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

by Becca Fanning

  “At the bar, when you walked over… I don’t know why, but I just couldn’t think of a reason to be tense. For once, my first instinct was to just go with flow and see where I ended up. You sidled up, all smiles, and offered to buy me a drink and I was able to relax for what seemed like the first time since we ran into Annie.”

  Thalia felt something uncomfortably like guilt twitch in her stomach. “And then I nearly got you killed.”

  Hyde snorted. “No, and then you nearly got you killed. Tillman’s hitmen are as incompetent as his politics when he’s not framing innocent men for murder.”

  “Still, I’m…” Thalia swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why do I get the feeling you don’t apologize much?” Hyde asked, sounding almost amused.

  “Because you’ve got animal instinct on your side. How do you feel about pretending this never happened and never, ever telling anyone we had actual emotions?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Hyde said.

  There was the sort of awkward pause that followed unexpected emotional connections. Thalia reached into her bag and pulled out a plastic water bottle that’s she’d filled with rum. She popped the top and took a swig before wordlessly handing it to Hyde, who accepted with a raised eyebrow. He nodded approvingly after taking a sip.

  “Not bad,” he told her, handing the bottle back over.

  “I figure there’s a time to get wasted on the cheap shit and a time to bring out the decent stuff,” she replied. “This is the second.”

  “I have nine hours before I’m on deck. Is there anything you need to do before that?” he asked.

  Thalia considered. “Nope, can’t think of anything.”

  Hyde pushed himself up the bed until he was leaning against the wall and grabbed the tablet on the table.

  “Alright. I’ll probably go to sleep in an hour, so if you need anything after that, go find Delphine.”

  Thalia stood up and walked to the far side of the bed, bottle held loosely on one hand. She sat, toeing her shoes off, then rolled over so she could see what Hyde was working on. Hyde gave her a silent, judging look but proceeded to turn to his tablet and open a crossword app without telling her to fuck off so she decided to count it as a win.

  “Eight down is ‘coronation,’ you know,” she told him.

  He grunted in response and typed it in. Thalia watched as he typed in a few more answers before giving in to her need to be talking.

  “So what’s your deal with Zosha, anyways?” she asked.

  Hyde sighed. “She’s irritatingly perky and thinks she’s more mysterious than she is. She’s somehow become our mascot and I don’t like it. Also, she listens to annoying music while at the deck. Why don’t you have thirty million friends and what’s the theoretical temperature at which molecular activity ceases, two words?”

  “That’s two questions.”

  “Okay, one, you skipped my turn, and two, I don’t count help on a crossword worth personal information on its own,” Hyde informed her.

  “I don’t have thirty million friends because I’ve been reliably informed that I have trouble ‘letting people in’ and ‘expressing myself,’” she told him, making finger quotes. “Also, absolute zero.” She took a long sip of rum as he typed it in. “Why do you pretend you don’t have friends? Or at least, why do you pretend that Dominic is the only person on board who’s your friend?”

  “I’m not pretending, I’m just not an emotive person and don’t care to correct other people’s misassumptions. If you don’t like connecting with people, why did you choose a job that requires connecting to as many people as possible? Also, ‘egglike,’ five letters.”

  “Ovate. And the difference is my articles connect my readers to an event or a place or a person, not to me. I’m not the destination, I’m the pilot. Does that make sense? Great. So if you’re Mr. Lowkey from Planet Serious, why do you wear a bright blue eyepatch?”

  Hyde’s eye narrowed. “There’s nothing wrong with my eyepatches. How are you so calm about all this, and I need a six letter word meaning ‘irritating,’ starts with a ‘T.’”

  Thalia pouted. “Hey, now. I am a delight. I’m not freaking out because… I don’t know? I’m not exactly used to being in danger, but the worst that could happen is I die, and that’s going to happen anyways.” She paused for a moment. “’Trying.’ And why are you still being nice to me.”

  “You think this is nice? You may want to make some new friends,” Hyde said, a hint of disbelief coloring his tone.

  “In general? No. For you? Yes. I think every single one of your expressions is a variation of ‘it’s a shame I’m too busy to disembowel you right now, I’ll have to make a note to do it later’ but with me you’re… softer, maybe? The point is, you advocated for throwing Zosha out the airlock apparently because she annoys you. I chased you down to dig up your past and got you chased by assassins and you play twenty questions with me. You should hate me, but it doesn’t seem like you do,” Thalia said.

  It took so long for Hyde to answer that Thalia suspected he wasn’t going to. “Manning the array in wildspace is irritating. You’re not close enough to a tower that you can reliably get good connections, so you have to spend hours fine tuning the equipment so you can get a clear enough signal just to be able to pick up communication requests. But every so often, you pass by a ships that running on the exact same frequency as you, and the connection is perfect. No lag, no static. And I kind of get the feeling you’re maybe on the same frequency as me,” Hyde said, eye never leaving the screen.

  Thalia leaned her head on his shoulder. “I can’t believe you’re the lonely hot guy,” she said quietly.

  “The what?” Hyde asked.

  “The lonely hot guy. You know, you’re super hot but you don’t let people get too close even though your soul cries out for love. And I’m the lady who walks in at your best and only friend’s thematically important engagement party in a red dress and four inch heels and we make eye contact across the room, but I have, like, a fiancé, or a mafia boss dad, or some big important secret and we can’t be together until you chase me down in an airport to stop me from leaving by confessing your love and kiss me. While it’s raining.”

  “Is it raining in the airport?” Hyde asked with the voice of someone who dealt with people far stranger than Thalia on a daily basis.

  “Obviously,” she said, rolling her eyes. She looked up to see the barest hint—bearest hint, ha—of a smile.

  “You know, you—” she started before a yawn cut her off.

  “Long day?” Hyde asked wryly.

  “Oh, shut up,” she retorted, suddenly aware of how heavy her eyelids were. She had guessed she would crash quickly after all the excitement of the day, but she wasn’t prepared for the swiftness of the lethargy creeping over her body. “I’m just…” she trailed off, resting more heavily on his shoulder and letting out a muffled curse when her glasses pressed uncomfortably into her cheek. She pulled them off and tossed them to the side before curling instinctively back into the warmth of Hyde’s body.

  “I’m just gonna sleep for a little,” she told him blearily. “Wake me up if something happens.”

  “Of course,” Hyde answered.

  “And listen,” she said, closing her eyes and feeling her body almost melt into the mattress, “I just want you to know.” She grabbed his hand to make sure he was listening. “I’m glad you’re on my frequency.”

  She felt his fingers twitch once before gently threading through hers.

  “Good night, Thalia,” she heard him say softly before she slipped off into sleep.

  Thalia woke up, rested and refreshed (if a bit groggy), eight hours later to Hyde shaking her shoulder.

  “Whazzit?” she asked, blinking up at him.

  “I’m going to my shift,” he told her. Check in with Rick or Annie at some point to talk more about what’s going to happen.”

  She nodded and waved him off, pressing her face into the pillow and falling back asl
eep almost before he was out the door.

  The second time she woke up was an hour later, her body having had enough of stillness. Dressing and taking care of her morning hygiene routine quickly, she strode out the door before realizing she had no idea where she was going or what she was doing. She wandered aimlessly until she realized she was hungry and made her way to the kitchen where she found Zosha and Delphine watch a holovid over what appeared to be dried fruit.

  They looked up when she entered, Zosha smiling and Delphine nodding in acknowledgement.

  “Hey there,” Zosha said brightly. “Care to join?”

  Thalia smiled back and took a seat. Delphine pushed the plate of fruit over to her and she gratefully took what she thought was an apricot.

  “So, are you going to interview us?” Zosha asked, leaning forward and propping her chin up on her hands.

  “Do you want me to?” Thalia asked around a mouthful of apricot. “Because I totally can.”

  “Great! Do I need to pull my hair back so I look more serious?” Zosha asked.

  “No, I work mostly with audio,” Thalia said, laughing. She opened the recording app on her multi-tool and cleared her throat. “Breakwater series, entry one, subjects Zosha and Delphine. It is nine hundred in standard time and we are in the Breakwater’s kitchen. How did you two end up on the Breakwater?”

  “I stowed away in the cargo hold because I was trying to get away from people chasing me,” Zosha said. “So, a little like you. We had to settle a civil war to get them to leave me alone, but we did it. I ended up falling for Rick and never left.”

  “I was sent to assassinate the crew in retaliation for a business relationship that was disrupted when they settled that civil war. They convinced me to join them,” Delphine said.

  “Hyde mentioned that you were a splice. Who did you work for?” Thalia asked.

  “I would prefer to keep the company I was employed by off your recordings as part of an arrangement we currently have with them,” Delphine answered. “I will tell you later if you are curious.”

  “Sounds good. How do you think being part of the Breakwater crew has changed you?”

  “I am more aware of myself, I think,” Delphine said. “I was raised to believe that love and attachment were weaknesses and that I should feel nothing and only obey. Now I realize I am not a means to an end.”

  “The Breakwater’s a lot more stable than life on Lytos. And I have people. It’s nice to know that you’re not alone even when you’re by yourself,” said Zosha.

  “I see. Delphine, you said you no longer feel that, well, feeling is a weakness. How has that changed?” Thalia asked.

  “It hasn’t. Love is still a weakness, but it has made me understand that I was also weak before. It is merely an allocation of strengths and weaknesses. Before, I had little to lose but I was virtually alone. Now I have much to lose, but I have—as Zosha said—a network. Looking over my past weaknesses and my current ones, I must say I prefer the present,” Delphine answered easily.

  “That’s amazing. But I have to ask—Custer? How does that even work?” Thalia asked.

  Delphine let out a little laugh. “He is not, perhaps, a good man, but he is a good friend and an excellent lover."

  “Nice,” Zosha said with a leer, nudging Delphine in the ribs with her elbow.

  Thalia grinned. “Zosha, what’s being with Rick like? He’s first officer, right?”

  “First mate, technically, because we’re not working within the boundaries of a legal system, but yeah. And he’s… he’s great. He’s calm and kind and so, so funny. And we never fight, which is a new thing for me. Whenever one of us gets mad, he makes us sit down and talk it over, so we disagree sometimes but it never becomes a big thing, you know? Anyways, he’s the kind of guy that makes you think ‘okay, this one I’m keeping.’” Zosha looked like she was far away, a smile on her face and a shine in her eyes.

  “What about Annie and the captain? What’s that like?” Thalia asked. She was curious about the captain, she’d admit.

  “He acknowledges she’s ninety percent of our brain power, same as everyone else,” Zosha said with a shrug. “It helps that he’s disgustingly in love with her. Be glad you didn’t have to sit through his vows. I was about to throw up, and I think Rick was about to stage a mutiny just to get away from it. How’s Hyde?”

  Thalia spluttered. “What?”

  “Hyde. How is he? I don’t mean sexually,” Zosha clarified. “Well, not just sexually, I’m a little curious and I’m willing to admit that, but tradition states that you’re now ours forever and specifically Hyde’s so, how is he?”

  “I… I don’t know how to answer that,” Thalia said. “He’s good, I guess? He’s…not nice, exactly, but… I don’t know. Anyways, that wraps this entry up, end recording.”

  The app closed out with a beep and Thalia stood to leave. “Thanks for talking to me. Do you know where I could find Annie or Rick?”

  Delphine’s eyes were knowing but she just said, “I think Annie’s in the cockpit.”

  “Rick’s asleep, but he should be up in four hours or so if you need him,” Zosha added.

  Thalia thanked them and walked out of the room. She had the sinking suspicion that she liked these people and that staying on board the Breakwater would be one of the best things that could happen to her, but that would be dependent on Hyde’s acceptance, which she didn’t deserve. The fact he was if not nice, then kind to her was already too much.

  Annie was, in fact, in the cockpit, wearing her hair in a bun and piloting the ship in what were probably her pajamas.

  “Hello,” she said without looking up from the navigation panel. “Have you talked to Zosha?”

  “Yeah, just now,” Thalia told her.

  “Did she explain the situation with her friend to you?” Annie asked.

  “No, that did not come up,” Thalia answered. “But I feel like I know her better as a person now.”

  Annie sighed. “That girl. She talked to her friend, and he says Rajan and Antrecore IV both have a significant number of people willing to run the story and politicians who eagerly anticipate it breaking. Write it, send it in, and they’ll take care of the list. I’ll have a list of news outlets wanting to participate sent to you.”

  “That’s…” Thalia blinked. “Wow. I mean, I was planning on releasing it as an independent online article on my blog and then alerting outlets to its existence so I didn’t have to grant any one outlet exclusivity, but that… that makes things easier.”

  Annie looked up and smiled. “I want to thank you for doing this. Not the way you went about it, maybe, but Hyde didn’t deserve what happened to him. I’m glad someone’s doing something about it and so is he, even if he doesn’t say so.”

  “That’s… thank you,” Thalia said around the lump that had suddenly appeared in her throat.

  “So, how’s interviewing him going, anyways?” Annie asked, turning back to the dashboard.

  “Well, actually, I’ve decided I’m just going to make something emotional and touching up and then make him pretend he said it,” Thalia admitted, scratching her neck. “After getting to know Hyde better, I’ve come to the realization that nothing he would ever say on record could be used in an article designed to provoke sympathy and outrage on his behalf. So, you know, it’s nice to know I came all this way to basically do it all by myself.”

  Annie laughed. “I mean, it’s not like you gained nothing by coming here, or prove that you’re dedicated—if somewhat foolhardy—when it comes to your work. Have you ever considered using one ship as your base?”