Jack nodded. “Vets?” he asked.
“Just about every able bodied man has been in the military. Some like our brother-in-law would like to get out but know it means leaving the reservation to get a job.”
“Lot of decent timber.”
“Hmm. But selling timber is a mug’s game and the Tribal Council knows it. What they need is a way to turn a small fraction of that lumber into product that they can sell on for a solid profit.”
“Someone with some serious money needs to invest in this community.”
“When you’re right, you’re right, Jack.”
“You never told me where we were going.”
“Jack, my man, we have been invited to the standing session of the Tar and Feather Committee of the Ancestral Bear Clan. It’s traditionally held in the motel coffee shop.”
“Then we’re headed in the wrong direction.”
“Needed you to see a little of the town first, bro.” Will turned and the two men strode toward their interrogation.
* * *
Will stared at Martha when she emerged from his mother’s SUV. Her curls had been flat ironed and then rolled into fat loose ringlets. Her skin seemed to have recovered its opalescent glow.
Gone were the stretched out and faded jeans and the hideous blouse she had left in. His beautiful mate was wearing a blue and yellow sundress that fit her as if it were made for her. Well except for the part where it was two inches too short and revealed too much of her glorious legs.
As he got closer her realized he did not recognize her sandals. These were not the severe black pair that wrapped her feet like ace bandages. Instead she sported a pair of strappy bronze wedges that set off the sparkle of her purple toenails. His Martha was back.
Will bent his head to kiss her. She was wearing makeup. It was tastefully, discreetly done, but he knew mascara when he saw mascara. And her eyebrows were twin arches. No more unibrow. Hallelujah. He took her hand in his and turned it over to admire her petal pink nails.
“Very pretty,” he said.
The little bear had a new dress too. She wore a coral colored sundress with little cream fleck in the fabric. A sleeveless cream colored shrug that ended at her waist covered her shoulders. Wow. He hadn’t been aware Shelly had a waist. Her sandals showed off metallic blue polish that matched her fingernails.
“You look lovely too,” he told Shelly. She held on to his hand and swung it back and forth as she told him all about her day at the spa.
“And then we had water with cucumbers in it. And then Momma said I had cooked long enough and we had to have our nails done.” Shelly waved her blue nails at him and danced a little jig. “And then Momma took me to the shop and bought me this new dress.
“And Hannah gave Martha that dress. She made it her own self.” Shelly smoothed down her full skirt and twirled, as happy and excited as any normal schoolgirl given a treat.
Katrina smirked at him. He picked her up and hugged her. “You put me down you overgrown boy,” she scolded him. Will ignored her and kissed her on both cheeks before setting her back on the ground.
“Jack and I have had a busy day too,” he told them.
* * *
“You want to marry Hannah in Washington State?” asked Sam Deer in patent disapproval.
“That had been our intention, sir,” Jack said. “She has good friends in Seattle, but they have all promised to come to Hanover.”
“Hannah is Menominee,” Robert Wausau said firmly. “She should be married here with her clan. So should Martha.” He glared at Will.
“Let’s ask them, shall we,” suggested Jack. “My mom might be hard to convince. She has her heart set on some sort of Ukrainian extravaganza in Hanover, but it’s the bride’s prerogative.
Kelsey Willis cleared his throat. “Whole community will want to see them marry up. It’s not often we get one of our children back.”
The men at the table nodded in agreement.
Jack looked at Will. “We’re outvoted bro. You get to tell Mom.”
But Will only grinned. “When you all come to Hanover, you can take a look at the mill and the workshops,” he told the men at the table. “You’d be surprised what you can do with a stand of timber.”
* * *
“My daughters should be married in Wesheno. Is very good idea,” Katrina said happily. “We have two weddings. Two double weddings. Two parties.”
She launched immediately into planning. “Robert can give you away, Martha. Shelly will be very happy to be a bridesmaid twice. Your Mama Bears in Seattle will want to give you away, Hannah. Is very good.”
“We will have little Ukrainian wedding in Hanover. All my family can come. All of Kittitas County too. Plenty dancing. We will charter a plane to bring Hannah and Martha’s friends to Wesheno and again to Hanover.
“I make your dresses. This is very good idea. I tell Poppa how much fun we have.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Will took his mate out to Lake Crane. “I’m so not going swimming,” she informed him tartly.
“Wouldn’t think of it,” he lied. He could be strong. He moved the curls from Martha’s neck and kissed her. Oh, boy. He let her hair fall and grasped her ringless left hand. He brought it to his lips. He turned her so she could see the sun setting in the water and dropped to one knee.
“Martha,” he said, “Will you wear my ring?” He took a shabby velvet box of some dark color out of his pocket and flipped it open.
Nestled in yellowed satin was a huge ruby circled by seed pearls and diamonds set in yellow gold. Martha let Will slide it onto her finger. It fit perfectly.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “It looks like my necklace.”
“My Uncle Van gave me both pieces when I told him I had found my life-mate.”
“Oh. That’s sweet.” Martha looked straight into Will’s eyes. “This is beautiful. I will always treasure it. And my necklace. But neither of them are everyday jewelry. I have to have something more practical.”
“Something like that knuckleduster of Hannah’s?”
Martha thought about the huge diamond on her sister’s hand. It was lovely but far too big. She shook her head. “Nothing so extravagant. Something plain and simple that I can cook and plant flowers in.”
“If you’ll marry me, darling, you may have the ring of your practical heart’s desire,” Will assured her.
Across Crane lake, the little grey Mandarin duck displayed the nine buff eggs to her mate. They nestled in down from her own pale, speckled breast. Her gaudy drake adjusted them with an admiring bill. They paid no attention to the pair of bears cavorting in the clear water of their lake.
<<<<>>>><<<<>>>>
BEAR AFFINITIES
BOOK 3
BEAR FURSUITS
by
ISADORA MONTROSE
CHAPTER ONE
Madeline St. Clair handed her taxi driver a fifty and accepted his offer to carry her bags to her front porch. She pulled her keys out of her bag and flicked on the flashlight attached to them. She gawked at the lock. A series of buttons she did not recognize met her gaze as the driver took off into the night. Madeline moved the penlight around. Yup. This was her house. This was not her lock.
This was Adam's idea of a surprise. Well, he could be surprised by her call at, she glanced at her watch, five am. She pulled out her cell and called her brother. It went to voice mail. Belatedly, she remembered that he had left her a message. Adam had never really taken to texting. Maybe he had left the codes on her phone? Although that seemed unlike her security conscious brother.
Whatever Adam had said was lost in the background noises picked up by his cell. Madeline left her bags on the porch and moved around to the back door. Maybe Adam had left the sliders alone. She tripped on a back deck that hadn't been there three days ago.
Doug heard the intruder at the back. He was proud of that deck, but it wasn't quite finished and the bastard who was attempting to break in had tripped on the steps. Adam had warn
ed him his sister's ex was stalking her. Doug slipped out of bed and grabbed his gun. He didn't bother to dress. In the half dark of the house he walked silently down the hall and past the living room and dining room and into the kitchen.
The door to the slider was shaken and the dowel that held it in place bounced. The burglar shook again and the dowel bounced out. The slider opened. Doug hit the light switch and pointed his gun. "Freeze," he said in his hard, flat command voice. The one that made battle hardened troops flinch.
Madeline froze. She blinked in the bright light and looked up and up until she got to the grim face of the naked giant who stood in her kitchen nook threatening her with a Glock. Tousled dark hair and a morning beard did nothing to soften the chiseled features of the hard eyed man holding the gun.
His broad barrel chest was adorned with a thick pad of curling black hair that ran from his collar bones down to the bottom of his ribcage where it abruptly narrowed into a line that led directly to a black thicket from which rose the biggest cock she had ever seen. She dropped her eyes down his long burly thighs to his big long feet.
Doug took in the red hair and hazel eyes of the opulent, big bosomed woman who had broken in. Well, damn. This was his hostess. There was a photograph of her with her ex in the dresser drawer he was using for his stuff. Her eyes were big and getting bigger as she looked him over. Just that wide eyed gaze was enough to rouse his cock.
"Madeline St. Clair?" he asked.
"Yup. Who are you? And why are you in my house?" She could do flat and deadly too.
"Enright," he said. He lowered the Glock and put the safety back on. His cock stayed at attention as if he had never seen a more gorgeous female. As maybe he hadn't. "I'm a friend of your brother's. I'm giving him a hand with your house."
Madeline advanced and he backed up to give her room. She went to the sink and filled a glass with water. She didn't turn around. "You want to go put some clothes on and tell me what's going on?" she asked. She drank.
There was a low moan and some clicks and the sound of chairs scraping on the tile floor. Madeline turned. Where she expected to see her brother's Academy pal, Doug Enright, there was a huge black bear. The Glock was on the table and it and the chairs had been shoved hard against the glass doors by the bear. It was shaking its head and moaning and clicking. It sat down. Maddie jumped up on the counter and screamed.
Abruptly the bear shrank and became a naked man again. A man with a bright red face. He practically ran back to the bedrooms. She heard a door slam shut. Well. That was impossible. She had imagined the whole thing.
The disastrous bachelorette party in Las Vegas had made her psychotic. She was dreaming and would shortly awaken. She pinched herself. Nope. She was awake. She hopped back onto the floor. Should she make for the front door?
The giant was back. His big feet were bare but he was fully dressed in jeans and a camp shirt. He had combed his short dark hair and subdued the curl. Streaks of gray showed at his temples. His cheeks were still bristly and his high cheekbones were stained bright crimson. But he still looked mean.
She had just seen him turn into a bear. Why wasn't she afraid? She had been, but her pulse had settled down, and now she was merely curious. Maybe she was dreaming? In which case she would just get her bags off the front porch.
"I'm getting my stuff," she told the bear-man. She walked out of the kitchen and down the hall between the garage wall and the living room to the front door. He followed her. Not crowding, just following.
"Stuff?" he rumbled.
"I just got off a plane. My bags are on the front porch." She turned on a light.
He reached for the new security pad beside the door. "You'll set it off if you open the door." He keyed in a code. "Go ahead. You want some help?
“That's a lot of clothes for four days in Vegas."
"One is just for the bridesmaids' dresses."
"You took bridesmaids' dresses to Vegas?" His deep voice was amused. He picked up the suitcases in his huge hands and lifted them as if they weighed nothing.
"For the fittings." Madeline looked up at Enright. She was five seven and she seldom felt short. Enright made her feel short. Suddenly she had a memory. "You're that guy," she said. "You got the Congressional Medal in May."
The shook his head once. “ Not me. My kid brother." He was proud. "Want these in your room?"
"Big one in my sewing room."
"I'm sleeping in there."
"Huh. Okay, put them both in my room. I'm going to make coffee and you're going to tell me what's going on."
Doug made the trip past the sewing room to the big bedroom at the end of the house. He set the cases down and stood for a moment sniffing. This was his favorite room. It smelled of Madeline. He smiled wryly. First time in seven years, and he had to go off the deep end. He hadn't taken bear form without intending to since he was a pimply teen. But a whiff of that woman and he was fourteen and brainless.
He didn't know why she wasn't screaming, but he was grateful. Because he was certain Adam had no idea he was a bear, and Adam had lived, slept, drilled, and eaten beside him for four years at West Point. So there was no way Madeline could know. Gotta love a woman that tough. Pity she wasn't a shifter.
* * *
"Douglas Enright," he said sipping his coffee. He had returned the table and six chairs to their normal position overlooking the sliders. "Your brother and I were at West Point together."
Madeline smiled. Her hazel eyes twinkled. "Oh, yeah. He know about the bear thing?"
Doug shook his head. "No." He looked at her and his eyes were hard and cold. "Just tell yourself it was an illusion caused by those drugs in Vegas."
"It'll be our little secret."
"Keep it that way." Cold blues met her hazel eyes until she looked away.
"Or?" Madeline sipped her coffee to disguise her fear.
"Or I'll have to eat you." Doug paused. "Or marry you." Now where had that idea come from? Go ahead, pretty lady, tell somebody. I could feast on that body all night long.
"Huh." Maddie had another sip of coffee. "So where is Adam?"
"Maneuvers."
"Again?" Her face was suddenly pale and drawn. "Do you know where?"
"Fort Lewis."
"Oh. That's good. I was afraid he was someplace dangerous."
"Training camp can be plenty dangerous."
"You know what I mean. So did Adam stick you with finishing my deck?"
Doug shrugged. "I don't mind. This place needs some work and I have six weeks leave."
"What about your family?" She looked at the broad wedding band on his left hand. "Your wife."
"I'm a widower." He swallowed. "My mom has involved the entire state of Washington in the wedding she is arranging for my brothers. Thought I better not go home in case she ropes me into one of her schemes."
"One wedding? How many brothers?"
"Double wedding. My twin brothers Jack and Will are marrying sisters. My mother is ecstatic but," he shook his head.
"When is the wedding?"
"Which one?"
"There's more than one?"
"Uh, huh. Hannah and Martha's people are having one in two weeks. A month later my folks are hosting a Ukrainian extravaganza."
"Didn't they make a fuss when you got married?"
"Some, but they were restricted by the fact that Cherry's people are from Savannah. They blindsided Mom with Southern charm and tradition and knocked her out of contention with Cherry's pastor who had married three generations of Lathams." Doug's voice trailed off and he blinked a little.
"You still miss her." It wasn't a question and Doug didn't answer.
"How long?" Maddie's voice was soft.
"Seven years in August."
"I'm sorry." Maddie got up to pour herself more coffee. "You better explain about the bear thing. Is this some sort of military secret?"
"You could say it's a secret from the military. I'm a shifter. I can take bear form at will. Which is not to say I do it o
ften. But this is to go no further." That chilly command voice was back.
"How?" Madeline sounded bewildered. "Is it some sort of moon thing like werewolves?"
Doug laughed. He shook his head. "No moon involved. I was born like this. It's genetic. Don't worry, I have my bear under control, it won't trouble you again."
Maddie waved a plump hand. "Okay. So is it just you or your whole family?"
Bear Fursuits Books 1-4: Bear Fursuits Page 20