Chance Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire 6) (15 page)

Chance was angry.

Oh, he was being professional with the Rodericks, but he’d barely spared a kind word for Emily.

He was riding beside his clients in a wide meadow, talking and laughing with them while Emily trailed behind on a red horse with a snow cap of polka dots on her back end.

Rosy, the skittish little appaloosa, pranced under her. Out of all the mounts, she was the least well-behaved, and from the hard glance Chance shot her over his shoulder, Emily was also pretty sure he’d given her this horse as punishment. Rosy tossed her head and blasted a snort, then turned and tried to bite her leg for the tenth time in the last four hours, the little cretin.

Emily grumbled a curse and yanked the reins the other way, to which Rosy responded by sidestepping off the trail and then refusing to go another inch until she finished making a monstrous pile of smelly meadow muffins. The other horses pooped as they went, but not her Rosy. She apparently needed privacy and grass to eat when she did her business.

When Chance let off a shrill whistle, Rosy lurched forward and made her way back onto the trail without Emily’s guidance. Another hard look from Chance, and this was all going swimmingly well.

She’d been miserable since the moment she’d admitted her plan to Chance in the barn. He’d been upset and hurt, and then furious and protective. It had been all she could do not to get him to call off the fishing trip, but if they didn’t take the shot now, they would be looking over their shoulders for the rest of Uncle Victor’s life.

The Rodericks were stopped on their matching dapple-gray horses up ahead. Chance turned his bay and nudged him into a trot, pulling the paint packhorse behind him. God, he was artistry in a saddle. Under the bill of his baseball cap, his eyes were steady, human green, and his mouth was drawn into a thin line. His broad shoulders were relaxed against the thin material of his gunmetal gray sweater, and his body swayed gracefully in the saddle with the smooth gait of his horse. The nightmare flashed across her mind again, and she shook her head, dislodging the memory of him hanging from that noose. He was here, he was okay, his horse was a dark bay instead of the white horses the Hell Hunters used to ride, and there was only one hooded asshole after them, not several like in her dream.

Chance took a wide circle around her and settled into step beside her.

Abby whistled from up ahead and waggled her eyebrows at Emily like she was about to get kissed by the guide. Too bad Chance would bite her right now if she tried.

“Keep up,” he growled.

“Don’t be rude,” she whispered. He would hear it, and she wasn’t in the mood to get filleted again. “It’s not my fault you gave me the grumpiest horse.”

“Woman, I gave you the fastest horse.”

Emily frowned and shielded her eyes from the high sun. “What?”

Chance pulled so close her leg got squished between the horses. Leaning over, Chance gripped the back of her neck, pulling her to him and almost off balance. “All I want to do is ride behind you and keep you safe from whatever hell is coming, Em. The horse isn’t punishment.” He eased back and let the pressure off her leg, but now his eyes looked too light. “I’m clawing out of my skin to keep you safe, but you said we have to act normal. Keep up, or I won’t be able to hold up my end of this show.” Chance nudged his horse forward, and he trotted away with one last bright-eyed fiery look over his shoulder at her.

Well, okay then. Maybe he wasn’t as mad at her as he was fighting with his wolf for his skin. Today was going to suck for both of them.

With a clicking sound behind her teeth, she kicked Rosy into a trot behind the pack horse Chance was pulling and caught up with the others. Now that she knew her horse wasn’t just the delinquent of the lodge’s small herd, she saw the head-tossing appaloosa differently. She was a gift. She was a silent
I love you
from Chance. Leaning forward, she patted her neck and crooned, “Goood, Spotted Rose. Goood Rosy.”

Rosy tried to bite her again, but Emily got all mushy. She would deem them love bites from here on.

Chance jumped into a history of the area and of the gold rush in Alaska, and Emily relaxed in the saddle and really looked at their surroundings for the first time. The trail was muddy, but the ground was covered in vibrant green grass that was growing thick with the runoff from the melted snow and the abundant sunshine above. The deeper green of the pine trees was a gorgeous contrast, and all around them, mountains jutted out of the land and were capped with snow.

“Bald eagles,” Chance said, pointing at a pair of massive white-headed birds of prey flying gracefully overhead.

“Oh, I’ve never seen one in real life!” Abby exclaimed, pulling her camera up to snap a few shots. “That alone was worth the trip. This wasn’t my idea,” she admitted. “Chuck is the outdoorsman of our family, but we decided when we first got married we would try out each other’s interests together.”

“You’ll be glad you did,” Chance promised.

“I already am,” Abby said through a smile for her husband beside her.

“What interests do you have to participate in?” Emily asked Chuck.

“I have an appointment to get my first tattoo the week we get back.”

Abby squealed an excited noise, and Rosy blasted another moody snort.

Petting Rosy’s neck, Emily asked curiously, “How did you two meet?” A good old country boy and a pink-haired, tatted-up pin-up girl were definitely a striking couple. Chuck was all camo and hiking boots and beard, and Abby was piercings, bright red lipstick, and thick eyeliner over her baby blues.

“We grew up in the same town if you can believe it,” Abby said through a laugh. “We were small town, and I liked him so much when we were in school, but the timing was never right for us to date. When one of us was single, the other was dating someone—you know how it goes. So after graduation, he stayed put and picked up construction work, and I moved to the city and found myself.” Abby tossed a grin over her shoulder at Emily. “I loved the city, but I got lonely and couldn’t figure out why. I had all these friends, you know? This great social life and parties all the time. I majored in art in college and got an apprenticeship at a tattoo parlor right after graduation. And yeah, I get that I didn’t need the degree to tattoo, but I kind of found the scene when I was a junior in college and fell in love with body art.”

Emily smiled and relaxed into Abby’s story as Chance slowed and slipped his horse beside hers. He squeezed her leg with an apologetic look on his face. Emily lifted his knuckles and kissed his hand quick. Nothing to forgive. He was worried, and so was she. There was no wrong or right way to handle this trip.

“…so then I was like, it’s our five year reunion, and I have no reason to go back to my hometown except for one thing.”

Chuck twisted in his saddle and gave them a grin. “And that reason was me. She couldn’t get this old boy out of her head all those years. So we met up at the reunion, and we’ve been inseparable ever since. My mom just about shit herself when she saw Abby for the first time. I love her tattoos and piercings. I think they’re sexy as fuck and fit her personality, but she sticks out in our town. My girl is adaptable though, and she set up the Tattoo Barn right next to the tobacco shop and liquor store, and now she’s a bona fide business woman.” There was such deep pride in Chuck’s voice when he spoke about his wife. “And now everyone is used to the hair and the tats, and you should see my girl in the grocery store. You’d think she was queen of our town, holding court.”

Abby laughed. “Not quite. I just like talking. I’d missed that small town feel and hadn’t even realized it. I like going to the store and knowing most everyone in there. So if you ever need a tattoo, you come see me down in the lower forty-eight, okay?” she asked Emily. “I’ll give you a real good deal and paint your skin up pretty.”

“I approve,” Chance said, and there was that heart-stopping grin of his that she’d missed all morning. “Em would look hot with some ink.”

“Yeah she would,” Abby said, stripping out of her purple hoodie. The direct sunlight was warming up the land nicely. “Hey, how did you get into”—she waved her hand around the wilderness—“being a mountain man?”

“Ha!” Chance laughed, the single syllable echoing through the valley. With a wink at Emily, he said, “I guess I was just kind of born with an instinct for guiding.” Wily wolf. “That and I’m related to Dalton.”

“Dalton the dark-haired, Native American looking guide is related to you?” Abby asked, her eyes gone round.

“Yes ma’am. He’s my cousin. More like brother, though, and when he started getting an interest in guiding, well I thought that was the perfect profession, and we could just work together and be a couple of bachelors drinkin’ beer every night and hunting and fishing every day. That was the dream.”

“And how’d that work out for you?” Chuck asked.

“We drink beer and hunt and fish a lot, but it’s a lot more work than that.”

“And as you could tell from dinner last night, they like to give each other shit all the time,” Emily said through a laugh.

“Yeah, and you didn’t stay bachelors,” Abby said, swatting a fly from in front of her face.

“No, ma’am, we didn’t. I held on longer than Dalton though. He and his lady have a baby on the way.” Chance’s voice had gone low.

“Aw, you’ll be kind of like an uncle then!” Abby said.

“You want to see a picture of her? Hang on.” Chance pulled his phone from his back pocket. That thing had zero bars way out here, but he pulled up his pictures just fine. “I took this one when Kate told Dalton she was pregnant. He’s been wanting to be a daddy for a long time.”

Chance handed over the camera, and Abby let off a long, mushy, “Awww,” showed Chuck, then handed the phone to Emily.

In the picture, Dalton was down on his knees kissing Kate’s belly while she had her hands resting on his head, twin tears streaming down her face. It was such a poignant moment it drew stuttering breath from Emily’s lips. She’d seen Dalton funny and sarcastic, but she hadn’t seen this vulnerable, tender side of him.

She handed Chance his phone as another wave of nerves washed over her. Dalton was out in these woods right now, watching them, in harm’s way, and he had a pregnant wife waiting for him back in Galena. She would
not
let anything happen to Chance or Dalton. Would not.

Chance was watching her with a troubled look, but she shook her head. Softly, so the Rodericks wouldn’t hear from in front, she whispered, “That’s going to be us someday.”

Chance’s face went slack, and his eyes widened for an instant before his shocked expression gave way to a slow smile. “Really?” With a nod, she handed the phone back to him, and Chance looked down at the screen for a few moments before he looked back up at her and asked again louder, “Really?”

With a thick laugh, she reached for his hand and squeezed. This was her oath. She would keep him and Dalton safe, would make sure the pack stayed whole, and someday, she would be good enough for Chance to give her a claiming mark. She would bear him a pup and be the luckiest woman on earth that he’d chosen her to be the mother of his child. There was work to do yet, but someday, somehow, they would have their moment where she would tell him he was going to be a father.

“Jesus, woman, I won’t be able to think on anything else now,” he murmured with a faraway look at the mountains beyond the valley.

Chance was quiet over the next hour as she chatted with Chuck and Abby, and in that time, they rode over some indescribably beautiful scenery. She’d known Alaska had places like this—a paradise far removed from any city—but she’d never seen it with her own eyes until now. This wasn’t what she’d expected when she’d booked the tour with Chance. She’d only had thoughts for spending time with him and getting a first-hand account of what he did for a living, but this was incredible.

He was confident, straight-backed in the saddle, always scanning the woods and listening with those heightened senses of his, always pointing out little animals that she would’ve never seen otherwise, and never once did he look at a map as he led them through winding animal trails. Chance knew this land like the back of his hand. That much was clear, along with his obvious love for this stretch of wilderness. He was at home here and, damn, it was a sight to see her man in the heart of the country he loved. As they rode their horses across a babbling stream, the ground around them turned mossy, and the landscape morphed into such a bright green it was almost too beautiful to look at. Birds called out to each other in the canopy above as Emily rode beside Chance, her saddle creaking under her shifting weight. Rosy splashed her hoof into the river, and she laughed at how silly her naughty horse was being. Rosy took a deep drink, then went back to splashing while the other horses drank their fill and moved out of the cold water.

Chance took a sharp right and led them along a riverbank for ten minutes before he gestured for them to stop. “We’ll sleep at a place called Wolf Camp tonight, and we still have a bit to go, but this spot up here is special. It’s a honey hole I found a few seasons ago, and it doesn’t get fished often, so I want to see if we can get somethin’ on your line.”

“I’m in,” Chuck said, sliding from his horse.

“Get your waders on, and I’ll get your poles ready. We’ll fish for an hour and then do lunch before we head out again.”