Boarlander Beast Boar(13)

“Boar,” Beaston said as he and Jason moved off.

“Yeah?”

“She didn’t do it to hurt you.” Beaston shook his head sadly. “Some people just feel too much. Hurt too much.” Beaston climbed up the stairs and murmured, “She’s saying sorry.”

He closed the door behind him with a quiet click, and Mason clenched his shirt, right over his stomach where pain threatened to double him over. Beaston saw too much. Way too much. Mason had never told anyone that Esmerelda had taken her own life. He hadn’t even told Damon how she’d died.

“I didn’t know,” Jason said softly.

Mason tried to smile but failed. “No one does.”

Jason smelled of heavy sadness now so, unable to stand it, Mason strode past him toward the treehouse Beaston had built a couple logging seasons ago. He scaled the ladder and settled onto the porch, high up in the canopy, and dangled his legs off the edge. And when Jason had popped the tops on a couple beers and they’d each taken a healthy swig, Mason asked, “How did you get rid of your ghost?”

“I didn’t get rid of her. She had to decide to leave on her own. I don’t know, man. I blamed myself for her haunting me, but really, that was just Tessa’s personality to spend her afterlife pissin’ me off. She got louder and stronger when I first met Georgia, and then something changed.” Jason set his beer down with a hollow clunk, then cracked his knuckles. “The harder I fell for Georgia, the weaker Tessa got, until one day, she could barely talk to me. I was letting her go, sure, but in a way, I think she saw me moving on, and she was letting me go, too. I used to hate her. Tessa was my maker, my mate, but I wasn’t her only mate.”

“Oh, shit,” Mason muttered.

“Yeah, she died when she was with her other man, and she was mad I didn’t come to save her when things went south. Hell, I was mad at myself for a long time about that, too, but it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t her fault. It was a rival crew who didn’t care about killin’ off the women. The point—I used to hate her when she was alive. I hated her at her funeral because she’d bonded us, broken me young, and then she’d left me. Left me for another, left me on this earth mourning a woman who treated me like shit, but I couldn’t get her out of my head. I hated her for haunting me. For making me think Creed would have to put me down when I went crazy enough. But in the end, she saved me.”

“How?”

“She had something to say that was worth listening to, Mason. Georgia and Harrison? They’re here because Tessa warned me Georgia was in danger from those poachers. You remember that. You were there. Damon’s mountains went to battle, and it was Tessa who told me to Change Georgia to save her. To save me. I didn’t hate her in the end because, it turns out, she was there for a reason.”

Mason sighed and dangled his beer bottle over the side of the porch. “So you think Esmerelda is here for a reason. Because she has something she needs to say?”

“Does she have words?”

“Only two, but they’re getting stronger. Tonight at dinner, Beck heard her.”

“Beck? The publicist?” Jason’s lips twisted in a slow smile. “You bangin’ her?”

Mason looked away to hide a smile. “None of your damned business.”

“So, no. Zero pecker strokes for the sad pig.”

“We aren’t there yet, jackass. I want to be. She’s all I think about…”

“But Esmerelda?”

“But lots of things.”

“Like what?”

Mason gritted his teeth. He hated exposing himself to anyone, but he’d come here for Jason’s help, and he owed it to Beck to try. “Like she has a kid. And an ex who hurt her badly. Who still hurts her. And I’m…” Mason took a long swig of his beer, stalling. “I’m not good for anyone right now, and I don’t want to add my baggage to her already complicated life.”

“Who wants an uncomplicated life? I’m serious, man. Who wants a boring existence?” Jason arched his dark eyebrows. “The complications? The little blips and hiccups and heartaches? Those are what add texture to a life and make it good. They make people strong, make them able to appreciate happiness. And someday, when you get your head out of your ass, you’ll be grateful for where you’ve been. Hell, you’ll even be grateful for the time you had with Esmerelda because, in her own way, she’s prepared you for this.”

“For what?”

“For seeing the life you want and leaving the grit behind so you can go and get it. What does Esmerelda say, Mason?”

He stared at Jason, utterly shocked by how insightful the Gray Back jokester was being. “She says, ‘they’re coming.’”

“They’re coming,” Jason repeated softly. “Beck and her kid.”

Mason swallowed over and over, afraid his voice would crack when he spoke. “You think Esmerelda’s telling me it’s okay to move on?” God, what was this feeling coursing through his veins? Hope? He almost didn’t recognize it. Hope had eluded him for a long damn time.

Jason gripped his shoulder and shook him slowly. “Yeah, man. She’s letting you go. It’s time to let her go, too.”





Chapter Eleven




Beck sniffed and wiped the last of the dampness from her cheeks as she shoved her legs into her jeans. The air had cooled up here in the mountains of Wyoming, chilling the floor boards of 1010’s front porch, making the soles of her feet tingle.

“I saw you,” Clinton said.

Beck gasped and pulled her pants up as fast as she could. Mortification blasted heat through her body in a wave before it landed in her cheeks. “Great, you pervert. You saw me.”

Clinton frowned. In the dim porch lighting, he stood leaned against the rail near the bottom stair like he’d been there all night. It was eerie how quiet he’d been. She wasn’t snuck up on easily, but her shame at what she’d done to Mason had her head spinning like a top, distracting her from the dangers of the Boarlander woods.

“I didn’t mean I saw you naked. I meant I saw your animal. I knew you were a flight shifter. Just didn’t know what kind. A snowy owl.” His natural hate-filled scowl had morphed into an expression that looked almost impressed. Clinton cocked his head and narrowed his eyes, which had lightened to silver. “You’re sad. Why?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” With Clinton or with anyone else. She would need to leave this place. Run. Flee back to her old life where she felt steady. Here, she dared to want things that would never come to fruition for a person like her.

Clinton looked off into the dark woods. “You know, I had a girl once who was sad. She thought bottling up hurt meant she was strong, but it didn’t.” Clinton dragged his inhuman eyes back to her. “Silence will hurt Mason, and it’ll hurt you, too.”

Warily, she approached the side railing and looked down on the normally furious bear shifter. “Why do you care? I thought you didn’t like me.”

Clinton snorted. “Don’t matter who I like, Beck. It matters who Mason likes. He’s a jackass.” He twitched his head behind him toward the trailer park. “They all are.” Shrugging one shoulder up to his ear, he lowered his voice and murmured, “But they’re my jackasses. Mason’s known that quiet sadness before. It brought a strong man to his knees, and he hasn’t learned to stand yet. I can see him trying with you, though. Don’t break him before he gets there.” And without another word, Clinton ripped the one remaining rosebush out of her landscaping, threw it in the middle of the yard, roots up in the air, then sauntered to his trailer next door and disappeared inside.

As his door banged closed behind him, Beck released the breath she’d been holding. Up until a minute ago, Clinton had terrified her, but maybe Mason had been right when he’d said Clinton would grow on her.

Break him? She didn’t have the power to break Mason Croy. What Clinton didn’t know is that she’d marked him. She’d claimed him because her animal required scars. She was a monster. And now the only one at risk of breaking here…was her.

What the hell had she been thinking? Everything had become so clear as she’d soared high above Damon’s mountains, lost in her swirling thoughts of the man she loved. What had possessed her to fall for a huge, dangerous boar shifter? She and Mason came from completely different worlds, obviously, and her decision to claim Mason didn’t just affect her. She had Ryder to think about, and a tentative alliance with Robbie that could go up in flames at any moment. Her pairing up with a shifter wasn’t going to make co-parenting with him any easier. Robbie was anti-shifter. Always had been. Always would be.

God, she’d messed up so badly with Robbie, and now she was making the same terrible mistake. Only this time, she didn’t have the excuse of naïve youth, inexperience with men, or a shotgun wedding for freak’s sake. She hadn’t learned anything from the first time around, but had dove in beak first once again. And Mason didn’t feel the same. He was hooked up on his ex and not ready to move on, and yet again, she was alone in this.