"A lot has happened in the last few weeks," Leland started, turning to the table when his brother set his lunch in front of him. "Father died."
Cyrus sat across from Leland with his fork in hand and stared at his brother for a long moment before, looking down at his steak. He sliced off a piece and shoved in his mouth. He shook his head several times and swallowed his food.
"What happened to the bastard?" Cyrus finally asked.
"Heart attack," Leland said.
"Let me guess, you are now Alpha of Timber Bear Ranch."
"That is indeed a fact."
"How does Buck feel about that?"
"As well as he possibly could. Look, I don't understand why Dad left me the farm. He should have left it to Buck. He's been here all along. He's the only one who's been making any money on the ranch for years, while Dad ran the place into the ground.
“We’re being audited for a decade of back taxes. I have no idea why Dad would have stopped paying his debts. Money was sliding through his fingers everywhere, but it doesn't make sense where the original debt came from. We haven't been able to track it down."
"You know Dad liked to gamble, right?" Cyrus said.
“Gamble?" Leland asked. “I’ve never seen him gamble.”
“It started after mom died and got pretty bad during the war. He was in bad shape when we all came home. I think it made him more defensive than usual. I know how he was with me,” Cyrus said with a growl, shoving more venison into his mouth.
“There is a chance we’ll all be accused of fraud.”
Cyrus spurted out the sip of coffee substitute he’d been drinking and then wiped his face.
“No way I’ll go to trial for Dad’s debts,” Cyrus growled.
“I don’t see how you will be able to avoid it. We all own shares in the company. Dad’s mismanagement will come back to haunt us all.”
“You were the one who was supposed to stand up to him, Leland,” Cyrus said in a dark voice.
“I shouldn’t have backed down when I came back from the war. I could see it back then. He’d been mismanaging the cattle, and I couldn’t take it. He wouldn’t let me help him. I was a coward, and I left it to the rest of you to deal with.”
“Buck deserves a lot of credit for keeping it together with only Jessie there to support him.”
“Buck and Jessie have things worked out pretty well between them. Jessie helps Buck take care of his machines and Buck manages the timber. He’s done a good job for the last seven years.”
“Buck always was the dependable one,” Cyrus growled.
Leland knew that Cyrus had spent most of his childhood being compared to his older brothers. Cyrus had been the black sheep, his nose buried in one of his books. His dark, brooding irritability was something no one understood. Except maybe Jessie, the baby of the family.
Jessie had always looked up to Cyrus in a way the rest of the family couldn’t understand. Bears were supposed to be happy and free, dependable and focused on family. Cyrus had never been that, and only Jessie really got why. As reckless as the youngest Kincaid brother could be, Leland knew Jessie got along with each his brothers better than anyone else in the family. It had always been that way.
“Jessie said you came down from the mountain a few months ago?”
“Yeah, he helps me arrange selling my wares in town and on the Internet. It helps me buy my supplies.”
“Jessie sells things for you on the Internet?” Leland asked, surprised.
“Believe it or not, Jessie can use a computer,” Cyrus grumbled.
“When are you going to come down off this mountain and rejoin society?” Leland asked.
“Probably when they carry me out of here in a casket,” Cyrus grumbled. “What else can I tell you about Dad?”
“You said he gambled? How did you know that?”
“I caught him on the phone with an angry bookie after Mom died.”
“But this debt can’t have started back then. Mom died twenty years ago.”
“He made some bad bets around the end of the war. He was acting like a psycho when I came home so I asked him if he’d lost money on the horses. He gave me this look like he could kill me. But I knew I’d touched a nerve. I wouldn’t doubt this all started around that time.
“Maybe he got a loan from some shady loan shark. That’d be my guess. Dad was pretty bad. I thought everyone could see it so I didn’t say anything. I try to avoid other people’s drama, not get in the middle of it.”
“A loan shark? That makes sense. But I’m afraid it doesn’t help me pay off the debt.”
“Can’t help you there.”
“What do you think will happen if we lose the ranch?” Leland asked.
“No one’s coming up here. I’m invisible.”
“No one is invisible.”
Cyrus growled and bared his teeth.
“I’ve told you all I know. I have nothing, save what I need to survive. I don’t know what else I have to offer.”
“You’re right, Cyrus. I just need to know you’ve got my back, and stand by the family.”
“Always,” Cyrus said, standing to clasp his brother’s bare shoulder with his rough hand.
“Good,” Leland said. “I’d best be getting back down the mountain. Thanks for the warm meal.”
Leland stood and met his brother’s eyes. They were of equal height and build. Though Cyrus had bulkier muscles and less body fat from years of strenuous survival.
“It was good to see you, brother,” Leland said in a low voice.
Cyrus clasped Leland around the shoulders and the brothers embraced, slapping each other’s backs a few times before stepping back.
“Don’t be a stranger,” Cyrus said.
Leland took one last sip of his drink and started out the front door of the cabin. Out on the porch, he threw the wool blanket on the bench and walked out into the yard. He shifted quickly and started into the forest.
Chapter 15
Sylvia painted her nails a bright shade of red and blew on the fast-drying liquid as she sat in her office at work. The other auditors had taken over Leland’s case and she’d been in a holding pattern for days.
She hadn’t been able to eat that morning and her stomach still felt queasy. After letting her nails dry, she carefully typed into her keyboard to check her calendar. When she saw the pink P in the corner of the day’s date, she remembered her monthly cycle was due any moment. Maybe that was why she wasn’t feeling well.
She spent most of the rest of the day doing busy work she’d been assigned to fill the time. When it was almost time to go for the day, her boss walked into her office and sat down across from her desk. She raised her eyebrow at him and sat up straight.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Stands?” she asked.
“We’ve reached a conclusion on the Timber Bear Ranch case. And I want to include you before we move forward since you’ve been the company’s liaison.”
“Right,” Sylvia muttered, thinking of what bad news would do to Leland and his family.
“Hank Kincaid and the Timber Bear Ranch owe a combined total of one-point-one million dollars in various back debts. We have a good case for criminal charges. But I want to cut a bargain with these bears,” her boss said. “If we get a lump payment of half the total, we’ll let them go on a payment plan for the rest. That’s my final offer.”
“That’s reasonable,” Sylvia squeaked, knowing that the family didn’t have that kind of cash on hand. Even if they sold the herd and all of Buck and Jessie’s equipment, they’d still probably have to start parceling off land. Selling it fast would come at a loss and the family would suffer even further. “What kind of time frame are we talking about?”
“The end of the quarter,” her boss said.
“Who will inform the Kincaids?”
“I expected you to do it, Sylvia, you have such a personal touch in these cases.”
“Right,” she said again, tapping her nails on the desk. “Anything else?�
��
“Good work.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said as he turned to go.
She didn’t feel like she’d done a good job. She knew that she would be returning to Fate Mountain with the worst possible news. It would break Leland’s heart and tear apart the already fractured family. They could sell off everything and get by after starting over, but she knew no one wanted that. Gathering her things, she started to the door, feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders. On the way down the hall, she felt a twinge of pain in her belly. She reminded herself she needed to stop at the drugstore on the way home.
Down in the basement parking lot, Sylvia climbed into her car and started down the street toward the drugstore. When she stopped in the lot outside, a thought passed through her mind. Could she be…? Her period hadn’t come yet. She just felt crappy. She thought back through the days since she’d first come to Fate Mountain and realized it had been just about two weeks since she and Leland had that fateful night in her hotel room.
“Oh my God,” Sylvia muttered, realizing her mistake.
She entered the drugstore, greeted by a wall of fragrance and noise, grabbing a blue basket from the stack. She started down the aisle, her nude pumps clicking on the highly-polished linoleum. She passed the makeup aisle and grabbed a new shade of rose blush to match a dress she’d just bought for spring. When she entered the feminine product aisle, she threw her usual things into the basket. At the end of the aisle across from the diapers were the pregnancy tests.
She picked one up and read the label before dropping it into the basket. She strode to the counter nervously, not sure if she wanted to go through with buying the test. She wasn’t even a day late.
The woman at the counter rang her up and made pleasant conversation as thoughts ran through Sylvia’s mind. Did she even want a baby? Of course she did. She’d wanted to settle down and start a family since her father died. But the idea of starting things this way made her heart sink. The checkout lady put her things in a plastic bag and handed them to her with the receipt.
Outside, Sylvia felt the chill evening air blow over her skin. She hadn’t heard from Leland in days. He’d had to travel all the way up the mountain to talk to his brother and then travel all the way back down. In the meantime, he couldn’t be contacted. What would she do if this test came out positive?
When she got home, she picked up Charlie and gave the big orange furball a snuggle, then headed into the kitchen to make dinner. After throwing together some pasta and salad, she sat at the dining room table and ate her meal while reading a book. When she was done, she decided to take a bath and spend the rest of the night watching Netflix in bed.
Soon, she’d head back to Fate Mountain to tell Leland the bad news, and it was going to require every ounce of her strength.
After her bath, she dried her hair and put on her fuzzy flannel PJs before snuggling under her fluffy white comforter. She watched a fun romantic comedy and drifted to sleep soon after turning off the TV.
In the morning, she passed the bundle of things from the drugstore the day before. She picked up the pregnancy test and read the instructions.
She took it into the bathroom and did what it said to do. She capped the test and set it on the side of the bathtub. As she stood across the room, she felt ridiculous for even taking it. She’d get her cycle any moment, she knew it. She’d been like clockwork since she was thirteen.
As the liquid washed across the windows, the pink test line appeared. The liquid moved into the second window and Sylvia fully expected it to remain empty. She stared in disbelief as the faint pink line appeared and quickly darkened as the liquid finished its path.
“No way,” Sylvia said, sinking to her knees to inspect the lines. “This can’t be happening.”
She held the test in her hands and leaned against the side of the tub, her bottom padded by the fluffy bathmat.
“Leland is going to hate me for taking his ranch. He’ll never want to be the father of my baby.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. She took a deep shuddering breath. She couldn’t think so negatively. Leland loved her, didn’t he? He’d shown her nothing but devotion. How could she question his love at a time like this? But it wasn’t his love that she questioned. Not really. She questioned her ability to look him in the eye every day for the rest of his life after doing what she was about to do to him.
She knew the Kincaids could not afford the bill she was bringing them. She’d seen the ranch. She’d assessed their assets. She knew they didn’t have enough.
The tears came on full throttle after that. Sylvia sat on the bathroom floor with the pregnancy test clutched in her hands and her knees tucked against her chest. What was she to do?
The only thing a strong woman like her could do. Get up, get dressed, go to Fate Mountain and tell her man the truth. She let out a deep breath and stood to turn on the shower. After a minute, she peeled out of her PJs and climbed into the warm spray. The shower felt great and by the time she got out, she was feeling a lot more confident. Even if her stomach was giving her rolling nausea.
Was morning sickness supposed to come on so soon? She managed to get dried and dressed without throwing up, and ate some buttered toast and green tea before packing up her things to go back to Fate Mountain.
She had all the documents Leland had to sign tucked in her briefcase. As she packed her things, she considered how she was going to break it to him. She had no idea what to say. But she decided finally that being straightforward was the best way to go about it. On the way out to the car, a text message came in on her phone from Leland.
“Just got back to the house. Will call soon.”
Sylvia threw her things in the car and climbed in the driver’s seat. She didn’t want to talk to him until she got there. There was too much to say and she needed to say it all in person. She texted him back.
“On my way to Fate Mountain now. I’ll call when I’m close.”
“Great!” His text came back.
She let out a sigh and started the car. On her way up the mountain, all she could think was that she had Leland’s baby inside her.
Her heart flipped in her chest as she stopped at a stoplight on her way into Fate Mountain Village. She continued up the highway and turned off onto the road leading to Timber Bear Ranch, dreading that she would have to give Leland the best and worst news of his life on the same day.
Chapter 16
The days away from Sylvia had been torture for Leland. He was overjoyed to hear she would arrive at any moment. He had an impending sense of dread, deep in the pit of his stomach about what news she might bring back with her. But that paled in comparison to his deep sense of anticipation to be with her again.
Ever since they had been brought together, Leland knew that his life would never again be the same. Sylvia's presence filled the hole in his heart that had been widening since the day his mother died. As a young man, he had tried to fill the hole with work and casual dates with women. But nothing had seemed to help.
Leland was a man who knew what he wanted and knew how to get it. He passed the time by tidying up the parlor and the kitchen and preparing some refreshments for her arrival. Leland didn't consider himself a domesticated man, but he was quite comfortable in the kitchen. Thinking about his culinary skills and what he had to offer his future wife, Leland fantasized about what it might be like to have her here with him on the ranch all the time. It was hard not to get his hopes up about a happy ending.
His phone pinged and he checked the screen and found a message from Sylvia.
“Just turning onto your road.”
His heart jumped and a smile curved on his lips. She was the first thing he'd thought about when he came off the mountain and shifted into his human form. Not the ranch or the cattle or his brothers or anything else. Just Sylvia. He stepped out onto the porch just in time to see her drive up the driveway and park in front of the farmhouse.
She climbed out of her car, looking happy a
nd anxious at the same time. He took the steps quickly and crossed the distance between them to gather her in his arms.
"I'm so glad you're back," he said into the top of her head, smelling the soft floral fragrance of her shampoo as he caressed her long, luxurious black hair.
"I missed you so much,” she whispered.
She looked up at him with those big brown eyes that melted his heart, and he wanted nothing more than to take her inside and lay her across his bed; to make love to her, and claim her once and for all.
He needed her more than he could imagine, and every moment without claiming her was like torture. His grizzly growled and gnashed inside his mind. Leland had to shake it away so he could be the man she needed him to be right now. Sylvia had news to give, that much was obvious.
He could smell the anxiety rolling off of her, and it did him in. The last thing he wanted was for his sweet Sylvia to feel anything but bliss.
"Come inside," he said, taking her hand in his and guiding her into the house.
They sat in the parlor in front of a low fire that kept out the chill of early spring.
"Tell me what happened while you were away," he said gently.
"Well, I have bad news and good news. But I think I have to give you the bad news first," she said softly, barely meeting his gaze.
He reached out and took her hand, trying to reassure her.
"Bad news first it is," he said.
"Okay, so," she said, opening her briefcase on her lap. "The case was given to a team of auditors and the conclusion was that you owe over one-point-one million dollars in various back taxes. Because you are all shareholders of the corporation, you are liable for the debt. My boss is tempted to take you to court and will if you are unable to meet the repayment conditions.
“To avoid court and the possibility of jail time for you and your brothers, the auditors will accept a lump sum payment of five hundred thousand dollars. The rest can be paid in a negotiable payment plan. You have until the end of the quarter to make the payment, or there will be criminal charges. There will be no other conditions," she said, her voice falling on the last phrase.
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