Boarlander Bash Bear 2(6)

Sebastian Kane was nothing more than a speedbump on her road to happiness.





Chapter Three




Flowers were flowers to Bash, but Audrey had given him a very specific list of plants that would do well in his landscaping. Already, he’d built a big, pretty porch off the front of his trailer and scraped the top layer of weeds clean off his lawn with the bobcat. He’d replaced it with sod so fancy he could walk around barefoot without getting any sticker burs stuck in his feet. He was bound and determined to make his home more attractive to a mate looking to raise cubs with him, and the next step on his to-do list was to put in landscaping. “Curb appeal,” Audrey had called it.

She was at work, but she’d drawn him a sketch of how to do the flower beds, which basically looked like hieroglyphics to a man who didn’t have a creative bone in his body.

Bash wiped his forearm over his sweaty brow and stared into the back of his truck. The bed was layered in plants and flowers that apparently did well in direct sunlight and would survive the harsh winters. For Audrey’s help, he would fix up Harrison’s yard next as a present for her. Clinton could keep his weeds.

Bash had picked up two pink knock-out rose bushes just because they were the color of Emerson’s cheeks the other day. Would she like a place like this?

A strange ache unfurled in his chest, and he locked his arms against the lowered tailgate. He thought about her too much, but maybe that’s what friends did. Audrey was the only female friend he’d had, and he thought about making her happy a lot, too. Maybe not as much as he thought about Emerson, though.

Bash shook his head hard to dislodge his daydreams about Emerson. Two more days, and he would have some serious potential pairings come in for the Meet-A-Mate Bash. Emerson didn’t want a man. She’d said so herself, so maybe if he found a girl who was interested back, his brain wouldn’t be so filled up with Emerson.

But…another woman wouldn’t be as pretty as Emerson. It wasn’t possible. And she wouldn’t be as funny, or cute when she laughed. She wouldn’t have her pretty, shiny, spiraled black hair or her deep dimples. She wouldn’t have gold eyes that crinkled in the corners when he said something that made her laugh. If Emerson hadn’t smelled utterly and deliciously human, he would’ve thought she was a lion shifter with those pretty eyes. And her curves were perfect, like an hourglass or a number eight. He’d had a boner the entire time he’d talked to her at the diner. Usually he would’ve just announced that out loud and taken the awkwardness out, but she only wanted to be friends, and Audrey had told him last week he needed to stop telling her his dick was bigger than Harrison’s. It was true, by at least a centimeter, but maybe girls didn’t like knowing that stuff.

He spent three hours making the landscaping on either side of the new front porch look like the scribbles Audrey had drawn, and he was sure to put the pink rose bushes right next to the sides of the porch so he could see them first thing when he left for his shift in the mornings and right when he came home after work every day. Emerson roses.

“Looks good, man,” Kirk called. He was sitting in his yard in a dingy white plastic lawn chair with duct tape on the leg and drinking a beer while he faced the sun setting behind the mountains.

Bash stood back and dusted the mulch from his hands onto his work jeans. With a smile, he took eight giant steps back until he was on the edge of the gravel road. Hooking his hands on his hips, he nodded, impressed with himself. “It looks real good.”

“Yeah, you need to get that door fixed, though.”

Angling his head, Bash stared thoughtfully at the stack of tires in his doorway. A lady probably wouldn’t appreciate having to stack those all the time. “I ordered materials from Kong’s sawmill when I was down in Saratoga, but it won’t be delivered up here for a few days.”

“Thank God,” Kirk muttered. “I’m kind of surprised a woman like Audrey moved up to this craphole.”

“Me, too,” Bash murmured. “Audrey is special, though, and didn’t have no expectations. What if I don’t find a girl like that?”

“Well, you might not find her right away, but be patient enough, and you’ll find the right mate.”

“You really believe that?”

Kirk took another swig of his beer and nodded, squinting at the sunset. “I do. You’re a good man, Bash. A thoughtful one. I don’t necessarily think there will be a mate for all of us at the trailer park, but there will be a good woman for you.”

“How do you know that? Do you have dreams like Beaston?”