Naked Tails

by Eden Winters

  Awww… how cute! He looks just like you. Congratulations.

  Michael? Paying a compliment? In the year and half since Seth had introduced the man to Junior, he hadn’t heard much from Michael except for the odd comment online. He clicked on Michael’s profile to read: “Engaged” listed under “Status.” Under his “Latest news” heading, he’d posted: Guess what, peoples? We’re getting married! In New York. A picture of a smiling Junior accompanied the announcement. Getting married? Good for them. Nothing poked at Seth’s heart while reading the engagement announcement; in fact, it inspired relief—providing the couple remained in New York.

  Widow Pickens putting Junior in his place for cowardice in front of the entire town might have contributed to the man’s sudden desire to relocate. How did Junior like scuttling around Central Park every month, dodging joggers and little frou-frou, bootie-wearing dogs?

  He drove home with one hand on the steering wheel, the other flying up to greet oncoming drivers (he still shivered at approaching cars), a woman walking her dog (Seth barely even cringed now when faced with canines), and a man getting mail out of his mailbox. In a short amount of time, he’d gone from stranger to one of Possum Kingdom’s leading citizens, which still made his head spin.

  Two vehicles occupied the back yard when he arrived home—Dustin’s Ranger and the old Silverado Monica refused to replace. Seth parked in his usual spot in the barn and checked the progress on the new garage on his way to the front porch. “I’m home!” he called, stepping inside.

  Dustin greeted him with a glass of tea and a kiss by the door. “We’ve got guests checking in tomorrow. A family of skunk shifters down from Cleveland. I’ve put them in the new attic suite. And a pair of honeymooning bunnies are set to arrive next week.”

  Bunnies? “Better put ’em in the back bedroom. Keep us from hearing ’em.”

  Dustin laughed. “We can always give them a run for their money.” He swatted Seth’s ass.

  “Hey, you two. Cut that out! There’s an impressionable child here!” Monica rose from the settee and strolled out to join the men in the hall, handing Dustin an empty bottle. “Here, go wash this.” She placed six-month-old Aaron on her shoulder, lightly swatting his back until he belched. “Oh! There’s Mommy’s little truck driver.”

  Dustin brushed a quick kiss against Seth’s neck. “Sure you won’t stay for dinner, Monica? We have plenty.”

  Monica held out the baby, and Seth grinned, taking the little boy with his mother’s light-colored hair and father’s nose. “Thanks, but I really need to get home.”

  “Well, I’ll see you at work tomorrow, then.” Dustin rose up on his toes to kiss Monica’s cheek. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get supper on the table.” Dustin ruffled the baby’s golden curls on his way out of the room.

  “I’ve finally found a suitable babysitter for full moon nights, didn’t I, widdle Aaron-rarin’,” Monica singsonged, the sudden display of maternal affection taking Seth aback. Even after nine months of pregnancy and six months of co-parenthood, it still amazed Seth what a great mother Monica turned out to be. If he hadn’t seen the evidence with his own eyes, he never would have believed she possessed a maternal side.

  Clutching the sleepy child to his chest, he walked Monica out to her truck. A cricket perched on the hood. Aaron snatched at it, gurgling. Seth laughed, snagging the bug and stuffing it out of the baby’s reach into a pocket. “No, son. You can’t have the hoppy critter. You can have one when you’re bigger.”

  He hugged Monica. “Thanks for him,” he said, trying and failing to keep the soppy grin from his face. “From me and Dustin both.”

  Monica replied with a bittersweet smile. “Irene would be happy, about the baby, about you and Dustin, and about you heading the passel.” She nuzzled noses with her son. “Isn’t it amazing, Aaron? Your daddy’s all grown up now. Who’da thunk it possible?”

  She climbed into her truck. “Take care of Aaron and Dustin.”

  Seth stood in the yard and watched her leave, Aaron drowsing in his arms. When the sound of the truck faded into nothingness, Seth murmured, “C’mon, little guy; let’s get you to bed.”

  He entered the house. Dustin’s off-key singing came from the kitchen, and the scent of cabbage and corned beef announced another foray into Aunt Irene’s cookbook.

  Careful not to disturb the baby, Seth eased down the hall to his old bedroom, now converted into a nursery. He placed his son in the crib and crouched beside the spindles to croon, “Back in Black.”

  About Eden Winters

  You will know Eden Winters by her distinctive white plumage and exuberant cry of “Hey, y’all!” in a Southern US drawl so thick it renders even the simplest of words unrecognizable. Watch out, she hugs!

  Driven by insatiable curiosity, she possibly holds the world’s record for curriculum changes to the point that she’s never quite earned a degree but is a force to be reckoned with at Trivial Pursuit.

  She’s trudged down hallways with police detectives, learned to disarm knife-wielding bad guys, and witnessed the correct way to blow doors off buildings. Her e-mail contains various snippets of forensic wisdom, such as “What would a dead body left in a Mexican drug tunnel look like after six months?” In the process of her adventures she has written fourteen m/m romance novels, has won several Rainbow Awards, was a Lambda Awards Finalist, and lives in terror of authorities showing up at her door to question her Internet searches. When not putting characters in dangerous situations she’s a mild-mannered business executive, mother, grandmother, vegetarian, and PFLAG activist.

  Her natural habitats are airports, coffee shops, and on the backs of motorcycles.

  Keep up with Eden and Rocky Ridge Books by joining the newsletter.

  edenwinters.com

  Edenwinters@gmail.com

  Also from Eden Winters and Rocky Ridge Books

  A Bear Walks Into a Bar

  The Urso of Ballantine Mountain thinks he’ll run a rag-tag band of shifters out of his territory. He doesn’t expect to find a family.

  Two Bears and a Baby

  Sawyer and Dillon are the only two bears of the Ballantine Mountain Sleuth—until baby makes three.

  The Ballantine Bears Box Set

  Get both novels in one handy volume for a double dose of bear shifter love.

  Otter Chaos

  When otter shifter Lon meets Corey on the slopes, they’re in for some good times in the mountains. Until the werewolves show up.

  Keep current with the Rocky Ridge gang by joining the newsletter.

  Have a taste of A Bear Walks Into A Bar

  Chapter One

  Dillon wiped down the bar with one hand, holding his cellphone to his ear with the other. He tuned out his friends’ guffaws and squawks as they horsed around when they should’ve been bringing in cases of beer from the cooler.

  “Sis, we’ve been over this and over this. I can’t abide by the rules back home. I need to be free to live my own life. I’ve got my friends, I’ve got the bar, that’s all I need.” Except maybe another bear. The wolves and fox were fine to play with, but nothing cranked his shaft like a bear with a hard on. But another bear meant going home, where Dillon would be expected to follow old-fashioned guidelines. She must not know that the Urso had told him to leave and never come back. Better for her not to know—she still had to deal with the asshole.

  All because he couldn’t keep it in his pants.

  Bears were sexual creatures. Not using his dick until being officially mated wasn’t going to happen for him. Who’d ever heard of uptight bears?

  His sister snorted. “Your friends are irresponsible. You know it as well as I do. Who’s going to look after you all winter?”

  Dillon sighed and rolled his eyes. Crash! came from the storeroom. His friends, irresponsible? Well, yes. “I’m a big boy and can look after myself.”

  “Oh fuck yeah!” somebody out of sight yelled. Assholes better tone it down before the neighbors called the cops again an
d complained about the “loud porno” the bar played all day on a non-existent TV.

  “You know it’s not only your opinion that matters. What if something goes wrong? You’re young and unpredictable. What if you lose control? What then? We can’t risk humans learning about us.”

  Dillon turned his back so he wouldn’t have to see the claw marks in the door frame—claw marks he’d inflicted the last time he’d gotten drunk and shifted. Shifting took care of the alcohol in his system, but for a few seconds… Some things his sister didn’t need to know.

  “I’ll just have to make sure nothing happens, then, won’t I?” No matter how much he might lie, not having a place in the world, not being part of a bear sleuth, ripped at his guts. He wouldn’t go crawling back, begging to be let back into the sleuth. He wouldn’t. Ever.

  But so much stuff he didn’t know. His friends weren’t much better off, and sooner or later someone was going to do something stupid, like challenge a car on Main Street. He’d learned a lot from his pals, and they from him, but even so, they couldn’t even keep the local elk from shitting in the front yard. You’d think the four-legged nuisances would leave an apex predator alone, but no… Pellets everywhere.

  If he and his friends couldn’t handle a few elk, how would they ever manage a tour bus full of wolves?

  Fucking uptight Urso!

  A shifter’s world was no place for wusses. Still, the celibacy and “species purity” his former leader dictated didn’t fit into Dillon’s world. Fucking made him happy. As long as he didn’t hurt anybody, what was the harm in getting off with his friends? If he did hurt somebody, it was only because they’d asked.

  And without him, the guys had no one. No options. They’d make it here or nowhere. Dillon couldn’t leave them.

  “Isabel asked about you,” his sister said, in a singsong voice that suggested future cubs for their mother to dandle on her knee. That’s what his siblings, with the combined total of sixteen cubs, were for. Dillon’s world was officially a cub-free zone.

  “We’ve talked about that too.” Hard to hold a conversation about female mates when he’d have to shift before work to ease the pain in his over-worked ass. “On the outside chance you change your mind and leave,” his friends had told him, “we wanna make sure you don’t forget about us.”

  As if.

  Now came his sister’s turn to sigh. “Okay, okay. I’ll admit defeat on you finding a nice woman. But what about winter? Where are you going to den up that’s safe?”

  Good fucking question, and one Dillon couldn’t answer. His friends would do what they could for him, but he really needed his own kind when hibernation set in. He’d never been through this alone, and going bear and staying bear was a good possibility for the untrained—or wreaking havoc on those around him. And gay bears that bucked the system weren’t trained in his former sleuth. The Urso didn’t give a rat’s ass if he lived or died.

  All the more reason to live.

  “You’d better make a decision and soon. The snows have already started here. You need to be tucked into a proper den before the storms hit Colorado tomorrow.”

  Fuck. Give a guy some time, why don’t you? His friends had quieted down. Someone must be getting a blowjob, the asshole. Leaving Dillon to do all the work. Probably Jerry, who’d recently been drooling and practically humping a barstool over a construction worker he hadn’t worked up the nerve to talk to yet.

  It never failed. Troy came in, Jerry salivated, Troy left, Jerry ran in the back to whack off or talk Brad into some lip service.

  Damn, but Dillon would like to be in the back, playing too.

  His sister’s voice grew more grating, refocusing his straying thoughts. “What about local sleuths? Any out there that won’t resent a new male showing up?”

  Pick an excuse, any excuse, to let Dillon stay where he was. “There’s another bear over the mountain I’ve heard about.” Yeah, one lone bear didn’t exactly count as a sleuth. Probably an old miner, forty-niner type who’d be damned if a few lousy hunters would run him off his land like they had the other bears. But the lack of potential rivals had attracted Dillon to this area, where he could pretend to be human most of the time.

  “One bear? Only one?”

  “Yeah, and just because he bought a mountain or something. It’s now a private wildlife preserve.”

  “So, no sleuth.” Sleuth. What an awful name for a shifter group.

  “No. But he’s invited other shifters to share his sanctuary, as long as they obey his rules.” Thank Mother Moon they were miles away, up near Nederland. The last thing Dillon needed was more shifter bullshit. He’d had enough to last a lifetime.

  “I still wish you’d come home.”

  Dillon loved his sister, he truly did, but now was time for him to venture forth from the family cave. “I’ve got a good life here. A bar to run. I’m taking classes online to learn to run it better. With folks driving out this way to watch the aspens change, we’ve done pretty good business.” Later, The Bear Claw would take advantage of snow bunnies on their way to the slopes. They might not stay in this Podunk town, but lots of tourists drove through on their way elsewhere.

  “I gotta go. Skype me when you can and let me know you’re okay.” His sister made a “mwah” kissing noise into the phone.

  Okay. Shit, Dillon might never be okay again. No family, no sleuth, and the local elk leaving calling cards all over his lawn.

  What he needed was a distraction.

  “Guys!” he hollered. Time to start his “happy hibernation” party.

  Sawyer Ballantine stalked through the conference room, shrugging out of a too-restrictive jacket. One more minute and he’d have these guys for lunch. Literally. “Might I remind you who owns this company?”

  “You do,” his board of directors chorused.

  “Who bought it as a financial fuckup and turned a profit the first year?”

  “You did,” they responded.

  “Yes, I did. I call the shots. And I say that you’ll listen to Rudy here”—he hiked a thumb at the stocky-built guy at the far end of the table—“while I’m taking a six-month sabbatical.”

  Sabbatical, hell. Six months out of the year he wasn’t fit company for humans. Mother Nature was a cruel bitch.

  Rudy sat up a little straighter, not that he needed to try to be intimidating. At two inches shy of Sawyer’s six feet six, and with shoulders linebackers would kill for, the man commanded attention in his own right, and occasionally needed swatting down to keep him in line.

  Not too much swatting though. Kinky little asshole might get off on that shit, though Sawyer wasn’t above a subtle release of power to remind the guy of the pecking order.

  “Now, Carson, where are the financials I asked for?”

  “Scanned and e-mailed, sir.” The wizened accountant scrunched further down into his chair.

  Of all the humans who called Sawyer “boss”, only Carson showed the proper nervousness in his presence, as though the man sensed a predator nearby. Reminded Sawyer of a rabbit.

  Sawyer turned and swallowed a mouthful of drool. One mustn’t think of employees as food.

  “If that is all,” he growled, leaving no doubts the meeting had ended. Without so much as a backward glance, he strode down the hall to his office and slammed the door. Assholes. They made money hand over fist, thanks to him, and yet tried to dictate his regular presence in the office. Not happening. He’d stayed too long already.

  Cold weather sweeping in made him antsy, set off warning bells in his head, calling him home.

  Damned fucking tie. Trying to choke him. He ripped off the offending silk and tossed the tattered remnants to the floor. Oh well, that’s why his housekeeper bought them by the dozen. His button down dress shirt hit the floor a moment later, and he’d peeled out of his crisply pressed slacks when the door opened and closed behind him.

  Only one man dared to enter his sanctuary without knocking, and if he’d not been expecting Rudy, the wolf would be
pinned against the wall.

  “I think some of the pack should go with you.” The most daring of Sawyer’s employees stepped into viewing range, the jacket Sawyer had discarded in the conference room slung over one shoulder.

  “And I say I go alone.” Sawyer opened the private quarters he’d built into his office, and donned the pair of jeans hanging from the back of a chair. A massive bed took up some of the space, and through another doorway a Jacuzzi tub beckoned. Sometimes situations warranted his full attention, no matter what time of year. The hidden rooms allowed him to function as much as winter allowed. Damn it all. Why couldn’t he be like Rudy, not needing so much down time?

  Oh right. Then he’d be a wolf instead of a bear. He pulled on a T-shirt, emblazoned with the name of the local Harley dealership. Next came his boots and chaps. Ah, so much more comfortable than a suit and tie.

  Rudy blew out his breath. “You’re taking the Harley then?”

  “Might as well get one more ride in while the weather holds.” Mother Moon knew when Sawyer would next be able to cruise the mountains with the sun shining down.

  “You don’t know what you’re up against. You really need a few of my wolves with you.”

  A few wolves to know my business, you mean. “Truce means I tolerate the pack living on my lands. We’re not partners, and you don’t question me.” Sawyer flexed his fingers.

  Rudy’s scowl would’ve sent half the pack scurrying for the hills.

  But not Sawyer. Oh how many times he’d dreamed of wiping out the entire pack in payment for their crimes against his kind. “There’s four shifters encroaching on my territory, and I’ll see to them myself.” Four unknown shifters were no match for a full grown bear, no matter what their species.