Page 128 of Cross To Bear

“You do…?”

But my growl was no warning to her as she forged on.

“I thought I was never going to find my guys and then I met David and the guys when I went up on holidays in Noosa. We’ve lived in the same city the whole time, never running into each other until we were on the other side of the country.” She smiled. “That’s the way fate works. When—”

“Maddie was never Jesse’s fated mate.” My voice was dangerously flat, and I caught the moment when she realised she’d overstepped. “I knew she belonged to me and my sleuth the moment I saw her, walking into my parent’s place on my brother’s arm. I wanted to tell her the moment I knew, but my dads stopped me. She had to choose us, they insisted. So I waited for three fucking years—” Marcia went very pale. “For Maddie to do that, and she did.” My chest felt like it loosened, allowing me to take a full breath. “She chose me and Razor and Hawk and Crash. She chose every single one of us, because that’s what fated mates do, right? Right?”

“Of course.” Marcia attempted a smile and failed. “I didn’t mean… I wasn’t aware…” She sucked in a breath and then calmed herself. “That wasn’t the story I was told. I’m sorry, Bjorn—”

“Face painting!” A little boy came running over, his halo of wavy black hair bouncing as he ran up to the stall. “I wanna be a polar bear!”

By the look of those golden-brown eyes, I didn’t think he had much of a chance of that when he was older, but his father came rushing up, hauling the lad into his arms.

“You’re gonna have an arse redder than a bloody baboon if you keep running off on me like that, Kai, and then where will you be?”

We didn’t talk much about who was the actual genetic father of a child in sleuths, but it was easy to tell where the boy got his hair and eye colour. Kai was a little mini me of his dad.

“Koda,” the guy said, holding out a hand and I shook it. “Nice fucking ink, mate.”

“You said fucking!” the boy crowed.

“Ducking,” Koda insisted. “I said ducking.”

Kai’s eyes narrowed as he looked down at my arms.

“Nuh uh. There’s no ducks on that man’s arms. Just snakes and roses and some kind of monster thing.” Kai stabbed a finger into his father’s chest. “You’re lying!”

“OK, well, how about we don’t tell Mum, and in return I get you painted up as a polar bear, though a black bear would be much better, and grab you some fairy floss?”

“Deal.”

The little boy held out a fist and his father bumped it in agreement before the two of them turned to me.

“Can you make him look like a polar bear? His dad will be freaking stoked.”

“Ahh…” I looked at his money, then the equipment I had. “I was supposed to have better paint than this and brushes right for the task.”

“You got white paint?” Koda asked and I nodded. “Just paint Kai’s face white. Not much else that’s significant about polar bears.”

“Got one in your sleuth?” I asked with a smile as I went to work pouring some paint on a palette, then thinning it down.

“And he’s an insufferable…” Kai watched his father closely. “Amazing guy. Daddy is a very amazing guy, right?”

“Yeah! I’m gonna grow up to be just like him.”

Kai was put down on the seat in front of me.

“So you’re a black bear?” I asked Koda.

“Damn straight.”

“Me too, brother.” I held up a fist for him to bump. “Best kind of bear to be.” I turned to Kai and then held up the brush. “Do you know that black bears can…”

“Someone said you needed brushes?”

A guy with shaggy black hair and glasses appeared by my table. I took in the old t-shirt he was wearing and the flecks of paint on it, which told me this guy was a painter.

“Damn…” I groaned. “Sable brushes?”

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