Break This! (A 300 Moons Book) (12 page)

C
hance stood
in the gravel driveway of Harkness Farms, Thea’s hand warm in his.

No matter his age, whenever Chance walked beneath the ancient sycamores that lined the drive, he felt small - like a tiny cog in a giant wheel of the farm, of the family.

He hated to admit it to himself, but he was nervous.

Which was pretty damned funny considering what he’d already been through today.

He had started off by meeting with Miss Sharp.

Her minion, Draven, had been conspicuously absent, for which Chance was grateful. He hoped, wherever he was, the cruel man was getting what he deserved. Sharp had been dressed down in a pink cardigan and matching knee length skirt, and she wore a saccharine smile beneath pink lipstick.

“Excellent work, Harkness,” she had chirped, her little hands out like spiders for the package.

But Chance had held back the metal case for a moment.

“Thea and I consider our debts to you to be paid in full with this delivery,” he said.

She considered for a moment.

Thea was quite an asset, but in the end, the contents of the case must have been worth more to Sharp.

“Sure, fine, you’re all replaceable,” she scolded him, reaching for the prize.

She’d sighed with delight like a child on Christmas morning when he’d handed it over.

He doubted she would be quite so happy when the tracking device inside the fake collar led West and his crew right to her.

After that, he’d met with Jade at a coffee shop near the casino. He’d tried calling her a couple of times already but she hadn’t picked up and he just couldn’t bring himself to make their break-up official by text, even if she had clearly moved on.

“Jade, I don’t think we should see each other anymore,” he’d said softly, finding it hard to risk hurting her feelings in spite of everything.

“Oh, that’s cool, Bro’. But listen, call me if you need to work on your Judo for the big title fight,” she’d replied excitedly, and then engaged him in an epic analysis of his opponent’s strengths and weaknesses.

When he got up the nerve to tell her he was with Thea, she actually high-fived him.

So much for being worried about her reaction.

Chance figured she really hadn’t considered them a serious item in the first place. He’d probably been more of a friend with benefits in her eyes. He knew his ego should be wounded, but really he was relieved and happy.

So happy.

Even after all that, here was his moment of truth - introducing Thea to his family.

Chance had no doubts about her. She was his mate. She was smart and beautiful, brave and strong. She would make a perfect partner and an amazing mother for the family he hoped they would start working on soon.

He just hoped the others could see it too. They were a tight-knit bunch, the Harkness kids, and they weren’t the quickest to warm up to strangers.

He squeezed her hand and took a deep breath.

“Nervous?” she asked, her dark eyes twinkling.

“Of course not,” he lied.

She laughed, and he marched her right up to the front door.

He knocked lightly to announce his entrance, then opened and stepped inside.

He didn’t need heightened senses to take in the feelings of home. The scents of beef stew and a wood fire wafted out immediately as did the familiar sounds - squeals of laughter and the tinny radio playing in the kitchen.

They went inside. There was the old rag rug he’d spent so much time playing on. Someone had started a fire, and the his youngest foster sister, Hannah, was curled up on Mom’s chair reading a book.

“Chance,” the girl squeaked and flew at him.

He swept her up in a big hug.

“Where’s mom?” he asked.

“Baking,” Hannah informed him. “Darcy’s upstairs, they’re playing hide and seek.”

Aha. No wonder the kids sounded so wild up there. Darcy was ridiculously good at hide and seek.

He placed Hannah gently on her feet.

“Thea, this is my little sister, Hannah,” he said.

“You’re the reader, right?” Thea asked.

Hannah nodded shyly, looking pleased.

“Chance?” Mom’s voice called from the kitchen.

He winked at Hannah, then grabbed Thea’s hand and led her down the hall to the kitchen.

Kate Harkness was bending to take a tray with two steaming pies from the oven as they walked in. She set them on the butcher block counter and turned to him.

She paused, studying him for a moment.

Chance wondered if she could see the change in him, if she knew his bear was gone.

“Oh, Chance,” she sighed, sweeping him up in a big hug. “I’m so glad you’re home.”

He squeezed her back, then gestured to Thea.

“Mom, this is Thea,” he told her.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Harkness,” Thea said politely. She actually seemed… nervous.

Mom was having none of it.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said briskly, wrapping a surprised and then happy Thea in her embrace.

Chance and Thea sat on the stools on the far side of the island, while Mom turned off the oven and started the tea kettle.

“Derek’s okay. He’ll be in tomorrow,” she said over her shoulder, downplaying the relief that was clear in her voice.

Chance felt his chest relax with relief.

“Oh,” Mom added with a chuckle, “wait until you talk to your sister.”

As if on cue, Darcy burst into the room, a line of kids following her, including a dark-haired boy Chance didn’t recognize.

She did a double-take when she noticed Chance and Thea.

“Go on outside,” she told the kids. “Start without me, guys. I’ll be out in a bit.”

She grabbed a beer from the fridge, her dark hair brushing her shoulders, and leaned across the island curiously.

“Thea, this is my sister, Darcy. Darcy, this is Thea,” Chance said.

“Nice to meet you,” Thea said politely.

Darcy looked Thea up and down, then took a sip of her beer.

There was an awkward silence.

Darcy set down her beer.

“So let me get this straight.
You’re
dating
him
?” Darcy asked.

Thea nodded.

“So did you like, lose a bet or something?” Darcy asked. “Or did you just feel sorry for him?”

“Pardon?”

“I know - you’re blind!” Darcy told her. “That must be it. How else could this meathead trick you into giving him the time of day?”

“Oh, Darcy,” Mom laughed, plunking down the mismatched tea cups they’d all made in fourth grade.

Darcy took another sip of her beer and winked at Chance over the bottle.

He reached out and tapped the bottom, making her spill some on herself.

“You son of a bitch,” she grinned.

“Darcy…”

“Sorry, mom,” she said. Then she wrapped her fingers around the bottle and took another sip. A diamond ring on her finger hit the sunlight and sparked rainbows all over the room.

“Whoa. Where’d that rock come from?” Chance asked, stupefied. Darcy was not the settling-down type.

“I’m guessing a jewelry store. Although knowing Finn…” she mused.

“Who the hell is Finn?” Chance demanded.

“Chance…”

“Sorry, mom,” he said.

“Come run with me, I’ll tell you all about it,” Darcy offered.

“I can’t,” Chance said quietly.

“Go on, Chance, I’ll be okay if you go out for a run,” Thea insisted. “Catch up with your sister.”

“No, I mean I
can’t
. Darcy’s not talking about a jog. She wants me to shift with her,” he said plainly.

“Oh,” she said, pressing her lips together.

“C’mon. How long’s it been?” Darcy asked, goading him.

“Darcy, I can’t,” he told her.

“Don’t tell me you’re getting all high and mighty about shifting like Derek and Johnny,” she demanded.

“No. I mean I can’t. I can’t shift anymore. I… I lost my bear,” he admitted, bracing himself.

“What the fuck?” she said.

They both glanced at Mom.

“Well,” she said. “Answer your sister.”

Chance took a breath and explained. He did his best to help them understand that he’d had no choice, that she’d saved his life, and he’d do anything for her.

They all sat in silence for a second.

This was what Chance feared most - That they would somehow blame Thea, or that they wouldn’t accept her because of what had happened.

Darcy downed the rest of her beer, then assessed Thea.

Thea swallowed, but met her gaze with confidence.

“That might be the most badass thing I’ve ever heard,” Darcy declared.

Chance let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“So can you shift now?” Darcy asked Thea.

“I…don’t know,” Thea admitted. “I never really thought of it.”

“You have to try,” Darcy said.

“I don’t know how,” Thea replied.

“I’ll teach you.”

Mom headed to the sink to start the dishes. Chance got up to help, leaving Darcy and Thea talking animatedly at the table.

His mom grabbed his hand.

“Are you okay?” she whispered.

“You know, Mom, I really am.”

He smiled at her, hoping she could see his heart.

The twinkle in her blue eyes told him she could tell he wasn’t faking. She smiled back so hard her cheeks nearly covered her eyes.

Chance looked around the room and out the window at the kids playing under the trees. Every woman he’d ever truly loved was right here. He couldn’t ask for anything more.

Thea smiled happily at him over Darcy’s shoulder.

Everything was going to be just fine.

C
hance slipped
on his gloves as he eyed his new training partner.

He couldn’t smell the man’s anxiety. Couldn’t hear his heartbeat. His senses gave him no insight as to the man’s measure.

Chance flexed his hands in the gloves. They were good hands. Strong hands. And the strength there was all his.

Without his bear, he would finally be competing on his own terms.

Chance was prepared to train harder than he ever had in his life. When he stepped into the cage to take his shot at the title on New Year’s Eve, in front of the largest crowd of his career, in front of his family and fans, in front of his beautiful fiancée, he would do it as one hundred percent human - with no animal to distract him, or provide a possible advantage.

He would finally have the opportunity to prove himself, as he had always longed to do, but had never thought possible.

Until now.

“Let’s go,” Alexei shouted to Chance.

He took a deep breath.

For the first time in his life, Chance Harkness stepped onto the mat completely alone.

***

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D
erek Harkness gazed
out the incredible wall of windows in his corner suite office.

The elevated view included the glassy glamour of Glacier City’s architecture and the delicate spires of the ornamental bridge stretching from downtown all the way to suburban Greensburg. The few lonely clouds above drifted past, their reflections echoing madly in the glass of the nearby buildings.

But Derek’s eyes were trained on the motionless green postage stamp of a park far below, where a few trees competed for the bit of soft autumn sunlight that filtered through the towering edifices above. He could almost feel the cool dirt beneath his feet, the brisk air blowing through his fur.

“Damn it,” he muttered, wrenching his eyes from the park.

The bear inside him grumbled and tossed his snout in the air in a flash of teeth.

When he caught himself in moments like these, Derek wanted nothing more than to shoot himself with a tranquilizer gun.

He knew the key to control over the beast was eternal vigilance. But these last few weeks the creature would come to him any moment he let his guard down. No sooner did Derek relax than the bear would sneak into his consciousness as it had just now, subtly pushing his senses toward its wild agenda.

Derek would never let it take it over again, never. But the act of caging this thing, which used to take a fraction of his mental energy, was now requiring a strength of mind he wasn’t sure he could maintain.

In desperation, Derek had even snuck out to go to the discount book store in Cobble Slope last night, where no one would know him, and read self-help books in the aisle.

You are your own worst enemy
.

They had all boiled down to that.

The authors had
no
idea.

He’d given up and left again, even as the bear threw itself against the bars of its mental cage when the pretty check-out lady with the blue hipster glasses asked if he’d found everything he needed.

The worst of it was that the bear had… certain
advantages
.

Derek was smart, disciplined, strong. He was close with his foster siblings and had a handful of friends, in spite of the high demands of his career.

Women seemed to like him, and he’d been told that he resembled some dark haired, blue-eyed movie star or other. Even before the money, there were always plenty to choose from.

Now, at twenty-nine, he was one of the youngest CEOs of a major corporation. Derek was proud that he had earned every millimeter of the climb to the top with hard work and focus.

But a little voice in his head always reminded him of the bear.

The bear that had wrested him from his biological family by pushing itself on him too soon and too hard, had also pushed him up the corporate ladder.

Derek was an ethical person. He tried to do the right thing. But putting the shareholders first meant making hard calls when it came to colleagues, employees and even those who had been higher than he was on the food chain.

Each time he found himself at some crux of his career, it inevitably began with him looking at the person right in front of him and trying to make a judgment call.

Had that outraged employee actually embezzled funds, or re-organized the data for the quarterlies to take the heat off their own department, or slept with the intern?

Was the woman across from him actually the perfect choice to fix a problem department, or would the unpleasant new assignment run her off to another corporation, losing one of the best brains at his disposal?

Each time he combed his mind for rational answers, and generally made sound decisions on his own. And based on that, he would have enjoyed a reasonable level of success.

But some calls had to be made on instinct.

And the times when he chose fastest and best, those moments that had shaped his career and built his business, each of them were times when the bear chose for him.

The first time had broken his heart.

Gretchen had been a beautiful junior VP whose green-eyed smiles caused him to splurge two months’ salary on an obscenely large diamond ring that was burning a hole in his pocket waiting for their Valentine’s Day date. She was everything he could want in a wife, smart, beautiful, and career-minded. Best of all, she had a quintessential New England family with whom they had spent Christmas. Those few days had filled holes in Derek’s heart that he hadn’t even known were there.

One afternoon in late January, Gretchen dragged Kurt Engle, one of the accountants, into his office, practically by the ear.

Kurt was unlikeable.

There was no beating around the bush. He complained at every staff meeting, he blew his nose so loudly in his cubicle that other accountants held a lottery to swap seats further away from him. He enjoyed sniffing out and announcing the minor mistakes other employees made.

So when Gretchen stood before Derek and accused Kurt of embezzlement, it would have been the easiest thing in the world to believe her. Firing Kurt would have been satisfying and would have made everyone happy.

But as the miserable man stood, sniffling and red-faced before Derek, repeating endlessly that he’d done nothing wrong in his grating, nasally voice, Derek had stopped to consider for a just a moment.

And in that moment time stood still.

The bear poked out his nose from the cave of Derek’s mind and sussed out the situation instantly from the note of acrid sweat under the locks of Gretchen’s hair.

“Gretchen, give me your phone, I’m going to call security,” he’d barked so suddenly that she chose not to question him.

When security arrived, he’d instructed them to accompany her to the lobby to wait for the police.

He would never forget the exact instant when she realized he knew. Her lovely face twisted into an expression of absolute hatred for a moment before she got control of herself.

“Derek, I wouldn’t. I would never,” she babbled. “I love this company, I love
you
.”

But no one had ever
really
loved Derek.

She only wanted his money. And apparently, she wasn’t patient enough to wait for him to give it to her.

He turned away from her to find Kurt, staring at him slack-jawed.

“You saw something in the books, huh?” Derek asked.

“Y-yeah, I brought it to Gretchen, but—” Kurt stammered.

“Next time, bring it to me,” Derek told him.

Kurt pulled a wadded up napkin out of the pocket of his discount slacks and blew his nose like a trumpet.

“Thank you, Mr. Harkness,” he said at last, with feeling. “You can count on me.”

Before Derek could chase him out of the office, the bear asserted that it was true, Kurt could be counted on.

“Thanks a lot,” Derek muttered sarcastically to the bear.

“Anytime,” Kurt answered sunnily, not picking up on the sarcasm and assuming Derek’s words were meant for him.

Behind the glasses, Kurt had intelligent dark brown eyes which Derek now noticed for the first time.

“Hey, you want to go get some lunch?” Derek heard himself ask.

Derek’s friendship with Kurt had ended up being the second best decision he ever made, business or personal.

Bear -2, Derek - 0.

But he knew that wasn’t all the bear could do.

The bear had wrecked his relationship with his birth family. Given its freedom it would party and carouse with every woman in sight, luxuriating in temporal pleasures, surrendering to mad furies, and forgoing the orderliness that gave Derek’s life comfort.

And it would trample over his plans for a quiet family life and a happy future.

So the bear, while cunning, must be kept at bay at all costs.

The buzz of Derek’s cell phone was a welcome distraction from this line of thought.

He glanced at the Caller ID.

“Hey, Mom,” he said with a smile, stepping out of his office and onto the catwalk that overlooked the massive entryway to Harkness Assets, Ltd.

“Derek, are you behaving yourself?” Kate Harkness barked, her straightforward manner making him smile.

“I’m trying my best,” he admitted.

“Well, we all know that’s true,” she said. “When are you coming home?”

“It’s a little early. Harvest Festival isn’t until next month.”

“We have more to celebrate this year. It’s your 300th moon, you remember that, right?” she asked impatiently.

Oh boy.

“Do you, uh, think that’s a real thing?” Derek hedged.

“Do you think Gloria Cortez would do magic that didn’t work? Yes, I think it’s
real.
”

“Work is very hectic—” he began.

“Don’t even try it. I’ll expect you home by the end of the week,” she said firmly. “If you don’t show up, I’m sending someone after you. Are we clear?”

Why had he thought he could argue?

“Yeah, Mom, I’ll be there,” he assured her.

“Good boy. I love you and I’m proud of you,” she told him. “The kids are cooking up a storm, hope you’re ready.”

“I’m ready,” he smiled, thinking of all his little foster brothers making corned beef and cabbage and freezing pies to prepare for the homecoming of the first group of Harkness kids.

“Okay. Go check out your hip when you have a sec. Bye!”

She hung up before he could ask what the hell she was talking about.

Check his hip?

“Mr. Harkness, your four o’clock is here,” Lena said from the doorway.

Lena was very attractive with her long legs, pixie-cut hair, and seemingly endless array of tight skirts. But Derek had stopped carrying on with the assistants long ago. It had tripled his productivity.

The way she was studying him today was more intense than usual, though. Her lips parted slightly and her pulse thrummed at the base of her neck.

Oh hell, he could smell the arousal coming off her, under a thin layer of fruity perfume.

The bear in his head stood and shook himself off, ready to claim her. Derek fought him down.

Why was the bear so insistent? Maybe there was more to this 300th moon thing than he thought.

He needed to remove the distraction.

“Lena,” he said to the ground, not wanting to make things worse. “Would you please do a quick coffee run? The usual.”

“Huh?” she said, snapping back to herself. “Oh. Yes. Absolutely, Mr. Harkness.”

But she still stood there for a few seconds before scurrying away - like maybe it had taken her longer than it should have to recover from the chemistry of the moment. She’d definitely caught him checking her out by accident a couple of times before, but this was different.

If this
did
have to do with his 300th moon, it was a bad sign. It wasn’t even dark yet.

Derek took a deep breath. He had to get hold of his body before stepping into his next meeting.

Naturally, the bear was still pacing in his chest, eager to explore and claim the tasty female.

Go back to sleep,
Derek implored it.
Please.