Bounty Hunter- Mack
Page 13
At least Mack hoped there were blue skies ahead…
“This is my favorite part,” Logan said as they listened to Predatone’s new album. His voice came through the speakers and Logan lip-synced along to the lyrics, enjoying it a little too much.
“You’re the one singing,” Ryder said with a chuckle. “It shouldn’t be your favorite part if you’re the one singing.”
“I can’t help it if I’m that good,” Logan said with a shrug.
“Success has officially gone to his head,” Ryder said with a roll of his eyes.
Mack laughed as he took a sip of beer. It was their first night back on the ranch and all of the women had gone to bed. It was just the boys enjoying a nice beer outside at their snow-covered bar. The tap was frozen so they were drinking bottles.
Mack took a long sip of the cold beer and smiled in content. The twerp was back, the General was dead, and the ranch was safe with all of their debts paid. Things couldn’t have been better.
“I spoke to Jordy earlier,” Logan said as he peeled the label from his bottle. “Predatone is leaving on tour in a month. We’re leaving after the Holidays.”
They all congratulated him and Logan looked thrilled. Losing his arm had turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the musician. Mack smiled as he watched Grant slap Logan’s back with a congratulations, and Mack finally decided to let himself off the hook for that one too.
“Elodie is coming too,” Logan said with a smile. “She’s the best manager ever.”
“I love the new album,” Bryce said, nodding his head along to the song.
“Right,” Logan said, swallowing hard. “I forgot you hadn’t heard it.”
Bryce had missed a lot of things.
“We didn’t stop trying to find you, Bryce,” Grant said in a somber voice. “Especially Mack. Nobody searched harder than him.”
Bryce nodded as he shot Mack a glance. “I know.”
“What was it like?” Ryder asked. “What happened?”
Bryce’s brow furrowed as he thought back to the missing months. “I’m not sure if I even remember. It was like a fog had filled my brain. I remember falling. Then… just flashes here and there. A couple of times I’d wake up in a room standing beside General Hunt. I remember once looking at him and being confused. When he saw my eyes he got startled and quickly grabbed the tablet and then I don’t remember anything after that.”
They were all leaning forward and listening closely as he spoke.
“It went on like that for a while, but then I started to stay awake. It was as if I was in my lion form and was watching through his eyes, only I was still human and watching through the AI’s eyes.”
“Could you control it?” Mack asked, remembering how hard Bryce had fought against it.
“Not really,” Bryce answered. “It was pretty powerful.”
Was pretty powerful. But Mack wondered if the AI was still present inside him. They had only turned it off by breaking the tablet. They hadn’t removed it.
Grant seemed to be thinking the same thing. “But… it’s gone now?” He looked concerned.
Bryce swallowed hard as he dropped his eyes to his beer. “Yeah. It’s gone.”
The kid didn’t look so sure.
“Good,” Grant said with a nod. “Amélie and Elodie’s mother Louise is going to stay in Logan’s cabin while they’re gone on tour. We’ll build another cabin for her before they return so you can have your cabin back to yourself.”
Bryce dropped his eyes. “It’s okay.”
“What do you mean?” Grant asked.
“She can keep it.”
Mack looked at the boy with worry. “Where are you going to sleep? In the forest? You’ll freeze your acorns off.”
“I’m going to travel.”
“Travel?” Mack repeated.
“Yeah,” Bryce said with a nod. “I can’t stay in one place right now. I need to get away and figure things out.”
“For how long?” Mack said, feeling his stomach knot with worry. “Like a week?”
Bryce shook his head. “For a while. I’ll go visit my mother in Japan for a bit and then travel around Asia. I have to find myself. I have to figure out where I go from here.”
“But,” Mack said as he started to panic, “you’ll be back. Right?”
Bryce looked away.
He’s not coming back.
“I want to thank you guys for everything,” Bryce said in a low voice. “For coming to get me, for taking me in when I was just a fucked up kid, for everything. I’ll never forget any of that.”
They all waited on the edge of their seats as Bryce took a few seconds to compose himself.
“Nothing against you guys and I hope you don’t take this personally, but I’d like to start over in a new crew.”
Mack’s stomach felt all twisted up.
“You’ve all found your mates,” Bryce continued, “and are settling down. You’ll probably have little kids running around here soon. I just… I think I need to be around some shifters my own age.”
Mack didn’t want to hear that, but he understood completely. When he had been a young shifter, he was full of energy and had an unquenchable hunger for adrenaline and adventures. He would have gone nuts if he had been stuck with a bunch of old mated shifters.
“You’ll come back and visit, right?” Ryder asked with a hopeful look on his face.
Bryce nodded. “The first chance I get.”
Mack finished his beer in silence and then excused himself to go to bed.
He was halfway to his cabin when Bryce caught up with him. “Mack!”
He turned and looked at the boy who was no longer a boy. Bryce was nearly a man and looked like a good one. Mack might have screwed up a lot of things in his life, but he knew he did a good job with Bryce.
“I just want to thank you for everything,” he said with a sadness in his eyes. “Out of all of the guys, you mean the most to me. You always have.”
Mack felt his eyes tear up as he looked at the kid. How could he stay on the ranch and not have his favorite little sidekick always following beside him?
“You mean a lot to me too,” Mack said. He had never been good with feelings, but for some reason, it was a little easier with Bryce. “For a little twerp.”
Bryce stepped forward and hugged him, and Mack hugged him back.
“How about an arm-wrestle?” Bryce said with a grin when they pulled away.
Mack glanced down at those big strong arms and gulped. “Sorry, twerp. Still retired.”
“One day,” Bryce said, pointing at him as he walked backward.
Mack grinned. “You’re on.”
He turned and continued through the snow to his cabin where Kara was waiting for him. He was sad to lose the kid, but he understood. He wanted the best for Bryce, and he knew that meant having to do the unselfish thing, which was letting him go.
He quietly slipped into the cabin and climbed into bed where Kara was already sleeping. She moaned contently as he inched forward and spooned her, holding her close as he breathed in the sweet scent of her hair.
The ranch was going to be different without Bryce, but he had Kara now, and his sweet girl was more than enough for him.
Epilogue
Kara
It was early January when Kara and Mack stepped into the recording studio for one last dinner before Logan and Elodie left for their six-week tour.
The table was all set up beautifully and the lights were turned down low as Grant opened a couple of bottles of wine and began pouring them out.
The Holiday season had came and passed and it was the best one that Kara had ever had. Her parents and sisters came to visit from Maine and they had a big Christmas dinner with Hardy and his friends who came too. Hardy was living close by on The Capone Ranch with DeMarcus, Tristan, Irish, and Caelum. The dinner was amazing and the party afterward was a blast.
Everything had been amazing since she had arrived on The Clayton Rock Ranch.
> She was so in love with Mack and every day was a treat as they got to know each other better and better. They talked for hours about everything and nothing.
Kara had even found out that morning that she had gotten a late Christmas present.
When the dinner was ready, they sat down around the table like a real family.
“To Predatone taking over the world!” Grant said with a laugh as he lifted his glass in a toast.
Logan had his arm around Elodie. He looked so happy with a big smile on his excited face. “I can’t believe we’re leaving tomorrow!”
Their first album had been released the week before and the initial sales numbers were very promising. It looked like Predatone was going to be a big hit.
“I want to go too,” Tempest said with a frown. “It’s not fair.”
“Sorry,” Logan said as he shook his head with an upset look on his face. “The bus is full.”
“If you hurt your throat or something,” Tempest replied, “and you guys need a new lead singer, are you going to call me?”
Ryder chuckled beside her. She turned and gave him a hard stare while he played off the laugh as if he was choking on something.
“So, are you?” Tempest asked when she turned back to Logan.
Logan nodded. “Definitely.”
Tempest leaned back in her chair and smiled.
Some parents were at the dinner was well. Amélie and Elodie’s mother Louise was there as well as Grant’s mother Dorothy. Kara’s new father-in-law Bert was there too. She was really starting to like Mack’s dad. He was a riot.
“Send any groupies that are too ugly for you my way,” Bert said with a grin.
Logan laughed. “You got it, Bert.”
“That’s sexist and rude,” Dorothy said, looking disgusted.
Bert shot her a wink, which got her cheeks blushing. “Don’t worry, baby. You’re still my number one.”
Grant let out a frustrated sigh. “Excuse me! That’s my mother!”
Amélie was smiling beside him as she held the tiny bump in her stomach. “And our baby’s grandmother!”
Kara smiled. She was so happy for them. They had surprised them all with the news on Christmas morning.
Grant was so excited to be a daddy and Kara knew he’d be a good one.
“I like grannies!” Bert said with his arms open.
Grant rolled his eyes at him. “This conservation is over.”
Kara laughed as she looked up at Mack. He looked so handsome in his nice collared shirt with his hair styled to the side. He really was amazing.
Everyone kept telling her how grumpy he used to be, but she couldn’t see it. He always had a big smile on his face whenever she saw him.
He had been a bit sad when Bryce left, but he understood—Mack had been a wild shifter once too—and was confident that he would see his young friend again. He was the one who drove him to the airport and Kara knew that he had given Bryce a card with a big fat stack of cash in it to help pay for his trip.
“Wine?” Mack asked as he held the bottle to her empty glass.
“I’m good, thanks,” she answered, trying to keep her cheeks from turning pink.
Amélie was staring at her with a knowing grin on her face. “No wine again, huh?”
“Nope,” Kara said, swallowing hard. “I’m trying to cut back.”
Elodie was also watching her closely from across the table. “Why?”
Do shifters have a sixth sense for this kind of thing or something?
How did they all know?
Kara raked her brain for any excuse that made sense. “Bathing suit season is coming up,” she said, even though it was snowing in the beginning of January.
“Ugh!” Tempest said, sticking her tongue out. “Don’t remind me. I gained eight pounds over the Holidays.”
Kara smiled at the badass bounty hunter. She loved Tempest. She was the only female at the table who seemed completely oblivious.
Elodie looked around the table as she began to speak. “Does anyone have any big news or anything to share with us before we go?” Her eyes wandered around the table but then settled on Kara. “How about you, Kara?”
Kara shrugged. “Nothing that I can think of.”
“You sure?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “We’re going to be gone for six weeks, so if there’s any good news, you should get it out now.”
Mack looked confused as he turned to Elodie and then to Kara. “What are you girls talking about?”
It slowly dawned on him as he looked at Kara’s empty wine glass. “Wait a second…”
He looked down at her stomach and Kara’s hand automatically went to it, covering the baby that was growing inside.
His dark green eyes widened. “Are you…?”
She nodded as her cheeks heated up. “I’m pregnant.”
His face lit up in the most beautiful smile she’d ever seen and then he pounced on her, hugging and kissing her and telling her how happy he was.
The whole room erupted into cheers as they all surrounded the happy pregnant couple.
There was only one of them who wasn’t happy.
Kara caught Sloth’s eye as he glared at her from the sofa. The fat orange cat was trying to sleep and he looked like he wasn’t appreciating the noise.
Get used to it, Sloth, she wanted to say to him. You’ll have a whole litter of kids pulling on your plump tail really soon…
The Bounty Hunter series has come to an end, but don’t worry, Bryce will get his own book at a later date. Promise!
Love ya!
Kim Fox
Afterword
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