Heartsridge Shifters: Cade (South-One Bears Book 2)

by Olivia Arran

  I let out a heartfelt groan, digging in my purse and pulling out some notes. “Fine. Put me down on your team.”

  Plucking the money out of my hand, she skipped over to the old fashioned register and scribbled on a piece of paper, tucking the money away inside an envelope. “Good choice.”

  “As if I had any,” I shot back, but I was smiling.

  “Are you going to spill?”

  I widened my eyes, trying for innocent.

  “Cut the bull.” Planting her elbows in front of me, she waved her finger in front of my face. “Cade. Spill.”

  Tilting my head a fraction, I surreptitiously sniffed my shoulder.

  Her peal of laughter rang through the cafe. “Honey, I’m talking about your appearance.”

  “What about it?” I bought time by taking a sip of my coffee.

  “You have that well fucked glow about you.”

  My coffee nearly went up my nose. Wheezing, I swallowed. “Uh, thanks?”

  She caught my hand, a serious look on her face, her gaze raking over me. “I’m guessing a triple.”

  I raised an eyebrow. I wasn’t the kind of girl to kiss and tell. At least, I didn’t think I was. I’d never had someone to tell before.

  Her mouth dropped open. “More? Damn. Cade is a good man.”

  I couldn’t stop the smirk. “He has talent, that’s for sure.”

  She performed a little shimmy. “Yay! I’m so pleased for you both!”

  “We’re not—”

  “I can see.” She indicated my still unmarked neck. “But I can tell it’s only a matter of time before he talks you around.”

  “Wait. How do you know it’s not him holding out on me?”

  “Because you’re the one with a chip on your shoulder.” She squeezed my hand, as if to ease the sting of her words. “I get it. Tom told me about the purists and stuff. You’ve had a lot of bullshit lies fed to you throughout your life, but, honey? You’ve got to get over it. Cade’s a good man and he’s crazy about you.”

  The need to defend myself fizzled. “I know he is. And I’m trying.”

  “Good. He’s got his issues too, don’t get me wrong, which is why he’s waiting for you to be sure rather than chasing your ass into the mating bed.” I opened my mouth but she cut me off with a sharp shake of her head. “Nope. I’m not telling you his business. If you want to find out, you go ask the man.”

  I huffed, wrinkling my nose. “It’s not fair. You all know everything about each other.”

  “Not everything. Everyone’s got their secrets, some are better kept than others. And anyway, one day you’ll wake up and find that you don’t remember not being a part of this family.”

  Family. She was right. That’s exactly how Heartsridge worked. Lots of little groups united together into one big sprawling family tree. Draining the dregs of my cup, I set it down. “Thanks for the pep talk.” Scooting off my chair, I leaned over and surprised her with a hug. It felt right. Natural.

  Her breath hummed next to my ear, almost a purr, as she squeezed me back. “Anytime.”

  Waving goodbye, I made my way back to work. My lunch break was over and the plants weren’t going to water themselves.

  Cade leaned against my car, his face breaking into a smile as he watched me approach.

  “Hey stranger,” I called, reaching him and sliding my arms around his waist. I tilted my head back for a kiss.

  “Good day at work?” he asked, once we’d come up for air, his thumbs hooked firmly into my jean pockets.

  “Really good.” I noted his truck parked next to mine. “You?” I knew he was on nights, but with everything going on, it was all hands on deck and I was guessing he’d been in already, today.

  He frowned, his easy smile dimming. “So-so.”

  Reaching up onto my tip-toes, I nibbled at his jaw, earning a low chuckle. “What is it?”

  Chasing my lips and catching them for another toe curling kiss, he sighed against my mouth. “I don’t want to ruin your mood with work bullshit.”

  There was only one reason why he’d be so unwilling to share. “Morris?”

  “Yep.” He sounded pissed and frustrated.

  “He’s still not talking?”

  “Not since he gave us your name. Neither is his friend.” Leaning back, he looked away, over my shoulder, his face screwing up in thought. “It doesn’t seem to matter what we do to them—or threaten them with—they’re hanging in there.”

  I thought about it, trying to remember the boy I’d once known. He’d been rough around the edges and very much under his father’s thumb. Harsh? Sure. But I’d never met a man who wasn’t. Not until recently. But Morris had always been one for the easy ride. Lazy, that’s what Mom had called him. “Something’s giving him hope,” I eventually said, not having uncovered anything of note on my trip down memory lane. I had barely known the boy, and certainly didn’t know the man, but I tried to figure out a way to summarize what I did know. “For example, if his father ordered him to climb the mountain because if he did, he would win, then Morris would climb the mountain.” I stroked Cade’s chest, wanting to feel him solid beneath my fingers. “Because he’s guaranteed success. Does that make sense? If his father told him that the mountain wasn’t important, it was the journey that counted, Morris would hire someone to do it for him and sit on his ass. Or he would give the mountain to someone else and not give two shits.”

  Cade pursed his lips in consideration and it was so goddamn cute, I couldn’t help but yank his head down for a smooch. “Okay,” he mused, tapping a finger against my ass, “So, he believes he’s going to win or he’d have taken the easy way out and spilled his guts.”

  I nodded. “He’s not big on sacrifice and he’s certainly not a hero.”

  “How well did you know the guy?”

  Refusing to squirm under his weighted question, I shrugged. “He used to visit the farm when his father came to meet with mine. We were…” Shit. How the hell was I meant to put it?

  “Friendly?” Only the tightening around his shoulders gave a hint of the strain the word carried.

  I grimaced. “Kind of. He was nice to me at first and I didn’t get out much, so I didn’t have a much to compare him to.” I shrugged. “Then, he wasn’t nice and I kicked his ass. Not long after my parents died, Morris and his father stopped coming around.”

  “Because of Saint Michael.”

  I punched him lightly in the chest. “Behave.”

  “Sorry,” he growled, his arms tightening like iron bands around me.

  “It’s okay.” I nuzzled his chest, breathing in his musky scent. “Green looks good on you.”

  His startled burst of laughter rumbled in his chest as he stroked a hand down my spine. “Good. Because I haven’t got a clue how to stop it.”

  “Try trusting me?” I kept my voice light, knowing I was asking a lot.

  “I do, sweetheart.” No hesitation. Not even when I hadn’t even given him what he truly wanted. A commitment.

  “Don’t you have work?”

  He let me go, his reluctance clear in the way his hands lingered on my hips. “Yeah. I needed to speak to Talbot before I went in.”

  Feigning shock, I crossed my arms and shook my head. “You didn’t come to see me?”

  He wasn’t fooled. “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re treading on very thin ice, buster.”

  “Sleep in my bed tonight. I’ll come see you on my break…” He waggled his eyebrows, grabbing for me as I spun out of reach.

  “Nice change of subject,” I scoffed, my voice softening, “I can’t. Granny will wonder where I am.”

  He shook his head, dismissing my concern. “Tell her. You’re a grown woman.” His eyes slid away from mine. “Unless there’s a reason why you’re keeping us a secret?”

  “We’re not exactly a secret.” I didn’t want to do this. Argue with him over something as trivial as when I’d make the announcement to my family. He didn’t understand, Granny wou
ldn’t take our … involvement as something and nothing. I needed to figure out a way to break it to her gently.

  “Okay.”

  “Cade—”

  He pushed away from my car, an easy smile firmly pinned back in place. “No. Really. I mean it. I’m pushing you and I shouldn’t.” He pressed a kiss to the top of my head, bundling me into my car.

  I’d hurt him. He was hiding it, but I knew him well enough to see the traces clinging to his eyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  Slamming the door shut—something that had to be done with a firm hand on a car as old as mine—he leaned in my window. “Maybe I’ll crawl in through your bedroom window later?” His voice dropped to a low murmur, wickedness flashing in his eyes. “Just the thought of you lying naked in your bed, waiting for me, it makes me so fucking hard. I could wake you up with a tongue lashing for turning me down…”

  At my shudder, he smoothed his lips over mine, his growl sparking heat between my thighs. Not to mention the images he’d planted inside my head. The kiss was over before it had a chance to really get going. He straightened, the corner of his mouth edging up in a satisfied smirk.

  “You’re a bad man,” I groaned, knowing that I didn’t have a chance of hiding how hot and bothered he’d just made me.

  “But you love me, anyway,” he quipped, backing away.

  My heart thumped inside my chest as I watched him give a lazy wave, then stride off toward the greenhouse. Damn him. He might be right.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Cade

  “Hey,” I called, the heat of the greenhouse wrapping its familiar arms around me.

  Something banged down on a table, then the scuff of footsteps coming toward me reached my ears. “Hey, son.” My father whipped off his battered cap and scratched at his head, a puzzled look clouding his eyes. “Is it that time already?”

  I made to lean back against one of the tables, but he shooed me, directing me over to the large sink tucked away in the corner. “Mina just left. She probably said bye.”

  “She most probably did.” Scrubbing his hands, he busied himself with a nailbrush and soap, avoiding my eyes.

  “Looks like everyone else has gone home, too.”

  “Not too many in the greenhouse today.”

  “I see.” Not that I did. I lacked my father’s green thumb and the time I’d spent in dirt as a cub had been rolling in it. We fell into companionable silence born of many years of practice. “How’s she doing?”

  Shrewd eyes assessed me. Every time I worried about the confused haze, it disappeared as if I’d imagined it. “Are you asking for a personal or work perspective?”

  “Both.” Following him outside, we walked around the back of the mammoth glass building and into the forest, following the small path that led to his tiny cabin.

  “Work wise, she’s a gift from heaven. Anything else and you’ll have to ask her yourself.” Once inside, he busied himself with dragging a pan out and filling it with water, setting it on the stove to boil.

  “Dad…”

  “Son. You won’t even let me tell the girl that I’m your father. You can’t go rooting around for an unfair advantage.”

  I settled into one of the two chairs, leaning back and kicking up my feet. I stared at my hands. “It’s complicated.”

  “It always is.” Batting my feet down from the low table, he sank into the other chair, blowing out a sigh of relief. “Things have changed though, right?”

  “Right.”

  A satisfied nod. “You’re headed in the right direction, then.”

  I thought back to the day I’d torn up here, beside myself with anger and grief over what I’d thought unfair. He’d sat me down and told me in no uncertain terms that history was just that—the past. Just because my Mom hadn’t wanted us—me—didn’t mean Mina was cut from the same cloth. “She’s got some fucked up ideas, Dad.”

  “So have you. You want everything to be perfect and that’s impossible. Life is messy.” It was said without the anger or pain that I would have been feeling. Still felt, on the odd occasion I was feeling low and let myself remember.

  “Mom—”

  “Shouldn’t have agreed to mate with me, but it was a different world back then to what it is now. I’m glad she’s happy.”

  I’d heard the same words a hundred times, but this time, I couldn’t resist poking a little harder, “What makes you so sure she is?”

  At first I thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he sighed. “Son, she didn’t come back, did she?”

  I bit back the words, knowing they’d only cause pain. She was your mate and she left you… After so many years apart my father had let her go. They were mates no more, something unheard of in the shifter world. “She might be dead.” Pain fueled my words.

  “Might be. Might not be. She’s living the life she chose and I’m living mine.”

  “But—”

  “I’m happy. That counts for something, right?” He shuffled around in his chair, eventually digging out a pipe and some tobacco. “I have my work and a roof over my head. I have you and friends if I want to venture outside of my front door.” Using the end of his lighter to pack his pipe tight, he continued, “And I might have a new daughter in law sometime soon, which means that young Liam will be family and, what’s her name…”

  “Granny?”

  He blinked, then scowled. “I’m not calling her Granny.”

  “I’ll make a point to find out her full name.”

  “She’ll be family, too. Oh, and grandbabies. Lots of grandbabies in my future. What wouldn’t I be happy about?” His eyes dared me to contradict him, so I let it slide.

  Pushing my ass out of the chair, I nudged his shoulder with a knuckle. “I’m off to work. Once I’m back on days I’ll come over one night and we can finish that game of chess?”

  Patting my hand, he chuckled. “You’ll be far too busy to come see me. But that’s okay. Once you’ve figured everything out I’ll invite you both to dinner and we can finish the game then.”

  “I’ll never be too busy to come see you, Papi,” I replied, falling back on the familiar childhood name I’d once shouted a hundred times a day.

  “I know.”

  Tension buzzed in the air on my arrival at the municipal building. Catching up with Austin, I followed him into a large room usually reserved for conferences and fancy meet and greets. Taking up wall space behind my Alpha, I elbowed Jake. “What’s going on?”

  “A fucking breakthrough,” he muttered.

  I’d only been gone a couple of hours. Brent joined us, followed by Nate.

  The other bear shifter teams filed in. Owen sat in the center of the room, his wolves surrounding him.

  “Are my eyes fucking deceiving me, or is that—?” I jerked my head at Dante, Alpha of the dragon shifters, who was slouched in a corner, a bored expression plastered over his face. That fire breathing asshole didn’t usually grace us with his presence. The whole town was here, pretty much.

  “Gotta be serious,” Nate replied under his breath.

  Carter strode into the room, coming to a stop at the top of the table. Clearing his throat, he waited for quiet. The low rumble of voices cut off, the sudden silence jarring. “I’ll keep this short. Morris has given up the name of his leader.” Whoops filled the air. A shriek whistle just about shattered my ear drums, but it had the intended effect. “He’s lying.”

  “How do you know for sure?” Owen asked.

  “Because the name he gave was Michael O’Casey.”

  My eyes flew to Brent, who continued to stare straight ahead.

  “It could be him,” Jay mused with a quirked eyebrow.

  “He’s right,” Grant agreed, “What do we actually know about this supposed leader of the rogues?”

  Mina’s voice played in my head. “It’s a misdirect. No way would he actually give us any true information.”

  Carter turned to me, giving me the force of his full attention. “What makes you
so sure?”

  “Because why would he hold out this long and then give it all up. It doesn’t make sense.” Not when he’d already started to climb the mountain.

  “I worked him over pretty good.” Jake’s smile was satisfaction personified.

  “Did his friend confirm it?”

  My slightly psychotic teammate chuckled. Okay, there was nothing slightly about it. “Sang like a goddamn baby the second Morris broke.”

  “Exactly. He should have been trying to deny Morris’ claim. Cover it up.”

  Jake shrugged, as if it didn’t concern him. “Maybe he’s just a lackey and doesn’t want to die for the cause?”

  “Then why did they try and write Michael off as a traitor in the beginning? And now give his name up?” It was too easy.

  Carter didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t look like he was out for blood, either. “Brent. Did you manage to extend our invitation to Michael?”

  Brent stood as steady as a rock, unflinching and unmoving as everyone’s eyes turned to rest on him. “Yes. But he hasn’t replied yet.”

  “Do you think this is wise?” Dante spoke, his deep voice carrying from the back of the room.

  Carter ran a hand through his hair, a twitch working its way through his jaw. “Which bit, exactly?”

  Dante crossed his legs, his foot resting on his knee and bobbing. “You might be inviting the very man who wants to destroy our way of life to walk through our front door.”

  “Friend or foe, either way we need to speak to him.”

  “We should go to him.” It was Law that spoke, bringing his hand down on the table to punctuate his point. “Assess whether he is someone we should be inviting into our home.”

  Agreement rumbled around him, spreading through the room.

  Austin caught my eye, shaking his head with a look of disgust. Pushing to his feet, he folded his arms. “No. They want us to splinter. It’s better that we unite and stay strong. So what if Michael isn’t who we think he is?” He shot Brent an apologetic look, which the other man shrugged off. “He’s not a threat if we stick together.”