Authors: Anya Nowlan
If glares could fell walls and slay men, Parker Waylan would have been one dead man under a pile of rubble by now.
“No, we can’t, Mister Waylan,” Keesha said, shaking with fury.
“Good. I trust you’ll fix all of your mistakes now, hmm? Learn to read the law and make concise briefs based on the law, not on whichever column of Cosmo that was worthy of your attention that day? Because that last work of yours, my lord! Sloppiest piece of nonsense I have ever seen!”
Keesha could hear ringing in her ears. She had done the task exactly as he had wanted, following the exact laws he had cited and doing research on the cases he had mentioned, as well as at least five others his self-admiring brain couldn’t wrap itself around. But because she had not been psychic, foreseeing that one of the partners had told him to change his approach, Keesha hadn’t done research on a whole different set of cases. And somehow, the fact that he hadn’t told her about his change of heart was
her
fault.
It wasn’t the first time. But it had been the first time he’d kept her standing in the middle of the main meeting room, chiding her like she was a little girl for half an hour. And now he had the nerve to do it again.
Keesha was just opening her mouth to utter another completely unfelt apology for
her
‘mistakes’, when her phone beeped. In a haze, she took it out of her purse and clicked it on, Parker’s surprised eyes following her motions – as if she was committing some sort of unspeakable crime by taking her attention off of him for a second.
BattleBear: I’m serious, you know. Come here. I can’t promise you much, but I would treat you right.
He would treat her right. Suddenly, it was as if the weight of the world had been lifted off her shoulders. Why the fuck was she here, letting this puny excuse of a man treat her like she was sub-human, doing work he himself wasn’t intelligent enough to do? Why
couldn’t
she be in Idaho, even for just a little?
Everything fell into place inside of Keesha for one beautiful moment. She looked up at Parker and grinned, making his simpering smirk falter and break.
“Parker. Fuck you. I quit.”
She wished she’d taken a picture of Parker Waylan’s face when she walked out of the office, a shocked, mildly appalled and entirely enthusiastic Carly following her out. She’d never seen a man quite so disappointed at having his tirade broken.
Of course, that feeling of bliss was just momentary. By the time she reached the front door, she was already well on her way to freaking out.
What the hell did you just do!?
CHAPTER TWO
Battle
And what if she shows up? What then?
It was a question Battle had been asking himself for the past few days, and he wasn’t entirely sure what the right answer to it was.
Keesha Bailey had completely caught his interest, his attention and his desire from the very first moment he laid eyes on her profile picture. He wasn’t the dating kind of guy, having preferred to keep to himself for most of his life. One bored afternoon of scrolling through SassyDate had taken him a step too far and now, here he was, practically in love with a woman he had never actually met.
It didn’t really fit in ideally with his current existence, but then again, nothing did.
With a sigh, Battle slung the ax over his shoulder and trudged deeper into the clearing site. It had been a long day of marking trees to be felled the next day, cutting out underbrush and doing some general ‘housekeeping’ before the work could really begin in the coming few days.
Toiling away in the woods was hard, physically exhausting and pretty much thankless – Battle loved it.
In the distance, near where he had parked his beaten up Chevy, Battle could hear an engine being cut. He walked towards the small clearing that acted as a parking lot in the middle of the tall trees, barely rousing from his internal monologue about what the hell he’d do if the woman that made every part of him buzz with excitement decided to show up in Shifter Grove.
Seriously, what the fuck would he do?
“Long day?” Warren called, leaning on his truck with a knowing smile on his lips.
“You know it,” Battle said, grinning at the other werebear.
He’d been lucky to get a job with Warren. In fact, he’d been damn fortunate to happen into Shifter Grove to begin with. Battle had been passing through on his way to Montana to check some old clan lands, when he’d stopped in Shifter Grove for dinner.
One thing led to another and, through a combination of knowing when to not ask too many questions and recognizing a bear in need, Warren had offered Battle a job he couldn’t refuse – that was, any job. There weren’t many options for a bear on the run from himself, and others, but he preferred to not think about the latter part.
“I think I can join you tomorrow. There’s been a lot of work in the sawmill lately, but I’m hoping to find some time to do some real labor again. Can’t get old and complacent or my wife won’t let me in the door soon.”
Warren poked himself in the side, smirking. It would take a lot more than a few days of paperwork for a werebear like him to become flabby, but Battle could understand the desire to keep active. He’d been enjoying the hell out of being in fresh air and putting himself to some use for a change.
Battle was built like a tank. He was tall, square-shouldered and wide. A burly kind of werebear, he lacked what one might call elegance but made up for it in pure brute force. He hadn’t always been quite so imposing, but a bear had to do what a bear had to do when he got into as much trouble as Battle had in his life.
He felt his mood souring at the memories, cursing himself for veering onto a path he knew he didn’t want to go down. Trouble was something he was looking to avoid now. Unless it was the kind of trouble a sexy chocolate goddess could get him into.
He could never get enough of
that
kind of trouble!
“Kacey didn’t seem like the love ‘em and leave ‘em type,” Battle said with a grin, chucking his ax into the bed of his truck and grabbing a bottle of water.
He took a long swig, enjoying the taste as it went down, washing away the fine sawdust and grime he’d tasted before.
“She isn’t,” Warren said thoughtfully.
Battle felt his boss’s eyes on him, a quiet question in them. Battle cocked a brow, looking at Warren.
“Yeah?” he asked, feeling a familiar tenseness enter into his bones and muscles.
Like he’d done so many times over the years, Battle subconsciously readied himself for the worst. Clan mates dying, war, hunger, losing his job, losing bears close to him… He’d seen it all and something in him had learned to always expect the worst.
Warren shook his head, smiling slightly.
“Nothing, man. I just wonder who is the woman who’s got the mighty Battle feeling so chipper.”
Like a pressure valve had been released, Battle relaxed and allowed a smile to cross his lips. He hadn’t thought he was so obvious, but apparently he was.
“How could you tell?”
“A bear in love is luckily a common enough sight around Shifter Grove lately, so I can sort of tell by now. Plus, you’ve strung more than three words into a single sentence today, so you must be in a good mood. Someone from back home?”
Battle shook his head, putting the cap back on the bottle.
Back home? Where is home anyway…
“No, I haven’t even met her yet.”
“Ah,” Warren said in a knowing tone. “SassyDate? The bringer of many a fine bride into Shifter Grove. That’s how I met Kacey, you know. And how Deacon got Aubrey back and… well, hell. That damn app has populated half of Shifter Grove. If they ever go on the market, I need to buy shares!”
Battle nodded. That reminded him – he hadn’t had a chance to check his phone since lunch. He pulled the driver side door open and retrieved his beaten up phone, barely ‘smart’ by anyone’s standards, but it was all he needed. Though, truth be told, after chatting with Keesha, he was beginning to wish for something that didn’t take two minutes to load every damn message.
The notification light wasn’t blinking but that didn’t mean anything. He was fairly sure it hadn’t worked since 2011. He powered the phone up and navigated into his messages. The note he saw almost knocked him on the ass.
ParalegalProblems: I’ll be there in two days. You better pick me up at the airport or I will hunt your ass down, Idaho or not. Don’t you play with me, bear! XO
Holy shit. Holy shit!
“Holy shit!”
He couldn’t just keep it in.
He’d been inviting Keesha to come out and smell the roses, or the pine trees – whichever – for weeks now, but it had turned into a bit of a game between them. He’d find ways to weave it into the conversation and she’d find a way to chicken out. And now here she was, saying
yes
? Holy shit.
“What?” Warren asked, frowning.
The sun was hanging low in the sky and the air was growing colder. For Battle, things had just heated up ten times. He was completely dumbfounded, but not in a bad way. His stomach had dropped into his boots but that was fine. Everything was fine. Great, even!
And then, of course, it wasn’t.
He stared at her words again… Two days – or well, one and a half to be exact.
Battle had been in Shifter Grove for a few weeks. Like all things in his life, he was expecting his stay to be entirely temporary, just a moment in time that would come to pass as soon as he got into some seemingly unavoidable trouble. He lived in a tent. His shower was the river that snaked through Warren’s forests. His understanding of a fancy dinner was catching fish and throwing them on the embers by the fire.
That wasn’t exactly the situation to bring a big city gal into. Especially one like Keesha, who was used to at least the reasonably good things, if not the best things in life – like linens and electricity.
“Battle?” Warren asked again, putting a hand on the bear’s shoulder.
Battle roused, his steely gray eyes filled with a modicum of panic, and a whole lot of excitement.
“I think I need a house. And a shave.”
Fuck. She’s actually showing up.
CHAPTER THREE
Keesha
I’m going to die. I know it. I swear to god, if I end up dying in the middle of the Idaho wilderness, I’m coming back to haunt someone’s ass.
“Jesus Christ!” she yelped as the tiny airplane hit another pocket of turbulence that tossed the matchbox-sized deathtrap around.
The fact that her pilot was chuckling like this was the most fun he’d ever had was
not
helping.
“Relax! It’s just the gusts from the mountains. Makes for a choppy ride sometimes. We’re perfectly safe,” he said, turning around in his seat and giving her a toothy grin.
All color drained from her face and Keesha’s long nails dug into the upholstery. Her Louis Vuitton bag had bounced out from under the seat and was now rattling around somewhere in the back of the plane. She was definitely not going to get out of her seat to go and find it or she’d end up being tossed and flipped right along with it.
“Oh, no you don’t! You keep your damn attention on those controls, mister! I intend to see this god-forsaken town all of you are blabbering about and I don’t want to do it in a body bag!” Keesha hissed, teetering somewhere between madness and acceptance of her untimely demise.
That’s exactly what I need. What else would make this week better than dying… in Idaho, in the freaking mountains, after quitting my job and burning all my bridges, on my way to see a guy I met on a dating app?
An involuntary groan escaped Keesha’s lips. She wasn’t sure whether it was because the airplane decided to suddenly drop a couple of dozen feet or because she was yet again caught considering her unbelievable situation.
How had she managed to go from a steady, stressful, but well-paying job in her field to being unemployed, unemployable and on her way to the middle of nowhere? She wasn’t sure, but she was willing to give at least half a limb to anyone who could shake some sense back into her and get her life back on track.
Of course, she was fine with the concept of that happening sometime
after
she had made it back on the ground safely.
“Relax! Slate Morenkov hasn’t crashed once in his life, unless he intended to, and he ain’t gonna start now! Wohoo!”
Keesha wasn’t convinced. Neither by the self-congratulation or the wohoo that preceded a sharp drop through the clouds. And it didn’t stop her from screaming, either.
A few minutes later, the plane trundled safely down onto the ground and taxied easily down the very short runway. Calling it a runway was being generous, though. Keesha had been on country roads that were both wider and better maintained than that pockmarked stretch of dirt and asphalt.
When they came to a stop and Slate cut the engines, he twirled around in his seat again and gave Keesha another dazzling smile.
“Welcome to Shifter Grove airport! We hope you have enjoyed your flight and will be flying with us again! Well, you’re gonna have to if you wanna leave. I’m the only guy that flies around here.”
Slate grinned and winked at her and Keesha actively wished she had something within reach to hurl at his head. With easy movements, he loped out of the chair and went past Keesha, picking up her purse and gathering its contents before Keesha could wrestle herself out of the seatbelt.
He kicked open the door and let down the two rickety steps that acted as the stairs. Slate reached a hand out to Keesha and she took it gladly, testing her luck on the stairs.
“Thank you for not killing me!”
“Thank you for not getting killed with me. Never seen turbulence that bad around here!” he said, wearing a cheeky grin.
Choppy ride her ass. She gave him a glare and he shrugged good-naturedly, before pointing towards the tarmac.
“I think someone’s waiting for you.”