by Elsa Jade
Brushing her hands futilely together, she turned to head inside for a much-deserved shower—and almost stumbled over a bear.
It took her brain a too-long instant to consciously acknowledge it wasn’t a bear. But sure as shooting (and she suddenly kinda wished she had a gun; didn’t everyone in this town have a gun?) he looked like a bear.
She’d seen Thorburn Montero only a few times since she’d come to Angels Rest along with her sister. While Brandy’s Mac was a strong, stocky dude, and Ben was a big, tall bro, their cousin Thor was…terrifying.
On the outside, he looked very much like a man: the upright stance, more or less the right amount of visible hair, clean Wranglers and a bright yellow polo shirt with the Sunday Landscaping logo over the breast pocket. But simmering underneath…
She took a wary step back, feeling for the surer footing of the cobblestone path in case she had to run for it. Then she stopped. No way would she give him access to the still sleeping inhabitants of the Victorian.
Except he hadn’t actually done anything threatening. Somehow, though, her blood knew he was dangerous in a way his cousins weren’t.
“Sorry,” he said in a low voice. “I meant to get that spread before sunrise, but I forgot coffee.” He held out the two paper cups in his one ginormous hand.
Ooookay. That wasn’t as dangerous as she’d expected.
Still, she didn’t reach out. “Black?”
“Two creams, three sugars.”
Definitely not as dangerous, other than to her half-hearted, intermittent intentions toward healthy living.
She took one of the proffered cups. “Thanks.”
“Thanks for doing my work for me.”
Taking a tentative sip of the coffee—sweet, silky, and not too hot—she eyed him. “I was told it’s good for the tree, especially since Aster loves to climb.”
“Mac would’ve done it himself but he’s got a crew over in Farmington this morning.” Thor returned her stare over his own cup, his dark eyes narrowed. “And Ben is still sleeping.”
She managed not to choke on the coffee. There was a couple cows’ worth of bullshit buried in those innocuous words. “Sweet guy. Sleeps like a babe, I’m sure.”
“Yeah, like he got hexed or something.”
Gin let the coffee dangle. “Maybe more like he got laid. Or something.”
Thor’s eyes flashed, but rather than go light to dark like Ben’s sky-blue had gone black, the dark Montero brown shivered to an eerie old gold. “Neither would be good for him.”
She didn’t really know anything about shapeshifters, but she’d never gotten any hint from Brandy—or Mac or Ben, for that matter—that sex was forbidden.
Er, quite the opposite in fact.
She took a deliberate drink of the coffee. “I have not set a spell on Ben, of any sort. I enjoyed him…I mean, his gardening class, and he’s been sweet enough to help me with a special project that I’m finishing up while I’m in Angels Rest. After that, I’ll be on my way.”
But on her way…where exactly? Rita had always known she’d apprentice to their aunt for a future in the circle. Brandy had planned a magic-less life as a big-shot accountant in the big city—and ended up a bear cub mom.
Gin glowered at the coffee, as if it was at fault for the uncertainty brewing in her. How had being the youngest of triplets—it was only a few damn minutes!—left her with seemingly fewer choices than her sisters? They would both happily welcome her to their lives, either in the circle or out, but nooooo, she had to pick a different way and try to walk the shadow path.
“Maybe I could help you with that.”
She jerked her chin up to focus her glare on Thor. “What?”
“Getting on your way. With your anti-love potion.”
The hesitation inside her boiled upward, like spoiled cream in coffee. “How do you—?”
“Aster is a bear of my clan. I need to know everything about my clan.”
But she wasn’t part of the bear clan. “I don’t appreciate being stalked by some broody bad boy bear king.”
He jerked, a dark lock of hair falling over his half-closed eye. “Bad boy…”
She sniffed. “I need to know everything about what affects my clan too.” Brandy shared enough of what she learned from Mac that Gin had felt reasonably comfortable with the idea of a shapeshifting brother-in-law. At least as comfortable as she could be knowing the love of her sister’s life moonlighted as a monster.
But she had no interest in a bear daddy lording over her, making pointed comments about her sex life and dangling conditional “help” which she had no doubt would mostly get him what he wanted: her out of Ben’s way.
Witches of the circle had never had any long-term use for men. Her own father had proven the point, and even Mac had almost gone the way of the dodo, as far as father figures went; only Brandy’s return to Angels Rest had clued him in.
She and Thor circled each other, literally, both of them angling for the power position near the house. Oh, he might have the advantage of physical strength but it was her territory. Plus, she was (almost entirely) sure he wouldn’t disembowel her on the front porch.
Though she made a mental note to buy some bear spray, stat.
“With hair like yours, I’d think you’d prefer a bad boy,” Thor opined in a low grumble. “Rebel heart calls to rogue.”
“My heart”—she almost spat the word—“is my own.”
“And I’d rip mine out for the clan,” he shot back. “Which is why I know how to help you with your spell.”
“I don’t want help.” Another way she was different from her sisters: Rita had never needed help and Brandy had never minded asking for it.
To her surprise, Thor laughed, a raspy sound, as if he didn’t do it much, and quickly snuffed out. “You and me both. But maybe we shouldn’t be so damned arrogant.”
She stiffened, her heartbeat accelerating as if he’d actually taken a swipe at her. “It’s not about arrogance. It’s self-preservation. You never know when you’re going to find yourself alone, and then you damn well better be good enough to stand on your own.”
For an instant, he lost the thin veneer of man that he was holding around him with less conviction than the Sunday Landscaping t-shirt. And she saw underneath.
She shuddered. No wonder Ben had refused to show her.
Then the sun finally peeped over the horizon, and the beast was hidden again.
“You’re not wrong,” he said quietly. “But you’re wrong for Ben. He has a duty to his clan that comes first and means he will always be alone.”
The anxious thud of her pulse abruptly stilled. “Then why…”
No, it didn’t matter why Ben had talked about forever like it was even an option. It wasn’t, not for her. And apparently he hadn’t been serious about it anyway.
Which she should’ve known. He might be teasing all the garden club ladies with his snug jeans and gentle hands and the hints that he wanted to tangle himself up with the right woman, but he was obviously just another bro with only his own needs in mind.
“I’m not interested in Ben,” she said with an edge to her voice. “And I’m not interested in anything else you have to say about him or my spell.”
Their slow circle had put her nearest the porch, and she took the three steps up as fast as she could without looking like she was running away.
“Gin, wait.”
Maybe he was a bear king, but if there’d been even a hint of command in his voice, she would’ve kept going. It was the reluctant note of regret that stopped her.
She steadied herself on the fluted column at the top step. “What?”
“Sometimes the shadows hide a deeper truth, but…sometimes the darkness is just a hole. Don’t think you can always tell the difference between the two until you’re lost there.”
He turned away from her slowly, and even though he was the biggest of the cousins and the sunlight was starting to penetrate even the heavy oak leaves, somehow he mana
ged to all but disappear through the overgrown front yard. She didn’t even hear the gate open, but a strange change in the atmosphere and the relieved cheep of a bird in the alder told her the beast had gone.
She let out her own breath, less a chirp than a groan. “Good going, Wick. Make an enemy of a bear king, why don’t you?”
She’d have to talk to Brandy, or maybe Mac, and make sure she hadn’t ruined anything for them. They’d said that family ties were unbreakable among shifters—which Gin half suspected was part of the lure for Brandy of staying in Angels Rest with her son.
But the wisdom of the shadow circle knew nothing was unbreakable, and the brightest lights cast the deepest shadows.
***
After a bath and a quick nap that lasted a little longer than she’d intended (hey, it’d been an exhausting night and morning despite—maybe because of—the coffee from a grumpy bear king) Gin dragged herself down to the kitchen to forage for brunch.
Thanks to its smaller windows shaded by the back porch, the small kitchen with its pale blue wallpaper was still cool, although a breath of hot air whispered through the open door. The warm caress reminded her of the Little League shed…
Rita whisked through the door, her arms overflowing with flowers from the backyard.
Happy to abandon the pointless memory of last night, Gin jumped forward to take part of the armload, leaving her sister to nudge the door shut with her butt. “Somebody getting married? Or did somebody die?”
Deftly redistributing her canes one to each forearm—she’d doubled up to hold onto all the flowers—Rita took her haul to the big farm sink. She set the cut stems in the already filled basin and leaned aside to let Gin add the rest. “The garden club inspired me.”
“You didn’t even go.” If she had, would she have ended up in the shed with Ben instead? Gin squelched the thought like it was a nasty slug.
“Well, I guess that’s what inspired me.” Rita produced pruning shears from one pocket of her gingham gardening apron. Did everyone in Angels Rest have cute aprons? “And I thought I’d help you with your sachets.”
Gin stomped over to the fridge and yanked open the door to stick her head inside, muttering, “Why’s everyone want to help me all of a sudden? Am I that pathetic?”
“What?”
“Nothing,” she grumbled over the snip-snip of Rita trimming the submerged stems to length. “Just wondering why we don’t have any toaster strudel for breakfast.”
“Maybe some vanilla bean scone?”
Gin popped her head up over the fridge door. “Ooh. Did you get some?”
“I thought you got some last night.” Rita smirked at her. Snip-snip.
Throwing herself sideways into one of the high-backed wooden chairs at the drop leaf kitchen table, Gin groaned. “You’re so mean.”
“What’re big sisters for?”
“Minutes,” Gin griped. “By mere minutes.”
“Lives change in less time than that.”
Gin blinked at her. True. A single flash of lightning had changed last night. But the sentiment sounded more like a shadow circle warning than a platitude from her steady, sensible, supportive sister. “Hey, everything okay? Besides no strudels or scones, I mean.”
Rita snipped some more. “Just tired,” she said after a moment. “I love it here, but holding down the fort while Aunt Tilda and the circle are on their journey is…more challenging than I’d expected.”
Sharpening her focus, Gin watched her sister. “Have your knees been hurting?”
“Only when it rains.”
“Then it’s nice you live in a desert now.”
“Yeah. I think that’s half the reason Aunt Tilda moved here after my ordination.”
Gin had suspected as much too. The congenital defect in Rita’s legs would likely get worse over time, and she’d be using a wheelchair eventually. What the Four Corners lacked in medical services—which couldn’t do anything for the magical glitch in the Wick women’s genetics anyway—it more than made up for in flatness and the lack of bone-aching rain.
Aunt Tilda had chosen the remote area, away from her circle of origin, to help her eldest niece because witches believed in the power of family too. Just like the sisters had come together to help Brandy when she discovered she was pregnant—and then found out she had a bear cub.
Maybe asking for help and getting it wasn’t the worst thing ever.
She pushed out of the chair and joined Rita at the sink, divvying the flowers into vases. “Mac’s other cousin stopped by this morning.”
Rita fluffed a few long stems of prairie sunflower. “Really. What did he want?”
“He brought some mulch for the oak. And warned me to stay away from his cousin.”
“You tell him to fuck off since you’d already fucked Ben?”
Gin choked. “Ree!”
Her sister shrugged. “Sounds like something you’d say.”
“I wouldn’t.” Sputtering, Gin dunked her hands in the water as if that would cool the heat in her face. “Anyway, have you seen Thor Montero? He is not someone you pop off at.”
“I didn’t say I’d pop off at him.” Rita stuffed too many flowers into her vase and had to pull some out to start over. “Or maybe I would. I know he doesn’t like the circle’s presence here.”
Gin frowned. “He actually said he could help with my spell.”
“I haven’t been able to unravel the whole story”—Rita sniffed with clear annoyance at the admission—“but apparently the shifters here were attacked by an underground militia that tried to enslave wolves and bears as brainwashed supersoldiers.”
With a blink, Gin leaned against the counter. “That sounds…okay, there’s probably more story there.”
“Aunt Tilda and I figured out enough that maybe someone in the militia had access to circle secrets too.”
“A bad story.” Gin clenched her hands together. “If we’d been here…”
“Before our time,” Rita said soothingly. “Aunt Tilda has won over some suspicious folk, and I’ll continue that task, of course.” Her usually serene expression hardened. “Even if I have to face off with a disbelieving bear king.”
Gin gulped at the thought of her sister confronting Thor. As quick and sneaky as Rita could be with her crutches, a bear was…a bear.
Maybe she needed to talk to Ben about his cousin.
As quickly as the thought occurred to her, she rejected it. She was self-aware enough to know that if she got the bro bear alone again, she’d just take advantage of him again.
And that wasn’t getting her any closer to perfecting her anti-love potion.
“Let’s take these downstairs,” she told Rita. “It’s nice and cool down there, and you can tell me everything I’m doing wrong with my sachets.”
Rita snorted. “Since when do you ever listen to anyone telling you what you’re doing is wrong?”
For a heartbeat, Ben’s husky voice scolding her impatience echoed in her ears. Make it last longer.
“Never,” she said. “But I guess there’s always a first time.”
She would go to Thor herself and warn him away from her sister. In return, she’d swear to keep her hands off Ben.
They’d be able to come to some sort of understanding since she and the bear king both knew all about being alone.
Chapter 9
Ben waved goodbye to the garden club ladies as they sauntered out of the park, and then he turned to pinning down the last length of soaker hose next to the thriving little plants.
His lecture on water management practices, efficient irrigation, and gray water reclamation might’ve been a little, ahem, dry for this particular audience—at least until the big thermos of mojitos had turned every mention of “moist” into a snickerfest—but it was an important topic for anyone who wanted to garden in a desert. Probably would’ve been smoother if he hadn’t been distracted by one particular absence.
Gin hadn’t showed up. When he’d tried to make arrangements a c
ouple days ago to deal with the old oak at the Victorian, Mac had told him it’d been taken care of. Ben managed not to mope. But he hadn’t seen her at all since he gave her the rose, and in a town the size of Angels Rest, that was starting to feel a little personal.
With more gusto than was really necessary, he buried the recycled tire hoses under a thick layer of straw mulch.
If only he could bury his memories of that night as thoroughly.
As he bent over the last raised bed, a hand smacked his butt.
With a throttled yulp of surprise, he straightened. “Gin…”
Marcia tilted her head.
“—ger tequila from Gypsy might be fun for next time,” he amended quickly. “We might even have a few basil leaves by then.”
“I like how you think.” Marcia nodded so hard the elastic on her strapless white top wiggled down an alarming half inch. “I like how you garden. And I love how you show off…”
He stiffened.
“…your civic conscientiousness.” She slurred a little bit on the s sounds, and the scent of white rum tickled his nose. “Angels Rest is so, so lucky to have you.” She linked her arm through his and smiled up at him with glassy eyes. “And I’d really like to ask you a favor.”
Oh. No. The garden club was supposed to be his chance to really get to know eligible ladies with his same interests. But suddenly he realized he wasn’t interested. He still wanted to teach them, but… That was as far as it would go.
“Marcia,” he said, gently disentangling his arm. “I’m glad you enjoy the gardening—”
“It’s so beautiful, such an inspiration,” she gushed, waving her now free arm to encompass the park. And though he narrowed his eyes doubtfully at the still small starts, she went on, “It’s reminded me that I need to get down and dirty to make things happen. That we need to really connect”—she grabbed his arm again—“with the ones we love before we wither and die.”
Yiiikes. It was like she’d been in his head when he sketched out the flyer for the club, but hearing it said aloud made him wince. How could he have been so casual with other people’s feelings, tricking them into toiling in the hot summer sun just so he could see if they were good enough for him?