As they watched, one in particular did most of the talking. She was taller than the others, had long, dark hair flowing down her back. She had to be the leader, then. The leader of a clan tended to grow a few inches taller, like Slade was taller than his guys.
They were out of ear shot, even for their extended bear hearing. He wanted to move closer to hear, but that would be too close. That amount of movement would be heard and noticed.
So they watched, and after a time, the women started to scatter. The leader turned around and Slade’s heart jumped. He cursed in his mind, loudly, and Knox looked over at him. Slade shook his head and thought, “Nothing. Sorry.”
But the woman, the one who’d made him curse, was gorgeous. Her hair was only one part of it. Her face looked round and soft with dark lips and darker eyes. She was intriguing. She made his body hot and he wanted her.
He did a good job of ignoring women and not becoming attracted or interested. It was part of the whole not-being-tempted to-start-a-relationship thing. But he’d seen her and he was more than a little attracted. He wanted her. And that pissed him off big time.
Two of the women got into cars and drove off, while the other three went back inside. Knox and Slade watched for a while, but there was little else to see. They had gotten a view of the layout of the place and they knew who the leader was. It was all they could hope to get for now.
All that was left to do was wait. They’d go tonight, after the work day was done. They’d come, and hopefully, it wouldn’t break out into a fight. Hopefully, they’d be reasonable and things would be worked out.
Veronica Harper sat at her desk, moving around objects on her computer’s screen. She worked on a new ad for her line of honey products. This would be a flyer that they handed out with free samples of hand lotion. Across the top of the flyer, it said, “SheBear Honey” in swirly pink letters. She wanted to capitalize on the feminine name without making it too frilly.
When she felt satisfied with the design, she uploaded the file to the printer’s web site and went to check her email. Just a few emails later, there was a knock on her office door.
“Hey V? I think you should come out here.” A slight pause. “Like, now.”
Veronica got up and went to the door. Robin stood there, glancing back and forth between the front door and her.
“What’s up?” Veronica stepped into the hallway and shut the door behind her.
“Umm, well. The Walkers are running here. All of them.”
Veronica dashed to the door, where Christina and Abby were watching out through the screen door.
“There’s five of them,” Christina said.
Veronica looked out and saw the five bears running toward their house. Christina pulled her t-shirt off, revealing her tank underneath. She unzipped her jeans, ready to push them down so she could transform into bear form without ruining her clothing.
But before she could, one of the men changed back into human form. He was tall and dark-haired. His eyes were hard and his face unsmiling. But the dimple in his right cheek softened his look ever so slightly.
Veronica tried not to react, but her eyes went wide at the sight of him. He covered himself with his hand, but that did little. She could see all of his muscles and the hair on his chest and arms and legs. He was exactly her type physically. And he was a bear shifter? Her mouth pulled into a sideways smile. Her heart raced and she refused to take her eyes off him.
But the other men changed, too, and one of them had brought a bag with shorts, which they pulled on.
“Let’s go,” Veronica said.
Her and her four clanmates walked out onto the porch, arms crossed, on the defensive. She knew why they were here. They’d been harassing them for the last two years since her and her ladies had moved into the area and discovered there was a male clan in the same business they were in—honey and moonshine.
And recently, they’d tried to press charges against them. Luckily, Veronica had talked to the officer in charge, the one who’d been in love with her sister, Valerie. She’d managed to get the arson charges against Christina dropped, and they agreed they’d be more careful not to get caught in the future. Veronica was sick of having to clean up their messes. Maybe the guys showing up would shake them up a bit.
Veronica stepped to the front of her group, and the tall male with the dimple did the same. So, he was the leader then. Perfect.
“You’re trespassing,” Veronica said.
“That’s funny. You didn’t seem to have a problem with trespassing when you came to kill our hive, then set fire to our building, and now slash our tires. Funny you should care now.”
Slash their tires? What had those crazy girls done now? She hadn’t approved that. She wanted to leave these guys alone. To find other areas of the honey market to expand into where they didn’t have product. That was the purpose of the new lotion line. The Walkers didn’t have any lotion in their lineup. She hoped getting a start in the market first would keep it that way.
“You have no proof of anything,” she said. “Obviously. Or the police wouldn’t have let us go.”
One of the other men huffed at that.
“And you need to get off our property,” Christina said, stepping up beside Veronica. “We have every right to shoot you right now.”
Veronica nudged her inconspicuously. There was no way they were going to shoot these guys. Was she nuts?
“Relax,” he said. “We’re here to talk. I’m Slade. I’m the clan leader. And you are?”
He looked pointedly at Veronica only.
“Veronica.”
“Nice to meet you.” He stepped forward and held out his hand.
She glared at him for a moment, but finally stepped forward and shook it. If she wanted to make any sort of arrangement with them, she’d have to start somewhere. The only problem was, she didn’t want to be so close to him. Her heart raced even faster. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to think straight being so near him.
“Talk,” Veronica said. “We have things to do, so let’s make it quick.”
“You had plenty of time to get in our way,” the man who’d huffed said. “I’m sure you can make time now.”
She glared at him.
“Could we maybe step inside?” Slade asked.
Veronica opened her mouth to speak, but Christina jumped in. “I don’t think so.”
She would need to talk to her again about that. Being second in command didn’t give her the right make decisions like that and step in whenever she felt like it. Worst part was, Veronica had to go along with it. Had to back her up, or it’d look like they weren’t a solid team. She couldn’t show these guys any weakness.
“Fine,” Slade said. He moved his feet to widen his stance. “We’re here to call a truce. I don’t know why you found it necessary to come after us. The Walker clan has been in this area for over twenty years. If I recall, you’ve been here about two. You cannot just move into an area and think you can destroy our business.”
“We have every right to be here,” Veronica said. But she knew he was right. It was the same thing she’d said to them two and a half years ago. She didn’t want to move to the Ozarks to begin with. Why not find somewhere with no competition? But they’d all agreed that it was the best location, and they could just push out the competition.
“Sure. But you don’t have a right to destroy our property and do unethical things to steal business from us.”
“It’s just some healthy competition,” Abby said.
Veronica could sense her starting to get mad. Anytime there was a fight, Abby got worked up. She liked to argue with anyone about anything.
“Not when you damage property,” another of the men said.
“Look.” Slade turned his gaze at her and held it. “I’m sure we can find a way to work together on this. There’s plenty of room in the market for us both. We’re just asking you to stay off our property and we’ll stay off yours.”
“And you think coming on
to our property now is the best way to prove that?” Christina asked. “If you don’t get your hairy asses off our yard in the next two seconds, I am going to shoot every one of you.”
Veronica gritted her teeth. “I can’t make any promises,” she said quickly, trying to override what Christina said. “But we’ll be less damaging.”
“Less damaging?” Slade scoffed. “Does that mean you’ll pay for the damage you’ve done so far? The building? The hive? The tires?”
“You can’t prove it was us,” Veronica said.
“We have you on video,” one of the other men said. “My girlfriend saw you do it.”
“Well, the cops didn’t agree,” Veronica said. Which was a lie. Christina should be in jail right now for that.
“Come on,” Slade said. “Stop playing games. We know it was you. You know it was you. Pay up and don’t do it again. This stops now. Or next time, we won’t just be talking.”
“Like I said,” Veronica said. “I can’t make any promises. But we’ll try.”
“Or, you could make it easy on yourselves and just leave,” Christina said. “Hell, we’d even come and help you pack.”
“Nice try.” Slade said. “We’re not going anywhere, and certainly not because of you.”
“Then I guess you’ll just have to deal with it,” Christina said.
Oh, how she wanted to slap her right now. Shut up, Christina! If only they were in bear form, she could send thoughts to her and not have to worry about anyone overhearing.
“Well, then at least get out of the honey business,” Christina said. “And leave the moonshine up to us, too.”
“Yeah,” Abby chimed in. “We’re not going to back off, so you might as well just do something else. Go sell flowers or something.”
“Now you’re just being unreasonable,” Slade said. “How hard is it to not break the law? I’d think that’s not exactly the most difficult request.”
Robin laughed once. “Because moonshiners are known for upholding the law? Right.”
“Hey.” Another of the men spoke up. This one was dark skinned and had a smooth accent. “We are 100% on the books. We follow the law. Unlike you.”
“Well, sucks to be you,” Abby said.
Veronica took in a deep breath. She met Slade’s gaze and he seemed to sense her frustration.
He stepped closer to her and dropped his voice. “Can I talk to you privately?” he said to Veronica. But he wasn’t quiet enough.
“You deal with us all,” Christina said. “We’re a clan. Maybe you men don’t get that, but us women stick together.”
Veronica nodded very slightly. He saw it and nodded back, just as subtly. He put his hands in his pocket.
“Well, I can see we’re not going to get very far,” he said. “I’d really hoped we could come to an understanding.”
“Understand this,” Christina said. “We’re not going anywhere. If you can’t handle it, feel free to get out of town anytime.”
Slade stuck out his hand to shake Veronica’s and palmed her a business card. She stuck her hands in her pocket to hide the card and watched the men turn and walk away.
Veronica turned back toward the house, brushing hard into Christina as she walked past her. “Meeting. Now.”
They met inside minutes later, perched on various couches and chairs in the living room. Veronica stood in front of the TV, hands on her hips.
“That was completely unacceptable,” she said, her gaze hard on Christina. “Do I need to remind you that I am the leader of this clan? Not you. You don’t make decisions or speak for everyone.”
Christina crossed her arms and glared. “What did I say that you didn’t agree with, leader?”
“Well, where do we start? How about when you threatened them? Or told them to leave town? We will benefit much more if they think we’re friendly.”
“How so?” Abby asked.
“Because then they won’t be watching our every move. Like they surely are now. What do you want to bet they’ll have someone in the woods, watching us?”
Beth got up and went to the window to watch out. She stayed there. Beth was not one for confrontation. She was the quietest one of the group, and she often kept to herself. This was her way to take herself out of the fight. Fine. One less person to argue with her.
“We will not step a foot or a paw onto their property again,” Veronica continued. “Do you understand?”
Christina said nothing, but continued to glare. “You know, Valerie would have been all for this. If she were here, those guys would have already run off in fear.”
Veronica swallowed hard. Her hands balled and the rage tore through her chest. She stepped toward Christina, putting her face close to hers to hiss her words at her. “Well, I guess being dead and all, there’s not much she can do about it now, can she?”
How dare she bring up her sister like that? The ache that Veronica tried to suppress flared hot and angry inside her. She missed her sister constantly. It was like losing a limb. She always felt the absence of such an important part of her life. She was no longer whole. No longer able to function properly without Valerie.
She’d worked very hard not to hold Christina accountable for Valerie’s death. But it had been Christina’s idea to go after the guy who cut them off in traffic. Her idea to terrorize his family when he pulled a gun on them. And when they’d shifted into bears in front of him to scare him and his children, Christina and Valerie had been cracking up at their joke. But the man didn’t think it was funny. He pulled out his gun again—had they thought he wouldn’t? He shot at them both. He missed Christina.
Christina was right about one thing. Valerie had been much more aggressive and up for a fight, just for fun. It was why her and Christina were best friends. All that had never interested Veronica much. Just like being the leader of the clan hadn’t either. That’s why, though Veronica was twenty-seven minutes older, she gave leadership rights to Valerie. Of course, when Valerie died, Veronica had no choice but to take over for her.
But so often she loathed this clan. Loathed the whole bear thing. It had gotten her sister killed. And after that, nothing seemed funny anymore. Nothing seemed worthwhile. They’d even moved here to try to get a fresh start. Veronica had wanted to come on her own, but the clan followed her. It was part of their duty to, whether she wanted them or not. They had to stick together. She had wanted a fresh start, but now, almost three years after Valerie’s death, this crap was starting all over again. The violence, the playing games, the pissing people off.
“We are not going to repeat what we were before,” Veronica said. “And since Christina reminded us, Valerie is no longer with us. She’s dead because of stuff like this. Because she couldn’t let it go when someone pissed her off. I will tell you this”—she made sure to make eye contact with each of them—“I am not going to bail any one of you out if you go after the Walkers. You’re on your own. I am forbidding it, so know that if you choose to take action, you’re on your own.”
Veronica stormed out of the room, to her bedroom. She glanced at the photo of Valerie on her bedside table. The grief ripped through her, and she fell to the floor on her knees, in tears.
Maybe she could just leave. Get away from them all. Get out of here. If she left in the night, if she found some water to swim through to hide her scent, maybe they wouldn’t track her. Maybe they’d let her go. Christina could be the new leader.
Breakwater: Hyde (BBW Bad Boy Space Bear Shifter Romance) (Star Bears Book 4) Page 34
