Darin: The Pride of the Double Deuce - Erotic Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance by Kathi S. Barton Page A

protective. Not of herself but of her daughter. And Jace had been right. She would never be his, not ever, if he didn’t do right by them both.
    “No one will ever hurt you again. Either of you. For as long as I live, I will do everything within my power to not only protect the two of you, but to love you with all that I am. Provide for you both. My family, too, will be there for you when no one else will. We will stand beside you, no matter if we agree with you or not, but we’re your family and will do all that we can to make sure that you are never alone again.” She looked around the room when he did, at all of them staring at her. Then she looked back at him. “This is a promise that I make to you on my life.”
    “No one is that nice.” He smiled at her. “This is...it’s too much. I don’t know what to believe.”
    “I can understand that. And thank you.” She asked him for what. “For not telling me to screw off. For not saying that you simply didn’t believe me. Mostly for letting my cat calm enough that I can eat.”
    He kissed her hand and put it in his lap. Darin wanted her to leave it there, to hold onto his thigh, to give him some comfort too. And when she didn’t pull away, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his notepad and pen. He noticed that Jessie did the same. It was time for work.
    ~~~
    The dinner was wonderful. After a little while, Mercedes started to relax enough to talk to everyone. They were loud and mean to each other, but mostly she could see that they truly did love one another. When the dinner plates were taken away, she watched both Jessie and Darin write something down and she asked him about it.
    “This was a trial run for the kitchen. To make notes on what we need to do when guests arrive. Truman, the chef, asked that we make notes on things we saw that might need improvement, as well as anything that we liked. So far my column on liking things is longer than the improvements side.” He handed her his list. “Tell me what you would put on it.”
    “Me? I have no idea.” Mason, as the other side of the table laughed, asked her if she ate out. “Of course. Nothing this fancy, but yes, Bonnie and I go out sometimes.”
    “Then tell us what you would suggest. I have one. More of a question really. What happens if all the guests want to have dinner at the same time? I mean, this is really nice and large enough for us to talk, but there are nine suites, right?” Jessie laughed and told them there were only six now. “Six? I thought there were nine floors.” Jessie said he wanted to answer that one.
    “There are. But we decided that at some point we were going to run into a kind of situation that you just mentioned. So Darin thought we should have separate dining areas. The third floor is set up like this one, with a temporary bar as well as a dumbwaiter to take the food up and down. He also had a heat room put in, a place to put the food while it’s being readied to serve.” Jessie looked at Darin. “Tell them about the sixth floor.”
    “It’s really not that big a deal. But we made it into a sort of working dining area. There are projector screens on three of the walls that hide away. Also, while the dining won’t be as extensive as the other two places, there is a bar that is much larger that also can be used as a buffet if necessary.” Mercedes noticed that he never once said I did this or that, but said we. When he turned to her, she smiled at him. “Really, I’d like to know what you would do differently.”
    Mercedes looked at the table and decided to go with it. “The flowers are too much. In order to see around them, you have to dodge them. Perhaps if you were to make a flat display or none at all, you could put the tall vases around the room with lighting.” When he wrote it down, she felt silly.
    “This is good. Yes, you’re right. I have been trying to see Aunt Georgie at the other end but wasn’t seeing that it was the flowers. And I