“Good God, you moron,” Clinton muttered. “It’s bring your own beer.”
“Fried chicken and mashed potatoes,” Beck said tiredly. “The perfect pre-photoshoot food.”
Everyone scattered quickly, on the hunt for six-packs to load up, but Beck’s smile was sad as she watched the chaos.
“What’s wrong?” Mason asked. “You know they’ll still have hard-bodies even if they ate all the fried chicken in that place. Shifter metabolisms and all.”
“Yeah, I know.” She squeezed his hand gently. “I’m glad you’re back and that your crew is so happy. Have fun tonight.”
Beck made to head back to 1010, but he grabbed her fingertips just before she slid her hand out of his. “What do you mean? You’re comin’ too, woman.”
“Oh, but this is crew business, and I’m not…” She swallowed and looked around the park. “I have work to do, anyway.”
Mason arched his eyebrows pointedly.
“I don’t want to be a burden—”
Mason leaned down and pressed his lips to hers to quiet her protests. Beck froze under him, her lips in a stiff line, but little by little, she melted against his side, and her lips turned soft. He cupped the back of her neck, reveling in her taste. Squaring up to her, he pulled her tight to his chest and pushed his tongue gently past her lips. And then he smiled against her mouth because she let off the fucking cutest little needy sound in her throat. He’d pulled that noise from her. Him.
Gripping the back of her hair, he brushed his tongue against hers one last time and eased back. Resting his forehead on hers, he kept his eyes closed just to savor the moment. Oooh, Beck Anderson felt huge to him. Bigger than he’d realized until he’d kissed her. “You’re part of the craziness here now, Beck. You’re coming to dinner with us. Go on, hop in my truck, and I’ll get us some beers.”
“Okay,” she murmured. She was gripping his wrists hard, like she wanted him to stay, and damn, something about this little vixen was calling to his boar.
He let her go, gave her his most charming smile, and sauntered off toward his trailer. If he’d stayed locked up with her another minute, he was gonna say something dumb about how she already felt like his and scare her off.
And the thought of Beck leaving now was unimaginable.
Chapter Eight
Mason draped his arm around the back of Beck’s seat and leaned onto two legs of his rustic ladder-back chair. The Boarlanders had eaten dinner on a long table against the far wall of Jam’s Chicken House. It was one of those old-fashioned restaurants with dark wood walls, exposed rafters above, vintage street signs hung everywhere, mismatched tables, and checkered table clothes. There were only a few options for dinner, and all the sides and biscuits were served family-style.
Everyone was cutting up, ribbing each other, laughing louder than anyone else in the restaurant, and for the first five minutes, she’d debated reminding them they had a public image to uphold, but she’d decided against it. Let them laugh. Let them have a good time. If nothing else, the people in this restaurant could see the Boarlanders genuinely enjoyed being together. That’s if they ignored Clinton’s scowl and the soft snarls that occurred when someone got too close to one of the predator shifter’s food. She supposed big, burly loggers required a lot of calories.
Beck had barely heard a word throughout dinner. She was too enamored with watching the curve of Mason’s lips as he talked through that slight smile that dumped a whole heap of mushy feelings into her middle. What she wouldn’t give to see him under that beard.
She touched her lips with her fingertips and remembered the kiss he’d surprised her with. It was one of those life-altering moments. It was a kiss she would compare every other one to from here on. No man had ever kissed her like that. Like he wasn’t trying to get into her pants, but was just content to taste her and touch her instead. She’d always wished desperately for Robbie to be affectionate with her. Showing love wasn’t his style, though, or maybe he hadn’t ever really loved her. She’d assumed Mason’s aversion to touch meant he was the same, but it was plain and clear that he was nothing like Robbie. She could tell by the way his lips had softened against hers, by the way he’d held her tight, as if he didn’t want to let her go. She could tell by the way he had filled her plate without even asking before his own while he talked with Bash. She could tell by the way his thumb rubbed soothing circles on her back every once in a while just to let her know he was there, right beside her.
As if he could hear her thoughts, he ran his fingertips against her bare arm, trailing fire with his touch.
When she went to grab a sip of her beer, Clinton was frowning at her from across the table, his head canted as if he’d never seen her before. His eyes narrowed to little slits. When Audrey said something funny down the table, Mason laughed beside her, but Clinton lowered his voice and said, “Your eyes sure look strange in this lighting.”
Shit! Beck dropped her gaze immediately. She’d lost herself in Mason’s affection and hadn’t realized he was drawing her animal to the surface. She was usually much better at concealing herself than this.
“What did you say your name was again?” Clinton asked low.
Beck ignored him and rested her elbow on the table, cupped her neck, and avoided his curious gaze.
“Oh, I remember now. Rebecca Anderson.”
“What are you doing?” Mason asked in a hard tone.
Clinton was apparently too busy tapping away on his cell phone to answer.
A soft rumble sounded from Mason. He turned to her, drew her closer, and whispered right up against her ear, “Don’t let him get to you.” His bottom lip brushed her sensitive earlobe, and she sighed as heat pooled between her legs. And now there would be no hiding her eyes because her animal was desperate to drink in more of her mate.
Beck closed her eyes and clutched onto his shirt. Mason slipped his hand over her fist, squeezed her gently, and left his cheek against hers. His beard was rough against her soft skin. “I’ve never kissed a man with a beard before,” she whispered.
His chest was heaving curiously under her hand, and he pressed her palm against his drumming heart, content to stay near her. Beck was shaking now, her muscles twitching to be even closer to him, and somehow, in the busy restaurant, the chaos fell away, and it was just her and Mason.
Eyes tightly closed, she whispered, “You make me feel…” What could she say that wouldn’t send him scattered to the wind? Happy, normal, hopeful, like she could be good at love, like she didn’t have to be alone, like she could share her whole self with someone for the first time in her life…
“I make you feel what?”
She could do this—be brave. She didn’t want to hide from Mason like she had with Robbie. Mason was like her. He wouldn’t judge her or look at her like she was disgusting. He wouldn’t be disappointed. Slowly, she eased back, determined to let him see her eyes. They would be the color of liquid gold right now, an admission that she wasn’t what she’d pretended to be. That she wasn’t human. With a deep inhalation, she fluttered her eyes open.
Mason froze, and the relaxed expression on his face faltered with confusion. He cupped her cheek and ran his thumb under her eye, brushing her lashes delicately. Her pupils would have shrunk to pinpoints by now, and the strange color undeniable.
“Beck,” Mason murmured.
She heaved breath as fear blanketed her. This wasn’t like her. Not like her at all. She was at a table of predator shifters, and she was small and fine-boned, fragile compared to the goliaths talking around them. “Don’t tell,” she pleaded pathetically.
He searched her eyes, his own gaze lightened to a stormy blue now, as if her animal was calling to his boar. He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple dipping low before he said, “Okay. I won’t.”
And just as she moved to escape to the bathroom, he pulled her in close and kissed her.
“Bangaboarlander dot com strikes again!” Bash crowed from a few seats down the table, and Beck ended the kiss with a fra
ntic smack of her lips.
Mason pulled her close, hiding her face from the others as he dished out, “Bash, she didn’t find me on your stupid website.”
Focus, focus, focus.
“Besides, we aren’t exactly banging.” Mason’s tone sparked with humor. “She’s just beggin’ me to do the photoshoot tomorrow. Without words. Thinkin’ about my lumberjack body got her all revved up, and I was just helpin’ her—ow!” he said, wincing away from Beck’s swat. He broke out in a laugh with the others.
Beck giggled and shook her head, feeling more in control of herself. But when she looked at Clinton, he wore an empty smile and murmured, “Well, you ain’t registered.”
Mason kicked him hard under the table. Clinton grabbed his shin and launched into a muttered string of F-words.
“Can I have your autograph?” an eight-year-old boy asked from over Clinton’s shoulder.
The sandy-haired, grumpy behemoth formed his lips like he was about to say, ‘No,’ but Beck spoke up for him. “He would love to!” And then she glared him down. He was not going to make a public scene this close to the shifter rights vote.
“Fine,” he gritted out. With a put-upon sigh, Clinton snatched the pen and paper from the boy and said, “You better not sell this on the Internet until it appreciates to a million dollars. This is the one and only time I’ll be signing one of these.” He scribbled his name across the paper and then spent some time doodling a cartoon of a bear who was…doodling. There was a smiley-faced poop glob and happy looking flies involved and everything. Lovely.
“Cool,” the boy drawled out, staring wide-eyed at the crude treasure in his hands. “You’re really good at drawing, mister!”
Clinton crossed his arms, practically gloating under the compliment. He tossed Mason a competitive smile. “I’m good at everything.”
“Okay then,” Mason muttered as the server made her way to the table. She held up the check, and Mason gave her a two-fingered wave. “I got this.”
“Oh, I can get my own,” Beck murmured.
Bash loudly slurped the last of his water and piped up, “Don’t worry, Beck. We can’t break his bank. Mason is a boar shifter.”
With a frown, she asked, “What do you mean?”
“Boar people only think about money and piglets. Mason is rich like one of them pirates with the buried treasures in the—”
“Bash!” Mason barked out. “That’s good, man.”
Bash was quiet for about two and a half seconds before he leaned forward and whisper-screamed, “He has lots of money.”
Emerson and Audrey snickered, but Mason didn’t seem amused. He sighed an irritated sound, pulled his wallet from his back pocket, and handed the waitress his card.
“They’re coming,” a woman murmured behind Beck.
“What?” she asked, turning around. Behind her, no one was there. There was only an empty table, but when she looked at Mason again, he was staring at her with a look akin to horror in his now blazing blue eyes.
“Did you hear her?” he asked, an edge of panic in his voice.
“Who?” She checked behind her again, but clearly she’d lost her mind because, really, not a soul was there.
Mason shook his head hard and muttered, “No one. Forget it.”
Mason signed the receipt in a hurry and then stood so fast his chair went up on its back two legs and toppled over.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine.” His tone had gone feral. With a quick glance at Beck, he said, “I need some air.” And with that, he turned and left the restaurant. Left her staring after him wondering what had just happened.
A cool breeze blasted against her neck and lifted all the fine hairs on her body.
Beck searched the empty space one last time as her instincts screamed that something wasn’t right.
They’re coming.
Who the hell was they?
Chapter Nine
The silence in the cab of Mason’s truck was so thick it was choking. His profile was rigid as he gripped the steering wheel tighter, and his jaw clenched as he turned onto the road that would lead to the trailer park.
He was a powerful, masculine man with his ripped torso pressing against his white T-shirt, his suntanned arms bulging against the sleeves, so what on earth had him reacting like this? He’d closed down so fast, so hard.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she murmured.
Mason shook his head and pulled a baseball cap from the backseat, then pulled it low over his eyes. He wasn’t hiding anything from her, though. Her senses were tuned to him already.
“I’m not rich, you know. It’s not like I’m just slumming it out here in the trailer park. I like living here. Like living simply. I don’t need a lot.”
“I’m not judging you.”
Mason blasted under the Boarland Mobile Park sign, a trail of dust billowing behind them. “Bash was right.”
“About what?”
“About what is important to my people. Boar people aren’t like bears, or gorillas, or anyone else. Money trumps all, but wealth isn’t only measured in the size of your bank account. Wealth is measured in the number of offspring you can successfully have and provide for. I don’t have the offspring, but my instinct to stock away money is still there. I just don’t have anyone to spend it on. I bought this truck, sure, but what else do I need? What else could I want? I had a big fancy job once, a long time ago. It hurt me, and it hurt…”
“Your first mate?”
“I don’t want to talk about her.”
“How long ago?”
“Beck,” he gritted out, casting her a hard warning glance.
“Okay, I understand. You’re not ready. It’s hard to talk about my ex, too.”
“Your ex, Beck. Ex. You’re a shifter in hiding, but still, you’ve never once called him your mate to me. I lost my mate. My mate. And when she passed, it ripped my guts out. Ripped my heart from my chest. Ripped my life away, my future. I was ruined by age twenty-two. That’s what love does. Do you believe in ghosts?”
“Y-yes,” she forced out, clenching her hands against the urge to shove open the door and flee. She couldn’t be a shifter with all these heightened senses and not believe in the veil.
“When you lose love—actual love—your life gets filled with them. You see your mate on everyone’s face you pass in the street. You can’t stop thinking about moments you shared. Can’t stop thinking about what-ifs. Can’t stop blaming yourself.”
Anger lashed at her heart that he was comparing his loss to hers. They weren’t the same, but he didn’t know how deeply she’d been cut. “And now she’s haunting you.”
Mason clacked his teeth together and pulled to a stop in front of 1010, and before the wheels had even locked up, she shoved open the door and scrambled out. Clutching her purse to her stomach to keep her pain from leaking from her body, she strode toward the porch. And when she heard him slam his door and follow behind, she jogged to escape him.
She reached for the door handle, but Mason was there in a blur, hand on the barrier. “You’re angry.”
“Damn straight, I’m angry,” she said, shoving off him to get some breathing room. “You think you’re the only one with real estate in ‘actual love’? You think you’re the only one who lost it? I loved Robbie. Loved him. Lucky you, your mate loved you back, but mine didn’t feel the same about me. So no, I can’t call him my mate because I wasn’t that to him. I wasn’t enough! And don’t you fucking talk to me about ghosts, Mason. I can see my ghost. I share a child with him, have to talk to him, see him, watch him move on with some woman younger and prettier than me. I have to feel the slap of his rejection constantly, and I will have to bear it my whole life. He couldn’t stand to touch me! Couldn’t stand to fuck me unless it was from behind and he wasn’t looking at my face, and I knew what he was doing. He was buried in me, thinking about the women he kept on the road. He spent more on them every holiday than on me. I could see our bank accoun
ts, knew what was happening, but my animal was in it. I was trapped. I was mated. He was not. I’m sorry you lost your mate. I really am. My heart bleeds for what you’ve been through. But I think that somewhere along the way, you became so buried in your own pain that you can’t see the good things that are sitting right in front of you.”
“Like what?”
“Like me!” Tears streamed from her eyes, and angrily, she wiped them with the back of her hand. “You lost your mate, and I’m sorry for it. Not because I pity you, but because I care about you. I don’t want you to hurt because I know what the ache of loss can do to a person. What it can do to your animal. You lost a mate, and I know it’s not the same to you, but I lost one, too. And now I’ll lose another.”
“What do you mean?”
Miserably, she ducked her gaze. In a shaking voice, she whispered, “You know what I mean.”
Mason approached slow, and she countered back until her hips hit the porch railing. “Tell me.”
Her face crumbling, she swallowed a sob and said, “I picked you the first time I saw you. I picked another man who can’t pick me back.”
And as he took another step toward her, she gave into the pulsing power of her animal. She would be damned if another man ever trapped her.
****
Mason held his hands out soothingly, palms up, because Beck smelled different. He was hurting her, just like he knew he would. She smelled of anger and sadness and something more. Something inhuman. Beck hunched inward and imploded in an instant. Her clothes dropped to the floorboards and a massive white owl blasted toward him. She used his shoulder to leap from, her long, curved talons slicing through his flesh before she beat her powerful wings and caught air. She lifted easily, gracefully, glided to the tree line. He’d never seen anything more beautiful. She was larger than any wild snowy owl by five times, at least, and her wingspan was massive. Flowing downy feathers covered her outstretched legs, and her talons looked like daggers. And just before she disappeared into the night, she let off a surprisingly guttural and fierce call.