Bears of Burden Complete Series Box Set

by Candace Ayers

  Thorn, Allie’s mate, appeared behind her, looking tired. He owned the bar and I could only guess why he was tired. We’d been causing quite the ruckus lately. Just the night before, I’d fallen off the bar after a handful of us were playing Coyote Ugly, but I caught myself, momentarily, on a light fixture. Then, it and I had crashed to the floor.

  I’d been more embarrassed about that earlier. I’d even written him an apology. I patted my body, looking for the card, but I couldn’t find it. “I have a card for you, Thorny. It’s an apology for breaking your bar.”

  Allie started laughing so hard that she fell over next to me. She might’ve been a little drunk, too. “Virgin Veronica?”

  I made a gag face and rolled my eyes. “That’s what the kids in high school called me. They were such troglodytes.”

  Thorn sighed. It was a big sigh. A sigh meant to show those around him that he was getting fed up. He looked up and then a flash of relief lit his face. “Hutch, give me a hand, man.”

  My body froze over, then fire burned through my loins in a flash-thaw. I shook my head and rolled to my hands and knees. “Nope. I’m fine. I’m going to crawl over to my purse and find your card. I’ll sit there until the room stops spinning, then I’ll walk home. Thanks, though.”

  Allie grabbed the back hem of my dress and tugged it down. I’d borrowed it from her best friend, Georgia, and it was much shorter than I was used to. She giggled and patted my butt. “You’re flashing the bar, Ronnie.”

  I looked back at her and let a goofy smile tilt my mouth. “It’s okay. I wear really cute panties.”

  She fell back, clutching her stomach in laughter. Thorn sighed again. I just continued crawling away—anything to get away from Hutch Mallory. Just thinking the name made me stumble, and I was on my hands and knees. It wasn’t exactly easy to stumble when you were that close to the ground already.

  A pair of boots and heels crossed in front of me and I held up a hand in a wave. “Don’t mind me. Just crawling here.”

  A growl sounded from behind me and I felt the sound reverberate through me, straight to the tips of my toes. My body reacted the way it did anytime I was within fifty feet of Hutch. Which, to be fair, had only ever been a couple of times. The man was expert at avoiding me—and I was great at taking a hint.

  I crawled faster and then pulled myself up the table, without managing to tip it over. I plopped myself into a chair, my back firmly turned to Hutch, and made a big show of dusting my knees and hands off. “Thorny, you might want to sweep more often. It’s probably not code to have so much trash on the floor.”

  More laughter from Allie on the floor. “Help me up, Thorny. Thorn. Hawthorne, Hawthorne-y.” Yep, she was drunk, too.

  I grabbed my purse and looked through it with rubbery hands that didn’t seem to want to fully cooperate. When I felt the card, I grabbed it, meaning to just pull it out and hold it in the air. It had other plans. It went sailing across the bar and vanished. I giggled and held up empty hands. “Sorry, Thorny. I seem to have misplaced your apology card. I think I can remember what I wrote, though, if you’d like me to recite it.”

  Allie appeared in the seat next to me, via Thorn’s big arms. He looked down at me, fighting the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Sure, Ronnie, go ahead.”

  I nodded and thought about it. I chewed on my bottom lip, trying to work backwards to the moment I’d written the card. My brain usually worked marvelously. I was super sharp, top of my graduating class, but it seemed to have lost its edge when it was soaked in liquor. I slumped in my chair and pouted. “Well, shoot. I can’t remember a single word.”

  He laughed, actually laughed. “Not a single word?”

  I waved my hands and grinned. “No, I remember part of it!”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and nodded. “Okay. Let’s hear it.”

  Just as fast as the thought entered my head, it flew out. I made an annoyed face and sighed. “It left.”

  “What left?”

  “The part I remembered.”

  He was laughing so hard that his large body was shaking and tears pooled in his eyes. Allie wasn’t much better. “Where did it go?”

  “No clue,” I shrugged, “It flew across the room somewhere when I tried to get it out of my purse. When it migrates back home, I’ll let y’all know.”

  A few of the other girls showed back up at the table, including Marley Dunham, the only friend I’d had in Burden, Texas, until a few days ago, when Georgia had found me in the library. Marley sat beside me and touched my hair. “You look so pretty like this, Veronica, you’re going to drive all the men crazy.”

  Thorn snorted and then whispered something to Allie that had her blushing before he walked off. She watched him go and fanned herself.

  I tugged my lip between my teeth and then leaned into her. “You’re so lucky.”

  She glanced back at me and nodded. “I am. My man is hot.”

  I shook my head. “I mean, you’re lucky that he wants you like he does.”

  She frowned and tugged on my new short hair. “There’s someone out there for you, too, Ronnie.”

  I chanced a glance over my shoulder to see Hutch’s massive form hulking at his table, looking stiff and angry. There was someone out there for me alright, I knew that, but he didn’t want me. I turned back to Allie and nodded. “Right. Maybe. Maybe there is someone out there for me.”

  2

  Hutch

  Black fucking lace, and little. Teeny-tiny. So fucking tiny there was barely anything there. My brain was burning itself up over the image of Veronica Maddox’s panties. Every time I blinked, I could see them, barely covering her perfect, heart-shaped ass wiggling back and forth as she crawled on hands and knees across the bar floor. It was sheer torture.

  My dick had hardened the moment I’d stepped into the bar and scented her, but seeing her like that… Fuck, I was sporting a steel hard-on that didn’t seem to have any desire to fade. I should’ve turned and walked out as soon as I realized she was here. I should’ve run back to my house and barricaded the damned door.

  Why was she even here? She never came to the bar. The bar was mine—my territory. Over the past year, we’d silently negotiated who got what. She got the library, the salon, and the girly shit like that. I got the fucking bar. She was breaking all the rules by being there.

  I was sitting as close as possible to the table so no one noticed the embarrassing erection threatening to rip through my jeans. My mood had soured beyond belief and all I wanted to do was get the hell out of there. Well, that’s not all I wanted to do… those damned tiny panties.

  Thorn sat down and rubbed his jaw. He was grinning, which was unusual for him. “I’ll be damned if I don’t like that girl.”

  I stiffened and tightened my grip on my beer. “Who?”

  He nodded behind me, to the spot where I could practically feel Veronica sitting. She was too close, too damned close. She was driving me crazy. “Ronnie. Veronica. The librarian. Yesterday, I thought I was going to throttle her, but tonight, she’s like a little kitten.”

  There was nothing kitten-like about those panties. Those were full blown tiger. Who was she wearing those panties for? Was there some fuck-wad in Burden who spent time peeling them down her smooth, soft thighs?

  “You missed the show last night. She was on the bar, dancing with the rest of the population of newly bold and brazen women in this town, when she just fell off. The only person close enough to reach her was Sterling and he had his tongue down someone’s throat, so she was just going to eat it. Like magic, she reached up and grabbed the light above the bar. I don’t even know how she reached it, man. Cost me five hundred bucks and a favor to Jerry for doing the repair so quickly, but I’m not even pissed.

  “Allie seems to really like her and, I’ll be honest, I think if I’d had a kid sister, she would’ve been a lot like Ronnie.”

  A headache was forming in the middle of my forehead. A nasty one. In fact, not a headache, a stee
l spike through the forehead. I sat back in my chair and swore. “When did you get so fucking sappy?”

  Sterling chose that moment to sit down and looked at me with a frown on his face. “Something crawl up your ass, big guy?”

  Thorn snorted. “Must’ve. Why else would he be acting like such a ball sack?”

  “I saw Wyatt carrying Georgia home on my way in. He didn’t even notice me. Looks like we lost another one to his mate.” Sam plopped into his chair next to me and looked around. “What the fuck? Why does everyone look so annoyed?”

  A giggle came from behind me and Sterling turned his head. “Damn. Who’s the chick with Allie?”

  Thorn grinned. “That’s Ronnie Maddox, the librarian.”

  Sterling’s mouth dropped. “No way. I mean, not that the messy bun and huge glasses weren’t cute, but da-yum, she is smoking hot. I’m going to go talk to her.”

  Thorn grabbed his arm and pulled him back into his seat. “No, you’re not.”

  I heard a crack and looked down at my beer bottle. Beer spilled out from where I’d squeezed too hard and cracked the neck right off. Cursing, I scooted back from the table as cold beer spilled into my lap. I stood up and yanked my wallet from my back pocket, threw a twenty on the table for the beer and for the cleanup and stormed out of the front door without looking back.

  I needed to get out of there. Veronica ruined it. I couldn’t be there if she was going to be in the same room, sitting behind me, giggling and showing off her new haircut and tiny panties. Jesus, that woman was going to be the death of me.

  She’d taken my breath away before, as she lurked in the shadows of the library in baggy clothes and glasses so big they nearly ate her entire face, but I’d controlled myself. I hadn’t given in to instinct. I didn’t know she had those sexy little panties, either. Fucking sexy little panties.

  I shook my head and climbed on my Harley. A good long ride would do me good. My bear perked up minimally. He hadn’t wanted much to do with me this past year since I let him know in no uncertain terms that we would not be pursuing our mate. A ride might take the edge off.

  The bike roared to life just as the door of the bar opened and Veronica spilled out with a few other women. A group of guys following them, slack jawed and drooling. Veronica glanced over at me and quickly jerked her head the other way.

  Good. That was the way it should be, I thought. Stay away from me. Make both our lives a little easier.

  Then, something happened. Something that hit me in the stomach like a metal fist. Her head snapped back around to me, her new ear-length bob flying around her face, and she met my eyes. With a glaring scowl, she turned back around and bent over at the waist before lifting the back of her dress and mooning me.

  My bear roared and my dick perked up, pulsing painfully in my jeans. I wanted to take that girl over my knee and redden her pale, plump ass cheeks. I wanted to sink my teeth into her soft flesh. Fuck.

  I sat there, mouth agape, staring like a dumb-fuck, as she stood back up, turned to face me, and flipped me the bird before linking arms with Marley, the chick from the grocery store, and sassily skipping off towards her house.

  3

  Veronica

  I woke up with another hangover, but with neither remorse nor guilt for my wild behavior the night before. Even as my head throbbed, I couldn’t help the hoarse laugh that threatened to send me running to the toilet as my head pulsed painfully at the sound. I kicked my blanket off and looked down to find I’d stripped myself down to my panties before crawling into bed the night before. I’d also left the bedroom curtains wide open.

  I grabbed the bed sheet and tucked it up around my chin before peeking out the window. My house faced Main Street, the bedroom windows looking out over my postage stamp-sized front yard and out onto the street. I had a nosey paperboy who I’d witnessed peeking into my room before—not that I thought he was some pervert, or anything. It was probably just human nature and curiosity.

  I leaned over the side of my bed and searched for my discarded clothes. When I came up empty handed, I slunk out of my bed, to the floor and crawled across to the curtains. I ascended to my knees to check the street out front for any sign of life. Nothing. I stood, grabbing the curtain to close it.

  As I reached for the curtain, a hot flush coursed through me. What the—Hutch. He was stepping out the front door of the house across the street. His eyes were glued to me and I swear I could feel his growl rumble through me from where I stood in my bedroom.

  Panic, hot and tingly panic, coursed through my veins. Self-preservation told me to get down and hide from the big, bad seriously-scary biker, Hutch Mallory, but I was in the midst of reinventing myself. I was the girl who danced on bars, although not well, and mooned a man and flipped him the bird because, well, because to heck and back with him. Virgin Veronica was gone.

  Well, technically, she was still intact, but she was a whole new woman now.

  Instead of dropping to my knees and hiding, I dropped the sheet, and glared at him with my hands on my hips. Hutch was my mate. He didn’t know I knew that, but I wasn’t a fool. I’d lived in Burden long enough to know that there were plenty of people in this town who weren’t quite human. I’d watched couples pair off and had done research enough to know that they were mates. I’d read about the way mates reacted to each other. It was the way I’d reacted to Hutch the first time we’d met. It was undeniable—for me. Hutch had apparently not felt the same. The man was my mate, yet he couldn’t seem to stand the idea of touching me.

  It figured that I’d have a mate who couldn’t stand to be near me. I was destined to be a virgin for the rest of my life. How pathetic.

  So, yeah, I was angry with him. I’d played it his way and practically hidden from him, like he liked. I didn’t do anything that might make him uncomfortable, avoided anywhere we might run into each other. I hid in my own town to make life easier for him. Why? Because I was a placating dweeb. But, not anymore.

  I slowly raised my hand and extended my middle finger. I watched his face turn from shock to anger and it lit something inside of me on fire. Good. I wanted him to feel as hurt and angry as I had been this past year.

  Feeling satisfied, like I’d completed my mission for the day, I reached up and snapped the curtains closed before entering my bathroom and starting the shower. My skin was flushed and I felt a little dizzy. Maybe I was still drunk.

  I took a long shower, using all the fancy soaps and shampoos that I loved. I took my time shaving and then walked around my bedroom, letting my body air dry before slipping into a fancy lingerie set that was more straps than solid fabric. Fancy lingerie was my one vice, and this set did things for my breasts that felt sinful.

  I opened my closet and peered in. Everything was plain. That had been my style. I’d spent my whole life blending in and just being comfortable. My older sister, Jenni, was the one in the family who’d consumed the entire family’s clothing budget while we were growing up. I’d been fine with my older sisters’ hand-me-downs. That mentality stuck as I’d grown older.

  I was quiet. I liked books and spent an ungodly amount of time with my head stuck between the pages of one. You didn’t have to dress up to read.

  Seeing the way Georgia dressed, even to walk to the grocery store, made me think. Maybe it was time I started putting some effort into my appearance. She always looked beautiful, coiffed and put together constantly. I wanted to look like that.

  I stared in my full-length mirror and swung my head from side to side, watching the way my jet-black hair swayed. I’d been drunk when I told Brandi, at the salon, to chop my hair off. It was during a salon party that Georgia had planned and dragged me to. I’d worn it long my whole life. I always wore it the same way, in a messy bun. Now, I looked almost exotic. It fell just below my ears, contouring my jawline, in a blunt bob. My hair moved when I did and the bangs that fringed across my forehead were heavy and made me feel edgy. I looked my age for once.

  The clean lines accentuated my
high cheekbones, and the bangs drew attention to my jade-green eyes. Who knew one haircut could take a girl from plain Jane to an exotic temptress? I loved it.

  I pushed around the clothes in my closet until I came up with an old pair of cut off jean shorts and an old T-shirt. I took out a pair of scissors and chopped both up. When I was done, the shorts stopped just under my ass and the shirt had a new, daring neckline that showed some of the straps of my bra. I tied it at my waist in a little knot and then looked in the mirror again.

  I looked daring, bold, confident. I looked like someone I would’ve been scared to talk to the week before. This girl wouldn’t be too shy to face a big man who was being a horse’s hiney to her. This girl would face off with him and come out on top. She’d be daring. She’d be fearless. No one would deign to call her Virgin Veronica or any such ridiculousness.

  I giggled, then pouted at myself. Okay, so I wasn’t going to change completely overnight. I was still a quiet, brainy girl who giggled too much. Baby steps.

  Although, nothing about the past few days felt like baby steps. Georgia had shown up at the library, looking for outdoor and nature books, and instantly announced that we were going to be friends. Within minutes, she had invited me to a girls’ night out with her. Something about her bubbly personality made me say yes. That, and I’d grown lonely over the past year or so that I’d been living in Burden.

  I loved Burden for its quiet, but it was starting to wear on me. So, I went out with the girls that night. Introductions led to shots. Shots led to dancing together in ways I’d only seen on TV. That led to doing embarrassing things that seemed to bond us.

  When Georgia showed up at the library the next day to collect me, it’d been natural to agree to whatever shenanigans she had concocted. It was easy to be a little crazy around Georgia, and I found myself desperate for that little bit of crazy.

  It was Sunday and the library was closed, so I normally did my grocery shopping. Instead, this morning I was meeting Allie at Thorn’s house for coffee. A few days into the brand-new Veronica and I already had girlfriends inviting me over to talk about the crazy goings on from the night before.