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Timberman Werebear(2)

By: T. S. Joyce


Completely uninterested in getting to know more about Matt and his eye-scorching grill, she ducked around him and leaned onto the bar top. The bartender was busy with a buxom blonde down the counter. Meanwhile, Denison’s voice hit the slower last notes of the song. Panic constricted Danielle’s throat. He can’t see me, she reminded herself. The spotlight ensured Denison couldn’t see anyone past the first few tables from the stage. She was safe all the way over here in the shadow of Matt the flirty giant.

Matt’s hips brushed her backside, and she jerked forward.

“Let me take care of this one,” he said, his lips so close to her ear his voice vibrated through her.

His arms propped against the counter on either side of her, trapping her. With a gasp, Danielle rounded on him. “Back. The fuck. Off.” Claustrophobia was going to give her a full-blown, double ball-kicking panic fit right here in the middle of this smoky joint.

She tried to duck under his arm, but he moved to block her with his massive, muscled torso.

“My girl here needs another drink,” Matt called down the bar.

“I’m not your girl,” she gritted out, measuring the distance she would need to drive a knee into his groin if he didn’t move. Damn her stumpy, short legs.

Matt bowed forward, the smell of alcohol pungent on his breath. Danielle leaned back as far as the bar top would allow her, but it wasn’t enough. She was pushing his immovable chest now, angling her face away from his as he zeroed in on her lips.

“Stop it,” she demanded, just as his lips brushed the corner of her mouth.

Matt’s shoulder jerked backward, and he spun away from her. The wide expanse of Denison’s shoulders now blocked Matt from view.

“Oh, shit,” she murmured. Frantically, she flagged down the bartender, kicking herself for not paying in cash. When she turned to her right, Brighton was sitting on the bar stool next to her, sipping a beer like he’d been there all night. “Double shit,” she said, leaning her head back and closing her eyes.

With a sigh, she opened them again, just as recognition flashed across his green eyes. He didn’t look any happier about her being here than she was. “Hey Brighton. Good to see you again.”

Brighton leaned back, exposing the thick cords of muscle in his neck and his bulging Adam’s apple. He pulled a pen from his pocket and wrote a hurried scribble across a napkin as Denison bullied Matt out the front door.

She stared down at the napkin Brighton shoved in front of her. He didn’t talk. Never had from what she understood, and if he wanted to say anything, he wrote it.



You’re gonna hurt him.



The words cut her deeper than she thought possible. They also confused the devil out of her. Hurt him? That was practically laughable. Ha, ha, ha, hurt him. Denison was an invincible and unfeeling razor blade who’d shredded her when they’d split up.

Brighton’s dark eyebrows lifted, and he shook his head, as if she were in it now, better dig in her heels.

“You okay, lady?” Denison asked in that familiar baritone she’d fallen in love with.

The voice that had made her feel things no one else had.

The voice that probably made lots of women feel lots of things.

She wasn’t special.

“I’m fine.” Tears stung her eyes and red bubbled through her veins at the idea she was melting down in front of the man who’d destroyed her. With a tentative smile for the bartender who handed her back her credit card, she signed for a tip, dodged around Denison with her chin lowered to her chest, and made a bee-line for the door.

She passed so close to him, she could hear him inhale sharply.

“Danielle?”

Yep, it was definitely time to go. She’d known she would run into him in Saratoga. In fact, it would be necessary for her to complete what she’d come here to do, but it wasn’t supposed to happen now. She had planned to swoop in here, settle in, maybe make some local friends, and throw herself into work. She had wanted to deal with the avalanche of memories before she tried to talk to Denison, preferably without a tremor in her voice. She’d be straight-up damned if she was going to converse with him all weak and teary. Nope, nope, nope.

“Hey, Danielle,” Denison called from right behind her.

She pushed her legs harder, realized the two double cranberry vodkas she’d slurped down had affected her more than she thought, and promptly tripped over the door stop. With a squelch, she lurched forward and landed on her hands on the unforgiving cement. Good thing she’d worn a hoochie skirt tonight and banged up her knees to match her scraped palms. Pain shot up the nerve endings of her scuffed up skin.

And now the waterworks were unstoppable as embarrassment blasted heat up her neck and into her cheeks. As she looked up, she was mortified to find Denison crouching in front of her, hands out as if he didn’t know what to do to help her, a horrified look on his face.