Boarlander Boss Bear (Boarlander Bears Book 1) by T. S. Joyce Read Free Book Online

there. I hid what I was for the first twenty-five years of my life. Your secrets are safe with me.” Audrey held up her bathing suit. “I’m going to get dressed. I’ll be right back.”
    Thank God she’d already shaved this morning because she was excited about seeing the famous hot springs and spending time with Harrison. The Harrison, not the made up imposter who had tricked her into coming here.
    In front of the mirror, she pulled her straight brunette locks into a high ponytail, slathered on another layer of lip gloss, then glared thoughtfully at the bottle of perfume sitting next to the sink. That had been her crutch. She’d used it for years, paranoid that other humans would somehow smell her fur and deem her “other.” But here, she didn’t have to wear that horrid scent-mask. There were shifters all over these mountains, and the people of Saratoga were used to them. Accepting even. It wasn’t like Buffalo Gap where the town had revolted with the news that one of their own was a tiger shifter.
    Plus, Harrison liked the way she smelled.
    Audrey picked up the cold, half-full bottle and set it gently in the trashcan so the glass wouldn’t break. And when she stood back up and looked at her reflection, she was proud of herself. Straightening her spine, she pulled on her swimsuit cover-up, opened the bathroom door, and walked out, a ready smile for Harrison on her face.
    But when she saw what was settled in his lap, she lurched to a stop and gasped.
    He turned the page and looked up at her with a slight frown marring his face. Uncertainty had pooled in his stormy eyes. He asked, “So, is this some kind of book about your life?”
    Rushing forward, she closed the book and pulled it to her chest like armor. “It’s stupid.”
    “It’s really not,” he argued, locking his arms against the mattress until his triceps bulged.
    “It’s a scrapbook.”
    “Do you make a lot of them?”
    “No, just this one. I brought it in case I wanted to add a page after I met you.”
    “Let me see it.”
    “No. It’s private. No one has seen it, and I like it that way.”
    “Why?”
    Audrey gritted her teeth and looked away. No answer was best.
    “Let me guess. You don’t want me to see it because that’s the real you in there. That’s the little pieces you have kept hidden from everyone. Right?”
    “You don’t understand.”
    “I understand more than you think,” he said darkly. “I grew up an outsider, too. I had secrets to hide from everyone around me. It’s lonely.”
    Tears burned her eyes, and she blinked them back. He did understand more than she’d assumed then, but she wasn’t ready to expose herself so deeply with only a moment’s notice.
    “Audrey, I printed out every conversation you had on that matchmaking website. I wanted to read it so I could get to know you better, but three pages in, I was so pissed off I couldn’t read any more.”
    Audrey hugged her scrapbook closer. “Why were you angry?”
    Harrison’s eyes had lightened to a frosty color, and a muscle near his mouth twitched. “Because it’s not how this should’ve happened. It’s not how I want to get to know you. I want you to tell me all that stuff, and reading the conversation between you and someone else felt like stealing. I don’t want to steal that stuff, Audrey. I want you to give it to me.”
    “Well, I thought I did,” she whispered. “I thought that was you, and you were falling in love with me, too…but I was alone in that.”
    Harrison searched her eyes, then leaned forward and held out his hand. “Then let me catch up.”
    Oh, she knew what he was asking for. He was asking for this huge piece of her that no one else knew about. He was asking for a part of her heart she’d kept only for herself. He was asking her to ignore the betrayal she’d endured and openly trust him.
    Harrison Lang was the most dangerous man she’d ever met.
    Audrey stared at the dingy, white, closed blinds of the single window and