Bearly Hanging On (The Jamesburg Shifters #6)(22)

Ryan shrugged. "Sometimes, I guess. It isn't anger, though, it's just curiosity. We weren't ever close enough for me to really miss him, you know? I guess the fact that we had our last hoorah right before he died," the younger bear clenched his teeth and took a second to collect himself. “Anyway, I think we finally came to terms with each other.”

Boston nodded and puffed again.

"How did you know? With Aunt Maude, I mean. At what point did it occur to you that—"

"You're in love, aren't you?" Boston cut him off. "Or... no, that's not it. You're scared you might be. I've seen that look before."

Without replying, Ryan looked back up at the sky and sucked his bottom lip between his teeth. "Something like that. I've only seen her a couple of times. The first time, I didn't think much of it, but I couldn't get her out of my head."

"And the second time?"

Ryan scoffed a laugh. "That's a hell of a story."

"So you were makin' it for three days?" Boston slapped Ryan on the back. "You old dog, you!"

"Actually," Ryan said, "it's much funnier than that. I went to that ranch down the way. I got a wild hair up my ass to steal a cow - don't ask. But while I was doing it, she sorta... fell out of the sky and onto my back. She did something to me, and the rancher and his mate took care of me until I came to."

Boston's eyes were wide enough that his disbelief was fairly obvious. "Did the fella know you were tryin' to steal a cow? And she fell out of the sky? I've seen some curious things around these parts, but that's a new one."

"Oh yeah. It's hard to believe even for me, and I was there. But she's... it's hard to explain."

"Love always is," Boston added. "Never much makes sense. At least not the same way that algebra or facts about the Civil War make sense. 'Specially for our kin."

"Our kin?"

Boston nodded. "You're doubly screwed, I'm afraid. When bears fall, they fall hard. When Drakes fall?" he let out a long, low-pitched whistle. "You asked about Moo-maw? How I knew?"

"Yeah?"

"I met her after the war. The Korean one, you're familiar with that one?"

"Well, yes, of course. I didn't go to college, but I'm not a moron. I have seen M*A*S*H."

"Startlingly accurate, right down to the cross-dresser.” Boston congratulated himself with a short belly laugh at his own joke. “Anyway, when we came home, it was chaotic. Too many hot-headed men running around who didn't much have a clue about how to live in the real world. Any rate, she tended bar at a place I frequented, so I knew she was a different sort of gal. If only I'd known how different."

"So that's it, you two just hit it off like that?"

"Hit it off is the right way to put it. One night, she was mixing drinks and pouring beer for a bunch of increasingly rowdy former soldiers. This was in New Jersey, where I'd settled in a fashion, with some war buddies of mine. Making a go at the big city and all that."

"All bears?"

Boston shook his head. "Couple of us. But it's a good thing, because if there were more, that night might've turned into a full-on riot. A bunch of the boys were drunk and getting drunker. Some were already in over their heads, and others were getting that way. One of the younger ones, he got it in his mind he wanted to get his hands on your aunt, so he started hitting on her somethin' fierce."

"Oh God," Ryan said. "I see where this is going."

"No you don't." A mischievous smile spread across Boston's face. "He was chatting at her, she was ignoring him, and then he started gettin' indignant. I told him to lay off her. He wasn't one of the regular crowd, y'see, he was a newer one. Any rate, he took a swing at me, and I laid him flat out. For a time, that was that. Those things happen."

"Sure, yeah, I know what you mean."

"Couple hours later, everyone's a couple hours' drunker. Same little guy comes back, this time he's got himself a little boot knife. Maybe three inches long, all told. Two inches of blade at the most. He sticks it in my ribs, right here," Boston lifted his shirt and pointed in an area with a very faded pink scar.

Even in his old age, he was solid, and tall. Ryan remembered his younger years, when he stood taller than Ryan did now, and was stouter across the chest. "I bet that didn't work out quite like he thought it would," the younger bear said.

Boston snorted. "You shoulda seen the little guy. He stuck that thing in my ribs, and you know us, we've got that thicker skin, thicker muscles. It hurt, sure as shit, but that was all. I grabbed him by the collar and lifted him off the ground. I said somethin' I've long since forgotten, but I'm sure was very witty at the time.

"Next you know, that little jackass," Boston laughed again. "He reached past me, grabbed my beer off the bar and hit me square in the head with it. From there, things escalated mighty quick."

"Why have I never heard this story?"

"You never asked. Anyway, so this young fella's friends, they start to scuffling, and us older guys are losing our patience. 'Fore you know it, the whole place is a brawl. In all this, I lost track of your aunt somehow, but a couple of youngsters grabbed ahold of me and hit my head on the bar. I was a little woozy, seeing stars and the like. I'll never forget it."