My smile was sincere. "I mean it. Makes me wanna bend you over the hood of the car and—"
Cheeks flushing pink, Frederick gentlywhappedmy arm with the wrench. "Not when I'm in the middle of fixing it. Keep it in your pants, cowboy."
I grinned. "Can't blame a man for being attracted to his mate."
I finally wore Frederick down. He laughed, his shoulders relaxing as he tossed the wrench to me. "I love it. You know that. It's just so frustrating when I can't figure it out. This is worse than memorizing the ATP cycle."
"The what now?"
"Never mind."
"You sure you don't want to take a break, baby?"
"No way. I'mgoingto fix this car before I go into labor, I've decided it."
Whenever Frederick put his mind to something, you could consider it done. He was no quitter. I'd learned that after watching him submit paper after paper, hit deadline after deadline. The guy was an academia machine. Sure, I didn't know what the hell he was typing half the time, but I was proud of him nonetheless.
"Fine," I said, handing him back the wrench. "But at least drink some tea."
Frederick relented, gulping down sweet tea. Despite living out here on the ranch for months, my poor mate still wasn't used to proper sweet tea. More like quarter sweet. Though I suppose that was a good thing he wasn't ingesting too much sugar, healthier for our baby and all.
Frederick sighed contentedly after downing the drink and putting it back down on the table. "All right. While I'm on break, let’s get back to the theories of jackalope origins."
I snorted. "A break means abreak, notlet's discuss other work stuff."
But I knew better than to try and change his mind. There were bulls less stubborn than my mate.
"Well, you see," I began. "A long, long time ago, a jackrabbit and a buck deer loved each other very much..."
Frederick laughed and swatted me playfully. "Very funny. This is for a peer-reviewed report, not a storybook."
"Hey, who said I was joking?" I winked. "Open mind, remember?"
Frederick tilted his head. I had actually been joking but he took my remark seriously, going silent for a few moments.
"What if they were both shifters?" Frederick asked with cautious optimism. "Is is possible to create a hybrid creature like that?"
I crossed my arms. "Come to think of it, I have heard of shifters with mixed parentage who have unusual traits..."
Frederick shot up in his seat. "Really? That's incredible! This is a huge discovery, one that would rock the entire scientific world—well, not that they know shifters exist at all yet, but I'm working on it and soon—"
When he suddenly went silent, my protective instincts roared to life.
"Frederick?" I asked. "Everything okay?"
He was sweating and it wasn't just from the heat of the garage. He sank deeper in his seat and nodded.
"Yeah." He paused. "Hm."
"What?"
"I think my water just broke."
Eyes wide, I glanced under the table. Sure enough, it was soaked.
Thank gods we'd already prepared everything in advance. Since we were far from town and the nearest hospital, we had a room set up for a home birth, plus a shifter-friendly doctor on call if we needed him. We didn't know if the baby would come out as a human or jackalope, but around these parts, it was better to take precautions.
"Don't worry, baby, I'm here," I said, carefully helping Frederick to his feet. "Want me to carry you?"
