I need you, but I can understand
why you’d want to stay there. Family and all.”
    “I like Aggie. He’s a good man and is
trying very hard to make this work. And I think he will.” She laughed a little.
“Of course he’s not you, but no one can be you.”
    “Damned right.” He told her to stay. “That
way if I need for you to stop at the Crumbled Muffin you can bring me my
favorite.”
    There had been a brisk knock at his door
cutting off the conversation with Lilly as he had to unlock the door. His mom
and Butler stood there, and he had a feeling this wasn’t going to be good.
    “Did you know that there is a garden in
the back of the kitchen?” His mom moved into the room as she continued. Samuel
adjusted the chairs so that she was sitting across from him as Butler had. “Kennedy
wants to know if it’s possible to have it redone so that there are fresh herbs
for the kitchen. She said she’d do all the work.”
    For a second he wondered why she wasn’t
asking him, then remembered what he’d told her. He glanced at the doorway,
wondering what she was doing. His mom cleared her throat.
    “I don’t care if she wants to work in
the garden. If her meals for the rest of her life are anything like the one we
had this morning, I’d be fine with whatever she wanted.” He flushed a little,
thinking of all the things he could give her. “Just tell her to have someone
get on it when it’s feasible.”
    “She’s upset with you.” He didn’t say
anything to his mom when she said that, but waited for her to continue. “What
did you do to her?”
    “Nothing. She and I had a disagreement
and she stood up for herself. I shouldn’t have grabbed her arm.” He flushed
when his mom raised her brow at him in that you’d better explain that sort of way. “She was leaving, and I didn’t think it was such a good idea. She
punched me in the mouth.”
    Butler laughed but quickly turned it
into a cough when he looked at him. When he cleared his throat for the third
time, Samuel took pity on him and laughed too. He told them she had a great
left and that he would know better than to tangle with her again.
    “See that you don’t. I’ve made her a
list for dinner’s this week from the one she’d given me. It’s only for dinners
because I wanted her to have fun with lunch. She said that she’d make breakfast
for the staff from now on as well.” He took the list and barely glanced at it.
“We’re having standing rib roast for dinner tonight.”
    His mouth watered. Christ, he’d not had
that since…hell; he couldn’t remember when the last time it had been. When he
handed the list back to his mom, she told him to keep it. Butler moved out of
the room when one of the maids came looking for him. Samuel looked at his mom
when she didn’t say anything.
    “You will stay away from her.” He
nodded. “She told me that you and she had an agreement. Would you like to share
that with me?”
    “No.” He knew that if he told his mom
that Kennedy was his mate that she would stop at nothing to get them together. As
it was now he wasn’t sure