Chapter Twenty-Seven
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Ever since Genevieve’s return from Farway two days ago, the tension in Cold Creek, and in Ben’s little family, had increased.
On Friday at the construction site, the stench of animosity toward Ryder had grown until Ben was ready to go on a grizzly rampage.
All the crews knew Ryder. Liked him. Even when buried in his finicky custom woodworking, he’d stop and lend a hand to whoever needed one. The younger males appreciated having Ryder available to answer questions; the older ones liked having the extra help. Now, suddenly, half the crew wasn’t talking to him; they were glaring at him.
Genevieve must have said something to influence them.
Ryder was never talkative, but as the morning went on, the cat had withdrawn. Finally, he’d simply packed his tools and left.
Ben growled under his breath. Over the past month, Ryder had changed, had been happy. With Emma’s loving care, his contentment had radiated from him like rays from the sun. But when he’d left today, the cynical lines were back in his face. His defenses had slid into place.
By the God.
And yet every male on the crew was a good one; Ben didn’t hire assholes. A lot of the shifters really did believe Ryder’d done something wrong.
Ben set a nail in place and smacked it in so forcefully he dented the fucking wood beneath as well, which pissed him off. Good thing the spot would be covered by trim.
Sweat trickled down his face. The late morning air was starting to heat up. With an annoyed grunt, Ben stripped off his flannel shirt and continued working.
“Boss, got a visitor here for you.” The call came from Kenner in the front room.
Now what? Wishing for a hellhound on which to vent his anger, Ben stomped outside.
Alec stood on the front lawn, hands in his jeans pockets, surveying the work being done. “Got a minute?”
“Sure.” Ben detoured to the cooler on the tailgate of his truck, pulled out water, and tossed another bottle to the cahir. “You here in your official Sheriff role?”
Alec’s jaw hardened. “I hope to hell not.” He led the way to a big maple that shaded the front and was out of hearing from the crew.
Ben leaned against the trunk. “What?”
“Seems your brother took that little cub away from her mother without permission.”
“For a damned good reason, yeah.”
“Last night, in the diner, the mother announced Ryder has a history of violence, and she kicked him out because he was hurting her. Says when she saw him yesterday and asked for her child back, he punched her.”
Ben straightened. “He never saw her yesterday.”
“She showed her black eye off in the diner until Angie asked her to leave.”
That’s why the construction crew was staring holes in Ryder. Not knowing the female was a liar, they’d have taken her at face value. If they thought Ryder’d hurt a female, it was a wonder the entire shifter portion of the crew hadn’t gone feral on his ass.
“By the God, she’s lying. My brother would never hurt a female.” His world took on a sharp-edged brightness with his rage. “Genevieve was the one who hurt Minette. That’s why he took the cub.”
Alec opened his water and drank slowly. “Genevieve hasn’t come to me to make an accusation…yet.”
The sheriff wasn’t one to jump into action—not until he’d sniffed every scent and danger in the brush. Ben took a controlling breath and tried to think.
Would the female be stupid enough to go to Alec and accuse Ryder? Would she think she could lie to a cop? Or the Cosantir? Maybe. She was skilled—and wore perfume. “What’s Calum have to say about this?” The Cosantir wasn’t one to hide his head in the sand, not if there were problems. And these were fucking serious problems.
“He’s out of town. Back on Tuesday.” Alec scowled. “Ben, she tells a good story—and with that black eye, people are concerned about the cub. I’ve had people stopping me all day.”
“You ever meet Genevieve?”
“I haven’t, which seems a mite odd.” Alec said. “Considering her accusations, I’d think she’d visit the sheriff or the Cosantir. Instead, she’s inciting a witch hunt with your brother as the target.”
“No shit.” Ben scratched his shoulders against the tree trunk even though Emma would scold him for shredding the fabric. “Here are the facts, Alec. That mercenary shrew neglected Minette and smacked her around, too. When Genevieve saw our big house, she figured on getting herself some status and suggested she should live with Ryder and me. I said no way in hell and thought she’d left. But now she’s back and doing a grieving mother act.”
“By the God, that’s an interesting scam,” Alec muttered.
Did the sheriff believe him? “You think I’d let Ryder move in if he was some abusive asshole?”
Alec shrugged. “Family dynamics can be fucked. People, especially littermates, excuse a lot. Remember what Gerhardt let his brother do?”
“Aye.” The previous alpha had allowed his brother to terrorize the wolf pack females. “However, both Ryder and I have the same instincts: females and cubs are protected. As a cahir, I wouldn’t overlook abuse.”
Alec half-smiled. “I saw you two pass the bard back and forth for some affection last week. She didn’t look much traumatized.”
Ben smiled. Emma never looked traumatized after spending a night with Ryder—just satisfied. He returned to the problem. “There’s no way to prove Ryder didn’t hurt Genevieve. But he didn’t, so there can’t be anyone—except her—saying he did.”
“She hasn’t mentioned any witnesses. However, the absence goes both ways, Ben. Have you got witnesses to her abusing the cub?”
“Not here.” And, from what Ryder’d said about Farway, getting anyone to testify against Genevieve might be difficult. It sounded as if the townspeople were either convinced the female was wonderful or wouldn’t oppose her for fear of her reprisals. “Dammit, Alec, Minette wouldn’t be safe with Genevieve.”
“I hear you. But, by human law, each parent has certain rights to a child. In fact, that mother could bring Ryder up on kidnapping charges.” Concern darkened the sheriff’s green gaze. “By Daonain tradition, males don’t raise cubs when the mother is available. It’s not unknown for males to be abusive, but a female hurting her cub is extremely rare.”
In other words, there was a fucking good chance Genevieve would win.
*
In cat form, Ryder’d headed north through the forest at a fast lope, trying to burn off anger. And despair.
At the construction site, he’d heard the muttered comments. After leaving, he’d asked some questions at the diner and the grocery, and received the answers he’d been expecting. Genevieve had shown off a black eye and announced that he’d hit her. The reactions of the people he passed in town told him he was screwed.
He’d half expected Genevieve to use this tactic—she’d done it before—but to be maligned in Cold Creek hurt. What could he do though? Nothing—aside from making her accusations true and beating the hell out of her.
Fuck. He couldn’t find it in him to be angry with the construction crew. He liked them, enjoyed working with them. It wasn’t their fault that Genevieve was a master at manipulation. Hell, she’d conned him in the beginning.
However, the fact that the crew knew him and still had been taken in by Genevieve’s lies pretty much proved he wouldn’t be able to win against her.
He leaped over a winter-felled tree and landed on the mossy ground.
Fuck, he’d hoped to stay and build a family with Ben—and with Emma. He wanted to share her with Ben, to have her in their lives with all her shyness, her sweetness, her husky laughter, and the music that trailed after her like a new pup.
Forlorn hopes.
Over the forest canopy, a hawk circled, searching for an unwary rodent. As the sun disappeared behind one of the white puffy clouds, the temperature on the mountain plummeted.
Much like the atmosphere at the construction site today.
Hell, if it’d been just him, he’d fucking stay and fight Genevieve’s lies. Fight for a life with Emma and Ben. But he couldn’t risk it. He’d lose more than his reputation this time; he’d lose Minette. The kitten wouldn’t survive undamaged at Genevieve’s hands.
He heard a rustling in the underbrush—a rabbit or rodent. But, even though in cougar form, he had no appetite.
Although leaving Cold Creek would hurt like hell, he’d survive since he had Minette to live for. But what would this do to Ben? The stab of pain came so quick and sharp it felt as if a hunter had shot him, sent a bullet right through his ribs and into his heart.
Fuck, I’m sorry, Ben. Ryder’d pushed himself into the grizzly’s life along with a cub to love, and now he was walking away. It didn’t take any imagination to see the hole…the devastation…he’d leave behind.
And what about the little bear? He and Ben had been trying to win her favor. Hell, they’d been optimistic enough that lifemating bracelets lay waiting in Ben’s nightstand. Now, they’d never be used.
She could be nurturing hopes of her own. By the God, she’d suffered enough in her life. To add to her pain was… Dammit, he knew life wasn’t fair, but the thought of his actions hurting Emma was more than he could take.
The trail forked, and Ryder halted. His head hung as he stood there, undecided, as the wind whipped dead leaves and evergreen needles in circles, and a spattering of rain came through the fir canopy. He’d lost his path in so many ways.
And hurt so many people.
Finally, he lifted his head. Inhaled. Catching Owen’s scent on the left fork, he followed the trail upward.
*
Three hours later, Ryder finished wiring Owen’s new solar panels and was feeling better. When Ryder had appeared, the cahir’d had studied him, and with a welcome lack of conversation, handed over some tools and put him to work.
The quiet had helped. Owen’s peaceful log cabin was as isolated as the backwoods where Ryder and Ben had started their lives. Far more beautiful, though. The cahir’s property was the middle of three small hanging valleys, which stair-stepped down into the main valley below. A waterfall cascaded from a notched cliff above Owen’s valley and streamed into a small pool near his home.
Finishing the last wire, Ryder stretched and glanced across the room at the cahir. “How’d you get all the kitchen shit up here?”
Owen grinned. “On my back, usually. Anything I can’t carry or disassemble—like the wood stove—requires a helicopter and that costs a whack. Then again, I don’t have much overhead out here.”
Only solar-powered electricity. No cable. No Internet. “How do you keep food cold?”
“Box in the water. The stream is glacier-fed. Gotta say, hauling beer was a pain until I learned to make my own.”
“Yeah, I bet.” Ryder set the tools back into Owen’s case. “Why the solar panels if you hate technology?”
Sitting halfway up the stairs to the loft, Owen was working on the railing. A cropped tree formed the bottom post, and he was weaving the tree branches around the horizontal rails to create an intricate pattern. “Behind the house, the western ridge cuts off the sunlight early in the evening. And reading by lantern or candlelight sucks. I’ve been looking forward to real lights.”
Ryder grinned. “Got it.”
“Let’s have a beer.”
A few minutes later, Ryder sat on the porch in a chair carved from a huge stump and smoothed to a glossy finish. And the icy home-brewed beer was damned good. The shifter was pretty handy.
Had good taste in property, too. Surrounded by spring green grass, the clear blue pond emptied into a tiny stream, which plunged down to the next valley. White-topped mountains ringed the horizon. With a pleased sigh, Ryder put his legs up on the split log railing. “Beautiful location.”
“Yeah.” Owen took a sip of his beer and eyed Ryder. “Now that you had a chance to relax, you want to tell me what’s chewing your tail?”
Hell.
A glance showed Owen waiting like a patient feline beside a gopher hole.
“Guess it’s hardly a secret these days.” With a bitter shrug, Ryder laid the story out for the cat in a few terse sentences, including the damage Genevieve had done to his rep in Farway.
Owen nodded as if unsurprised. “I saw the bad blood between you that night at the tavern. Got to wonder though—why didn’t anyone speak up for you in that other town?”
“The people we hung with there were her friends.” Ryder rolled the chilled bottle between his palms. “And like now, she had bruises. Someone’d obviously hurt her, and she said it was me. How the fuck do you prove a negative?”
“So, who did beat her up? Why didn’t she point her finger at the real culprit?”
Ryder laughed cynically. “I doubt anyone hurt her without her permission. She was pissed at me, and when she’s out for a buck—or vengeance—she’s got no limits. She’d probably asked someone to mark her up.”
“That’s sick.” Owen considered his beer and took a drink. “Don’t know about Farway, but I doubt a Daonain would hurt a female around here.”
“Why’s that?”
“Last year, the Cosantir discovered an abusive shifter, slapped a hand on his shoulder, and delivered him straight to the Mother. Hell of a deterrent, yeah?”
“No shit.” Ryder’d heard a Cosantir could kill with a touch, but had never seen it. Then again, Calum held a lot of power. More than most Cosantirs. “Her attacker probably wasn’t a shifter. I daresay she got a human male to bruise her up.”
“A human?”
The shifter sounded so appalled that Ryder actually grinned…although he felt the same. Male Daonain occasionally mated human females, especially if they were desperate. But females didn’t get desperate, not with males outnumbering them at least five to one. Humans didn’t smell appealing, so for a female to fuck one was…twisted. In fact, discovering Genevieve’d fucked humans had been a major reason Ryder’d left their increasingly antagonistic relationship.
He glanced at Owen. “Using a human works. That’s how she destroyed my reputation in Farway. No one believed me.”
Owen grunted his understanding. “Clever move on her part. Although I’m surprised no one scented her lies.”
Ryder grimaced. “She has a fondness for strong perfumes. Covers up lack of desire and lies.”
“Damn, that’s sneaky.” Owen’s brows drew together. “If the matter came before the Cosantir, he might not compel her to speak the truth—not the way he would a male. No matter that we’re in the twenty-first century, the Daonain still have a whopping double standard. Bet she counts on that.” He shook his head. “Don’t let that female win.”
“Owen, she already has.”
“Fuck.” The cat turned away, glowering. “Females. If they’re not clingy sluts, they’re manipulative liars. Can’t think of one I’d trust to have at my back.”
And Ben accused Ryder of being cynical. “Ah, that might be a little harsh. The bard is one to run the trails with.”
“Sure she is.” The tone and pitying look indicated the cahir thought Ryder was well on the way to toothless and senile. “You and Ben planning to claim her?”
The unexpected question speared him, fracturing his sternum, shattering his heart. “We…wanted to. I waited too long. Took me a while to get over what happened before, and how easily I’d been led by my dick. You know, after I’d lived with Genevieve for a while, I realized I didn’t even like her.”
“Yep. What I’m saying.”
“Not all females are bad, cahir.” Ryder shook his head. “Being with Emma is as comfortable as being with Ben. Having her around is…right. The more we’re together, the better we all fit.”
Owen shrugged and drank his beer. “But…you changed your mind about claiming the bard?”
“Yeah.” Because fitting together wasn’t going to help. Depression settled back on Ryder’s shoulders. “I can’t take the chance Genevieve will get her hands on Minette. When I get back, I’m packing up. The cub and I will go somewhere too far for Genevieve to find us.”
“You’d run from a fight?”
“Can’t fight a female.” Ryder scowled. “I fucking hate this. The kitten was finally happy. Relaxing. I even heard her humming with Emma yesterday.”
“Ben cares for the cub and for you,” Owen said slowly. “Littermates belong together.”
“I know.” Leaving Ben again would destroy part of his heart. Leaving Emma? That’d wipe out the other half.
But a male protected the cubs first. Always.
Ryder studied the lean cahir. If Owen felt that strongly about brothers being together, where was his? Gawain lived in Pine Knoll, not here. And although Gawain’d been at the full moon, he’d disappeared soon after.
“You know, Ben, Alec, and I are a team. We’ve all saved each other’s asses in fights.” Owen’s gaze was on the mountain range. “But last time was… That hellhound had me down, was going for my throat. Ben was gushing blood and still threw himself on that fucking demon-dog. If Alec hadn’t been right there to stab the creature…” He looked at Ryder. “I owe your brother.”
Knowing Ben’d been so close to death dried Ryder’s mouth, but… “He wouldn’t see it like that.”
“I know. Don’t give a fuck how he sees it.”
Ryder snorted. The cat was one opinionated shifter. He finished off the beer, leaving the dregs in the bottom, and rose. “I need to get moving.” Need to pack. Need to say goodbye. Need to rip our barely formed family apart again.
“Right. Appreciate the help.” Owen swirled the beer in his bottle. “Good luck fighting off the bitch from…from where again?”
“Farway. But I won’t be fighting. Not anymore.” After pulling off the clothes Owen had lent him, Ryder shifted, feeling the Mother’s love ease his heart. As the wildness of his cat nature surged to the forefront, he sniffed the air, letting his worries drift away. Part of the glory of being an animal was the ability to live in the now. Worries about the future faded into the background.
With a leap, he cleared the porch railing and started down the trail to home. And Minette and Ben.
And Emma.
He hadn’t realized how very much he’d hoped to lifemate her, to share her with his brother, to love her for a lifetime—not until the dreams were crumbling like leaves in the winter’s first frost.
Nevertheless, for one last night, he could wrap himself in the warmth of being with his littermate and the female they loved.