Can't Bear To Run (Kendal Creek Bears, #1) (17 page)

“Why Kendal Creek?” I asked.

“Because that’s where it is,” he deadpanned.

I socked him on the arm. “Thanks, dumbass. I mean why is it
named
that? Who is Kendal?”

“Oh, it’s an old clan thing; town is named after the first alpha. Wolves live in packs, bigfoot live in clubs, bears live in clans.”

“Are you serious?”

He arched an eyebrow. “Well, I’m a bear and we live in clans—“

“No, I mean about Bigfoot. Is he real?”

“Would you really doubt it after everything you’ve seen? And yes, they live in clubs. I don’t know why they call them that, but those things almost never come out of the woods anyway. What people don’t realize is that the ones they spot are either babies or very old. They also don’t realize that they’re mercenaries.”

My eyes grew wide. “Bigfoot mercenaries?”

He nodded. “In clan wars, especially between smaller clans, they’ll rent themselves out to the highest bidder to fight. It’s honestly a pretty amazing sight to see. Two massive bigfoot slamming into each other. I’ve only wrestled one of them once.”

“You’re joking,” I stated, rather than asked. “You fought a bigfoot?”

Dax looked down at me and boomed a laugh that echoed off the trees and skimmed over the top of the water. “Someday I’ll introduce you to one and you’ll realize just
how big
they are. If I ever got in a scuffle with one, he’d probably rip my arms off. Not saying I wouldn’t mess him up pretty good too, but, you know.”

“Right,” I said, sliding my fingers deftly in between Dax’s. “I’m sure you couldn’t resist at least a little shot of hyper-masculine bullshit, huh?”

He shrugged. “I mean, if the truth is the truth, you gotta say it right?”

The two of us laughed softly, both obviously lost in thought about something or other. Dan was still swimming through my mind. I could see his truck parked near the edge of that drop off, I could see his flannel-clad body floating sickeningly in the water fifty feet below. Dax must’ve felt me shiver, because he pulled me close and put an arm around my shoulders. The heat radiating out of him lulled me into resting my head on the hollow of his throat and then nuzzling his neck. “Everything’s going to be fine,” he said, as much convincing himself as me, I thought. “We’ll figure out what Wyatt wants, and we’ll send him packing one way or another. But for right now is it okay if we just sit here, and I hold you, and we pretend like the world isn’t coming to an end?”

I lifted my head reluctantly from his chest. “There isn’t anything in the world I’d like better.”

“Good,” he said, relaxing to the ground and taking me with him. We lay there for what felt like eternity, but probably wasn’t longer than a half hour, without a single stir. I was draped down his body, my legs falling between his, and my head resting on my interwoven hands, on top of his powerful chest.

“I could stay like this forever,” I finally said, breaking the long silence.

“Trust me,” he said. “I promise you that after tonight, we’ll be coming out here all we want. And I promise you one more thing.” There was a glint of mischief in his eye.

“What?”

“I promise you that what we did back at Creighton’s cabin? That won’t be anything compared to what I do to you when this is all over with.”

I swatted playfully at Dax’s hand as a heavy flush crept up my chest and prickled my nipples stiffly and seductively inside my bra. “Yeah, and this time I’m gonna get my hands on
you
,” I whispered, nipping his chin with a gentle chomp. “And when I do, you’re going to think you shot off into space.”

With surprising quickness, Dax flipped the two of us over, ending up on top of me, propped up on his elbows. I felt the thickness in his jeans pressed against my belly and immediately felt myself quail slightly. “I think,” I whispered, “you win.” I tapped the ground in a one-two-three and he laughed. I can’t explain it, but just being there with him, playing around like teenagers in love was just what I needed.

God, how long I’d needed it. I felt like I skipped that whole part of my life. I walked into high school and walked out a married kid with a rebellious streak. Then that fell apart and I lost myself in a relationship with a guy who wanted a prisoner, not a wife. Six years later, I walked out of Dan’s house wounded, broken, and a little scared of reality.

“And then I ended up here,” I whispered, not realizing that I was saying it out loud.

Dax cocked his head a smidge to the side. “What’s that?”

“Nothing,” I said, smiling and pushing a curl out of his face. “I was just thinking about how the hell I ended up here, after everything else that happened.”

“That’s a funny thing,” Dax said. “Life does that sometimes, you know? The weirdest, stupidest, wildest series of events will end with you in a place you never imagined being.”

“Like a sheriff in a small town full of bear-shifters? Is that an unbelievable enough change to count?”

He answered me with a smile. “The other funny thing?”

“The other funny thing,” I cut him off, “is that however the hell we ended up here, somehow we managed to be exactly where we’re supposed to be, with exactly the person we’re supposed to be with.”

He kissed me softly on the forehead. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

I took another deep breath, inhaling the scent of trees and crisp, clean water not ten feet away from where we lay in a patch of grass. I closed my eyes, not to sleep, but to try and remember every single detail of how we were, at just that moment. I never knew if I’d feel like that again in my life, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to forget it without a fight.

––––––––

T
urns out, the fight came to us.

“Son of a bitch,” Dax grunted as he rolled away from me, taking his warmth and my comfort with him. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it would be bears coming into my territory and acting like they own the place. And to have the balls to come up
my
mountain to
my
creek and come at me by surprise when I’m just cuddling my old lady? Sunzabitches.”

“I’m sorry,” I rolled to my knees, then grabbed my shotgun on the way to my feet. “Did you just call me your old lady? Pretty sure I didn’t sign onto a biker gang, old man.”

I couldn’t help but smile. Neither could he. Flashing white teeth sparkled against the starkly dark background of a moonlit night. Everything was a particular grayscale shade. The moon gave the surroundings the look of an episode of
I Love Lucy
from before anyone bothered to make TV in color. Different hues of black, white and gray dappled the world, and as strange as it is, I thought that I was
hearing
things in black and white, too.

“What is it?” I finally asked, after not actually hearing or seeing anything that was apparently attacking us. “I don’t see—“

“Stay down,” Dax ordered with a pass of his hand. “Get over to that brush.”

We crept silently, our breathing slow and deliberate. The babble of water over the small break in the creek covered our gentle rustling capably enough. The tall, waving watergrass was cool and calm as I settled into it, clutching my gun close and waiting for Dax to say something else. He had a look of absolute concentration on his beautiful face. I noticed then that his eyes had gone yellow.

“Can you hear anything?” I whispered, curious but not wanting to get us in any deeper than we already were. “How did they know to come this way?”

He shrugged. “I’m hoping that Creighton didn’t get too eager. If he got anywhere near town before we did, they could have nabbed him. He’s wily and he’s clever as all hell, but he isn’t one to suffer for the benefit of someone else. Plus, I’d rather deal with Wyatt out here anyway where I know the land so well.”

“And no one else can get hurt out here,” I added, thinking of the people in town being swept up into some shitstorm they had nothing to do with. And also, maybe because I still felt guilty that I had at least indirectly brought this on them, no matter what Dax said otherwise. “I’d have a tough time if someone got hurt over me.”

Dax turned his head quickly to the right, staring into the grayscale darkness. I couldn’t see or hear what he obviously could, but soon enough I heard a branch—a big one from the sound of it—crack and tumble to the ground, demolishing the leaves underneath.

“What was that?”

Dax waved me off and hushed me. “Stay down,” was all he said. “And get that gun ready.”

My fingers trembled as I pressed five shells into the top of the sawn-off. I’d done some shooting before, but never anything quite as much of a cannon as this thing. The cool steel of the barrel and the slightly warmer wood of the handle welcomed my hand as I wrapped it tight with my fingers, clutching the weapon like my life depended on it.

“Am I going to shoot anyone?” I asked, as the reality that I may well have to do so set in and got me shivering. “I’m not sure I could kill someone that didn’t
really
deserve it.”

“Wouldn’t kill ‘em. Even old man Wyatt could take a few loads of buckshot without much trouble. But it
will
slow him down, assuming this even goes far enough to need that sort of thing.”

A crash that sounded like a mixture of thunder and a bomb going off sounded in the distance, though not too far away from where were hiding.

“Okay,” I said with my heart thudding heavily into my chest. “
That
I heard. What was it?”

Dax shook his head. The moonlight glittered seductively off his tanned skin, making him look even more serious than he did anyway. His high cheekbones and stubbly cheeks caught my eyes and before I knew it, I was just staring dumbly at him.

“No time for lovelorn staring,” he said with a quick quirk of a smile. “Even though I’d rather spend every second of my time watching those hips of yours and those eyes... even though all I want to do right now is throw you over one of these branches and give you what we both need. All that being said, I’m pretty sure there are at least two very angry werebears hunting for us, and it won’t be long before they wander over here.”

I started to speak, but Dax interrupted me with a kiss. “When they do, I want you to know that there’s no way in hell they’re going to hurt you. They’ll have to skin me alive before that happens. And, Raine?”

“Yeah?” I asked, my heart fluttering just a little at Dax’s alpha act.

“Ain’t nobody gonna skin Daxon Mark. You understand me?”

Another breaking limb caught my attention, but only for a second. When I returned my gaze to Dax, his eyes were full yellow and his teeth grew longer and sharper. Before long, thick golden-brown hair covered his forearms, and only seconds after that, his shirt split right down the middle and his jeans ripped up the leg seams.

“You maybe should’ve taken all that off first,” I said. “They’re never going to let you in McDonald’s like that.”

He grunted a bear laugh that boomed and rolled like thunder across the plains.

“Dax! Hey Dax!” The voice that came was thick with both whiskey and an accent. The ends of each word whistled a bit. It was Jack Creighton, and he didn’t sound particularly happy. “Look out, Dax!”

“Shut your damn mouth, hillbilly,” a sharp, heavy voice trailed. “Keep your mouth shut, or I’ll stuff a pair of bullets down there to help you.”

“You stay here,” Dax said. “They have Jack, and as odd as it is, he’s my friend. Captain Skullet isn’t going to hurt either one of you.”

“Captain...?”

“He’s bald on the top and has a long ponytail,” Dax said with another bear laugh. “It is, how you say, joke? Looking for moose and squirrel?”

“I’m being one-linered by a magical bear,” I said with a tone of comical disbelief. “Fuck the whole world, but at least I’m fairly sure I’m not crazy.”

Dax shrugged a golden shoulder. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” he said. “Hunch down in the reeds, I’m going around behind them. You keep right where you are until you see the whites... or whatever, of Wyatt’s eyes and then you pump his guts full of lead.”

He noticed, I guess, that my hands were shaking and I was struggling to keep my lips together and not start babbling like an idiot.

“You’re not going to kill him,” he said. “We heal too quickly for a gutshot to kill us. And we’re much too tough for regular shot to do much damage anyway. All we’re aiming to do is slow him down so we can figure out what he wants and get him out of town.”

I nodded, summoning every shred of courage I had. Dax turned in the direction of the noises we’d been hearing, and moved like he was going to head out, but froze and turned back to me instead. “You don’t have to do this,” he said with a curled bear lip. “You can just hide and leave it to me. But... I need you, Raine. I’m not going to lie. I need your help.”

You... do?
I thought.
No one outside of Karen or Matt ever asked me for help before. I guess they all thought I was too fragile. After all, I was with Dan and all that. Maybe they were always walking on eggshells around me for fear of breaking me?

“You need me?”

He nodded. “I need you to love me and I need to see your smile and hear your laugh. But also, I need you to help me end this stupid war. I need you to be as strong as I know you are.”

I watched him for a long second. Bravery? It certainly wasn’t something I was used to showing. Then again, maybe I
had
been brave all along, and just convinced myself I wasn’t. That wouldn’t be out of character at all. I found myself nodding without thinking about it. “You can count on me,” I said softly. “I won’t let you down.”

“You never could,” Dax said as he turned around. “Even if you tried, you couldn’t let me down. Now let’s get rid of a meddling bear, huh?”

I nodded. “All for one?”

“One for all,” he answered. “The two musketeers. I always liked the Steve Martin movie better than the serious ones. It always seemed to me that Dumas meant for it to be a more light-hearted, fun story than people make it out to be. If you want serious, there’s always
Count of Monte Cri—
what? Why are you looking at me like that?”