Hired Bear (Bears of Pinerock County Book 5)

by Zoe Chant

  Alec nodded, and for the first time he smiled, a quiet glimmer of a smile that lent a touch of warmth to his winter-sky eyes. Crystal got the feeling she might have just passed some kind of test.

  "Brought your coffee black," he said, holding out one of the two cups he was carrying. "There's sugar and creamer in the kitchen if you want them."

  "Black is fine." She usually preferred some sugar in her coffee, but she took a sip anyway, and found that it didn't really need it; Alec made excellent coffee.

  In fact, now that she'd gotten past her initial fear, she found the ranch house very homey and comfortable and nice. She felt at home here, in a way she hadn't expected. Although it didn't look the same, it reminded her a little bit of her family's farmhouse. It had the same sort of comfortable lived-in feeling. It was also meticulously tidy; either Alec or Charmian, possibly both of them, was a very careful housekeeper.

  But one thing she couldn't help noticing was all the pictures of babies. She recognized Lexie and Baz in a number of them, mainly because of Tara and Saffron, and occasionally other members of the clan, holding them. But there were also a whole lot of other babies. Babies of all colors, babies in mothers' arms and in bassinets and lying on blankets. The pictures of Lexie and Baz dominated the room, and here and there was a family portrait of people who were obviously related to Alec and Cody, but mostly, she couldn't help noticing all the babies.

  "You seem to be wondering about the pictures," Alec said, gesturing her to the couch.

  "Er ... yes. I don't want to be rude but ... they can't possibly all be yours, are they?"

  Alec's sudden grin was startling and breathtaking. For an instant she saw what must have made his mate fall in love with him. "God, no," he said fervently. "No, my mate Charmian is a midwife. She often stays in touch with the new moms after the delivery, to help them adjust to parenthood, and ..." He shrugged. "I think in some way, she considers them hers. Not really, but on a spiritual level."

  So that was why Charmian had said that her clients couldn't wait. "Do you two have any children of your own?" She had only seen Baz and Lexie so far, but since Charmian was older than the other bears' mates, she'd thought maybe their kids were teenagers.

  Alec shook his head. The dog jumped up beside him on the couch, and he reached out absently with his free hand to fondle its ragged ears. "No, and Charmian's in her early 40s, so we probably won't. Which is just fine with me. The way things are going, it seems like we're going to have all the nieces and nephews we can handle."

  Despite his gruff words, Crystal sensed the underlying warmth, and she couldn't help noticing that the photos of Baz and Lexie by far outnumbered any other feature in the room. Also, there were the parts of what looked like a half-finished wooden toy truck spread out on the coffee table. And then there was the gentle way he was petting the little dog. She guessed that no children in the world could ask for a more devoted uncle than Alec, no matter how he tried to put a stern face on it.

  "So, Crystal," Alec said, his voice turning serious. "Cody was telling me that you're trying to find a way to keep your family's farm."

  "We're trying." She couldn't suppress a smile. "With Tara's help, I think we might have found a way."

  "Good." He didn't smile, but his eyes warmed. "At least Cody won't be too far away."

  "You're okay with him leaving?"

  "I'm his alpha," Alec said. "I knew he wasn't entirely happy here long before he did. There's something deep in him that wants to have his own home, his own den. He's a nester. I think with you and your farm, he's found what he's been looking for all his life." He hesitated. "By the way, do you have shifter heritage?"

  "My mom is a shifter. I didn't inherit the tendency. She's a garter snake." She looked at him curiously. "Did Cody tell you that?"

  "No, as your alpha, I can tell."

  Your alpha. It was still a very odd thought. "But I'm not a shifter myself ... am I?"

  "No. You aren't. But I can sense the tendency in you." He looked at her for a long moment with his winter-sky eyes. "Are you sure your family are snake shifters?"

  "Yes, of course. I've seen my mom shift. Why?"

  "Do you mind if I do something a little personal?"

  Crystal's eyebrows rose, but she nodded. Alec leaned close to her and sniffed at her. The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck went up. With Cody, it would have been erotic. With Alec, it was ever so slightly eerie, like having a large predator intrude on her personal space. It wasn't even fear she felt, so much as a feeling of overwhelming power. Then he pulled away and got up off the couch.

  "Come with me," he said. It was more of a command than a request—not bossy or overbearing, but spoken with the casual assumption that he would be obeyed. And indeed, she was up off the couch before she'd even realized she was moving.

  So that's what being an alpha was.

  She followed Alec up the narrow, creaking stairs into an upstairs hallway, where she looked curiously around. Up here, the baby pictures stopped; instead there were old family photos in wooden frames. They seemed to be going back in time. The family photos downstairs were recent. Up here, candid color photos gave way to stiff, posed portraits in tones of faded sepia.

  "Ah." Alec took one of those down off the wall and handed it to Crystal.

  She took the framed picture carefully. This one was very old. It was a tintype of a severe-faced man with a high forehead and sharp, piercing eyes. Even though Crystal knew that he must have died long ago—this picture was over a century old, maybe more like a century and a half—those eyes still seemed to bore into her, as if his personality had been so fierce and dynamic that some vestige of him still lingered in the photo. In a weird way, he seemed to be looking directly at her. It was almost a relief to hand it back to Alec.

  "That's my great-great-grandfather," Alec said. "Most of our family are bears, and have always been bears, but family rumor is that he was something else entirely. Something ... other."

  "What do you mean, 'other'?" Crystal's gaze followed the photo as Alec hung it back up on the wall. She still couldn't shake the feeling that this long-dead stranger who was no kin of hers had looked at her across the years.

  "No one is really sure." Alec wore a trace of a smile, and briefly, she glimpsed the similarity with the man in the old photo. It wasn't really physical; it was more the way they carried themselves, and something about the fierce directness of their gaze. "But there are those who say we have a little dragon in us."

  "Dragons are a myth," Crystal said uncertainly. "They aren't real."

  "Really? It seems that the human world used to think shifters weren't real either, before we came out of the shadows and revealed ourselves."

  "Well, my family definitely aren't dragons. We're garter snakes. I'm pretty darn sure of that."

  "You're garter snakes now," Alec said. "But as your alpha, I can sense a certain kinship between my clan and yours—and it's not from the bear side." That quiet little smile quirked the corner of his mouth again. "Your children, yours and Cody's, will be very special indeed, I think."

  Epilogue: One year later

  "Come on, you guys," Crystal complained. "Cody's not supposed to see me on our wedding day; no one ever said anything about not seeing myself."

  "You can see when we're done," Saffron said firmly from behind her.

  "Now turn your head to the side," Daisy added.

  Crystal sighed and obediently rotated her head, wincing at the little tugs and pulls as the two of them continued doing whatever they were doing to her hair. All she knew was that ribbons and flowers were somehow involved.

  The windows of the master bedroom in the old farmhouse were open, letting sweetly hay-scented wind blow inside and ruffle the lacy cascade of her dress. She kept catching snatches of music as classic rock thumped on a stereo outside, along with voices, laughter, and an occasional child's squeal.

  "What are they doing out there?" she complained.

  "Following your mother's orders, fro
m what I saw when I was out there earlier," Daisy said with a giggle. "Are you sure your mom didn't used to be a drill sergeant? She's got those boys whipped into shape. I'm pretty sure I heard someone say something about a 'flowers and balloons committee'."

  "She wasn't a drill sergeant," Crystal said. "It's worse than that. She's a middle school teacher."

  "Well, that explains a lot." Saffron stepped back and put her hands on her hips. "Okay, that looks perfect to me. Does it look perfect to you, Daisy?"

  "Just a second." Daisy leaned forward and did something in the general vicinity of Crystal's bangs. Crystal arched her brows and tried desperately to look at her own forehead, without any luck. "Okay, that did it! All right, you can look now."

  The other two women helped her out of her chair—Daisy very awkwardly, since she was eight months pregnant, her lilac-colored bridesmaid dress cascading over a baby bump that was more of a baby hill. Crystal turned around so she could see herself in the full-length mirror standing against the wall.

  And gasped.

  This wasn't her. This couldn't be her, this vision in white lace and blue flowers. And it definitely couldn't be the "new" her, the tomboyish farm girl.

  Over the last year, she'd undergone a transformation, a sort of beauty-queen makeover in reverse. Gone were the nice office clothes, the hairstylist visits, the regular daily latte. Instead she wore scuffed boots and a braid, had dirt under her fingernails, and drank pots of strong farm coffee the way Cody had taught her to make it.

  She'd never been happier in her life.

  They had named their farm Treasure Spring Farm, and after a year of hard work, it was nearly unrecognizable as the derelict place that Crystal had first come to know, with all its promise hidden under fifteen years of overgrown bushes and neglect. The barn was in good repair, the fences newly strung, the trees cut back from the edge of the pasture.

  And they were just starting to get into livestock. Alec had offered to start them off with a small herd of Black Angus cattle from the Circle B herd—"Call it a wedding present," he'd said, smiling his quiet smile. But Crystal wasn't sure if she wanted to be a cattle rancher. She preferred the idea of starting out with something smaller. So they'd sold some of the Circle B cattle and bought a small flock of sheep. There were also two horses that Cody had brought with him from the Circle B, and even a farm dog, a young border collie that Cody had gotten from a neighbor. Between the sheep, the horses, and a tiny flock of chickens (another present from Alec and the Circle B), the place was starting to feel like a real farm already.

  "Just wait 'til we go through our first lambing season," Cody had said, laughing. "After two days of no sleep, looking for a missing sheep in pouring rain that's turning to snow, then you'll feel like a real farmer, and no mistake."

  "Goats," Crystal had said dreamily. "We should buy some goats too."

  "Let's see how the first season goes with the sheep and take it from there, why don't we?"

  They had both wanted to wait for their wedding until they got the farm fixed up. As Crystal had slowly begun to realize, though, farming wasn't a process with definite start and end points. There was always going to be something to do on the farm—they hadn't even started working on the orchard, and while they'd gotten the barn roof replaced and some of the other urgent repairs done, there was still a to-do list as long as her arm.

  If they waited until everything was just right, they'd be waiting forever.

  And now here she was, on a gloriously sunny summer day, staring into the mirror at a fairy-tale bride in a flowing white dress, her light brown skin suntanned to a duskier shade, her dark hair wound with ribbons and speckled with white and blue flowers.

  Tears sprang to her eyes.

  "Oh, now, don't start crying!" Saffron protested, stepping between her and the mirror.

  "Yes, save it for the ceremony," Daisy said, taking her hand.

  The door opened and Tara peeked in. "Are you about ready in here? Oh, my gosh."

  "Isn't she gorgeous?" Daisy and Saffron chorused, pulling Crystal around to show off their handiwork.

  "You look amazing," Tara told her. "You'll be lucky if Cody doesn't faint dead away when he catches sight of you."

  "Luckily he has a whole bunch of strapping guys to catch him and prop him up at the altar," Charmian said from behind her in deadpan tones. "Are you about ready in here?"

  Crystal took a deep, steadying breath. "Yes. I'm ready."

  With Daisy carrying her train and the rest of the farm women going ahead of her to scout for any wayward menfolk trying to sneak a peek, she descended the stairs into the farm house's living room. Alec and her mother were talking quietly; both of them fell silent as she entered.

  "Oh, darling." Her mother came over to give her a careful hug, trying not to knock any lace or flowers askew. "You look absolutely amazing. The most beautiful bride ever. Are you entirely sure about this decision not to hire a photographer? You'll never get to do this day over again, you know—"

  "I know," Crystal told her, kissing her mother's cheek. "We both felt very strongly about it. We'll only be able to do it once, like you said, and we only wanted close friends and family here. Just the clan. You must understand, Mom."

  "I do understand if you put it that way." Her mother sighed and wiped her eyes. "You may not have inherited my shifting ability, but I've always felt you had a shifter's soul."

  Crystal couldn't help thinking how much more relaxed her mother looked, as if she was finally starting to heal from the death of Crystal's father. The foundation's debt relief had been a tremendous weight off both of them. Crystal hadn't even realized how worried her mother had been, and how much of that she'd been hiding from Crystal.

  You could never truly get over a loved one's death, but with the debt no longer dragging them both down, they were finally able to move on and heal.

  "Come on, Mrs. Martinez," Charmian urged, tugging at her. "We'd better go find our seats. It's almost time."

  The rest of the women trickled out with hugs and well-wishes, leaving Crystal with Alec. She turned to him, a little shyly.

  Cody had been surprised when Crystal had told him she wanted Alec to give her away. Her father was dead, and she didn't have any close relatives on her dad's side. There were other choices she could have made, but she thought it made sense to give their clan alpha that honor. It was the best way she could think of to help smooth over any potential friction at taking Cody away from his ranch and clan ... even if she hadn't taken him very far away.

  Alec smiled at her, a quiet flicker of a smile, and she relaxed a little at the steadfast support in his eyes.

  Whatever kind of man Alec used to be, he'd grown into a solid and true alpha, someone who was worthy of his clan's respect. He held out an arm, and Crystal tucked hers into it.

  Tara poked her head through the door. Lexie, in an adorable frilly blue dress, was cuddled in her arms, pudgy fists clenched on a basket of rose petals. "Okay guys, showtime. They've got the Wedding March cued up on Remy's stereo, and the flower girl and I are ready to prepare your primrose path. Are you ready?"

  Crystal looked up at Alec. His face was solemn as he looked down at her, but his eyes were smiling.

  "Ready," she declared firmly.

  Tara grinned and left the door open as she departed. A moment later, there was a squeal of speaker feedback and then the first strains of the Wedding March began to play.

  Crystal peeked out. She had been adamant about being married in the garden. After all the work she and Cody had put into turning that overgrown, weed-covered mess into a proper vegetable garden, it had become her favorite place on the farm, and she'd spent many long, happy hours weeding and tending the tender little plants.

  Now the garden path was lined with flowers, leading to a bower at the far end covered with flowers and balloons. Folding chairs had been set up between the rows of plants in the garden, with wedding guests seated wherever a chair would fit.

  And if anyone laughed at the
idea of a wedding aisle passing between rows of tomatoes and lettuce ... well, they obviously weren't farmers.

  Tara was already walking down the path in slow measured steps, helping Lexie fling petals from her basket. Crystal stepped onto the front porch, Alec lending silent strength and support at her side, and her eyes went directly to Cody, waiting for her at the bower. She'd never seen him dressed up before, especially in a tux. His hair gleamed nearly golden in the sun. Beside him, his best man Remy stood grinning, but she only had eyes for Cody.

  His awestruck look at seeing her in her wedding finery was all she'd hoped for and more.

  Everything else faded into the background.

  She was dimly aware of Alec helping her down the porch steps, and then they were walking, walking, with rose petals crunching softly under her fancy white shoes.

  As she walked through the garden toward Cody, with the strains of music filling the summer air, each person she passed smiled at her, and her heart filled up to the brim with love. Here were her friends from St. Louis, who had driven all this way (and probably given that one little motel in Wildcat Forks more business than it normally got in a year). There were her garter-snake-shifter grandparents, who had managed to overcome their nervousness at being surrounded by this many big predator shifters, and her mom, holding a crumpled tissue to her mouth.

  She still hadn't discussed the revelations Alec had shared with her a year ago with her family, though she had told Cody about it.

  'Your children will be special'—no, that's for the future. It can wait.

  She had a feeling, from the flutter in her stomach that seemed to be more than mere nerves, that they were going to find out about those children before next spring. But ... that could wait for later. This was her wedding day.

  I'm looking forward to the future, but all I want to think about today ... is today.

  Here was Daisy, sitting with Gannon, who had one hand resting on the swell of his mate's pregnant belly. Gannon turned to look at Crystal as she went by with a bride's careful steps, and it seemed that his dark eyes met hers for a moment with warm camaraderie and the knowledge of a shared secret.