by Martha Woods
The Bear Shifter’s Desires
Black Oak Shifters
Martha Woods
Contents
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BLACK OAK SHIFTERS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
More From Martha Woods
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© 2019 Romance Books 4 U
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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BLACK OAK SHIFTERS
This is book two of the Black Oat Shifters series. All my books are stand-alones and can be read independently, but this book may reference events in the previous books and some of my favorite characters.
The order the series may be most enjoyed:
The Bear Shifter’s Promise (Book 1)
The Bear Shifter’s Desires (Book 2)
Chapter 1
The chop of the ax echoed across the icy plains, the only sound for miles accompanied by the pained gasps of someone who had clearly been working for far too long, skin on their palms rubbed raw and sweat beading on the tip of their nose, feeling like a pure chunk of ice in the frigid wind.
Shane sank the blade of his ax into the stump of the tree, watching as the recently felled produce of his effort rolled gently in the snow before coming to a halt, a light dusting of frost and sleet coating it in the short time it had been resting. Rubbing the sleeve of his jacket across his forehead, he finally realized just how much pain his hands were in, clutching them tightly against his chest as he hooked his elbow around the blade of the ax and tugged it up into his grip. One of the others could bring the tree back to the worksite, he’d earned his break three times over.
“Oh, you were actually working out there?” Burnie said, looking up from the counter as Shane stepped into the main building, “The other guys thought you’d already gone home, most of them did anyway.”
“Why would they think that?” He asked, peeling off his gloves and running them under a warm tap, picking up a cup and walking towards the coffee machine, “We need to get these trees sorted out before the planting season, we need to make way for the new saplings.”
“Yeah, but if you didn’t notice it’s also damn near approaching a blizzard out there.” Burnie shook his head, thumbing idly through his magazine as he chucked a packet of sugar over at Shane. “And for Christ sake put some sugar in that shit will you? You and I both know this coffee isn’t good enough to be drunk black.”
“Maybe I like it bitter,” Shane replied, before pulling the packet open and pouring it into his cup with a smirk, “So if everyone else already went home then why are you still here? Don’t you have a woman in town?”
“Do I look like I’ve got a woman in town?” He laughed, tossing his magazine onto the counter and leaning back with his hands behind his head, “I’m the one who handles opening and closing, I don’t get to just go home whenever I want. Trust me, if I could I’d be out in the club with a handful of five dollar bills making everyone know it.”
“Oh five dollars? Wow you’re a real high roller, I’m surprised you don’t have a woman.”
“We’re a logging company on the border of Canada Shane, you think that this is a high class town?” Burnie pushed his seat out, standing and wrapping his arm around his shoulder, “Now I know that you’ve only been here with us for a few weeks, but you’ve gotta have realized by now that this isn’t exactly a high-class town.”
He swept his hand out at their surroundings, and Shane had to admit that it wasn’t exactly the most lavish of surroundings. The main building was a half-rusted bucket in what had been a former quarry, all tree deliveries were done by truck and dragged down into the seat of the pit. Any sort of blizzard or downpour always hit the building hard because of where it was situated, and from the looks of it they’d had to replace the roof more than once over the years.
Still, it wasn’t anything that Shane would complain about, as disappointing as it might be to look at he still had to admit… there was at least some freedom to be had in this. It was more than he’d run away from after all.
“Now look, some of the guys think that you’re kind of weird, and I’m not saying that to be mean, and they don’t mean it that way either!” Burnie raised his hands, obviously attempting to placate him in case he took it the wrong way. Mainly he was just confused. “Think about it from their perspective, you come in out of nowhere a few weeks ago, you spent fourteen, fifteen hours a day here every single day chopping down trees in some of the shittiest weather of the year, you’re just kind of making them… a little curious, that’s all.”
“I don’t see how that has anything to do with me,” Shane said, “They could just focus on doing their jobs instead.”
“Definitely! Definitely, but what I think is, and just hear me out here, they just need to get to know you ok? I’ve got a pretty good idea of who you are now, I know you’re not touched in the head or anything, and I like you enough!” He backed away, shrugging and pointing up at the clock. “They should all be at the bar right about now, why don’t you head on over there and get to know some of them? You might even like some of them!”
Shane looked up at the clock, eyebrow raised. “I’ve still got two hours on my shift.”
Burnie waved his hand in dismissal. “I’m not gonna let you work out there in that shit right now, not after all the work you’ve already done. I’ll mark you down for a full day’s work, you can consider this a… training exercise or whatever, know what I mean?”
Draining the last of his coffee, grimacing at the coffee grounds resting on his tongue, Shane tossed the cup into the trash and shrugged. “If you say so, guess I can’t argue with a few paid hours where I get to sit around and drink.”
“That’s what I’m talking about! Give me a minute to close everything up and I’ll drive you into town, I could do with a drink myself.”
“I thought you had to stay to handle closing and opening?”
“I am, now that I know that we don’t have any boys out there in the snow I can close whenever I want.” He grinned. “The law requires that I stay here until I have an exact idea of where everyone is, not just where I think they are. Go get the car warmed up.”
Shane chuckled, catching the keys in his hand and twirling them idly around his finger. It was a short trip from the bucket to the car, and once he was inside with the heater blasting he could let some of the exhaustion from the day’s work seep into him. He’d let his eyes slip closed when the driver’s side door opened, blasting him with a wave of cool air as Burnie stepped in and wrapped his hands around the wheel. “Finally, let’s go and get a drink in us!”
The town was indeed not to be considered “High c
lass” by any means, wrecks of old cars from three decades previous lining most of the alleyways as they drove inwards, snow that was grey from the dirty streets and turning to sludge the caked up along the bottom of their car. He hadn’t exactly been expecting to be sleeping in the upper east side of Manhattan, but even he had to admit that aside from the freedom of being able to choose where he slept… this town was, for lack of a better word, a shithole.
But it had served the residents well enough for damn near a hundred years, most of the people living in town having last names that dated back to the founding of the town, when they’d needed a safe refuge to be able to fall back to when they weren't out bootlegging. For that reason Cedar Hollow had never had anything approaching a police department, but that was something that Shane wasn’t ungrateful for. In his experience if there were police out and about there was more chance that they would ask questions about where he had come from, and those were questions that he could never find himself giving a convincing answer to. He’d been run out of many a town because of that, he’d take the additional risk of a shooting if it meant he wouldn’t have to worry about passing squad cars.
Fittingly, for a town that had been created in service of bootlegging, there were no less than four bars for a population that could barely justify two, let alone four. Four bars, two strip clubs, and a corner store where everyone did their food shopping, it was a little glimpse into the world which used to be, and seldom could be justified existing now. Much as it repulsed him, he had to admit… a part of it was pretty appealing.
“Which bar did they go to?” Shane asked, watching as they passed by two of their options on the main street, “Not those I’m guessing?”
“They went to McNulty’s I think I heard them saying, two for one whiskey’s on tonight. You need to get some of that local tradition in you, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drink.”
“I should hope not, you’ve only ever seen me at work.”
“Well that changes tonight, if you want those guys to like you then you need to be able to handle your liquor, think you can do that?”
Shane grinned, a silent, unseen tilt of the corner of his mouth as he nodded nonchalantly. “Yeah, I think I can do that. So long as they’re paying.”
“Oh they’re gonna like you, I can tell already…”
The amount of beaten up trucks outside McNulty’s confirmed that yes, the entire rest of their coworkers had found their haunt for that night, one of them already standing by the door looking like he was fighting the urge to vomit all over himself and the sidewalk.
“Jesus,” Burnie said, pushing him out of the doorway and down to the step to sit, “It’s fuckin’ four in the afternoon, you’re already in this shape?”
“Two for one whiskey…” He said, as though that was an obvious enough answer before he leaned his head forward and dozed off. Burnie and Shane shook their heads, snapping their fingers at the bouncer to keep an eye on him until he was ready to head home. There wasn’t any sort of taxi service in town, so you either had to sober up or brave the walk home yourself, and in this weather there was no way that he was going to make it home in the state that he was in.
“It’s probably that shithead Mike,” Burnie said, “He’s the big dog, kind of an asshole, but he’s a hard worker. Likes to get free drinks by challenging the others that he’ll pay for their drinks if they can outlast him. No one ever does but they always try, I guess they just want to give it a go just in case.”
“And you think that he’s going to challenge me,” Shane said, not as a question but as a statement of fact. He’d been around enough tough groups to know how the hazing process went, if he wanted to hang with the big boys then he’d have to take their challenges. Unfortunately for them they didn’t quite know what he was until they challenged him.
Another reason why he’d been run out of town more than once, but he’d be damned if he laid down and let them do whatever they wanted to him.
“Hello boys!” Burnie shouted, to a response somewhere between elation and tiredness. He was still their boss, but from what Shane had seen so far he was fair enough to everyone no matter where it was they’d come from, there was a level of respect that you had to give someone like that, no matter what you thought of them. “I brought the new guy along with me, figured he could do with a few drinks after all the hard work he did today.”
“I thought he went home early,” One of them said, a thick bearded man who went by the name of Todd, “None of us saw him today.”
“None of you saw him today because he was actually out there chopping trees down, not shivering in the bucket talking about how far up into himself his balls shrank!” Burnie laughed, clapping him on the back and pushing him forward, “Come on, make room, make room…”
“You were out there? In this?” Todd asked, “Shit, I’ll buy you a beer for that shit, I’m not working out there in this.”
“Good idea,” Shane said, leaning against the bar and scratching his nail against his sensitive palm, “Soon it’s gonna get bad enough that I’m not even gonna be able to do it.”
“Well when that happens we’ll probably be moving into the processing stage, so it’s not like we won’t have anything to do. At least we’ll be warm while we do it. Hey can I get a beer over here!” Todd settled back on his seat, brushing aside some of the drops on the empty seat next to him and gesturing down. “Come on, you’ve been standing all day right? Get your ass in the seat.”
“Thanks,” Shane said, groaning as he took his seat and leaned his back against the bar, feeling his back pop in at least five places as he settled himself, “Yea, I needed that…”
Picking up his beer, he took a deep gulp and let it wash down his throat, letting out a sigh of relief with his fingers dancing along the glass. “Thanks for this by the way, I don’t think we ever spoke.”
“Nah, but you’re here now, who cares about all that?” Todd placed a few dollars on the counter, holding his hand up to the bartender and watching as four glasses were placed in front of him. “Here, some free shots before Matt makes his way over here and starts throwing his dick around.”
“Drinking challenge?” Shane asked, already knowing the answer.
“Drinking challenge. Hope you’re ready for it…”
“I think I can manage,” Shane said, grinning as he swallowed down his two shots without a worry, “I hope he’s ready.”
“Careful, he might hear you…”
“Too late for that Todd,” Matt said from behind them, already smirking when Todd and Shane turned to face him. One look was all Shane needed to know that he absolutely didn’t like this guy, and if it wasn’t the fact that he already knew that he liked throwing his weight around then it would be the fact that he was standing there like he’d never quite gotten over being the homecoming king. Shane had run into enough of those in his time to know exactly what kind of person they were on sight.
“So you’re Matt,” Shane said, holding his hand out, “I’m Shane, heard a lot about you.”
“I bet you have,” He replied, pointedly not taking the hand that was offered to him, “I haven’t heard much about you though, thought that you were just kind of… special, you know? Always standing out there, not saying a word, it’s just kind of… weird, you know?”
“You mean doing my job?” Shane said, taking a sip of his beer to disguise that he knew exactly how much disrespect had been in his tone, “I didn’t mean to look like I was trying to do anything else, I thought you were just as focused as I was.”
Matt smirked even deeper, though everyone around them could feel the temperature drop a few more degrees, Burnie in particular looking as though he was having serious doubts about having introduced him to the group. “Well, you know how we like to work around here,” He said, “I guess you’ll get into the swing of things soon enough, and figure out who’s in charge of what.”
“I’m guessing that you’re in charge of everything,” Shane said, “At least in this group
I mean. Every group needs a leader after all.”
“That’s right, and it’s my duty as leader…” He slunk in, draping his arm across Shane’s shoulders in a way that he very much did not like. “...to welcome you into the group. So how about it? Wanna have some drinks?”
“Who’s paying?”
“Hmmm… how about we make a wager?” Everyone else rolled their eyes, though they kept watching on. “If you drink more than me, I’ll cover your tab and everyone else’s for the night, no questions asked. But if I drink more than you, then you have to do the same. No bullshit, no crying about how it’s unfair, you pay for the drinks. Deal?”
Shane looked over his shoulder, seeing Burnie shaking his head and mouthing ‘No’, before he looked back at Matt with a smirk. “Sure,” He said, draining the rest of his beer and placing the glass at his side, “I’ll take you on.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Matt said, grinning like he was more shark than man as he called over the bartender, by now more than familiar with the routine that was going to take place.
Setting up three bottles in front of the two of them, the bartender gave them a very stern look as she explained, “I’m not going to let you ruin the floors on this place, alright? If you need to puke do it outside, and if you need to die then walk a little bit further outside before you do it. I don’t want to have to close down for the night if that happens.”
Matt rolled his eyes, but Shane smiled and thanked her for explaining, rubbing his hands together both out of a need for warmth and excitement at what he was about to do. She looked at him strangely, like he wasn’t what she’d been expecting, before she opened the first bottle and poured out four shots each for the both of them, stepping back with bottle in hand as they looked at each other and nodded.