Can't Bear To Run (Kendal Creek Bears, #1)

by Lynn Red

  But I kept my head down. Reloading, I fired off one round after another until the shells were all gone, and I was still standing. I felt like something was happening behind me, since Jack wasn’t at my feet, and about ten half-shifted bears were standing twenty feet away from me with their hands in the air. As the smoke from my manic shooting spree cleared, I noticed a handful of bears were on the ground, rolling around and cursing up a storm. “Did we win?” I asked whoever was listening.

  “Dax? Jack?”

  No answer. If I turned I’d have about three tons of bear on my back in less time than it would take for... a bear to shit in the woods. And it wouldn’t be the good kind of bear on my back, either. “Dax?”

  All I heard behind me was panting and then labored breathing, and then a whistle that sounded happy.

  “Come on,” I said. “Someone say something. I don’t want to do any more shooting, my shoulder’s sore as all hell.”

  Just as I mentioned my shoulder pain, a hand went to rest on it. It was heavy, clawed and instinctively I whipped around, cracking whoever it was that was stupid enough to grab me right in the goddamn chin.

  “Holy shit,” came a familiar voice. “I knew you could take care of yourself, but I didn’t think you’d be able to hit that hard.”

  “Oh my God!” I dropped the gun and went to my knees, wiping blood off Dax’s chin. “Did I do that?”

  He was still breathing hard and heavy, and when I looked back to where he’d been, Jack Creighton, that woman Fletcher, and a tall, lanky man in a sheriff’s uniform I didn’t recognize had the old, gray bear sedated.

  “I dunno,” Dax said, wiping the blood off his face and smiling at me. “But if you did, I’ll be honest, it was my own dumbass fault that you hit me in the first place. Probably shouldn’t have snuck up on you like that.”

  I felt a tear run down my face, and then a second. Before long I was a muddy, tear-stained, laughing-like-a-lunatic mess. But I’ve never felt better in my whole life. “What the hell happened?”

  Dax was shaking his head. “I’ll tell you when we get back to town, but first there’s something we have to do. Now listen, since you’re my mate, I—”

  “Your what?” I feigned shock, although I really kinda liked the animalistic connotation. “Was anyone going to tell me about this?”

  “Uh, erm,” Dax sputtered. “I thought that... Uh... listen, can we talk about this later?”

  I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him eagerly, tasting blood on my lips. He winced, but with a laugh, kissed me right back, hard enough to force my neck to crane up at him. I gripped the sides of his face, holding on for dear life, and let him explore me with his tongue. He came up for air and kissed either side of my neck twice and then wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me close and burying his face in my chest.

  “Get the fuck over it,” a very dissatisfied voice shouted, before the speaker spat a wad of blood and saliva onto the ground. “I’ll be back, you know,” Wyatt announced. “The council won’t like what’s going on here, not one damn bit. An alpha with a human? Of all the disgusting—“

  A khaki-sleeved arm whipped out and coldcocked the old man, immediately turning his body into a lump of Jell-O hanging between three people.

  “Rollins,” the lanky man said. He was on one side of the old bear, Fletcher and Jack Creighton on the other. Wyatt’s hands were bound with something that looked like a plastic cord, and there was the barest hint of an aroma of burning hair and flesh in the air. “I can’t stand rude folks like that. Good to meet ya, Sheriff.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. Dax shrugged. “I might’ve said something to them before about how much I thought you’d fit the job. What can I say? I get a little stupid when I’m in love.”

  “Correction,” Fletcher said. “You’re always stupid. You’ve never been in love, well, until now.”

  Dax smiled with a childish grin. He almost looked bashful, like a class clown called out by the teacher and made to recite the state capitols when he had no idea what they were. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s probably fair enough. Anyway, Raine, as my mate, and more importantly as the new sheriff of Kendal Creek and all Kendal Clan territory, it’s your job to banish this group of blowhard morons back to Santa Fe. They have to obey.”

  “Why?” I asked, genuinely confused. “If there’s some kind of shadowy council around, why wouldn’t they just ignore you?”

  “Because, Sheriff,” he said, “you have a badge. Bears really respect badges.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. “Only one problem with that though.”

  “Hmm?” he looked over in my direction. “Oh right! Badge. Shit, Rollins, did you bring it?”

  With a patient smile on his wrinkled lips, the man who looked rather like the bear version of Barney Fife, although much less gawky and ridiculous, pulled a star out of his pocket and pinned it on my shirt.

  “That’s it? No swearing in or anything like that?”

  Dax, Fletcher and Rollins all exchanged a look. “Uh,” Dax said. “I appoint you sheriff, do you accept?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Great! That was the quickest and least painful swearing in I’ve ever done. Now kick this guy’s ass out of our territory and let’s go home and do it until the cows come home.”

  My eyes opened on their own to the size of flying saucers. “We... what?”

  “I’m just kidding,” he said. “There aren’t any cows.”

  I nodded, slowly. “Right, so... You all are banished from Kendal Clan territory for life. Get the hell out of here and don’t come back!”

  No one budged. In a scene that reminded me more of Blazing Saddles that I care to admit, everyone looked around each other, including the captives. “Is that it?” Wyatt asked. “You’re throwing a member of the council out of clan territory because you don’t want to answer for what you did?”

  “No,” I said, before anyone else could step in. I was really starting to feel the badge, I guess. “I’m throwing you out because you threatened the town, you and your toughs threatened my friends, and I’m the goddamn sheriff. If you have any questions, feel free to submit them to the county clerk in duplicate.”

  “Go!” I shouted when no one moved. Wyatt took a few tentative steps, and then Dax delivered a kick to his ass that sent him sprawling to the ground. The cord on his wrists had buried itself from the twisting and wrenching he’d done, and the whole thing looked horribly painful. But he climbed to his feet, and gave Dax, then me, the nastiest look I’d ever seen on a face.

  “You won’t get away with this, Mark,” Wyatt said with a snarl. “Just wait.”

  “Yeah, kiss my ass, Wyatt. You can take that back to the council. This is Kendal territory, and you’ve just been,” he paused dramatically, “evicted.”

  Dax crossed his arms over his chest and puffed himself up. Wyatt stumbled to his cronies who cut him loose and proceeded to pick up their other colleagues and load them into the trucks.

  “You really said that,” I finally deadpanned, when they were gone. “You said he was evicted like you were the star in an 80s action movie.”

  “It was a good line, huh?” Dax said with a grin.

  “You ain’t one to talk, Raine,” Creighton said. “You’re the one that double cocked your shotgun and acted like the damn Terminator.”

  We all laughed the way only people who have been through something terrible can possibly laugh. Fletcher, Creighton and Rollins walked ahead of us, back to the police truck they’d brought. Dax took my hand and pulled me to a stop.

  “You’re amazing,” he said. He had doe eyes that reminded me of a lovesick puppy. By which I mean, reminded me of me. “I... look, if you don’t want to stick around here, if this shit is all too crazy for you to deal with, I understand, I—“

  Before he could finish giving me the speech, I hushed him with another kiss. I grabbed both of his hands and looped them around my waist. Tasting him, smelling him, feeling his skin against mine, I let my finge
rs trickle down the sides of his face, just like the tears were on mine. “If you think I’m leaving,” I said, “you really are an idiot.”

  His smile told me everything I needed to know. “If you’ll have me, I’d be honored to be your mate.”

  “Is that your way of proposing to the girl you met four days ago at a public toilet?”

  A smile drew his lips into a curl, and Dax’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “It’s been a lot longer than that, I’ve been in love with you. Anyway, who the hell ever thought love could bloom out front of a porta-potty?”

  I shrugged. “Escape an asshole husband, watch a fight at a public toilet, fall in love with a magic bear, become the sheriff of a town. Sounds like a pretty standard couple of weeks, doesn’t it?”

  He kissed me again, and then held me with my nose almost touching the tip of his. “What do you think of all this?” he asked.

  “You want the truth?”

  He nodded.

  “I feel like... and this might sound crazy as hell, but I feel like this is where I was supposed to be all along. I feel like somehow, through all this wild stuff we just survived, that I found home.”

  Dax slid his huge hands onto my shoulders and stroked my tears away with his thumbs. “The first time I saw you, I told myself I’d found what I’d been missing all along.”

  “Come on, lovebirds!” Fletcher shouted, pointing her flashlight at us. “You can make out all you want in the car, but we need to get back to town. He needs to be stitched up, and you’ve got a whole shitton of paperwork to file.”

  Hand in hand, Dax and I walked out of the woods, and into home.

  -20-

  Not Long Now

  “What was that?” I sat up in the bed, blinking at the sunlight streaming through the window. “Was that a phone?”

  Dax grumbled, rolled over and tucked the blanket around himself like a burrito that needed more sleep. I stood naked in front of the window. The slight chill of early morning prickled my skin, teasing my nipples to life as I looked out over the sparkling lake outside of his house.

  Our house, I reminded myself with a smile. He’s mine, I’m his, and my life has never been this interesting.

  Again, the muffled buzzing sound that woke me up caught my attention, dragging it away from the hypnotizing, shimmering water. My hips were still sore from the night before, and my knees were a bit achy, but it was the good kind – the kind of aching soreness that reminds you of a really good night. Like a hangover, but awesome instead of terrible.

  My jeans were buzzing. “That’s weird,” I said to myself, as I crossed the smooth hardwood floor and picked up the heap of clothes on the ground. “I forgot this thing in my car, didn’t I?”

  “I found it last night,” Dax said, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “Somebody named Karen sent a message asking for you. I told her you were asleep.”

  My stomach clenched tight. “You read my messages?”

  He yawned. “I mean, I didn’t think it was any big deal, sorry.”

  “No,” I said. “It isn’t. It’s just that Dan used to do that. Except then he’d delete the message and threaten me.”

  “I’ll rip his goddamn guts out if I ever see him.”

  Dax stood up, stretching his back. His chest and abs flexed, then relaxed with every breath he took. His skin almost glowed from the sunlight dancing across his muscles. He walked up behind me, wrapped his arms around my stomach, and nestled himself between my legs.

  “Sorry,” he said again.

  I shook my head. “No, seriously, it’s just me being weird.”

  The phone buzzed again. In the back of my mind, I had the terrible feeling that somehow Dan got to Karen and was about to take one more step to ruin my life. I had to grit my teeth for a second to make up my mind that such a thing was just a nightmare that wouldn’t come true. Even if he was still alive, there’s no way he could find me. Not here.

  I let my fingers curl against Dax’s arm. “I better check this,” I said.

  “I’m gonna make coffee.” He pulled away, yawned again, and plodded off down the hall.

  Sure enough, they were from Karen, six messages in all. “Raine, someone told me this was your number still,” the first one read. “And then told me a joke about you snoring.”

  I snorted a laugh. “Fair enough.”

  Deep down I knew she wouldn’t just be making small talk, so I kept reading. “I was listening to the scanner the other day, and someone checked Dan’s truck out of impound.”

  There went my heart, speeding up and refusing to slow down. “Don’t panic,” the next one read. “If it’s him, he has no idea where you are and neither do I – keep it that way. He hasn’t come for me or anything, I was just letting you know.”

  I started to reply, but my thumb shaking wouldn’t let me. Dax walked back in with a pair of steaming mugs. “Hey beautiful, I figured we could go out on the deck and watch the birds come in. As a bonus, we don’t have to wear clothes because bears are way more reasonable than humans.”

  I forced myself to smile.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  I tossed the phone back into the pile of jeans and t-shirts on the floor and shook my head despite my fear that there was, in fact, something very wrong. “As long as I’ve got you? Nope. Nothing’s wrong. Just a friend telling me that she broke up with her boyfriend.”

  Stop lying, Raine, just stop. I swallowed, hard. I will as soon as I can handle the truth myself. Not long now. I’ll tell him, I will.

  “Oh, that sucks,” he said. “Anyway, coffee?”

  I turned to him wrapped my arms around his midsection and lay my head on his chest. He put down the mugs and held me tight. “You always get like this after a wild night of roaring orgasms?”

  I kissed his chest, smiled and let myself laugh. Just doing that gave me a little relief. I kissed him again. “No,” I said. “Only when the guy I just married calls himself my mate, and grows hair on his neck when he comes.”

  The thought of Dan possibly being alive was already fading into the background of my mind.

  “Hey,” Dax said. “We’ve all got our things, right?” He kissed my forehead, brushing his lips softly against the skin. “Whatever happens, we’ve got each other. I didn’t spend six years of my life pining over you to let anything happen to you.”

  I nodded, letting my hair rustle against his chest. “Promise?”

  “You heard what I said last night. All those words in our mating oath weren’t just words. I mean every single one of them.”

  The words trickled through my brain. Protection, love, bound together forever. I looked down at the silk cord still tied around my wrist. “I meant what I said, too,” I said. “That coffee smells good.”

  We each took a mug and went out to the deck. With the birds chirping, and the squirrels fighting, I inhaled deeply. Whatever this was, whatever lunacy led me to this, for once, I thought, I really had found home.

  Inside, the phone on the kitchen countertop rang. Dax closed his eyes tight and pinched his nose. “I might have to take a raincheck on this coffee,” he said. “That phone is just for town business.”

  “Might be for me,” I said. “I am the sheriff, after all.”

  As the phone rang on and on, he held my hands and stared into my eyes. “I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “Whoever it’s for, we both go. Not just now, either. Whatever we do, we do together.”

  “Deal,” I said, smiling.

  I had the feeling, the awful, unstoppable feeling, that I’d be very, very glad about that promise. I just hoped it was a long time until I did.

  Thanks so much for reading my latest – keep turning the pages for a look at Kendal Creek #2 – coming VERY soon!

  Excerpt from Can’t Bear To Hide (Kendal Creek #2)

  1

  When I look up sometimes, into the sky at night, I wonder what the hell got me to where I am.

  I wonder why it is that a regular girl from Boston became the mate of the
four hundred-pound alpha of a werebear clan. Then again, some things aren’t really worth thinking about. Some things just are. But the night my entire world exploded around me, I was sitting out under the stars with a pair of giant biceps wrapped around my shoulders and the weight of the world on my back.

  What nobody bothered to tell me when I married into the clan was that the alpha is responsible for things like fighting and mating... all the damn time, might I add, while his mate looks after the welfare of the cubs. Okay, fine, that sounds pretty normal, if a little bit 1950s for my taste, but in practice everything was fairly equal.

  Anyway, as we sat there under the stars, neither of us saying much of anything, and with lots of fluttering kisses finding their way to the back of my neck, I was looking forward to a quiet evening of Frasier reruns, maybe a glass of wine, and some of the aforementioned mating, when Rufus Jaggerworth, one of the clan’s messengers, broke the quiet reverie.

  “Dax!” he shouted, in an exasperated, almost-out-of-breath way. “Bad stuff happen!”

  Daxon Mark, my mate, and the biggest bear for at least a thousand miles in any direction, was a lot gentler with his old friend that I was. I wished the guy would just start using proper grammar. Dax told me that’s just how bears are, but I never believed him.

  “Jagger?” Dax sat up, and I detected the slightest bit of irritation in his voice. “What’s going on? Someone fall in the well?”

  I snickered, thinking it was a Lassie joke, or at least hoping it was, but seconds later when they both looked at me and cocked their heads, I remembered that bears never joke about anything more serious than a pun or a dirty limerick.

  “No,” Jagger said, still looking at me like I’d shot someone. “Something bad.”

  “Someone falling in a well isn’t bad?” I piped up, “did someone get the wrong drive through order?”

  Look, we live quiet lives. Really quiet. To the point that I get bored and hope for something to come along and happen just so I have something to talk about at the gym, so it’s not that I was being insensitive. Well, not entirely, although admittedly I have a little bit of a snarky streak running straight down my chest.