Boarlander Silverback (Boarlander Bears #3)(36)

A slow, proud grin washed over Kirk’s face, and he murmured, “Truth.”

And when she looked back at Harrison, he was smiling now, too. “Works for me. Come on Ghost Girl. Let’s get drunk.”

“Wait,” she said stunned as the others walked away. “You’re not going to rake me over the coals?”

“Nah,” Mason said. “We can hear a lie. Finn didn’t tell one, but neither did you.”

She arced her shocked gaze to Kirk, but the smile had faded from his lips. His eyes were glued to her shoulder. “You’re still bleeding,” he murmured in a strange voice.

Sure enough, her puncture wounds were staining the T-shirt, which made perfect sense because it still hurt like hell. “Well, yeah. You bit me, Kirk. And then you jumped off a cliff with me.”

His chest heaved as he lifted bright gold eyes to hers. “I didn’t realize humans were so fragile.”

She frowned over her shoulder at the dark spots on the baggy shirt. “Well, I’m not dying.”

Kirk shook his head and pulled her hand toward the biggest singlewide at the end of the trailer park. “I’m not taking care of you like I should.”

“That’s debatable.” She lowered her voice and lightened her tone. “You did give me one awesomely explosive orgasm under the falls.”

Kirk didn’t seem amused, though. In fact, he didn’t respond at all until they were up the porch stairs of a trailer with the lopsided numbers 1010 hanging beside the red door. “Why aren’t you taking me to your trailer?”

“Because the walls are open, woman. It’s a cesspool of mold spores, and I never gave a single thought to infection until just now. I took you swimming in a murky river with open wounds. I’m a f*cking idiot.”

“Not true at all, and you didn’t bite me that deeply.”

A long, low growl rattled Kirk’s chest. “Stop lettin’ me off the hook. Bash is convinced this place is magic.”

“The trailer?”

“Yeah. Ten-ten has been to every trailer park in Damon’s mountains. It has been home to almost every single mate at one point, and they all swear the same, so call me superstitious, but it feels like a smart f*ckin’ idea to suck up some good vibes from this place.” He pulled her inside and turned on her, then stood back a few paces.

She arched her eyebrows as he stared at her. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“Do you feel anything different? Do your wounds feel better?”

“Okay, you’re being insane. Do you have a first aid kit in here? Oh, my God, there’s a mouse!” She pointed to the rodent scampering across the floor. Nope, nope, hell nope, she didn’t do mice. Alison bolted for the door, but Kirk was to her in a flash.

“It’s Nards. Shhh. It’s just Nards. He’s a pet.”

Was that her whimpering? Alison climbed up on the couch. “Why would you have a field mouse as a pet?”

“Well, because he’s nice and gentle and…polite.” Kirk frowned. “I thought it was weird at first, too, but now I have one of his babies in my trailer.”

“On purpose?” Okay, she was screaming now.

“Yes. Her name is Teats, and she lets me hold her.” Kirk cleared his throat and muttered, “She eats seeds from my hand.”

“I had rats in all of my apartments in Chicago, and they were not nice. Not nice at all.”

“Okay, well look.” Kirk pulled a bag of jalape?o-flavored potato chips off the kitchen counter, knelt down, and handed one to Nards. And sure enough, the little mouse took it politely, then scurried off through the kitchen.

A shiver trembled up her spine, but she stepped gingerly off the couch and tried to regain her composure. Kirk stood slowly, and he looked like he was hiding a smile.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing.” Kirk cleared his throat and now his grin was stretching wider. “It’s just you’re this tough, badass, tatted-up undercover cop, and you’re afraid of a pet mouse.”

She smoothed her shirt farther down her knees and looked primly up at him. “Nards just surprised me is all.”

“Nipples lives here, too.”

“There are two of them?” Kirk hunched at the volume of her voice, so she lowered it to a less psychotic pitch and said, “That’s just lovely.”

“First aid kit is this way.” He sauntered off through the kitchen.

“The way the mouse went?”

“Yep.”

An open doorway swallowed him up, and now she was left in the middle of the living room alone, shifting her weight from side to side on the squishy laminate flooring and studying the small home. White walls, a sagging white ceiling with more than one leak stain, white kitchen cabinets, and green couches. There was an expensive looking television resting in the entertainment center, though, and the kitchen table looked high quality and handmade. Even the two dark wood ladder-back chairs beside the table looked fancy. She’d lived in way worse. As she ran her hands along the polished wooden countertops of the kitchen, she did get a strange chill up her spine, and this one wasn’t from fear. It was from…she didn’t know.

“You coming?” Kirk called from Mouseland.

Alison blew out a long, steadying breath and braved the bedroom, which, as it turned out, was huge and took up a third of the trailer. “Wow,” she murmured. A thick cream and blue floral comforter was folded down invitingly on the bed, and flanked on either side was a pair of windows and old-fashioned hanging lights. There was a built-in dresser and two closet doors, and on the opposite wall was a bathroom. Kirk stood inside, ripping open a package of first aid supplies and muttering something too low for her to hear.