Boarlander Cursed Bear (Boarlander Bears Book 5) (2 page)

Clinton braved a glance at Mason’s feral face, then looked into the forest again. Lifting his chin, he said, “Beck should tell you.”

“I-I need to take a test to be sure,” Beck rasped out, like she was having trouble forcing her words up her throat.

“No, you don’t. I’ve smelled you for a while,” Clinton said. Dragging his gaze to Mason, he murmured, “You put a little piglet in her. She’s the one you were supposed to have a family with all along. Fuck those sows.”

Mason’s face went slack with shock, and then he inhaled a long, shaky breath as he looked at his mate. Beck was crying like a baby already, her face all crumpled, tears streaming down her rosy cheeks. Audrey and the girls were rubbing her back, and Air-Ryder was looking around confused.

Mason scooped Beck off the ground. His shoulders were shaking as he buried his face against her neck. Clinton couldn’t take it. Too much happy. Too much mush and emotion, and his bear was roaring in his middle to Change and escape the pain.

He could’ve had this once—happiness—but his mates had only succeeded in destroying him instead.

As Beck began sobbing behind him, Clinton strode desperately for the woods.

Moments like these would never belong to him. He hated everything.

And then his ears rang with the roaring of his bear.

Alyssa Dunleavy squinted at the napkin she was doodling on and then went to work shading the eyes. She could never get the boy’s face right. With a quick glance around the diner she served tables in, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the newspaper article some pro-shifter named Emerson Kane had written for the
Saratoga Hometown News
. Alyssa unfolded the paper and flattened out the wrinkles, then slid it across the beige countertop to sit right beside the picture she’d drawn of the boy from her dreams. Under the article was a photo of five guys sitting in front of a mobile home. She’d found it when she’d become interested in the upcoming shifter rights vote, and now she just couldn’t get one of the bear shifters out of her head. Even through the low resolution of the photograph, the man’s ferocious face looked eerily similar to the boy in her dreams. And even weirder, his name was listed under the picture with the rest of his Boarlander crew.

Clinton, just like the boy’s name from her dreams.

The other server on shift, Bryce, yanked the picture from her grasp and asked, “Is this dream guy?”

With a mortified gasp, Alyssa snatched for it and missed as Bryce laughed and dangled it out of reach. Damn her stumpy legs, and double damn Bryce’s giraffe stature.

“Whoa, he’s fine.” Bryce cocked his head and stared at her drawing sideways. “Or he would be if one of his eyes wasn’t miniature.”

“Okay, stop,” she muttered, pulling the napkin from his fingertips with a
riiiip
. Perfect, because she planned on tearing it up anyway.

“Hey, Angie,” Bryce called down the counter. “Safety First had another dream.”

God, she hated that nickname. “Bryce,” Alyssa gritted out, her cheeks flaming with heat.

The owner of Sparky’s Diner shut the cash register and made her way toward them. Great. With one last death glare for Bryce, Alyssa smoothed out her apron with her clammy palms and plastered on a smile for Angie.

“Let me see,” her boss said, hand out. She waved her fingers impatiently, so Alyssa sighed and gave her the newspaper article and her crappy drawing.

As Angie and Bryce studied the pictures, Alyssa tried to imagine it from their points of view. The picture was so grainy, and this man in the article was much older than the boy, by a decade at least. There was no way they were a match, and now they would know how crazy she was. Wincing with mortification, she made her way to the only full table and refilled a regular’s coffee before he needed it. She wished it was busier, but right now was the lull, midway between lunch and dinner.

“What did your therapist say?” Angie asked, way too damn loud for comfort. The whole town already thought she was a nut-job. Small towns knew everything about everyone, and it had leaked long ago that Alyssa traveled into the city on Thursdays to visit some fancy shrink.

Clenching her teeth against the urge to pop off to her boss, Alyssa put the coffee pot back on the heater and leaned onto the counter. Quietly, she admitted, “She thinks I have these dreams to cope with my accident. She says it’s my brain’s way of filling in blanks because I’m not happy with the answers I’ve been given. It’s all in my head. This boy is just…” Alyssa shook her head helplessly. “He’s just a figment.”

“Hmm,” Bryce said, his perfect chestnut-colored eyebrow arched high. “And what do you think?”

“I don’t know. I think about him way too much. I should stay in the here and now, but for some reason I keep escaping to this fantasy world I created in my head.”

“Well,” Angie murmured, “your doctors did say there could be permanent damage they won’t ever know the full extent of. Maybe this is part of it.”

“Yeah.” Alyssa tried not to sound disappointed. She really did, but hearing another theory about her brain damage from her friends sucked. Her parents, doctors, and therapists already made her feel like a freak. “You’re probably right. And in my dream, there is this girl named Shae, and I’ve never heard of anyone named Shae in my life, nor does the dream make any sense.”
Smile like a normal person. Bigger.
“It’s nothing.”

Except she knew how she felt in those dreams. She felt the tingling in her legs creeping through her body. Felt the wind on her face and the puddle that soaked her socks. She felt his kiss—violent and almost painful. Twice she had startled awake with her lips throbbing.

She really was crazy.

This poor guy in the paper didn’t even know he was being stalked by some lunatic. She lived across the country from him in North Carolina. That man had nothing to do with her, and the dream was obviously some fucked-up, desperate attempt to make sense of her accident. Why? Because losing all her memories by getting her dumb ass lost in the woods and falling into a ravine was much less interesting than some hero-soul-mate-love-story. Clearly, she’d been watching too many of those lovey-dovey proposal videos online.

Alyssa pursed her lips and threw the ripped, scribbled napkin away. She wanted a lovey-dovey proposal. And not just the proposal, but someone who would deal with all her baggage.

“So,” Bryce drawled. “Remember when you dated Kyle? And Ben?”

“God, don’t remind me. I’m not the world’s best girlfriend.”

Bryce turned and poured himself an orange soft drink from the soda machine into one of the paper cone-cups Angie supplied for them when they wanted a refreshment on shift. “Not your fault. You lost all your memories at eighteen, and now you have ten tiny years of remembered history. And then you go and pick boys, not men, who can’t handle your journey.”

“Journey, huh? Both of their breakup speeches were mortifyingly similar. My exes wanted a woman who knows who she is. And frankly, they have a point.”

“Oh please,” Angie said, wiping down the counter with a wet rag. “You know who you are. You are Alyssa muthaflookin’ Dunleavy, the best server I’ve ever employed—”

“Hey,” Bryce complained half-heartedly from behind his orange soda mustache.

“You have no less than a dozen Employee of the Month pictures in my office—”

“Rigged,” Bryce muttered.

“Bryce, I don’t think you’ve showed up on time since you started working here,” Angie said.

Bryce nodded once at Alyssa. “She has a point.”

Angie continued. “You love your parents, you’re a hard worker, a great friend, and you can cook like nobody’s business. And you are the shittiest scribbler I’ve ever met.” Angie cracked a smile. “You know enough. Kyle and Ben were small-minded pickle-dicks who weren’t on your level.”

“Maybe this mysterious sexpot
is
your dream guy,” Bryce mumbled, clicking away on his phone. “He has a profile up on bangaboarlander dot com. Listen to this. ‘Clinton Fuller, age twenty-eight, nymphomaniac, giant penis, no STDs, wants tons of kids, loves to give flowers and cuddle, immediately ready for a mate, net worth—a billion dollars.’ And then it has a phone number listed. And then it lists an edit to the profile that just says, ‘Great ninth best friend.’ Hell, he’s my dream man, I’m calling him.”

“Bryce! Don’t!” Alyssa reached for the phone, but he was across the counter and escaped her easily as he lifted the cell to his ear.

Bryce pouted and hung up. “Straight to voicemail. Dream Guy’s voice is sexy, though. All deep and growly.”

Alyssa groaned and rested her head on her crossed arms on the counter. “Bryce, he isn’t my dream guy.”

“No STD’s, Alyssa,” he said through a baiting grin as he pointed to the glowing screen of his phone. “Giant penis.”

“Bryce,” she whined. “Why can’t you be my dream guy? You accept me and my baggage.”

“Because you
don’t
have a giant penis. If I was straight, though, I’d put a ring on you tomorrow.” He frowned. “If you stopped wearing those nerdy glasses and shaved your legs more often.”

“Okay,” Alyssa muttered. “Enough. I’m going to go stock the back.

“Waaait,” Angie drawled. She and Bryce shared a look Alyssa didn’t understand. Angie pulled up a plastic jug full of ones and fives. “We may or may not have set up a little charity for you.”

“What?” Alyssa turned the full jug and read the sign taped on the side. Sure enough it read
Get Alyssa a Life Fund
. Fantastic.

“You have worked here since you were twenty, Alyssa.” Angie rested her elbows on the counter. “You should’ve moved on a long time ago.”

“You don’t like me working here?”

“You know I do, and I’ll be completely screwed when you leave and the bulk of the work falls on this one.” Angie nudged Bryce, who looked completely unoffended. “But you haven’t taken a single vacation. You went stagnant and got scared of life after that accident. You haven’t gone anywhere or done anything, and it’s time.” Angie pulled a wad of money out of her back pocket and dumped it into the jar. “This is to help with your trip.”

“Trip? What trip?”

“The one you’re taking to Saratoga to figure out what it is about dream guy that has you off in la-la land all the time.”

Bryce dropped a wad of money into the jar and declared, “For disposable razors.”

Alyssa’s throat thickened with emotion at how amazing her friends’ offer was, but… “I can’t take this.” She fingered the lip of the plastic container. This was more money than she’d ever seen in her life. “It’s way too much, and I’m not going to Saratoga.”

“You have to.” Bryce draped his arm over her shoulder and set his phone down. “We’ve already rented you one of those rustic cabins on the outskirts of town for seven days of that wilderness shit you like so much.”

“I went camping one time, and it was at the local park.”

Bryce shrugged. “Go for a week, meet dream guy, mark him off your list so you don’t have to think what-if for the rest of your life, and then come back here and work at the diner for eternity if you want.”

She couldn’t do this. Couldn’t. Her nickname was Safety First for a reason. She was twenty-eight years old and still got nervous talking to strangers. She didn’t even go to the local bar without pepper spray, a serrated pocket knife, and at least two friends. The thought of going to a new town that was chock full of shifters was terrifying. She’d never even met one of the animal-people, and now she would what? Walk up to Clinton Fuller and ask him what he was doing in her dreams?

But Angie was right about her never taking vacation days. She worked really hard to pay for her apartment so she didn’t have to live with roommates, and here Angie and Bryce were, offering her a free vacation to somewhere that had completely captured her imagination.

What if she just went and enjoyed the cabin and didn’t track down Clinton Fuller? That seemed less scary, and really, she would probably enjoy a vacation once she figured out the town. Feeling reckless, she whispered, “Okay.”

Bryce leaned forward and cupped his ear. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you.”

“I said okay.” She offered him and Angie a nervous smile. “I’ll do it.”

“And call us with updates every day,” Angie said.

“Yes.”

“And,” Bryce added, “tell me how big Clinton Fuller’s werebear dick is.”

“Oh my gosh, I won’t be seeing any”—gulp—“werebear dicks.”

Alyssa nodded at her friends like a bobble-head to hide the terror blooming in her chest. She was really going to do this. She was really going to leave her comfortable, small-town existence, where every day was just like the last, and do something new and completely insane.

And maybe, just maybe, she would catch a glimpse of Clinton Fuller.

“Amaretta’s Manner Emporium?” Clinton muttered, reading off the pastel pink and white sign above the tiny shop. “Are you fuckin’ serious?”

Beck growled, terribly if you asked him. Owls were good for screeching and hooting, not snarling. “Clinton, you are a complete disaster in public, and the radio station has asked for interviews with all of the Boarlanders, the local news, too, and I can’t trust you to say one single thing that isn’t offensive.”

Clinton scoffed and jammed his finger behind him. “I just signed that kid’s autograph!”

“You signed it
Barf McNuggets
and drew a cartoon penis with a smiley face.”

Clinton shrugged. “So?”

“So that kid was seven.”

Clinton gave an actual growl and relaxed against the pink—friggin’ pink!—siding of the small Victorian building. “I’m not going in there so some lady old enough to fart dust can teach me which fork to eat a damn salad with.”

Beck was the publicist in charge of public relations for the shifters of Damon’s mountains, and yeah, he got that the shifter rights vote was coming up, but she was crazy if she thought he should be the face of her mission.

“You care more than you pretend you do,” she gritted out, her light green eyes fierce.

“False. I care even less.”

“Clinton, I’ve had this appointment booked for a week. Get inside.”

He cocked his head. “Make me, bird.”

Beck pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes and let off a long groan. And when she looked back up at him, her eyes were the yellow-gold of her snowy owl. Good. She should be fired up. This was stupid. Manner lessons? Please.

“I’ll buy you whiskey. The good stuff.”

Okay then.

Clinton made to mosey on inside, but some instinct made him freeze, his hand on the doorknob. Slowly, he turned, listening for whatever it was that had drawn his animal up. Or perhaps it was a smell. He inhaled deeply, but the wind was whipping this way and that, confusing all the scents. Feeling watched, he stepped out of the shadow of the small porch and scanned the main drag of Saratoga.

And then he saw her. Shae.

Across the street stood the ghost from his past. His first ghost. The one who had turned him into…this.

He couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

She stood frozen except for her hair, long and black as a shiny raven’s feather and curled into gentle waves. Big hazel eyes, a pert nose, full lips that had parted in shock. The last time he’d seen her, she’d worn glasses, but not today. Nothing blocked his view of her face. He knew every line, every curve.

God, she was just as beautiful as he remembered.

“Clinton?” Beck asked, concern thick in her voice.

Tight jeans with holes over her knees and black Converse sneakers, Shae held a book tight against her perky little tits. She wore a long-sleeved black sweater. Maybe she had scars to cover.

Cars passed between them, stealing her from his view.

“Clinton?”

He winced and ripped his gaze away from Shae for just a moment, and when he looked back, she was gone.

Clinton gripped his shirt over his stomach to keep his insides in place. Everything felt like it was falling apart. He let off a pained sound from his bear shredding his insides. From the hole in his heart ripping wide open again. It hadn’t ever healed, but he’d done a bang-up job of taping that shit together.

He’d just imagined her. It happened all the time.

His imaginings were just a way for his cursed bear to pretend she was attainable.

****

The air was unbreathable. Alyssa forced oxygen into her lungs and clutched the book tighter to her middle in the shade of the alley. That was him. Clinton Fuller. He wasn’t just some grainy photograph anymore. He’d been real. His eyes had locked on hers, the spark of recognition so identifiable. He looked different from the boy in her dreams. Older. Her age, perhaps. He had short dirty-blond hair and the same dove-gray eyes, but his face wasn’t as familiar as his photograph had been. He wore facial scruff a couple shades darker than his hair, and his body was definitely different. It was October, and chilly, but his massive shoulders had pressed against his thin, navy T-shirt, and his waist had created a strong V-shape. A tattoo stretched down one arm and peeked out of the V-neck at his chest. And in dark wash jeans, his legs looked long, lean, and powerful. Holy shit. The Clinton of her dreams wasn’t a boy anymore. He was a well-formed man.

“You can’t be here. You should leave.”

Alyssa jumped and screamed as the giant slunk into the alley. Smoothly, slowly, like a predator stalking his prey, Clinton Fuller walked around her, his eyes studying her in ways that set fire to her cheeks. He picked up a strand of her hair and sniffed it with a long inhale, then settled it back on her shoulder gently. She couldn’t move with him this close. There was something wrong with him. On some chemical level, her body knew to run. It’s all she wanted to do.
Trapped! I’m trapped!

Clinton’s nostrils flared, and he clenched his jaw so hard a muscle twitched under his whiskers. A soft, menacing rumble emanated from his chest, but he backed up, step by slow step, his eyes sparking with something she could only describe as hunger.

“I want to hurt you,” he said. “You should leave.”

“You already said that,” she whispered. “Do you know me?”

Clinton’s eyes narrowed to vicious slits. “Should I?”

“I…I don’t know. I saw you, and I had such a strange feeling come over me. Like I’ve seen you before.”

“Clinton!” a pretty woman called from across the street.

Alyssa jerked her gaze to the woman. “Is she your…” Alyssa swallowed hard. “Are you taken?”

“That’s none of your business.” Clinton’s voice was deep, gravelly.

She wished she could say something to soften the fire in his eyes. “I saw you give that boy an autograph.”

Clinton’s eyes blazed lighter as he huffed a dark laugh. “You want an autograph?”

“No?”

Clinton was to her in three strides. He yanked the book out of her hand, pulled a pen from his back pocket, and then wrote the words
GO HOME
in handwriting so angry it ripped the page. With one last furious glare, he chucked the pen against the opposite wall of the alley and left without a second look back.

Her vision of the protective boy wavered…and then disappeared.

Clinton Fuller was no one’s dream guy.