Bear Arms (Alpha Werebear Shapeshifter Romance) (Mating Call Dating Agency Book 4) (11 page)

“No,” Morales finally said. “I got no fight with you either, but I
will
know what the hell is going on.”

Lexie felt her breathing get shallower. Her chest was like an empty husk, and no matter how she tried, she couldn’t calm her nerves enough to breathe normally.

The two began to circle. Rake had his hands shoved into his pockets, and reminded Lexie a little of the super monster badass in every single kung fu movie she’d ever seen. He was the type that didn’t need to be all inflated and loud for you to just
know
he could kill you.

At the same time, Morales was the Arnold Schwarzenegger bad ass. With just a look, just a glance, he commanded all the attention in a room, and with all the muscles and strength he had, even without knowing anything about him, you knew he could more than take care of himself.

“It’s the bad ass ass lick,” Blake said with the deadpan Lexie had grown somewhat accustomed to.

Without thinking about it, she snorted hard, and then laughed. “What?” she asked.

“That’s what they’re doing. Like dogs licking each other’s asses, but this is what bad motherfuckers do when they are feeling each other out. If either of them was crazy enough to try anything, I think they already would’ve.”

“What about a... I don’t know, a chain or something?” Lexie was watching intently, convinced that at any moment something was going to erupt.

“Badasses don’t need chains, unless they’re about to have a dance-off,” Blake said with a slight smile. “I think they both realize that neither is significantly more bad ass than the other. That says something about how smart they both are.”

“Eve?” Rake called out, without taking his eyes from Morales. “You know why I’m here.”

“I,” the owl made a sort of gawping noise. “I guess I do, but I didn’t think you’d just
come
.”

“You want me to go?” Morales asked. “I’m not leaving until I’m convinced this prick isn’t going to hurt you, but I won’t stick around any longer than that.”

“No,” Eve said. “No, we were on a date, we were having fun. He’s not going to do anything crazy. Right, Rake?”

She was speaking with that slightly distracted voice that Lexie recognized in herself. There were two voices in Eve’s head right then, and they were fighting for control. On the one hand, Lexie thought, the big bear she’d been flirting with was a good guy, and Eve knew it. On the other? Who the hell
wouldn’t
like a blast from the past going out of his way and courting bodily harm to prove how much he wanted a girl back?

“I don’t know who you are,” Rake said, “and I don’t much care. You stay between me and her though, and I might have to reconsider my position on not fighting you.”

At that, Morales let out a sardonic laugh. “You crazy son of a bitch,” he said. “You got no idea what I—”

“I’m sure you’d give me a hell of a beating,” Rake said, “but I’d win eventually. I got nothin’ to lose, and that makes a man,” he paused, sucking air between his teeth, “a little
wilder
,” he said. “A little bit, you know, more fierce.”

Morales considered this, and the two continued to circle. “You might not have anything to lose,” he said, “but I’ve got someone to protect. Someone I care about. I assume you must care about her too, so I know you don’t want to hurt her.”

“You’re smarter than you look,” Rake said with a half-grin. “Can we talk, Eve?”

“Just give the word,” Morales said. “I’ll do whatever you want, Eve.”

Lexie looked over at Blake, who was shaking his head back and forth, very slowly. She noticed that the ready-to-fight tension had relaxed from his shoulders, and he wasn’t gripping her hand quite so tightly anymore.

“I want you to stay, because I’m not gonna just go along with all this,” Eve answered. “Rake, yes we’ll talk, but not now. You need to know that I’m not just gonna—”

“Fair enough,” the lion said, backing away slightly. “It’s been twenty years, but just seeing you made me realize I’d done the right thing by coming back, by taking this risk. I was asking myself the whole way back to the Creek if I was going crazy. Turns out, I don’t care if I am. I’m in love with you, and I never stopped. But I’ll tell you this,” he backed away more, still not taking his eyes off Morales. “I’m not waiting another twenty years. I’ll be seeing you.”

Eve touched her chest lightly. “Okay,” she finally said. “I guess it
is
time to finally,” she trailed off, and stood up to draw nearer Morales. “I don’t know what it is,” she finished, “but right now I could really use a beer or four, and more air hockey.”

“You’ll never change,” Rake said with a laugh, as he backed through the door frame, which was of course, missing its door. “And that’s why I never stopped loving you. I’ll be around.”

Eve, Morales, Blake and Lexie, all four watched Rake return to his bike, kick it to life and speed off to God knows where. As soon as he was gone, the four of them walked together in the parking lot just out front of Ralph’s ex-door.

“You all right?” Blake asked in general.

Eve nodded, Morales clapped his friend on the arm. “I had a feeling you were watching,” Morales said. “You know, that feeling you get.”

“I know it,” Blake said. “I didn’t want to step in and turn that into something it wasn’t.”

“Thanks,” Eve said, still staring off into the darkness after Rake, who had kicked up quite a cloud behind him. “And I’m sorry, for all that.”

Morales shook his head. “You didn’t do anything,” he said. “And we can’t help who we love. That’s something I figured out a long damn time ago.”

When he said that, Lexie and Blake exchanged a quick glance, which wasn’t lost on Eve, who smiled briefly. “True,” Blake said. “If you’re in danger,” he was speaking to Eve, but she interrupted.

“I’m not,” she said. “He never hurt me, but it always seemed like he’d hurt other people if they happened to be close to me. I think he finally met his match with this one. I always thought Rake was kind of a psycho with the diving into fights, but I realize now he probably just always knew he’d win them.”

Morales snorted a laugh. “Well, I guess that’s an honor,” he said. “I’ve seen the look he had on his face before a few times. He was saying he didn’t have anything to lose, but I think that was a lie.” He turned to Eve. “That guy is more in love with you than I’ve seen in any of the three Sandra Bullock movies I’ve watched. But then again, I think you know that.”

“Twenty years,” Blake said with a hollow voice. “I’ve always wondered what that’s like. But now I think I know.”

Not paying attention to what he’d just said, Eve cleared her throat and started talking again. “Well, look,” she said. “I know that was pretty intense for everyone involved. But like I was telling Moe here,” she tapped Morales with a gentle head butt to the arm, “I really need a beer and I really need some karaoke.”

“I thought you said air hockey,” Morales asked, a smile twisting his lips. “Or are you just trying to trick me into going back to Tenner’s and stumbling through
Paradise City
again?”

“Everyone
thinks
they know the words to that song,” Eve said, smiling again, “but no one does. Not even Axl, I don’t think. Anyway, you two are welcome to join us. Assuming I’m not going alone, I mean?”

“I don’t care who you’re in love with,” Morales said to Eve, putting an arm around her shoulder. “I’m having the time of my life. I’ll take you up on that beer, that karaoke, and whatever else you want to do. I’m almost relieved,” he said.

“About?” Eve asked.

“Well, now I can just cut loose. I can just be
me
, you know? I don’t have to try and impress you anymore.”

“You were trying to impress me?” Eve asked with a curl to her lip. “If you
were
, I think you’d be better at air hockey.”

The four of them laughed for a moment, and then Eve grabbed Morales by the arm. “Come on, you big muscle head. I don’t know what the hell’s going on in my heart, but right now I’m just glad to have a friend.”

“Works for me,” the big bear replied. “See you at home? Maybe?”

Blake laughed, and nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “maybe. We’ll see how following this map goes.”

They all laughed again before Eve and Morales made their exit. Right before they zoomed off, Eve called out. “You follow that map, and you won’t see him at home for at least a couple of days!”

“I’m counting on it,” Blake said, pulling Lexie closer.

For a moment, she just stood there, with her head on his arm, enjoying the warmth of his embrace. “What
what
is like?” she asked a few seconds later.

“Huh?” Blake asked. “What?”

“That’s what I asked,” Lexie said with a smirk. “Anyway, you said a few minutes ago that you’d wondered what something was like, but you didn’t finish. About Rake waiting twenty years—impressive, if a little stalker-ish, by the way—for Eve?”

“Oh, right,” he said. “What it’s like to—actually never mind,” he said. “I think I know what it’s like to not give a shit about anything in the world except the person you’re with.”

That brought more happy tears rolling down Lexie’s cheek, but she didn’t bother wiping them away, instead just leaned into Blake as she kept fiddling with the tape on the box. “Yeah,” she said. “I think I just figured that out too. Say, you got a knife?”

He laughed out loud. “That’s a little abrupt of a change in subject. You gonna skin me and wear me for a coat?”

“It wouldn’t fit.”

“Good point,” he said with another chuckle. “Yeah, there’s a bunch of them in the toolbox, why?”

“Because this thing is bound up tighter than a dog who ate a box of crayons. Going back to the whole dog ass joke that started this adventure. And if it’s for us, I mean, what the hell?”

The two of them turned back to the truck, but Blake spared one last second toward Eve and Morales. They were still clothed, but that didn’t seem to be getting in the way of anything. “Come on,” he said. “I think she made up our minds for us, huh babe?”

Without a word, Lexie yanked Blake’s arm, tugging him back toward the truck.

It took fairly significant effort to cut through the four layers of packing tape, and one layer of old fashioned silver duct tape that Eve had, for some reason, bound the package with. Whatever was in there, she
really
didn’t want anyone opening it until the time was right. Apparently, the time was right.

“Oh wow, talk about Rambo,” Lexie said. She had pulled a huge blanket, just about the size of a California king out of the box. From it, a massive combat knife tumbled, clanking on the pitted asphalt of the Fun Pit. “What the hell is this thing?”

Blake plucked it from the ground. “About four hundred bucks, for one thing.” He admired the sheathe before pulling it from the canvas holster where it lived and turning the blade in the moonlight. “Someone who really knew what they were doing made this thing. Look how the blade’s honed at the tip and then just kind of flat toward the hilt. You use this part,” he rubbed a fingertip crossways over the sharp bit, “for cutting. You know, ropes, clothes, whatever. And the flat part’s for prying.”

“Could you use it to open oysters?” Lexie asked. Blake was still staring, completely entranced, at the fine piece of craftsmanship in his hand.

“Er, well yeah I guess. It’d screw up the blade though.” It took him a second to realize exactly how out-of-left-field her question had been. “I almost hate to ask—why oysters?”

“Well,” Lexie held up a mesh sack full of clattering shellfish. “We seem to have a lot of them. Also we have a lot of dry ice, and a blanket the size of, well, you I guess.”

“It gets curioser and curioser,” Blake said. “Wait, what’s that?”

He bent down and unfolded part of the blanket that was lopped over. “Some kind of letter?”

“Use the knife to open it,” Lexie said. “Something about a big soldier man carving into a helpless letter with a giant knife really gets me going.”

“You’re not kidding are you?” he asked with a laugh. From Lexie’s expectant, sidelong glance, he knew that no, she was not kidding. “All right, let’s see here.”

The knife’s tip slid effortlessly through the parchment envelope, leaving a slit in the paper that would make a surgeon proud. He held the envelope open, but Lexie took the note. “Hum,” she grunted, squinting at it in the darkness. “I can’t quite make out what it says.”

“Well it
is
dark out,” he said.

“Oh right. Truck?”

“Already open.” He opened the door for her.

Lexie was so absorbed with the scripting on the letter that she only caught Blake attempting a Sonny Crocket-esque slide over the hood of the car. Just as it seemed he’d make it, his jeans pocket caught on the lip between the hood and frame. He went down without a sound, sprung right back up and dusted his palms and the ass of his jeans before hopping in the driver’s seat.

She read for a moment, and then without looking up from the letter, cracked a smile.

“Shut up,” he grumbled.

“I didn’t say anything. Not a thing. Just sitting here reading this letter. Not saying anything at all.”

Blake grumbled something inaudibly.

“I’m not saying anything. Not a single thing. Nothing at all about your cool Sonny Crocket moves, nope, not saying anything.”

He feigned irritation for about three more seconds before he cracked up. “I have no idea why I tried that just then. I think I’ve always wanted to do it, and somehow, having you here has done all sorts of things to my courage to fuck up and not worry about looking like an idiot.”

Lexie cocked her head, then looked up. “You know? That might just be the sweetest thing I’ve heard in a long, long time. Only you could turn falling over your own ass into something that made my heart sing.”

He turned the car on, and then grabbed Lexie’s hand again as soon as the ignition turned over. “It’s weird,” he said. “When I’m not holding your hand, I want to be.”

To that, she just smiled. “You want to read, or should I?”

“Go ahead,” he said. “I have terrible night vision anyway. I mean, I’m not going to have a wreck, but I’m also not reading any literature in the dark.”