Knox (BBW Bear Shifter Moonshiner Romance) (120 Proof Honey) (74 page)

“Where are your car keys?” the man asked.

“In my—my purse! Where’s my purse?”

“Got it right here,” one of the younger men said, producing her small evening clutch. “I figured it was too fancy for the other ladies inside,” he added with a grin as he handed it to her.

“Good call,” someone said.

Mel fumbled with the latch, and finally the older man stepped in to open her purse, pull out her keys, and hand them to the man holding her.

“Where are we going?” she asked weakly, as he used the remote to unlock the door then helped her into the passenger seat.

“I’m taking you home, as soon as you tell me where that is,” he said, reaching for her seatbelt.

“Think we’re gonna have trouble with that crowd?” one of the others asked, and Mel looked up to see the five men staring at the front door of the pub.

“Not too likely,” another said. “It’s not like the guy didn’t have it comin’ to him. Besides, they won’t want the cops crawlin’ all over the place, considerin’ how much illegal gamblin’ they got goin’ on.”

“There’s that,” the older man said. “Let’s back straight out, though,” he added. “No need to give ’em a look at our plates.”

“Got it,” her rescuer said.

“Where do you live, darlin’?” the older man asked, and for a moment Mel wondered how on earth they knew her name until she realized it was just an endearment to the man.

She hesitated. Did she really want these men to know where she lived?

“We’re either takin’ you home or to a hospital, darlin’,” he said. “I gotta figure you’d prefer home.”

Mel took a deep breath. “A little north and east of downtown, in a place called Lockeland Springs.”

“Good choice.”

He turned to her rescuer. “You remember where that is?”

“You bet.”

“Then we’ll follow you. Get the details as we go. I wanna get out of here.”

Her rescuer nodded, and checking to see that her door was clear, he closed it softly and headed for the drivers’ side. The others all piled into the rusty van she had parked beside. For once her car started without a hitch, and he backed slowly toward the road, leaving the headlights off until they hit blacktop. The lights in the van came on behind them, and she wasn’t certain of whether that made her feel better or worse.

“You with me?” the man asked.

“I’m here.”

“Good. I’m still thinkin’ it might be a good idea to get you to a doctor on account of that bump on the head you took.”

“No doctor, please.” She was certain she couldn’t afford the copay on an emergency room visit. “I’ll be fine, I promise. Thanks to you.”

She laid her head back against the seat and turned to watch him. The lights from the dashboard only emphasized his chiseled features. She remembered the stage lights had done the same to him and his brothers. They were a fierce-looking group, their physical similarities echoed by the deepness of their voices. The older man had both looked and sounded much the same, and she was almost certain he must be related, too.

“Mr. Saint…”

“Matt,” he corrected, shooting her a smile with a quick glance.

“All right. Matt.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t know quite how to thank you for what you did back there.”

He seemed to consider. “I guess you could start by tellin’ me who you are and what the heck you were doin’ there in the first place.”

“My name is Melinda Darling.”

Matt grinned. “So Uncle Bart was right to call you darlin’?”

She cringed. “I prefer Mel.”

“Okay, Mel. So what were you doin’ in the Irish Town Pub?”

“I was looking for you.”

At his sharp glance, she backtracked. “I was looking for you and your brothers, that is. I heard your performance last night.”

He seemed puzzled for a moment then turned to look at her with a broad smile that reached his eyes.

“You’re that woman at the bar,” he said, as though finally remembering where he had seen her before.

“There were a lot of women at the bar last night.”

“Yeah, but you were the only one I noticed.”

Mel felt herself blush and was thankful for the dim light.

“I find that hard to believe.”

“It’s true, all the same.”

Someone tried to cut them off, and Matt had to slam on the breaks to keep from hitting the idiot. Mel held her breath then let it out in relief when Matt simply backed off instead of needing to prove his manhood to the other driver.

“You weren’t there when we finished,” he said, as though their conversation had not been interrupted.

“No. I was called away. By the time I got back, you and your brothers were gone, but the bartender told me you liked to play pool at that place.”

He cursed under his breath. “I can’t believe you went there alone.”

“Not one of my brighter moments,” she admitted.

“So why did you?”

“You’ll want to turn right here,” she directed, avoiding his question, “then take an immediate left onto Clearview.”

He followed her instructions, checking his rearview mirror to make sure the van was still with them.

“So why did you?” he repeated.

“Turn left at the third traffic light—on Fourteenth Street—then look for Gartland Avenue and turn right.”

“You’re gonna have to tell me sooner or later, you know.”

“Later,” she said, “so I can tell you all at once.”

Matt didn’t look happy about it, but he stopped asking questions and continued to follow her directions.

“Here’s my street, but keep going—there’s an alley behind the house, and a small parking lot. You guys won’t be able to leave your van there overnight, but it’ll be fine for now.

They turned left and found a bright security light marking the small gravel lot behind an old three-story house. Mel directed him to her parking spot then had to wait for him to come around to help her out of the car, because, she didn’t think she’d make it on her own. The van pulled in behind them and after turning around, took a spot on the far end of the lot, just off the street. As Matt helped Mel out of the car, she saw the big, burly shadows that were his brothers approach, and her mind flashed back to what she didn’t want to believe she’d seen at the bar.

In for a penny, in for a pound,
as her grandmother used to say. She decided her questions would have to wait until she was sitting down.

“I’m on the third floor,” she told them, as she used her key to let them into the back door.
 

Chapter 4

The Lockeland Springs historic neighborhood was a gentrified turn-of-the-20th-century area. The houses had all been preserved and renovated, with a few of them—like hers—turned into multi-family housing. Though she’d never be able to afford to buy a place here, the rent on the smallest of this historic home’s three apartments was just within her reach—if she watched what she spent on everything else and kept the AC turned up in the summer and the heat turned down in the winter to keep her electric bills down.
 

One thing this house didn’t have was an elevator, and once she had struggled as far as the first landing, Matt gently lifted her into his arms and carried her the rest of the way. Mel didn’t put up even a token protest, which she was certain told the men all they needed to know about how bad she really felt. When they entered her apartment, she directed them to the front, where the combined kitchen/living room sat overlooking the street. Matt carefully set her down in the kitchen, and she gratefully sank onto one if the wooden chairs at the round corner table.

“You got any aspirin around here?” Matt asked.

Mel had to think a moment. “I have some generic acetaminophen. It’s in the upper cabinet to the left of the sink.”

Matt got it down and opened it for her. “Water okay, or you want something else.”

“Water’s fine.”

Matt poured her a small glass he found in the same cabinet then handing her the glass, sat beside her at the table. Mel swallowed the pills then laid her head in her hand. Matt gently rubbed her back and neck until she finally looked up at them.

“Won’t you sit down?” she asked. “There are a couple more chairs in the next room you could pull up.”

“I don’t need to sit down, darlin’,” the older man said. “I only need some answers.”

“Introductions, first,” Matt said, continuing to rub her back. “Mel, these are my brothers—John, Mark, and Luke.” He indicated each of the three younger men in turn. “And this is our Uncle Bart. Everybody, this is Melinda Darling. Mel, she likes to be called.”

“Uncle Bart’s here to keep us out of trouble,” John, the youngest, said as he pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down across from her.

“And I got you all
into
trouble tonight,” Mel said, hugging Matt’s flannel shirt to herself. “I’m so sorry.”

Bart shook his head, looking resigned, but he took the chair next to her. “These yahoos don’t need any help gettin’ into trouble, ma’am, but I’d sure like to know what tonight was all about.

“She tell you anything on the way back?” he asked Matt.

Matt shook his head. “Only that she heard us play last night, and she needs to talk to us.”

“Hey, that was you at the bar last night!” Luke said. “I just knew I’d seen you someplace.”

“And you were playing the mandolin and fiddle,” she said, attempting a smile.

“That’s right.” He leaned against the wall, between the front windows, his arms crossed over his broad chest.

Mel glanced around and marveled at the presence of these five huge men in her tiny little apartment. Then she thought about what she’d imagined she’d seen at the pub and felt herself go suddenly still.

“What did the barman mean when he said, ‘your kind’ isn’t welcome here?” she asked softly.

Matt’s hand faltered on her back for a moment then began moving again. She glanced up and saw Matt and Bart exchange looks. The others were looking to Bart.

“What do you remember, exactly,” Bart asked. He kept his gravelly voice low, she supposed, so he wouldn’t alarm her, but it had the opposite effect.

She took a deep breath. “I’m not certain. That…man had me pinned up against the bar, then he hit me, and I went down. I thought I was going to pass out, but then I heard…something. It was like a loud, well, roar, I guess, then the man who had attacked me was pulled away, and…”

“All hell broke loose,” Mark said, snagging her kitchen stool with a foot and dragging it over to sit on.

He should have looked silly, but the fact that he was tall enough to see over the table, even though he was sitting on a low stool, only emphasized how big they all were.

“Please tell me what happened.”

Bart glanced around at the others and took a deep breath. Then he nodded at Matt.

“You must have heard stories,” Matt said, “about how sometimes some people, well, change into something else.”

Mel started. She stared at Matt then around at the others. She was suddenly very conscious of their deep, golden eyes as they watched her. She had noticed their eyes last night, but now she saw that Bart, too, had them.

“You’re…?”

“The word you’re lookin’ for is ‘Shifter.’ We are. All of us.”

“It sort of runs in the family,” John said, sounding awfully cheerful about it. “At least on Pop’s side. Our Ma never Shifted, and our sisters don’t, either.”

“It’s usually the male line,” Mark said, “though there’ve been a few women along the way.”

“So what, you just…become…something else? Whenever you feel like it?”

“Bears,” John said. “In our clan, it’s always been bears.”

Mel raised her eyebrows in surprise. The youngest Saint seemed too cheerful about it all.

“And it’s not whenever we feel like it, exactly,” Luke explained. “Well, when we’re kids, when we’re just comin’ into it, we tend to Shift whenever and wherever, which can be pretty darn awkward.”

“But once puberty hits,” Mark said, “we become pretty good at controllin’ it.”

“Unless we feel threatened,” Bart explained. “Shiftin’ is all about survival, so if we feel threatened—or if someone we care about is threatened—we sometimes Shift without thinkin’ about it.”

“That’s what happened tonight,” John said. “Matt went in to get us some more beer, saw you bein’ attacked, and he just instinctively Shifted.”

“And then when we heard him,” Luke said, “we had to jump in to protect both of you by keepin’ that nasty crowd back while Matt dealt with the lowlife who had you.”

“But you don’t even know me,” Mel said, looking at Matt.

John snorted. “Our big brother’s always stickin’ up for the little guy or gal against bullies. I mean, it’s in his DNA.”

The others laughed, but Matt just continued to massage her neck gently with his powerful fingers. She could feel the calluses caused by his guitar strings on her bare skin and shivered. He smiled, then, as though he knew what he was doing to her.

“That takes us back to the first question,” Bart said. “What the heck were you doin’ in that bar tonight, young lady?”