“We’re going to head to the bar and we’ll try to handle the men as a group. We can get them under control. Hopefully.” Georgia rolled her window down, but the rushing wind still couldn’t hide her sigh.
We were in a mess of trouble. I almost felt like hiding, but I knew it wouldn’t help. I had to face Sam head on and let him see what he was getting himself into.
23
Presley
We piled out of the car to head into The Cave. I led the charge for the simple reason that I felt like I needed to take control. It was my mess that I’d gotten everybody into. I pushed open the bar door and the first thing my eyes landed on shifted the earth beneath my feet. Suddenly, my whole world crumbled. Sam was standing a few feet away with a woman’s arms and legs wrapped around his body and her undulating hips wiggling against his groin.
When he heard me suck in a sharp breath, he jerked his head in my direction. Georgia bumped into me because I’d stopped dead in the doorway. My mate had another woman in his arms. Kyle all over again.
I spun around and met Georgia’s eyes. “Too perfect to be true. Don’t let him follow me. Please.”
As my heart shattered into a million tiny pieces, I ran out of the bar and down the street to my house. I stopped inside only to get my truck keys and then I was off. Flying down the road, away from Burden, Texas as fast as Bessie would take me, I fought hard against the tears that threatened to fall.
I didn’t know where I was going or what I was going to do when I got there. I didn’t have much money and I had no one else to go to. Outside of Burden, I was officially alone. My sisters had turned their backs on me, and I was as good as dead to Father and his flock.
It was humbling, knowing how few people I had in the world. I felt more alone than I had before I’d arrived in Burden. I knew that there were people I could go to. Matt, Georgia, Allie, and the girls would provide a shoulder to cry on in a second, but they weren’t Sam.
I wouldn’t have believed he would do such a thing, yet I couldn’t get the image of the woman in his arms out of my head. Her legs had been wrapped around his waist and her arms were around his neck in a familiar way. I knew without a doubt that they’d been intimate. I didn’t even hang onto Sam like that. Not yet. Not ever, now. That woman, whoever she was, was more familiar with my mate than I was.
A small sign pointed left and directed me to Big Bend. Being raised around the huge park, I knew some things about it. Enough to know that it was dangerous at night if you didn’t know exactly where you were going. I took the unfamiliar road, anyway.
Speeding down the unlit road in the darkness, I could see only a few feet in front of me to determine where I was going. I fumbled at the radio dial until a loud country music song filled the truck. It was a haunting song about raindrops and tears of sorrow. Steering one-handed, I fumbled again for the dial, desperate to change the station.
I looked up just as a huge, dark shadow stumbled into the road in front of me. I slammed on the brakes and jerked the wheel to the side to avoid hitting whatever it was. I lost control of Bessie and barely managed to stop her before she slammed headfirst into a tree.
I sat for a second, took a huge, calming breath, and put her into reverse to maneuver her around and get the headlights pointing in the direction of the shadowy figure. It staggered towards me, and now illuminated, I was able to make out the shape of a grizzly. One paw was clasped over its chest before it went down on all fours. The look in its eyes as it searched for the driver of the truck was too human, too intelligent for me to accept that it was just a bear, now that I knew about shifters.
I opened the truck door and stepped out. “Are you… Are you a shifter?”
As crazy as I felt asking the question, I felt even crazier when the bear nodded at me. I was talking to a grizzly bear. It was answering. I knew it wasn’t Sam because this bear was darker in color and its eyes were the palest green I’d ever seen. It may have been one of his friends, though.
“What can I do to help?”
As the bear staggered closer, through its matted fur, I could see blood oozing from its chest.
I jumped into action right away, feeling like I was going to throw up, but knowing that I had to help. “Can you make it to the back of my truck? I know a vet. He’s a shifter, too. He’ll know what to do.”
The bear swayed and I stupidly wedged my 140lb body against its 400lb frame, thinking I might help prop it up. Duh. I stayed there, though, glued to its side until we got to the rear of my truck. When I dropped the tailgate, it slowly, laboriously hoisted itself up until it lay immobile across the bed. I pushed and pulled at the bear’s back feet trying to get them in, but it had evidently lost consciousness because it didn’t respond to my prodding. Finally, I was able to move its feet enough to slam the gate closed before getting back into the cab of the truck.
My hands shook as I looked around the cab for something to use to wipe the blood off them. In the end, I had to settle for wiping them on my jeans. I slid open the back window so I could call to animal, as I sped back towards Burden.
“Just hold on, okay? You’ll be good as new in no time.” I prayed it wasn’t dead.
The tires squealed as I turned and flew down Matt’s driveway, laying on the horn the whole way. When he stumbled out, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, I hollered out the window for him to meet me at the clinic. I prayed as hard as I ever had for the shifter in the back of my truck. I didn’t know who it was, but I desperately wanted them to live.
Matt pulled into the clinic parking lot only seconds behind me and rushed to my side as I jumped out. “What in the holy hell is going on?”
I ran to the back of the truck and opened the tailgate. “I found it on the road towards Big Bend. I think… I think it’s been shot. It’s a shifter, Matt. Can you help?”
Matt stood there, motionless, staring down at the bear in front of us with wide eyes and a slack mouth. He stood frozen like that for several seconds until the bear chuffed in pain. The sound jettisoned him into action. “Go get the cart!”
I snatched his keys from him and ran for all I was worth. Forgetting about my own problems for the moment, I focused on helping Matt save the bear. With great effort, we were able to slide the cart, inch by inch under the bear and finally get him out of the truck and into the clinic. Matt knelt on the floor beside him and worked at examining the gunshot wound.
He quickly concurred that it was the result of a bullet hole and gently and carefully dug at the wound until he’d located and removed the small piece of metal. By the time he was hooking the bear up to an IV and worked at cleaning and dressing the wound, he had calmed considerably.
“What’s the prognosis?”
Matt looked up at me, startled, like he hadn’t realized I was still in the room. “What?”
“The shifter? Will he be okay?”
His eyes went back to the bear and he nodded. “He’ll be fine. Shifters heal faster than humans. This injury will surely keep him down for a while, but as soon as I got the bullet out, I noticed his tissues were already starting to mend themselves. I’m going to stay by his side. If he makes it through tonight, he’ll be fine, for sure.”
I nodded. “Do you know him?”
Matt shook his head, his eyes never leaving the large creature. “No.”
The front door to the clinic burst open and Georgia and Allie stumbled in. Matt growled viciously and put himself between them and the injured bear. When he saw it was just the girls, his growl turned considerably less menacing and he turned his back to them.
“Sam is headed towards Macon’s Edge, Presley.”
My heart stopped for what felt like the hundredth time that day. “What?”
Allie stepped forward. “He made us tell him what happened. He was so angry that he wouldn’t listen to reason. We all tried to stop him, but he’s got it out for your dad Pres. He just jumped in his truck and headed towards Macon’s Edge.”
Georgia nodded. “And that bitch Kelly who was
all over him, honey, the guys all said the same thing. She jumped on him, but he was prying her off when you walked in. He didn’t do anything wrong, Pres.”
None of it mattered if he got himself killed while trying to confront Father. I couldn’t get the image of a bear bleeding from a gunshot wound to the chest out of my head, but this time, in the image, the bear was Sam. Feeling wild with fear, I ran out of the clinic and jumped into Bessie. Heading to Macon’s Edge for the second time that night, I just hoped it worked out better this time.
24
Presley
I hadn’t even realized that Georgia and Allie had followed until I slammed Bessie into park beside Sam’s truck and ran towards the sounds of shouting. The girls fell in behind me as I ran and, as we turned the corner around my family’s home and caught sight of scene before us, we all froze.
Six large snarling grizzly bears were circling Father, growling and pawing the ground like they were wild animals. I recognized Sam’s bear immediately. I would put a stop to this madness.
“Presley, what are you doing?” One of my sisters screamed from the safety of the porch.
I ignored her and kept walking until I was inside the ring of bears and stood facing Sam. “What are you doing?”
His big eyes moved over my face and he threw his head back and roared into the night sky.
I put my hands on my hips. “It has been a trying and exhausting night, one of the longest nights of my life. I feel a migraine coming on. I cannot watch you eat Father. I’m pretty sure he would taste sour, anyway. Can we please, pretty please, drop this and call it a night?”
Georgia laughed softly behind me. “Presley pulled up her Wonder Woman britches tonight, huh?”
Father looked up at me from his spot on the ground, and whimpered. “What’s happening, Presley?”
I glared down at him. “It’s the end of times Father, you mean old coot. This is my bear. He will eat you, sour taste or not, if you ever lay a hand on me again.”
Father shook. “What is this? What did you do?”
I rolled my eyes. It felt so good, I did it twice. “I’ve been frightened of you my entire life. My larger than life father, fearless leader of his flock. Now it just seems ludicrous. You’re nothing but a cruel, hateful, pathetic old man who exploits people’s insecurities and weaknesses. Don’t worry about ever seeing my face again. I’ll never set foot in Macon’s Edge again so long as I live. This was all the closure I needed. I’m done.”
Sam nudged me with his wet nose and whined. He was sniffing my blood-smeared jeans. I looked down at him and sighed. The night still wasn’t over.
“Alright, everyone. Go home. Show’s over.” I gently grabbed a handful of Sam’s fur and pulled him away from Father, who I was pretty sure had peed himself.
Not satisfied to just turn and leave, Sam leaned over Father’s face and growled one more time. He was inches from Father’s nose, and spittle hit him and rolled down his chin. Father began sobbing, covering his face with his hands. That would be the mental image I would carry of the man who has frightened and shamed me my whole life.
The bears were naked men as soon as we turned the corner. Sterling took a giggling Ophelia into his arms and then they were off, doing god knows what. The rest of them piled into vehicles.
With a simple nod towards Sam, Wyatt lifted Georgia into Sam’s truck, and seated himself on the driver’s side. Before I fully understood what had transpired, Wyatt, Georgia, and the rest of the gang were gone, leaving Sam and me standing next to Bessie.
I put the truck between us and stared at him over the hood. He was beautiful in the moonlight and I was struggling to remember what I was upset about.
His eyes trailed down my body and he tipped his head back as he inhaled. “What happened? I smell Matt and someone else on you. Blood. Talk.”
I gave him a growl of my own and climbed into the truck, figuring he would get in. I didn’t want to spend one more second in Macon’s Edge.
He got in and slammed his door shut. “What happened, Presley? Talk to me. Right now.”
I drove back towards the clinic at a slower pace and tried to calm my racing heart. Being so close to Sam while I was still angry with him was causing a strange reaction in my body. I wanted things that I had no business wanting in that moment.
“After I saw you with that woman all over you, I went for a drive.” I didn’t want to admit to him that I’d been running away blindly. I’d found my pride tonight, and it was screaming at me to be strong. “A bear fell into the road. It was a shifter. He was hurt. I took him to Matt and we worked on fixing him up. I’m going back there now, to make sure Matt’s okay alone with him. He’d been shot in the chest. The bear, I mean.”
“You got out with a strange, injured bear shifter?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Presley, you could’ve been seriously hurt. When bears are that injured, they can be feral. Jesus, you could’ve been killed.”
“Well, I wasn’t.”
“Thank goodness. As for Kelly, I didn’t-”
“Kelly?! I knew you’d been with her.” The words flew out before I could stop them.
“Presley, I didn’t do anything, I promise you. She jumped on me while I was leaving to find you. When you walked in, I was pulling her off me and telling her that I was happily taken.”
“But you’ve been intimate with her before.”
He sighed. “If you want to call it that, yes. A while ago. Before I knew you, Presley. I’ve been patiently waiting for you to learn to trust me, but I’m at my wit’s end right now. You smell like other men, you’re covered in blood, you have a black eye and a swollen lip, and all I want to do is drag you back to my house to hold you and comfort you, and make sure you’re okay, but you’re pissed off about something that isn’t real. I want you. I also desperately want you to believe in me. That means that I’m yours. You’re mine. We’re together, no matter what. There’s no one else for either of us. Get it through your head, Presley. I love you. I’m not going to throw this away for some random bar-hoe. There is only you for me.”
I slammed on the brakes and turned to face him. “What did you say?”
He threw his hands up. “I said that I desperately want you to realize that I’m not-”
“Not that! You said you love me.”
“Oh.” He stopped for a second and then nodded. “Yeah. I do. I love you. I went out today and looked at land. I found a place and made an offer. I figured you could sit down with an architect and design your dream house. Whatever you want. Get it? I want you forever.”
I wiggled in excitement and squeaked when Bessie accelerated. I pulled over, braked and put her in park. “You found land for us?”
He nodded and reached out. He was still naked, a fact that I hadn’t missed, but it didn’t stop him from dragging me into his lap. “Yes. We’re doing this. Are you ready?”
The tears that I’d held back all night finally started to fall. “Not at all, but I’m hearing that you’re not concerned about whether I’m ready or not.”
He laughed and brushed my hair out of my face. “I’ll drag you along if I have to. This is meant to be and we’re doing it. I want you. I will always want you. When I saw you tonight, when I saw your injured face, I forgot there was even a woman latching herself onto me. The fact that someone had hurt you sent me into a tailspin. I was going to kill him, Presley.”
I rested my head on his shoulder. “I’m glad you didn’t. The last thing Macon’s Edge needs is a martyr.”
He kissed the side of my head. “I’ll let you say that’s the only reason you wanted to save him.”
I sighed. “He’s awful, Sam, but he’s still my father. And he’s a human being. I don’t want to see him again, but I feel better after tonight. That’s all I needed. I could feel the shift in power tonight. I held the cards, and he would’ve agreed to anything tonight to avoid being eaten by bears.”
“You are powerful. You’re a strong and powerful ma
te.”
“I didn’t want his death on your conscious, either.”
He tucked his finger under my chin and lifted my face to his. “As long as I protect you, my conscious is clear.”
I kissed him and then pulled back. “We’re not done talking about that woman.”
He growled and kissed me harder. “We really are.”
25
Sam
“Where are you going?” I called to Presley as she slid from under the sheets.
“Mind your own business, bear.” She giggled as she danced into the kitchen.
I stretched and sat up, scooting higher in the bed until I was sitting against the headboard. My little mate was blossoming more and more every day. She’d gotten feistier and everything snarky she said to me got my dick hard. I loved watching her find her own way. It was a beautiful thing. I was ready for us to have a house built, though. I didn’t want any more my house and her house. I wanted our house and our things. I’d jumped headfirst into being mates and I was ready for everything that came with it. Marriage, if she wanted, babies, all of it.
Presley appeared in the doorway, wearing nothing and holding a can of whipped cream. “I have an idea.”
I choked on my spit and tripped over the sheet in my rush to get out of bed and to her. Making a fool of myself, I sat on the end of the bed and stared at her. “What is it?”
She was still giggling, her cheeks red. “I want to see if you taste good with whipped cream. Stand up.”
I did as she said. “Pres?”
She sauntered over to me and sprayed a drop of the cream onto my chest. Using her tongue to lick it off, she moaned and nodded to herself. “Yeah, you taste really good like this.”
I tried to kiss her, but she spun away from my kiss and wagged her finger at me.
Bears of Burden Complete Series Box Set Page 48