Page 10 of Bear Haven
“Another presence? Person? Shifter? A ghost? Maybe the town is haunted.” Bryan made wooing sounds to mimic a ghost and Gus had to laugh. A little levity was never a bad thing, especially in such tense and uncertain situations.
“More like, I wonder if Beck was followed. Would his father do that?”
“I would say there’s a good probability that yes, he’s being followed.”
“Damn wolf.”
“You planning to leave when he gets back?”
“Yeah. I need to get back to Bex.”
“Your father and I are going to stay until the Mayor leaves the cabin.”
“Why?”
“Because we want to know when he makes a move in any direction. There are others helping us by keeping an eye out, but we both want to be around when he leaves.”
“So, you brought the cavalry?”
“Only a small part of it, yes. Your friend is relatively safe. We have shifters in a few places between here and the cabin. If someone is close and Luke needs help, he’ll have it.”
“What if the Mayor doesn’t leave?”
“He will. Hunting is what he does. He’ll leave, and soon, especially having just seen Beck.” What Bryan said made sense. Seeing Beck, knowing how he felt about the recent revelations about Bex and who his father had been hunting over the years, the Mayor would be stupid to stay in one place long enough. Just as Gus wondered if Beck was being trailed by his father, Gus also wondered if it even crossed the Mayor’s mind of Beck leading others to the cabin?
“You said you and Blake own businesses? Resorts of some sort?”
“I’ve got a winter resort higher up in the mountains and he’s got a summer resort along one of the rivers. My guests ski, and his go tubing.”
“And his parents were killed?”
“Yes. My wife and I raised him alongside our kids. He was trouble from the word Go. But I couldn’t blame him for his anger at the world. Until he met Leah, he’d sworn off family and getting close to anyone. He’d been living in his parent’s house since he took over the resort. The place was a shrine to their memories. He hadn’t changed a thing.”
“Wow.” Gus hadn’t been back to the house he’d lived in with his real parents. When he left, he left. He barely liked remembering back that far, to the day he stared at the outside, at the front door, knowing all he had to do was step through it. All his clothes and toys were in his room. But the pain and the memories were too much and he turned around, walked away with nothing more than the clothes on his back.
“He and Leah live in Roanoke during the winter months when he closes down, then they move back into the house in the late spring when he opens back up again. She’s convinced him to make a few changes.”
“It must’ve been hard for him.”
“Change is always hard, even when it’s for the best and that was for the best. His parents were never coming back; they were never going to live in that house again. Leah helped him see that and helped him see that it could be a home for a new family, for their family.”
“I get not wanting to settle down or get close to anyone. I didn’t either. Blake had blood kin, though. I didn’t. If Martin and Meryl hadn’t taken me in, hadn’t found me wandering the woods, I don’t know what would’ve happened to me.”
“You found a family. You found your mate. Love has healing powers, son.”
“It does.” He just hoped he could help Bex heal some of her wounds.
