Boarlander Bash Bear 2(21)

“He’s nice?” she asked in a barely audible whisper. Her danged throat had closed up tight. The animal walked slowly enough, but he held a quiet power that convinced her he could beat his way straight through this truck with little effort.

“He used to not be. His people are fucked up, but he turned it around. Went up against the gorilla shifters knowing he was going to get killed for doing the right thing, but he did it anyway. Now he’s real good. A good man, a good shifter. Quiet, though, so don’t get your feelings hurt if he don’t talk your ear off. I hope our cub has your eyes. I mean…” Bash frowned. “Audrey said I should take it slow and keep things to myself. Remind me to tell you what I think when you’re ready for a cub, okay?”

Kirk forgotten, Emerson dragged her gaze to Bash and giggled. “It doesn’t bother me when you say your thoughts. Why do you want our future cub to have my eyes?”

“Because they’re all wild and gold and pretty, like sunlight comin’ through the tree branches and speckling the ground. You even have brown spots in there, like cheetah eyes. Part of me hopes no one else has noticed so those specks can just be mine. My secret part of you no one else looks close enough to notice.”

Stunned into silence, she opened her mouth but found no words so squeezed his hand, stalling to compose herself after such sweet sentiments. Bash was, in fact, the only one who’d ever said anything about her oddly-colored “cheetah eyes.” She had a melting pot of different ethnicities in her heritage, and they had all come together to give her a unique coloring. “I would be happy if our cubs had your eyes,” she admitted in a murmur. “The green in them is hard to look away from sometimes. They are my favorite color.” Emerson lifted his big, calloused hand and nuzzled her cheek against his knuckles before she settled it back in her lap.

She was suddenly not scared to meet his crew anymore. Bash would keep her safe, and the prospect of meeting his friends was suddenly and truly thrilling.

“My favorite color is orange, and tonight I’m going to show you why,” Bash promised as they pulled under a wooden sign. Boarland Mobile Park had been carved into it, but that had been crossed out with red paint and now read Missionary Impossible.

“I have to paint over that,” he muttered. “Clinton and me used to fight somethin’ fierce over whether girls should be allowed in the trailer park or not, and after one battle, I got pissed off and climbed up there and painted that. Harrison told me I should be ashamed, but I wasn’t.”

Emerson pursed her lips against the urge to laugh because Bash was frowning so seriously right now, but she got it. Missionary position impossible. Clever bear.

The trailer park was a disaster. There were six trailers lined up lengthways, three on either side of a pothole-riddled gravel road, and on the end, facing the entrance sign, was a bigger singlewide with cream paint and dark shutters. It had an appealing red door and a new, sprawling deck out front. “I love red doors,” she said.

“That’s ten-ten, and Beaston says it’s full of magic.”

Chills blasted up Emerson’s arms. “Magic how?”

“I don’t know exactly, but if Beaston says something’s true, it is. Audrey moved her stuff out of it and into Harrison’s trailer yesterday,” Bash said, pointing to the first mobile home on the right. “I want you to stay the night with me, but Audrey said, ‘Slow down, Bash Bear,’ and she’s smart, so I’ll set you up in ten-ten for the night. Plus, if it has magic, I want that good mojo on you.”

“Are you superstitious?” she asked through a grin.

“Not superstitious. Just a little-stitious.”

God, she loved the way he thought and said things. He was so funny and sincere. And amazing. Definitely amazing.

All the trailers looked run down except for the one Bash slowed in front of. Middle on the left, it stuck out with its squares of new, bright green sod lined over the lawn, fresh mulch, and flowers and shrubbery on either side of a gorgeous deck with two rocking chairs. A pair of bright pink flamingos had been stuck into the yard, and a yellow sprinkler was gyrating slowly back and forth, watering the new grass. The trailer itself looked like the others. Singlewide, chipped white paint, crooked shutters, dilapidated roof, but at least it wasn’t as destroyed as the one on the end on the right.

That one looked like a tornado had demolished half of it, and a blue tarp had been thrown haphazardly over a gaping hole where an entire wall was missing.

“What happened to that one?”

“Clinton,” Bash said, but didn’t offer any further explanation so she dragged her attention back to the pretty yard as Bash pulled between two trailers and parked his truck under a rusty metal carport.