Page 32 of Load Bearing
“Why didn’t youdosomething!” Trixie said in astonishment. “You could have been out there running the jobs at any point! I was picking up all the work becauseyouweren’t there doing any of it.”
“Why should I?” Jay coughed.
“You didn’t want to do any of the labor, you just wanted all of the praise.” Trixie was disgusted. “So much that you were willing to sell yoursoulto get me out of the way. Did you think that the business would getanywherewithout me?”
“I don’t need a bi—” Jay choked as Hunter’s hand tightened, and he hammered on the floor until Hunter relaxed it. “I don’t need anyone else. I know all the right people and can get whatever jobs I want.”
“Except that you can’t, can you?” Hunter’s voice was a low growl.
“They all wanted Trixie!” Jay snarled. “I told them she was leaving and they wouldn’t sign the contracts without her!”
Trixie was appalled and betrayed. “You told them I wasleaving? After I told you I didn’t want the buyout?”
“I was going to get rid of you one way or another,” Jay said sullenly.
“And that’s when you stepped up your sabotage from annoying to life-threatening,” Trixie said, horrified.
Jay looked suddenly cagey. “I didn’t threaten anyone’slife.”
“If that wall had collapsed, someone might have gotten killed,” Trixie pointed out.
“Trixiemight have gotten killed,” Hunter said in a dangerously quiet voice. “You paid that hippy kid Feather to foul the generator and cut the studs. She was the perfect choice because if she got caught, it looked like it was just part of her existing agenda. And she was a wolf shifter, who could come and go without leaving evidence.”
“Well, I guess you’re a little smarter than you look,” Jay scoffed.
Hunter didn’t rise to the bait.
“What do we do with him?” Trixie asked numbly. She liked to believe the best of people, but Jay had definitely crossed a line here. “What do we tell the cops?”
“You could just let me go and no one needs to know anything,” Jay said desperately. “There are a lot of parts of the story that won’t add up.”
“You’re not just going to walk free,” Hunter promised.
Trixie’s eyes were still blurred with pain, but she watched as Jay suddenly seemed to boil in place and change into a furred shape with snapping teeth and slashing claws. He was smaller than a bear, but just as fierce, with a weasel face and muscular build.
A wolverine, Trixie realized, just as Hunter dodged back from his swiping paw and shifted also.
27
HUNTER
Wolverines were nasty, fearless fighters who would often take on a bear over a meal and win, but only in cases where the bear had nothing to lose.
And Hunter hadeverythingto lose.
That was his mate that had just nearly been tossed off the unfinished porch, and Hunter had had a visceral reaction to the idea that Jay would burn down the house as part of his unhinged vendetta.
This is our den,his bear insisted.We built it for our mate!
Hunter couldn’t spare the concentration to argue semantics with a bear that didn’t understand property ownership; he was trying to keep his eyes and tender nose out of Jay’s reach and still get a grip on something meaningful with his own pointy parts.
He didn’t want to kill Jay, but Jay seemed to have no such compunction; his bites were deep and determined. Hunter rolled Jay under him and nearly took them both off the porch, saving them at the last moment with claws in wood planks. Jay gave a squeal and let go, and Hunter pounced. His bear arms had considerably more reach thanwolverine legs, and Jay scrabbled and snarled and scratched uselessly at Hunter’s thick fur.
They were at an impasse, Hunter unwilling to end Jay, but Jay uncooperative about surrender.
“Watch out!”
Hunter looked up to find Trixie holding a nail gun in both hands. She was carrying it backwards, not connected to the hose, and while Hunter watched in awe, she used it like a golf club to hit Jay in the top of the head, rattling his teeth and knocking him out cold.
