by T. S. Joyce
Dade snorted as surprised laughter bubbled from Quinn’s throat.
“I’m sorry,” Rory said through an apologetic smile. “The kids saw you Change on the television.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” Quinn said, stifling a giggle and taking the picture from Aaron’s hands. “It was a rough first Change, so no wonder they drew me like this.” It looked like she was being trampled by the other bears. And was that a blood puddle under her head? “It is very good. I’m going to hang it up the second I get home.”
With a satisfied nod Aaron exclaimed, “Oh! I also got you this.” He handed her a pink paperclip and squeaked out, “Come on!” Then led Tate and Arie on a chase toward a rope swing that hung from a towering pine.
Quinn stared at the little treasure in her hand.
“He has this thing with paperclips,” Cody said through a proud smile as he watched his boy help Arie onto the swing.
Dade rubbed her lower back as she clipped the little gift to the collar of her dress. She would keep always as a memory of the first time she ever laid eyes on the Breck Crew.
“You want a beer?” her mate asked.
“Please.” She offered him a grateful smile and followed the Kellers toward the front porch.
“Grab me one, too,” Rory called.
“Yep,” Dade said. “Leah?”
“Sure, why not?” the dark-headed woman said, bumping Quinn’s shoulder. “I think after the week we’ve had, we could all use a drink.”
“About that,” Quinn said as she settled into step between Leah and Rory. “I’m really, really sorry about all the trouble I’ve caused.”
“What trouble are you talking about?” Cody asked over his shoulder from up front.
“You know, forcing you to come out to the public.”
“Don’t blame yourself for that one. No one here does. We were talking about coming out of hiding years before you came along. This was all going to happen eventually. I’d rather you be here for Dade than wait a little while longer.”
Quinn swallowed a lump down and wiped her clammy palms against the fabric of her dress. “Thank you for saying that.”
“I didn’t say it to absolve you,” Cody said, turning his honest gaze on her. “This just isn’t your fault is all.”
Quinn sighed, releasing the weight of a stress she hadn’t realized she was carrying. “Thank goodness. I thought you would be mad at me for all of this.”
Ma wrapped her arm around Quinn’s shoulders and hugged her against her side. “If the blame rests with anyone, it’s IESA and that little she-weasel, Shayna, for pushing us into a desperate measure. You just sped up the process, dear. Here, you and Dade can have the glider.”
“Thank you,” she murmured as she sank onto a lime green two-seat rocker. The clatter of plastic chairs scuttled across the wooden porch floor boards as the others pulled theirs in close. All except Gage who manned a grill on the other side. It smelled like they were making hamburgers, and Quinn’s stomach growled in anticipation. “Sorry,” she murmured as the Breck Crew turned amused eyes on her. “I can’t seem to eat enough since the Change.”
“That’s not just your bear, Quinn,” Ma said as she settled into a rocking chair across from her. She looked pointedly at the red, angry scars that were peeking out from under the hem of Quinn’s sundress. “Healing takes it out of you. Gage, when you finish those burgers, can you get Quinn a plate?”
“Yeah, Ma,” came his quick answer.
Quinn moved to cover her legs, but Rory reached over from her seat right beside her. “Don’t do that. You earned those. This life requires scars. Some are more obvious than others, and some are only on the inside. What matters is how you spend your time during the good parts.”
Quinn’s eyes burned with tears, and she swallowed hard, determined not to be a complete wuss the first time she met Dade’s family.
“Oh, lookey here,” Boone crowed. “We’ve got another sappy bear in the crew. Rory, you aren’t alone anymore.”
“Shut up,” Rory said with a laugh.
Boone wiggled out of swatting range and took a long swig of his beer, still grinning behind the bottle.
“I like her sappy,” Dade admitted as he passed Leah and Rory their drinks. He came to a stop in front of Quinn and popped the top of her beer, then handed it to her. “She cares about the things I’d forgotten were important.”
“Awwww,” Leah said softly. And now she looked all choked up, too.
Boone coughed out the word, “Pussy.”
“Tastes delicious,” Dade said, sitting beside Quinn, one long leg folded, the other straight, the heel of his heavy boot clomping against the porch. He draped an arm around her, the epitome of male bravado.
“Dade,” Quinn gritted out, mortified. Heat rushed to her cheeks at the memory of what he’d done to her right before they’d left the house to come here.
“Boy, I know I raised you better,” Ma said, but she was stifling a smile that said she was used to crude antics.
Boone and Dade tinked their beers together as Rory shook her head. From Cody’s place leaned against the porch railing where he’d been watching the cubs play, he ducked his head and covered a smile.
Quinn stripped off her jean jacket as her blush upped her internal temperature to Level Magma.
Rory grabbed her arm and traced the bite scar Dade had given her. “Damn, girl. You’ve been through it lately, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, but my girl doesn’t stay down for long. Don’t let her soft heart fool you. My mate has teeth, and she’ll dish it back.” Dade tugged the collar of his white T-shirt, exposing the bite mark she’d given him earlier.
Quinn nearly choked on her beer. Mother effer. Dade was going to embarrass her to death in front of his ma!
Now, Rory and Leah were clapping slow, talking about how she should’ve bit him harder, and Boone was trying his damndest to give her a high five she refused. Ma looked surprisingly proud, and Cody was reaching into a blue plastic cooler as he grinned and shook his head.
“Here,” the alpha said, just before he tossed her a purple water pistol.
Lurching forward, Quinn barely caught it and gasped as icy water flung onto her bare legs.
“No,” Dade said, amused warning in his eyes. “I was bragging, and it isn’t anything to be ashamed of that you like to bite when we’re—”
Quinn squirted his chest. “Stop it.”
“Making love,” he finished, standing to duck out of the way of her shots.
“Dade, stop!”
“Like the bears do!” Dade hooted. “It’s natural, baby.”
“Shut up!” Damn her stupid unstoppable smile. The man didn’t need any encouragement.
Another stream of water came from his left, and Cody grinned maniacally. He didn’t have a water pistol like hers. More like a water assault rifle. It was huge. Cody pumped it and blasted Dade again as her mate ducked and ran for the cooler.
There was a split second when Quinn looked at Rory, and they froze, then cracked face-splitting grins, set their beers down in a rush, and ran for the cooler with the others.
Quinn screamed when freezing water blasted against her back as she ran down the porch stairs. She was wielding two matching guns now, but Aaron ran toward her, his little legs moving double-time. “I want to help! I’ll protect you!” he called out, and she handed him one of the sloshing weapons. “Uncle Dade, you need to learn better manners!” he yelled, shooting jets of water at her mate as Dade laughed and dodged out of the way.
The tree line looked safe as she fled the water gun fight with Dade and the others on her heels. She sprinted around a tree, laughing uncontrollably as spurts of water barely missed her. She was soaked to the bone, her hair was plastered to her face, and her mascara probably looked like she was crying black rivers, but she couldn’t help the throaty laughter coming from her if she tried. The forest was filled with the sound as they ran, weaved, and sprayed each other until even the biggest water soakers were empty.
“Boo,” Dade said breathlessly as he leaned around the tree she was hiding behind.
Without thinking, she reached up on her tiptoes and kissed him square on his mouth. He froze in surprise, but relaxed and dropped his plastic weapon with a thunk. His arms went around her shoulders, and his lips softened against hers.
When Boone whistled out a catcall and told them to get a room, Dade eased back and told him to “Peel the banana,” as he held up his middle three fingers. Then he pulled the outside ones in, flipping his brother off, and Boone said, “Ahh, I see what you did there.” Giant water gun slung haphazardly over his shoulder, he strode past them with a wink.
“I like it when you laugh like that,” Dade said, quiet as a breath.
“Like a hyena?”
“No, like you mean it. Like you can’t help but laugh.”
“That was really fun. I thought…well, I thought all of this bear stuff was just going to be really heavy, all the time, every day. I kind of needed a light moment.”
Dade’s hair was wet and mussed with that sexy, just-got-out-of-the-shower look, and his smile was easier than she’d ever seen it. His defined chest heaved against the nearly transparent white T-shirt she’d soaked, and damn, he was calling to her hormones.
Those whiney hos would have to wait to get banged again, though, because Ma was waving them up to the house for dinner, and she definitely wasn’t down with getting busted by Dade’s family with her dress up around her hips.
“Squirrel scratch,” she said as she wiggled her fingernails against one of his nipples. She bounded off laughing but looked over her shoulder to see him with his hands on his hips, staring down at his one perky bud on that side.
“That’s just wrong,” he called out. “At least perk up the other one.” His voice dipped low. “Preferably with your mouth.”
“This bear has teeth, remember?”
Dade scooped her up, and she gasped at how fast he’d gotten to her. “Oh, I remember.” He leaned down and kissed her hard, biting her lip at the end, and pulled a little moan from her throat. “It’s one of my favorite things about you.”
“What’s your other favorite things?”
Dade smiled absently at the field they were walking over as he hugged her closer to his chest. “The way you say sweet shit in your sleep.”
“I do not. I’m not a sleep talker.”
“Says who? You can’t hear your own self in your sleep.”
“Fine,” she said, slipping her arms around his neck. “What did I say?”
“That you loved me.”
“Fibber.”
“Well, do you?” he asked, blond brows arched high.
She wanted to say no just to argue, but he would hear the lie. “Yes,” she murmured, heat creeping up her neck.
“Well,” he said, sneaking a glance up at the porch where everyone was lining up to fill their plates. He set her down and gripped her waist with his strong, oversize hands. “Quinn Copeland, I love you back.”
Her heart pounded against her ribcage as she searched his dancing eyes. “Dade, don’t tease me.”
“Wouldn’t tease about something like this. I’ve never said that to a woman before.”
She snuggled her cheek against the hard planes of his chest and huffed an emotional sigh.
“Woman, you gonna cry again?”
“No.” She probably wasn’t going to. Looking up into his happy, ocean-colored eyes, she smiled and sighed contentedly as she brushed a damp lock of hair from his forehead. “That’s even better than you staying with me for breakfast this morning. Careful, you big scary bear. Keep telling me things like that, and you’ll prove Shayna right.”
The smile fell from his face slightly as he rocked them side to side in a music-less slow dance. “And how’s that?”
“I really will make you soft.”
Chapter Eleven
Dade couldn’t stop watching Quinn with Leah and Rory. She sat at the dining room table cutting up with them, looking at old photo albums Ma had dug out. Over the course of the evening, his mate had settled into an easy comfort with them, and wasn’t even shying away from conversation anymore.
Ma was humming to herself in the kitchen, washing dishes with Boone. Dade and Cody, meanwhile, were playing wrestle-mania with the cubs. They’d had their baths, and the boys were clad in little matching train pajamas Ma had probably found on sale in town, and Arie was wearing a nightgown with little porcupines printed all over. They smelled like soap and toothpaste and were worked up into a giggling frenzy as he and Cody did fake body slams and choke holds with them.
Aaron rolled him over and pulled on his arm, and Dade tapped out to the delight of Tate, who was clapping and cheering on his cousin. Aaron looked up at him suddenly. The blood drained from his face and his eyes changed to green-gold.
“No, no, no,” Dade rushed.
“I don’t feel good,” Aaron said in a frightened voice, and then a little bear cub exploded from his tiny body.
“Crap,” Cody murmured. “It’s okay, boy. I’ve got you.” He scooped his furry little son off the ground before he clawed Ma’s good rug.
Aaron’s little black claws dug into Cody’s neck, drawing blood as he hugged onto him, but if Cody felt it, he didn’t show it.
Rory half-stood, eyes wide and worried, but Cody gave her a quick peck on the lips and said, “I’m gonna take him out in the woods for a while. We’ll be back soon.” Absently, he scratched the place behind Aaron’s shoulder blades where a huge hump would grow someday when he was a grown grizzly.
“Is he okay?” Quinn asked Rory.
“Yeah, he’s fine. He is still getting used to controlling his shifts, though. If you’d believe it, he’s actually doing a hundred times better than he was a few weeks ago before I brought him to Cody.”
Rory began to explain how she’d raised Aaron on her own for the first part of his life, and Dade swung his attention to Gage’s kids. “All right, young ’uns. Time for bed.”
“Uncle Daaaade,” they whined in unison.
“Uncle Dade is right,” Gage said from the couch where he’d been sitting for the better part of an hour trying to fix Ma’s ancient landline phone. Gage had already offered to buy her a new one three times tonight, but Ma was the type of lady that grew attached to the things she was used to. She didn’t much like change, so Gage had fiddled, and from the curses he muttered under his breath, had failed to fix it.
“Can we stay at grandma’s all night?” Arie asked in a pipsqueak voice. Damn, she was a cute kid.
“Up to your mom and dad.”
“Can we?” Tate asked, his blue eyes going wide like he already knew how squeeze his parents for what he wanted.
“Fine with me,” Ma called from the kitchen. “I’ve got some banana pancake mix I need those kids to help me make in the morning.” She gave Leah a wink.
“I’ll bet they are more trouble than help in the kitchen, but its fine with me if they stay. We can pick them up first thing in the morning.” Leah flipped open a new photo album and frowned. “Ma, I didn’t know you made one of these for Bruiser.”
Ma rinsed a plate, set it on the drying rack, dried her hands on a towel, and sauntered into the dining area to look. “Of course I have an album for him. I made one for all my boys.”
Dade stood and lifted Gage’s twins with him, tickling them with his facial scruff. “Night, baby bears.”
Arie cupped his face and looked somber as she gave him a slow-motion blink. “Goodnight, Uncle Dade.”
He tried to hide the dumb smile splitting his face at how friggin’ adorable his niece and nephew were. Setting them down, he patted them on the rumps and sent them scampering into the bed Ma had set up for her grandkids to spend the night, yelling their goodbyes to the rest of the crew as they went.
Curiosity never killed a bear as far as he knew, so he ambled on into the dining room and leaned on locked arms against the table beside his mate. She rested her head against his elbow, just about
bringing him to his knees with how damned cute she was.
Maybe she was right. Perhaps he really was going soft.
Kissing the top of her head, he squinted at the pictures.
“Who’s Bruiser?” Quinn asked.
“He’s my half-brother.”
Quinn lifted a surprised glance to Ma. “Oh, I didn’t realize there were more in the crew.”
“Oh, he’s not in our crew. Not anymore. He had a calling somewhere else and joined up with the Ashe Crew in Montana.” Ma swung a dreamy look to a black and white photo of Bruiser sitting in a poppy field next to an old hound dog that used to run wild around the property. “I talked to him this morning on the phone, and he asked if we needed him here. Said he would bring Diem and come up here to support us going public if we wanted. I told him to hold off getting those plane tickets until things settle down, though. It’s one thing if he comes out with us, but his mate is a different kind of shifter. I don’t think she should be anywhere around this situation, and I bet her daddy would agree.”
“Good call,” Boone rumbled, settling into a chair across the table. “Finding out bear shifters exist is one thing. Finding out a dragon shifter exists is a whole different can of worms.”
“Dragon shifter?” Quinn asked, petal pink lips opening slightly with shock. Damn, he wanted to kiss the surprise from her mouth.
“Yeah,” Leah said with a knowing look. “I freaked out when I heard that, too. I had no idea they still existed, and Bruiser married one.”
“Is she scary?”
“Woman,” Boone said with a frown at Quinn, “you had a water gun fight with a bunch of fully mature grizzly shifters, and you haven’t batted an eyelash all night. I know you aren’t a scaredy bear.”
“Yeah, but it’s easy to forget you have a bear in you. I almost forget I have a bear in me sometimes. But dragons?”
“I’ve talked to Diem on the phone a couple of times,” Rory said, turning to another picture of Bruiser, this one of him on his first day of eighth grade, holding up his year sign in front of the cabin they used to live in. “She sounds really nice. And she seems to really love Bruiser. I’m excited about them visiting when everything settles down.”