On the way back to Sylvia's hotel, he couldn't help but feel as if there was something going on that he couldn't put his finger on.
"Maybe you should talk to your brother Cyrus about your father's debts," Sylvia said in the silence of the car. "In these situations, often someone holds the missing piece of the puzzle."
"Cyrus is miles up the mountain, through some of the most treacherous terrain in the territory."
"But you're a grizzly shifter," she reminded him as he parked in front of her hotel room.
"Touché," he said. "If I do go, I'm going to need to go soon.”
"I had a really good time today," Sylvia said, leaning in to offer her lips for kissing.
Leland accepted the invitation and kissed her hard. She slipped away and out the door with a soft goodbye, and was up the stairs at the door of her hotel room before he had a chance to even get out of the car.
He shook his head, thinking about how cute, spunky and independent she was. He wanted to hold on to her and protect her and see her blossom into the full potential of her womanhood. That was everything to him.
But the debt and the nagging sense of mystery around it all left him feeling unsettled. He could never start his life with Sylvia like this, and he could never ask her to accept him as her husband with no real home and no real foundation.
This whole thing had to be put to rest before he could give her his mark or his name. Leland backed out of the parking lot in front of the hotel and turned out onto the highway, determined to put the mystery to rest so he could give his woman everything she deserved.
Chapter 12
Sylvia woke, looking forward to seeing Leland. Before she could make it out the door to his house, her cell phone rang with the number from her boss back at the office.
She answered the phone and greeted him with a cheerful good morning.
"How is your audit going, Sylvia?" he asked.
"I've sorted through several years, and it's slowly but surely getting sorted out."
"I'm going to need you to come back to the office and continue working on the case here."
"I'm only halfway done."
"Gather up your paperwork and come back to the office. This field audit is over. It's taking too long, and I want you back at headquarters. The debt is too high for you to work on the case alone. This may take a turn for the worse."
"What are you talking about?"
"We'll discuss this all when you are back to the office later today. Gather up whatever documentation you have and bring it with you."
"Okay," Sylvia said.
Mr. Stands hung up the phone. She was left standing in front of the door of her hotel room, wondering what had just happened.
She hadn't told Mr. Stands that she had begun a romantic relationship with Leland Kincaid. She knew it was a terrible conflict of interest and that Mr. Stands would've taken her off the case immediately.
She had hoped she'd have time to sort through all Leland’s dad’s documents before returning to the office. She'd hoped she could somehow buffer the worst of it. Now his documents would be poured over by a team of agents, and she would not be able to control the process. She squeezed her eyes closed and put her palm to her forehead, shaking it slowly from side to side.
She grabbed her purse, jacket and briefcase before leaving the hotel. She hurried down the stairs to her car. She had to get to Leland's house to pick up the paperwork.
And she had to tell him goodbye.
She couldn't believe that this was all happening so fast. She would have bet anything that they would have more time together, but she'd been wrong. Now she would have to go back to Portland and continue the audit with impartial parties, possibly never seeing Leland again, except in court. The idea caused a tear to stream down her eye. She didn't want to tell him.
She didn't want to come out of the fantasy they'd been weaving together, where they could somehow have a relationship and everything worked out happily in the end. She shook her head, trying to keep the tears inside.
She worked as an auditor. She was supposed to be above feelings like this. But she definitely was not. Leland was everything she'd ever wanted in a man, and the thought of losing him made a cold stone sink into the pit of her stomach.
When she parked in front of his house, she could barely bring herself to get out of the car. She didn't open her door until he stepped out onto the porch and gave her a questioning look. She grabbed her briefcase and slid out of her car, approaching him slowly across the gravel.
"Good morning, sweetheart," he said, holding a mug of coffee in his hand.
He was wearing a flannel shirt and a puffy gray vest. He had a day of stubble still on his chin. When he leaned in to kiss her softly on the lips, she could smell the musky scent of his cologne and the bitter sweet smell of coffee. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close.
"Can I get you a cup of coffee?"
"I'd love that, but I can't stay," she said, stepping back.
He looked at her with a questioning expression. "You can't stay? There's still so much work to be done."
"I've been called back to headquarters. I need to take the documents with me."
Her heart sank even further. She couldn't even meet his eyes.
"You’re leaving?" he said slowly.
"I have to. I have no other choice."
"Well, it doesn't seem as if it can be helped. If your boss wants you to come back to the office, then you need to go back to the office, right?"
He stood back and invited her inside. She let out a deep breath as she walked into the dining room where the paperwork was still spread across the table.
"You're going to need some boxes," he said, setting his coffee down.
She couldn't believe how calm he was being about all this. She could have sworn he would be worried about her going back with his documents. But when he came back in the room, his eyes were clear and he had a smile on his face. He set several empty plastic bins on the table and started loading them with papers.
"You're being so understanding," Sylvia said. "But I’m afraid."
"Why, babe?" he said, stepping toward her. "What are you afraid of?"
"I'm afraid of what will happen back at headquarters. I wasn't going to cheat or anything like that. But I was going to be as gentle as humanly possible," she said, still looking down at the table.
He lifted her chin to force her to look at him.
"Whatever happens happens. This ranch...of course it matters to me. But ever since the first moment I laid eyes on you, Sylvia Becker, you've been everything to me, and you always will be. After this is all over, if you still want me, we'll figure out where to go. No matter what. Understand?"
"I hope you will still say that if the auditors take your ranch,” she said morosely.
She couldn't help it. She'd been waiting for a man like Leland all her life. Then, when she’d found him, there was a real possibility that she would be responsible for taking away everything he'd ever loved. She just couldn't bear it. She didn't know if she could live with herself if it happened.
"You're going to have to believe me, babe," Leland said.
"I do believe you," she said weakly as he wrapped her in his arms.
"Let's get these things packed up and get you on the road. I've decided to go up the mountain to check on Cyrus. If he knows anything about what our dad was up to all those years ago, then it's time well spent. Plus, I think my brother needs to know that I'm home. That our father passed away and that I'm the new Alpha of the Kincaid clan. That's going to need to happen whether or not he has any information for me."
"It'll be good for you to see him," Sylvia said.
She didn't have any brothers or sisters of her own, which was something that had always lingered at the back of her mind, but she could understand why Leland would need to confront his brother and to update him on all of the family news. She also hoped that his brother held a missing piece to the puzzle.
Leland helped her carry the plastic b
ins out to her car and load them in the trunk. When he was done, he kissed her on the lips and held her tight for a good long time before Buck backed a backhoe out of the garage, creating a storm of noise and dust as he passed.
"I should get going," she said softly.
Leland kissed her one more time, and she slid into the driver’s seat of her car. As she drove down the driveway and pulled onto the highway, the critical voice at the back of her mind kept telling her that it was the last time she'd see Leland Kincaid and that her life would be better for it. Who needed a man who wanted the things a shifter wanted? A loyal wife, who stayed at home to take care of children and him. She had a career. She was strong. She had a home and a pet, and everything she needed. Leland didn't even have any property. How could he ever take care of her?
She shook her head and made the terrible voices go away as tears streamed down her cheek. She didn't want to go back into the office and show her boss Leland's father's disjointed paperwork. But as Leland had so wisely said, there was no helping it. There was no way to avoid it.
She drove into the parking lot of the tax headquarters at noon. She grabbed her purse and briefcase and went inside to find Mr. Stands waiting for her at her desk.
"It's about time you arrived," he said.
"I got here as soon as I could."
"This case is bigger than we suspected.”
"I don't understand. I'm the auditor on the case. How could you have gotten information that I don't have?" Sylvia asked.
"We had an anonymous tip from some people who claimed to know Hank Kincaid. They claimed he was purposefully fraudulent in his business practices. The anonymous tip gave us names, dates and information that could very well lead to a charge of fraud against the Kincaids.”
"Hank Kincaid is no longer alive.”
"But his sons inherited the corporation’s debt, and it's going to need to be paid."
"You don't have any proof of this anonymous caller’s accuracy.”
"But our preliminary assessment of the Kincaids’ overall debt is close to a million dollars. That is the kind of debt the government definitely wants to collect."
"I'll go get the documents from the car,” she muttered, dropping her purse and briefcase on her chair and storming out of the office with a rising panic in her chest. How could he possibly want to take the Kincaids to court? They had nothing to do with any of it.
They’d just been living their own lives and minding their own business. From what Sylvia understood, Hank Kincaid had been become an overzealous supervisor who did not allow the boys to have any input in how the business was run. None of them had any idea what was happening.
She grabbed the boxes of files from the car and trudged into the office, slamming them down on her desk. There was already a group of auditors in her office, and they grabbed all the boxes as soon she set it all down. The team took everything and hurried off to a conference room.
Sylvia shook her head in disgust, hoping against hope that Leland would find some miracle when he spoke with his brother Cyrus. They had to save the ranch, because Sylvia knew that if Leland lost his land, he would associate it with her. He wouldn’t be able to help it. They could never be happy together, no matter how much they loved each other.
Chapter 13
Leland's heart dropped into the pit of his stomach as he watched Sylvia drive away. It was like she was taking a piece of him with her. His grizzly growled and scratched the back of his mind, demanding that he not let her go.
Leland shook his head, trying to force his beast to calm down. He didn't want Sylvia to leave any more than his inner animal, but there was nothing he could do about it. She'd been called back to work. In the world of humans and nine-to-five expectations, he couldn't just tie her to a chair in his house to keep her with him. He had to let her go do what she needed to do. As a man, Leland agreed with that, but that didn't keep his grizzly from protesting as loudly as a beast possibly could.
Leland gritted his teeth and decided to focus on his own work. He went back inside and climbed the stairs to the second floor where his father kept his camping equipment. The trek up to the mountain to Cyrus's cabin would take several days. He knew that the treacherous climb may require his grizzly at some point, forcing him to let go of his human necessities. But he wanted to make it to the cabin with his camping gear and clothing in hand if he could help it.
He grabbed a hiking backpack and emptied out its contents before sorting through the supplies his father had in the spare bedroom. After about forty minutes, Leland had sorted out everything he would need for a trek into the dense wilderness. Once he had packed his gear, he went downstairs and started to pack food.
When his pack was secured, he went to change into his hiking boots and all-weather hiking gear to start his trek up the mountain.
Since the vet had come up the morning before Jessie's motocross race, his herd had been doing much better, but the comments of the hyena brothers still itched at the back of his mind. His barbed wire fencing had quite obviously been cut by wire cutters and the cattle had all escaped into the creek bed where they'd trudged through the mud for days. Just because the two idiot dirt bike racers had made some strange comments didn't mean he had any proof to back up his suspicions, though.
He didn't know if going to confront Cyrus was going to be any help either. After he was changed, he took his backpack out to the front yard and threw it in the back of the truck. Jessie was squatting in the machine shop across the gravel yard from the main farmhouse. He looked up at Leland with a questioning expression on his face and then stood to walk across the yard to lean against the Leland's truck bed.
"Where you going?" Jessie asked.
"I'm going to talk to Cyrus," Leland said.
"Why?" Jessie asked.
"Because somebody needs to tell him about dad, and that I'm the Alpha of the Kincaid clan. He needs know what is going on here. Plus, those hyena shifters said some strange things yesterday that got me thinking."
"Thinking what?" Jessie asked.
"That maybe there's something more going on here than meets the eye. I need to get to the bottom of it."
"Where’s Sylvia? I saw her drive off this morning."
"She was called back to headquarters. Things are getting serious now. I think she thought that she could be a buffer for the ranch, but that's asking too much from her. We might not like what happens after the rest of the agents get ahold of our paperwork and complete the audit. We’re all going to have to be prepared for the possibility that we lose the ranch. There's no telling how much dad's debt is. We could all suffer for it."
"We didn't have anything to do with dad running the business."
"I'm not sure that matters. Jessie. But no matter what happens, we'll get through it. I'm the Alpha of this clan and that continues whether or not we have the ranch. I will do my best for all of us, you can count on it."
"We're not going to lose the ranch," Jessie said, with one of those smiles that seemed to melt the panties of the human ladies of Fate Mountain.
"Just keep saying that, brother. And maybe it'll come true. I'm off to start the trek up the mountain."
"Have you ever made the trek before? It's rough as fuck."
"Not since Cyrus went up there, but I know where it is."
"While you're up there, tell him to get his ass down off the mountain and come help us."
"I don't think anyone can tell Cyrus what to do. Do you?"
"I don't know. Maybe now that you're the Alpha, you can talk some sense into him."
"If Dad couldn't do it…"
"Dad couldn't do a lot of things in the end. Let's just remember that," Jessie said, the twinkle in his eyes darkening.
"Point taken, little brother. Dad screwed up, and we are all paying the price. Maybe I can be a better Alpha for the family than he was. That's my promise, and I intend to do everything I can to keep it."
"Good luck, Leland. I'm rooting for you. Even if everyone else isn't."
"I'm glad to help.” Jessie smiled before turning back to the machine shop.
Leland shook his head slowly, and then chuckled as he climbed behind the wheel of his truck. He started up the engine and drove down the gravel road toward the very end of their property. He parked his truck and climbed out to grab his backpack.
Cyrus lived at the very edge of the Timber Bear Ranch property where it intersected with national forest land. It was one of the most remote places in the area, and Leland knew was why his brother had chosen it.
Leland hadn't been hiking in who knows how long. But as a rancher and a shifter, he was in good physical condition. He started up the poorly maintained trail that led into the forest. It had rained heavily a few weeks ago, and the ground was still soft and saturated.
As he trekked through the early spring underbrush with bare branches intermixed with green ferns and early berries. His grizzly drew in a deep breath, smelling the mountain air of his youth. The beast wanted to break out from inside his human skin and take the mountain with his big, strong paws and feral intensity.
In his bear form, he could make it to Cyrus's cabin in less than a day. As a human, Leland knew the trek would take far longer. But he didn't want to arrive at his brother's home naked and defenseless.
The first day of Leland's hike was entirely uphill. As dusk approached and the cool evening air started to break through his layers of outerwear, Leland decided to make camp for the night. He found a spot where he could shift into bear form and dig out a comfortable nest for his bear to sleep in.
He used his massive grizzly paws to dig into the soft soil. He then lined the hole with several inches of dried pine needles and leaves. He shifted back to human form and got dressed before starting a campfire, which he used to cook himself a can of chili in his camping pot.
He could see a view of the vast wilderness below as he shoveled chili into his mouth. He could even see the faint smoke from the chimney at Buck's house. He hadn't gotten a chance to speak to Buck before leaving. There was still conflict to be healed there.
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