Boarlander Boss Bear (Boarlander Bears #1)(8)

His eyes were still too bright, but he didn’t feel as heavy anymore, and the feral lines of his face had relaxed.

Audrey dropped her gaze and fidgeted with the damp cloth. “You won’t need bandages. The bite mark is already closed up.” She dared a glance to the bullet scars on his torso. “Were you shot?”

Harrison grabbed her wrist and stopped her from touching one. When had she reached for him?

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“Say your piece and be done, Audrey. Like I told you, this isn’t the place for you.”

Or it was the exact kind of place for her.

Audrey reached into her back pocket and pulled out a folded stack of papers she’d printed off at the hotel she was staying in. “This is why I’m here.”

With a slight frown, Harrison released her wrist and accepted the papers. He unfolded them carefully and read the first page and then the second, his frown deepening. “I don’t understand. I didn’t write any of this.”

“Yeah, I figured that out. So, you probably thought I was crazy last night, but to me, I’d come all the way here to finally meet a man I’d fallen for. A man who is obviously not you.”

“Worms,” he murmured absently. His eyes narrowed to slits as he read from a column of their online conversation. “Fake Harrison talked to you about different kinds of worms.”

“Yeah, that was a weird conversation.”

His chest rattled with a soft growl, and he clutched the paperwork tightly in his fist. “I think I know who did this. I’m sorry you got caught up in whatever is happening, but I didn’t have anything to do with you coming here.”

“Yeah.” Her eyes burned with how badly she’d been taken advantage of. “I know. I just feel pretty stupid. I spent most of my savings to get here. And then I still have these feelings for you because yours is the picture I saw all this time we were fake-dating, and it’s hard telling my heart to stop feeling.”

“Audrey,” he drawled, but she hated the pity in his voice so she rushed onward.

“I know whoever did this isn’t anything like you. I realized that last night. This person is talkative and outgoing, and you seem to have a lot going on right now that makes you quiet and a little reckless.”

“Reckless how?”

“The kiss.”

Harrison ran his hand over his hair and stared down at the papers in his hand. “Oh, that.”

“Full disclosure—that was the best kiss I’ve ever had, by a lot, and it made all this even more confusing.”

“Bangaboarlander.com,” he read as he narrowed his eyes at the logo on the paperwork. “Why were you on this website, anyway? You’re a nice woman, a beautiful woman.” He jerked his chin toward his kitchen window. “You don’t want this life, Audrey. You could have something normal with a regular human man.”

Sadness tugging at her heart, Audrey smiled. She’d tried and failed epically at that. “Yeah, well, I just wanted to explain the mix-up before I left town. I didn’t want to be the story you told years from now about the crazy lady who thought she was your instant mate.” Audrey set the washcloth on the counter. “It was nice to meet you, Harrison.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t what you expected,” he rushed out just as she was about to walk through the front door.

Audrey gripped the knob. “Well, that’s part of the problem. You were better.”

His eyes were glowing in the dim lighting, and she committed to memory the vision of him in this exact moment. Beautiful, dominant, powerful, scarred-up shifter. He could’ve been a match for her animal, but he wasn’t invested in the relationship like she was.

“Goodbye, Harrison.”

“Bye,” he murmured in a dazed voice.

And as she made her way down his sagging porch stairs, she blinked back tears. Now would be the hard part. Now she would have to go back to Texas feeling emptier than when she’d left.

Now she would have to rip her heart away from the stranger who had stolen it.





Chapter Four




Harrison gritted his teeth against yet another bone-deep wave of anger and grabbed the stack of papers from the front seat. He shoved his pickup door open and made his way across the gravel road of the Grayland Mobile Park toward where the alpha, Creed, was working on a bobcat near the edge of the clearing.

The Gray Backs were out in full force, partying around a built-in brick fire pit in the center of the trailer park. He wished Clinton wouldn’t fight fixing up the Boarland Mobile Park so he could create something like this for his crew. Maybe some of them wouldn’t have left if he could’ve done things differently and given them a place worth staying for. Any time he did repairs, though, Clinton’s control faltered, and he accused Harrison of fixing it up to attract women and cubs.

“Hey,” Creed greeted him as he wiped his grease-covered hands on a dirty cloth.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Uh-oh,” the dark-haired alpha said, leaning his elbow on the yellow machine. “That sounds bad.” With a twitch of his chin at his crew, he asked, “Which one did what?”

He should definitely leave the worst for last with Creed. “First, I wanted to know if I could syphon some help from you. My cutters are just a skeleton crew now, and I can’t keep up with the jobsites if I don’t get some help. Kong is giving me Kirk until the end of logging season, but I need at least one more able body in order to get the trees cut before you and the Ashe Crew start.”