by Layla Nash
His Bear Hands
Callista Ball
Layla Nash
Contents
Copyright
1. Simon
2. Zoe
3. Simon
4. Zoe
5. Simon
6. Zoe
7. Simon
8. Zoe
9. Simon
10. Zoe
11. Simon
12. Zoe
13. Simon
14. Zoe
15. Simon
16. Zoe
17. Simon
18. Zoe
19. Simon
20. Zoe
Connect with the Author
Also by Callista Ball
Also By Layla Nash
Copyright © 2015 by Layla Nash
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design by Resplendent Media.
1
Simon
Simon sipped his beer and eyed the door of the only bar in town. The jukebox rattled and clicked as it switched over, and static in the speakers distorted most of the actual music. He made a face and waved off one of his guys, playing pool. Tate was running late, which was unlike him. Which meant it was probably the girl's fault.
Simon believed in punctuality. Sometimes it meant the difference between life and death.
He leaned forward over the polished, scarred bar to catch the bartender's attention. "Rosie, any calls for me?"
Cell phone reception sucked out there, which was the way he preferred it.
Rosie, both literally and figuratively a cougar, arched a bleached blonde eyebrow at him. "Honey, the only one calling for you is me, and you ain't answering."
He snorted, shaking his head, and went back to watching his guys play pool and grumble at each other for cheating. Bear Creek was a nice enough town, if a little big for his tastes. It had a bar, a grocery store, a one-room schoolhouse that covered all the kids in town, and exactly one stop sign. No stop lights. Still, though. There were far too many people, and his bear got irritated if they crowded him.
Simon glanced at his watch, about to call it a night, when the door swung open and Tate walked in. Simon eased to his feet to shake his buddy's hand. "Hey man. Thought you weren't going to make it."
"Had to get out my compass and land nav skills to find this place," Tate said, giving him a half man-hug and slapping his back. "Jesus, man, this is literally the ass-end of nowhere."
"Exactly." Simon paused before they started reminiscing too much, and instead studied the kid who trailed after Tate. Not a kid, really, even though she carried a backpack like she'd wandered off some college campus. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder. She looked like a strong wind would carry her away, although she smelled pretty damn good. His bear grumbled and started paying attention. She smelled like sweet clover and sunshine, a little bit like honey wine. Simon tried to focus and get the scowl off his face as she half-hid behind Tate.
Tate raised a bushy dark eyebrow and caught her shoulder, dragging her forward. "Simon, this is Zoe Stewart, a good friend of mine. Zoe, this is Simon. We used to work together."
She watched him from behind oddly shaped glasses, maybe horn-rimmed or cat eye or some weird shit people found popular, and nodded. "Hey."
Simon gritted his teeth and held out his hand to shake. "Nice to meet you, Zoe. Would you like something to drink?"
"No, thanks." She shook his hand exactly twice, then pulled away, eyes scanning the bar to take in the dim room, the overwhelmingly male patrons, and the cracked TV playing an old football game in the corner. She took a deep breath, then fixed him with a somewhat panicked look in her bright green eyes. "Do you have wifi?"
"Wifi." Simon blinked, jaw slack as he looked at her. That was her first concern? When Tate said the kid was on the run from some really dangerous guys, and he brought her to a dank bar in the middle of the wilderness to stay with a complete stranger — her first concern was wifi? He looked at Rosie, at a loss.
She smiled, throwing a bar towel over her shoulder, and slid a glass of water to the end of the bar. "We used to, honey, but I can't get the damn thing to work. Just gives me some weird error. I gave up trying to fix it. You're welcome to take a look, if you want."
Zoe exhaled in relief and started toward the end of the bar where a mess of cables and boxes looked like an archaic wifi set-up, but stopped short as Tate caught her elbow. The man leaned down and said very quietly, "Remember the rules, okay? No personal stuff."
"I got it," she muttered, and pulled free and followed Rosie. She huffed an exasperated noise as she said, "Well, this is all wrong," and then crouched to start unplugging things.
Tate shook his head as he picked up the beer Rosie set out for him, and took the stool next to Simon. "She's some kind of computer genius. Hard to believe, but there it is."
Simon eased back onto his stool, though he kept the girl in his peripheral vision. Tate trusted him with her safety, and that started the moment she entered the bar. Simon took a deep breath. "I know you couldn't say much over the phone, but now you're here. Start talking."
Tate leaned his elbows on the bar and stared at the glass in front of him, talking low and fast. Like they used to do during briefings in the Foreign Legion. "She's a big-shot hacker and computer geek, was working for the MobileCorp company out of Silicon Valley doing some questionable shit. She won't admit precisely what, but from what I've seen, it was corporate espionage and money laundering. The CEO, Mick Castellano, is a bad dude, man. Organized crime at the very least, and connected to crime syndicates around the world. He does business with anyone and everyone. She moved his money and stocks and email and everything around the world a couple steps ahead of the feds and his competitors."
"Seriously?" Simon looked at the girl as she crawled under the table with the wires and equipment, her tennis shoes sticking out into the bar so one of the pool players had to step over her. She sat up and pushed the too-big glasses up her nose, a determined look on her face as she pulled some needle-nose pliers out of her backpack. Simon looked back at his friend. "That kid is a master criminal?"
"I know." Tate snorted and shook his head. "What's the world coming to, right? Anyway. She didn't know what she was doing, hiding his money in all these different off-shore accounts and pulling files out of the encrypted servers of his competitors, but about two weeks ago, MobileCorp was involved in a little snafu in east Asia."
Simon frowned down at his beer, trying to remember the details of what he'd seen on the nightly news, in between ferrying tourists on hunting and fishing trips. "The riots?"
"Yeah. I don't have all the details, and I don't want 'em, brother. Suffice to say, MobileCorp cut a deal with the governor of some principality, it affected the local economy, there were riots. The police cracked down and the next thing you know, half the city burned down and a couple hundred people are dead."
"Shit." Simon craned his neck to check on the girl. Hard to believe someone so young and small could be the cause of so much trouble. She grabbed the arm of one of his guys, Ethan, and pointed up at a box blinking on a shelf near the ceiling, well out of her reach but easy enough to Ethan to pull down. Ethan glanced at him, bemused, and Simon gestured for him to help the girl. Simon looked back at Tate. "But what does a master criminal care about a couple hundred people on the other side of the world?"
"That's where it gets funny. Turns o
ut she has a well-developed sense of justice, or at least a sensitivity to preserving her own skin. I guess when she connected the dots about MobileCorp's culpability in the whole thing, she saw some personal responsibility for the deaths of those people. And it also turns out she has poor impulse control, because instead of going to the feds or people who could actually protect her and give her direction, she just started doing shit."
"Like what?" Simon drained his beer and gestured for Rosie to get him another. He needed something stronger for damn sure, but he still had to drive everyone back to the lodge. All the other guys were three sheets to the wind.
Tate glanced around and dropped his voice still more, though he laughed under his breath as he spoke. "She cleaned out his bank accounts but dummied it up to look like everything was normal. Copied all of the incriminating files and squirreled them away. Pretty much took this dude's business apart, along with all of his contacts, and then turned up on my doorstep, saying she might be in trouble and needed to get out of town."
Simon cursed and rubbed his eyes. His bear was not happy. Anyone that reckless would be a liability in the backcountry, particularly in late summer as all the wildlife started preparing for winter. She could get herself or someone else killed. Or Simon would end up spending twenty hours a day trying to keep her alive. "Why did she turn to you, old man?"
Tate reached for his own beer. "Fuck you, dude, I'm eight months younger than you." He ran a hand over his shaved head, though, and shrugged. "I was doing a side gig a couple of months ago and we crossed paths. That's not important."
Sure it wasn't. Simon shook his head. Some things never changed, and Tate was one of them. Always running both ends against the middle. If he hadn't saved Simon's life at least twice, Simon would have packed it in that second and gotten the hell out of town — without the girl. As it was, he reached over the bar for a bottle of whiskey, catching Rosie's attention so she could add it to his tab. The bartender watched the girl connecting things, clicking away on a laptop that appeared out of the backpack, and giving orders to Ethan and suddenly also Cooper — and both men looked a little confused as to why they obeyed her commands.
He tried to hide a smile. Maybe having the kid around would be good for his guys. They were all bears and could get a little aggressive if cooped up together for too long. If the girl could hold her own, she might be a calming influence. Maybe. Simon sighed, aware that Tate watched him closely. "So if it's not important how you know each other, why is she here? They can connect you two, I'm guessing, so you need to stash her?"
"Yeah." Tate made a face and rubbed the back of his neck. "Just a couple of weeks. I know some feds, they're building a case against Castellano. She's provided most of the evidence so far. I just need her to lay low for a couple of weeks until they can put this guy and his people away, then she can go into witness relocation or something. She'll be out of your hair soon enough. I just need her to stay alive for the next month."
"And you think sticking a city kid, without the sense God gave her, in the middle of bear country is going to keep her alive?"
Tate grinned as he slapped Simon's back. "That's where you come in, brother. I figured if anyone can keep her alive, it's you."
Simon massaged his temples. The whiskey definitely didn't help. He needed a baseball bat to the brain for Tate's plan to seem like a good idea. A shower of sparks exploded across the other side of the bar, and the smell of burning wires nearly short-circuited his brain. He lurched to his feet to grab her away from the danger, but the girl jumped up, a little wild-eyed, and wiped her hands on her jeans. She muttered, "I'm fine," as Ethan tried to drag her away from the dicey socket, and instead she crouched in front of it again.
"So apparently she isn't a genius with electricity?"
"Everyone has their shortcomings. Just keep her away from the generators, okay?" Tate glanced at his watch and started to stand. "She won't admit when she's in over her head. I appreciate the help, man. I've got to get on the road, though."
Simon eased to his feet as well, shaking his friend's hand once more. "It's good to see you, Tate. Stay safe, you hear me? And we'll see you in a couple weeks."
"No worries, brother." Tate grinned, slapping his shoulder, and strode over to speak to the girl. Simon didn't try to overhear, and Ethan and Cooper shuffled back a few steps to give them the appearance of privacy.
The girl looked a little panicked once more as Tate squeezed her shoulder and turned away, though she clamped her lips together as he left. Simon followed Tate outside to get a small suitcase from his car, throwing it into the back of the ancient Range Rover. Tate hesitated next to his rental car, keys flashing in his hand. "She's a little odd, Simon, but she's a good kid. A nice kid. And she's had a rough time of it. You don't live your entire life inside a computer without good reasons, right? And I told her to stay off her personal accounts and not to call anyone she knows, in case MobileCorp can track her, but it's going to be tough. Just — be gentle with her. She might be useless in the woods but she's fucking brilliant with numbers and computers and all kinds of shit."
"I won't hurt her," Simon grumbled, a little irritated Tate felt he had to say it. "Of course I won't. She'll be fine. Just wrap that case up as quickly as possible. It's hunting season and I don't think I have enough orange reflectors to keep her alive in the woods."
Tate grinned, about to retort, when another crackle and shout came from inside the bar. The lights flickered and a cloud of smoke drifted out of the bar as Cooper leaned through the door, sighing. "Uh, boss —"
"Got it." Simon gave Tate a sideways look. "We're even, though. I think she's going to be more work to keep alive than I was."
"I don't know about that, brother. You did some pretty stupid shit back in the day." Tate laughed as he swung into the rental car. He waved as the car peeled out of the parking lot, and Simon shoved his hands in his pockets as he watched the brake lights disappear into the night.
Then he trudged back into the bar, already rubbing his temples. So much for a nice, quiet summer at the lodge.
2
Zoe
The second electrical shock really did it. As if Zoe didn't feel bad enough about being in the middle of freaking nowhere in the middle of the night, her fingers hurt as well. Which made typing a real bitch.
She waved away the three burly dudes who tried to drag her away from the junction box. "No, I'm cool. It's almost —"
"Leave it," a deep voice said, and her heart seized up. The biggest dude, like a freaking mountain, appeared close by and his giant hand closed around her elbow to carefully draw her away from the wires. "The wiring around here is old school, you're going to get yourself killed."
"There isn't enough power to —" She leaned enough to flip a switch and the whole box hummed. She laughed in triumph, pulling away from the guy who made her stomach flutter, and checked the router as it re-set. "Awesome. Wifi."
She grinned at the older lady behind the bar, who eyed Zoe as if she were a moderately dangerous animal, and then turned to check the approval of all the dudes. Now they had wifi. They could join civilization. Instead they just looked wary. "See? It's —"
But the big dude with the dark hair and neatly-trimmed beard looked like he had a headache, not even a trace of gratitude on his face. He reached for her arm once more and tugged her away from the wiring and equipment. "Great. I'm sure Rosie appreciates it. It's late, though, and we should get going."
She set her heels, heart in her throat. Tate trusted these guys, and this guy in particular, but that didn't mean Zoe wanted to walk blindly into the dark with him. Not that she really had any other choice. She hadn't seen much of this town when they drove in, since there weren't any street lights, but she'd put dollars to donuts there wasn't even a no-tell motel. "Where?"
"To the lodge." He kept hold of her arm as he knocked his knuckles on the bar and spoke to the bartender. "Thanks, Rosie. We'll settle up next week?"
"Any time, hon." The older woman glanced at Z
oe and tilted her head at the router. "Thanks for the wifi, chickie. You need anything, call here and ask for Rosie."
"Th-thanks," Zoe managed to stutter, flailing on the end of the big guy's grip as he picked up her backpack and headed for the door. She tripped over her own feet trying to keep up, a little more nervous as three guys followed them outside, but she didn't take her eyes off the backpack. Her retirement plan, or at least part of it, was in there, bouncing against the mountain's broad back. "You don't live here? In — town?"
The one holding her wrist, Simon, snorted something close to a laugh. "No. We live about an hour north and west of here, so we need to get going."
Zoe wrenched herself free and folded her arms over her chest, standing in a gravel parking lot as she stared at the guy. "You're freaking kidding me. This is barely civilization. Do you live in a tree or something?"
He arched an eyebrow as he looked at her, a familiar exasperated look on his face. She'd seen that look a lot growing up — from teachers, social workers, cops, bosses, her mother when she was sober enough to focus... Even Tate gave her that look sometimes, and it hurt more than she could admit. Zoe hardened her heart. She stood on her own two feet, and this knuckle-dragging neanderthal would not intimidate her into silence.
Simon smiled, though, and ran a hand through his dark hair, setting it all askew. "No, we do not live in a tree. There's a very nice log cabin, we call it the lodge."
Zoe gulped air, trying to reorient the world. Just a couple hours earlier, she was in her cozy apartment, plotting the downfall of Mick Castellano and all of his cronies. And Tate just expected her to live in the woods. Her voice wobbled a bit more than she wanted, but it softened his expression. "Do you — do you have hot water? And electricity? A fridge?"
"No, we eat berries and raw squirrels," one of the other guys said, but he smiled more than Simon. Ethan, she thought they called him.