Boarlander Silverback (Boarlander Bears #3)(23)

“I posted that,” Bash called. “I did them for Clinton and Mason, too, because I want them to be happy like me.”

“W-what?” Alison asked, wiping her muddy hand on her shorts.

“I like the way you cuss,” Bash said, his smile growing uncertain. “And you throw good.”

Kirk wiped a glob of brown goop from his face and gritted out, “Bash, could you kindly take that profile down? Because apparently, I’m mated to a crazy woman.” He spun and strode with purpose toward his trailer.

“Ooooh, Kirk, I’m so sorry,” she said, jogging after him. “It’s nice to meet all of you!” she called over her shoulder, waving with her mud-smeared hand.

Harrison stood by the simmering fire in the middle of the road with his hands on his hips, glaring at her, while Emerson grinned from ear-to-ear. “Welcome to the trailer park!”

“Nice to meet you without a gun in your hand,” Bash called just before she followed Kirk into his trailer.

“I swear I’m not crazy. I just, whoa, what happened to this place?” She stood in what looked like a living room, if said room had actual walls and a ceiling. Wires were exposed everywhere, and she could see the innards of the trailer on display. No insulation.

Kirk paced a small dining area, hands on his hips, and a terrifying sound rattled from his throat. He jammed his finger at a sizeable puddle of water on the floor. “Leaky roof, waterlogged ceiling, the insulation in the walls has disintegrated to nothing, and I have to rewire this place so it doesn’t burn to the ground.” His eyes sparked as he glared at her.

“I’m really sorry I jumped to conclusions.”

“You know what I’m doing this all for?” he asked, spreading his arms out.

Alison scrunched up her nose. “Me?”

“Yeah, you. Logging season is almost through, and I’m not a Boarlander. Not officially. I’m supposed to go back to the Lowlanders, but that means leaving here. Leaving you. Fixing up this place is me toying with the idea that I can have you.”

“It’s a nice trailer,” she said, trying to hide a grin. “Any woman would be lucky to shack up with you here.”

“Okay,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Enough. I know this old singlewide isn’t a big deal to you, and yeah, I know this place isn’t exactly a castle, but I thought if I fixed it up, I would have a better chance of tempting you to stay.”

“Where else would I go?”

“Ally, you and I both know your job here isn’t permanent. And I can’t give you my last name or a claiming mark. Not anymore. So this is what I have—a refurbished, thirty-year-old singlewide and a crew of dipshits. Contain your excitement.”

“Well, I just turned away a van-load of pretty girls who would sell their fingers to have a shot at hooking up with you, so maybe you have more to offer than you thought.”

“Oh, yeah?” His eyebrows lifted, and humor danced in his darkening eyes. “Like what?”

“Like that sex-mobile you drive around.” She approached slowly and murmured, “Vroom, vroom.” Alison wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her chin on his chest, looking up at him with an apologetic grin. “And in the words of one of your groupies, ‘you’re sexy as f*ck,’ and though she was probably dumb as a brick, I happen to agree with her. I’m going to need a copy of the gif Bash used on your profile for my lady spank bank.”

“What gif?” he asked, looking troubled.

“No shirt, slow motion smile as you strode by. It was hot.”

“Oh, geez. Bash probably took that while we were swimming at Bear Trap Falls the other day. He means well but, damn, he meddles.”

“It’s a horrible invasion of privacy and also a form of identity theft, but under all that, it’s kind of sweet. He wants you to be happy.”

“It’s true!” Bash yelled from outside the trailer. “I do want you to be happy!”

“Bash, we need space to talk,” Kirk called out.

“But I can hear you from inside my house. What’s a lady spank bank?”

Oh, well that was just great. Shifter hearing was much better than she’d realized. That or the gutted walls in Kirk’s trailer were giving zero sound barrier.

Kirk twitched his head toward the back door and pulled her hand until they were outside. She was apparently hiking too slowly through the piney woods behind his house because he bent at the knees and gave her a piggy-back ride through the ferns and brush.

After a few minutes of nothing but the sound of the birds in the canopy, Kirk said, “It really bothers me that you didn’t trust me.”

“It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you, Kirk. It was scary hearing you tell me about the family group you grew up with, how there was one dominant male and a bunch of females, and now your people are having to figure out whether to pick one mate or stick to family groups. And I researched it, the dynamics of the family and all that. Maybe female gorilla shifters are okay sharing a mate, but I’m not.”

“Okay,” he said, sounding troubled. Kirk set her down and ran his hands through his hair, then nodded and repeated, “Okay. That’s fair, and it makes sense, but like I told you before, I’m not one of the family group males. Not anymore, and maybe I never really was. I didn’t like that my mom only got a fraction of my dad’s attention. I didn’t like watching her light up when he paid her a compliment, but delve into depression when he was giving other females more attention. She lived and breathed for time with him. Growing up knowing that I was going to have to manage time between a lot of females was completely overwhelming. I didn’t like it, but that’s all I knew. And most of the time, the females seemed to genuinely care about the male that took care of them. So as I got older, I came around to the idea. I decided I would do it better. Have less females, care for them better, protect them better. But then this dominant female rose in power, and she changed everything for the worse. Fiona started pulling females from groups and moving them around, giving them to males they hadn’t chosen for genetic advantages. She wanted to make stronger gorilla shifter children because she was convinced our people had gone soft. And eventually, she began choosing the females for each male. She created these huge groups under one male, and the other males were given guard duties. They were in charge of making sure the silverbacks she chose to father the next generation were kept out of trouble, and were kept clean and pure.”