Timberman Werebear (Saw Bears Book 3) (4 page)

“Can I talk to you?” Denison ground out. “Alone?”

“Probably best.” Danielle set her plate on her seat and followed Denison’s receding back.

He didn’t stop until he reached a trailer with the number 1015 over the door. He scaled the porch stairs and threw open the screen door, which banged closed right in front of her.

“Sorry,” he muttered as he pushed it open again and waved her inside.

The entryway led to a small living area off an even smaller kitchen. Everything was clean and tidy, in its place. “Is this your house?”

“Yeah,” he said, throwing his hands up. “And now you’re here in my place making it smell like you so that I’ll literally never be able to escape you. So this was an awful idea on my part, bringing you in here.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“Yes, Danielle.” Denison gripped his hips and sighed, then turned his back on her and ran his hands through his hair. “And no. I don’t know.” He collapsed onto a couch that sat in the middle of the living room, long legs folded and knees spread wide. “Why are you here?”

Honesty was best. “I’m here for a job. I was told this morning my job now depends on you.”

“On me? What kind of job?”

“I graduated in December and started combing job listings for something in my field. The beetle infestation has been a problem up here, and some big-wig wants research done on the effects on the land around here. He hired me and one other person, Darren, to begin our research to tell him just how badly the area is affected, and to try to come up with solutions that will preserve the ecosystem here. Apparently, I need a guide.”

“Can’t do it.”

Danielle took a seat on the brown micro-suede loveseat that sat next to the couch and asked, “Why not?”

“Because it’s you. Do you really think it’s a smart idea for us to spend time together? You couldn’t stand to be around me for five minutes yesterday before running off. I know the area, but this is fire and gasoline, Danielle. I don’t think we should mix them, if you know what I mean. And anyway, I’m on a tight deadline with my crew, and Tagan isn’t going to be able to spare me. Best you go and find someone you have a shot at not hating at the end of the day. Someone who has more time and energy for whatever hunt for an ecosystem beetle cure you’re on. It ain’t me you want for this little adventure. Tell your boss I’m sorry, but the answer is no.”

Disappointment and relief swirled through her chest as she let his answer wash over her. He’d denied her. It had been a monstrous mountain to climb just to work up the courage to come here tonight, but at least she’d tried. Environmentalists didn’t find steady work easily, and especially not jobs that were offering to pay what Reynolds had, but was it worth feeling the depth of the pain she and Denison had caused each other?

Denison couldn’t hold her gaze and cracked his knuckles softly against the heavy silence in the room.

She thought not. Nothing was worth this kind of pain that was slashing through her insides, and from the way Denison’s eyebrows drew down, and his eyes dimmed, she wasn’t the only one hurt by this reunion.

“I’m sorry I came.” She shrugged, unsure of how to word the mass of emotion roiling against her chest cavity. “I didn’t mean to hurt either one of us. I just…Well, it doesn’t matter.”

“You just what?” Denison lifted his eyes slowly to hers, held her gaze, and wouldn’t release her.

She dug deep for the bravery she’d grown since she’d left here those years ago. “When I took the job, I was scared you would still be here. And then I was scared you had moved on and I’d never get closure. It’s been a confusing month, preparing to come back here.”

“Why’d you leave in the first place?” His voice sounded raw and unused, but his eyes stayed steady on her.

“I didn’t want to be someone’s second choice. I’d thought we were more, but you didn’t feel the same.”

Denison linked his hands behind his neck and leaned back against the plush couch cushion. “How can you sit there and look me in the eyes and say that? I was willing to give up everything for you. I was scared as shit about what was happening between us, but I was still willing to try and keep you.”

“Keep me?”

“Yeah, keep you! Keep you happy, keep you with me. Keep you here. I knew you had to go back to school, and I wasn’t going to stand in the way of your education. I saw how much working in the woods meant to you. But I wanted the relationship, even if it was just summers and holidays together, I would’ve waited. I wanted you to come back to me when you were through. Instead, you just bailed. You never answered my calls, probably shredded my letters. And for what? Because you thought I didn’t care about you enough? I cared about you too much.”

Heartbreak hunched her forward and a sob clawed its way up her throat. “Then why did you cheat on me?”

Denison froze, eyes wide and furious, mouth set in a thin, shocked line. Slowly, his eyebrows raised. “Cheat on you? And who is it you think I cheated on you with? That’s not even an option for my kind, Danielle! Not when we’re in that deep. I didn’t want anyone else.”

Danielle shook her head and shot him a warning look. “Don’t.” Of course he’d deny it. All men did after they were caught. The walls came for her when she stood, collapsing by inches until they threatened to snuff her out completely.

“Oh, yeah,” Denison said, standing. “Run. Run when it gets hard. See, this is why we wouldn’t have ever worked. As soon as you get scared, you bolt. If a conversation turns too serious, you disappear like you never freaking existed. Have I ever walked away from talking to you?”

Danielle reached for the doorknob and clutched the cold metal in her damp palm. Tears rimmed her eyes, threatening to overflow. How mortifying that he’d snuffed out all her bravado with a few words.

“No,” she whispered. “You never did that.” Inhaling deeply, she turned, but was unable to meet his gaze. “I saw you that night. You’d invited me to your show, and I had all these plans.”

“What plans?”

“I was going to tell you I loved you that night. I’d felt it for a while, and I’d never said it to anyone, and you’d been saying it for weeks, but I hadn’t been able to accept that you could feel that way about someone like me.”

“Someone like you. How did you see yourself?”

“The same way everyone saw me. Brainy, unsocial, awkward. But you made me feel pretty and special and cared for, and I wanted to finally tell you how I felt. But you were with
her
.” She dared a look at him.

He was shaking his head with his palms open as he approached her like a rancher soothing a spooked horse. “Her who?”

“The redhead. You had your arms around her, and you were both smiling and whispering in each other’s ears. And then…” She swallowed down the yellow bellied chicken in her. “And then I saw you kiss her.”

“Laura?”

“Sure. Great. Now I know her name. At least it’s not Cinnamon the whore-faced, nipple clamped, smelly vag—”

“Laura Beck. My sister.”

“Oooh.”

His sister.

His freaking sister?

No way did Danielle make that big of a mistake. No way did she throw away a relationship with Denny because she was too caught up in being hurt to confront him. The door was smooth against her back as she slid down and pulled her knees to her chest. That certainly put a different spin on how she’d seen him that night. Maybe the embraces hadn’t been as flirty as she’d imagined. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“What, you’d rather I cheated on you?”

“Well, I’d been trying for three months to get you to open up to me, and you hadn’t given me anything. You didn’t talk about your family, you didn’t talk about why Brighton doesn’t have a voice, you were always meeting up with the boys and sharing all these secret little looks every time I asked a question, and it left me on the outside. You with that girl, cheating on me…well…it made sense why you wouldn’t let me in. She made everything make sense.” Danielle bit her lip hard to keep another round of tears at bay.

Denison ran his hand roughly through his hair. He picked up a throw pillow, as if he were going to throw it at the wall, but decided against it and yelled into it instead. When he lifted his gaze back to hers, his eyes were blazing a lighter color, as if the shitty fluorescent lighting above him reflected off his face at a strange angle. “Dammit, Danielle, all you had to do was confront me. Literally, all you had to do was pick up your damned cell phone one of the hundred times I called you and let me explain. I knew you were feeling like an outsider. Don’t you think I could tell that? I was hurting you, but it was either let you all the way into my life, which included the scary parts, or cut you loose to spare you. I was going to let you know how I felt that night, too. My mom and dad don’t live around here, but Laura lives up in Denver. I asked her to drive out here to meet you. That was a big step for me. I was going to ease you into what my life was really like because I…”

The unspoken words hung in the space between them.

Danielle was breaking apart. She’d shattered them both by making assumptions. “Denny.” She stood and wiped her eyes with the back of her hands.

He tossed the pillow back on the couch and kept his eyes on it. Softly, he said, “I’ve been accused of a lot of things. Cheating is a new one for me. I think you should leave.”

“I owe you a huge apology.”

“I ain’t ready for it tonight. Go on now.” He still wouldn’t look at her.

She felt like she was falling. Like she was being sucked into a hole in the floor and scrabbling her nails for purchase on thin laminate that was getting pulled down with her. She closed her eyes as the pain of what she’d done burst through her chest. How stupid had she been to let a misunderstanding do this to them? She deserved this burning that spread through her limbs and left a numb sensation in their wake. “Okay.”

I’m sorry.
The words sat right at the tip of her tongue. She wanted to say them so bad, but he’d told her not to. He deserved those words from her, but he wasn’t ready to forgive her. She understood, but it didn’t make it hurt less. Gritting her teeth, she turned for the door and opened it just wide enough for her to get through.

Tagan stood at the bottom of the porch stairs. In fact, the entire group seemed to be there, milling around in the shadows. Someone had turned strings of holiday lights on, illuminating the dirt road and the dilapidated trailers that lined it.

Heat filled her cheeks. “I guess the walls are pretty thin around here.”

“We heard,” Tagan said, arching a dark eyebrow.

His bright blue eyes studied her in silence until she was nice and uncomfortable under the scrutiny. She probably had mascara all over her face and looked like a sniffling zombie.

“Denison will help you. I can spare him for a week.”

“I don’t think he wants that.”

“He doesn’t have a choice. It’s my decision, and what I say goes around here. Anything past a week, we can’t help you.”

She’d have to mull this over tonight because she definitely wasn’t sure she still wanted to do this. The job felt very small in light of everything now. But maybe, just maybe, she could make it up to Denison if he would let her.

Tagan sidled past her and disappeared inside Denison’s house. The boys wandered off, talking low, but Skyler and Brooke waited for her to climb down the steps, then flanked her and walked her to the jeep.

“I know you’re thinking about leaving,” Brooke murmured, “but I think you should stay. If you have a running problem, I can promise you, it won’t fix what’s been broken with Denison.”

“Denny doesn’t want me here. He told me to leave.”

A door banged and Danielle jumped, then spun in time to see Denison hop over the railing of his porch and stomp off toward a fence that surrounded the trailer park. He didn’t even look at her once before he disappeared into the shadows.

She’d done this. Every ounce of pain she’d been through to get over Denison was on her. And the unimaginable agony she’d caused him made her feel like the dirt between the tread on her jeep. “I messed up really bad.”

In the distance, a feral roar echoed off the mountains. Danielle hunched as a flock of birds lifted from the nearest tree and flapped off into the night, as if startled by the terrifying noise. “What was that?”

The other women looked at each other, then Brooke draped her arm over Danielle’s shoulders. “You’re in the wilderness now, Badger. Better get used to the wild animals.”

A horrendous booming sound traveled down the side of the RV, rattling the metal home. Danielle shot straight up with a yelp and lurched over the edge of the bed.

“Breakfast is on.” A voice that sounded suspiciously like Bruiser’s called through the thin wall.

Grumpily, she lunged across the tiny living area and threw open the door.

Bruiser’s eyebrows shot up, and he rocked backward on his heels. “Whoa there, Badger. You look like hell just spat you out.”

Danielle glared. “You know ‘knocking’ means on the door, not all along the walls, right?”

Bruiser balanced a plate piled with eggs and bacon in one hand and made a sweeping gesture to the ramshackle homes behind him. “Different rules in the trailer park darlin’. You don’t like them, you can park your fancy RV on that side of the fence.” He shoved the plate of food at her, then spun and walked away. “We’re leaving in half an hour. Oh!” He turned his behemoth shoulders and pulled a wadded up length of fabric from his back pocket. “Wear this.”

She caught it mid-air and shook it open as best she could while balancing the plate. It was a soft, black T-shirt that read Ashe Crew in bright pink letters.

“The girls made it for you last night. Apparently, they like you, and their opinions count for a hell of a lot around here.”

“Bruiser?” she asked as he turned to walk away again.

“What?”

“Where are we going?”

“Lumberjack Wars. We’re all competing. Hurry scurry now. We ain’t waitin’ on you for long.”

“Oh.” She stared at his back, which was roughly the width of the broad side of a barn. Okay, Lumberjack Wars.

She ate in haste and grabbed some skinny jeans and hiking boots to go with her shirt. She’d showered in a vacant trailer, 1010, last night, but her hair had dried in snarls thanks to the nightmares that roaring animal had given her. Face washed, teeth brushed, and hair swept into a messy bun, she dressed in her new shirt, then plumped her lips with some pink gloss and lengthened her dark lashes with mascara. Ready for the day, she bolted out the front door of her humble abode.

The Ashe Crew, as they apparently called themselves, were bustling here and there to various trucks like frenzied ants. Her eyes lit on Denison like a paperclip to a magnet. He was loading a giant cooler into the back of an old, beat-up green Bronco.

“Hey!” she called, jogging toward him.

Denison closed the back door and frowned. Right, still mad then. Straightening his shoulders, he hooked a hand on his hip and leaned against his ride. The curl of a tattoo showed under his stretched T-shirt. “Hey yourself. What are you doing?”

She lifted her chin and pulled at her shirt so he could read the lettering. “I’m going to cheer you on.”

His eyes narrowed as he read the pink lettering. Or perhaps he was just staring at her tits. Either way was fine with her.

“Shotgun,” she said.

“Wait, what? What are you doing?”

She marched past him and threw open the passenger’s side door. Brighton was leaning on the front nose of the car with an amused grin.

“Brighton has shotgun.”

“Brighton?” she asked. “You mind if I sit by your brother?”

Brighton lifted his hands, and his shoulders shook like he was laughing. He canted his head at Denison and pointed to a black truck Brooke and Tagan were loading.

“No,” Denison gritted out. “Shotgun is reserved for people who’ve earned it.” He looped an arm around her waist as she tried to crawl inside the Bronco.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she muttered, clutching onto the grab handle and hooking her shoes inside the doorframe. “Nobody’s riding with you now, and I’m not sitting in the back like you are my chauffeur.”

“Damn straight you aren’t. Go ride with Tagan.” He pulled harder, but she was spry.

“Stop being stubborn!”

He yanked her out of his car and spun her around to face him. His eyes flashed with something that wasn’t altogether anger, and she pounced.

“Let me ride with you,” she muttered, scrambling for purchase on the dry gravel he was dragging her across. “Or so help me, Denny, I’ll kiss you soundly right on the lips, and then where will you be?”

He let her loose and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ll be unaffected.”

“I’m irresistible.”

He snorted a laugh and tried to hold his frown, but lost it as his lips turned up in a smile. Scrubbing his hands down his face, which he still hadn’t shaved, the sexy mountain man, he let off a sigh and let her go. “I think God sent you here to kill me, woman.”

She scrambled inside the Bronco and slammed the door, then tossed him a victory grin. She wasn’t for sure, because the words were muffled by the car, but she thought he said something along the lines of, “Freaking badger.”

When he went to open the driver’s side door, she hit the automatic lock button just as he pulled the lever. Oh, he looked so annoyed, but underneath was that hint of a smile she used to breathe for. Heck, from the way her heart was fluttering around in her chest like bat wings, maybe she still breathed for it now.

“You gonna annoy me all day long?” he asked, trying to look severe as he turned the engine.

“I’ve decide something,” she said, ignoring his question. “I’m going to make you forgive me.”

“Danielle,” he warned.

“No, hear me out. I know I messed up. Bad. But you aren’t the only one who got hurt, Denny. The only way I can feel okay about us being friends again is if I make it up to you. So today, I’m going to be your beer wench.” She patted her purse and grinned. “Anytime you want a beer, I’m your girl.”

He put his hand on the back of her headrest, and she leaned toward him instinctively. Twisting in his seat and backing the car away from his trailer, he said, “Your plan to win my friendship is by getting me beer?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded once and pulled in line behind Kellen’s truck. “Okay then.”

“And I’ll also be extra nice to you and cheer the loudest when you are doing lumberjack stuff.”

Denison shot her a glance and lowered his eyes to the writing on her chest again, then back to the road in front of them. “I like that shirt on you.”

“Brooke and Skyler made it for me. Where did you get the name Ashe Crew?”

This was where Denison had always clammed up in the past. Anything personal made him uncomfortable, but he shrugged his shoulders and explained, “That name has been around a long time, and not just for this crew we have assembled now. It’s been a name that’s been carried on through generations.”

“Of lumberjacks?”

“Sure.”

“And are there other crews of lumberjacks?”

“Yeah, two others that live in these mountains. The Gray Backs are a crew like ours who work a jobsite up the road, and the Boarlanders are a crew of cutters. They cut the trees, and we haul them away to the sawmill in Saratoga or to log buyers.”

Until now, she hadn’t thought about the impact on the environment—on the ecosystem here. Animals depended on those trees for homes and for food, but Denison and his crew were chopping them down and selling off the forest.

“You have your judgey face on,” he accused.

“Not judging, just thinking.”

“We re-plant as we go.”

“You do?” Huh.

“You’re here for the beetle infestation, to study it, right? Well, right now, the land here is just dry, dead tinder waiting for a spark. And it won’t be one of those controlled forest fires that help the forest to regrow. It’ll be an inferno when it burns. Damon Daye owns most of this land up here. He and his family have been buying it up for generations, and it’s he who hired the crews to come manage the territory. He isn’t trying to hurt this place by taking the trees. He’s trying to salvage it.”

“My my, Denison Donovan Beck. You have a land lovin’, tree huggin’ mountain man inside of you.” It was sexy when he talked about the woods like this. Like he cared.

Her eyes drifted to the inky tendril that showed just under the sleeve of his shirt. “The tattoo is new.” She lifted up the edge of his sleeve, but he shrugged away.

“It’s not new. I got it the year you left.”

“What is it?” Besides sexy. All she’d been able to make out were intricate tribal shapes that didn’t form anything she could make any sense of.

“Maybe if you earn my forgiveness, I’ll tell you.”

There was no
if
, only
when
. She’d stayed awake late into the night going over the things she’d done wrong and how she could’ve handled it differently. The only way she could forgive herself was to earn his trust and be the friend he deserved.

She tossed him a saucy look. “Someday you’ll show me yours, and then I’ll show you mine.”

It had been a tease, but when she looked over at him, the smile had dipped from his face, and his smoldering eyes raked down her body, drawing a delicious tremor up her spine. Warmth pooled between her legs when he slid his hand to her thigh and gripped it.

“You’ll show me your ink first, little badger,” he said low, attention back on the road.

“Want to make a bet?” she asked.

“Name the terms.”

“First person to cave has to do whatever the other one wants.”

Denison narrowed his eyes on the road. “Deal.” He slammed on the brakes and jerked the wheel. Danielle held onto the grab handle for dear life as he maneuvered through the trees. Tagan didn’t even slow as he passed them to follow Kellen’s truck as Brooke waved out the window with a curious smile.

Away from the road, Denison pulled to a stop and threw the car into park.

“What are you—”

He reached under the seat and slammed his chair back, then grabbed her waist and pulled her over onto his lap like she weighed nothing.

Oh.

He leaned up and his lips crashed onto hers with such force, she whimpered at the sheer shock of it. He wasn’t the soft Denny she remembered. This Denny was different. Everything she remembered was null and void now as he parted her lips and plunged his tongue against hers. But for as different as he seemed, this somehow felt like home. Right here, straddling his lap as his hands ran over her back and gripped her tighter. Nothing had come close to this in the years she’d tried to move on.

When her breasts heaved, they brushed his chest. He sucked her bottom lip and rattled a hungry sound from deep within his throat, drawing a gasp from her. The Denny she’d known had been reserved and careful when they were together like this. Denny now was half-feral and fully sexy.

She rolled her hips against his thick erection that pressed against his pants. He groaned and gripped her hair, angling her neck. He flicked his tongue against the tripping pulse at the base of her throat as she rocked against him again.

His hand slid under her shirt, up her ribs, and unsnapped her bra in back with a fucking professional flick of his fingers. He cupped her breast, and she cried out and arched against his hand. God, what that man could do to her body with a touch.

“You want more?”

“More. Please more,” she panted out.

He pressed his mouth over her breast, the thin material of the T-shirt the only thing between her oversensitive skin and his lips. He blew air until her nipple drew up tight. His tongue lapped until the shirt was wet and she was just about undone. The man was going to make her come without ever touching between her legs. Desperate for more, she pulled his hand and guided him to the top button of her jeans.

He eased back, then whispered softly in her ear. “You’re a needy little badger, aren’t you?” Plucking gently, he pulled her earlobe into his mouth and grazed his teeth against it.

The button of her jeans popped open under his steady fingers, and the rip of the zipper filled the Bronco. When he slid his hand under her panties and cupped her sex, she bucked helplessly against him.

He smiled and nibbled her bottom lip again. “You were always good at getting wet for me.”

When he slid his finger into her slick opening, he brushed her clit like he knew the exact spot that would drive her mad with want.

“Oh!” she cried out. “Denny, please.”

“Fuck yes, more of that. Tell me what you want.”

He pulled his finger out slowly, then added another before he pressed into her again. Her belly quivered with intense pleasure. Leaning forward, she tasted his lips and matched her pace with his hand. He relaxed against the seat and took his time bringing her to climax. She hadn’t been able to finish with anyone since him.

He’d been her first.

Her best.

He should’ve been her only.

And right when she was about to tip over the edge, he stilled, just shy of touching her clit again. His eyes grew serious as he held her gaze. “Just friends doesn’t work for me. You want my forgiveness? You give me another shot. A real one this time where you don’t run when you get scared. Now show me that tattoo, and I’ll let you fuck my hand.”

Her thoughts raced with what she was considering. If she did this, if she gave in, there was no more going back. Oh, she knew what he was saying. He was laying claim to her heart, right here in the middle of the woods, and asking her to take a leap of faith with him.