Lowlander Silverback (Gray Back Bears #5)(37)

Kong laughed, hooked an arm around her waist, pulled her close, and pressed his lips against her forehead. “The water will be cold this early in the season, but we’ll get used to it. The Gray Backs are doing a bonfire, so we’ll spend the day there and just forget about everything, okay?”

“Did you set this up?” she asked.

His proud smile was answer enough. Her big, tough mate was also caring enough to offer her beautiful distractions.

“I’m the luckiest.” Layla kissed his cheek and bounded into 1010 to gather sunscreen, sunglasses, towels, and the like. She had everything stuffed into her backpack by the time Willa danced in, swinging a purple bikini and gyrating her hips like a pole dancer. Layla giggled and danced around her, poking her fingers into the air and double-time tiptoeing across the semi squishy floors of 1010.

“So sexy,” Kong teased from his spot leaning against the doorframe. An easy grin was splitting his face, and his dark eyes were dancing, exposing the happy, carefree side she’d only seen him have with the Gray Backs in Sammy’s Bar when the Beck Brothers were playing a show. Today was going to be amazing.

“Okay, strap them udders into this and meet us outside,” Willa said in a giddy voice. “Snap, snap, human. It was a long winter without Bear Trap Falls, and I have copious amounts of s’mores I need to shove into my mouth hole.”

Layla dressed and slipped her feet into a pair of flip-flops, then followed Kong out of the trailer. He looked so cute with her pink, glittery backpack over his shoulder. Tan skin, muscles everywhere, and the man didn’t mind glitter if it meant he could carry her stuff and take care of her. God, she loved him so much her heart felt like it was going to swell out of her chest.

“Aaah,” she yelled as she ran for him and leapt onto his back. He didn’t even buckle under her weight, just put his hand back behind him under her butt to keep her steady and kept walking.

“Sexy little monkey,” he murmured with a smile in his tone.

“Oo oo, ah ah.”

His laugh was booming and echoed through the trailer park. The sound of it sent a delicious shiver up her spine that landed in her shoulders, and she held on tighter around his neck, nuzzling her face against his warm skin.

She would have to go back to work again soon. Back to trying to catch up on bills. She would have to go back to Saratoga and face her old life and all the memories there, but for today, she didn’t have to worry about anything. She just had to exist, and laugh, and enjoy every breath she had been blessed with because today was about taking a break from the muck. And as she grinned at the old white Chevy pickup with everyone piling in the bed around a giant cooler, she wouldn’t have picked anyone else to spend the day with.

She had to sit on Kong’s lap, but that didn’t suck. And as Beaston drove them down an old washed-out road, she laughed along with the others at their easy banter. Oh, the Gray Backs might be notoriously broken bears, but she didn’t see that from the inside. They were the warmest, most accepting batch of people she’d ever met. And they’d taken her right in when Kong had needed them to. She got it now. Kong had admitted that he wished he was a Gray Back, and watching them with their mates, laughing, joking, hugging and including her and Kong—always including them—she understood his desire to be a part of this.

They unloaded at a clearing in the woods. Ancient pines swayed this way and that in the breeze, creaking out Mother Nature’s welcome. Waterlogged moss and vibrant green ferns made the woods look lush and alive. Kong gripped her waist and helped her over the edge of the pickup bed, then he pulled her arms around his neck again and carried her ape-style behind the others along a thin deer trail. She bit the back of his neck gently, then followed it with a soft kiss. The sound of running water and birds up in the canopy was so much more beautiful now that she knew how ugly life could be. This place was washing away the lingering hurt that had darkened her middle. Kong had been right. 1010 was magic, but so was this place.

She gasped as they crested the hill. The river was wide, but not too wide to swim all the way across if she was so inclined. On either side, towering evergreens lined the sandy bank. And up ahead, a huge waterfall was creating an ethereal looking mist as the river above them tumbled down against the water below. “I’ve never seen anything so lovely,” she said on a stunned breath.

Kong gave her a sideways glance as he followed the others down toward a stretch of sandy bank. “Me either,” he murmured.

Her middle turned warm and fuzzy as she held onto his neck tighter in a little hug that said without words that she adored him. Sweet mate. Mate. The thought still made her stomach do flip flops. It still took her breath away and made her feel like she was glowing. The luckiest.

Beaston and Creed set the giant blue cooler in the sand, and in a matter of seconds, bag chairs were set up and beers were passed out. Kong declined one, though.

“What, are you pregnant?” Willa deadpanned with a frown.

“No,” Kong said. “I just want to keep my head today.”

Creed stared at him with the same slight frown and tight-eyed suspicious look Layla had been shooting at him the past couple of days. Creed noticed it too. Kong was still holding onto something she couldn’t guess at. Secretive mate.

“I’ll drink for the both of us,” she offered, taking the crews’ attention away from Kong.

“Yeah,” Willa drawled, handing her a blue can. “I know you’re not pregnant.”