Wrench wasn’t used to being nervous.

He was the decisive sort. He got job offers and he accepted them, or he didn’t, if the money wasn’t worth the risk or regret. He didn’t spend a lot of time tying himself up in knots over maybes or might-have-beens, and he sure as spit didn’t waste his energy worrying about things before they happened.

But there was no contingency plan in place for Lydia, or her impossible brown eyes, or the way she moved.

The idea of facing her over a table, of ‘getting to know her,’ or worse, letting her know him, was more nerve-wracking than entering a bar already knowing that it was going to explode into a gunfight.

He pulverized a broken roof tile before he recognized that he was in no state to try to continue the mosaic. It had been enough pressure before, but knowing whose wall he was working on now made it seem like an impossible task.

He was glad to see that the thinset was nearly gone; he’d have to mix a new batch to work further anyway, and it would be best to stop now and rinse the bucket before it hardened.

There was a spigot in the courtyard, and Wrench filled the bucket at it and scrubbed harder than was required to wash the tools and thin what was left down to something that could be rinsed away and dumped into the bushes.

He was giving the bucket a second swirl of nearly-clear water when someone behind him growled, “What are you doing?”

Wrench looked around to find Graham, a trowel in one hand and a bucket of dirt in the other, glowering as if he’d just stepped in shit.

Panther snarled in his head. This was Lydia’s courtyard, his mate’s territory. He didn’t need another alpha male mucking around, and Wrench definitely didn’t want anyone to see the hash he was making of the wall.

“Just cleaning up here,” Wrench growled in return, moving to empty the second bucket in the greenery after the first.

“You can’t just dump that in the plants!” Graham’s outrage touched every raw nerve in Wrench’s head.

“What are you gonna do?” he challenged, and he deliberately finished tipping the bucket onto the broad green leaves of the underbrush.

He and his panther both took a deep amount of satisfaction from Graham’s snarl of challenge, and he threw aside the bucket in time to brace for the landscaper’s angry attack.

Wrench was more of a knives and gunfire fighter, preferring to take any advantage over an enemy that he could. But there was a certainly gritty pleasure to bare-knuckle fighting. Even as he dodged Graham’s fist as it came flying at his face, he caught himself grinning.

This made sense to him, it fit in his world order. A mate was confusion and levels of emotion that he didn’t want to face. A fight, though. A fight was a simple give and take. Dodge and strike, absorb the blow if it gave him an advantage, use his greater size against Graham’s greater speed.

The lion shifter was clearly a grade of fighter better than Wrench; the blows he landed were pulled, Wrench was sure, but still carried enough power to stagger him, which was no small feat. Wrench started by pulling his own return strikes, but Graham seemed unfazed, even when Wrench scored direct hits, and they stepped up their conflict, testing each other.

Graham was grinning, too, Wrench realized, and after they had each tallied several good punches, they slowed their circling and finally lowered their fists. Graham wiped blood away from the corner of his mouth. Wrench blinked and realized his vision in one eye was hazy from a good hit. He wondered if the black eye would be gone by the time he met Lydia. Not that a black eye was going to make or break his image of refinement.

One of his teeth was loose.

“I thought I was going to have to spray you two down like two fighting tomcats,” Travis said in disgust.

Startled, Wrench looked around to find that Travis and Breck were standing at the entrance to the courtyard.

“What is wrong with you two?” Travis scolded them. “You’d better get cleaned up before Scarlet sees either of you. You’re still on probation,” he reminded Wrench. “And I’m the one who vouched for you.”

He directed a chiding glare at Graham. “I was here to see if Wrench could give me a hand with some burst pipes in cottage five.”

“And I’m here to see if Graham can cram his surly self into a waiter’s uniform and help with the dinner rush,” Breck added. “We’re up a few guests and down a waiter.”

Graham shrugged an affirmative and followed Breck out of the courtyard.

Wrench cleared his throat. “I’ll be right there,” he said, bending to pick up the empty bucket and the scattered tools.

“Are you guys okay, then?” Travis asked in concern.

Wrench gave a rough laugh. “Never better,” he said sincerely.