Boarlander Boss Bear (Boarlander Bears #1)(22)

A vision of her sitting beneath the Boarland Mobile Park sign in the form of her white tiger flashed across her mind like lightning. From where she sat, a long, steaming fissure broke the earth and created a yawning chasm between Harrison and Bash on one side and Clinton on the other.

She could suddenly see them—the spider web of cracks Harrison had talked about in the Boarlander Crew.

For reasons she couldn’t understand, Audrey suddenly got the feeling she would be the biggest one of all.





Chapter Eight




Harrison ripped the cord of the chainsaw and lowered his sunglasses over his eyes. Settling the blade into the dead bark of the beetle-infested tree, he cut out a wedge and stepped nimbly out of the way when the wind pushed it close to him as it fell.

“Number!” Bash called from sixty yards away where he’d just felled a tree of his own.

“Thirty more,” Harrison said, wiping the number out of his head so he could start over.

Bash was an anomaly. He was a simple man with simple desires, but he was borderline genius with numbers. He didn’t keep notes. He just remembered every calculation at the end of each shift. It was he who had invested their money and built their retirement accounts. Harrison didn’t talk about that stuff with people. Probably everyone thought he and his crew were trash, but even with half his crew cutting out early and taking their shares, he, Bash, and Clinton did all right for themselves, thanks to Bash’s instincts for the market and care with investments.

Bash was also the one who’d dug every bullet out of his body when the poachers had gotten to him. He hadn’t said a word, just reached Harrison first, settled him back, and went to work with this look on his face like he would be good-goddamned if he was going to lose his alpha that day. That was the night Bash had called him his best friend and went to battle with three members of the crew whose animals were scrambling to take Harrison out for alpha when he was too weak to do it himself. He was here because of Bash, but that bear didn’t like mush and compliments. The best gift Harrison could give him for his loyalty was permission to claim a mate and bring her into the park. Bash wanted nothing more, and now, Harrison felt that yearning, too.

Audrey had changed everything.

Yesterday had been one of the best days of his life. He’d become hopeful. His burden had been lightened when he’d laid some of it on her shoulders, and she was a strong woman. She had carried that load with grace and had given him the same advice Creed and Tagan, alpha of the Ashe Crew, had been trying to tell him for months. But it all had made more sense when she’d said it.

He’d found his queen, and that thought scared the shit out of him and excited him at the same time.

Go after the life you want.

Harrison killed the chainsaw and clipped out, “Bash! Clinton! Let’s call it a day.”

“Yeah, boss,” Bash said, like he did every time a shift ended.

Wordlessly, Clinton turned his chainsaw off then pulled his earmuffs off his head and settled them around his neck.

“Six hundred forty-three,” Bash reported in, wiping the sweat of his brow on his arm as he caught up to Harrison. “Pathetic. Damon won’t be happy. We’re holding up the Ashe Crew’s next jobsite. At this rate”—he swung his gaze down the mountain and tallied in his head—“they’ll be sittin’ around for a week before we have this place cleared for them.”

Harrison made a ticking sound. He hated letting the dragon down. Hated. It. Damon had done so much for the inhabitants of his mountains, and he deserved the best from every crew. The Boarlanders weren’t pulling their weight. “We’ll have Kirk and Mason with us tomorrow, and we’ll work until sundown. We’ll catch back up as best we can, but for now, I have to be there when the new crew members move in, and I need to talk to you and Clinton.”

“Crew meeting?” Bash asked, his jet-black eyebrows jacking up.

Harrison ducked his chin once and switched his chainsaw to his other hand as he climbed over the freshly cut trees on the steep hillside toward his truck.

“Crew meeting!” Bash called to Clinton, who was falling behind.

“Yeah, I heard,” he muttered.

Clinton was going to lose his crap today, but this had been coming for a long time.

Harrison lowered his tailgate and set his chainsaw in its case while Clinton and Bash did the same with theirs. He peeled off his sweat-soaked white T-shirt and tossed it in the back before he pulled a clean one out of a duffle bag he kept stocked. Clinton didn’t bother with a clean shirt, as though he expected an uncontrolled Change, which was exactly why Harrison nixed Bash calling shotgun. He made Clinton sit up front instead. If he was going to Change, Harrison had big plans to boot his ass out of his truck, and quick.

“This is about Audrey,” Clinton said in a subdued tone as Harrison jammed the key in the ignition.

“It’s about a lot of things. Mostly, we need to talk about what we’re doing and where we’re going.”

“Why? We’re fine the way we are.”

“Are we?” Bash asked in a dark tone from the back seat. “I’m not. I know for certain Harrison’s not happy. He lost his whole damned crew, Clinton.”

“Are you happy?” Harrison asked. “Answer me honestly, because I can’t imagine anyone with as big a chip on their shoulder as you is really finding joy in their life.”