Page 3 of Brad

“Yes. Relentlessly.” He looked at Becka’s tent and then at Toby again. “How sure are you about this? As you’ve already said, I don’t know crap.”

“You’re her mate. She’s not going to be happy and come to you with open arms like some other woman might. She’s been hurt. Still is if I don’t miss my bet. This man, I don’t know his name other than Danny, has been—it’s why we travel and do not have a space of our own. He’s been…I’ve never told her this, and I won’t unless I have to, but when her home burnt to the ground, I could smell him and the others then. Then, about five years ago, I noticed his scent around the truck and cab, too. He’s trying to get in.” He felt his need to protect the two of them roar up. “Calm it down, or she’ll come out here. She’s got a bit of magic; she can talk to me when necessary, but she can also feel me when I get stressed. And you’re stressing me a little.”

“I’m assuming that’s part of the mate stuff.” Toby smiled at him and nodded. “I didn’t know. I mean, I’ve been thinking about her a lot, but I thought I was just enjoying her company. Which I am. Both of you. But this mating information? It’s nothing that I thought of.”

“I think I figured that out, too.” They both laughed, and he felt better for it. “Those people you were with today, one of them smelled of bear. I know that none of them were bears, but they’ve had close contact with one. Do you know that person, too?”

“I do. I’ve only just met him. Well, the two of them. One is his mate, the other is a friend of ours. It’s Calhoun Meyer. Have you heard of him?” Toby stared at him with an open mouth. “I’m going to take that as a yes. He’s the king of the bruins.”

“I know that. Every bear knows that, too.” Toby leaned back in his chair and looked about as shell-shocked as he was feeling about finding out that he had a mate. “I don’t want to tell you what to do here, but that man is wanting something from my aunt. If you can protect her, then I’m going to…do you really know King Meyer?”

“I do. Would you like to meet him?” Toby nodded, then shook his head so many times Brad didn’t know what he wanted. “He can do that pop-in thing. If I call him here, he’ll…I don’t know what he’ll do, actually. As I said, I’ve only just met him.”

They talked for a bit longer. When Toby said he was going to hit the bed, Kirk asked if he could sit there for a bit longer. Telling him to just be careful had him shaking hands with the young man. He really was a good kid. It wasn’t until he exhausted every question and gotten no answers he had about mates that he knew he reached out to the only other person that he’d come to think of as his best friend. Hamish would have answers. If he didn’t, then he’d know where to get them.

Getting into his car, he did what he’d been thinking. Drove to a few empty spaces down and pulled into the lot. While sitting there, he tried to reason with himself and tell himself that she was going to be all right until morning. But it didn’t work. Brad was worried about his new little family now and that it would be the same in the morning.

After reaching out to his friend, he told him everything. Not just the fact that he had to be told she was his mate but about the man trying to get into her rig. Then, when he thought that he’d exhausted himself, he told him again how much he’d enjoyed talking to the two of them and hadn’t any idea that he’d just found her and that she had him a son.

“I’d not start out with that if I were you.” He asked which part when Hamish just showed up in the front seat of his car. “None of it. I mean, you’ll tell her sometime, but I’d hold off about how her nephew had to tell you about her. Women can be touchy about the strangest things. Don’t tell her that either. That will get us both in hot water.”

“There seems to be a lot of things about women that scare you, too. Are you sure that you’re the big badassed vamp, or is it, Lander?” He didn’t even hesitate and said it was all Lander. “You’re off your head if you ask me. And not all that helpful. The sixteen-year-old kid was more helpful than you are being.”

“Then go wake him up so that you piss off his aunt.” They both sat there for several seconds before they laughed. “Lander did some research on the two of them. When I left her, she was still digging. She told me about the murder and killing at the bruin. The burin has since been taken apart. She didn’t know why and said she’d get with Calhoun in the morning. That’s all I can tell you about that. Becka is pretty much an open book, she said. There is nothing in her closet, it seems. I know that when I tell her about Becka being your mate, she’ll dig deeper. Not that I think she’ll find anything else.”

“This is the strangest thing that has ever happened to me.” They both sat there, staring into the darkness. “She’s very beautiful. Smart and has done a better than average job on…how do I tell if what Toby told me is right? I mean, what if he’s mistaken?”

“Do you feel like he might be?” Brad shook his head. “Then I’d take what he said as gospel. Hang on. I’m talking to Lander.”

While his friend spoke to his mate, Brad got out of the car. He should have put her up in a hotel when he realized how chilly it was outside. But the two of them, she and Toby, seemed to be thrilled with camping out. Toby told him that it was nice to be able to have nature right there with them. He loved that part, too, but in small doses. He wasn’t sure how he felt about camping out in the woods. He liked his comforts and didn’t think he’d like doing this night after night.

Smiling, he told himself that he’d get used to it if that was what it took to make her happy. Brad laughed. Christ, he was getting to be as sappy as his friends with mates. He couldn’t wait to figure out the other things that he’d heard about over the centuries. Also, he would have to figure out a way to tell her how old he was, too. That, he thought, was one of the many things that he’d put off as he’d been advised. But he would ask his son too when he—

“Lander wants to talk to you.” He nodded and got back into the car. Whatever advice she had for him, he’d use it. She was a good deal smarter than her mate, as he knew Becka would be to him.

Chapter 1

Brad felt terrible for what was going on with Becka, his mate and the new to the family. There were a total of thirteen files in front of her, plus the one in her hand. Each one of them, all labeled with a sticky note, told her not only things that she needed to know but things that she would need to take care of in the immediate future. There was also the issue that some of it had come to her too late for her to have been able to do anything with it. The filing of the birth certificate of her nephew, as well as her adoption of him, had been taken care of by my Launder. All the paperwork had been filed away so that no one was the wiser about it not being done before. Brad was happy about that. One small detail that neither one had to worry over.

With everything going on when Toby was born it had been difficult for her—nay, impossible for her to have done anything about that part of her raising the young man. Both his parents and grandmother had been brutally murdered while she’d been babysitting him. Not only the three of them but the entire pack had been murdered, including the children, in the most heinous way imaginable. If he could, he’d hunt all the men down who had been responsible and murder them in the same ways.

Brad was having a hard time gauging her reactions right now. They’d only known one another a few weeks, and most of that had been with her being an over-the-road trucker who had been working for him without his knowledge for the last few years. Laughing, he thought that he’d not want to play any games of chance with her until he got to know her better. Maybe not even then.

When she picked up one of the files that had been marked with an address, she asked Launder how they were able to figure this out. Brad could see from where he was sitting that it was an address that seemed familiar to him. Then, he only just remembered what the address meant when Becka spoke. That not only had arson been the cause of the fire that took her home and only stationary place for her, but they also had a good idea of how it had started. She’d lost everything in the fire. And Brad would bet that she’d say that it was worth it to have been able to save Toby from the same death as his parents had had to endure.

“I didn’t know about it until I started digging into your past. I must say, I’m pretty impressed with your driving record as an over-the-road driver. I didn’t know if you were the norm or not in never having a ticket, but it was pointed out to me that you’d not have had any serious accidents either. Congratulations on that, Becka. You should be proud of yourself. I would imagine that has a great deal to do with Toby riding with you all the time.” Becka glanced at Toby and then nodded. “As for knowing who might have set the fire, that came from Toby. He told Brad that he smelled the man that was around your truck recently as well. That’s when we were able to attach his name to a few other things that had gone on around the area.” This time, she really looked hard at her nephew.

“Yeah, it’s nice that he’s so forthcoming with his information, isn’t it?” It didn’t take a rocket scientist to hear the sarcasm dripping off of each word. He had a feeling that Toby was going to be in the dog house for a good long time because he did not share information with his aunt that could have been lifesaving. Lucky for all of them, neither of them had been hurt and that was because the two of them kept an eye on each other while out on the road. “What do we know about this Danny person other than he’s not a bear, but he has several bear friends? I’m assuming more than I have.”

“You’re being very calm.” Becka glared at him, and Brad laughed. “I’m sorry. But I’m barely holding onto my anger about what they did to you, and you’re very calm looking. You’ve had less time to deal with this mentally than I have, and I’m still raging inside how they screwed the two of you over.”

“I’m far from calm. However, what you just said isn’t true. I’ve had a little bit longer to deal with this than you have simply because I’ve had to be on my guard all the time. I might not have known the players that were around, but I did know that we were being watched all the time. They took everything from Toby and me when they burnt down my home in addition to his family home as well.” She looked at Launder, Hamish’s mate, and asked her if she was sure she needed the details about the sloth that had been destroyed the night that Toby’s parents had been bears with, too. “The only reason that I have any idea what went down is because when I sent Toby to the then-local sloth of a friend of mine, he took me aside and told me everything he knew. Which is a great deal more than the police did. He was also able to get me some information about Toby that I didn’t have. Weight and things like that. It had been filed with the local doctor’s office, and he found me a copy so that I could get him registered for the doctor’s office. Then later to get him into school.”

“Were they all killed to take over the sloth? That is one thing that I’d like to know.” So did he, but Hamish would get more answers from the king of the bears rather than just him. He wasn’t even sure that Becka was going to answer him when she got up to pace, something that he noticed that Toby did as well. “I’m assuming that you’ve had your ear to the ground for some time now. At least sixteen years, correct?”

“More than I think most have, yes. Liza and Roman Jermon had been married for two years when they found out they were going to have a baby—Toby. Liza is…was my sister, and I couldn’t have been happier for them than I was at their wedding. Then, just a few years later, they had Toby.” Calhoun, the king of the bears, asked if Toby knew anything about that day or the days before and after. “He does. Of course, he didn’t then. He’d only been an infant. And I don’t know how well I would have been at keeping him safe if not for staying with Liza when he was born. Changing diapers and that sort of stuff is not intuitive, no matter what people think. Besides, I would never keep something like that from him. The issues came up at one of the schools he attended and I had a duty to his parents to tell him what had happened. The real truth of it. I think that it helped him a great deal, or perhaps not that he didn’t remember them at all. He was sorry for their death, but since he’d been so small, it was only words I was telling him and not that he had much of a bond with them.”

“Good for you. I think that’s what I would have done in the same circumstances. I honestly only heard bits and pieces about what had happened over the years. It will be…well, not nice to hear it all, but it will be helpful in getting to the bottom of what is going on now. I’m to understand that you believe that one or more of the men that night has targeted you at your personal home and work?” She told him that was what she’d been told and that she didn’t have anything personal anymore but her truck, and that was getting too old for anyone to care about breaking. “If anyone in this room told you that, you might as well take that as gospel. There isn’t a better group of people to get to the bottom of things than this group.”

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