Gray Back Ghost Bear(33)

“Time to go do work. I’ll move your things in here tonight if you want.”

“I want.”

Jason chuckled and threw the covers off, then rushed to re-dress. He grabbed his coat and a sack lunch from the dresser and threw open the door just as Creed yelled for him to, “Hurry up!”

Jason turned and rushed back to her, kissed her hard, told her he loved her, and then bolted out the door. That man left her breathless and filled with the fluttery sensation of falling.

As appealing as the idea of lingering in her new home was, she had gotten up early for a reason. Today was Friday, and if the poachers followed their regular routine, they’d be setting up camp somewhere on Damon’s land today. One look in the bathroom mirror, and she nearly split her spleen laughing. Good grief, the man had done a number on her hair. It stuck up everywhere. She pulled it into a messy bun at the back of her head, then got dressed and gave Jason’s trailer—her trailer now, too—one last glance before she left.

She was on the cusp of something great here. She felt it down to her bones and beyond. In her soul, she knew this place could be home if she was open to it. If she was ready for it.

The first snowflakes of the coming storm floated down slowly in front of her, and she caught one on her glove. It was a perfect star shape. She stumbled on gravel near the fire pit and laughed as she caught herself. Her amusement was cut short as chills blasted up her arms despite her heavy winter coat. When she made her way over the dry grass her Jeep was parked in, her instincts screamed, and she stepped carefully around the spot that just didn’t feel right. Tessa was invisible to her now. She’d disappeared from everyone but Jason the night Easton had burned her bones. But just because she couldn’t see the Gray Back ghost bear didn’t mean Tessa wasn’t still lingering. Jason didn’t like to talk about it, but he’d admitted last night that Tessa mostly just cried and watched him now.

A part of Georgia pitied his late mate. But then she’d think about how Tessa had betrayed him in life. How she betrayed him still by torturing him as she did, and Georgia’s empathy flew the coop.

Jason belonged to Georgia. Not to an apparition who refused to retract her claws from his skin and move on.

After tossing her backpack into the back seat, Georgia adjusted her belt with the gun and knife so she could sit comfortably in the Jeep for her ride to the ranger tower. The uneasy feeling and prickly skin didn’t disappear when she shut her door and turned over the engine, though.

With a frown, she looked at the seat beside her, empty to the naked eye. “Tessa, what do you want?”

“They’re here,” came the whispered reply, so soft she could’ve imagined it.

It could be a trick. A way for Tessa to mess with her head, but what would be the point? Shoot. Something in her sang that Tessa was right. Georgia hit the gas and blasted out of the trailer park. The backroads were still covered in patches of snow that hadn’t melted in the shade of the towering pines. The car lurched side to side as she rushed over potholes and divots, through trenched-out tire treads, and around overgrown brush. The woods passed in a blur.

Tessa wasn’t in the seat beside her anymore. Georgia didn’t know how she knew, but the Jeep felt empty and safe again. The cold breath of the shade wasn’t here to chill her blood.

The tires locked up as she slammed on the brake under the ranger tower. The ground was littered with maps and notes. The windows had been busted out, and the ground was glittering with shattered glass. The radio she’d used to communicate with the crews and with Damon Daye was busted into a dozen pieces on the forest floor, as if someone had stomped on it repeatedly.

“No,” she murmured as anger blasted through her. She checked the load in her handgun and made sure the safety was on—a habit, but a good one that kept her from shooting her toes off. Door thrown open, she slid from the Jeep, then scaled the ladder. No one was inside the tower. In fact, there was nothing left except words scratched into the wooden walls.

Long, angry knife strokes spelled out this is your warning bitch.

Her heart thumped erratically as rage congealed her blood. They’d been watching her. Somehow, they’d known she was tracking them. And this was the cowardly way they let her know? Her warning? Screw that. She didn’t need a warning from these assholes. She knew what she was up against when she’d taken this job. Damon Daye had been upfront about the poacher problem. She wasn’t scared then, and she sure as shit wasn’t scared now.

She climbed down the ladder and leapt from the bottom rung, then bolted for the shed. Please let the quad be okay.