He seemed puzzled for a moment then turned to look at her with a broad smile that reached his eyes.
“You’re that woman at the bar,” he said, as though finally remembering where he had seen her before.
“There were a lot of women at the bar last night.”
“Yeah, but you were the only one I noticed.”
Mel felt herself blush and was thankful for the dim light.
“I find that hard to believe.”
“It’s true, all the same.”
Someone tried to cut them off, and Matt had to slam on the breaks to keep from hitting the idiot. Mel held her breath then let it out in relief when Matt simply backed off instead of needing to prove his manhood to the other driver.
“You weren’t there when we finished,” he said, as though their conversation had not been interrupted.
“No. I was called away. By the time I got back, you and your brothers were gone, but the bartender told me you liked to play pool at that place.”
He cursed under his breath. “I can’t believe you went there alone.”
“Not one of my brighter moments,” she admitted.
“So why did you?”
“You’ll want to turn right here,” she directed, avoiding his question, “then take an immediate left onto Clearview.”
He followed her instructions, checking his rearview mirror to make sure the van was still with them.
“So why did you?” he repeated.
“Turn left at the third traffic light—on Fourteenth Street—then look for Gartland Avenue and turn right.”
“You’re gonna have to tell me sooner or later, you know.”
“Later,” she said, “so I can tell you all at once.”
Matt didn’t look happy about it, but he stopped asking questions and continued to follow her directions.
“Here’s my street, but keep going—there’s an alley behind the house, and a small parking lot. You guys won’t be able to leave your van there overnight, but it’ll be fine for now.
They turned left and found a bright security light marking the small gravel lot behind an old three-story house. Mel directed him to her parking spot then had to wait for him to come around to help her out of the car, because, she didn’t think she’d make it on her own. The van pulled in behind them and after turning around, took a spot on the far end of the lot, just off the street. As Matt helped Mel out of the car, she saw the big, burly shadows that were his brothers approach, and her mind flashed back to what she didn’t want to believe she’d seen at the bar.
In for a penny, in for a pound, as her grandmother used to say. She decided her questions would have to wait until she was sitting down.
“I’m on the third floor,” she told them, as she used her key to let them into the back door.
Chapter 4
The Lockeland Springs historic neighborhood was a gentrified turn-of-the-20th-century area. The houses had all been preserved and renovated, with a few of them—like hers—turned into multi-family housing. Though she’d never be able to afford to buy a place here, the rent on the smallest of this historic home’s three apartments was just within her reach—if she watched what she spent on everything else and kept the AC turned up in the summer and the heat turned down in the winter to keep her electric bills down.
One thing this house didn’t have was an elevator, and once she had struggled as far as the first landing, Matt gently lifted her into his arms and carried her the rest of the way. Mel didn’t put up even a token protest, which she was certain told the men all they needed to know about how bad she really felt. When they entered her apartment, she directed them to the front, where the combined kitchen/living room sat overlooking the street. Matt carefully set her down in the kitchen, and she gratefully sank onto one if the wooden chairs at the round corner table.
“You got any aspirin around here?” Matt asked.
Mel had to think a moment. “I have some generic acetaminophen. It’s in the upper cabinet to the left of the sink.”
Matt got it down and opened it for her. “Water okay, or you want something else.”
“Water’s fine.”
Matt poured her a small glass he found in the same cabinet then handing her the glass, sat beside her at the table. Mel swallowed the pills then laid her head in her hand. Matt gently rubbed her back and neck until she finally looked up at them.
“Won’t you sit down?” she asked. “There are a couple more chairs in the next room you could pull up.”
“I don’t need to sit down, darlin’,” the older man said. “I only need some answers.”
“Introductions, first,” Matt said, continuing to rub her back. “Mel, these are my brothers—John, Mark, and Luke.” He indicated each of the three younger men in turn. “And this is our Uncle Bart. Everybody, this is Melinda Darling. Mel, she likes to be called.”
“Uncle Bart’s here to keep us out of trouble,” John, the youngest, said as he pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down across from her.
“And I got you all into trouble tonight,” Mel said, hugging Matt’s flannel shirt to herself. “I’m so sorry.”
Bart shook his head, looking resigned, but he took the chair next to her. “These yahoos don’t need any help gettin’ into trouble, ma’am, but I’d sure like to know what tonight was all about.
“She tell you anything on the way back?” he asked Matt.
Matt shook his head. “Only that she heard us play last night, and she needs to talk to us.”
“Hey, that was you at the bar last night!” Luke said. “I just knew I’d seen you someplace.”
“And you were playing the mandolin and fiddle,” she said, attempting a smile.
“That’s right.” He leaned against the wall, between the front windows, his arms crossed over his broad chest.
Mel glanced around and marveled at the presence of these five huge men in her tiny little apartment. Then she thought about what she’d imagined she’d seen at the pub and felt herself go suddenly still.
“What did the barman mean when he said, ‘your kind’ isn’t welcome here?” she asked softly.
Matt’s hand faltered on her back for a moment then began moving again. She glanced up and saw Matt and Bart exchange looks. The others were looking to Bart.
“What do you remember, exactly,” Bart asked. He kept his gravelly voice low, she supposed, so he wouldn’t alarm her, but it had the opposite effect.
She took a deep breath. “I’m not certain. That…man had me pinned up against the bar, then he hit me, and I went down. I thought I was going to pass out, but then I heard…something. It was like a loud, well, roar, I guess, then the man who had attacked me was pulled away, and…”
“All hell broke loose,” Mark said, snagging her kitchen stool with a foot and dragging it over to sit on.
He should have looked silly, but the fact that he was tall enough to see over the table, even though he was sitting on a low stool, only emphasized how big they all were.
“Please tell me what happened.”
Bart glanced around at the others and took a deep breath. Then he nodded at Matt.
“You must have heard stories,” Matt said, “about how sometimes some people, well, change into something else.”
Mel started. She stared at Matt then around at the others. She was suddenly very conscious of their deep, golden eyes as they watched her. She had noticed their eyes last night, but now she saw that Bart, too, had them.
“You’re…?”
“The word you’re lookin’ for is ‘Shifter.’ We are. All of us.”
“It sort of runs in the family,” John said, sounding awfully cheerful about it. “At least on Pop’s side. Our Ma never Shifted, and our sisters don’t, either.”
“It’s usually the male line,” Mark said, “though there’ve been a few women along the way.”
“So what, you just…become…something else? Whenever you feel like it?”
“Bears,” John said. “In our clan,
it’s always been bears.”
Mel raised her eyebrows in surprise. The youngest Saint seemed too cheerful about it all.
“And it’s not whenever we feel like it, exactly,” Luke explained. “Well, when we’re kids, when we’re just comin’ into it, we tend to Shift whenever and wherever, which can be pretty darn awkward.”
“But once puberty hits,” Mark said, “we become pretty good at controllin’ it.”
“Unless we feel threatened,” Bart explained. “Shiftin’ is all about survival, so if we feel threatened—or if someone we care about is threatened—we sometimes Shift without thinkin’ about it.”
“That’s what happened tonight,” John said. “Matt went in to get us some more beer, saw you bein’ attacked, and he just instinctively Shifted.”
“And then when we heard him,” Luke said, “we had to jump in to protect both of you by keepin’ that nasty crowd back while Matt dealt with the lowlife who had you.”
“But you don’t even know me,” Mel said, looking at Matt.
John snorted. “Our big brother’s always stickin’ up for the little guy or gal against bullies. I mean, it’s in his DNA.”
The others laughed, but Matt just continued to massage her neck gently with his powerful fingers. She could feel the calluses caused by his guitar strings on her bare skin and shivered. He smiled, then, as though he knew what he was doing to her.
“That takes us back to the first question,” Bart said. “What the heck were you doin’ in that bar tonight, young lady?”
Mel had to work to bring her gaze away from Matt’s. She took a deep breath as she fought to bring her mind back to where it belonged.
“I work for the Konstantine Talent Agency. My job is to visit as many night spots as I can, looking for promising bands and other performers for the Agency to represent. I got called away last night when my boss texted me, and by the time I got back, you guys had already packed up and left. So I asked around, and the bartender told me where you like to play pool when you’re in town.
“I know it sounds ridiculous, now, but the bartender said it was your last night performing there, and he didn’t know where you were going next or if you were even going to stay in Nashville. I just didn’t want to take the chance that I couldn’t find you again. My job depends on finding great artists, and I haven’t been having a lot of luck lately, so I decided to take a chance this once.
“Looking back, it was a pretty foolish thing to do, but I was desperate, because I just knew if I didn’t bring you in, someone else would find you and take all the credit. I couldn’t take that chance. I’m skating on pretty thin ice with my boss as it is these days, because I haven’t found anyone worthy of her notice as yet. If I don’t find something soon, she’ll probably fire me, and I won’t be able to pay next month’s rent.”
“Your boss sounds like a real piece of work,” Bart said, “expectin’ a young gal like you to take chances like that.”
Mel shook her head then wished she hadn’t. “It’s just the way things are in the business. It’s really cutthroat. And there aren’t that many jobs available these days. I can’t afford to lose this one.”
Bart sighed. “Okay.”
They were all quiet for a moment, thinking—she assumed—about her foolishness.
“Well, no real harm done,” Matt said. “Why don’t I put you to bed, Mel. We can talk about this in the mornin’.”
“What?”
“You’re beat, and I’ll bet your head feels like it’s about to fall right off. Let me get you into bed, so you can get some sleep. The others can go back to our hotel for the night then come back in the morning, and we’ll figure out what to do about your boss.”
“But you can’t stay here,” Mel said.
“Either one of us stays, or you’re goin’ to a hospital,” Bart said, standing up. “No arguments, young lady. We don’t take any chances with head injuries.”
“But…”
“Don’t worry,” Matt said, getting up, too. “I can sleep on the couch. Won’t be the first time.”
Mel wasn’t certain of when she had lost control, but the next thing she knew, Matt’s brothers and uncle were stomping down the back stairs, and Matt was leading her into her bedroom.
“I really am perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” she said testily then gave herself away when she had to grab for the foot of the bed to keep from falling on her face.
“Of course you are, darlin’,” Matt said cheerfully. “Don’t mind me. I’m just here in case you need a hand with somethin’. Now, why don’t you tell me where you keep your nightgowns?”
Mel looked up sharply. “What makes you think I don’t sleep in pajamas?”
Matt narrowed his eyes and seemed to study her closely.
“Nope. I got five sisters, and you’re definitely a nightie kind of gal.”
Mel sighed and gave up. “The top drawer, on the left.”
Matt headed for her dresser. Mel was relieved when he simply took the long sleep shirt that was on top.
He was grinning when he returned to her, though.
“You got good taste, darlin’.”
He had picked up her denim-colored, full-length, Winnie-the-Pooh night shirt, and she could tell he was pleased with her bear connection. When she reached for it, he set it beside her on the bed.
“Let me help you with those buttons,” he said, reaching for the front of his shirt.
“No!”
“You still nervous around me?” he asked, looking perplexed.
She swallowed hard and dropped her eyes. “Look, I know you’ve already seen me naked once tonight, but I…”
He reached his hand out to her cheek and raised her eyes to his.
“This time I won’t look. I promise.”
“But…”
“Look, I know you’re still scared of me, but if you’re wonderin’ if I’m gonna jump you, don’t even think it. I’m not the kind of guy who’s gonna try to take advantage of a gal whose hurtin’ and scared. Like I said, we have five sisters, and we all lived in a three-bedroom, one-bath house growin’ up, so I’m real good at dealin’ with women on a lot of levels.”
He grinned then. “I promise I won’t try to compromise you—at least not until your feelin’ a lot better than you do right now.”
Her head reeling from the now throbbing pain, Mel conceded defeat and dropped her hands. His were both gentle and impersonal as he helped her out of his flannel shirt and dropped the night shirt over her head then pulled what was left of her dress away. Then he helped her to the bathroom and shut the door behind her for privacy. Mel stood clinging to the counter and stared at herself in the mirror.
Not any reason at all to worry about Matt’s intentions tonight, she thought. Not when you look like this.
Her night shirt revealed bruises on her arms and neck where her attacker had man-handled her, and her cheek was turning a sickly yellow color where he had punched her. One eye was a little puffy, too, and she wondered if she would end up with a black eye by morning.
Sighing, Mel took care of business, brushing her teeth, carefully combing out the worst of the tangles in her hair, gently washing her face, and using the necessary. Matt was waiting for her outside, his flannel shirt back in place and buttoned up. He helped her to bed and tucked her in. When she sighed in relief, he reached out to touch her hair, now spread out on the pillow.
Amir (BBW Bear Shifter Moonshiner Romance) (120 Proof Honey Book 3) Page 69