Gray Back Bad Bear(32)

“Food’s on,” Matt said, pouring the crawfish, corn, potato and onion boil onto thick brown paper Creed has spread over the prep table.

“Shouldn’t we tell Easton?” she asked as everyone gathered around and began twisting tails off the steaming crawfish.

“You can try, but it’ll be a waste of breath,” Jason said around a bite. “He doesn’t like social calls.”

Well, she knew exactly how it felt to be left out by the bombshells, and she’d be damned if she was going to do that to someone else.

After Creed dug into his bowl of gumbo, he rolled his eyes heavenward. “Damn, woman, you can cook.”

She grinned and thanked him, then snatched a bowl of the piping food and headed for the trail that led to Easton’s wilderness trailer.

“Willa,” Matt warned.

“I’m not leaving him out.”

She could feel Matt’s eyes boring into the back of her head, but she was doing this. The evening had been perfect, and she was enjoying getting to know Matt’s crew, but there was something seriously disjointed when one of them was so ostracized like this.

She stomped up the uneven trail, clutching her warm bowl of gumbo, but with every step farther into the woods, her confidence wavered.

The boys called him Beaston for a reason, and here she was, like a horror-movie dumbass, headed out to his hidey hole alone, all human and weaponless.

But if she was really in danger, Matt wouldn’t have let her come out here by herself.

Easton’s trailer sat in a small clearing. A large woodpile covered most of the front of the house, but why he was stockpiling wood like this when it was summertime, she hadn’t a guess. Perhaps he needed to chop it to settle his animal? Her hands shook even more.

“Easton?” She didn’t lift her voice too loudly. He was a bear shifter and would hear her. Hell, he probably heard her tromping through the woods like a tranquilized elephant. She wasn’t graceful, or even quiet, when she walked.

The door banged open and Easton stuck his head out, green eyes narrowed on her, then on the bowl in her hands.

“I come in peace,” she joked with a little snort.

He didn’t smile.

Scrunching up her nose to readjust her glasses, she walked carefully up his porch stairs and handed him the bowl. “I made gumbo. We’re all eating if you want to join us.”

Easton frowned, eyes still on the bowl. “You want me to eat with you?”

“With all of us, yeah.”

“I hurt your mate.”

Mate. That word sent chills skittering up her spine. “He hurt you back.” She gestured at his arm, which he seemed to be able to use now.

His unsettling gaze drifted to his arm, then back to her. So fast he blurred, he snatched the bowl from her hands and disappeared inside.

Okaaay. She turned to leave, but her name whispered softly froze her in her tracks.

“A gift for a gift,” Easton said gruffly behind her.

On his palm was a hunting knife, encased in fine leather. Willa swallowed hard and took the knife, then unsheathed it slowly. The silver glistened in the evening sunlight, and the blade looked sharp as a razor. “It’s beautiful. Did you make this?”

Easton nodded once.

“Thank you.” She shifted her weight from side to side.

He was watching her now with an unreadable expression.

Clearing her throat nervously, she said, “There’s plenty of food down there.”

Easton shook his head and turned, then disappeared inside his trailer, the door banging loudly behind him.

Clutching her knife, Willa made her way back down the trail. Easton might be more bear than man, but he’d given her a present when she’d shown him kindness. Wild as he might be, he still had good in him.

“Told you,” Jason said when she returned and settled into an opening by Matt’s side. “And here I thought you were intelligent.”

Willa tucked Easton’s gift in her back pocket and plucked her first crawfish from the enormous pile of food. Twisting the tail, she exposed the seasoned meat inside. “Why do you think that?”

“Because you wear glasses and talk fancy. I bet you even went to college.”

“You’d win that bet,” she said. She gripped the spicy meat in her teeth and pinched the tail to release it from the hard shell. Oh damn, this was good. Whatever spicy seasoning Jason had used was perfect.

“I bet you majored in something super nerdy,” Jason said, licking his fingers.

“I did. I majored in micro-penises, and you have the perfect specimen.”

Matt snorted beside her, and Clinton slapped Jason on the back as he let off a booming laugh. Even Creed was hiding a smile from the end of the table.

She shoved her glasses farther up her nose with her shoulder as the sound of eating and joking hummed around her. This reminded her of crawfish boils she’d had at family reunion  s when she was growing up. Back when Grandma and Mom were still around. She and Dad had never picked up the tradition after they passed, and now she regretted that. Maybe dinners like this could’ve fixed what was missing with her and Dad.