BRICK (Forsaken Riders MC Romance Book 17)

by Samantha Leal

  ***

  “Where have you been, Estelle? There’s paperwork on your desk I need dealt with at once!”

  Blaine’s greeting to her was less than special, but she hurried to her desk where, indeed, a stack of papers was waiting for her.

  “I need you to go over those documents. Just to make sure that all the conditions on this sheet are met. I know the lawyer means well, but I can’t take any chances.”

  A confusing warmth surged through her as she studied the documents. They were private, official, really, and she wasn’t sure she was qualified to do this type of work. But for some reason, Blaine, who refused to look her in the eye, was asking her to double check his lawyer’s work to make sure it remained in the best interest of the company.

  “Of course,” Estelle stammered, sitting promptly and putting on her reading glasses. “I’ll get these to you as soon as I can.”

  She opened one of the folders and then froze, glancing up at Blaine, who was staring at her with a strange expression on his face.

  “What is it?” she asked, frowning. “Because if you’re going to tear into me for no reason again, you should probably just get back in your little office and leave me alone.”

  Blaine was surprised by the words but grinned at her, an expression that seemed to shock them both. He took it in stride though, and pointed to her face.

  “You wear spectacles, huh?” Blaine asked, looking at her with wide, sparkling eyes.

  “So, what if I do?” Estelle demanded, slapping the folder back on her desk. “Are you going to make fun of those too?”

  “Make fun?” Blaine asked, his smile faltering in confusion. “I don’t think I ever made fun…”

  “Nothing a simple human could understand?” Estelle went on, glaring at Blaine right in the eye. “You don’t find any issue with the way you were speaking to me out there?”

  Blaine bristled visibly and for a moment Estelle almost regretted letting her temper out on him. But not for very long.

  “Well I was worried about my men!” Blaine exclaimed. “Excuse me for that.”

  Estelle sighed and shook her head. “You know what? It doesn’t even matter to me anymore. Just let me do my work in peace, will you?”

  Blaine opened his mouth as if to reply but clamped it shut again, as if unsure of whether it was safe to continue. One warning look from Estelle seemed to be all he needed to make his mind up, and he turned away from her and headed back toward his office.

  “You’re only here because I hired you, remember. Don’t get make me regret that,” Blaine said.

  Of course, he was the kind of man who had to have the last word. Estelle scoffed, but somehow, the interaction made her feel a lot better. Whether he cared for her or not wasn’t even the question, it was whether they would be able to work together successfully. She would have to cut him a break. It was clear he had a lot on his mind, and if he wasn’t going to let anybody in on any of it, he was just going to get more and more aggressive. What he probably needed was a friend. And she could be a friend.

  The only issue was, would he want a friend at all?

  7.

  “You’re doing it wrong,” Blaine grumbled, looking over Estelle’s shoulder to check on the form she was completing.

  Estelle glared up at him and shook her head. “Actually, I’m not.”

  “You are. See, you’re supposed to put the…oh.”

  Estelle raised her brow at him and shrugged him away.

  “I told you.”

  Blaine pursed his lips and walked away. So, he had been wrong about a stupid piece of paperwork. Big deal.

  “Blaine, we’re having some issues with the front-end loader,” Jake said, coming up from behind Blaine.

  “For fuck’s sake!” Blaine growled. “What else is going to go wrong this week? You know we only have a month left in the season!”

  “I’m heading down now,” Jack said, his voice quiet and even despite Blaine’s fury. “I know it’s been rotten luck, but remember, we at least found that quartz deposit. And there’s gold close by, I can smell it.”

  “Yeah,” Blaine grumbled, closing the door to the office in Jack’s face. He wouldn’t be able to relax until the lawyers got back to him about the deed to the mountain. The dragons were honing in on the territory fast, and making it sound a lot like they wanted a fight. If that’s really what they wanted, he could give it to them, but there would be a steep price to pay…

  “Blaine! Jack asked if I wanted to ride down the mountain to see the front-end loader. Can I?”

  Blaine was torn from his thoughts by Estelle, who had come through the door without knocking. Wasn’t she even the least bit intimidated by him, for crying out loud?

  “I don’t give a shit!” Blaine exclaimed. “I ain’t your daddy.”

  “Well no, but…” Estelle looked at him, her eyes twinkling as she seemed to consider her next words.

  “What, you’re thinking I might fire you for leaving during office hours?”

  Estelle nodded, but an easy, beautiful smile lit up her face. It was hard to be mad staring at her, looking at him like that. He let out a deep sigh.

  “All right then. Just get that shit to me before -”

  “It’s already done,” Estelle said, pulling a small collection of papers from behind her back and walking them to Blaine’s desk. “I guess I’ll see you later then.”

  “Yeah, I guess you will,” Blaine grumbled.

  Estelle’s smile widened and Blaine shook his head as she turned away to follow Jack to the parking lot. That was some girl.

  He sighed, trying not to think too much of it.

  “You coming or what, Blaine?”

  Jack was outside the window, looking in at Blaine with a mischievous expression in his eyes.

  “What the hell,” Blaine sighed. It would be good to get out of the office for a while. It was starting to feel a bit stuffy. At least outside he could oversee what was going on and have a good idea of what to expect.

  They rode in Jack’s truck, Blaine and Estelle sandwiched together between Jack as they descended Oak Mountain, until they made it to the bottom, where, sure enough, the front-end loader was sitting with its scoop dangling in the air and tufts of black smoke billowing out from the engine.

  “So, what happened here, boys?” Jack asked, strutting down the steep incline and down to where the men had congregated, all of them avoiding Jack and Blaine as if they were the plague.

  “Tad here broke the damn thing,” one of the men said quickly, shoving a scrawny man forward. Blaine narrowed his eyes, but the men started laughing. So, they were just picking on the kid.

  “All right, well whichever one of you was driving needs to come up and tell me what you know so we can get this puppy fixed. You know we have a time crunch.”

  The men mumbled their agreement and then got back to work, leaving everybody busy except for Estelle and Blaine.

  “So, what’s this mine for?” Estelle asked, walking casually over to Blaine. “It looks different from the other ones.”

  “Not much different,” Blaine said. “We’re mostly just testing the area. See that boulder over there?”

  Estelle’s dazzling baby blue eyes scanned the side of the mountain until it located the boulder and then a beautiful smile lit her face. Blaine had to look away before she realized he was staring.

  “I see it.”

  “Well that means that there was probably a river around here in ancient times. We’re checking for gold here, see those machines?”

  Again, Estelle’s eyes followed Blaine’s hand she nodded.

  “We’re stripping off the overburden so we can test the area. It will help us to map out the course of the pay dirt.”

  Estelle contemplated this for a moment before finally turning to Blaine.

  “What makes you so passionate about gold?” she asked, her blue eyes intent on his. Damn she was pretty. He had half a mind to take her right then and there. His claim on her must have been st
ronger than he thought. What the hell was wrong with that bear? Didn’t it care that she was half his age?

  “You mean other than the money?” he asked, quirking his brow and doing everything in his power to tear his thoughts away from his attraction. But the bear wasn’t making that very easy.

  “I guess so,” Estelle said with a soft laugh. “I would assume you wouldn’t care much about money… The shifter communities are usually really self-sufficient…”

  “Well, we have our share of resources,” Blaine agreed. “I think what I really love about it is the adventure.”

  “Adventure, huh?” Estelle asked, grinning.

  Blaine held her gaze, the bear urging him to take charge of the situation. Maybe get her alone and find out more about her. But he was disgusted by its shameless efforts at advancement on the young girl. She was half his age!

  “I’m an adventurous guy, believe it or not,” he said, unable to keep the flirtatious tone out of his voice. He glanced around at the men, embarrassed by the thought of being caught flirting with a kid, but they were all busy and hard at work. It took a lot of time to sample the area for gold, and he knew that they were on the right track. He could feel it.

  “I believe it,” Estelle said, coming a little bit closer. Blaine cleared his throat.

  “How’s it coming over there, Jordie?” he bellowed, ignoring Estelle’s face falling as he disengaged quickly from the conversation.

  He just couldn’t let himself do this. No matter how much the bear wanted her, it wasn’t right. Blaine would just have to be stronger than his impulses, whether he liked it or not. He wasn’t going to get himself entangled with anyone. Especially not after the last time…

  “Goin’ good, boss,” Jordie said, gesturing to the silt he was sifting through. “Might have found ourselves a riverbed, just like we thought.”

  “Good!” Blaine said, heartened by the news. “All right then. Keep looking.”

  Thank god something was going right around here. It was hard enough to be stuck in the damn place with everything messing up. He was sick of all his efforts being fucked up.

  “Blaine, what are you guys doing here?”

  “Fuck,” Blaine grumbled. “Geron.”

  “You’re trespassing, Blaine. You know that.”

  Blaine could feel Estelle’s eyes upon him; sense her confusion and worry. And for some reason, that pissed him off. Bad. No woman needed to worry about him. And fuck Geron for making her feel like she should.

  “Dammit, Geron, this is my mountain. You have no right to tell me that I’m trespassing anywhere.”

  Knowing that Estelle was there seemed only to escalate the situation. Blaine could not have his masculinity threatened by this annoying old Dragon shifter. He wasn’t worth the trouble or the time, and yet Blaine could feel his blood pressure rising dangerously high.

  “The land belongs to nobody, but the shifter clans made a pact long ago that your kind have been completely ignoring. We stand true to the old laws, if they had not existed then why do you think that there are tunnels here that are full of ancient Dragon shifter artifacts? You can’t keep us from our heritage forever. This is our birthright, not yours. And if you aren’t careful with that giant machine of yours, you are going to find yourself destroying a tunnel that you really don’t want to mess with.”

  “I think you really don’t want to mess with me right now, Geron,” Blaine growled, the bear inside of him nearly uncontrollable with rage. “We’re going to do things our way just like we always have, whether you like it or not. This mountain has been in my family for generations. “

  “I understand that you feel like you have a need to explore these places. I do. And we have been patient. But that will no longer be the case, I promise you. I wish you luck.”

  Geron bowed deeply at Blaine, a sarcastic, resigned smile on his face.

  It took everything that he had not to lose his temper and go after the cocky old man, especially when he saw the fear and worry on Estelle’s face.

  “What was that about?” she asked him, stepping cautiously forward as if she could sense his anger and wanted to be careful.

  “Those Dragon assholes have been giving my kind shit for centuries. Even though this mountain belonged to my people, they tunneled in secret. They are the trespassers. And yet, they feel like every time we do something to encroach on those tunnels in our own land, that they are entitled to keep that special place. It’s a power game. And we have tried to make peace with them, and have been at peace for 50 years. But ever since my grandfather died, they have been coming after me and trying to get as much of our land as possible for themselves.”

  Of course, Blaine could not tell her about the holes story. About the powerful portals that existed within the mountain. How the Dragon shifters had destroyed holy altars that essentially cause a war between the two clans. How the shifters had been seeking these portals for centuries, and all they knew was that somewhere in Oak Mountain, is where they resided.

  Portals were a source of power, a direct link right back to the world where shifters belonged. Their lives were not meant to be dull and confined by human rules. No, they deserved to roam free in nature, without having any human backlash telling them that there was something wrong with them for being born the way that they were.

  Ancient bear shifter magic had been able to locate the mountain, and Blaine’s ancestors had purchased it for themselves. There was an unspoken rule that well remaining on earth, the shifters had to abide by human laws and regulations. The deed was a pact, it was a reluctant source of peace. And it had been passed down throughout Blaine’s family for a long time. The Dragon shifters had respected his grandfather and his grandfather’s father before him, but they had always been looking for an opportunity to encroach on the mountain. They had always been looking for the portals so that they could exploit their power.

  With Estelle standing there looking at him, her baby blue eyes full of concern and pity, Blaine found himself even more furious than he had begun. He let out a tremendous roar and took off running up the mountainside, unable to keep the bear within him from taking over. He had to be alone. All of this was just too much. He would have to do with the Dragon shifters, with or without the law on his side. He would do whatever it took to protect the mountain. Especially now that there was a girl like Estelle living on it with him.

  8.

  Estelle watched as Blaine disappeared into the trees. Most of the men working merely shrugged it off and it didn’t seem to think anything of it. But still tell that Jack was bothered, and walked up to him as he continued working on the engine of the front-end loader.

  “Does he get angry like this a lot?” Estelle asked.

  “Yeah, he has been a whole different person than he used to be. But you can’t blame him for that.”

  “What do you mean?” Estelle asked.

  But Jack refused to say another word on the subject and merely cleared his throat. What do you think you going to do about the Dragon shifters? Are we in danger here? I know how territorial shifters can be sometimes…”

  Estelle trailed off, worried that perhaps she had offended Jack. But he just smiled at her, his weathered old face turning handsome just for a moment. It was nice to see him feeling like he didn’t have a weight of the world on his shoulders.

  “You’re right about that, little lady. Territory means a lot to us shifters. This world we live in right now has a lot of problems with shifters. It’s important for us to have somewhere to feel safe. And there’s nowhere safer than where we are able to establish ourselves and keep the outsiders where they belong.”

  Estelle shifted uncomfortably, worried that perhaps Jack may consider her one of the outsiders that was best left off the mountain. But somehow, she got the feeling that that wasn’t the case.

  “You know, this machine is going to take quite a while. You could take my car back up to the office if you want,” Jack said. “There isn’t any reason to be lingering around here much
longer. Don’t want the guys to get any ideas. They’ll either see you and want to slack off, or will start to get a little bit inappropriate. It’s up to you of course, I don’t know what your plans are for the day. I just know I’m going to be here a while.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to let me use your car. It’s a nice day out, I was thinking about taking a walk anyway. I’ll just head back up on foot.”

  Jack smiled and nodded, and Estelle found herself grateful that he was the kind of man who didn’t say that the walk would be good exercise for her. Because she was a bigger girl, sometimes people felt comfortable saying things like that to her. As if trying to encourage her to get some of her weight off. She wasn’t stupid. She knew it was exercise, and she did whatever she felt like when she felt like it. Her body was nobody else’s business.

  Estelle headed up the mountain, along the subtle incline of the path. In a way, she was hoping that she would run into lane, so that she could check on him and see if he was all right. Still, the bear inside of him was kind of terrifying. He was a man who was capable of doing savage things. It was something that she didn’t think about very often, not even when she was attending SU, but when she was faced with planes ferocious temper, she found herself feeling nervous about shifters in general for the first time. Would he ever hurt her?

  “Oh, hello little bird,” Estelle said, pausing to study a pleasant bluebird who was quirking its head at her from a tree branch. “What are you up to today?”

  The bird fluttered its wings, and the first is still thought that maybe it was some mystical way of answering her that the bluebird had, but a sudden giant drop of water landed on her face and she looked up at the sky and confusion. Thick black clouds were rolling in over the mountaintop, and just as suddenly as a deafening boom of thunder filled the air, she was in the middle of a downpour.