Chapter Three
Outside the window, the buildings, streets, and protesters had given way to backroads and pine wilderness. Beck had been on the phone for a half hour working, but now she was caught up and the quiet was starting to get to her. Mason hadn’t even eaten his food, so there was no crinkle of paper, no slurp of strawberry shake to fill the emptiness. He’d even turned down the radio, probably to let her talk on her cell easier.
“Are you always the strong silent type?” she asked.
“It’s part of the job description. I’m paid to drive, not carry on conversation.”
“I have a car of my own, you know. It’s just in the shop. Cracked engine block and bad belt and a bunch of other things I’m pretty sure the mechanic just made up. Ripey’s Auto Repair should be called Rip-Off’s Auto Repair. My Explorer was just making a funny sound, so I took it in and, all the sudden, it wasn’t safe to drive and has a billion things wrong with it. And he’s charging me an astronomical amount. The mechanic says it’ll be another two weeks before I get it back, so I had to take a shuttle service to Saratoga, but the driver said he wouldn’t take me any farther than town because the mountains were haunted.”
Mason kept his eyes on the road, didn’t respond in any way. Determined to get back to the chatty Mason she’d talked to earlier, she gathered all her paperwork in the back seat into the right folders, then unbuckled and crawled ungracefully into the front seat. Beck pulled the belt over her lap and clicked it into place. “I thought I was sterile, too. I had a big cyst on my ovaries when I was sixteen and had to have surgery, so only one side works, and even before that I had a condition that makes my cycles patchy at best.”
Mason tossed her a quick, bland look, so she said, “Right. Too much information.”
A few more minutes of quiet drifted by, and she had to stifle the urge to open the window just to hear the wind.
“I’m divorced,” she blurted out.
“Then why are you wearing that big ol’ sparkler on your ring finger?” he asked as he pulled off onto a muddy dirt road.
“Because it’s kind of new.” She cleared her throat. “Actually, that’s a lie. I’ve been divorced for over a year, and before that we were separated for two. And when we were married…well…he didn’t come home much.”
Mason pulled to a stop right before an old, creaky bridge, cut the engine, and got out. Oookaay. She startled when he appeared at her window and pulled open the door. Without a word, he yanked off her heels, unbuckled her, and scooped her up, then carried her to a wooden bench beside the bridge that overlooked a gently rolling river. “I’m hungry,” he grunted.
“Oh, you don’t like people eating in your new, fancy truck?”
“If I cared about that, I wouldn’t have let you sit on my seats in your muddy clothes.”
She looked down at her stained pants. Well, he had a point. Mason jogged back to the truck and returned with the bags of their food. His burgers and fries had to be cold by now, but when he sat down beside her and dug in, he didn’t seem to mind. He gulped a bite and relaxed, one long leg stretched out on the soft earth. “You look young to be divorced.”
Beck poured dressing over her salad and grimaced. “Divorces happen all the time now, don’t you know? It doesn’t care about age. I’m twenty-seven.”
“How old is your boy?”
“Five,” she said through a smile. She loved thinking about Ryder.
Mason’s eyes were glued to the curve of her lips. Self-conscious under his gaze, she turned her attention back to stirring up her salad. “His daddy is no good, but Ryder is everything bright in my life. I had him when I was twenty-two. He wasn’t planned, nor did I plan on anything long-term with Robbie, but we got married because that’s what our parents said we were supposed to do.”
“Ryder is a good name.”
“You want to see a picture of him?”
Mason’s lips turned up in a slight smile, the happy expression there and gone in an instant. “Sure.”
Beck pulled her phone out of her back pocket and scrolled through her pictures to her recent favorite. In it, Ryder was squatted down by a patch of weeds, blowing dandelion seeds into the wind. She loved taking pictures of him. Mason stared at the screen, his expression unreadable.
“I thought I wouldn’t be able to have a kid,” she rambled. “And then I got Ryder, and I wanted ten more of him.” She pursed her lips. “Me and Robbie tried. A part of me thought another baby would fix what was wrong with us, but that was just desperation in the end. He got a job traveling, working on pipelines right after we got married. He only came home on Saturday nights, and by Sunday morning he was off again.” She shrugged as she remembered the pain of not being enough to keep him home. “It was mostly just me and Ryder, so being separated from Robbie didn’t feel much different. And being divorced just feels like a failure, you know? I don’t miss him because I never really had him, but taking the ring off means admitting defeat. I was in it one hundred percent, but he had…” She forked a tomato to death and sighed. “Sorry. I don’t talk about this stuff either.” She scrunched up her nose. “It’s pretty embarrassing to admit that I gave half a decade to that man.”
“He had what?” Mason asked, handing her back the phone.
“Robbie had other girls who kept his attention better. He said I was boring in the bedroom. He said I was boring at life.”
“Oh, shit,” Mason muttered, chucking his half-eaten burger back into the bag. He draped his arm over the bench on the other side of him and stared at the setting sun, shaking his head like he was disgusted. “I’m sorry I called you boring for ordering that salad earlier. That was fucked up of me. I didn’t know.”
“Think nothing of it, pork rind. I was unoffended. My skin got real tough. So tell me what I should know going into the Boarland Mobile Park.”
He offered her a surprised glance. “Is that where I’m taking you?”
“Of course. That’s going to be my temporary home.”
Mason gave her power pants and her pink button-up blouse a once over. “You’re going to live in a trailer?” The tone of disbelief in his voice was offensive and uncalled for.
“Yes, I am. But not ten-ten. Cora told me about its magic mojo, and I’m not looking for any of that. I’m going to set up shop in the other empty trailer.”
“Trailers,” he corrected. “There are two empties besides ten-ten now. I don’t live there anymore, so my old house is up for grabs.”
“Wait, what? I thought you were a Boarlander.”
“No, Beck.” He rocked his outstretched work boot from side to side and looked toward the river flowing under the old bridge. “I’m not an anything.”
She studied his profile, from his short, medium-brown hair and his straight, proud nose to his thick beard. His chest rose with every breath, pushing his defined pecs against the fabric of his shirt, and his body was cast in the soft sunset glow. He was masculine and powerful, yes, but sitting here so close to him, he was more. He was rough around the edges, but underneath all that, he was a beautiful soul. She could tell these things. She had more instincts than he knew about because he assumed she was human.
“I know all about feeling invisible, Mason. Like you don’t belong. But you aren’t invisible. To me, you don’t feel like nothing,” she admitted softly.
Mason jerked his gaze to hers, and she could see his animal there in the flash of blue before it faded back to the natural dark color of his eyes. He didn’t smile but, to her, he felt…relieved.
“I think maybe we should start over,” she said. “We were short with each other earlier, but we will be living in close proximity in Damon’s mountains, and I want a good working relationship with you. I mean, not just you, but all the shifters. Including you.” And now she was rambling, so she scrunched up her face and offered her hand. “I’m Beck.”
Mason hesitated on touching her palm, but finally, he slipped his hand against hers for a shake and held it. “Mason.”
Now the tingling sensation was back and, in an instant, it sparked too hot and she yanked her hand away. Mason stared at his palm with an intensity that said she wasn’t the only one who’d felt it. He ran his thumb along his lifeline and murmured, “You don’t feel like nothing either.”
Chapter Four
You don’t feel like nothing either? What the hell was he thinking? Mason needed to get away from this sexy siren, and quick. She was four years younger, and though that wasn’t a deal breaker, she’d lived a completely different life than him. A hard life had made him feel ancient until Damon had saved him, and she was young and optimistic and beautiful. God, so beautiful.
He snuck another glance over to where she had set up a traveling office in the passenger’s seat. Stacks of papers were everywhere—on her legs, on the floorboard, on the console. She had a purple pen stuck behind her ear, which kept her reddish-gold hair off her cheek, giving him a great view of her face. She was fine boned, and her skin fair and smooth. She had a smattering of freckles dusted across her nose and cheeks, and her eyes were the most alluring shade of seafoam green. Her eyebrows were a shade darker than her hair and delicately arched, and though she was petite, her soft tits were bouncing under her shirt with every bump he hit. He couldn’t wait until they got to the extra shitty road in the Boarland Mobile Park.