Timberman Werebear (Saw Bears Book 3) (2 page)

In utter shock, Denison stood in the half-empty parking lot of Sammy’s bar eating a cloud of Danielle’s dust and wondering what the hell had just happened. Four years without a peep from the woman, and all the sudden, she was back, riling up his bear just like she had once upon a time. He ran his hands up the back of his scalp and flung them in front of him.

He’d almost gotten over her.

Brighton snickered a silent laugh from beside him like he’d heard his lying thoughts.

“Shut up, man,” Denison grumbled to his brother.

Of course Brighton would find this amusing. He’d sworn off a mate since he was a cub. Denison had played that game until he’d met Danielle, fresh out of her first year of college for the summer, working an internship for some environmentalist group up in the mountains near Saratoga.

One summer, and his bear had chosen. Too bad she hadn’t chosen him back.

Denison bit back a curse and twitched his head. “Let’s grab our stuff and get out of here.” Preferably before that asshat Matt came back with a couple of his Gray Back buddies and began a crew on crew brawl in a parking lot of inebriated humans.

Matt Barns was an old not-friend and definitely due for an ass-kicking, but not here, and not tonight.

The toe of Denison’s work boot faltered on a stone sticking out of the gravel, and he fought the urge to rip it from the ground and chuck it against the lone tree that sat between here and the main drag in town.

Four years ago, he’d imagined meeting up with Danielle again. After a few months with no word from her, he’d known she wasn’t ever coming back. She’d gone back to college and begun a new life that didn’t include him. But that hadn’t stopped him from visualizing what one more hour with her would be like, what he would ask, and if she still loved him. Well, apparently he’d done something wrong, but damned if he knew what. “Freakin’ women.”

“You done for the night?” Ted, the bartender, asked.

“Yeah, we’re gonna cut out early. We’re gonna try to beat rush-hour.”

Ted chuckled at the joke and waved them off. Rush hour didn’t exist here in this small town, and it sure wasn’t a problem out on the winding road from here to the Asheland Mobile Park where he and Brighton lived. The worst traffic he ever found was a family of raccoons taking their sweet-ass time to cross the road on occasion, but other than that, he was lucky to pass another car on the two-hour drive back.

Denison picked up his guitar from where it sat leaning crooked against his chair. He wasn’t usually rough with his instruments, and especially not his favorite guitar, but when he’d heard the ruckus near the bar and squinted through the blinding stage lights to see Matt messing with another townie, well, he’d nearly lost it trying to get to her. That guy spelled trouble every time he came in here looking for an easy lay. He was never subtle about his intentions, and when he was rejected, which was often, he wasn’t very gracious about it.

“You okay to drive?” Ted asked as Denison packed his guitar in an old, scratched-up case.

“Old man, you know I don’t drink too much when I have a show. Brighton had a beer, but I’m driving.” His whiskey and coke was all for show. If he nursed a drink all night, the ladies laid off buying him more.

“It’s habit to ask,” Ted called, wiping down the counter. “Same time next week?”

“You bet.”

The conversation went like this every week, on repeat for five years. Denison’s inner animal required a strict routine. Work until his bones were sore on the jobsite as a timber man, indulge in the company of his crew in the evenings, sleep a full eight hours, then do it all again. And on Friday, it was gig time at Sammy’s Bar. Good gravy, life was boring, but it was what his bear needed, so fine.

He lifted his gaze to the road Danielle had disappeared down in that sexy, forest green, jacked-up jeep she’d been driving. Life hadn’t been boring the summer she’d been here.

She looked different now. Her hair used to be long, down to her hips, and as dark as raven feathers. It was still dark, but only fell to her shoulder blades now, and she wore it in soft curls instead of straight. He liked it. She still had those fiery almond-colored eyes, pert little nose and tiny, elfin lips that he wanted to suck swollen, but as far as he remembered, she’d never worn a short skirt in front of him. Not until tonight. She hadn’t the confidence to dress like that when he’d known her before. Or
thought
he’d known her.

Brighton clapped him on the back so hard it rattled his innards. Right. Back to earth. He settled the guitar case in the back of his old beat-up Bronco and slid behind the wheel. His brother was grinning from ear to ear by the time the engine roared to life.

“What?” Denison asked.

Brighton lifted his eyebrows and shrugged.

“Did you like that little show? Me running after her like a puppy, making a fool of myself? Well,” he said, backing out of the parking space Ted had reserved for
talent
with a hand-painted sign, “I feel like grit now.”

The two-hour trip back was brutal on account of Brighton leaning back the seat and promptly falling asleep, leaving Denison to try and stay awake without company the entire drive through the mountains. Which meant two hours of summer-kissed, swimming-hole memories with Danielle. He’d watched her open up that season, from a timid bookworm to a woman. He’d thought she was forever, but he’d been wrong. And now, the same devastating hole that had sat in his stomach for a year after she left was back, eating him from the inside out. God, he wished she would have just stayed away. That look on her face when she was crying in the parking lot, like he’d killed her kitten… How was he supposed to get that vision out of his head? Her face all crumpled and tears streaking her cheeks, making dark smudges of sadness under her eyes. And her hands…Dammit, he’d had to fight not to Change and clean her wounds. Her knees had been trickling red, but she didn’t seem to care at all. All she seemed to care about was getting as far away from him as she could.

He’d replayed their last day together over and over, but he still couldn’t figure out what he’d done to piss her off so badly that she’d leave and never come back. Never call or write, or hell, send a damned carrier pigeon. Poof! She just vanished, leaving his bear unmanageable and littering his chest cavity with little shredded pieces of his heart.

And that was the autumn he had sworn off women forever. Brighton had the right of it all along. Don’t let women get close, and they couldn’t hurt him. Not like Danielle had. Never again.

When he finally pulled under the Asheland Mobile Park sign at the entrance of a double row of trailers the Ashe crew inhabited, he was just about dead on his feet.

Brighton stumbled off to his own house without so much as a wave, and Denison dragged his guitar case up the porch stairs and inside his trailer. He poured a drink from the tap, but the water was a little on the brown side from the pipes not being used all day, so he dumped the glass and let the sink run for a minute before he tried again. Tasted a little dirty, but Dad always said that a little grit in his food would put hair on a man’s chest. Whatever that meant. From his experience, women didn’t much prefer heavy pelts.

Danielle had preferred him smooth when they’d gotten to the bedding portion of their relationship. He remembered the way she’d run her hands across his torso, petting him and tethering his animal to her even more, like some spell caster securing his bond. She’d had soft hands compared to his calloused ones. And incredible tits. All round with those perfect pink nipples drawing up hard anytime his lips touched them and… Shit. His dick was already swollen and thumping against the seam of his pants.

Denison chugged the water and rinsed the glass. It did no good thinking about her finer qualities. It just made the hole in the pit of his stomach yawn open a little wider. He wouldn’t ever have her again. That much was clear from the way she had looked at him when she’d been in the jeep. Like it hurt to lay her eyes on him.

He jerked open the drawer of odds and ends and dug through to the back before finding what he was looking for. Three photographs were all he had of his time with Danielle. He hadn’t looked at them in three years on principle. He wiped dust off a close-up picture of her kissing his cheek as he smiled at the camera. The second was of Danielle swinging on an old tire he’d tied from a giant pine tree in the backyard of the cabin he’d shared with Brighton at the time. Bright red gloss painted her lips, and she wore a matching knee-length summer dress that billowed out as she swung. Fucking gorgeous. The third had been his favorite, though. It was of her and Brighton leaned back on their elbows in tall meadow grass, lying in the sun with their eyes closed and heads tossed back. She wore a white sundress with little cherries on it. He traced the arc of her neck with his fingertip and grimaced at the pain in his chest.

Then he thought about burning the pictures over the stove, like he had contemplated doing a hundred times. Maybe if they didn’t exist anymore, if they didn’t sit in that drawer haunting him, maybe the pain would stop and he could forget about her. But just like every other time, he decided against it. If he got rid of the only thing he had left of her, he’d be truly alone. And that seemed somehow worse than the pain of losing her.

Whatever reason she’d thought of to come back, he wished she’d hurry up and leave so he could start getting over her again.

****

An ear-splitting racket filled Danielle’s ears, and she hunched in on herself. When she was buried deep within the warm wrinkles of her blanket, she cracked an eye open. The noise began again. She lurched up and tossed the covers away from her. The cell phone clattered across the tiny nightstand by her bed as it screamed again. Why the devil had she picked that hideous ring tone?

“Hello,” she croaked into the receiver.

“Ms. Clayton,” Mr. Reynolds purred. “Are we still asleep?”

“Uhh.” She squinted at the blurry, battery-operated alarm clock next to her bed. “Not anymore. I thought I wasn’t starting until Monday.”

“I assume you’ve settled in nicely to the rental I’ve given to you?”

She looked around the swanky, refurbished Airstream RV and nodded a tangled lock of hair out of her face. “Yes, sir, I have. It’s much nicer than I imagined it would be when you hired me.”

“Good. Then you won’t mind starting your research a little bit early. I’m on a bit of a time crunch, I’m afraid.”

“To discover the solution for the beetle infestation?” It was definitely going to take more than two extra days to solve the fiasco that had killed off the trees in the area.

“Your counterpart, Darren, is already on his way into the wilderness as we speak. Do take his enthusiasm and allow it to affect yours.”

“Sir, I’m very enthusiastic about this job. I’m sorry for the miscommunication, but I specifically remember you saying I was to start on Mon—”

“Ms. Clayton,” Reynolds snapped. “I have no patience for excuses. If you want this job, and if you want to be paid for this job, you will start today.” He sighed into the phone. “Now that we have that cleared up, I’ve decided to partner you with someone who knows the area.”

“Wait, what? This was supposed to be a lone job, and we were supposed to exchange notes in weekly meetings to bring you our findings. Darren and I can cover more ground if we work separately.”

“I didn’t say anything about you working with Darren. You’re to be working with Denison Beck. I’ve been told you’re already familiar with him.”

Her mouth dropped open, and she frowned so hard her face hurt. Nope. Hell no to that. She scrunched up her nose and closed her eyes to ward away the oncoming headache Mr. Reynolds was proving to be. “I’m not working with that man. He holds no value to the job I’m doing, and we don’t get along. If I must work with someone, fine. Choose anyone on the planet besides him. Please.”

“You seem to think this is a suggestion. It’s not. I’ll text you the address you are to meet him at and any pertinent information. Have him show you around his territory.”

“His territory? Excuse me for asking, but what does that mean? He’s a townie.”

“Not anymore.”

Danielle viciously fought the urge to strangle the phone. She gritted her teeth so hard, her jaw hurt, then tried again. “Mr. Reynolds, I’ve been very excited about joining in on this research for you, but this wasn’t part of the job description.”

“Are you backing out?”

“No. Maybe.” She flopped back on the bed in a star-like shape. “Can I have until Monday, my original start-date, to decide on whether to continue with your request? Denison and I have history. The relationship is complicated, and I hadn’t expected to spend any substantial amount of time with him.”

Another long, irritated sigh blasted across the phone speaker. “That would be fine.”

“One last thing,” she rushed out before he hung up. “Does Denison work for you?”

“No. Not directly.”

“Then how do you know he’ll help me?”

“Because, Ms. Clayton, I have a feeling you can be very compelling when you want to be.”

The line went dead, and she glared at the screen until it went blank.

A screech of pure frustration rattled her throat, and she stared at the low ceiling above her. She’d have to pull out of the job, and the trip would be wasted because there was no way in hades she was signing up for hours, days, and possibly weeks in the woods with Denison-the-man-ho-Beck.