by T. S. Joyce
“You sound surprised.”
“Well, your trailer park looks like a shithole.”
He bellowed a single laugh and helped her into his pickup. “Yeah, well, that you can blame on Clinton. I’ve wanted to fix it up, and Damon gave us the funds to do it a long time ago, but Clinton is convinced if we repair anything in the trailer park, we’re fixing it up so we can bring in girls and make it more accessible for cubs. You look sexy as fuck with your hair down.” Harrison leaned over her and sipped her lips before he grinned and closed the door, then jogged around the front of his truck and got in behind the wheel.
Audrey wrapped her arms around her stomach to settle the butterflies there, but it didn’t help. Harrison was wrecking her entire system, and now she would never stop smiling.
“Why doesn’t Clinton like women?”
“That I don’t know.” Harrison rested a hand behind her headrest and checked the parking lot behind them as he backed out. “Clinton is a tough egg to crack.”
“Will he be angry that we’re…what are we?” Please don’t say fuck buddies.
“Dating. Mating. Whatever you want to call us, I’m good with.”
“Dating is good.” For now. “I mean, technically we’ve been dating for a couple of months,” she teased.
“Oh, that’s right,” he played along. “To celebrate our two month anniversary, I’m going to take you to the opening week of the first and only Thai food restaurant in town.”
“Ooh, yum! Have you ever been there?”
“Never. It’ll be a first for both of us.”
“First date,” she murmured, in disbelief that she was really riding through Saratoga with Harrison.
“And your first Boarlander bang. That was your fault, by the way. I was happy to just kiss you and go sit in some boiling hot spring so I could have the excuse of getting to know you. You went all dick-sucky on me, ya little vixen.”
“Vixens are foxes. My claws are bigger.”
“That they are.” Harrison pulled to a stop at the red light and lifted the back of his shirt. Among his scars were long, healing scratches.
Her mouth flopped open as she traced one. “Did I do that?”
“Yeah, kitty.” He pulled her pink painted nails to his lips and kissed her quick as the light turned green. Hitting the gas, he said, “You can mark me up with those sexy painted claws of yours anytime.”
“Just so you know, I kind of lost my mind with you back there. I’m not like that.”
“Like what?”
Easy. “Um, so you know how I told you about my ex, Rhett?”
“Yeah, talking about him makes me want to break things, so perhaps let’s not.” Indeed, Harrison’s eyes were lightening by the moment, and the air had grown heavier in the cab of his truck. “It was crappy of him to bail on you when you were going through such a hard time. Pisses me off thinking about you going through that alone because he wasn’t man enough to stick around.”
Harrison was much more dominant than her animal, but she forced her hand on top of his tense thigh. “What I mean to say is, he’s the only other man I’ve been with. So…you know…don’t break my heart.”
Harrison twitched his attention to her, then back to the road, then to her again. He smiled slow and intertwined his fingers with hers. “Same to you.”
“Mmm hmm, except I follow you on social media, and I see all the shifter groupies you bang. They tag you in their posts.”
“What? I set that up two years ago, and I never post on it. I don’t even check it.”
“Well, every girl you sleep with seems happy to brag about it and post pictures with you.”
He gave her a disbelieving look and shook his head. “Three.”
“Three what?”
“I’ve slept with three women, and two of those were relationships. Short-lived and years ago, but they still counted as girlfriends. The last one…well, she was a mistake. I went home with a groupie. I was lonely…” He made a single clicking sound behind his teeth. “It doesn’t matter. Do you know how many pictures I take with women? Ten on any given night at Sammy’s. That’s part of the gig. The Boarlanders are still single, and Jake, the owner of the bar, takes care of us if we flirt a little and play the game. Anyone posting pictures saying I slept with them is full of shit and looking for attention.”
“Oh.” Well that was different from what she’d thought.
“Listen to my voice. You’ll be able to tell if someone is being dishonest if you really hear them. They’ll sound off, false, if they are lying. Shifter lesson for the day,” he said with a wink.
Huh. She’d suspected she could kind of tell, but hadn’t been one hundred percent sure. She would have to practice lie detection. Audrey straightened the hem of her black cotton cover-up, which today, doubled as a dress that rested halfway up her thighs. “Four.” She gave him a half smile because that’s all she could muster when talking about women he’d been with. She wanted to claw every one of their faces off. “I’m number four.”
“Wrong, kitty. You aren’t a number, and I don’t ever want you sayin’ it like that again.” He squeezed her hand. “You’re different.”
The fast food Thai place was hopping, but considering the small size of the town, this very well might’ve been the event of the season. Audrey thought Harrison might be more withdrawn out in public because of his reputation with the town and his crew and all, but after parking, he stood in line with her and didn’t withhold an ounce of affection. He brushed her back and rubbed little circles between her shoulder blades. He held her hand, and twice he leaned over and kissed her on the temple.
“You’re a teddy bear,” she accused.
“Ha!” Harrison laughed as he held the glass door open and let her pass under his arm. “No one has ever accused me of that before. Distant, quiet, moody, sure.” The smile dipped from his lips as he stared thoughtfully at her. “I don’t know what it is, but you’re easy to be around. You make me…” Harrison lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “You know.”
Her cheeks were flushing with heat again, but not from embarrassment this time. “Say it,” she said, poking him in the ribs.
Harrison lifted her hand and bit her wrist gently, then shook his head and looked up at the giant menu behind the counter.
“Distant, quiet, moody,” she repeated.
“Stop. It’s just different with you. Easier. I don’t have to hide, or be gentle, and you’ve gone through something hard. So did I. It feels nice not to feel like the only one.” He cast her a quick glance and then muttered too low for any of the surrounding humans to hear, “You make me happy.”
“I knew it.” She clapped once and tried and failed to contain her gloating smile. “I knew it!”
“Okay, all right, what do you want to eat?” he muttered.
“Red Curry, and I want it spicy. Like, level three spicy. And crab rolls. And soup,” she mumbled scouring the menu. “I’m hungry.”
When she looked up at Harrison, he was grinning at her like she was the cutest thing he’d ever seen. Audrey bumped his shoulder and bathed in how happy she was when his warmth seeped through the sleeve of her cover-up. Her black glittery flip-flops clacked as they approached the counter, and after Harrison ordered their food, they made their way to one of the tables on the back patio. It was warm and pretty outside, and the umbrella over the table blocked the direct sunlight. Harrison sat across from her and squeezed his ankles around hers as he dug in.
“I needed today,” he said between bites. “I’ve been going so long where I didn’t have a good day, and this feels like a recharge.”
“Is it hard being an alpha?”
He inhaled deeply and took a long drink of his ice water. “It shouldn’t be this hard. I used to be good at this, but lately it feels like I let my entire crew down. I’m not hitting the numbers Damon wants, and because of that, we’re slowing down the new jobsites. Half of my crew left, and the ones I have left are at each other’s throats. And you were right w
hen you said our trailer park looks like a shithole.”
“But you’re strong. You’ll fix your crew.”
He smiled but his eyes still stayed hollow. “I don’t care how strong you are. If you go through the suck long enough, it’ll take its toll. It’s been nice spending a day away from the drama at the park.”
Audrey gulped a spoonful of soup. “What does Missionary Impossible mean?”
Harrison dropped his head and chuckled. “Bash wrote that on the sign when I turned down his request to let women in the park for the tenth time. Missionary position? He was pissed at me and Clinton, so he spray-painted the sign out of revenge. I’m gonna make his ass climb back up there and scrub it off.”
“You should. And you should lift the ‘no girls allowed’ rule because I want to visit your park again.” She grinned brightly and shoveled another bite of soup into her maw.
“Oh yeah?” His eyes narrowed. He rested his elbows on the table and clasped his hands in front of his mouth. “What else do you think I should do?”
“Call Clinton out on his shit, fix up your park however you want to, move those new shifters in, and start hitting those numbers like the badass Boss Bear you are. I mean, look at you. You’re built like a freaking freight train, are covered in scars that somehow didn’t kill you, and plus, on the internet, I saw a picture of you fighting Kong at some backwoods brawl house. I saw you go to battle with Clinton the other day. It was thirty seconds of beast mode, and then he was limp on the ground. And his bear is huge. You could fix anything.”
“Get all that stuff done and dig my crew out of this massive hole, just like that.”
“Just like that. Try this. It’s amazing.” She shoved the last half of her soup toward him, and then stole a scoop of crab fried rice from his plate. He’d ordered his in kill-me spicy though, so all she tasted was fire and pain.
Harrison laughed as she gulped down half her water to extinguish the flames on her tongue. He cocked his head and squeezed her ankles with his under the table. “You’ve been through a lot, but you’re still optimistic.”
“Everyone’s been through a lot, Harrison. Life is hard, and sometimes it sucks, but you were the one who told me it was admirable that I saw a life I wanted and went after it.” She tucked a flyaway lock of hair behind her ear and softened her voice. “Go after the life you want.”
Chapter Seven
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, mak
es 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.
