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

considered asking him to leave. She could tell him she wasn’t into him, she couldn’t do this anymore, or she’d simply been too hurt by the website betrayal.
    But when she looked back at him, his eyes were steady, his palm still out, waiting, as if he really wanted to see this part of her. And if she didn’t do this now, she might never let anyone in.
    “Please don’t laugh.”
    “I won’t. I saw the first three pages, and they were really good. Sit by me and explain them.”
    Reluctantly, she handed him the heavy scrapbook and sank onto the bed next to him.
    The front cover had cutout letters of her name on a blue background and a white housecat with black stripes she’d glued to the tame-looking critter.
    Harrison pointed to it with his eyebrows arched up in question.
    “The scrapbooking supply store didn’t have tigers so I had to make one.”
    “Please fucking tell me you’re a white tiger.”
    Her face cracked in a grin, and she closed her eyes to stifle the giddy sound in her throat. No one in her life had ever sounded hopeful about such things. “Yes,” she admitted in a whisper.
    “Daaaaaamn. Woman, do you know how rare you are?”
    “Well, yes, because I tried to track down a mate who was a tiger like me because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. I didn’t know at the time if hooking up with a human was…you know.”
    “Was what?”
    “Taboo or gross.”
    “It’s not. Shifters and humans hook up all the time. Creed’s mate, Gia, is totally human, and she gave him a little bear cub.”
    “I figured that part out when I got ahold of the only other registered tiger. He was awful. He was interested in one thing. He was obsessed with talking about when I would go into heat.”
    “Why?”
    Audrey pressed her cool palms against the fire in her cheeks and said low, “Because I become crazy for sex, or mating, or whatever you call it. I guess it’s a big cat shifter thing. Anyway, I stopped talking to him when he turned raunchy.”
    “Okay, you and I are going to talk more about your heat when you aren’t the color of a cherry Popsicle. Page one.” He flipped past the cover page to the first spread.
    It was a series of pictures of her when she was born. Her dad hugged her close in one snapshot, and in another, her mother held her. Audrey was tiny and red cheeked, crying, and her mom’s head was angled down. All she could tell from this picture was that her mom had the same hair color as her. Her birthday was at the bottom in bubble letters.
    Audrey pointed to the picture on the right. “That right there is the only picture I have of my mom.”
    Harrison jerked his gaze to her. “Seriously? You can’t even see her face.”
    “She didn’t like pictures. Dad said it was because she was like me, a tiger, and she liked to stay hidden. He snuck this one and gave it to me when I was seven and wouldn’t quit asking about her.”
    “Why did she leave?”
    “I think that some people are meant to be parents, and some are not. She had trouble staying in one place. Trouble staying sober. My dad said he was afraid to leave me alone with her when I was a baby, and when she left, it broke his heart, but he knew it was probably best for me. He wanted me to have stability, and she wasn’t capable of giving it.”
    “Yeah, but your entire shifter heritage left with your mom.”
    Audrey shrugged helplessly. “That was the bad part, but the good part was that my dad knew exactly what I was from day one, and he moved us out to Buffalo Gap, bought some land, and raised me as well as he could. He kept everything as normal as possible. I went to school with other kids and had a parent who was completely devoted to being mom and dad. I had a good childhood. It was just missing her.”
    Harrison turned the page. There was a picture of her at Kindergarten graduation with a big, gap-toothed grin and pigtails. “You have freckles,” he murmured, gripping the book.
    “Yeah, under my make-up, I’m