Colby (BBW Western Bear Shifter Romance) (Rodeo Bears Book 3) (139 page)

Candace started then blushed when she looked up to see both Mel and Addy watching her, their grins telling her they knew just what she’d been thinking about. She started to speak, then froze in terror when she heard a familiar voice

“You really thought you’d get away from me, didn’t you?”

Candace turned to face the one man in the entire world she had prayed day and night she would never have to meet again.

The Manager hadn’t changed. Even in the bright lights of the studio, he was all darkness, from his ebony skin to his black-pinstriped suit, to his black shirt and tie. The four men at his back—two black and two white—were dressed in much the same way, though she knew their clothing would not be as finely cut.

“Candace, Mel, Addy,” Luke said. “Come over this way.”

All three women began to comply, but the Manager pulled a gun and pointed it at Luke.

“I don’t think so. I’ve just come for what’s mine,” he said in an amazingly smooth voice. Candace knew under that smoothness there seethed a bubbling caldron of fury—all of it directed at her.

“There’s nothin’ here that’s yours,” Luke said, sounding remarkably calm for someone with a gun pointed at him.

“Don’t bet your life on it,” the Manager said, letting just a hint of the heat show. “I spent a lot of time and money on this particular whore, and she belongs to me. I’m just here to take back what’s mine.”

Candace forced herself to take one step toward him. “Don’t hurt anybody,” she said. “Please.”

The Manager’s eyes flickered only briefly to her, before he ignored her.

“Saul, Johnny. Get her.”

Two of his minions began to move toward Candace. They ignored the other women which was their mistake. Suddenly a scream rent the air, and Candace turned just in time to see a mountain lion leap for one of the men. The Manager turned in surprise, raised his gun, and fired, but his shot went wide, and before he could make an adjustment, he was flattened under the charge of a vicious bear. Only seconds passed, and before the other men could get to their own weapons, the room was suddenly filled with bears, who were taking down the bad men like a farmer harvests his grain.
 

Once every last one of them was down, the Saint men Shifted back so they could disarm each of them. They conveniently found handcuffs on the four minions, which the brothers used to subdue them. Luke picked up the manager’s gun and pressed it to the man’s forehead.

“Don’t shoot him, Luke!” Candace cried. “Please!”

Luke controlled himself, but just barely.

“What the hell is going on in here?”

The studio manager, hearing the commotion, came bursting into the room.

“Call 911,” Bart said. “These clowns tried to kidnap our women.”

Candace lay in her husband’s arms late that night, and tried to sleep. He had loved her slowly and carefully, trying to set her mind at ease, but she still couldn’t turn off the images of the day’s fiasco at the studio.

At least it’s finally over,
she reminded herself for the umpteenth time.
I suppose I should worry about what’s going to happen to my mother, but I just can’t.

“Hey, you still awake?” Luke asked in a sleepy voice.

She nodded. “I can’t help it.”

Luke shifted, letting her down carefully so he could lean over her.

“It really is over,” he reminded her. “The cops believed everything we told them, because they wanted to. The so-called “Manager” has been on their radar for a long time, and you gave them what they needed to bring the guy’s whole empire down. They owe you, and they know it. That lieutenant who showed up promised to keep you out of it, so you’ll never have to testify. It really is over, darlin’.”

She shook her head. “I know. It’s just that I can’t get the picture of him pointing his gun at you out of my mind.” She reached up to play with the silky fur on his chest with trembling fingers. “If Addy hadn’t…” She broke off, still finding it hard to believe what her new friend had done.

Luke grinned, though. “Addy was sure somethin’, wasn’t she?”

Candace had to smile, too. “Yes. Yes, she was.”

He grasped her roving hand in his and held it to his lips.

“We’re all right, then, aren’t we?”

She searched his eyes in the dim light and reached her other hand up to cup his face.

“I think I love you, Luke Saint,” she whispered, surprising herself at the depth of the feelings she already had for this man whom she hadn’t even known a month.

He took a deep breath. “I’m glad to hear it, darlin’, ’cause I love you, too.”

“Do you?”

He nodded. “Do I need to show you some more?” he asked.

She shook her head. “You don’t
need
to do anything. Of course, if you
want
to...”

Luke sighed with satisfaction. “I’ll be happy to do just that, darlin’—for the rest of my life.”

He settled over her, and she opened to him, cradling him between her thighs as he entered her slowly but inexorably. Then he was moving inside of her once more, and all her cares went the way of all bad dreams at the break of day.
 

John

Bearly Saints IV

by

Becca Fanning

Meg Baker sighed as she watched the setting sun slip below the horizon.
So much for all my planning
, she thought, feeling the now-familiar twinges of fear and uncertainty that had plagued her from the moment she’d stepped out of the safe confines of Manhattan’s posh Plaza Hotel the night before. She had purposely waited until after Daylight Savings Time to leave, just so she would be able to take a bus that would both depart after ten p.m.
and
arrive in Nashville before dark.

“The best laid plans of mice and men,” she whispered, paraphrasing Robert Burns’ famous line.

Meg stared out at the passing landscape, so flat here in northern Tennessee but also so incredibly green. She had never ridden on a bus before, nor—to her knowledge—had she ever driven on an Interstate, beyond what it took to get from various airports to their city centers. Hers had been a life of chauffeured limousines, first-class trains, and first-class planes. Now, after almost twenty-four hours of seeing how the other half traveled, she was exhausted. And frightened, she had to admit, but also determined to see this through.

As a world-class violin soloist, she knew she could get a job playing somewhere, if only she could manage to not be recognized, and she’d thought Nashville would be a good place to start. It was a city of music, but music so unlike what she normally played, that perhaps she could manage to stay under her father’s radar for the time it took her to establish herself in another place, another career.

Good luck with that,
her inner voice said, making her stomach clench yet again.

That little voice was right, of course. If her father did not already have a private investigator on her trail, she would be surprised. Actually, it wouldn’t surprise her to see her father waiting for her at the bus terminal in Nashville, but she hoped not.

She had been careful. Her father always, without fail, disappeared into his suite at nine-thirty sharp on any night she wasn’t performing. He was rarely alone and always left orders not to be disturbed. Having lost her mother at a very early age, Meg had no illusions about what her father did with the beautiful women who seemed to always be available to him in whatever city they were visiting, and she had learned early to cherish these rare nights of knowing her father was otherwise occupied.

Meg had her one soft bag and her old violin packed and ready to go, along with her new ID and the cash she had been stashing away over the past six months, thanks to various maids and bellhops who were only too happy to change the one-hundred dollar bills her father insisted she carry to impress people for much smaller denominations in exchange for a generous tip. Dressed in jeans, simple walking shoes, and a warm, serviceable coat she had purchased from one of the hotel maids, she’d slipped out of her suite just after her father had turned in for the night, taking the stairs instead of the elevator to the opulent lobby below. Before stepping out of the stairwell, she’d donned a plain, navy blue baseball-style cap, pulling her white-blond tail out the hole in the back—like she’d seen women on the streets do
֫
—then wrapping a scarf around her neck to both ward off the chill night air and hide the rest of her hair. She’d thought about getting a Yankee’s cap, but had opted for a plain one, since she was headed for Nashville and didn’t want to stick out as an out-of-towner once she reached her destination. Her eastern-educated, upper-class accent would be enough of a giveaway.

Walking the first three blocks, she’d timed her arrival at Carnegie Hall so the musicians would be heading out after an evening concert, because while most of them still wore their concert clothing, with a winter coat and a violin strung over her shoulder, she fit right in with the crowd of people looking for taxi cabs. She managed to flag one down, directing the driver to take her to the 42
^nd
Street Port Authority Bus Terminal, where she quickly used cash to buy a bus ticket to Cleveland, Ohio. She had been researching the best way to get to Nashville and had opted for a Greyhound Bus ticket, with five stops between New York City and Nashville and two transfers. In Cleveland, she had bought a ticket only as far as Louisville, Kentucky, and from there, she purchased a ticket for the final leg to Nashville. She’d done something to change her appearance in both Cleveland and Louisville. In Cleveland, where she’d had almost a two-hour layover, she’d found a meal and traded her warmer New York coat, for a lighter, short jacket in a thrift store near the terminal. She’d also traded her blue ball cap for a brown one and her white woolly scarf for something lighter weight in a buttery-yellow.

She sighed, now, praying all her efforts hadn’t been for naught. The bus in Louisville had been delayed by a half-hour, which had put them right in the middle of rush-hour traffic coming south on I-65. Now instead of dusk, she was arriving in Nashville at full dark. She would need to find someplace to stay, and she didn’t really know where to start. She hadn’t dared research hotels in Nashville from her own computer, because she was certain her father would check there first. She’d found out about the bus schedule, thanks to a former classmate at Julliard, who’d come from Nashville originally and had let her play with his new iPad, when they’d had coffee together just before Christmas. (She’d hoped it was long enough ago, that her father wouldn’t think to ask Bryan about it.)

Meg straightened in her seat and strained to see forward. Traffic picked up as I-65 merged into another wide Interstate to pass through the city. They stayed on the new highway—I-24 this time—but then shortly took an exit ramp that wound down sharply to the right before making a left turn onto the city streets.

As the passengers around her began collecting their belongings, Meg tucked the Nashville tourist book she had found in the Louisville bus terminal into her jacket pocket. She then wrapped her hands around her violin case strap and pulled her small, canvas travel bag from under the seat in front of her. There was something quite liberating about being able to carry everything she owned in these two small bags. With the exception of her violin—which had been a birthday gift from her grandmother on her thirteenth birthday—everything she carried had been purchased recently, either from hotel maids or thrift stores. She owed nothing to anyone and was free to be herself for the first time in her life.

Whatever happens, I’m not going back to that life,
she promised herself. With New York behind her and Nashville ahead, she took a deep breath and waited for her new life to begin.

“Fourth Avenue and Symphony Place, please,” she said to the driver, as she slipped into the back seat of a taxi she found waiting at the bus terminal and named the cross-street her friend from Nashville had given her, because she couldn’t think of anything else that would get her away from the bus station as soon as possible. It wasn’t only the fear of being followed that had her moving quickly. Unlike the New York terminal, the Nashville bus station seemed to be in a very dark, very remote part of town—definitely someplace she didn’t want to be alone at night. The taxi was cleaner than many in New York, though this one smelled of cigarettes, which rarely happened in the east.

“Dressed like you are at this time of night, you’ll prob’ly have better luck over on Broadway with that fiddle of yours,” the driver said, grinning at her.

“You may be right,” she said, opting to respond to the man’s friendly banter in like manner. “I just wanted to see the big house, first.”

He laughed. “It is big all right.”

You New Yorkers don’t know what friendly is,
Bryan had always insisted.
Now, where I come from, people actually make eye contact with strangers and say good mornin’ like they really mean it.

After only a few minutes in Nashville, Meg was already beginning to experience that friendliness for herself. She did remind herself that she couldn’t trust everyone—she’d be a fool to let down her guard completely with strangers—but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be pleasant to the people who were pleasant to her. And what better way to blend in? If she remained remote in this town, people would notice and wonder about her—and they’d remember her, when her father’s PI came asking about her. She doubted very much that anyone tonight would recognize her from either a description or a photograph someone working for her father might have.