Free Rock (BBW Secret Baby Bear Shifter Romance) (Secret Baby Bears Book 2) by Becca Fanning

hand through his hair, Eddie told her. “Shifters around these parts are disappearing. He went to figure out why.”

    “What do you mean disappearing?”  

    “One day they’re throwing horseshoes. Then they’re gone.”

    Worried, she thought of her friend back home. “Only these parts?”

    “That we know of. You thinking of your shifter friends?”

    “I only know one. She’s my best friend. Lillian. She’s a wolf.”

    Eddie put his arm around her. “I wouldn’t worry. She’s probably safe.”

    “She may be safe, but you aren’t,” a man bellowed behind them. It was the fat bookie who had thrown Eddie out of the beer tent the day they met. A gang of thugs accompanied him, brutes carrying chains. “I hope you have a ride to the hospital, because that’s where I’m going to put you.”

    He was speaking to Eddie.

    Their arrival caused a scene. Others in the campsite stopped what they were doing to watch, statues in the desert sun.

    “You know you don’t want to mess with the Tyrell Clan,” Colby said, stepping forward, speaking with the authority of a cop and the audacity of a cowboy. “Be on your way, Girey. We don’t want no trouble.”

    Girey sneered. “Trouble is what you’re gonna get. You don’t scare me. I know what you are, and I don’t care. Men rule over the wild. Bears like you should be locked up, especially after your little stunt yesterday. I had money riding on that competition. You cost me, and I expect you to pay up.”

    A pair of strong hands pulled her away. It was Brianna. “We gotta go, chickling,” she said. “It’s about to get ugly.”

    Dakota didn’t protest. There was nothing she could do to help Eddie. He had his clan for that. She would only be in the way, a liability.

    They hurried to Brianna’s truck. As they pulled away, Dakota opened the window and looked back, seeing Girey and his men, and four angry bears.

Chapter Four

    A full week had passed since the barbeque. Brianna was gone, out fulfilling the duties of her sponsorship, including numerous press calls, leaving Dakota alone in the apartment. When she had first arrived in West Texas, she would have been delighted to have the space to herself, but Dakota no longer wanted the shadows. She wanted the sun. She wanted Eddie.

    She hadn’t heard from him. It worried her. There were too many people in her life she cared about who fell off the radar. First her brother. Now Eddie.

    Dakota picked up her burner phone, hoping it would ring though no one knew her number. The one person who understood what she was going through was her brother. He was on the run too, a needle falling through a very large haystack. They’d parted at the bus station back home, deciding it better not to say where they were going, not even to each other.

    There was a knock on the door. Thinking of her brother, she stood frozen, afraid the police had found her.

    “It’s me, Dakota,” Eddie called, knocking once more. “Open up.”

    Sighing with relief, she let him in. “You’re okay.”

    “I’m okay,” he confirmed, flashing her his sexy smile. “We were arrested, locked away for days, but when witnesses came forward to say the Tyrell Clan was just defending itself, we were released.”

    “What about the bookie?”

    Eddie shrugged. “Don’t know. Colby is at the station seeing what he can learn. He has friends down there. They’re part of the reason we were allowed to go.”

    She wanted to kiss him, but before she got the chance, he swept her towards the door. “Come on, darling. I’ve had enough blues. I need some fun. I’m gonna teach you how to ride a bull.”

    “I’m not getting on a bull,” she asserted.

    “Relax. It’s a mechanical bull down at the bar. We’ll start there.”

    It still sounded horrifying, but she followed him to his black pick-up truck. Twilight masked the town, drawing out the night owls, those who drank and those danced. Dakota was glad she’d gone to a nearby outlet