Now he discovered that none of the men around these tables liked Zeke and Patrick’s father Jeremy Bascom, although they did like his sons. And they had nothing but good things to say about Freddie Bascom and his children. Good to know.
“Damned shame about Luther,” Eldon said. “Freddie and Laura, they took it hard.” There was a general nodding.
“How did he die?” asked Steve.
“Accidental death,” Stan said. He snorted. “Accident my eye. In my day they didn’t give you a Bronze Star for no accident.”
Nor in Steve’s. “So there’s not many Bascoms left?” he asked.
“A good few. Not so many live in Success these days, but they come to visit every now and again,” Eldon said.
“I’ll say this for Clive, he insisted those kids go to school right here in Success. Lots of towns around here have lost their schools, but not Success.” Alfred smacked his coffee mug down on the table.
“All except Piper and Nolan Belington,” put in Eldon in the tone of a long-held grievance.
“Them Belingtons ain’t really part of the town,” Stan said hastily. “Mary Bascom – she’d be one of Clive’s grandchildren – she married a feller from back east. Massachusetts or one of those states.” From his tone of horror, he might have been saying Mary had married a Martian.
“Oh, yes,” said a tall, quiet man. Steve searched his memory. Foster, Doug Foster.
“The Belingtons are too good for folks around here,” Foster continued. “My granddaughter-in-law took a job out at the Belington place one summer. All the family got homes on the ranch,” he explained in an aside.
“That Piper made her life a misery. Couldn’t so much as lift a plate for herself. Never saw people more surprised when Janice told them where to stick their money.” Foster made a noise at the back of his throat. “Quite different from Freddie and Brenda’s girl.”
“That would be Miss Laura?” Steve checked. According to the diagram he had drawn up, Laura Bascom, was his third or fourth cousin. Steve’s great-grandma had been Clive’s first wife Alta. Laura’s great-grandma was Clive’s third wife Flora.
Even with a chart, trying to keep it all straight was enough to make his head spin. Great-grandfather Clive must have been a fucking horndog. Literally. Not much of a bear. Or a man.
“That’s right,” confirmed Stan. “Miss Laura is the one that runs the ranch and the stud. A fine woman. Comely.” He looked meaningfully around the table.
The old men nodded, looked at Steve and firmed their lips. He guessed they were being discreet about the clause in Clive’s will that forced Laura Bascom to marry and have a baby or face seeing her inheritance pass to the much disliked Belingtons. He didn’t know what that was about, but it did seem part and parcel of the old bastard’s nastiness. The man that would ask a young mother to surrender her child, was capable of anything.
CHAPTER THREE
Steve pulled his motorcycle into the graveled parking lot that separated the handsome stable block from a small utilitarian building. The spaces were occupied by a variety of vehicles, a couple of pickup trucks painted orange, a small white SUV, and three battered sedans.
The stables had three long blocks framing three sandy enclosures. The white aluminum siding on the office building had Bascom Quarter Horse Stud – Office painted in red. As Steve turned off his engine, the outer door opened and a short, skinny guy in a parka and jeans came towards him. Like the men at the coffee shop, he was a wiry, grizzled specimen. Steve dismounted. Time to meet the family. He tucked his helmet under his arm and waited.
“What’s your business?” asked the skinny guy. He was neither friendly nor hostile, but definitely in charge.
“I heard in town that you might have work for a veteran, sir,” Steve replied.
“Might do. I’m the stable foreman.” He held out a small hand in a dirty yellow leather glove. “Carlos Diego.”
“Steve Holden.”
“Regular Army, Holden?”
“Special Forces, sir.”
Diego snorted. “You know anything about horses, son?”
“We kept four when I was growing up in Idaho. Cow ponies.”
“Huh.” Diego’s eyes went to the helmet under Steve’s arm. “Well, if you move your motor sickle over by the office, I’ll show you where we keep the pitchforks.”
The foreman waited for Steve to roll his motorcycle over to the end of the building. He led him into the dim, warm stables. The rich scent of horses and hay brought back a lot of good memories to Steve. Big brown and black heads poked out over stall doors and stretched towards Diego.
Diego pulled his glove off his right hand and scratched muzzles and crooned at ears as he went past. He pointed to the labels over the individual stalls. “That’s what we call ‘em,” he said. “Ain’t their book names.”
Steve pulled off his own gloves and gave each horse an opportunity to sniff him. He scratched a few noses and ears, but he kept pace with Diego, who turned down an aisle where a row of scratched but spotless wheelbarrows was leaning against the wall beside a line of gleaming pitchforks and shovels.
“We turned out the stalls this morning,” Diego said. “We do it twice a day. Manure pile is behind the barn. Needs turning. You choose yourself a pitchfork and get started. I’ll come for you around lunchtime.”
The three concrete bays held a pungent mixture of rotting straw and horse dung. Two sections were full and one was empty. The stuff smelled about how half-rotted horse dung smelled. It was obvious that this was a job for the little earth mover Steve had seen parked in a shed on his way into the stables. Using that would get it shifted in about ten minutes.
It was equally obvious that Carlos was making sure his new hire wasn’t lazy. If there was one thing the army was good at, it was making sure you understood chain of command. This was far from the first job Steve had handled the hard way. And he had tested his share of rookies with worse. A little hard work never hurt anyone.
Growing up as he had on a cattle ranch, he had taken care of plenty of unpleasant tasks, including spreading cornfields with liquid gold. That stuff smelled worse than this by some margin. In the Army, there had been digging and cleaning field latrines. Revolting, but better than putting your buddies into body bags. And once you found your rhythm, this wasn’t even hard work. And when your nose got used to the stench, it shut up.
The April sun was strong, even though there was still winter in the air. Steve stripped off first his leather jacket, and then his fleece vest. His plaid flannel shirt followed shortly. Soon he was working bare-chested. Even so, he was sweating hard as he heaved forkful after forkful of manure over the four foot dividing wall. There was a comfortable peacefulness to this physical activity that he had been missing at his desk job in Chicago.
He didn’t fault Sarkany for kicking him upstairs. Hugo Sarkany was just a shade suspicious of Steve’s friendship with his mate Leah. A totally irrational jealousy, for neither Steve nor Leah was romantically interested in the other. Even if Steve had been the kind of hound who poached other men’s women, he damned well wouldn’t have tried it on a dragon’s mate. But Sarkany had wanted Leah and Steve to have less contact. He had pushed Steve into the Sarkan Security Systems head office which was located half a world away from Switzerland.
Steve had found Chicago exciting, and he had enjoyed the challenge of revitalizing Sarkan Security. What he missed was his team. As Sarkany’s personal bodyguard and head of his personal security force, he had handpicked his fellow operatives. Even though they knew he was in charge, they had also been buddies. It helped that every man Jack of them was ex-military and at Sarkany’s insistence, a shifter. Those common bonds had made them tight. They were comfortable with each other’s silences and kept each other’s secrets.
As Chief of Operations for Sarkan Security he now occupied a corner office and was the boss. His direct reports were a great bunch of guys, but they couldn’t truly be his pals. But he hadn’t found himself any others. It
seemed all he had done for the last four months was work. When he got back, he had to find himself some buddies before he turned into a workaholic recluse.
Maybe he could find a bar where ex-service bear shifters hung out. Start to look around for a proper home to replace that slick hotel suite he had been living in. Someplace where a bear could stretch out without bumping his ass on something sharp and shiny. He made a good salary. Most of it he just salted away since he had no rent or mortgage to pay. He could afford to buy property even if he turned down old Clive’s money.
Chicago had some decent suburbs. He should find himself a nice big house with a large backyard and make a nest for his mate. He was thirty-six, it was time he settled down and started another generation of Holdens. When he got back to Chicago, he’d put finding a wife at the top of his agenda.
CHAPTER FOUR
Laura came out of the stables, heading back to the paperwork waiting in her office. The dazzling April sunshine bounced off the snow and made her blink. She slipped her shades back on just as she caught unexpected movement out of the corner of her eye. She detoured to check it out. A shirtless stranger was slinging horse dung from bay two to bay three. She had no idea why he was using a pitchfork instead of the little bobcat that they had bought for just such tasks.
She blinked at the sight. Her feet refused to move. The stranger’s broad, brown shoulders glistened as if he had been oiled. Every movement spoke of effortless strength. The tattoos around his biceps bulged as he lifted and threw. The seams of his blue jeans strained at buttock and thigh.
The breeze brought her his potent scent. Masculine. Sexy. Testosterone city. Lust seized her lungs and she fought to draw a breath. She could feel her nipples puckering and her pussy growing soft and wet. She swallowed hard. This was completely inappropriate. Completely. With an effort of will, Laura turned on her booted heel and went back through the stables to her office.
She usually left her door wide open so that anyone who needed to speak to her could walk right in. But today she closed it before she sat at her desk staring at her shaking hands. She was losing her mind. That was the only explanation. Sensible, practical Laura Bascom did not take one look at a stranger and turn into a lustful puddle.
Brooding about Clive’s will and her options had sent her around the twist. Okay, sure she needed to find a man, marry him and get pregnant. Fast. At her age, with luck, it would take her six months to get pregnant. She had until her thirty-fifth birthday to marry and give birth to a child if she was going to ever have more than a life interest in the ranch. So seventeen months. Not long at all, considering she was no closer to finding a man than she had been last month.
Which didn’t mean she could start fantasizing about some guy who worked for her. She would be better off with one of her brother Calvin’s elegant friends. Only those guys were so not her idea of sexy. She preferred her men to look like men.
Cal waxed his chest and so did his pals. She on the other hand was atavistic enough to like a bit of fur on a man’s body. She was willing to bet that if tall, dark and sweaty had turned around, he would have had lush curls on his chest to match those on his brawny forearms.
There she went again. She had to stop this unseemly fantasizing. Think about Cal’s friend Greg. He didn’t need her money. He had made lots of his own. He might just possibly agree to a marriage of convenience. But she couldn’t imagine going to bed with a guy who didn’t want her.
And she didn’t just need a husband. She needed a baby. She couldn’t see how it would help to sign up for months of trying to have sex with a man who didn’t turn her crank any more than she turned his.
It was all very well and good for Trev Carmichael, and Daddy, and her brother Cal, and her almost brother Zeke, to say she was a catch and should hold out for the right man. But Laura had lived over three decades in her body and she was perfectly aware that the only men she had ever attracted had been fortune hunters after some of the Bascom billions.
She only had to remember losing her virginity to Mark to understand why she was skittish of men. Mark had been followed by Chester. Neither one had wanted her – what they had been after was the B&B Oil money they figured she came with. They had pretended to be in love with her, but their comments about her body had been the opposite of loving. She had dropped them both the minute they started suggesting that she could stand to lose a few pounds.
She had always been a big girl. Tall, broad hipped, big breasted and sturdy. If she starved herself to look like the cultural ideal of an anorexic supermodel, she would have to shed the muscle that made it possible to do her job. Besides, if a man loved her the way Daddy had loved Mama, the last thing on earth he would want was to change her. Too bad she had never found a guy like Daddy.
She had been happier since she had decided to devote her energies to the ranch. She knew she was dragging her heels over finding a husband, and if she continued, she was going to lose the ranch. But every time she thought about marrying Greg Bushnell she got a knot in her belly and a rock in her gullet.
There was a knock on the door. “Come in.” She schooled her face to its usual calm.
Her administrative assistant Rhonda poked her orange head in. “Jim Don Fletcher wants to know if he should deliver that mare this afternoon. You need to check your email.”
“Right.” Laura smiled weakly. “I’ve been busy.”
Rhonda raised her eyebrows at Laura’s bare desk. Even her laptop was still locked in its drawer. But the older woman didn’t say a word, she just turned on her efficient heel and headed back to her own desk. She left Laura’s door open. Laura retrieved her computer and settled in to handle the transport of Boadicea Pride of Kentucky to the Bascom Quarter Horse Stud. Horse breeding she understood. Laura breeding, not so much.
* * *
Steve hadn’t quite finished shifting the manure when Diego came back out.
“You can knock off to eat,” the foreman informed him. “I’ll show you where to wash up. You can finish up after lunch.”
The stable washroom was at the back of the central stable block. The washroom had a couple of showers in addition to the usual commodes and urinals. The white basins were sparkling clean and the water was hot. Despite the gleaming white tiles, the rich scent of horses hung in the air. Steve washed up and put his tee-shirt and vest back on. He was still too warm for his wool shirt and jacket.
He came out of the washroom with his stuff over his shoulder, ready to meet Diego. A blast of icy air carried the delicious fragrance of a woman. Subtler but more powerful than the scent of horse. Every hair on the back of Steve’s neck stood up and cheered. His heart stuttered. Boots stamped on the mat by the exterior doors. The sweetest, sexiest contralto in the world called cheerfully, “Hey, Carlos.”
Steve stopped cold. He stared as a tall, buxom woman unzipped her bright red parka and stripped off her gloves and sunglasses. She went to the first stall and crooned to the horse inside who lipped her shoulder while she fumbled in her pockets. Her shapely hand came out with a treat which she held out flat-palmed to the great head. She scratched the white blaze between the big brown eyes with her other hand.
“How’s it going, Dakota?” she murmured to the horse as if she was addressing a lover.
“This here is Steve Holden,” Carlos said to the woman. He turned to Steve. “Ms. Bascom owns this place. I’m trying him out,” he told the woman.
Ms. Bascom turned and nodded at Diego. Her eyes evaluated Steve but she did not speak or smile. Steve swallowed. Between the twilight of the stable and the broad-brimmed Stetson she was wearing, he couldn’t make out Laura Bascom’s features at all. But it didn’t matter. Whatever she looked like, she smelled exactly right.
“Hello, ma’am,” he managed as his heart restarted. More than a decade of looking at women in their standard issue fatigues had taught him to recognize a fine rack even when it was concealed by a bulky outfit. Ms. Laura Bascom was blessed with some righteous curves. She was one hundred percent woma
n, and unless he much mistook the matter, she was his own personal fate.
Laura, however, appeared unfazed by their meeting. She nodded vaguely at Steve. “Howdy,” she said politely and returned to petting the lucky horse.
Steve shut his mouth. There was never anything attractive about drooling. “Where do we eat, Mr. Diego?” he asked when he regained control of his vocal cords.
* * *
“You can bunk in with the cowpunchers,” Diego said at lunch. He and Steve were sitting in the kitchen of the Big House eating as fast as Diego’s wife, who was the ranch cook, could fill their plates. “We got us a big bunkhouse and it ain’t full. Comes with the job. Or you can have the little cabin next to our house. There’ll be rent to pay for that one.”
“I’d be happier on my own,” admitted Steve. “But surely someone who has been here longer would be wanting his own place?”
“Nope,” Diego said. “That cabin is right alongside of our house. Most of the hands don’t cotton to living so close to the foreman.”
Rosa brought them another platter of steak strips and a fresh basket of tortillas to wrap around them. “You take that little cabin, Steve, and you eat your meals here or at our house.” Her black eyes twinkled, and she called a command in Spanish to one of the three girls helping her in the kitchen. Teresita scurried over with more salsa and sliced limes.
“That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Diego,” Steve said. “But I couldn’t impose on you.”
“You won’t be. Carlos will take some of your pay for groceries, and you will be better off than if you tried to eat your own cooking.”
Steve knew a good deal when one was offered. “Thank you both,” he said promptly. “I’d be grateful.”
Carlos nodded. “Started here after I got out of the service,” he said obscurely. “Did two, three tours after school. But my daddy and my granddaddy had both worked on this land all their lives. Know why old Clive Bascom was so keen to hire me?”
“Because you were a veteran, sir?” Steve hazarded.
Bear Pause (BBW / Bear Shifter Romance): A Billionaire Oil Bearons Romance (Bear Fursuits Book 6) Page 3