by T. S. Joyce
Arguing with him was pointless. Everything was on Robbie’s schedule. Her life had orbited around his convenience, and he would never change, so utterly defeated she said, “Okay. I’ll be there.”
Robbie ended the call, and she set her cell phone down gingerly. And then she allowed herself to do something she had desperately been trying to avoid. She cried. And not the soft kind either, but the curled on the bed, arms wrapped around her stomach kind. She missed Ryder, and she worried about the way Robbie was treating him. She was here in a strange place with a shifter culture she didn’t know. How did she feel this lonely around people of her own kind? She’d thought it would be different if she was around other shifters. But now all she felt was this immense pressure to help them, which put a barrier between them. She was the publicist, the employee, other, and they were a close-knit crew whose friend-cards were all filled up.
And Mason…
Her animal was pining for him, which made everything harder.
A light hand touched her back, and she jerked and gasped. And then as if her thoughts had conjured him, Mason was there, right beside her on the bed, his eyes dark and sad. “Are you okay?” he asked.
Are you okay? How long had it been since anyone asked her that? “How long have you been here?”
Mason looked uncomfortable and wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I heard your phone conversation, both sides. I didn’t mean to. I knocked, but you didn’t answer, so I came in and waited for you to hang up.”
“I didn’t hear you knock, and is that how a trailer park works? People just barge in whether you want them to or not?”
“Pretty much.” Mason relaxed against the headboard and clasped his hands over his stomach, crossed his ankles. His boots were hanging off the bed, he was that tall. “What are you doing in ten-ten? I thought you didn’t want any of the magic on you.” Was that a spark of humor in his eyes?
“Yeah, well, have you seen the empty trailer? Clinton has been using it as a workout room slash woodshop slash karate studio. The place has been destroyed by Kung Fu Clinton. There was zero room for me to work there, much less live.”
Mason’s voice softened. “Why didn’t you move into my trailer?”
Beck rolled over on her side to face him and curled her knees up to her chest. She wiped her damp cheeks on the sleeve of her pale pink hoodie and sniffed. “It just didn’t feel right. That’s your place. I went inside, but it still looks like you never left.”
With a slight frown, Mason asked, “What do you mean?”
“I mean, there are even rinsed dishes still left in the sink, the bed is still unmade, and someone’s been feeding your mouse. It even smells like you. And Bash looked gutted when I was considering it. I don’t think they’ve given up on you coming back. Ten-ten is fine if…”
“If what?”
“If there is a chance that you’ll move back here someday.”
Mason inhaled deeply and stared at the window unit AC on the opposite wall. “Your ex sounds like a dick.”
Beck snorted, and the stretch of her smile felt good. “I like dicks. In my head I call Robbie ‘McFartFace.’”
Mason chuckled a deep, resonating, sexy sound, and she watched his smile spread up to reach his eyes. God, she bet he was beautiful under that thick beard.
“Can I tell you something?” she asked softly.
With a single nod of his chin, he tightened his arms over his chest and murmured, “Sure.”
“I was kind of scared I would never see you again. And I know that sounds stupid because we barely know each other, but you were the first one here to talk to me, and I feel weird around the others, butting in and ordering them about. Plus, eating lunch with you by the river the other day was kind of amazing. It was nice to just talk easy with someone. Talking with you was…comfortable.”
Mason was quiet for a long time before he said, “I like that you say what you mean. No lies or half-truths. You just lay it out there.”
“Most people don’t like that about me.”
“I think it’s brave. I couldn’t do that.”
She laughed and shook her head. “You have me pegged wrong. I’m the biggest coward in the world.” She hadn’t even told Robbie she was a shifter until Ryder Changed for the first time, and now she was hiding from Mason, too. Typical Beck. So scared of what people thought about her that she couldn’t own what, and who, she was. No, the shifters of Damon’s mountains were brave. Mason was brave. She would spend her whole life hiding from the world.
“Your car will be ready in a week, and they knocked down the price by half.”
Confused by the turn in conversation, she propped up on her elbow and asked, “What do you mean?”
“I mean, they really should be called Rip-Off’s Auto Repair because they were squeezing you big-time. That asshole mechanic would’ve dragged it on for another month, too.”
She sat up, stunned that someone had done something nice for her. Something that actually helped her. “You took care of it?”
“Yeah, I tracked down the shop yesterday. I didn’t know you lived in Douglas.”
“You’re surprised I’m small town?”
“Hell, yeah. From your fancy power pants, I pegged you as a big city girl, come down from your high rise to free the shifters.”
“Ha! No, but I did come down from my second floor apartment a few hours away to try and help. This is my first experience ever in a trailer park.”
“Exciting, isn’t it?”
“Very. Did you know there are two mice in here that prefer jalapeño potato chips to the healthy mouse food I’ve been trying to feed them? I think they are addicted, and it makes me like them more because jalapeño potato chips are friggin’ delicious.”
Mason’s grin grew bigger. “I did know about Nards and Nipple’s love of junk food.”
“And did you also know that Clinton might be a bona fide psychopath? I caught him ripping a rosebush out of my landscaping in the middle of the night, and he tried to convince me it was all a dream. And then he flipped me off and went back to his trailer. And this morning when I woke up to have my coffee on the porch, he climbed onto the roof of his trailer and pissed right off the front into his yard. And he smiled at me as he did it.”
Mason laughed and rested a hand behind his head, relaxing bit by bit beside her. “I definitely know he’s a psychopath. He’ll grow on you, though.”
“And did you know Bash really, really misses you? He’s asked me if you’ve called about a dozen times. I tried to explain to him that you aren’t my driver anymore.”
The smile faded from Mason’s lips. “Yeah, I knew that part, too. I’m moving back into my old trailer.” He heaved a sigh and rolled his head toward her, leveled her with a somber look. “I give it a week, and they’ll wish I would’ve stayed gone.”
Beck dipped her voice to a whisper. “You’re not as broken as you think, Beast Boar.”
The corner of Mason’s mouth ticked up and, slowly, he reached for her, pushed her hair back off her cheek with the barest brush of his fingertip—his first voluntary touch. “You’re wrong.”
Chapter Seven
The trailer park was a ghost town right now, not exactly the return Mason had imagined, but this was better. It would be easier for everyone if he slid back in quietly. He’d had a hard time ripping himself away from Beck after she’d been so open with him. After he’d heard the conversation with her ex. After talking to her until she drifted off to sleep, right there in the middle of the afternoon, as though she felt safe with him. After he’d tested himself, touching her cheek and reveling in the warm, comforting sensation that drew up his dick.
He couldn’t push too hard with her, though. If her quiet sobbing after she had gotten off the phone with her ex was anything to go by, Beck had been wounded badly. All Mason had been able to think about all afternoon was covering her, fucking her until she screamed his name and forgot about that douchebag who talked to her like she was nothing. Asshole didn’t even rea
lize what he’d lost. God, Mason hated people like him. Robbie. He wanted to rip his throat through his mouth-hole for calling Beck “boring” again.
Beck was the most interesting woman Mason had met since Esmerelda.
Letting off a steadying breath to cool his blood, Mason pulled a moving box from the bed of his truck and took it inside his trailer. The second he stepped through the doorway, he froze. Such a strange sensation washed over him, prickling his skin. His room at Damon’s house hadn’t ever felt like home, but this place…this dilapidated, thirty-five-year-old singlewide came pretty damn close.
He set down the box and ran his fingers over the neck of his old guitar in the corner, and then along the back of the couch to reacquaint himself with the place. It smelled like wood polish, floor cleaner, and soap. Someone had been in here to keep the dust at bay. Bash, he would guess, and an accidental smile took Mason’s face at the vision of that big clumsy brute in here with a dust rag, humming off-key to himself.
Mason made his way to the bedroom, and sure enough, Beck had been right. His covers were still unmade, just as he’d left them. A vision of Beck on her hands and knees, back arched and wet sex ready for him flashed across his mind, and there it was again—that instant boner. Geez, he felt like he was a rutting breeder again since she’d stumbled into his life in that fucking sexy, muddy, see-through outfit of hers. Was that was this was? Maybe he was rutting, encouraged by his broken boar, or from how damn fuckable Beck was. He had to be careful with that one. She wasn’t some sow in heat. She was human. Fragile. He would have to open her up slowly. Fuck. Stop thinking about her like that. She isn’t yours.
But he wanted her to be. And she had Ryder, so maybe she wouldn’t be as disappointed in the fact that he couldn’t give her a child. She already had one. Mason winced at the pain of that thought. He’d missed her being pregnant. Missed that entire part of her life, and why did that seem like such a huge thing? If he went after her, he would never see her belly swell with child. Would never press his hand against the movement there. Would never be there for her when she gave birth. She would never bear a child with a tiny piglet just waiting to present itself in that first year of life. Maybe he was biased, but boar shifter babies were the cutest.
Stop it! He couldn’t lose his mind over things that would never come to fruition. Beck wouldn’t have his child. No one would. That wasn’t the life that had been meant for him. At least she had Ryder. Good strong name, and Beck was a good mom for gifting it to him. Something inside him said that McFartFace hadn’t come up with anything so good.
“They’re coming.”
Mason hunched and spun, but no one was there. It had been Esmerelda’s voice, just a whisper over the drone of the AC unit. Chills blasted up his skin as he narrowed his eyes and searched the kitchen behind him. Shit. She really had followed him here, just like he’d feared. He would have to call Clara and ask if she knew a way to get rid of her. Or maybe he would pay Jason of the Gray Backs a visit. He’d somehow banished the ghost of a dead ex-mate a couple years ago. Or maybe Beaston, who saw so much more than everyone else, would have some advice for him. Mason had to do something because Esmerelda had only visited his dreams until now, and she’d never been powerful enough to speak to him in broad daylight.
His inner boar roared to Change. To fight…something.
If it was the last thing he did, Mason had to protect the Boarlanders from whatever was happening to him. He had to protect Beck from his past.
Outside, trucks rumbled through the trailer park, siphoning his attention away from the empty kitchen. Here we go.
Mason made his way out of his trailer and locked his arms against the porch railing. He watched the parade of cars filter into the park. The dumbfounded looks and slow smiles on his crews’ faces as they drove past made him think that maybe Damon had been right sending him back. If Mason ignored the skittering fear that he would hurt the people he cared about, this feeling of homecoming was actually nice. And about now, he would take any balm for his soul, no matter how temporary.
Beck opened the door of 1010, and her eyes immediately locked onto him. With a boner-inducing smile, she lifted her hand and waved. Mason’s heart beat against his chest. If that woman even knew how his beast was laying claim to her, she would run away as fast as those long, sexy legs could carry her.
He nodded a greeting and twitched his head, inviting her over. She should see this—the good, bad, and ugly. She should see the celebration at him moving back in, sure, but she should also see the shit the Boarlanders would give him for leaving in the first place.
She’d said she felt weird around the crew, and that had to change. Mason needed her to fit in here for selfish reasons, and he didn’t give a single fuck what that said about him.
“Mason!” Bash yelled at the top of his lungs. He waved his arms all around like Mason could possibly miss the titan hanging out the window of Harrison’s eye-scorching red pickup.
Mason waved back and jogged down the stairs to the new sod on his front lawn.
The trucks skidded to a stop, kicking up dust, and the Boarlanders piled out of them like an ant colony hunting a cherry flavored sucker. Mason couldn’t help his laugh when Bash picked him off the ground and slapped him on the back hard enough to beat the air from his lungs.
“You C-Team again?” Bash asked, his voice heartbreakingly hopeful. “Tell me you’re movin’ back, Mace!”
“I’m back, Bash Bear. I ain’t leavin’ again.”
Bash let off a long relieved sob, and his shoulders shook as he hugged him harder.
“Aw, come on, ya big crybaby,” Kirk said, peeling Bash off Mason. “Let him breathe.”
Mason stumbled to his feet and winced as the gorilla shifter gripped his shoulder hard enough to grind his bones. “Leave again, and I’ll kill you.” Kirk had said it through an easy smile, but his voice was completely serious and utterly believable.
Harrison pulled him in for a manly, painful hug, but the girls were much gentler, holding on longer, wiping the corners of their eyes after releasing him. And then Beck was there, eyes full of emotion, and that’s how Mason knew she was a good one. She was affected by a dynamic she knew little about. She was rooting for him already. Rooting for all of them.
Before he could change his mind, he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and kissed her forehead, then released her and grinned at her baffled smile. She looked drunk as a skunk, and all he had to do was hug her. God that felt good—having a woman like Beck react to a simple touch from a man like him. He had to get better. Had to, because she wouldn’t settle for a broken man. She deserved better. Everything faded away as her full lips curved up in that smile he was falling in love with. She was the prize. If he worked hard enough, and long enough, maybe she would open up her heart to him. He couldn’t offer her much, but he would treat her a helluva lot better than her ex if she gave him half a chance. He had to earn that chance first, though.
“You know how obnoxious this one is?” Bash asked, rubbing his giant hand over Beck’s hair, mussing her gold-red curls. “She gave us one of them itittyaries—”
“Itineraries,” Emerson corrected.
“And then Beck said we have to take sexy lumberjack pictures for some calendar and told us to manscape. Manscape!” Bash doubled over with a single bellowing laugh. “I had to Internet-search what that even meant. Emerson gots to shave my chest tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, my God,” Harrison groaned, scrubbing his hand down his entire face.
“I ain’t doin’ it!” Clinton said from the outskirts of the group. “I don’t want to be part of some project to get the ladies all masturbating while they’re looking at my sexy body. No thank you.”
“Well, you have to,” Kirk said lightly. “Damon and Cora said we need to do what Beck says, so if you want that paycheck to pay for all the pointless shit you buy, you can take a picture.”
“Well,” Beck cut in, her cheeks blazing a shade of red Mason had never seen on a hum
an before, “the idea is to garner positive attention. We’ll give all the proceeds to a charity you choose. I’ll build it up real big online because the ladies in this country can be a powerful ally. They are outspoken about what they like, and they can give us a huge push in votes for reinstating shifter rights. So them—touching themselves if that’s what they want to do—is good because that means they would see you as men and not animals.”
“Ew.” Clinton crossed his arms and looked grumpy. “When you say ‘touching themselves,’ it sounds pervy. Just say masturbate. That’s what it is.”
Beck’s eyes went dead, like she wouldn’t be baited.
Clinton got a predatory smile. “Say it, and I’ll take one picture. Come on, publicist. Have a little fun. Say masturbate.”
Beck was the color of a cherry and gritted her teeth. With an impressive eye roll, she gritted out, “Masturbate. And now you’ll be January.”
“What’s January?” Clinton asked suspiciously.
“You’ll be up against your fancy new truck, half-naked, wearing your hard hat, ripping your chainsaw in front of your crotch. And the photographer I hired will be taking your picture at the crack of dawn so it looks colder. You’ll be up first.”
Clinton scowled but didn’t argue, and that was some progress right there.
“We should celebrate,” Audrey said, her grin infectious.
“Celebrating nudie pictures?” Bash asked, looking from one face to the next. “That’s weird, but okay!”
“No, Bash Bear,” Audrey said through a giggle. “Celebrating Mason’s return.”
“Return of the pig!” Bash crowed, throwing his hands up in the air.
“Boar,” Mason corrected for the billionth time. Bash’s filter was broken.
Harrison draped his arm over Audrey’s shoulders and said, “There’s a new home cookin’ restaurant that just opened ten minutes from Moosey’s we could try. That Jam’s Chicken House place. I think it’s BYOB.”
“Bring your own boobs,” Bash said excitedly. “I call Emerson!”