Dirk's Love by Marisa Chenery (top 50 books to read txt) 📗

don’t tel me you’ve changed your mind about finding your mate that way.”

“It’s not like that.” He paused. Just thinking about Ryann was ramping him up again, making his mating urge dig its claws harder into him. “Wel , you see, I’ve already found her.”

“What? You did? When? Who is she? Is she from your site?” Jaden barraged him with questions as she got off the couch to stand in front of him, wearing a wide smile.

He chuckled. “Slow down. One question at a time.

First of al , she isn’t one of the women who signed up for the service, though she’s connected with it. It’s Ryann, the woman I hired to assist me with running it.” Jaden scowled. “Wait a minute. Are you saying you’ve walked around this entire time in the throes of the mating urge and no one noticed? You hired Ryann a couple of weeks ago, at least, that’s what you said.”

“No, it hasn’t been like that. And yes, it was that long ago that I first “met” Ryann.” Dirk made air quotes. “But remember, I didn’t meet her face-to-face until this afternoon remember, I didn’t meet her face-to-face until this afternoon when we had lunch together.”

“I guess I’m off the hook then,” Miles said with a smile.

Jaden sighed. “Darn. It’s too bad Ryann never fil ed out a questionnaire. Then, we could’ve at least compared it to the one you did, Dirk, to see if the outcome would’ve been the two of you being a good match.”

“Actual y, she did,” Dirk said.

“She did?”

“I wanted someone to test the site as if they were someone signing up. Since I hadn’t told any of you about the service, I asked Ryann to do it. Once she did, I only looked it over to make sure everything had worked.”

“Let’s go look at it then,” Jaden said excitedly.

“We’d have to go upstairs to my room to use my computer.”

Jaden hooked her arm through his. “That’s fine.” She looked back over her shoulder. “Come on, Dad and Leif.

And no backing out now, Dad.”

Leif stood, then came over and tugged Jaden away from Dirk, tucking her under his arm. Miles also gained his feet before he fol owed them out of the room. Dirk heard him mutter under his breath, asking what he’d gotten himself into.

Upstairs in his room, Dirk walked over to the desk he’d set up in the corner and sat behind it. He moved the mouse to turn off the screensaver, then launched his browser. It only took him a few clicks to get into Mate Connection and his profile. He clicked on the link that would take him to his possible matches. Since he real y hadn’t gotten the service out to the public yet, seeing Ryann listed hadn’t made him think anything of it. He thought it was a glitch he’d have to work out, that the program had put her there because she was the only female who’d signed up.

Dirk clicked on Ryann’s name and was instantly brought to her profile. There wasn’t a picture of her, since he’d told her not to worry about it. He’d been more concerned about whether the info she fil ed out in the questionnaire had worked. He’d also ignored the bottom of the page on both of their profiles, where it gave a percentage of how compatible she’d be with him. He went back to his to look. It read ninety-nine point nine.

He pointed to the number on the screen. “Holy shit, it worked.” Dirk had it programmed so it would, but there’d been a smal part of him that’d thought it wouldn’t be that accurate.

“There you go,” Jaden said behind him as she leaned over his shoulder for a closer look at the screen.

Once she straightened, she turned to face her father. “No point in waiting, Dad. Dirk already has the website open, so you might as wel take his seat and fil out the form.” Dirk spun his steno chair around and stood. He gestured for Miles to take his spot. Miles did not look at al happy about being forced into signing up. Even though this man had been an asshole for hundreds of years, Dirk couldn’t help feeling a smidge sorry for him.

“Look, Miles, if you real y don’t want to do this, then don’t. There’s no point, if you aren’t wil ing to go through the whole process,” he said.

Miles shook his head. “No, it’s fine. If this is what Jaden wants, I’l do it.” He smiled. “She may be my daughter, but she’s stil the foretold one, after al . I have to do what she wants, since she rules and al that.” Dirk, Leif and Jaden laughed quietly. Dirk knew what was going through the others’ minds, the same as it was through his—that Jaden didn’t rule.

Miles slowly sat on the chair and sighed as he turned to face the computer.

Leif laughed, and said, “It’s not as if you’re a dead man walking, Miles. Who knows, maybe you won’t find anyone this way either.”

Jaden scowled at her mate. “Don’t say that or you’l jinx him for sure.”

“Whatever.” Leif looked at Dirk. “I’m going to leave you three to it. Once you’re done, we can go out back and get some sword practice in. I know you must be feeling pretty keyed up with the mating urge riding your ass. I remember what it was like.”

Dirk nodded. “Al right. I’l meet you in the backyard in a bit.”

After Leif left, Dirk got Miles set up on the computer before he backed up a bit to watch father and daughter, while Miles fil ed out the questionnaire. He could see the love the ex-Protector had for Jaden was real. It was in his eyes for anyone to see, every time Miles looked at her. And becoming a grandfather seemed to bring more and more of the old Miles back. The man he’d been when they’d first formed the Protectors. Dirk had liked him