Colby (BBW Western Bear Shifter Romance) (Rodeo Bears Book 3)

by Becca Fanning

  The sounds of the fight continued, echoing off the alley walls, and Thalia was somewhat embarrassed to realize her breaths were coming shorter and shorter.

  None of that, she told herself. What sort of self-respecting investigative journalist can’t handle a little danger?

  Nevertheless, it was a relief when the call connected and a man with touseled brown hair and, of course, gold eyes peered out at her from the screen.

  “See, you’re calling me from Hyde’s comm link, but you don’t appear to be Hyde,” Rick Chapel said, “so I imagine you can understand my confusion.”

  “I’m almost always confused, so I understand perfectly,” Thalia assured him. The distinct sound of bones breaking, accompanied by a squelching noise, cut through the air and Thalia flinched again. “Okay, so, um, it’s like this: I sort of stalked Hyde to a bar—not for weird reasons, I just need to interview him for an article—and, wouldn’t you know it, apparently the people I’m writing the article about don’t want it to get published, which, fair enough, they’d probably go to jail. So it turned out they had people following me and they apparently decided to act when they saw me talking to Hyde and so now he’s a bear and I’m sitting behind a dumpster next to what I really hope is an unused condom and hoping they die before he does. And he told me to call you to tell you this was happening and that we’re going to be making a run for the ship, pending our survival. So. Um. Just letting you know?”

  Rick took in the rant with a slow blink. “Are you telling me that you’re in trouble and Hyde is helping you? And that he’s bringing you to the Breakwater as part of that?”

  “Yes?” Thalia said.

  Rick sighed. “Karma is a beautiful thing. I’ll get everyone ready. Good stars.”

  The image winked out. Not knowing what else to do, Thalia peeked around the dumpster and immediately wished she hadn’t. She had known, intellectually, that getting in a fight with a bear wasn’t the sort of endeavor that left a pretty corpse behind but the sight still shocked her. On the bright side, it looked like Hyde was almost done.

  Thalia leaned back against the alley wall, forcing herself not to think about what was on it, and breathed deeply. She couldn’t go falling apart now. Actually, she should be happy. Not only had she found her man, she was going to be sailing off with him. Surely at some point she would get a few answers, and that was all she needed. Journalism, it sometimes seemed, was the art of making mountains out of molehills. So, really, everything was going even better than planned. It wasn’t like she’d rather have the mercenaries very much alive and succeeding in their goal. This was the best outcome for the situation.

  She took a deep breath in and then slowly let it out, letting the tension leak from her shoulders only to tense right back up when something very large and suddenly very close to her huffed. The warm air hit her face and she winced at the smell before she could help herself. Slowly, she opened her eyes.

  Hyde in bear form was much, much bigger than Hyde in his human form, as well as significantly hairier. The eyepatch hadn’t stayed on after the shift, the scar tissue over his eye standing out against his dark fur. The look in his remaining eye held a tad more judgement than Thalia thought a bear should be capable of.

  “All done?” she asked, voice level.

  The bear huffed again, which she assumed meant yes. She pushed herself to her feet and then, cautiously, looked around the edge of the dumpster.

  The scene wasn’t any more pleasant than it had been when she’d looked before. She took in the broken, ruined bodies, suppressing the urge to vomit, then nodded at Hyde who ambled towards the alley exit. Thalia paused, dashed back to get his jacket—the only article of clothing to survive the encounter—and followed him.

  If the good people of Starbright City had ever seen a bear before, Thalia couldn’t tell from their reactions. There was a good amount of gawking, with some hushed whispering thrown in. Hyde seemed to be ignoring it all, so Thalia followed suit as she hurried to keep up with him. They trekked through the Portside District and to, predictably, one of four docks for designated for trade ships. A tired-looking guardsman looked up and then back at his comm unit before doing a double take and staring wide-eyed at Hyde and Thalia.

  “Is that a bear?” he asked, incredulous.

  Thalia looked over her shoulder. “What? Where?” She could almost hear Hyde’s eyeroll.

  The guard just pointed wordlessly at Hyde’s hulking form.

  “Oh, you mean him?” Thalia forced a laugh. “No, no, this is Huckleberry. He’s my…service dog.”

  “Your service dog,” the guard repeated, a furrow forming between his eyes.

  “Yes. He helps with my anxiety,” Thalia told him earnestly.

  The guard seemed unconvinced, possibly because he wasn’t an idiot. “Ma’am, I don’t know what—”

  “Look,” Thalia cut him off. “We’re trying to get on our ship to get out of here. Now, either this is my beloved service dog Huckleberry and we go on through or this is a bear and you have to contact the necessary people and fill out the necessary paperwork. Do you think they’ll pay you overtime for that shit?”

  The guard stared at her for a long moment before deflating. “All service animals are required to be on some kind of leash.”

  Thalia shrugged and pulled two pairs of pajama bottoms out of her bag. She tied them together, then gently wrapped one end around Hyde’s massive neck. The look in his eye was more exasperation than fury, she was pleased to note.

  “There,” she said, straightening back up with one pajama leg in her hand. “Leash.”

  The guard nodded. “Have a nice night ma’am,” he said before turning and walking woodenly away.

  “God bless the complete uncaringness of the underpaid work force,” Thalia sighed as Hyde dragged her along.

  “There certainly are benefits to so many people willing to look the other way,” a soft voice behind her agreed.

  Thalia probably should have been more frightened of the assassins that had just been trying to kill her than she was of hearing someone behind her but, as she found out, she very much wasn’t. she spun around, heart in her throat, and took in the sight of the quietly amused looking woman behind her.

  She was several inches taller than Thalia with dark skin and black eyes, a patterned headband holding the black cloud of her hair out of her face.

  “Hello,” she said. “My name is Delphine. I’m here to help you back to the Breakwater. I see I was somewhat unneeded.”

  Thalia looked over at Hyde, who looked far more resigned than bears were generally capable of.

  “I could still use a guide,” Thalia said. “I’m Thalia, it’s nice to meet you.”

  Delphine gave a small smile and inclined her head. “And you. Please come with me.”

  Thalia figured she might as well. The rest of the walk to the ship was short and delightfully free of mercenaries trying to kill her. There were two people waiting by the loading ramp when they got there, a man Thalia recognized as Rick Chapel and a short dark-haired girl who was smiling so hard it had to be painful.

  “Well, hello there, Hyde,” she said. “I see you’ve brought a friend. Is this the part where we have a nice little conversation about tossing her out the airlock?”

  “Hi, Hyde. I like your accessories,” Rick said.

  Hyde snorted and wandered off, taking Thalia’s pants with him as he disappeared into the ship.

  “So, you’re a reporter? That’s cool,” the dark-haired girl said brightly. “I mean, not if you write shit about us, obviously, then we’d probably have to at least consider killing you, but in general. Very cool.”

  “Zosha,” Rick said, a fond reprimand. Zosha’s smile became smaller and sweeter as she turned it on him.

  Delphine cleared her throat. “Is everyone else ready to go?”

  “Ah. Yes. Leo’s taking first shift in the cockpit and everything is taken care of that we came here to take care of,” Rick answered. He gestured broadly towards t
he ramp. “Please, come in.”

  Hiking her bag up on her shoulder, Thalia followed them into the ship, anticipation stirring in her gut.

  “So what was up with the pants noose Hyde was rocking?” Zosha asked as they walked.

  “Thalia convinced a guard he was her service dog named Huckleberry,” Delphine said placidly.

  Rick made a choking noise and Zosha gave a bark of surprised laughter. “Why Huckleberry?” she asked.

  “Because, you know, bears,” Thalia said. “Bears make me think about, like, huckleberries and moonshine and growing your own tomatoes.”

  “Alright then,” Rick said, still clearly amused. “We’re heading to the kitchen now, you’ll meet everyone and then we’ll take the absolute piss out of Hyde and decide what we want to do next.”

  “Why…?” Thalia started.

  Rick show her a small smile. “We’ve somehow gained a knack for acquiring women in need of assistance, and Hyde has a habit of arguing that we shouldn’t help them—”

  “—or that we should shove them out the airlock—” Zosha cut in.

  “—or that, so the fact that he showed up with you is somewhat ironic to the rest of us,” Rick explained.

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure he brought me specifically to throw me out the airlock,” Thalia told him, “so his streak hasn’t really been broken.”

  “Don’t care, still mocking,” Zosha said.

  “I think Custer feels similarly,” Delphine said quietly. “He was somewhat pleased to hear that you had contacted Rick on Hyde’s behalf.”

  Custer had been the easiest to find information on for reason that Thalia wasn’t sure she could discuss in the company of small children, the easily nauseated, or the devout. Half of her never wanted to meet him; the other half thought he might be the most interesting man alive simply because no one seemed to be able to predict him.

  “Is that why you’re all being so nice about me needing your help?” Thalia asked, genuinely curious. She admittedly hadn’t spent much time with smugglers before but she was under the impression they were usually less altruistic than this.

  “Yup,” Zosha said cheerfully. “It’s not like they don’t have experience with this kind of thing and the opportunity to mock Hyde forever makes up for any possible setbacks.”

  “You and Hyde don’t get on, I take it,” Thalia ventured.

  “Oh, we get on fine now, which is good because we both work the communications array, but he wanted to space me after the crew realized I was hiding onboard to get out of a sticky situation. Apparently he wasn’t too fond of Annie at first, either—you’ll understand why that’s strange when you meet her—or Delphine, although to be fair most of us weren’t crazy about Delphine when we first met her on account of the fact that she was trying to kill us. Oh, we’re here.”

  The kitchen was cute, a lot more lived in than the ones on some of the ships she’d taken before without looking disgusting. There was a table in the middle that had five matching chairs and three chairs of different designs all pushed in a tight circle. In one chair was a pale blond who lit up when he saw them enter.

  “My, my, I almost didn’t believe it,” said the man who could only be Custer delightedly. “Our widdle Hyde, breaking the rules.”

  “We have rules?” Zosha asked, all wide eyes and guile.

  “Actually yes, but no one ever follows them. It’s a pity, they got written up and we had to sign them and everything,” Rick said.

  Zosha blinked. “Really?”

  “Yup,” Custer said, nodding. “Number five was to keep cussing to a minimum. Number eight was no unnecessary risks. You understand why we didn’t listen.”

  “Should I be concerned for my life?” Thalia asked.

  “I mean, I’m still alive and I’ve been reliably informed that I’m a lightning rod of catastrophe, so…” Zosha shrugged.

  Thalia was intrigued. “’Lightening rod of catastrophe?’”

  “Apparently ‘danger magnet’ wasn’t a strong enough term,” she explained. “Which I don’t think is fair, necessarily, because we have Annie and she…” Her voice trailed off and Rick coughed pointedly.

  Thalia raised an eyebrow. Did these people really think she hadn’t done her research? “The thing with Strathmore, right?” she asked.

  The others didn’t freeze, but Zosha and Rick did stiffen slightly and Delphine managed to convey the threat of immediate death without moving a muscle.

  “Do you know,” Custer asked almost conversationally, “that I am almost positive that that’s not public information?”

  “I mean, he sent out wedding invitations,” Thalia said. “I called one diplomat posing as another diplomat’s secretary and asked if he’d be in attendance and if he knew anything about the bride-to-be that would help my ‘employer’ plan a gift that wouldn’t get him murdered. I followed the story after she ran. It’s actually how I found out about Hyde.”

  “Oh, good,” Hyde said behind her. “You stalking me is just a side effect of you stalking my captain’s wife.”

  Thalia turned and smiled at him. “Aw, don’t worry. One day someone will stalk you for you.”

  Hyde snorted and sat down.

  “So,” Custer said with a smile that had to be painful, “are you going to advocate for tossing this one out of airlock as well? Did you get bored with the lull in young women to threaten?”

  “Custer,” Hyde sighed, “the only thing stopping me from killing you is…” he trailed off and cocked his head, eye squinting as though deep in thought.

  “The value of community and advantages of steady teamwork?” Rick asked.

  “A sense of fire-forged camaraderie?” Zosha chipped in.

  “The fact that I would hate to do an extra laundry load to get your blood out of my clothing if you did?” Delphine asked quietly, a small smile on her face. Thalia decided she was both terrified and a little in love with her.

  “Probably one of those,” Hyde grunted. “Where’s the captain and the others?”

  “Leo’s not coming,” said an auburn-haired women followed by a short, tan-skinned man with close cropped black hair. “He declines the opportunity to go through this decision making process again when, and I quote, ‘we all know what’s going to happen, just tell Hyde to borrow a condom from someone because God knows he doesn’t have any of his own.’”

  Zosha gave a delighted bark of laughter as Hyde rolled his eyes. Thalia wasn’t exactly sure how to react, but she was pretty sure her ears had just turned red.

  “Please,” the woman said, gesturing at the table, “have a seat.”

  Everyone took a moment to sit down, Zosha leaning into Rick, Delphine slipping quietly into the seat next to Custer, Hyde plopping down next, leaving the only seat available to Thalia between Zosha and Hyde. She settled into it, a bit afraid to lean too far in either direction. It would seem that while she could get through the somewhat homicidal happenings of the past few hours no worse for the wear, social anxiety could still make a dent in her.

  “So,” the redhead woman said, “I think you should probably start at the beginning.”

  Thalia cleared her throat. “You’re Annie, right? Right. So, there was this journalism grant, right? And the prize was a grant, and so I decided to try it out. My article was originally on incarceration rates in my home town, but about two weeks before the deadline, Captain Strathmore starts sending out wedding invites and it’s like, whoa, that’ll work. Like I told the others, I pretended to be the secretary of a diplomat to find more stuff out about you and Strathmore. Only a week later, Strathmore and the Appomattox are on the move and I haven’t completed the article. I submitted the first article I wrote and won, obviously, but I still wanted to know what had happened, so I used a little elbow grease and dug up the bounty that was on you and figured out what had happened—or at least, I think I have. It doesn’t matter much right now anyways. The point is, I looked into everyone registered to the Breakwater and came across Hyde being framed for murd
er on Serkot and figured I have this grant, I might as well use it for something good. So I sort of stalked you all and I maybe didn’t cover my tracks well enough because I’m here but so are some of Tillman’s lackeys.”