Boarlander Bash Bear (Boarlander Bears Book 2) by T. S. Joyce Read Free Book Online Page A

Bear.”
    Harrison made a ticking sound and propped his foot on the log he’d just felled, then looked down the mountain at the evergreen valley below. “Clinton will fight you pairing up.”
    “I can hear you, fuck-brains,” Clinton yelled.
    “Flip me off one more time…” Bash dared him in a voice not even he recognized.
    Clinton froze before retracting his stupid finger to his palm, then ripped his chainsaw cord and went back to work. Good call because, today, Bash’s normally playful bear wanted to kill everything.
    “Talk to me,” Harrison said, cutting the motor of his chainsaw and sitting on a log.
    Bash watched Kirk and Mason working below for a minute. They’d both been quick learners, and he and Harrison didn’t have to worry about them getting hurt as much anymore. Harrison patted the log. “Come on, Bash Bear.”
    “Did talking help you?”
    Harrison pulled his sunglasses off and hooked them onto the stretched collar of his damp, white T-shirt. He readjusted his hard hat, then gave Bash an icy blue look. “What do you mean?”
    “Audrey knows everything about you.”
    Harrison nodded. “A mate deserves to know everything. Even the bad parts.”
    “She knows how your dad was, and how your bear don’t feel safe.”
    Harrison’s eyes had gone hollow, but he nodded again.
    “But you still patrol the border of our territory.”
    “And I always will, because it’s a part of me. My bear thinks he’s keeping you and the boys safe by making sure our woods are quiet. But talking to Audrey, and sharing that burden with someone else, makes it to where I can patrol less. I sleep like a log beside her now where I used to get up fifteen times a night. I ain’t sayin’ talking about what hurts fixes everything, but it can help.”
    “My chest hurts. I feel like I can’t breathe.”
    “I can tell, man. You’ve been struggling for breath all day and wincing your face up where I’ve never seen anything but a smile. What happened last night?”
    Bash stepped over the log and sat heavily next to his alpha. Resting his elbows on his knees, he said, “I think I picked a girl, but she don’t want me back.”
    “Did she say that?”
    Bash sighed and watched a pair of hawks flying across the sky. “I don’t know. I think so.”
    “Well, women can be confusing.”
    “Women will be the damned downfall of our trailer park!” Clinton called out un-helpfully.
    “Shut up, Clinton,” Bash, Harrison, Mason, and Kirk all yelled at once.
    “Tell me what she said,” Harrison said with a lingering dirty look for Clinton.
    “We were kissing, and she seemed into it, but then she said she was gonna have a baby with another man. A man she picked on a website.”
    “She’s pregnant?”
    “Not yet. She’s going to the doctor tomorrow at noon. I spent half the night researching on the Internet what she was talking about. She picked a donor because she don’t like the stock she’s met here in Saratoga.” Bash ghosted a glance to his alpha, then back to his boots as his cheeks heated with shame. “She don’t want my cubs. She wants to mother a stranger’s get.”
    “Oh, shit,” Harrison muttered.
    “She’s probably a witch,” Clinton called.
    “I wish I had a bow and arrow right now,” Kirk yelled, pointing his chainsaw blade at Clinton. “I’d put one right through your damned shoulder.”
    The silverback shifter was apparently done with Clinton’s shenanigans after he’d attacked Harrison unprovoked last night. Or…not unprovoked, but for the stupid reason that Bash was getting that Meet-A-Mate party.
    When Clinton lifted that dadgummed middle finger at Kirk, Bash stood, a feral snarl in his throat. Clinton ducked his head, his eyes warily on Bash as he tucked his fuckin’ finger back again and returned to work.
    Mason chuckled below them and muttered, “I can’t wait to watch Bash kick your ass.”
    Bash forced the growl in his throat to taper to nothing and sat down again.
    “Okay,”