Boarlander Boss Bear (Boarlander Bears Book 1) (7 page)

Audrey dipped her toe in the hot spring and grinned. The evening shadows stretched across the stone surface surrounding the pool, and the air had cooled considerably. This had been the best day of her life, by a lot. After lunch, she’d spent the entire afternoon window shopping with Harrison. It had been an incredible opportunity to get to know him better, and the more she learned, the harder she was falling for the alpha of the Boarlanders.

He’d changed into a pair of navy blue swim trunks that hung just right on his tapered waist, and as he peeled off his shirt, she was stunned once again that he was hers. Or at least, he felt like hers. And from the purr in her throat, her inner tiger agreed.

Audrey kicked off her flip-flops and pulled her cover-up over her head, only a little self-conscious when Harrison dragged his gaze down her body and back up. His “Damn, woman” had her nerves settled right down, though.

She couldn’t explain it, but she was more confident around Harrison. More open, and it was easier to be outgoing. Outside of the restaurant, a trio of kids had asked to take a picture with him, and he’d told them Audrey was a white tiger shifter. Though she’d been mortified about him outing her, the kids had asked to take a picture with her, too. And afterward, they’d asked her to sign an autograph, right under Harrison’s signature on a piece of paper. How cool was that? No one in Buffalo Gap had ever asked her for her signature unless she was signing for a speeding ticket.

The hobo hot spring looked like a pool with a bath house and everything, but the water was from a natural spring that filtered into it. Steam rose from the surface, and just as she was about to make her way down the steps, Harrison wrapped an arm around her and hooked a finger under her chin. He kissed her until her legs went numb and then smiled against her lips. “I like you.”

“I like you two months more,” she countered.

With a playful growl, Harrison picked her up and carried her over his shoulder into the pool, and she gasped at how shockingly warm it was. It was close to sunset, and they had the hot spring to themselves, so she slid her arms around Harrison’s neck and wrapped her legs around him as he turned them in lazy circles.

“You read my scrapbook,” she said.

“I sure did. And I’ll read it again when you make a page dedicated to Saratoga.”

“Now it’s your turn. Share your scrapbook with me.”

“Booo,” he murmured. “Let’s keep having fun instead.”

With a happy sigh, she laid back into the floating position. “Tell me all your secrets, Boss Bear.”

“Fine,” he grumbled, placing his hands under her back and spinning her slowly. “When I was five, I lost my first tooth at baseball practice, and when I was eight, I stole a pack of tootsie rolls from the grocery store and had to return them
and
apologize, and when I was nine—”

“Harrison.”

“I didn’t have a mom, either.”

Well, that drew her up short. “What happened to her?” Audrey asked cautiously.

Harrison twitched his head and stared at the sunrise, and for a while, the only sound was the gently lapping water against her body. “She’s buried in a cemetery where I grew up in Montana. I used to go visit her all the time. I couldn’t really remember what she looked like without studying a picture, but I remember how she used to hug me up tight before bed. I slept best when she was squeezing me. Safe,” he murmured. “My dad was an asshole who liked to beat on us both, but my mom somehow made my room feel like he couldn’t hurt us there.”

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, sitting up in the water. She shouldn’t have done this. She shouldn’t have dragged demons like this to the surface. She was hurting him. That much was apparent in his voice. “I’m sorry, Harrison.”

“It happened a long time ago. Doesn’t matter now.”

She hugged him tightly and rested her chin on his shoulder as the sunset lit up the evening sky with vibrant oranges and pinks.

Harrison swallowed audibly and kissed her neck. “She died when I was seven, and then my room wasn’t safe anymore. My dad was a drinker and easily offended. I couldn’t walk carefully enough on the eggshells that made up the floor of that house. So here I am, a full-grown, mature male, my dad is out of my life, and I still can’t have a good night. I know it sounds crazy, but letting my body go vulnerable is a battle every time I try and go to sleep. I have to patrol the border of Boarlander property to make sure not only that I’m safe, but my crew is safe, too. It’s a compulsive thing. I can’t sleep or settle if I don’t. I almost got a grip on it a couple years ago, but shifter poachers hunted my crew, and I cut them off at the border of my territory.”

Audrey’s heart was breaking for him. Slowly, she eased back enough to trace the bullet scars on his torso. “Is that where you got these?”

Harrison huffed a humorless sound, and his eyes looked dark, so sad. “One of the Gray Backs, Georgia, tried to save me. She was human at the time and got riddled with their fire, just because she wanted me to live so bad. She was lying there on the ground, painting the forest floor red, and I just wanted to reach her so she didn’t have to die alone.”

“Did she live?”

“Barely. Jason, her mate, Turned her to save her.”

“And what happened to you?”

“The bears went to battle. Ashe Crew. Gray Backs. My boys. Damon was raining dragon’s fire all around us, and one of my Boarlanders went to work trying to get the led out of my body. It took me a month to recover. That’s a helluva lot of time for a shifter to heal. And while I was down, there was chaos in my crew. When a dominant animal is hurt, it riles up the others, makes them want to take over. So I was fighting, trying to hold alpha, and everyone was pissed. No one felt safe after that attack, and the hierarchy in my crew went to shit. I blame Clinton for pushing them out, but we were broken before he came along. He just deepened the cracks in my crew because he’s spiraling. We would’ve been okay if we’d been whole to begin with.”

“That’s not on you, Harrison.”

“It kind of is. As an alpha, it’s my job to shoulder the responsibility. I was always dominant and a brawler. My dad made me that way, but having a crew under you is more than just fighting. You have to balance your people’s needs, and somewhere along the way, that got all fucked up. It’s not all my fault, but it’s my responsibility to repair those cracks as we go, and I let too many get away from me.” He frowned. “And again, I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

“Because I’m a witch and I drugged your ice water with truth serum.”

Relief unfurled inside her when Harrison cracked a slight smile. He hugged her waist closer and dragged her body up against his erection. “You have bewitched me,” he murmured just before he kissed her.

The rumbling sound of car engines sounded in the distance, prickling at Audrey’s sensitive ears. Several trucks came to a stop in the parking lot outside the fence, their headlights making her squint and ease out of the lip-lock.

“Stop banging the Boarlander,” a woman called. “We’re coming in and I have delicate, virgin eyeballs.”

“Aw crap,” Harrison muttered, shaking his head. “I apologize for everything that is said from this moment on.”

A small herd of people were filing out of the different-sized pickup trucks, and the sound of clacking flip-flops and the rolling wheels of a cooler echoed through the night.

“Who are they?” she asked, gripping Harrison tighter.

“You are about to meet some more of the shifters of Damon’s mountains.”

“Ah,” she exclaimed as she pushed off Harrison like she’d been caught at a junior high make-out party.

“No,” he murmured, gripping her waist. “It’s okay. Most of them are paired up, too.”

“Yoo-hoo,” a tiny red-headed woman who led the way through the bath house doors called. She wore an oversize tote bag and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses on top of her head like a headband. She carried what looked like a giant canvas as the others filed in behind her, talking and cutting up.

“Audrey Foster, I’m Willa, also known as Almost Alpha of the Gray Backs, or Willa Wonka, or Nerd. This beefcake is not my man servant,” she said pointing to a huge, shirtless, scarred-up, sandy-haired bruin beside her. “He is my mate, Matt, also known as Griz.”

Matt waved and grinned. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“You have?” Audrey asked. “From who?”

“From Willa. She kind of dated you.”

“I’m super confused,” Audrey murmured as she watched the group peel out of their shoes and pass around beers from the cooler.

“I might have accidentally set up a website and flirted with you a lot, then invited you up here to meet Harrison.”

Audrey gasped as red hot fury blasted through her. “That was you? Why did you do that?” Her voice had gone shrill, but frick it all, she was pissed.

“So you could meet the man of your dreams, and he could meet you,” Willa said in a voice that said it should’ve been obvious. “I’ve brought you presents to buy your love and apologize. First…” Willa flipped around the canvas in her hands. “I took a painting class from the first lady of the Ashe Crew, Mrs. Brooke James herself, and I made this just for you.”

The painting was of a terrible, uneven rainbow in a blue sky with a tiger and a bear holding hands in a meadow of eye-scorching neon flowers and worms. One of the bear’s eyes was much bigger than the other, and the tiger was skipping on legs that were way too short.

“That looks like a first grader painted it,” Harrison muttered.

“Thank you. Next, I have brought you a fine batch of worms.” Willa handed the painting to Matt, and he traded her for a cardboard container with a lid on it. She flipped her hand around in circles, then bowed. She plucked the lid off, exposing a mass of slimy earthworms writhing around in a lump of black dirt. “You may use them for fishing, but they make better pets.” She pointed to each of the worms in turn. “This one is Norma Dean Wiggles-Too-Much, there’s Beatrice the Great, Handsy Thomas, Chuck the Perv, Princess Butter-Nipples, and Steven.”

“Thank you?” Audrey said, trying not to scrunch up her face in disgust.

“And lastly, a fruity beer, because when we were online dating, I remember you told me that was your favorite.” Willa handed her a purple pomegranate brewsky and grinned brightly. “And now for my apology. Prepare thyself.” She inhaled deeply, then murmured, “You’re welcome for my matchmaking services.”

“That was literally the worst apology in the universe,” Harrison said.

“That’s ridiculous. Have you heard every apology in the universe?”

Audrey took the beer from Willa’s hand and said, “I guess since it turned out okay, I forgive you.”

“Great.” Willa waved gallantly to the people slipping into the hot springs. “These are the Gray Backs. Or most of them. Damon and Clara are at home because she just pooped out a baby, and they’re on babysitting duty for Creed’s rug rat. Mason isn’t here because he’s packing to move to one of the lovely shit-shacks in Harrison’s trailer park tomorrow. That’s Creed,” she said pointing to the dark-haired giant closest to them. “Gia, Georgia, Jason, Aviana,” she said, pointing to the pregnant woman who had saved Audrey from standing in the long line at Sammy’s. “And that scary beary back there,” Willa said, pointing to the wild man with the glowing eyes who limped along the edge of the hot spring, “is Beaston. Don’t get too close to him. He bites.” Willa waggled her eyebrows.

“You shouldn’t tell her that. I don’t bite.”

“You Changed me, didn’t you?”

“One time, and you broke my leg.”

“Beaston,” Jason said, hugging Georgia at the edge of the water, “it doesn’t make sense when you say you Changed her one time. It only takes one bite.”

“Anyway, I believe you met Bash and Clinton. I can tell because Clinton was reciting love poems about you the entire drive here.”

“I was bitching about her,” Clinton said grumpily from the chair he’d plopped into beside the spring.

Bash jumped in, cannon-ball-style, splashing them all, and when he came up for air, he had a big goofy grin on his face. He shook his head like a dog and said, “I like Audrey.”

Harrison growled when Bash swam too close, and Audrey stifled the giggles that were ready to bubble up her throat.

Beaston sat on the edge beside Aviana, dipping his feet in, his hand on the swell of his mate’s stomach. “Audrey is going to bleed you, Clinton,” he said blandly.

Willa snickered and eased herself over the edge and into Matt’s arms. “When you do, invite me. I’ll bring turkey jerky and green M&Ms. That bunion made the entire drive here miserable.”

“Well, Audrey’s presence here makes me miserable, but no one seems to care—”

“Shut up, Clinton,” the Gray Backs, Bash, and Harrison all said at once.

Audrey took a deep drink of her fruity beer to keep her laughter inside as everyone went back to talking.

The night wore on, and the air was filled with constant chatter and laughter. One by one, the Gray Backs talked to her and shook her hand. She was three beers deep before she felt overheated and sat on the edge of the pool with Aviana and Beaston. Harrison settled between her legs, shootin’ the shit with Creed and Georgia, and every once in a while he would turn his face and kiss the inside of her knee and go back to talking without missing a beat, as if he didn’t realize he was giving her the affection.