Southern Shifters: Inked By The Bear (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Black & White Series Book 2)

by Lissa Matthews

  “You’re not my type.”

  “Stop,” Gus snapped. “Michael, I’ve got this. He’s not going to do anything stupid.”

  “Maybe not, but I’d feel better if I were here. Besides, from what I saw inside the house, Bex could use some help with the renovations. Unless she’s going for the destructive, needs to be demolished look.”

  Gus’s mood switched like a light coming on and he laughed. “The place is pretty torn up. I know she’d appreciate any help you’re willing to offer.” Michael had never treated Gus with anything other than acceptance and brotherly affection. There were two other brothers as well, but one was married and the other headed up the family construction business.

  “Good. We’re settled so far, so we might as well all chip in to work on things inside. Always something we can do. That includes you, Luke Blackwood.”

  “Not my family, not my job. Definitely not my responsibility.”

  “You want on my land, my property, my territory? You want my blessing? You want me to put in a favorable word with the other bears in the area? You can prove yourself here. Now. I’ll put a hammer in your hand and trust you not to smack me over the head with it.”

  *

  Dandridge was small, like Bryson City had been. Small enough that she could walk to work at the restaurant, to the general store, to the pharmacy, to the farmer’s market. She could do most everything on foot, or bicycle, but with the inn, she’d soon have to invest in a small truck or SUV for trips into Knoxville for supplies and larger grocery hauls.

  The money had come through from the sale of her mother’s bed and breakfast and she’d put a down payment on the house she was currently renovating. Little by little it was coming along and she’d stashed enough cash in savings to do what she needed to do and get through a couple of months once opened. The fact that she wasn’t contracting the majority of the labor out, helped.

  Dandridge was supposed to be her safe place, and in less than a month, safe had turned into uncertain. Safe had turned upside down, sideways, and somewhat screwed up.

  The older woman at her side was part of that turned upside down feeling.

  If everyone was to be believed, she had a grandmother. She had a family. She wasn’t all alone in the world as she’d thought she was when she walked out of the bank a few weeks ago with nothing left of her old life but a key.

  She’d imagined Gus would be her family as the future unfolded. Maybe she’d meet the family who’d taken him in. Maybe not. That would’ve always been up to Gus to decide. But to learn she was their blood, their real blood? It was a lot to take in.

  “I’ve always loved this little town,” Mary said, stopping in front of a gift shop window display. The building that housed it wasn’t much different than the Queen Anne that Bex lived in, although Bex’s wasn’t now, and wouldn’t be when she was finished, purple.

  “You’ve been here before?”

  “Oh yes. Many times. We used to come for the fishing tournaments. Martin and my current husband, David, used to compete. They were exceedingly good at it. No one could ever quite figure out why, and no one knew what their unfair advantage was. They made a lot of money and won a lot of trophies traveling to the different tournaments.”

  “Your current husband?”

  “He’s my second mate, I suppose you could say.”

  “What happened to your first?”

  “Richard. He’d have been your grandfather.” Mary’s smile turned sad as they started walking again, this time back in the direction they’d come from. “Richard and I… We tried to hold it together after Rex, after we learned what had happened to him, but Richard couldn’t handle it. He took his own life about a year later.”

  “Oh. I… I’m so sorry.”

  “Thank you, dear. It was hard for many years, but I’m stronger for having gone through it.”

  “I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you.”

  “It’s pretty indescribable, all those feelings. It wasn’t until I met David that I understood how much I needed to get it out into the open, to start healing. I never imagined that I’d find someone else.”

  “Why was Rex the way he was?” Could there even be an answer to her question? She didn’t know.

  “I wish I could say, but I just don’t know and I won’t try to make excuses for his behavior. He was always more of a follower than a leader. He wasn’t aggressive or violent. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why he did what he did to your mother and as violent as it was, as wrong as what he did to her was, he met a very violent end to his life.”

  So much pain came from that one event for so many people. “I know she tried to befriend him when he would come into the diner. At least she said she did, and that he was nice enough at first. I don’t really know what happened after that, why he turned on her.”

  “We never had contact with him after he took off. Maybe if we had…”

  Bex felt bad at all the heartache and memories being brought up for all of them. “This being brought up after so many years can’t be easy for you. It doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Life is rarely fair. And I’m certain that none of this is easy for you either. She had a fiancé, is that right? Your mother? She kept you because she thought you were his?”

  Bex swallowed around the lump in her throat. “Y-yes. She’d hoped I was. She’d been engaged at the time and they both thought, hoped I was his. They didn’t believe in terminating the pregnancy, even though they were unsure. Your… Rex had threatened her if she told anyone about him, but I know she told Beck about being raped while he’d been out of town on business.”

  “So, that’s why they assumed you could’ve been his, this man, Beck’s daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hadn’t realized that. I am so terribly sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything to say. I didn’t know my mother before all that happened, but I know she was sort of an outcast by the time I came along. Strangers loved her, but the people in Bryson City always seemed to treat her with kid gloves or not at all on a personal level. The mayor blamed her for his son’s disappearance and word got around that he thought she knew more than she was saying, but I don’t think she did. I think she’d have done whatever she could to help them find Beck.”

  “Is that why you chose to move and sell her inn?”

  “Yes. I wanted a fresh start and she’d have understood that.”

  “Tell me something happy about her. Please. I’d like to know her through you.”

  “You don’t have to do this. I —”

  “I know I don’t have to do, but I want to do it. You’re my grandchild. You may be a grown woman, but you’re my family. Family I didn’t know I had and then, of course, there’s Gus. The two of you together. He’s not blood to us, but he’s been raised as though he was. We’ve all loved him as though he was born into our family. We couldn’t have loved him more if he had been. He’s been searching for so long and until he found you, I’m not sure he knew what he’d been searching for. I’m not an old woman, but I’m not young either. I want to share as much of your life as you’ll allow me.”

  Bex stopped walking and blinked back the tears swimming in her eyes. She’d been doing it all day it seemed.

  She’d always wished for a family and now she had one and she didn’t know what to do with it. It was a wish she’d never shared with her mother because Bex hadn’t wanted to upset her, to make her feel worse than she had already for the way Bex had grown up without a father. She’d always been a loner away from her mother and the inn. She couldn’t be that way anymore, not if she was going to be with Gus. He came with a family. One he might not spend a lot of time with, but it was definitely one who cared about him. And they were her family, too. When she opened her eyes, tears fell anyway.

  In the middle of the sidewalk on Main Street, in Dandridge, Tennessee, she cried. She buried her face in her palms and sobbed. Her shoulders shook and sh
e hiccuped and she poured all the hurt and pain and confusion into her hands through her tears. Arms wrapped around her and held her close. Female arms. Mary’s arms. Her grandmother’s arms. And Bex cried harder.

  Mary maneuvered them around and helped Bex across the street to the small park behind the general store and settled them onto a bench. She pulled Bex’s head to her shoulder and rocked her gently until Bex calmed. She didn’t know how long she cried, but her eyes were scratchy and her throat was raw when the tears dried up. And she felt lighter, better. But exhausted.

  She also smiled. Very small, but she felt the smile, inside as well as the physical tilting of her lips at the corners. “Apple pie,” she croaked out. She cleared her throat and tried again. “My mother used to make apple pie and apple dumplings. They were so good that people would order them to be shipped in the Fall if they couldn’t come for a visit. She made other things too, but apple anything was her specialty.”

  “Oh, I do love a good apple pie with extra cinnamon. Do you have her recipes?”

  Bex nodded. “In my head. I’ve been making them since I was twelve. I started helping make them when I was five and still needed a stool to stand on in order to reach the counter.”

  “She loved you. I’m so glad she loved you.”

  It should probably make Bex feel odd or maybe the statement should have sounded odd, but it didn’t. She understood what Mary meant and how she meant it. “She did. Even when they couldn’t confirm who my father was, even when they found inexplicable markers in my blood, she loved me.”

  “Maybe one day I can try some of that apple pie.”

  “I have a batch of apple butter and apple jelly in the pantry. I made it last year in her kitchen. It was the last one before she passed away. She always said it was the pot she cooked the apples in, that made all the difference.”

  “Us Southern women always swear it’s the pot or the pan that provides the magic.”

  Bex smiled. A wide one, this time. “Yes. Yes, we do. I’ll give you some to take back home if you’d like. I’ll need to wait until my oven is installed in a few weeks to bake the apple pie.”

  Mary returned the smile and took Bex’s hand. “I’d like that. I’d really like that. Thank you. Thank you for talking with me, for sharing with me. After everything my son put you and your mother through, I wouldn’t have blamed you for being angry.”

  Bex tried to be. For so many years she’d tried to be angry, but she just couldn’t do it. “It wasn’t your fault. I saw how people who grew up with my mom treated her afterward. I took my cues from her and, I had to take my cues from Gus today. If he’d been wary about me being with you, if he’d had the slightest hesitation about you as a person versus the violence your son inflicted, he’d have reacted. But he didn’t. He still trusts you and your brother and the family he grew up with. I don’t have anything to go on other than him and how he knows you and feels about you.”

  “Gus is a good man.”

  “He is,” Bex agreed. He was a very good man and had been since they’d met. It hadn’t been long, but her instincts about him hadn’t wavered. She would be in love with him before too long. She didn’t doubt that and she didn’t doubt he felt the same way. He wanted her, wanted to be with her, found the home he’d always wanted and he’d found it with her. “I think,” she said, getting to her feet. “I think we’ll stop in the restaurant over there and order a platter of fried catfish and one of fried chicken. We could all use some good food after today.”

  “Then again,” Mary whispered, with a conspiratorial gleam in her eyes, “with proper seasoning, we could always cook up some wolf.”

  Chapter Six

  “You’re still awake,” Gus said into the darkness.

  “I am.”

  “Have you slept at all since Luke came?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Déjà vu settled inside him. They’d had a conversation similar to this before, in Bryson City, the night before he’d taken her away.

  Gus rolled to his side and tugged Bex into his arms. “You want to talk about it?” He hoped she said yes. She hadn’t talked at all about anything since his - their - family left. Luke decided to return to Deal’s Gap to gather some files and make an appearance with more members of his pack with the promise, or threat, that he’d be back soon. Gus wasn’t looking forward to it.

  Despite Gus’s invitation to Luke about staying and finishing up the tattoo, Michael was the only one who’d elected to do so, as he’d said he would. He and Bex seemed to get along well and Michael had been the only one to get Bex to say much of anything through the evening. He’d asked her about tools and work on the house. She’d smiled and taken him on a tour.

  It was the family business. Building, renovation, residential construction. Gus had worked for them all through his teen years and he at least had skills to fall back on if his tattoo business hadn’t taken off. He could build a house, work on motorcycles, and create tattoos from nothing more than a vague description.

  In all, he was good with his hands.

  He just wished he was as good with his words, maybe then he could get Bex to open up, and put her at ease.

  “No. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t know what to talk about. I mean, shouldn’t I feel different? I have a family. I have you. I want to have sex all the time. But, I also learned I am a bear. A goddamn bear, Gus. I have bear DNA running through my veins. I mean, I always knew I had some of it, based on the conversations I’d overheard with my mother and Beck’s father, but, no one ever thought anything would come of it, but it has, hasn’t it? And shouldn’t I feel different? Shouldn’t I be freaked out? Shouldn’t I be rocking like a crazy person in a corner having a meltdown?”

  She’d pulled out of his arms was now sitting on the mattress, facing him. He could only make out the outline of her body in the darkness, but he could smell her and he could smell him on her. “I thought you didn’t want to talk,” he teased and immediately covered his face when she flung her pillow at him.

  “And I thought you wanted me to talk.”

  “I do, baby. I thought maybe you needed to talk.” He didn’t like seeing the somber look in her eyes or the slouch in her shoulders.

  “I just haven’t known what to say. So much changed, but nothing changed. Make sense?”

  “Yes.”

  “When he told my mother that she was his savior, was he trying to say what Luke has been saying about his pack? That they needed to look outside their own kind to survive?”

  “I’m going to say yes. She was strong, Bex. You’re a shifter, baby, even if no one realized it at the time.”

  “What about the idea of Beck’s father being the one who killed the bear and the wolf?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe your mother said something we don’t know about. Maybe Luke has more answers.” Gus hoped there was more. Especially given Luke’s notion that the same man or men killed his parents. His interest in knowing what happened to them and why, had always been something he kept deep inside, locked away. There was too much pain in that one event from when he was barely able to walk.

  “I don’t really expect you to have the answers. I guess I just needed to get the questions out in the open, to do exactly what you said. I needed to talk it out. There may not be any answers. Not really. Things that far back? Trails go cold and information fades. I just hope, Beck’s father isn’t involved. I mean, he was partially my grandfather even if he didn’t want to have anything to do with me after I was born.”

  “You can talk all you want, ask all the questions you need to ask. I’m not going to stop you and maybe it’s time someone does. No one ever gets any answers without asking the questions. I’m just not sure anyone knew what questions to ask. I know you go back and forth. You want answers and sometimes, I think maybe you’re afraid of what the answers might be. I’m afraid, too.”

  “Thank you, Gus, for letting me ramble and repeat myself.”

  “That’s what I’m here for.�
�

  “Is that all?”

  “Well, not all.”

  “Can I ask you something personal about you?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “I’m an open book to you.”

  “What does it feel like to shift?”

  Gus chuckled at the subtle change in subject and reached for her. She immediately scooted closer. “It hurts at first. Joints and bones pop out of place. Muscles alter and elongate. It’s like being broken and put back together all at the same time. But once the transformation has fully taken place, it’s a strange type of freedom.”

  “Are you still you? I mean, do you still have the same thoughts and know who you are? Would you still know me?”

  “Curious cub,” he said softly. “Yes. Down at the lake a few weeks ago when I was shifted, I knew who you were.” Gus tugged Bex into his arms, and across his body. “Pretty girl, I will always know you. No matter what or where.”

  He planted a kiss on her lips and tucked her head beneath his chin.

  “When did you first shift?”

  “I was fourteen, kind of like the age range Luke alluded to. Right in the middle of puberty. It was a bitch. Not only was I dealing with the usual shit of facial hair, and growing out of every piece of clothing I had, eating everything in sight, I was struggling to control my body’s interest in shifting at the most inconvenient times.”

  Bex laughed, just as he’d intended. He was more than willing to have the serious conversations whenever she wanted, but he also wanted to lighten the mood and the tone whenever possible. It was a unique feeling, caring about someone else as much as he cared for Bex. He wanted her happiness more than he could express.

  ”Did you go to regular schools?”

  “Yes. Martin and his… Martin and my mother wanted us to learn how to control our bears in hostile environments.”

  “And public school was considered hostile?”

  “When you play football, yes.”

  “I didn’t know you played football.” She lifted her head and touched a kiss to his lips. “That’s sexy.”

  “Mmm. There’s a lot about me that you haven’t learned yet, but I’m sure we’ll get to it all.”