Boarlander Cursed Bear (Boarlander Bears Book 5) (3 page)

Breathe.

Clinton sucked air into his lungs again as he blasted through town. At least his pickup was fast. Shit! Shae was here. Here! Here where he could see her, feel her, and smell her hair. Here where he was. Here to tempt him into ruining her fucking life again.

Clinton yanked his ride over onto Lake Ranch Road, pulled into the fourth house on the left, and parked around back under an old, rusted-out carport. And then he slammed his palm against the steering wheel over and over until he felt something other than the spinning sensation that was crippling him.

He’d left Beck back there, palms up and eyes disappointed as he’d sped past her. She probably thought he was a jerk for abandoning her like that, but she didn’t know. Clinton was protecting her and the baby she carried from the monster inside of him because, right now, he had so little control over that part of him. The Boarlanders were all hippy dippy in love with their animals. Idiots. The animal side wasn’t some blessing in a furry disguise. It was a curse. It attracted attention that was dangerous. It made their lives complicated and sad. It put the people they cared about—the humans they cared about—in danger.

The Boarlanders loved the animals inside of them, but Clinton…he hated his.

His bear scratched and clawed, sickening Clinton by the second in his need to escape, so Clinton pulled his cell phone from the cup holder and rang someone he knew would get Beck home safe.

“Yeah?” Kong answered on the second ring.

“Are you at the sawmill?” Clinton forced the words out, but they sounded feral. Just like the monster he was. He shook his head and hated everything.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Beck…I left Beck by that manner emporium. Can’t take her home. Can you get her back to the trailer park?”

“Clinton, are you kidding me? I’m not your chauffeur. You brought Beck down here, and now you can man-up and take her back.”

“Can’t.”

A soft, annoyed rumble rattled through the phone, but so what if the Lowlander Silverback was pissed? Clinton didn’t ask for favors unless it was life or death, and he wouldn’t hurt Beck. One uncontrolled Change in here, and he’d break every fine bird-bone in her body.

“Clinton, I don’t know what it is that has made you like this, but man, you can’t go your whole life letting everyone down.” Kong sighed. “I’ll take care of her.”

The line went dead, and Clinton debated chucking his stupid phone into the thick woods behind the house he’d bought years ago. Kong was mistaken. Clinton could absolutely go his whole life letting everyone down. That’s what he did. That’s who he was.

Stupid phone. He glared at the fifty missed calls. Most of them were unknown numbers from horny women who tracked down his digits on bangaboarlander.com, but there was a dozen missed calls and voicemails in there from Willa. Freakin’ Willa. She’d put his number on the website to make his life miserable, and now she’d grown a fondness for prank calling him several times a day. He didn’t miss the Gray Backs.

Liar.

With a snarl, he punched the number in his phone that he’d labeled
home
. What a joke. Home was for people who could settle, and that had been ripped away from him at age sixteen.

Gritting his teeth, he lifted the cell to his ear and stared at the overgrown brush behind the house.

“Hello?” God, just the sound of Dana Dunleavy’s voice brought back his entire childhood.

“It’s me. Clinton.”

Three heartbeats of silence passed. “What do you want?”

“Shae’s here.”

“What? No, she’s in North Carolina.”

“No, I just saw her, and she is definitely here. What the fuck, Dana? I gave you simple instructions, and you swore you could follow through.”

“If this is anyone’s fault, it’s yours. I know you came to town in April. I know you were watching her.”

Clinton snarled up his lip and barely resisted cursing her out. He wasn’t even mad at Shae’s mom. He was mad at himself for being weak and getting caught at it. He lowered his voice in shame. “I just wanted to see her. Just for a few minutes.”

“Well, she must’ve seen you or something. She didn’t even mention taking time off work, and now she’s across the entire country. Shoot. Her dad and I have called her a few times this week, but it sent us straight to voicemail. She probably figured we would talk her out of going.”

“Probably, since that was your job.”

“Oh, quit it, Clinton. I know you went through something awful, boy. I know you did. But none of that was Alyssa’s fault.”

Alyssa. Right. He had forgotten about her fake name because, to him, she would always be Shae.

“What do you want me to do?” Dana sounded sad. Helpless. “She’s a grown woman now, Clinton, and she isn’t happy with the answers we’ve given her. And if she’s there, it’s for a reason. Maybe she remembers you.”

“She can’t! There is nothing left in her brain to remember! I’m nothing. I’m a ghost. I’m a figment of her imagination. I’m invisible. That was the deal. Everything was erased so she could be happy.”

“Yeah, and you were supposed to come for her when you got out!” Dana gasped as if she wished she could swallow those words down, but it was too late. They were out there, tightening around Clinton’s throat like a hangman’s noose.
You can’t go your whole life letting everyone down.

“Dana. I’m not the kid you knew. Trust me when I say this—you don’t want me for your daughter.” Clinton gripped the phone tighter and wished everything hadn’t gotten so screwed up. “You don’t want me anywhere near her.”

He ended the call, slammed his head back onto the seat, and closed his eyes against the pain building at the back of his skull. It was always like this right after he resisted a Change. His bear hated him as much as he hated it.

With a growl, he shoved open his door and stumbled out of his Raptor. The earth swayed sideways. So dizzy. He squinted against the sun, too bright, and made his way through the overgrown weeds of the yard to the dilapidated house. His house, if the deed on it meant anything, but to Clinton, it would always be hers. He flinched away from the stones that lined the landscaping where he and Shae used to sit and eat popsicles when they were kids. The faint echo of their laughter bounced around his muddled mind as he stepped over a toppled garden gnome Dana had put near the sidewalk for good luck. The walkway was cracked into a spiderweb of dried grass. Clinton stepped up the sagging, creaking steps to a small porch and ripped off a couple of warnings the city taped there to piss him off.
Mow the lawn. Unlivable conditions.
No shit. No one lived here anymore except the ghost of what could have been.

He'd grown up three lots down in a trailer his parents bought so he and his dad and brothers could Change in the woods behind the house. That trailer had been hauled off long ago, but he didn’t care about holding onto that. Clinton’s boots echoed off the hollow wooden floors, covered in a layer of dirt and dust, as he made his way to Shae’s old bedroom. He cared about this.

It was tradition to hesitate in the doorway, but not from superstition or fear of actual ghosts. It was more like being stunned by the wave of memories that always bombarded him when he took that first step into the room. He’d had his first kiss here. Felt his first tit. Fingered her…

Clinton scrubbed his hands down his face and ambled to the center of the room. Dana and Craig had cleaned this place out when they moved to North Carolina, but they hadn’t known Shae as well as he had.

The loose board whined as he pulled it up. Inside the floor was nestled a half-empty bottle of whiskey and something Clinton treasured more than anything in the world. Shae’s journal.

It was one of those gaudy, glittery, girly books with cartoon kittens and butterflies. Clinton sat down, took a long, deep swig of whiskey, then opened her journal to the first page, just like he always did.

Shalene Dawn Dunleavy – age ten

A pained smile stretched his face as Clinton laid back and read the short entry about how she’d found a kitten, and her mom had helped her nurse it back to health. He remembered that cat. It didn’t have a tail, and it hated everyone on the planet but Shae. She should’ve named it Clinton.

He couldn’t do the full dance down memory lane today without losing it, so Clinton flipped the pages to the back. This was his part. This was what he used to remind himself of why he was doing this.

He unclipped the black-ink pen from the spine and scribbled today’s date under his last entry, dated two weeks ago.

Broken, brawling bear. You only feel okay when you bleed someone. Something. You can’t stand touch, and that would break a warm woman like her. Shae deserves better. Today, you saw her, and all you wanted to do was bite her. To Turn her so she would be able to protect herself. So you would never have to die for her again. Selfish monster. Leave her alone.

With a slow, steadying exhale, Clinton closed the journal and looked up at the cobwebs floating this way and that from the ceiling rafters.

“It’s good that she’s leaving.” And just to remind himself why he couldn’t have soft, pretty things, Clinton whispered, “I have to let this one live.”

Alyssa skidded to a stop in the gravel parking lot of Moosey’s Bait and Barbecue. It had taken longer than she expected to get here, but when she checked her phone, she knew she wasn’t too late. Emerson Kane was active on her social media pages and had posted a picture holding a chocolate cupcake with a sparkler sticking out of it and her finger over her lips in a shushing motion. Under the picture, the caption read,
we’re going to surprise Miss Kitty at work for her birthday #partylikeaboarlander

And since Audrey was the only “kitty” in the form of a white tiger shifter, Alyssa figured they were going to Moosey’s, just like the logo on Audrey’s shirts in her picture posts.

And when she spotted the white Ford Raptor Clinton had sped off in the other day, Alyssa knew her detective skills were on point. His shiny, jacked-up truck was two parking spots down and a direct contrast from her thirteen-year-old, two-door, hideously purple and rust-colored Pontiac Sunfire. She turned off the engine to stifle the screeching sound her belt and brakes made, and then she checked herself in the mirror. God, she looked terrified and pale as a ghost, but she couldn’t go another night with all these questions rattling around her brain. She pinched her cheeks like she saw once on an old movie, but all it did was hurt and didn’t make them look rosy at all.

She could do this.

Alyssa blew out a breath, slung her purse over her shoulder, and kicked her door open. She’d searched vacation clothes on the Internet, and it was all beachwear and sundresses, and that’s what she’d packed. So here she was, in the middle of a dusty gravel parking lot, staring at a garage-like barbecue joint with a spinning pig butt on the roof that said
Jum own in
, and she was dressed in a short, black floral sundress and wedge heels that tied prettily up her calf. And she was freezing her ever-lovin’ teats off. October in the mountains above Saratoga was no joke. A stiff, frosty wind lifted the hem of her dress, and as much as she wished she emulated Marilyn Monroe over an air vent, she likely looked more like a clumsy circus bear in a tutu. She wrestled the fabric back over her treasure chest. Her purse flung forward and swung like an irritating pendulum as she bunched her dress around her thighs and gave a mental curse at the pervy wind.

She stumbled on her wedges this way and that over the uneven parking lot until she was in the shadow of Moosey’s, debating which of the three garage doors to enter. She’d never seen a restaurant look like a mechanic shop, but okay. At least it smelled divine.

She picked the middle, gave a nodded greeting to a man just outside who was working away by a giant smoke-cooker, and then she glided in as gracefully as she could while preventing her damned dress from playing peekaboo-hooha.

It was lunchtime, and the joint was surprisingly busy with almost every one of the long picnic tables filled with hungry patrons digging into brisket sandwiches and links of fragrant sausage. Against the back wall was her prey, though, in the form of one sexy as hell, confusing as all get out, Clinton Fuller.

He sat at a booth alone, next to a long table filled with laughing, chatting Boarlanders. Alyssa hesitated and frowned at how lonely he looked. Clinton was leaned against the wall, one knee drawn up to his chest, one leg stretched out so his dusty work boot hung off the edge of the bench seat. He was taking a long swig of a beer, his Adam’s apple dipping into his muscular neck with every swallow. She almost forgot from the other day how massive and muscular he was. The tattoos down his arm made him look tough and intimidating. Scary even. His short beard hid his jaw, but his hair had been gelled and spiked up in a messy, sexy style that had her swallowing hard and rethinking her plan to come here. He was about a dozen leagues above her, and mean as sin on top of it.

But her dream…

Shouldering her purse, she wound her way through the womper-jawed tables and approached him slowly. She’d read she was supposed to do that around predator shifters.

Clinton’s eyes narrowed to angry silver slits as he leveled her with a dangerous look. “What the fuck are you still doing here?”

“Clinton!” the woman he was with the other day called from the other table. She was sitting on a dark-haired behemoth’s lap next to a little boy. “Manners.”

Clinton growled—an actual and terrifying growl! With a put-upon sigh, he gave Alyssa an empty smile that showed way too many sharp teeth and said, “What the
hell
are you still doing here?”

“Better,” the woman murmured.

Confused, Alyssa gestured to the woman. “I thought you were together. Or…” She scrunched up her nose. “Okay, I’ve never talked to shifters before you, and admittedly I don’t know much about your culture. I’ll probably say a dozen things wrong before I figure this all out, but do you and that man…share her?”

Clinton’s face went slack. “Ew. No. I don’t share nothin’ or no one. Especially not Beck, and especially not with that pig.”

“Boar,” the dark-haired man ground out.

“Okay.” Phew, because there was no competing with someone as pretty as her. “Um, I think we got off on the wrong foot the other day.” She held out her hand for a shake. “I’m Alyssa.”

“Hi, Alyssa,” the Boarlanders said in unison from behind her.

The giggle died from her throat when she looked back at Clinton, who was glaring at her hand like she was offering him a piece of dried turd-jerky. He stood gracefully to his full height and crossed his arms over his chest as he narrowed his eyes. “Lesson one. We don’t like touch.”

Alyssa forced herself not to flee like her instincts told her to and gestured to where Emerson Kane was making out with her mate, Bash, at the end of the next table. “They’re touching.”

When Clinton’s chest puffed out as he shrugged, she became fascinated by his nipples, oddly shaped and drawn up tight against the thin white material of his V-neck T-shirt. A glint of metal barely shone through the threadbare fabric. Piercings?

Clinton cleared his throat, and when Alyssa wrenched her attention upward, he looked even angrier somehow. “How did you find me?”

“I tracked you down on the Internet.”

“I like the way you stalk!” the black-haired, green-eyed giant, Bash, said from his spot beside Emerson.

“This is so weird,” she said. “All of you are kind of famous, and I’ve never met famous people before. I recognize most of you from the Internet, but it’s so crazy to see you in person. And you just said my name. Oh! And happy birthday, Audrey!” She shook her head to stop her rambling.

“You want more autographs?” Clinton gritted out.

Right. She was here for a reason, not to get starstruck by the Boarlanders. “No, you made your point with the first one. I thought about leaving, but my friends rented me this cabin, and I thought it would be relaxing, but it’s really out in the woods and there’s some animal that scratches at the door at night, and I can’t sleep at all. I haven’t taken a vacation in forever so I stayed and did everything this town has to offer.”

“Hobo hot pool?” Kirk, the actual freakin’ silverback shifter, asked.

“Yes. Twice.”

“Well,” Clinton murmured, “it’s your own damn fault for picking Saratoga, Wyoming as your vacation destination. There ain’t that much to do. Bye.”

Alyssa gritted her teeth and adjusted the strap of her purse to better sit on her shoulder. “I kept your…autograph…but then I thought of something. I watched you talk to other people, and you didn’t tell them to leave. And you had this spark of recognition in your eyes when we saw each other. I feel like you know me, and I’m looking for some answers—”

“Lady, I don’t know what to tell you, but I don’t know you.”

The alpha of the Boarlanders, Harrison, twitched a frown over at Clinton, and the motion caught her attention. The giant’s eyes tightened in the corners. “What’s your name again?”

“Alyssa. Alyssa Dunleavy.”

“Hmm,” Harrison said in a strange tone. “Dunleavy.”

Quick as a bee sting, Clinton grabbed her upper arm and guided her away from the Boarlanders. “I need to talk to you outside.”

“But…I’m hungry.”

“Fuck, lady. Don’t tell me stuff like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like your needs. I ain’t the one to take care of them, and you’re making me feel all…” Clinton inhaled deeply and let her arm go, then led her outside.

“I make you feel all what?”

Clinton lowered his voice outside the restaurant. “You can’t be here. You can’t. It’s not safe. My bear ain’t safe, lady.”

“Alyssa,” she gritted out, hating the way he distanced her by calling her “lady.”

Clinton shook his head and backed up a couple steps until his back was leaned against the edge of the open garage door. “You’re human. My bear don’t like humans. He wants to hurt them, and you’re fragile with paper-thin skin—”

“I’m following you on social media,” she blurted out, completely done with him making assumptions about her weaknesses.

“Well, I’m not on social media, so that’s impossible.”

“GrumpyBLander?”

Clinton pursed his lips into a thin line, tossed a death glare inside in Beck’s general direction, and muttered, “Mother fucker.”

“Sooo…you’re a grizzly bear.”

“Since you don’t know the culture, I’ll clue you in. It’s rude to talk about our animals.”

“Oh, okay. Are your nipples pierced?”

She reached for his chest before she could stop herself, but Clinton caught her pointer finger in a blur. “It’s also rude to touch a shifter’s piercings without giving a blow-job first.”

“Okay, now it just feels like you’re making up rules.” His grip was really tight on her index finger. “You gonna pull it?” She made a soft fart sound with her tongue, and Clinton surprised her down to her bones when he snorted and cracked a slight smile before forcing his face back into a mask of indifference. He let her hand go and crossed his arms over his chest.

She positively glowed with warmth from the inside out that she’d conjured an almost smile from him. Finding her bravery, she pulled out a folded drawing from her purse and handed it to him. “I’m here because I keep having dreams about this boy, and he kind of looks like you.”

Clinton’s face went slack, and after a few seconds, he yanked the paper from her grasp, unfolded it none-too-gently, and scoffed. “You think I look like a wonky-eyed pedophile?” He crumpled it up in a tiny ball and chucked it at a trashcan. It bounced off the rim and onto the ground. Clinton gave her a challenging look. “Anything else, princess?”

Shocked, she stared at the wadded-up drawing on the ground. “Why are you so mean? I know I’m not a great drawer, but I spent time on that, and I was really nervous to show it to you.”

Something indecipherable flashed through the gray of Clinton’s eyes for just an instant before he replaced it with disdain again. “Look, the shit is hitting the fan with my people right now. We have a big vote coming up, logging season starts in a couple weeks, I have to perform like some trained animal in a side show at the upcoming Lumberjack wars, and I’m not looking for anything with anyone. I’m not a fan of people, ladies included. What did you expect coming here? Huh? I’m not a nice or gentle person. I don’t care about anyone but myself. I like being alone. I don’t know you, and you don’t know me, and what the fuck are you wearing? It’s October! It’s cold for weak-skinned little humans. I can see your goddamned goosebumps from here, and it’s making me all—look, here is the reality of any kind of relationship with me, friendship or otherwise. I live in the wilderness in an old singlewide trailer with a bunch of fuck-ups. And I’m the king of the fuck-ups. I’m the worst. I hate everything. There is a reason I’m the last single on Damon’s mountains, and you’ve come to what…scrape the bottom of the barrel? Go pester someone you actually have a shot with. Whatever you are looking for…it ain’t with me.”

Alyssa mirrored him, crossed her arms over her own chest because, yes, she was really freaking cold, but it wasn’t all from the chilly wind. It was from the ice in Clinton’s voice, too. “All I do is work, stay busy, and try not to think too hard because most of my life is a huge dark spot and I can’t find the damned light switch. And all that has come through is this dumb dream about a boy who saved me. I know how stupid it was to come here. I do. You’re a stranger, and you probably have girls coming up to you all the time, but that wasn’t what this was about. I just wanted to know why this boy was in my dreams, and some stupid, tiny part of me was just so desperate for answers, I thought you could give me something. Anything so I don’t feel so fucking lonely with what I’ve gone through.”

“You aren’t the only one whose been hurt—”

“I didn’t say I was! I’m sure you and your people have gone through more than I can even imagine. But that didn’t scare me off. I thought you would have more empathy for someone like me. Clearly, I was wrong.” Her eyes burned with tears, and she didn’t want him to see that he’d gotten to her, so she panicked. But instead of running back to her car like a normal person, she stomped forward three steps and wrapped her arms around Clinton’s waist. It was like hugging an ice sculpture.

Mortified at her brash behavior, she froze, too embarrassed to look at his face right now, too horrified by her actions to let go. Was he shaking? No, that was probably her imagination. She was the one shivering.