2. Cody

 

 

"Did you hear someone's moving into the old Martinez place? Denny down at the feed store said they're looking to hire somebody to do some work around the place."

"Unless it's a curvy brunette," Cody grunted, handing a sack of feed down from the truck bed into his brother Remy's powerful, tattooed arms, "I've got plenty of my own work already."

Remy grinned up at him, a flash of white teeth in his suntanned face. "What if I tell you it is a curvy brunette?"

"Uh-huh." Cody swiped at the sweat trickling down from under his hat. "Do I look like I was born yesterday, little brother?"

"Your loss," Remy said with a shrug, tossing the feed sack into the shed. "Denny talked to her yesterday. Said she was hoping someone from the neighboring ranch—that'd be us, big bro—might like to come out and lend her a hand. And I'm thinking ... cute unattached chick, and you're the only unmated guy on the ranch these days ..."

"Don't remind me." Cody loved his brother and cousins, but it had been hard, watching the ranch fill up with mates and kids. Remy and his mate Saffron's son Baz had celebrated his first birthday this past spring, and Tara and Axl's little Lexie was crawling everywhere.

For most of his life, even-tempered Cody had been the clan peacemaker, keeping his volatile fellow grizzly shifters from ripping each other apart in dominance fights. But these days, everyone had settled down, even grouchy Alec, the clan alpha. There were no more fights except the regular bickering, and between five grizzly shifters and four mates, they had more than enough hands to help out with work around the ranch.

Sometimes I feel like they don't really need me anymore ...

"Hey, if you want one of us old married guys to head over and help out the brand-new, unmated woman in the neighborhood, it's no skin off my paws, believe me."

Cody snorted and tossed two sacks of feed over the side of the truck. Remy caught them easily, one in each of his arms. "You keep saying that. Maybe she doesn't have a shifter mate, but she could still have a human boyfriend."

Remy shook his head. "Denny said she's up there all alone. No ring, either."

"You have got to be kidding me. Is the whole town trying to matchmake me now?" He picked up the last two sacks of feed, gripping one in each powerful hand, and hopped down off the truck's tailgate. There were advantages to being a grizzly shifter when it came to getting work done around the farm.

"Look, man." Remy rested an elbow on the wall of the truck bed, his smiling face turning serious. "I know you're struggling with this single thing, now that the rest of us have paired off. And don't try to pretend like you aren't. As you're fond of reminding me, I am your little brother, which means I've known you my whole life. You might be able to put on a brave face for everyone else, but I can tell when you're unhappy."

Cody tried to squash his surge of irritation at his family's meddling. "Look, I know you're trying to help, man. But you can't matchmake a shifter. I shouldn't have to tell you that. Meeting your fated mate—it's like a lightning strike. It either happens or it doesn't."

"Well, yeah, but if you want to get struck by lightning, it helps to go stand out in a lot of rainstorms." Cody made a face, and Remy laughed. "Okay, maybe that's a terrible analogy. But seriously, how are you ever going to meet your mate if all you do is stay up here on the ranch and never talk to anyone?"

"Maybe there just isn't anyone out there for me."

"You'll never know if you don't try." Remy gave him a shove. "Look, I'll take care of the afternoon feeding and check the water troughs. Why don't you go take a shower and drive over to the Martinez place? You've still got plenty of time to get in some good brush-clearing before evening. Sweating in the sun, flexing your muscles under that shirt, all those things guaranteed to get a second look from curvy brunettes."

"This is ridiculous," Cody grumbled. "I would've expected it from the women, but not from you, bro. I feel betrayed."

"Get moving. That brush isn't going to clear itself."

Cody flipped him off and went to put on a clean shirt. A shower probably wasn't necessary ... He sniffed his armpit. Okay, fine. It was definitely necessary.

Like it mattered. What were the odds, after all this time, that his fated mate was going to move in next door?

He stopped by his trailer to get clean clothes and then tramped up the steps of Axl and Tara's house. Over the last couple of years, as the Circle B bear clan had expanded to include new mates and cubs, the living arrangements on the ranch had been shuffled and reshuffled and shuffled again. What was currently Axl and Tara's house had, at one point, been shared by Remy and Cody as their bachelor pad, while Axl and his brother Alec had lived in the bigger ranch house across the yard. Now Alec and his mate Charmian had the big house, Axl and Tara had the smaller one, and Remy and Saffron had their very own tidy little house halfway between the two original houses, all of them arranged in a semicircle around the ranch's communal yard. (The ranch's hired man Gannon and his mate Daisy lived back in the hills, preferring to maintain their privacy rather than living as the rest of the clan did, with everyone else constantly underfoot.)

The trailer where Cody was currently living had been brought in by Remy and Saffron to live in while their new house was being built. He didn't need much space, and every last one of his clan-siblings had been adamant that Cody was welcome to use the better bathroom facilities and kitchen space in any of their houses anytime he wanted. They'd also offered to help him build a house of his own, but he'd insisted that there was no need to go to the trouble. What was he going to do with himself, rattling around in a big empty house all on his own? He spent most of his time out on the range working with the cattle anyway.

It still felt a little weird to knock on the door of the house that had been his for most of his adult life. He didn't begrudge Axl and Tara the use of the house in the slightest. Obviously a family with a mate and cubs needed the space more than Cody did. Still, there was a part of him that got a slight twinge, like the distant ache of a mostly-healed broken bone, at the reminder that he was a guest, even if a welcome guest, in the place where he'd once lived.

There was no answer, so he cautiously opened the door and called, "Tara?" Axl would be at work. As the sheriff of Pinerock County, he was gone more than he was here. Tara worked from home, running her family's business from her home office.

"She's running some errands in town, so I'm watching the kids," Saffron's cheerful voice called from the kitchen. "Oh, no—Baz—Cody, catch him!"

Cody reached down a casual arm and scooped up his nephew as the fuzzy little bear cub waddled quickly for freedom. Baz had started shifting early, and he was much faster as a bear than as a human toddler. He'd just learned how to walk on two legs, but he was already skilled at getting around on four.

"You're hell on wheels, aren't you?" Cody told the cub, who squirmed unhappily, trying to get down. Cody set down his bundle of clean clothes on the nearest chair so he could hold out the cub at arm's length to get a better look at him. "Saffron, is his fur turning red?"

Saffron came in from the kitchen with Axl and Tara's baby daughter Lexie cuddled against her chest. "Sure is. It just started happening in the last few days. I guess it's not a big surprise; I'm a fox shifter, after all. Still, I've never seen a red grizzly, have you?"

"Well, at least we won't have any trouble telling him apart from the rest of the family once he gets his full size." Cody pushed the door shut with his foot, so he could set the bear cub on the floor. "I'm just here to use your shower, if that's okay. Er, Tara and Axl's shower, I mean."

Saffron gave him a quick peck on the cheek, switching Lexie to her other arm. The little girl stared at Cody with wide, intense blue eyes. She was named after her uncle Alec—Lexie was short for Alexandra—and already it seemed that the name had been somewhat prophetic. Unlike active, friendly Baz, Lexie seemed to take more after her uncle in temperament. She was solemn, quiet, and often seemed to be trying to suss out the actions of the adults around her.

"I wish you wouldn't act so shy about it," Saffron said. "You know you're always welcome in any of our houses. We're all clan, and this was your house first anyway."

"I know, but I still don't want to impose. Everyone needs a little privacy in their den, especially with cubs."

"Family is never an imposition," Saffron said firmly. "Remember, I grew up in a shifter town. I'm used to everyone being all up in everyone else's business all the time."

She'd also had to deal with a dysfunctional clan and an abusive alpha who had tried to force her to marry him. It amazed Cody that she'd come out of it as kind and friendly as she was. But Remy had probably helped with that. Cody's brother, despite his intimidating appearance with a buzz cut and tattoos, was the kindest, sweetest soul that Cody had ever met. He was an adoring father and obviously worshipped the ground that his mate walked on.

As he headed for the bathroom, Cody thought, I wish I knew if that kind of happiness is out there for me.