Mason pressed his hand on her stomach and lowered his lips to her ear. “If I was there, it would’ve been different. I would’ve taken care of you. I hate that I missed it. I saw your stretch marks last night, and it gutted me that I wasn’t there when you got them. I’m sorry I can’t give you that.”
“You silly man. Don’t apologize for stuff neither one of us can control.” She swallowed hard and rested her cheek against his chest. “And thanks for being nice about my stretch marks. I used to be really self-conscious about them.”
“Because of Robbie?”
A nod of her head was all he would get. She couldn’t bring herself to voice the pain she’d felt time and again at Robbie’s revulsion of her body after she’d had Ryder.
“I love them,” he admitted low. “I’m not just saying that either. If this is all I get from you being pregnant, it’s enough.” Mason brushed his finger up under her shirt and across the marred skin right near her hip. “Warrior stripes.”
She laughed thickly and lifted up on her toes, kissed him and reveled in the smoothness of his face. Easting away, she promised, “Now we’re gonna be making out all the time.”
Mason pumped his fist and murmured, “Yes, woman.”
They watched Bash’s shoot for a while before Mason asked, “How did Clinton’s shoot go?”
“I have a feeling you already know.”
“That bad?”
“I’m having to cut him, and now I don’t know who to get for January. I already had to beg a couple of the Ashe Crew to participate.”
“I’ll do it.”
She bumped his shoulder and shook her head. “You can’t, Mason. You’ve kept your existence here a secret for a long time, and for a reason. You don’t want your boar-people finding you, and neither do I.”
“Nah, I have an idea that will keep me out of the calendar but get you your January shot.”
“What idea?”
Mason’s eyes crinkled with his wicked grin. “Clinton’s easier when he drinks, and he’s hitting the whiskey hard right now. And also, he’s competitive. Just have your photographer ready for whatever he gives you.”
****
“What is he doing?” Drea asked as Mason pulled his black Raptor right up next to Clinton’s white one.
“I think he’s luring one hard-headed little bee to some honey too sweet to ignore,” Kirk answered behind Beck.
Huh. Beck settled in behind Drea, who was changing out the lens on her camera. Mason revved his roaring engine, then got out of his truck.
Clinton’s screen door screeched open, and he stuck his head out, narrowed his eyes at Mason’s truck, then retreated back inside. A second later, the blinds on his front window lifted.
Beck hid her grin as the Boarlanders chuckled behind her. Oooh, Mason knew just what he was doing.
Mason peeled out of his shirt, and Beck’s face went slack. His eight-pack rippled with his movement, and his scars stood stark on his skin. His biceps bulged as he wadded up his T-shirt and tossed it out of the way. And when he lifted his gaze to Beck, his eyes were blazing the bright blue of his boar people. Harrison tossed him a hard hat, which Mason caught easily.
“He needs moisturizer,” Audrey said matter-of-factly. She plopped a tube of it into Beck’s hand, slapped her on the ass, and said, “You should do the honors.”
As Beck stumbled forward, Bash chortled behind her. “Mason’s gonna get a boner so bad.”
She was going to lose it right here in front of everyone. Already her owl was screeching for her to hurry up and get closer to her mate. To touch him. To splay her fingers across his taut chest, lick him, unbutton his pants, and…focus.
Mason lifted his chin proudly, watched her approach with those gorgeous glowing blues. “I like your eyes when your animal is ruffled. Not gold like I thought in the restaurant, but they’re yellow like the sun. Hard to look at, hard to look away.” He caught her hand as she lifted lotion up to his chest. Lowering his voice to a barely audible whisper, he said, “They’re captivating.” Slowly, he drew her hand to his chest and rolled his eyes closed when she touched him.
“Boner!” Bash said. “I shoulda made a bet. It smells like pheromones.”
“That’s good, Bash Bear,” Emerson said through a giggle.
“What’s that on your shoulder?” Harrison asked.
Beck froze at the realization of what Mason had exposed by losing his shirt. Her healing claiming mark was still red and angry looking on his shoulder. Four long, deep gashes stretched across his shoulder where she’d marked him with her razor sharp talons in a fit of lust and insanity.
“Nothing,” she blurted out.
“Or everything,” Mason said, cocky-as-you-like. “My girl laid into me and gave it to me. I’m claimed, boys.”
“Aw, hell yeah!” Kirk whooped as the others cheered and whistled. “Well, show us yours then, Beck!”
“Uuuh,” she said, frowning at Mason’s mark. Her cheeks flushed with heat as she turned slowly. What was she supposed to say that wouldn’t mortify her?
“She doesn’t have one,” Mason murmured. The humor had been sucked right out of his tone.
The cheering died down to silence so heavy it made it hard to breathe. Her face was on fire now as she dropped her gaze to the ground. Mason had said claiming was different for his people, but the Boarlanders apparently thought she was supposed to have one. And now her old insecurities were rearing their ugly heads.
Drea snapped a picture, but Beck didn’t want that. She didn’t want the shame on her face captured for all eternity in a photograph, so she handed Mason the moisturizer and ducked out of the way of his grasping hand.
“Beck—”
“Nope,” she gritted out, not about to do this in front of the whole damned crew.
“You’re doin’ it all wrong,” Clinton said from beside his truck. Now he was dressed in low-riding jeans and work boots, and he had his chainsaw in hand again. With a scowl, the grumpy Boarlander drew up in front of the grill of his pickup, lifted his chainsaw, splayed his legs, flexed his abs deep, lifted his chin, and gave Drea the money shot.
“Got it,” Drea said excitedly as she snapped pictures in quick succession. And when she looked back at her camera to review, she had that big grin that said Clinton’s picture was done.
Clinton gave Mason a middle finger plus one cocky smirk, then sauntered back into this trailer.
Mason didn’t seem to give a single fuck, though. His eyes were somber and steady on Beck. Regret swam there, and she didn’t even want to know why. God, how stupid that she’d done it again. She’d believed him when he’d said claiming was different for his people. She’d assumed there was some ceremony or something that she would soon be a part of, but there wasn’t. The Boarlanders’ confusion over her not bearing Mason’s mark said his traditions were the same as other shifters, and Beck had gone and fallen for his pretty words.
She’d picked Mason.
Apparently, he hadn’t picked her back.
Chapter Fifteen
Beck looked at the picture of Damon standing in front of the waterfall next to his cliff mansion. His white oxford shirt was unbuttoned to expose one seriously ripped set of abs, his eyes sliver, his pupils elongated, chin lifted, and that sexy smirk on his lips. It was the perfect picture to end on.
“December is done. Great job everyone,” Beck declared. “That’s a wrap!”
Cheering erupted behind her at a deafening level. They’d attracted the shifters as they’d gone from crew to crew, taking photos of the most dominant beasts of these mountains. Excitement had built as more and more of the shifters and their mates and children had come out to show support. And now, as she looked around, Beck was stunned to realize almost everyone was here. The Ashe crew, led by Tagan and his mate Brooke, were laughing and cutting up with Creed’s Gray Backs and Harrison’s Boarlanders. Damon and his mate Clara, who was holding their red-headed toddler, made their way to where Beaston was standing with his mate, Avi
ana, mooning over their beautiful baby raven boy. Willa was cracking jokes and cradling a cardboard container of what she described as her “baby worms,” and beside her Drea was snapping candid pictures of everyone.
Beck was the only one on the outside looking in.
Silly her. She’d thought for a moment she was a part of this, but she’d been mistaken. She was here for a job, and Mason was broken enough that she had entertained him for a while. But not enough to commit to her, as her animal had demanded she do.
“I’ll send you everything I have and put together the calendar as soon as I get these photos edited,” Drea said distractedly. “It’ll probably be a week before I get you any of the files.”
“That would be perfect,” Beck said softly. “Thanks so much for doing this. The pictures I saw are incredible.”
“Thanks. I’m pro-shifter, so this was really a dream job. I mean, who gets to meet and photograph the shifters in Damon’s mountains? Don’t worry about me, though. As per our contract, I will only share these pictures with you, and I’ll give you all the files as soon as we send the calendar to the printer.”
“Great.” Beck shook Drea’s hand. “It was a pleasure working with you.”
“The pleasure is mine. You have a real good thing going up here.”
Beck’s heart felt like it was being run through with hot metal, but she resisted the urge to wince at the pain as she made her way down to where all the trucks, cars, and jeeps were parked in Damon’s yard. She hopped over a long scorch mark. Her instincts told her she didn’t want anything to do with the bad mojo wafting from it.
“Can we talk?” Mason asked from where he was leaning against his truck.
Beck startled to a stop. She had thought he’d shoved off when she’d left for the Grayland Mobile Park to shoot the Gray Backs.
Beck checked her watch. “Sorry, but I don’t have time to hash this out right now. It’s getting late, and I have a long drive to Saratoga. Bash said I could borrow his ride.” She dangled the fun-lovin’ bear’s keys up in the air as proof.
“Are you going to meet Robbie?”
That was none of his damned business. Beck bustled past him and yanked open the door to Bash’s truck, but Mason plucked the keys from her hand, tossed them in the passenger’s seat, and threw her over his shoulder like a sack of mulch.
“Dammit, Mason. Put me down!” She beat on his back, but he didn’t even flinch under her.
“You’re being stubborn and, besides, Bash needs his ride. I’m your driver, so I’ll be the one taking you to meet your ex.” With a grunt, he set her in the front seat of his Raptor and slammed the door.
He blurred around the front of the truck before she could scramble out. The truck rocked as he slid in and shut his door. “And after we go meet your baby-daddy, I’m taking you out.”
“No, thank you. I can only handle managing one bad decision at a time. Not two.”
He leveled her with a look so intense she couldn’t hold his gaze. “Don’t you call me a bad decision, woman.”
He spun out of the yard and blasted down Damon’s well-paved road.
“Why were the Boarlanders so surprised by you not claiming me?”
Mason made a pissed-off ticking sound behind his teeth and turned down the blaring radio. “Because they don’t understand what I’m going through. I don’t talk about it with them. If I was okay right now, things would be different, but as it stands, I’m not ready to mark you.”
“Why not?” she asked softly.
Mason shook his head for a long time, jaw clenched hard. “Because of Esmerelda. Because I’m just not ready.”
“How long ago did she pass?”
“Beck,” he warned.
“How long ago, Mason? It’s not a hard question!”
“Ten years. She hung herself ten years ago.”
A decade. Beck felt slapped and socked in the stomach all at once. “Mason, I’ve been split up with Robbie for a few years, and I was ready enough to mark you because I really do love you. Because my animal chose you. If you’re still hanging on that hard to Esmerelda…if I’m not pulling at your claiming instincts after so much time without a mate…maybe I’m not it for you.”
Mason looked sick as he whispered, “Beck, it’s just not that simple.”
“It really is. I don’t want to be a replacement mate that you keep around because I’m comfortable. I don’t want to compete with a ghost. I don’t want to play second fiddle. I did that before with Robbie. I played replacement pussy for him every time he came home from one of his girlfriends, and it gutted me. It ruined my heart. I had no self-worth, didn’t value myself at all, I hurt all the time. I can’t do that again.”
“It won’t be like that if you can just give me time to get myself out of the hole I’ve dug.”
“You mean the hole Esmerelda dug.”
“Yeah, Beck. We should be taking this slower. I haven’t even met your kid yet. I don’t know if I’ll be any good at parenting or at being a mate for you. I screwed up everything when I was with my first mate. She’s dead because I couldn’t make her happy. A claiming mark came easy for you, but for me, I want to be careful. I want to make sure I do this clear-headed when I’m not spiraling. I want to make sure it keeps and I can make you happy before I bond us like that.”
“You already bonded us, Mason! Last night, did you not feel it? Did you not feel the painful pull to me when we were making love? You carved your name into my soul. Did I not do that to yours?”
No answer.
“Mason, tell me if it’s not the same for you. Please.”
“Did you mark Robbie?” he asked in a strangled voice.
She drew back in shock at his question. “No. I wanted to when Ryder was born, but I couldn’t. My animal wouldn’t let me claim a man who wasn’t my mate and, thank God, because I suffered enough rejection from that man. Breaking a bond would’ve killed me.”
“Yeah,” Mason rasped out. He cast her a quick glance, then dragged his eyes back to the road. “Esmerelda was my mate, and we were bound. It took me ten years to move on from the pain of her loss. Hell, I’m still hurting. I just want to make sure I never have to break a bond with you, too. I’m just asking for time.”
Loaded moments dragged on between them as she stared at his profile. He really wasn’t hers. Not like she’d thought. “You can take all the time you need.”
Before he could respond, she turned up the radio and gave her attention to the piney woods that blurred past her window. Any more rejection, and she would cry. And right now, she didn’t feel like sharing grief with any man, especially not one who had chipped away at her icy heart and made her vulnerable again. How dare he? She’d gotten so strong, so hardened, and he’d come along and ripped her defenses down. Now she was bleeding and raw again.
He’d given her hope for a different life. One where she wasn’t limping from day to day, alone in raising her child, sequestered away from other shifters, watching her rights and the rights of her son stripped away one by one. For a blinding, beautiful second, she’d imagined raising Ryder here with other shifter kids and families who supported what she was trying to do instead of a stupid ex who shamed her for the owl that lived inside of her. She’d dreamed of a life with Mason, trailer park and all, because he made her feel alive for the first time in so long. She had begun to think she deserved better than all the shit Robbie had put on her.
A tear streaked from the corner of her eye, but quick as a whip, she dashed it away. Clasping her hands in her lap, she blew out a long, steadying breath and collected herself. She had to mentally prepare to deal with Robbie, and right now, she had no room for her insecurities with Mason.
She would get through this, just like she did everything else. Alone.
Why? Because she was a fighter. And if Mason couldn’t see past his first mate to Beck’s value, then okay.
The problem with ghosts was it was easy to remember the good. It was easy to forget the bad when a broken heart wa
nted to cling to the happy, devoted memories.
The problem with ghosts was they weren’t around to remind the living of their imperfections.
If Mason wasn’t capable of letting Esmerelda go, Beck would just have to find her happiness elsewhere.
Chapter Sixteen
“I feel like you’re pulling away from me,” Mason said as he skidded to a stop in the parking lot of Sammy’s Bar.
Beck’s silence had slowly crippled him on the drive here. He’d hurt her again. He couldn’t seem to stop hurting her, an unfortunate byproduct of both of their baggage.
Beck had withered in the seat next to him, and now she sat there, avoiding his gaze, arms crossed over her chest like armor. Against him? Fuck.
He was trying to do this right. Claiming her when he was still spiraling over the death of another mate wasn’t fair to Beck. She deserved all of his heart, all of his attention.
Beck deserved all of him.
He could only imagine how she felt right now. Rejected, likely, but if she could only see how devoted to her he was already, maybe she would give him some slack. But Beck had been cheated on, time and time again, and she was at a point in her life where she wanted to be the top priority for a man. Good on her. She’d just picked Mason at the wrong time.
Wrong time? Her expression when he’d told her Essie had died ten years ago flashed across his mind. She’d been shocked that his first mate was still such a big part of his life after so long, he could tell. And maybe she was right.
Mason swallowed hard and slid his hand over her tense thigh. “Ten years is a long time to mourn. I know that, but it passed so quickly. It was like I sleepwalked through my life here in Damon’s mountains. I worked, ate, thought about how I’d screwed up her life, slept, and did it all again, day after day. And somewhere along the line, I forgot how to smile and breathe and feel, and then you came along and reminded me that I’m not dead yet.”
He tucked her red-gold hair behind her ear to see her face, but her eyes were closed and her bottom lip trembling, and God, he was breaking inside for what he was doing to her.