Page 70 of Bearly Hanging On

Protected, safe, happy, satisfied, I would only be happy with all four of them as a starting point, wanting to build on that further.

“Want to go on the rollercoaster?” I asked. “It goes up, goes down, and Tor will scream like a kitten the entire time.”

“Hey!”

My packmate shouldered forward, his eyes narrowing. I found myself smiling.

“Don’t try to tell me I’m lying,” I said, then glanced at Kieran. He’d crossed his arms, looking down at me with one eyebrow raised. “Bear Boy will be real quiet. Conspicuously so.”

“And you?” Harper poked her finger into my chest, but I grabbed it, placing a kiss on her knuckles. The smell of her, the feel of her skin against mine, helped settle me. “Are you going to howl the entire time?”

“Not if I’m sitting next to you.”

“You win our mate a plushie and then get to sit next to her on the rollercoaster?” Tor said. “Pretty sure that’s not fair.”

“You could ride with me when we go on the dodgem cars,” Harper offered. “Then we can ‘accidentally’ collide with his car.”

“You got it.” Tor held out an arm, offering it to her. “Seeing as I want to hit Mack every day that ends with a Y.”

Fine by me. With him escorting Harper, that left me free to focus on our surroundings. Me, the wolf’s focus shifted, scouring every stall, every couple, every family, looking for signs, because what Kieran told me? It wasn’t a matter of if my family would attack, but when.

And I’d be ready when they did.

I’d move Harper into our spare room if that’s what it took, because I would not repeat the same mistake. As we were locked into the rollercoaster, the kid running the ride checking out constraints, I heard the high-pitched screams of children on other rides. Hers was twined with it. I heard my mother’s dying cry most days, but never more than when I met Harper. My hand took hers, my thumb rubbing a frantic path back and forth across her knuckles.

“Ready?” I asked, meaning so much more than this ride.

Her eyes seemed to see into the depths of my soul, narrowing slightly before she smiled.

“Ready as I will ever be.”

The alarm let us know the ride was about to begin, the rattle of the cars on the track drowning out all other sounds as we dropped down.

Chapter 29

Harper

Mack wasn’t here right now. I knew the distracted look, the frantic flick of the eyes, of someone who was deep in something they were re-experiencing. I guess that’s what happened when you were forced to kill your own dad. Shame, that’s what I got, loud and clear, in the car and now.

Where was the snarky arsehole who’s mouth did a fair approximation of a cat’s bum as he screwed it up tight, trying not to smile? In some ways I preferred it to this. Seeing the whites of his eyes way too easily, the smile there and gone again. I gripped his hand tightly, not because I was scared of the rollercoaster, but because I knew exactly what he was going through.

Bio parents were funny things. One or more people were handed a child without any qualifiers other than the fact that they’d gone through childbirth, then left on their own to deal with the kid. Despite the plethora of books around, there was no definitive manual, no certain path to success and happiness. People muddled through and god knew, that’s what Mum haddone, Nanna too. Sometimes they did in a way that produced a happy, self-actualised adult, and sometimes… I didn’t look away when the rollercoaster dropped down abruptly, my gut feeling like it was up in my mouth. Sometimes they just fucked things right up.

I studied the side of Mack’s face, taking in that strong jaw, those sharp cheekbones, dusted with dark stubble, the way his eyes scanned the whole complex, fighting to take in every person, every ride.

Every threat.

He noticed he had my attention, blinking as he refocussed on me. One eyebrow cocked upwards, some of that arrogant prick facade he clung to seeping back, but I just kept on staring. He couldn’t drop the pretense, show me a whole other side of him, and expect me to believe him when he tried to go back to his old act of not giving a shit.

He did care, too much, which was something I knew a little about.

I watched his lips move, a question there, ready to be spoken over the rattle of the rollercoaster, through the vertiginous feeling of rolling down, then climbing back up again, when a loud yowl had our heads whipping around.

“I take it back,” Tor said, his knuckles white as he gripped the bar in front of him so hard he dimpled the metal. “I want off. I want off!”

“There’s no way off, only through.”

Mack’s voice was full of gruff authority, but when he glanced back at me again, the mask was down. Something naked and vulnerable shone there as we paused at the crest of the highest peak on the track, building the anticipation.

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