Bear To The Bone (Bear Claw Security 1) by Terry Bolryder

little shocked that he’d shown up when he had, but she was glad. Harv had never been that aggressive, and who knew what would have happened if Cage hadn’t come? She’d have to be more careful about walking alone from now on. She’d let her guard down because Cage coming back into town had distracted her.
    Not again.
    She waved for him to follow her. “Come on. It won’t be the first time I’ve administered first aid on you.” She wished she could take the words back the minute they came out of her mouth. She looked back and saw Cage was silent behind her, looking around at the scenery, seemingly unbothered by her comments.
    She hadn’t meant to bring up something painful from the past, but seeing him bleeding, seeing that cocky grin on his face made it impossible not to remember something from the past.
    She let it all come flooding back as she led the man she loved back to her home.

----
    S he was reading a book in the front room when a knock sounded. It was raining outside, and Carrie had been enjoying the sound of it as she relaxed in the rocking chair while the other kids watched a movie in the living room with Willow. Carrie didn’t think there was anything better than reading a book on a stormy day.
    The knock sounded again, and she figured Willow couldn’t hear it, so she set her book aside and got up to open the door. She wasn’t high enough to look out the peephole, so she simply undid the lock and swung the door open.
    What she saw made her gasp. Cage was standing on the front step, leaning against the archway, utterly soaked, his dark hair streaming over his face, which was battered and bruised. Blood dripped down his chin and one eye was swollen shut. He was cradling his arm. He looked up at her with a cocky grin, his boyish, fourteen-year-old face trying to make this look less serious than it was.
    “Can I come in?” he asked. Then he stumbled forward into her arms, and she caught him, holding his substantial weight. Goodness, he was already getting so tall compared to her, and he was barely in high school. She looked to the living room and saw Willow walking toward them, but Carrie put a finger up to her lips as she helped Cage walk up the stairs to her room.
    She wanted to take care of him first. See what she could do for him first.
    Those damn Aces. She wanted to kill them.
    She knew by now, with Cage’s semi-frequent visits, that his dad was one of them, pretty high up in the organization, and he and his dad didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things.
    Cage had had bruises before, but nothing like this. When they reached her room at the top of the stairs, he groaned as she leaned him on the wall to push her door open. Then she helped him into her room and set him on the bed.
    She tried not to flush as he flopped back on it, one arm over his stomach, bared by his lifted shirt, one arm over his head. He looked a little like a fallen angel, with his pretty boy features and pale skin and striking dark hair and eyes.
    The older they got, the more she was starting to see him more as a boy, less like a friend. When she read her romance books, he was the one who came to mind. She could picture him rescuing her, the hero in some ridiculous teenage fantasy.
    But right now, he needed her to rescue him. She ran for the first aid box in Willow’s bedroom and brought it back in. He’d pushed himself into a sitting position with his legs dangling over the side of the bed.
    She pulled a small chair over so she could work in front of him, trying not to blush at their closeness as he waited patiently for her to pull things out.
    She looked him over. Maybe it was just in her mind, but already, the cuts looked less severe. Perhaps she’d thought them worse than they were due to the shock of seeing him like that.
    “Worrying you?” he asked.
    She nodded. “Of course. I want to go down to the Aces and beat them myself.”
    “No,” he said, his face going tight as he reached to take her chin in his hand and