Alec (BBW Secret Baby Bear Shifter Romance) (Secret Baby Bears Book 1) (100 page)

The whole process of merging their clans and businesses had taken much longer, but gone much better than she expected. They had come back together the next week to discuss things. Turned out, everyone had many more ideas than either Slade or her anticipated. Great ideas, and all ways to work together to make their new company awesome.
 

With Christina and Abby gone, the hostility had quickly vanished. They began regular picnics and events to get the clans together, with the guys’ girlfriends joining in. They’d all become friends over the months, and Harmony’s little boy was brutally spoiled with kisses and hugs. They’d even briefly discussed building one giant compound that all the couples could live on together. It would take more time for that to become a reality. They’d need more land, and they had to focus on production first.
 

“Thoughts?” Veronica asked. She looked around the table at their reactions. There were many head nods and several expressions of interest.

In the end, they all liked it. Next on the agenda, they discussed the new product line. They were going to expand the soaps that the Walkers had tested, and include the new lotions the Harpers had perfected. There would also be teas, candles, and candy.

And they had plans to expand into shampoos and other food options later down the line. They had a whole five-year-plan and a ten-year-plan that had been dreamed up over the months of meetings they held. This was one of their weekly meetings, which would end with a cookout.

“Work hard first, then play harder,” was what Slade always said. Though, when they were alone, Veronica said, “Work hard first, then fuck harder.” Slade was happy with both versions.

Once they finished all the business on the list, Slade stood again.

“Any final issues of business?” he asked.

No one said anything.
 

“Then, it’s time to have some fun!” Veronica said.

“Wait a minute,” Slade said. “Any non-business issues to discuss?”

They always left time to talk about personal things or share about what was going in their lives. Veronica was hungry, though, and wanted to speed things along. They’d all talk while they cooked out anyway.

“I do have one thing.” Robin stood. “It’s been a long time coming, I think, but I wasn’t sure how to tell you all.”

Veronica’s heart started racing. Robin looked nervous. Was she about to give them bad news? Was she planning to leave?

But then Beth stood, too. “And I asked her to wait until I was ready.”

Veronica glanced at Slade and he looked just as confused and worried.

“But, here it is.” Robin breathed out a hard sigh and reached out to take Beth’s hand. Then she turned and kissed her.

Veronica’s mouth dropped open. That was the last thing she’d expected. She had no idea either of them were gay, or that they had any interest in each other. Though now, it made sense. She’d never seen either of them in a relationship and they had been getting closer over the months. She had thought it was just the combination of Christina and Abby leaving and her spending more time with Slade and leaving them alone, but apparently, it was more.

Slade started clapping and the others joined in, hooting and hollering as Beth and Robin smiled with red faces.
 

“Thank you,” Beth said. “We weren’t sure how everyone would take it.”

“You really thought there’d be complaints?” Dax said.

Knox nudged him, but laughed.
 

“Really happy for you,” Slade said. He took Veronica’s hand under the table and squeezed.

“Yeah,” she said. “I mean, I’m shocked and I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner, but this is awesome!”

She had secretly been a little disappointed that all the Walkers had girlfriends. After knowing how awesome it could be to date another shifter, she wanted that for them all. She hated seeing Robin and Beth be the only single ones at their events that were all filled with happy couples. But this made everything perfect. Everyone was paired up and happy. Things felt very complete.

“Anyone else?” Slade said.

“Who could beat that?” Beck said.

“Well, I’m going to try,” Slade said. “Not to upstage you or anything, but I had this planned for months.”

He stood and turned to Veronica. “Exactly one year ago today, we kissed for the first time. It was unexpected, but wonderful, and since that moment, I have not been able to get you off of my mind. The last year has been the most amazing year of my life, and I want to see just how much better it can get. Veronica, I don’t want to live without you. You’re already my business partner, my co-alpha, my best friend. But, I’d like to add wife to that list.”
 

He dropped down on one knee, and Veronica’s eyes went wide. They hadn’t discussed marriage at all. They’d both said they’d been so hurt in the past and had such trust issues that they were going to take things slow. This didn’t feel slow.
 

But she’d fallen so hard in love with him in the last year. So hard, she thought it would scare him if she told him. If she said how she’d dreamed of being his wife and having shifter babies. When Robin joked at the start of the meeting that she was pregnant, she wanted it to be true. But she didn’t want to move things too fast for him. It seemed now, that they’d both decided slow wasn’t necessary. Everything about this felt so right.

Slade opened a ring box and held it up to her. “Will you marry me?”

She took a moment to gaze into his eyes, to let the scene blur with her tears as her heart swelled with joy. But apparently, she’d taken too long.

“Of course she will!” Robin said.
 

“Yes!” Dax said.
 

Veronica laughed and nodded as a chorus of “Say yes!” broke out from the table.
 

Slade slipped the ring on her finger and kissed her, then stood with his arms tight around her at the head of the table. “Meeting adjourned.”
 

The room cleared, but Slade held her close to keep her there. She didn’t mind. She wanted a few minutes alone, too.

When they were alone, he kissed her again and asked, “They didn’t pressure you into it, did they?”

“No, of course not.”

“You’re sure? I know it’s fast and we said we wanted to take things slow, but—”

“It feels like exactly the right time,” she said.

“Yes. It does to me, too.”

“Then that’s all that matters.”
 

Matthew

Bearly Saints I

by

Becca Fanning

Melinda Darling let out a squeak as she hit bottom turning into the pothole-infested gravel parking lot of the Irish Town Pub.
 

“Please, please, please don’t need any repairs,” she muttered to her car. “I just had you in, and I can’t spend another dime until payday, so please, please, please.”

Slowing to a crawl, she made her way toward the front door of the old warehouse-turned-pub. The only thing the least bit Irish she could see was the color and the name—Kelly green covered the entire metal box, and there was a shamrock over the “i” in Irish—but the metal stairs leading up to the enclosed porch screamed “warehouse entrance” not “friendly neighborhood pub.” Not that Mel had ever been to Ireland to see what a real Irish pub looked like in person, but she had seen
The Quiet Man
and
Darby O’Gill and the Little People
, so she knew what a pub was supposed to look like, and this place simply did not mesh at all with what she had imagined for an Irish pub. Nor did the rows of beefy motorcycles lining the front of the building. Mel groaned once more as she brought her compact car to a stop next to a rusty blue van.

“What am I doing here?” she cried.

But of course she knew very well what she was doing here: Trying to save her job is what she was doing here. Fresh out of college with a master’s degree in music business, she had charged onto the country western scene in the Music City ready to discover and manage the newest and greatest bands Nashville had ever seen. Then reality had set in, as she learned that, like guitar players, Nashville was simply crawling with agent wannabes, and she had been forced to settle for an entry-level job with an established firm. Her “boss from hell,” Kitty Konstantine, kept all her minions out late at night, seven nights a week, trolling the small-time venues for the best and brightest new musicians and bands
she
would then “discover.” Fat bonuses and promotions had been promised to those minions who delivered, but in reality, following the “Konstantine Rules” barely allowed Mel to pay the rent and keep the lights on.

“But why did they have to come here?” she moaned. “Couldn’t they have been seen hanging out at a pizza joint or a Mickey D’s?”

The “they” in question were the members of a country western band she had heard the night before in a little dive down on Belmont Boulevard near her old haunts from her university days. They called themselves The 4 Saints, which had seemed a little weird until she’d learned the four members were brothers with the last name of Saint. Their music had absolutely enthralled her. Traditional in style, as they all played acoustical instruments only—guitar, double bass, mandolin, fiddle, and drums—they had a new, different sound when they sang, because there wasn’t a tenor among them. All four sang bass or baritone, and their voices had blended in a way that only siblings who had sung together all their lives could. They performed all their own songs, which had been a happy mix of up-beat tunes and ballads; hilarious and solemn; family-friendly and sexy.

When she’d first walked in, they’d been singing a song about animals on a farm that had had the audience rolling with laughter, but by the time she’d taken her seat at the bar, they’d switched to a love song, a ballad that had nearly broken her heart. There had been something about all of the brothers that had left her feeling as though they’d been singing directly to her, and at one point, the lead singer—the guitarist—had met her eyes across the room, and she’d almost melted on the spot. She’d told herself later that of course he hadn’t been singing that song to her, personally, but when she closed her eyes, she could still see him.

Those eyes were not something she was likely to forget any time soon, for even from a distance that deep golden color had seemed to look right into her deepest places. All four young men were big—tall and straight, with broad shoulders, slender waists, and muscular arms and legs. Their costumes were nothing more than worn jeans and flannel shirts over white t-shirts, as though there was nothing special about what they were doing. Every brother had dark, rich, wavy hair that varied in color from mink to beaver, and all but the youngest had a distinctive five-o’clock shadow. After watching them for a time, she realized they all shared the leader’s golden eyes, too, a fact that had tickled something at the back of her mind, but after a time, she’d dismissed it as unimportant. She’d had to remind herself to breathe more than once throughout the evening, and if she hadn’t been called away by a text message from Kitty, she would have stayed right where she was until they’d turned out the lights.

The really frustrating part was that Kitty had had another, totally inane errand for her to run, and by the time she’d gotten back to the bar, The 4 Saints had been gone. It was the bartender who had told her that they liked to play pool at a place called the Irish Town Pub south of the airport, so here she was, desperately hoping they were here this evening. She hadn’t told Kitty about the band; there was no way she was going to give anyone the chance to steal this discovery until after she’d had a long talk with them. They were good enough that getting them on her side might make the difference between getting real credit for her discovery and taking a back seat to The Boss once more.

“Courage is being scared to death...and saddling up anyway,” she quoted softly.

That was all well and good for John Wayne, she supposed, but as Mel stepped out of the car, she was more than a little aware of the fine line between courage and pure foolishness. It was one of those scary still nights, when even the summer “peepers” seemed to be alert and waiting for something to happen. She crossed the rough parking lot warily, careful to miss the muddy puddles and wishing she were wearing flat shoes instead of the three-inch heels Kitty insisted her minions wear in public. The night was hot and humid, not at all unusual for early June in Nashville, and she hoped the air conditioning in the pub wasn’t so high that she’d end up freezing once she was inside. Somehow she didn’t think the cardigan sweater she always carried in her car would make much of an impression if she pulled it on over her skinny black dress.

Mel climbed the concrete steps and paused only long enough to check her reflection in the polished steel door. She saw clearly what everyone else saw: Miss Average—average height, average figure, clear complexion dotted with freckles, and shoulder-length, curly auburn hair, which had been the bane of her existence since the first grade. Running her hands through her hair one last time in an attempt to flatten it down in spite of the humidity, she told herself to relax, opened the door, and stepped inside.

Mel hesitated as the door closed automatically at her back, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim light which was little improved over the dusk enshrouded parking lot. As her surroundings became clearer, she saw a long wooden bar on the left and pockets of light fanning out on the right, where steel pendent work lights hung over a collection of bare round tables with beat-up metal chairs. There were blackout blinds on the wide front windows, and decorations were limited to car and motorcycle parts and posters. It took her only a moment to realize everyone in the bar was staring at her. Her second thought was that they were mostly men, rough-looking men, who were running their eyes along her slim form from head to toe as though undressing her. Suppressing a shudder, she took a deep breath and smelled cigarette smoke, beer, fried food, and sweat. The men all seemed to be dressed in leather, their heads wrapped in colorful bandanas. When she looked closer, she saw there were a few women present, but most of them wore leather, too, though theirs had fringe and sometimes sparkling beads. Swallowing hard, Mel turned toward the bar, where she noticed two other women dressed in matching shorts and tight blouses that highlighted their ample breasts. They carried trays with glasses and beer bottles.