Bear and Baby_Fun & Flirty Romance

by Elsa Jade

  Oh. Duh.

  The realization was like a cartoon gong from Aster’s classic “Road Runner” favorite going off in her head. She put her hands over her face, her eyes hot and damp against her palms. “I like candy corn.”

  “What?”

  She looked at Rita sideways through the bars of her fingers. “I actually like candy corn. And Peeps. And Tang, the breakfast drink of astronauts.”

  Her elder sister slowly wrinkled her nose. “That’s just weird.”

  Brandy glanced the other direction at Gin. “Can I borrow your shoes?”

  Kicking off her black Doc Martens, her younger sister smirked again. “Good thing we’re the same size.” She tossed the shin-high boots across the blanket and grabbed the flowered flipflops that Brandy tossed back.

  Rita looked at the all-black ensemble and the pink flipflops. “That is even weirder.”

  “I think it’s cute.” Gin stuck her feet out and waggled her black-lacquered toes then grinned at Brandy. “All the way up, girl.”

  Lacing the boots, Brandy turned with her hands on her hips to survey the crowd. Mac wasn’t the tallest guy or the biggest, but she’d find him.

  If she wanted to figure out the weird, winding ways of her life—minus her father, multiply her sisters, add her son—she had to work it like she’d solve a mathematical equation: Simplify it down to one number that would be the right answer.

  Lots of people couldn’t bear to do math, but maybe she had to run the numbers for one particular bear.

  Chapter 12

  Mac had just snitched his third drink in the beer tent—the chamber of commerce lady had given him serious stink eye on the second and muttered something about “a family event”—when he saw a flash of pink outside the ropes.

  “Mac!” Brandy waved again, a pink ribbon streaming from her fist. “C’mon. The race is about to start.”

  He looked at the bottle in his hand—it wasn’t like he had a family—then sauntered over. “I didn’t think I was in the running.”

  She bit her lip, bringing out a brighter flush of color. “I’ve always been a little slow. But if you’ll be my partner… Maybe I have a chance?” She peered up at him through her lashes.

  He squinted back. What was she saying, exactly? Bears weren’t necessarily the best with words—Aster came by that honestly—but even so, she wasn’t being clear. Or maybe that was the beer.

  He clutched the third bottle like he was digging at the bottom of a well and it was the only lifeline that would bring him up again. “Brandy—”

  The loudspeaker in the bandshell blared. “The first annual reboot of the Run for Angel’s Throne starts now!”

  Brandy stared at him, her cinnamon-brown eyes beseeching. “Mac…”

  He might not know the right words, but he’d been trying to show the town by his actions that the clan deserved a second chance.

  So he’d take his chance with Brandy.

  Ditching the bottle and laying his hat carefully beside it, he stepped over the ropes. “New shoes?”

  “Looks a little weird, doesn’t it?” She hefted her skirt a bit to look down at the heavy black boots under the pink-flowered hem.

  He focused on the glimpse of knees. He’d been between those once… “Crazy.”

  She bumped her fist into his chest. “Gee, thanks.” But she sounded sort of sincere. “Let’s go.”

  A couple dozen people were milling at the start of the obstacle course, but as the tall, rangy, dark-haired male in a very large hat held up his arms, they quieted and broke into pairs. “The first time my several-times-great-grandfather climbed to the top of Mesa Diablo, he was alone.” Kane Villalobos popped up the brim of his hat to gaze at the basalt spires visible above the treeline. “But he knew he wouldn’t survive without someone by his side to share the hard times and the pleasures.” Someone whooped softly, and Villalobos smiled with a lot of teeth. “He came down that mountain like a man possessed”—someone else coughed out a laugh, and the alpha’s wolfy smile widened—“with the urge to find a partner. To prove his desire to tame the wilderness, as his first act of civilization, he carved a throne.” Villalobos stepped back to reveal the prize.

  Brandy guffawed under her breath. “No way. That’s a toilet.”

  Mac elbowed her. “That’s what Villalobos said: a throne,” he said in a low voice. “How else was Angel supposed to get a woman out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  She leaned over, bracing her hands on her knees, even though they hadn’t raced anywhere yet. “I can’t believe I’m running after a toilet. This is ridiculous.”

  “If it’s any consolation, it’s never been used,” he reassured her. “When Angel finally found a mate, she demanded a two-holer.”

  “How romantic.” Brandy straightened with a groan. “Why am I doing this?”

  He looked down at her, his heart thudding even though he hadn’t started running yet either. “So you have a crazy story to tell your high-rise friends when you get home.” He held his breath, waiting.

  But Villalobos finished his speech with a thank-you to the jubilee volunteers, and everyone clapped, drowning out anything Brandy might have said.

  “So here’s to a new day for Angels Rest,” Villalobos said over the trailing applause. “Are you ready?”

  A rough laugh from the other end of the starting line. “Does a bear crap in the woods?”

  Some of the males chuckled. More of the females grumbled.

  Mac lifted his head to peer down the line. “Not if he wins the throne.”

  More laughs than the crap line, and Ammon glared back at him.

  “Okay then,” Villalobos said. “Hogtie your partners.”

  Brandy stiffened. “Wait. What?”

  Mac twitched the ribbon from her slack hand. “It’s a partner race, side by side.” He leaned down to hitch up her skirt.

  She made a little eeping sound, like a spring chick, and hopped on one leg as he threaded the pink silk between her bare knees. “But tied together?”

  He snugged her thigh against his and lowered his voice. “Some of these folk are wolves on four legs. That fellow down there past Ammon is a thunderbird. Some are just normal folk. This is fair. Because the prize won’t go to the fastest alone but to the two who work together.”

  She followed his gesture down the line at the others—some youngsters already laughing and barely able to stand up straight, a few older like Ammon and his male partner, and the most serious contenders: a grim-looking wolf shifter and the curvy black lady historian who was his mate and who Mac knew would love to snag the vintage throne for the county historical society. Brandy returned her attention to his hands where he was tying a bow at their kneecaps. “I guess I’m normal, huh?”

  He patted her knee, reveling in the silkiness of her skin, softer than the ribbon. “It’s not your fault. I still like you.”

  When she diverted her gaze back to his, her lashes fluttering a little, he wrapped his arm at her waist. Her lips parted, as delicately pink as the rising tint on her cheeks—

  The air horn went off and he lifted her to his hip.

  She shrieked softly as he swung their joined legs ahead and broke into a lumber run. In a couple steps, she found her stride—their stride—and then they were really racing.

  But Ammon was already many paces ahead, about to hit the tire hop. Though his partner was a human male taller than him, they moved as one; they’d been together for almost thirty years and had worked on the Domingo crew together longer than that. Their harmony showed in every loping step.

  The historian was also ahead, but her mate—the grim wolf shifter—was groping her and she was giggling which was slowing them down.

  Not that they seemed to mind.

  Mac and Brandy passed by them to reach the tire grid. Three tires across, three tires deep, the middle radials were big enough to fit their tied-together feet, but that also meant the treads were high, and they had to step lively. Brandy clung to him, her arm strangling h
is waist, as he muscled them over the rubber.

  She moaned as she saw the rope wall set at an angle ahead of them. “No way.”

  “All the way up, darlin’.”

  They hit the wall with their middle feet first and launched toward the top. Scrambling, they reached the four-by-four bracing the top.

  “Jump,” he gasped.

  It wasn’t much of a drop, but the pit at the bottom had been filled with leaves to soften the fall, and the sand underneath was slippery.

  Also, Brandy’s skirt flipped up her thigh, which threw him off.

  “Keep up,” she shouted.

  “I’m right here,” he reminded her.

  “But they’re getting away.” Her churning leg tugged him forward.

  “If I’d known hogtying got you this excited…”

  “You’re the one panting,” she countered.

  They reached the rope tangle where a 4x4-framed cube as big as a room held a knotted spider web of heavy cabled rope. Ammon and his partner were already there, weaving their way through the rigging. But the other male was tall, which slowed him as he squirmed past the ropes, and Ammon—seeing Mac so close—was straining to pull ahead. The couple paused to get back in sync.

  Meanwhile, Mac was already hefting Brandy through the first layer of ropes, cranking his knee up with hers. She reached up to hang like Aster from a tree branch as Mac scrambled to join her.

  “Mama!” Somewhere among the spectators, Aster’s cry was ecstatic, and Mac knew exactly how the kid felt.

  And then they were racing on the straightaway, knee to knee, with Ammon nearest them.

  Maybe it was cheating, Mac thought, but no way was he going to lose. When he hefted Brandy clear off the ground, she wrapped her arms around his neck and hollered in his ear to run-run-run!

  They crossed the finish line with Ammon and his partner a half pace behind, and the historian and her mate a giggling/groping—though they’d switched which was which—not-very-respectable, think-of-the-children third.

  Although apparently they were thinking of pups from the way the historian embraced her mate.

  Mac struggled to catch his own breath, tried to slow the galloping of his heart. The race was over. Villalobos presented them with the throne and a thoughtful smile.

  “Nice going, Mac.” They shook hands. “I haven’t met your pretty—and pretty fast—partner here.”

  “Brandy Wick,” she said, holding out her hand. “My aunt lives in town.”

  Villalobos nodded. “I heard Tilda is away for a bit. If you need anything while you’re housesitting, reach out.” His smile shifted. “But I suppose you already have a groundskeeper in Montero here, and now extra plumbing, lucky you.” He glanced back at Mac. “Blaze mentioned you were in charge of all the festival grounds. Thanks for making the first Summer Solstice Jubilee on my watch look so good.”

  More than the pack leader’s steady stare, Mac felt the focus of the other shifters watching. Villalobos wasn’t alpha just because his ancestor had the name—and the revered toilet—but because he had the strength of will to restrain fractious wild animals…and the wisdom to find places for them to run free.

  Mac wondered if his king-cousin banishing himself to their cottage basement was an acknowledgment of the failure to find such a balance.

  Or maybe that balance started again here.

  As Villalobos strode away, Ammon skulked closer. Mac stiffened. That welcome had worn off so quick…

  When the wolf shifter stuck out his hand, it took Mac a moment to realize it was the same gesture the alpha had made and not a punch or slash.

  “Good run,” Ammon grumbled, pumping his hand once in a hard shake. “I s’pose it’s only fitting you won, since you did the heavy lifting.”

  His partner clasped his shoulder and steered him away. “We got next year to win it back.” He grinned at Mac, not wolf teeth but still plenty bright. “See if we don’t.”

  Mac watched them go, feeling odd. As if holding a finely whittled outhouse seat wasn’t bad enough. Shouldn’t there be more fanfare to the redemption of the clan?

  Or…had they never been the outcasts he’d feared? Had they brought their isolation on themselves with their own shame?

  Aster swarmed them, chattering a mile a minute and overwhelming the babble in Mac’s brain. He focused on the boy gratefully.

  Rita peered at the throne. “That’s a toilet seat.”

  “Symbolizing one man’s search for comfort and enlightenment in a wild, dangerous world,” Brandy intoned while her sisters frowned uncertainly. “It was either this or finding a woman.”

  “I’d hold out for the woman.” Gin held up Aster’s tugging hand. “They opened the obstacle course to the kids, and little man here wants a shot at the rope wall. I won’t let him fall.”

  To Mac’s surprise, Brandy nodded. “The bark pit underneath is pretty soft. If he tumbles, it’s not the end of the world.” She flicked the pink ribbon, like a restless cat’s tail, and her sideways glance at Mac was even more secretive. “I need a drink of water. I’m still gasping.”

  Rita drew a breath but then said only, “We’ll meet you at the churros later.”

  Mac tagged after Brandy as she circled past the beer tent and grabbed his hat.

  “I worried it might be gone,” she murmured as she propped it on her head at a rakish angle.

  He frowned. “Who would take my hat? And where would they go with it?”

  “I took it,” she pointed out.

  His blood pulsed slowly in his veins, a counterpoint to the thrill of the race. “And where would you go with it?”

  She tipped the hat down, and though it wasn’t big enough to swallow her as it did Aster, it hid her eyes. “Someplace quieter.”

  That wasn’t New York City, was it?

  They followed the makeshift boardwalk to the end of the festival field and stepped off into the grass.

  It felt like stepping off into the unknown.

  But he knew every inch of the park. Hell, he knew all of Angels Rest and most of the empty, rough points beyond. But when it came to Brandy Wick, he didn’t know anything.

  With the barbecue in full swing and the sound of the swing band firing up, the woods were empty as they walked, elbows bumping occasionally as the path between the trees narrowed.

  Summertime light filtering through the pine needles turned the air hazy with dust motes and the rich fragrance of resin. The sound of music faded except for a few notes that somehow reached them still.

  He wasn’t surprised when they ended up in the clearing where he’d found her a few days ago.

  Had it been just days? Well, nights too, if he counted the times he dreamed of her. And the longer hours where he’d lain awake instead, thinking of her.

  At the edge of the clearing, still in the shade of the trees, he paused while she walked to the center. Under her swishing skirt of pink flowers, her borrowed black boots looked out of place and yet still very much her, just as his best black hat looked silly yet perfect above the rumpled waves of her strawberry-blond hair. Probably because he’d already figured out that whether she was wearing high heels or flipflops or boots, whether she hid her eyes or faced him straight on as she did now, she was all he’d dreamed about for years.

  No wonder he’d fallen in love with her.

  The breath left him in a silent rush, as if he’d fallen out of the tallest tree and knocked the wind out of himself. Like he might never draw another breath without knowing in the deepest part of his body, beyond even the bear, what it was to need to be at her side.

  The longing to have her in his arms again was an agony he didn’t even want to change, because not feeling it would mean not having been with her, not meeting his bold little boy.

  “About round two…” she murmured.

  His blood surged, hot and heavy. “You stuck me with a hairpin.”

  Along with the acknowledging tilt of her head, she removed his hat. The sunlight touched her with gentle fingers,
gilding her hair and shoulders and the scattering of freckles on the upper curves of her breasts. “No pins this time, see?”

  Wary in his heart but helpless in his steps, he was lured into the clearing. Despite the fear that lurked like an unnamed monster, he didn’t stop until the toes of his boots bumped hers. He looked down at her when she tilted her face to his.

  With a touch lighter than the sun, he traced one fingertip over the freckles on her collarbones, into the hollow of her throat, halfway down the vee neck of the sundress that would forever color his memories of her in a riot of delicate pink.

  But she wasn’t delicate. He’d already felt the heft of her, not baby weight—although she’d filled the crook of his arms perfectly as they raced—but a rock-solid determination to be Aster’s mama, with all that entailed, not just making a life, but making a life for him.

  The responsibility and wonder of it made his knees weak. And he was a big bear. She’d done it on her own.

  His wayward finger paused, and his throat tightened. “Brandy. Everything between us so far has just been chance and animal instinct…”

  “Well, not quite everything. I’ve got some pretty in-depth plans for you now.” With a naughty grin, she trailed her hand up his chest, fingering each snap as she went. Every little tug felt connected to the fly of his jeans, making him ache with need.

  “What if…” He flattened his hand over hers, pressing her palm to his chest to stop the distracting caresses. “What if we tried again?”

  Her smile was sweet and wicked. “Why, that is the plan, darlin’. We didn’t get our round two, right?”

  Round about forever… But he couldn’t find the words, not when he was staring down at her parted lips coming for him.

  She tipped up onto the toes of those big black boots and brushed her mouth over his. The touch was hotter than the desert sun and deeper than the secret caverns beneath the mesa. It marked him hard in his beast, like the petroglyphs carved into basalt. And he’d been working so hard to keep the bear at bay, to restrain what he was until the shifters of Angels Rest forgot the clan’s role in the last troubles.

  But all his scheming crumbled into sand when her tongue flicked over his and the rock-hard surge of his arousal yearned toward her.