“It’s like running a restaurant,” Mina offered. “You think at first you’ll just be the chef, or maybe designing the menus, but then you find yourself hiring people and managing them. And you have to literally design your menus so that they can be printed out and actual people can read them. You have to source your ingredients and pay invoices and all of a sudden you realize it’s been three weeks and you haven’t cooked once.”
“So that’s what you do?” Matt asked, caution in his voice. “You run a restaurant.”
“I used to. I was good at it, too. But then . . . “ her voice trailed off. “I’ll tell you more once we get the flash drive.”
# # #
The sign above the salvage yard said, “Morrissey and Sons Salvage.” The sign was a large plate of rusted metal with the words cut out of it in a slagged rough hand. Beyond the sign was a wooden shack that looked like it predated the gold rush with walls patched up with whatever was at hand at the time. Mina looked and saw a coffee can that had been pressed flat and affixed over a hole with glue and duct tape. The shack’s exterior was rough and sloppy but the yard was neatly organized. She’d never seen a salvage operation before, but had imagined it like a towering junkyard full of cars and trash. The reality was more like a yard sale run by an obsessive.
Boxes and drawers and buckets stood in neat rows, each sporting a tidily hand-lettered sign explaining what was inside and listing a price. “Glass door knobs, $1.” And, “Ancient Cell Phones, $2.” And so on, forming hundreds of precise rows leading out from the shack like tiny soldiers on parade. Not a single screw was out of place and not a single speck of trash marred the grassy lawn.
The door to the shack flew open and out strode the second largest man Mina had ever seen. He was naked but for a pair of work boots and aviator sunglasses perched on his handsome, aquiline nose. The man’s body was impossible to take in all at once, and not just because he was so big. Michael Morrissey was shorter than his brother, Matthew, but also not nearly as wide. The man had a more compact build and sandy blonde hair. Streaks of grease and dirt marked his well-muscled delicious body almost like tiger stripes. Mina tried hard not to stare at his cock, but it was impossible not to. The man was HUNG, there was no better way to say it. No wonder he walked around naked all the time.
“Matt,” the naked man nodded, sipping coffee out of a world’s sexiest grandma mug loudly. “The car’s out back. Help yourself to it but let me know if it’s a junker. She’s got some good bones under all that flash. I could really have some fun with it.” Michael’s eyes sparkled darkly as he spoke, fixed on Mina’s. She knew he wasn’t talking about the car and felt a mixture of heat at being so openly admired and anger at being treated like something the guy could call dibs on.
“Mikey, put some damn clothes on. There’s a lady present.”
“I know,” the younger brother smirked, “that’s why I’m naked.” He sipped his coffee again then turned and went back into his junkyard shack, giving Mina a very full view of his taut, perfectly sculpted rear end. Only when the door closed did Mina finally exhale. She hadn’t even realized she’d been holding her breath.
Matt sighed loudly, in that way every older brother did when confronted with the shenanigans of his younger, cooler brother. “Let’s go around back. That’s where he keeps the cars.”
Mina followed Matt’s lead, picking her way between the neatly spaced buckets of staplers and picture frames and drawer pulls. She couldn’t help herself from watching her attorney’s ass as he walked. Would he look as good naked? Could that even be possible? Michael was possibly the hottest man she’d ever laid eyes on in person. She had no doubt from the glint in his eyes that if she turned up on his doorstep he would take her in and rock her world until the sun came up. First Harker, then Matt and now his brother.
Why was her life all of a sudden full of beautiful, crazy men?
“You say your other brother is even bigger than you two?”
A prickliness radiated from Matt. “Yeah, the guy is like twice my size. He can’t even fit in a normal car. He has all his shoes special made by a blacksmith. He doesn’t even wear normal clothes, just a tent with a belt around it.” He turned back and smiled at her.
“Oh ha ha,” she said, sticking her tongue out at him and then laughing.
“My god you have a sexy laugh,” Matt said.
Mina felt the heat rush back into her. Being around this man was dangerous. If she got through the day with her panties intact it would be a miracle. What was going on with her? It was like there was a connection between them, deep in her bones, boiling in her blood.
She was saved from tearing her clothes off and begging him to have his way with her by the sight of her poor battered and squashed car. “Oh no, the poor thing. What have I done to you?” She ran to her car and ran her hand along the dented top.
“You’re lucky to have survived this,” Matt said. He walked around the car and inspected it for danger. “The corner where you lost control, we’ve been trying to get a sign up there for years. You’re not the first tourist to go over the edge. Not even the second this year alone.”
The doors were horribly bent and completely impossible to open. The windshield was shattered but in place.The whole car looked like it’d been stepped on by a giant and then kicked down a hill and then rubbed all over with scouring pads.
“This was my first car.” Mina patted the hood affectionately, like she was saying good bye to a favorite dog. “I bought it when I made head pastry chef at Sweet Surrender.” She bent over and kissed the hood. It was like a friend was dead because of her negligence. The tears she’d been holding back for days finally erupted, spilling down her cheeks in a scalding rain.
“I was so stupid,” she began.
Matt stepped forward, concern furrowing his big handsome brow. He gathered her up in his strong arms and let her talk while holding her close.
Mina eased herself into the incredible warmth of the man, feeling his strength wrapped around her she felt free to speak for the first time since it’d happened.
“His name was Harker. He seduced me. He said he loved me, that he needed me, that we were destined to be together. I should have run back then, but I was stupid. I was so amazed that anyone as handsome and successful as him could love a fat girl like me that I gave in.”
“Why would you think you were fat?” Matt murmured into the top of her head. “You’re absolutely gorgeous.”
The heat flared again inside Mina, turning liquid and dripping through her.
“I worked my way up the chef ladder for years, paying my dues, putting in the stupid hours you need to as a pastry chef just starting out and then the even worse hours as head pastry chef at one of the fanciest brunch places in the city.”
Whenever she said brunch Matt’s belly rumbled. It was adorable, like there was a wild animal inside him grumbling for treats.
“And then I did what every chef does when they reach the top and get sick of the hours and the pay. I started my own business. A cute little patisserie and brunch place.” Another growl against Mina’s cheek made her smile, the tears were gone now. “And it failed. Spectacularly. I made so many rookie mistakes. The menu was too big, the staff were—never mind, it’s not important. But I lost everything when it folded, my entire savings, and I had to go crawling back to Sweet Surrender to get my job back. It would have taken me years to get the funding together to try again, if the bank would even gamble on me again. I was desperate.” Mina sank deeper into Matt’s embrace.
“And that’s when he showed up?” Matt rumbled.
“That’s when he showed up. Harker. Like the devil himself he arrived, whisking me off my feet. He’d been upset that my restaurant had closed and wanted to make another go of it. His office was just across the street, you see, and the idea of a wonderful little breakfast place where he could get amazing pastries and fresh coffee and take clients was extremely appealing to him.”
“What’s this Harker guy do?”
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“He told me he was a business man. A venture capitalist. He sought out struggling businesses and invested in them to bring them to their full potential and got paid handsomely for it. He was aiming at making billionaire before he turned forty, he said.”
“I know you can’t see my face right now, Mina, but let me assure you I am rolling my eyes so damn hard right now.”
“None of it was true. Well, he did seek out struggling businesses, that’s true. And he was trying to make billionaire, sure. But the part about helping? He and his goons don’t care about helping. It’s all a scam. They have a thousand different schemes running at once, like some Silicon Valley version of the mafia. Money laundering and fake names on the time sheets and falsifying receipt of goods. I didn’t understand half of what they were doing.”
“So you took him up on it?”
“A handsome man told me he loved me, that I could be beautiful if I just lost some weight, that I could be successful if I just did everything he asked. He built me up with one breath and tore me down with the next. I was powerless.”
A low growl rumbled in the big man’s throat. “I don’t like men who prey on women.”
“We opened a new establishment. And though we started with my vision for it, piece by piece everything I loved was replaced by Harker’s ideas until my charming French-inspired pastry-focused brunch place that was affordable and paid workers well and wanted to source every ingredient I possibly could locally became something else. Harker’s vision was cold. He treated people like a game, always looking for some weakness to exploit, preying on their fears. He bullied the staff and stole from them, changing their timecards on a whim and fining them for every imagined slight. Wearing the wrong kind of shoes was a ten dollar fine. If a waitress didn’t show enough skin, she was fined twenty dollars. If a table sat unbussed for more than three minutes, the busboy was fired. And so on.”
“He sounds like a real asshole.”
“Which is all I thought he was, at first. But then one night I was working late and my right-hand man, Francis, came to me.” Mina’s throat closed as she said his name, her words escaping in a whisper. She wanted to tell Matt everything but she didn’t know if she physically could. “Francis helped with everything. He was darling with the staff and gracious with the customers and a catty little bitch once the closed sign went up and the wine came out. If he’d been straight I would have married him years ago. But alas.” Tears burned again in her eyes.
Matt made soothing sounds. Distantly she was aware that they still were in a junkyard on top a mountain, and that Harker’s goons were still after her. But with Matt protecting her she didn’t care.
“One night, one of Harker’s minions had left a laptop behind. We’d had a surprise health inspection and Harker’s men had to clear out the back before they were discovered. It was all pretty routine. But they’d left behind a computer, which was so unlike them. His guys were careful to the point of paranoia. And Francis knew something was wrong. He’d worked in dirty kitchens before and knew when the books were being cooked. So he took the computer home. He saw only a fraction of their plans, but it was horrible. Harker was into so much more than we knew. He bought apartment buildings in the Mission and then hired men to burn them down so he could evict the residents. He bought city supervisors. He was into every illegal activity you could imagine. Francis put everything damning on a thumb drive and brought it to me. He wanted me to take it to the police.”
“Why wouldn’t he do it himself?”
“He had priors from a long time ago, plus being gay and Filipino made him used to being ignored by the cops. He brought me the drive, told me what was on it and then, the next time I saw him, he was dead.”
“I’m so sorry,” Matt said, his arms holding her tighter.
“We met at the restaurant to discuss what we were going to do. I was totally in denial. Harker had my head spinning, always praising my work then attacking me for not losing weight fast enough. He told me he wanted to marry me.” Matt’s arms flexed around Mina in irritation, surprising her with the protectiveness she sensed in the man. “But that he couldn’t until he knew I’d look great in a wedding dress.”
“You would look amazing in a wedding dress right now,” Matt murmured.
“So when Francis came to me, I thought there must be a mistake. I told him we should take the data to Harker and demand an explanation, but we didn’t even get to have that conversation. Harker was waiting for us. I don’t know if he had me followed or if he had my phone tapped or what, but he knew. He and his goons stormed in while we were talking. The man was unrecognizable with fury, ranting and smashing things with his bare hands, screaming about how we jeopardized everything. It was insane. He was barely human.”
Matt stiffened as if he knew something, but didn’t speak, so Mina continued.
“And Francis, may he rest in peace, never had any patience for bullies. So when Harker starts flipping out and screaming and smashing tables, Francis just starts in berating the man for being a criminal and a low-life and scum. And that’s when Harker pulled out his gun and shot Francis.” The tears came for real now, a flood that felt like it was never going to stop. She had more to say, more to tell Matt. But the words were choked off by the raging river inside her. She wanted to tell him that being next to him was the first time she’d felt safe in years. She wanted to say that they’d only just met, but she felt a primal connection between them. But she sensed that he knew already.
Matt let her cry, to his credit. He didn’t shush her or tell her it wasn’t worth crying about. He held her tight and let her grief crash against him, taking all she could throw. And when she was done all he said was, “Where’s this flash drive?” as he handed her his clean white handkerchief.
Mina dried her eyes and wiped her nose and wished he wasn’t seeing her this way, not that Matt seemed to care. “In the glove compartment, under some papers.”
Matt squeezed his head and an arm into the car through the passenger-side window. She heard metal screaming as it bent and plastic crunching. The big man emerged with the drive held between two fingers like he’d just performed a magic trick.
“That’s it!” Mina said.
“I’ll take that, if you don’t mind,” came a growling voice from the shadows of Michael’s shack. A man stepped forward, one of Harker’s goons. Carlisle, she thought his name was. Or maybe Quint? All of Harker’s men had a look about them, with shaved heads and dull eyes and a smell of the sea that clung to them at all times.
“I don’t think you will,” Matt replied, shoving the flash drive into Mina’s hands.
“Matt, just give it to him. He’s got a gun.”
“Indeed I do,” the thug smiled, showing off a wide mouth full of very white teeth and a silver handgun with a long silencer on the end. “And here’s how it works.” The thug aimed at Matt and fired before Mina could even scream. He fired nine times, each like a bass drum thumping.
“He’s got a gun,” Matt rumbled. “But I have a bear.” The thug looked surprised as the man charged him, glancing down at his gun like he expected it to say “Toy Gun, Not Real” on the side. Matt took the distance between them in five loping steps then jumped in the air . . .
And came down on top of the man as a giant golden bear with the tattered rags of Matt’s second best suit clinging to its paws and neck. The bear that was Matt roared with a force that shook Mina’s teeth and set off a car alarm somewhere else in the junkyard.
Michael came running out of the shack, now dressed in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt.
“Jesus, Matt!” Michael yelled. “Don’t kill the guy. It’s not worth it. Don’t do this.”
The thug was unconscious, trapped under the several tons of bear that had landed on him. But he wasn’t dead. At least not yet.
“Go inside before someone sees you,” Michael’s eyes were wide with panic. “What the hell were you thinking, transforming in front of her?”
The bear that was also Ma
tt looked back at Mina, like he’d forgotten she was there. He had the same eyes, Matt’s eyes. They looked forlornly at Mina and she felt a great wave of sympathy well up inside her matched only by the wonderment at exactly what the hell was going on.
Matt-the-bear huffed and grumbled, he was easily larger than her car and when he moved his flesh shook as the massive slabs of muscle shifted under his fur. The morning sun caught his golden coat just right and for a moment he was surrounded by a honeyed light that took Mina’s breath away. She thought she had secrets, that she had something to hide. Her problems felt small next to the giant werebear.
“Go, go inside. Get some clothes for yourself.” Michael slapped the bear on the haunches and the big animal rambled inside. The handsome man turned to Mina, “You probably have some questions.”
“Matt turned into a bear.” Her voice came slow, like the words didn’t make sense in the order she was putting them in.
“That’s not a question.”
“Matt turned into a bear?” she said, her voice lilting upwards at the end.
“Yes.”
“Are you a bear, too?”
Michael nodded. “Oh yes.”
“Is everyone in this town secretly a bear?”
“I can’t answer that. I can only speak for Matt and myself.”
Mina blinked in the sunlight. She had so many questions, but couldn’t grasp any of them long enough to ask them. “Is he dangerous?”
“Not to you.”
“Why not to me?”
Michael smiled at her, every trace of his smirk gone in an instant. “Can’t you feel it? You’re his mate.”
Matt emerged from the tumble-down shack. He was wearing Michael’s clothes and they fit him snugly, the sweatpants and Winnie-the-Pooh t-shirt outlining every muscle in the man’s body.
“Dang, bro, that’s my favorite shirt and you’re going to stretch the hell out of it.”
A Slice of Honeybear Pie (BWWM Paranormal BBW Bear Shifter Romance) (Bearfield Book 1) Page 3
