by T. S. Joyce
“Oh, my God,” she murmured, rushing around the SUV, which had rocked to a halt.
When she bolted around it, she froze at what she saw. Anson was squatted down in the gravel, eye-level with Bentley, holding his frail little shoulders. He was looking directly in her son’s eyes, anger boiling in his as he talked to him. “Boy, don’t you ever run out in a street like that, you hear me? You look both ways, every time. You could’ve been bad hurt, the kind that your shifter healing can’t fix.”
Bentley nodded his head slowly. “Okay.” It sounded like he was about to cry.
Kaylee’s maternal instincts kicked in hard. It didn’t matter if Anson was right, she should be the one in charge of his discipline, not Anson. She opened her mouth to give him what for, but Anson shocked her to her bones and pulled Bentley tight against his chest. “Was that scary?”
Bentley nodded again and slowly wrapped his frail little arms around Anson’s neck.
“It scared me, too,” Anson murmured, locking eyes with Kaylee. They were bright gold, and he shook his head, exhaling hard. So fucking bad, he mouthed to her.
Her legs locked. She nearly fell from the sudden weight that was lifted from her shoulders. She’d always carried burdens like this alone. Fear for her kid, but she could tell Anson was shaken up too. He’d just saved Bentley, and he was trembling as hard as she was.
Seeing a big, dominant panther shifter lowered down to eye-level with her boy in a dusty parking lot, telling him it was okay to be scared sometimes…that little flutter of “like” in her heart morphed into something so much more.
She didn’t like Anson Carter anymore.
She loved him.
Chapter Eleven
Fuck.
Anson had said that little gem in his head fifteen times in the last four minutes. He was trying to keep his cool, but Bentley had run right out in front of a car, and it could’ve turned out so differently if Anson hadn’t been fast enough. If he hadn’t been a shifter.
Kaylee looked like she was about to cry, but he couldn’t read her emotions. Fear? Relief?
Fuck.
He pulled Bentley into his arms, settled him on his hip, and eased Kaylee in close, hand gripping her hard on the back of her neck so she couldn’t escape. He needed to feel them and know they were safe.
Fuck.
Nothing would’ve been okay again if Bentley had gotten hit by that car.
Kaylee melted against him, her dainty fists gripping his shirt like she didn’t want to let him go. The Red Havoc Crew was plastered against the window with what-the-hell expressions, but screw everything but this right here in his arms. That had been the scariest moment of his life.
“This is why I haven’t attached to anyone,” he admitted against Kaylee’s ear. “I know what it’s like to lose someone important. It scares the shit out of me to put myself in that position again. And it’s you. You hurt me before. You left me before. You destroyed me before, and now I’m giving you this power to do it again, but worse, because you have a son, and you’re teasing me with both.” Anson eased back and locked eyes on hers so she could see the sincerity of his words when he said, “Don’t hurt me again.”
Yeah, it was an emotional plea. The thought of what could’ve just happened to Bentley right before their eyes flashed over and over in his mind and hurt in ways he couldn’t express. But she should really know what was at risk if she kept digging up the bond he’d buried long ago.
A tear streaked down her face. She shook her head and rested her cheek against his shirt. Her tears made damp spots on the fabric on his shoulder.
“I won’t hurt you,” she whispered.
Truth. Those four words were more important than she realized, and she’d laced every one with honest notes. She believed what she said, but that made no sense because she was still pursuing the lions. Arden still had a claim on Bentley. Kaylee was allowing it. Anson was angry with her. He was in love with her. He wanted her to choose him, but he couldn’t ask her outright. A man had to have more pride than that with a woman like Kaylee.
He let off a shaking breath and waved the SUV away. “We’re fine,” he told the driver, who was sitting there behind the wheel, looking shocked through the rolled-down window. “Come on,” he told Kaylee and Bentley. “Let’s go eat and forget about this.”
“You made Mom cry,” Bentley admonished him with a frown.
“I’m not Noah. Sometimes a man has to make a woman cry so she feels something deep. Someday you’ll understand, little brawler. I’m not hurting your momma. Sometimes tears can be happy. Sometimes they can be relieved. You scared us both.”
Chapter Twelve
He wasn’t Noah.
Kaylee followed Anson toward the restaurant, or stumbled more like. He was a graceful predator, and right now she looked like a squirrel who had gotten into a barrel of whiskey.
Anson was so different from the man who’d left her and Bentley. He’d just explained fear and tears to her son in a way that made sense. In a way she respected. Now was the moment she vowed to never make Anson pay for that man’s mistakes.
He’d pleaded with her not to hurt him again, but didn’t he see? Couldn’t he feel how much she cared about him already? She clung to his hand like a lifeline, and he hadn’t even put Bentley down yet. He’d just carried him straight up to the front door of Barkey’s Burritos, while he held her hand steady in his, leading the way like they were a little family.
This was the least lonely she’d felt in the years since she’d left Covington, and it was Anson’s fault. His doing. She could practically feel roots growing from her flipflop-clad feet deep into the gravel parking lot to the rich earth beneath.
He was making her into a steady redwood, just like he was, and part of her was terrified, but part of her looked at their intertwined fingers and imagined them as trees bound for always, right here in this tiny town she’d worked so hard to escape.
And before he opened the door to the restaurant, he told Bentley, “Prepare yourself, boy. I’m gonna kiss your momma and make the tears stop.”
Bentley clapped his hands over his face and groaned, “Gross,” as Anson rounded on her.
His face was still pale as a sheet, his eyes blazing like the sun, but the hint of a smile was back on his lips as he kissed her.
This one was sweet. It was lips parted and a hesitation right before they touched, giving her the choice, building up the butterflies in her stomach. She sipped his lips, reveled in his taste when he gently brushed his tongue into her mouth once, twice. When he eased back from her, his smile was bigger. Relieved. Touch did that for shifters. Clearly, reassurance for Anson was as important to him as it was to her.
“I have a surprise for you,” Anson told Bentley as he opened the door and waited for Kaylee to walk on through.
“Is it candy?”
“Nah, it’s way better than that.” Anson jerked his chin toward a big table of burly giants. “See that little boy in the middle of everyone?”
“Yeah?” Bentley’s voice came out an excited squeak as he squirmed out of Anson’s arms. “Who is he?”
“He’s almost your exact same age, and he has a brawler in him, too.”
“A lion?” Bentley asked loudly.
“You’ll have to ask him about all that yourself. You can sit by him while we eat if your mom says okay.”
“Mom?” Bentley yelled, his blond little brows jacked up to his hairline with hope.
Kaylee laughed, and all the tension evaporated from her body. “Yeah, go sit by him. I’ll order your food.”
She never saw her kid move so fast. He didn’t even say hello to the table of giants who greeted him. He simply crawled under the table and popped up on the other side, right beside Jenny’s son. “I’m a lion,” he said proudly. “What’re you?”
Damn, it felt good to watch her kid own his shifter side. “I forgot about Jenny’s boy being part of the Red Havoc Crew,” she admitted as she followed Anson to the line to order lunch.
>
“The Cold Mountain Pride has no cubs in it. Just sayiiing,” he sang.
“Are you trying to sell me on Red Havoc?” she teased.
Anson shrugged. “Maybe. The girls up there are lame. One is my sister, and she drives me up the fuckin’ wall, one is a psychopath who hunts me when she’s Changed, and one is an actual crazy mountain woman who lives in a tree house in the woods and only visits when she needs food. The boys aren’t much better. You’re downright normal. You’d hate it up there, but I’m selfish and want more blow jobs.”
“Anson!” she whisper-screamed.
“What?” he said, laughing and ducking out of swatting range. “Don’t think I forgot how good you were at it back in the day. I bet you’ve improved enough for a damn trophy. I’ll put you up in a moonshiner’s cabin, barely put food on the table, roof leakin’ on your head, and let you suck my—”
“Stop! You were all sweet outside, and now you’re being a monster.” She was trying not to smile, really she was, but Anson’s filthy mouth had always amused her.
“Real talk though, Snob. That’s all I have to offer you. Debt, moonshine, and peepee kisses.”
“Charming offer. Wait, are you serious about moonshine?” she asked an octave higher.
“Shhh!” he said through a grin, scanning the people around them.
“I thought it was illegal,” she whispered as they moved up one in line.
“Don’t pretend good girls like you don’t like outlaws.”
Well, okay, she actually did like that Anson had always been a rebel. “Sexy construction worker by day, moonshine bandit by night.”
“Don’t call me a moonshine bandit. You just made it lame.”
“They should follow you around with cameras and do a documentary on your weird life. Criminal Moonshiner Panthers.”
“Veto.”
“Hairy Moonshine Mobsters.”
“You’re making me tired.” Anson faked a yawn.
“Red Havoc Mountain Moonshiners.”
“Okay, that one’s cool. I would watch that show.”
“Do you even have television up in the wilderness, Hermit?”
“Hermit? Woman look at that table over there. I live in a damn commune of village idiots. I don’t get a single second to myself. It’s annoying. I wish I could be a hermit.”
Kaylee did look seriously at the table. Barret was shoving an entire burrito into his mouth like a hungry snake while flipping off Jaxon. Jaxon had his arm around a pretty girl with gold eyes, and he was laughing like the F-you gesture amused him. A blond-haired man sat next to Jenny and the boys and shook his head with an exhausted, dead-eyed look on his face, as though he wished he could be anywhere but here, and a giant of a man sat on the end, already finished with his food and glaring at Kaylee with his tattooed arms crossed over his chest, his biceps bulging with the motion. He looked grumpy as hell. Well, at least Bentley and Jenny’s son seemed to be having fun. They were chattering back and forth like two excited parrots.
Thunder boomed outside, making Kaylee hunch in startlement, but Anson’s hand was right at the small of her back, massaging little circles in a gesture so comforting she rewarded him by leaning against his side. His smile was slow as he looked down at her. Gently, he rested his arm over her shoulders and pulled her closer. “Afraid of a little thunder, scaredy cat?”
“Scaredy cat? I’m not Snob anymore?”
He got quiet and thoughtful, just stood there locked on her gaze before he frowned slightly and shook his head. “You were never Snob. I just liked the way your cheeks got all red when you got mad at being called that. I liked having any kind of reaction from you. Kaylee Cummings, I’ve been watching you.” He lifted the ends of her hair and studied them. “You haven’t cut your hair in a while, or colored it like you used to. Your nails are painted but all chipped to hell, and you don’t wear fancy clothes anymore. Now, you’re cut-offs and flipflops and wild hair, and that old truck you drive isn’t worth a can of beans. When you were out there getting stomped by the wide world, you lost it, didn’t you?”
“Lost what?”
“You lost the snob in you.”
Kaylee swallowed hard, stalling so her voice wouldn’t shake. “You see too much, Anson.”
“Does it scare you?” he asked directly.
“A little. It scares me, and it makes me happy that someone sees me. Really sees me. I’ve been invisible for a long time.”
Anson narrowed his bright blue eyes and plucked at the worn laces at the V-neck in her sweater. “I like you even better like this. Whatever you turned into, you’re good with me.”
Chills rippled up her arms, and she cuddled against his side closer to absorb his warmth. That was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her in her whole life, and he probably didn’t even realize it.
Anson was a good man. Good to his bones. Good to his soul, and he made her want to dig harder at that bond he’d buried all those years ago, because she wanted to build it up again and fix what she’d broken.
Food ordered, Anson insisted on paying, which meant a lot, because with Noah, he’d always made her pay for everything. He was a mooch who had drained her completely. He’d even taken her money she’d saved in a coffee can for Bentley’s college fund when he’d left her for one of his mistresses. How she hadn’t seen that he was a user from the beginning, she didn’t know. It was really obvious, looking back on how he’d taken advantage of her. Now, she was an independent woman, but she also liked feeling cared for. She kept the importance of this little gesture to herself though, because her ex had no place in this new relationship she was growing with Anson.
Food in hand, he leaned down in her ear before they made it to the table and whispered, “I really liked fucking you against that wall the other night. Keep wearing your hair wild like that, and you’ll find me on you again.”
Kaylee halted. Her eyes were probably shaped like little hearts right now, like a cartoon character, and her pupils had probably dilated at the sexy memory of him bucking into her against the balcony wall.
“Note to self,” she murmured dumbly, “always wear my hair wild.”
Anson walked toward the table, but cast her a devilish grin over his shoulder. Of course he would put her into a horny stupor right before she met his crew. Turd.
“I’m ordering two more burritos,” Barret announced. He narrowed his eyes at her as she approached. “You smell like pheromones.”
“What’s Fairy-mones?” Bentley asked loudly.
Kaylee’s cheeks were on fire. “H-hi.”
“Are you going to eat that?” Barret asked, pointing to her tray.
Anson smacked his hand away. “She hasn’t even taken a bite, you idiot. Scoot over.”
“I like to sit on the end so I can protect us,” Barret said stubbornly.
The blond-headed man in the middle of the bench sighed tiredly and clenched his hands in front of his mouth. “By protect us, do you mean so you can start fights easier?”
Barret shrugged. “Yes.”
“Scoot over,” the man demanded, and there was something different in his voice. Something powerful.
When Barret obeyed immediately, it hit her. This must be Benson Saber, alpha of the Red Havoc Crew. She’d done research last night, but there was so little information about this notoriously reclusive crew. Well, now she was nervous.
Anson sat between her and Barret, and as she settled her tray on the table, she wilted under the scrutiny of the alpha. “I’m Kaylee.”
“I know. My mate told me all about you. What she failed to mention was that you have a lion cub. I’m guessing because you’ve kept him secret.”
“Just to clear the air,” Anson said as he slipped his hand down her thigh to comfort her under the table. “This is mine.” He pointed to Kaylee. “And as far as any of you are concerned, that is also mine.” He jammed a finger at Bentley, but his eyes were dead-locked on Benson. “Don’t chase them away. It was a big deal me bringing them to you.”
“This is a bad idea,” Jenny sang under her breath.
“I like her,” said the pretty brunette with freckles sitting next to Jaxon.
“Well, you don’t really count because you’re a psychopath,” Barret said around a bite. When Kaylee looked over at him, he’d eaten half her burrito. Fucker.
She yanked the rest out of his thieving, giant hand, squished a blob of guacamole into his lap and announced, “Karma,” when he opened his mouth to complain.
Bentley reached across the table, grabbed his plate of quesadillas and beans, and went to sharing with Raif. They weren’t even using silverware, but Kaylee couldn’t bring herself to reprimand her boy when he was being so cute, eating one bean at a time and giggling.
“Crew,” Anson said, leaning over his food, elbows on the table just like he used to devour his meals when he was a kid, “this is Kaylee Cummings.”
The rude man who had been staring at her earlier on the end of the bench snorted. “Your last name is Cummings?”
“I know. It’s awesome, right?” Anson said gleefully. He jerked his head toward the man with the dirty-blond hair, tattoos, and piercings. “That’s Greyson. I call him dickwad.” Bentley opened his mouth, but Anson rushed out, “Don’t repeat that,” without missing a beat. “Dickwad hates everyone and isn’t a morning person. Most of the time, our cats fight because his panther doesn’t have basic manners. For example…don’t kill your crew. Next, Jaxon. You met him. He’s the Gray Back Grizzly delinquent of the group who insists we are the C-Team, which is probably true, but really, we were the A-Team until he came and tainted our crew. Just don’t look at him from six pm onward because he doesn’t stop sucking face with that little hellion right there, and it’s disgusting. I mean…” Anson leveled Kaylee with a look. “You. Will. Barf at how gross they are. Shortstack over there is called She-Devil.” Anson gestured to the brunette.