Like I didn’t know. My own son had just left me without a second glance.
As if on cue, I heard Sammie’s soft voice correcting him. “Go and tell your Daddy that you’re going to bed with me. Give him a hug, too. He’s had a hard day.”
Mason ran back down the stairs and sprang his sweaty little body into my arms. He wrapped his sticky hands around my neck and pressed a kiss to my chin. “Night. I’m going with Sammie.”
I cleared my throat of the emotion that had lodged there. “Yeah, well, tell Sammie that you’re sticky from all the candy she fed you earlier. You could probably use a bath.”
He wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “I’m not telling her.”
I swatted his backside as he jumped down and ran away from me. “Tell her!”
I stood there, watching my world disappear up the stairs and shook my head. I couldn’t go to bed without talking to Sammie. She could only ignore me for so long.
Alex called me to the kitchen table, where he, Matt, and Michael were sitting. Only John was missing. “We’ve got to discuss something.”
I sat down, but looked towards the stairs. I wanted to be with my mate and my son. “Can we make this quick?”
Matt snorted. “You in a rush to get ignored some more?”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“Well, if you said what I heard you said, you deserve it. What the hell’s wrong with you, man?”
I let my head fall to the table and hit it relatively hard. “I’m an idiot.”
Alex called a stop to the picking and brought up what was on his mind. “According to Dad’s will, Lucas is now the rightful heir to the ranch. Mason is four. You brought an offspring into this world before any of us.”
I was still staring at the stairs. “What?”
“The ranch is yours.”
I looked at the three of them and sighed. Before today, I had wanted it so much that I’d spent months frantically searching for Mallory. Now, as it was being thrust into my lap, all I could think about was that it would keep me away from my son and my mate. The plate-full of responsibilities that came with running a working ranch would command time and energy that I’d rather spend with my family.
“Well, what do you say?”
I shook my head. “I don’t want it.”
They all stared at me in shock.
“I need to develop a relationship with my son and I want to convince Sammie to be with me forever. I don’t want to spent eighty hours a week running this place.”
“More. I don’t know how Dad did it.” Alex shook his head. “It’s a lot of work for one man.”
Matt nodded. “Why don’t we come to some sort of agreement to run it together? It’s what we were doing before the will was read. Even back then when we were fighting each other like cats and dogs, it still worked better than with one of us trying to do everything.”
Michael cleared his throat. “It’s cool with me. John will agree. He’s been so focused elsewhere that I know he has little interest in running this place full time.”
I stood up. “Then it’s settled. We share as a family. Like we should. How about we hammer out the details later, boys?”
Alex laughed. “Go on.”
I raced up the stairs and knocked on the door. “Sammie, it’s me.”
There was a long silence and then a muffled sigh. The door opened a crack and then her pretty face was looking out at me. Mason peeked out from below, his curiosity getting the better of him.
“Hi.”
Mason grabbed my hand and pulled me closer. “Daddy, can you sleep in here with us?”
Sammie bit her lip and then moved out of the way. “Come on in.”
I wasn’t about to argue with him. I wanted desperately to be close to them both. “I’ll take the floor again. How about that?”
Mason pulled me towards the bathroom. “It’s bath time first.”
Sammie caught him just before he jumped into the water in his pajamas. “Did you forget you’re wearing clothes, little man?”
He looked down at the offending things and then shifted into a bear cub right in her arms. The additional weight took her by surprise and she ended up dropping him into the water. The splash soaked her and left a once-again-human Mason giggling hysterically.
“You’re wet, Sammie!”
I couldn’t help but smile watching the two of them.
Sammie turned to me and narrowed her eyes. “If you’re going to be in here, you’re going to help. He’s surprisingly wigglier as a little boy.”
I laughed and knelt down beside her. Instantly, a big splash soaked my shirt and face. I sent a playful growl his way and then reached in and tickled him. “Did you forget how to take a proper bath?”
By the time we got him washed and redressed for bed, we were all three tuckered out. Mason climbed into bed and curled up right in the center of it. “Daddy?”
My heart flipped over in my chest. “Yeah?”
Mason patted the mattress beside him. “Stay here.”
I looked at Sammie and saw the hurt flash over her face for a brief second before she attempted to hide it with a half-smile. “Where’s Sammie going to sleep?”
He patted the bed on the other side of him. “Here, silly.”
Her cheeks burned, but instead of fighting it, she nodded. “Okay, kiddo. Whatever you want.”
I got a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach and couldn’t shake it. Something was up with her. She got in bed and crawled to Mason’s other side. I laid down next to him and turned to face them.
Mason yawned widely and then shoved his little butt into Sammie’s ribs. “Goodnight, Sammie. Goodnight, Daddy.”
I kissed his forehead. “Night, buddy.”
Sammie pressed her lips into his hair. “Night. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
In seconds, Mason was out and Sammie squeezed her eyes shut, pretending to be asleep.
I stretched my arm out and lightly flicked her on the nose. “I can tell you’re faking, Sammie. You’re going to have to talk to me at some point.”
CHAPTER 11: Sammie
I groaned. I didn’t want to talk to Lucas. Every second I talked to him was just a little bit farther I fell for him. Watching him with Mason was like torture. I had to leave, but everything about the two of them tethered my heart and called me to stay.
“I said the wrong things earlier, Sammie. I didn’t mean it like it sounded. I’d like the opportunity to explain.”
I shut my eyes and tried to block out his deep voice.
“When my father passed, we were all surprised by his will. At the time, I thought that taking over the ranch was what I wanted most in the world. I had no one around that I was willing to have a kid with, but all of a sudden, I was plagued by a memory… Almost five years ago, I got a late-night call from Mallory. I hadn’t seen her in months and she was higher than a kite on something. She was almost completely incoherent. She was babbling but I distinctly heard her say that she was pregnant. I freaked out. I knew she and I weren’t supposed to be together.”
My eyes flew open and I stared at him. He’d known about Mason?
“I tried calling her for weeks after that, but she never answered. I had all but given up when I finally managed to get ahold of her. She laughed and told me that she’d just been high that night and wanted to mess with me. Said she didn’t even remember telling me that. She also said she’d met another guy and was happy. I believed her.”
He frowned and shook his head. “This next part is not flattering. After dad’s will was read, I decided to find Mallory. I… I thought that maybe she had been my mate and I’d just been too big of a dumbass to notice. And, yes, I also thought that if she’d been telling the truth that night, if she had been pregnant with my child, I had a chance to get control of the ranch.”
I withheld judgment because of the pain etched across his face. He brushed Mason’s hair off of his forehead and his frown grew even more severe.
“I went looking for her, in hopes of finding a child who could be my ticket to a huge inheritance. I know now how misguided I was. I honestly didn’t have a clue until I saw him. I realize now that everything I was doing was for the wrong reasons.” He met my eyes. “I’m going to make it up to him. I’m going to be the best father a little boy-cub could ever dream of. It’s different now. I’m different. When I saw him, I didn’t think about the ranch. I just saw this little bear who smelled like me and who made my heart feel like my body was too small for it.
“And then there was you. As soon as I saw you, Sammie, I knew I’d been stupid to ever wonder if Mallory could’ve been my mate. As though I could come face to face with my mate and not be a hundred percent certain. But, hell, I didn’t know what it actually felt like to meet a mate. That there’s no way I could be anywhere near her and not notice, because the feeling would be so indescribably all-consuming. That every part of my mind, body, and heart would buzz with hyper awareness. That I would want to be near her every second of every day. That I would have a constant and overwhelming need to possess her completely. That I would think of nothing but claiming her so I could shout it to the world, tell everyone, that this amazing woman is mine. I didn’t know. Until I saw you”
I sucked in a breath. As much as I wanted to hear what he was saying, I didn’t. I had to leave. I couldn’t stay. I had to make sure Mason was safe and go back to work.
“I know that the feelings are slower for you, probably. I just wanted you to know.”
I looked at him with tears in my eyes. “I have to leave, Lucas.”
Panic filled his face. “Why?”
“I have a job, a life, outside of this. I have an apartment in Cheyenne. I have family that I haven’t seen in months. I have to make sure the man who did that to Aaron and Mallory pays for it.”
“You don’t want to stay with us?”
My heart felt like shattering glass. “I have to go. Tomorrow. I have to.”
He looked like he wanted to argue, but I turned away and faced the wall. Mason rolled over and I got a knee in the back, but I ignored it. I couldn’t help the tears that fell from my eyes. I knew Lucas could tell I was crying, but I couldn’t help it.
He rested an arm on my hip and left it there even after I’d stopped crying and as I fell asleep.
I left the next morning after quietly kissing a sleeping Mason on the forehead. He was warming to his family so well and so quickly that I wasn’t worried about him being okay. He’d probably need therapy after what he’d endured, but he was going to be okay. He had a top-notch support system. I left him in bed with Lucas and crept out of the house. I was on the road back to Cheyenne before the sun had come up over the mountains.
I walked around in a daze the first day. With the exception of the calls I made to my boss, letting him know I was back in town, and to the pizza shop closest to my apartment, I couldn’t stop the tears. My emotions were a mess. I had cried more in the last two days than I had in the previous five years.
I knew that what I had done was necessary. I had a meeting with my boss bright and early first thing the next morning and we were going to go over what to do about the man who’d killed Aaron and Mallory. I had to get it together and make sure that their killer wasn’t running free. I had to. Mason deserved as much from me.
Sleep didn’t come easily. I would eventually doze for a while only to be awakened with dreams of Lucas and Mason fresh on my mind. My heart ached. I desperately wanted to go back to them and pretend like nothing was happening outside of Long Ranch. I was a U.S. Marshal, though. I had a job to do.
The meeting with my boss went like shit. He saw right through the concealer I’d layered over my under-eye bags, and my bloodshot eyes. If that wasn’t bad enough, when he told me there was nothing we could do about Wesley Butler, I’d lost my cool. Unless Mason had witnessed it and could actually point Wesley out in a line up, saying that Wesley was the man who’d killed his mother, there was nothing we could do. Our jobs were done with him. The case would go back to the FBI who would try to catch him at something else. Without witnesses, we didn’t have a case, and now that Mallory and her boyfriend were dead, the original case we’d had against him was thrown out.
It wasn’t pretty, but yes, I had a serious freak out. After seeing how unhinged I became about the case, my boss refused to let me come back to work until I’d been cleared by a psychologist. It pissed me off because I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that if I had to stay at home all day long with just my sadness and heartbreak over leaving Lucas and Mason, then my freak out today was nothing. I was going to absolutely lose it. I was also furious. Wesley Butler got off scott-free.
It was final, though. My boss wouldn’t budge. No work until I received clearance. I made an appointment immediately and went back to my apartment to drown in the emotional mess that was now my life.
CHAPTER 12: Sammie
My phone rang in the middle of the night and I sat straight up in bed, fearing the worst. The phone never rang in the middle of the night unless someone was dead or dying. I tripped over the blankets in my haste to get up and ended up slamming to the ground. My head ricocheted off the hard wood floor. Instant head pain.
I raced to the phone. “Hello? Hello?”
Lucas’s voice filled my ear and I collapsed into one of my kitchen chairs. “Sammie? Are you okay?”
“Yes, of course. What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
He let out a big sigh of relief and swore under his breath. “The house was just attacked. I can’t say too much, but I think you should come.”
I was already grabbing my keys and running out of the door. “Is everyone okay?”
“We’re okay. Be careful.”
I wanted to beg him to stay on the phone with me. Just a couple of days away from them had me longing to hear more of his voice. “I’ll be there soon.”
I hung up and sped towards the ranch. I realized half way there that in my haste I’d forgotten to grab my purse. I didn’t have my purse, my gun, or my badge. I prayed that I didn’t get stopped doing twenty over the speed limit.
*****Lucas*****
I slammed my fist into a tree trunk and felt a sick satisfaction at the cracking I heard coming from the tree. I wanted to rip it from the ground, roots and all, and throw it across the ranch. My body was raging and my head was pounding from an adrenaline hangover. The bullet wound in my side was healing fast, but still stung like hell. The worst pain was the pain in my heart that hadn’t stopped aching for days.
Michael still growled from across the yard. He’d shifted and ripped the head off of a man named Wesley Butler. The man who’d dared to come onto our property and attack us while we slept. I knew that it was the same man who’d killed Mallory by the way Mason reacted to him. He’d instantly turned back into his cub and had hidden behind me shaking uncontrollably. He’d even wet himself in fear.
The man had shrieked like a little girl when he’d seen Mason shift. When he ran, I chased. I’d gotten several damning blows onto the man’s body before he remembered he had a gun and shot me. That was when Michael had come out of nowhere and ended him.
Michael was still in his bear form, growling viciously anytime anyone got near him. My worry for my brother was only overridden by my worry for my mate. She’d sounded so panicked when she’d answered the phone. I’d worried that the man had sent someone to attack her, as well.
My mom was inside with Mason and had sent my little sister Bailey to tell me that he’d calmed down and had asked for Sammie before falling asleep. He’d been asking for her since she left. Damn her. My blood started boiling again and I had to force my bear back down inside. He’d been raging since she left. I’d never heard from him so much. He was a quiet bear, only sounding out when absolutely necessary, usually. Sammie leaving us had him screaming in my head, clawing at my insides constantly.
It was another hour before Michael had calmed down enough to shift back. He still stood away f
rom our brothers and kept his back to the man he’d killed.
“When did you call her?” Alex asked from beside me.
I glanced at the road and felt the air around us change. “She’s here.”
Soon after, we heard her car speeding towards the house. I shifted, unable to hold bear inside, and let out a big roar. My bear was happy. Our mate was home. I was still angry with her. I didn’t know which one of us was going to win this tug-of-war.
Matt waved Sammie over and she sprinted across the wide expanse of lawn in just a thin T-shirt and a pair of barely-there shorts. I forced myself to shift back and slapped Matt and Alex on the back of their heads.
“Don’t fucking look.”
Sammie closed the gap between us and threw her body at mine. I was already hard watching her run, but feeling her barely-covered, soft, curvy body up against mine did me in. I growled low in my throat and squeezed her into me, despite the pain.
She must’ve felt the dampness of my blood against her, though. She pulled back and looked down. Her face went pale and she let out a gasp. “Lucas! You’re hurt!”
I shook my head. “It’ll heal soon. I’m fine, Sam. The other guy isn’t, though.”
I had to get her attention off of me or I was going to fuck her up against a tree, right then and there. My bear was roaring so loudly in my head, demanding I mark her so she couldn’t leave us again, it was all I could do to keep my teeth to myself.
She looked over at the spot where I was pointing and shuddered. I expected her to blanch and turn away, but instead, she walked over to the body and looked closer. “I don’t know how the fuck he found this place. I covered my trail. I’m so sorry to have brought him to your doorstep.”
Alex stepped forward. “It’s okay, but we need to know, is it over now? Is there going to be anyone else coming here to find him?”
Rancher Bear Complete Series: PLUS NEW BONUS BOOK: Rancher Bears' Merry Christmas Page 14