Gray Back Ghost Bear(11)

She ran her fingers through the open air out her window, catching the cool draft until her skin prickled from the cold. Ancient pines were so thick here, she couldn’t see far off the side of the road. She slowed for a rabbit that ran in front of her tires and smiled as the little hare disappeared into the brush on the other side. Easing onto the gas, she turned on a mixed CD she’d made when she was in school. Oldies were her jam. And that right there was how she’d known she and Bill wouldn’t be anything more than friends when she’d met him for coffee yesterday. He’d scoffed at her taste instead of listening to why she loved classic rock. If he would’ve asked, she would’ve told him about how she and her mom would dance around the living room to these songs when she was young. Mom worked shifts waiting tables at a local diner, but when she had a night off, she’d turn on an old radio and sing at the top of her lungs along with Georgia while they wiggled around that old trailer they’d struggled to afford. Life was hard. It was cold and revolved around money to buy food, warmth, to pay the bills, and keep the lights on. But on those nights when Mom was smiling and dancing and singing, life was perfect.

Up ahead, an old, white Ford truck was pulled over to the side of the road. Georgia slowed as a man wiped his hands on a greasy rag and waved. He shut the hood of his truck as she pulled over.

He looked familiar, but she couldn’t put her finger on where she’d met him before.

“Hey,” he called. “I’m broke down. Do you think you can give me a ride? Bad carburetor.”

“Do you want me to call a tow truck?” she asked. If her Jeep broke down, she’d be hanged before she abandoned it anywhere.

“Nah, I have the parts to fix it at my trailer. I’m just up the road.”

“Do I know you?” she asked, canting her head and studying the man with the dark hair and bright green eyes.

“I’m Easton, fourth in the Gray Backs. I saw you the other night. You’re Jason’s ranger.” His quick smile appeared and faded as he offered his hand.

She shook it as the familiarity of his face slid into place. It was strange that he’d called her Jason’s anything, though. “Uh. I’m a ranger, yes. I remember you now. I’m sorry I left so quickly. I was actually going to introduce myself to your crew in an official capacity soon.”

“Official capacity,” he repeated.

He was still clasping her hand, so she pulled away and nodded to her Jeep. “Hop on in, and I’ll give you a ride.”

“Uh…” Easton closed his eyes tightly as if he were searching for a word. “Thank you.”

He sauntered over to her ride and climbed inside, then gripped the roll bar as he waited.

Okay then. Georgia turned down the music and pulled around the old truck. Grayland Mobile Park was only two miles off the main road, so the drive wasn’t long. Easton didn’t talk. He only looked out the window, nostrils flaring as if he were scenting the air.

Jason had mentioned Easton and how she shouldn’t smell afraid around him. The man beside her didn’t affect her fear trigger like Jason had, though. Perhaps she’d just gotten used to the bear shifters through meeting the other crews and researching them over the past week.

They weren’t out-of-control monsters like she’d thought. She smiled over at Easton and felt silly for how intimidated she’d been by them before.

Easton wouldn’t hurt her.

None of them would.

****

Jason slid out of Creed’s truck and stared in horror at the front lawn of his trailer. His belongings were strewn everywhere. Bills and old letters to home he’d been too chicken to send rolled lazily in the wind.

“What the hell?” he said on a breath.

Creed cursed beside him and shoved his door open. “Easton!”

No answer but the shuffling of paperwork that blew in waves in front of Creed’s tires.

Jason looked around helplessly at the notebooks, lamps, and broken dishes that made a trail from his trailer to the fire pit. Flames licked the sides of the brick, and Jason bolted for the fire. What had Easton done?

Stacks of papers had been burned. The only clue to what they were was the tattered edges. A piece flew out of the fire and Jason caught it on the breeze. Scribbled across the scrap of paper were the words I’ll never need.

Jason swallowed hard as he read Tessa’s cursive. He knew the rest of that sentence by heart. I’ll never need you like you need me.

Easton had burned her letters, and from the melted scraps of glossy black, the pictures of him and Tessa together, too. And at the bottom of the ashes burned her journal.

“Fuck!” he yelled, his voice echoing across the clearing. He wadded up the scrap in his hands and chucked it into the fire. “I’m going to kill him.”