Bear Pause (BBW / Bear Shifter Romance): A Billionaire Oil Bearons Romance (Bear Fursuits Book 6) (3 page)

The door opened, bringing a gust of icy air. Steve didn’t turn around. In the mirrored backsplash of the service counter, he watched two bowlegged men enter. The new customers were regulars who were greeted with pleasantries by the crowd at the table. Their cowboy boots thumped on the linoleum tiles of the diner and chairs scraped as they joined their friends. In the mirror they looked indistinguishable. Blue jeans, dark parkas, and heavy leather gloves. Stetsons they removed. They looked just like the men they were joining. Normal for cattle country.

The buzz of conversation started again, but Steve made no real attempt to listen. He concentrated on enjoying his pie. It was good. Almost as good as his mom’s. Although he was pretty certain Mom made her filling from a package. A farm wife didn’t have time to stand and stir a potful of sugar until it caramelized and then add it to custard built from scratch. Not like Sarkany’s pastry chef. Crust wasn’t as flaky as hers, but it was pretty good. Better than Army issue anyway. He had stopped comparing food to the meals he had eaten as Sarkany’s personal bodyguard. He wondered absently when he would stop comparing all meals to those he had eaten in the service.

Nothing but crumbs remained on his plate when someone plunked down on the stool beside his. Steve had heard his boots on the linoleum and watched him in the mirror, so he wasn’t surprised. He swiveled with his stool, nodded courteously and waited for the old man to speak.

“Howdy,” the man said in the overly loud voice of the hard of hearing.

“Good morning, sir,” Steve returned. His seatmate was one of the original group. He was wearing a green and blue plaid western shirt and a heavy down vest. His age-spotted hands looked swollen and arthritic, but his faded eyes were sharp and watchful in his lined face.

“Heard you say you was looking for work. That right?” the older man asked.

“Yes, sir,” Steve said.

“Hmm. You know anything about cattle or horses?”

“Some. I grew up on a farm. We raised Herefords and kept a few cow ponies.”

“Double B is about the largest outfit around here. The Bascoms always got a job for a veteran. Least ways, old Clive did, and it don’t seem Miss Laura is any different. Always supposing you are one.” He made it a question.

Steve nodded. “Yes, sir.” He held out his hand. “Steve Holden,” he said.

They shook. “Stan Uxbridge. Marines. You really a Green Beret?” Stan asked the question he had been sent to ask.

Steve nodded. “Yes, sir.” No point in asking how the older man knew. His buddies had spotted the Harley, looked at the insignia on the helmet and spread the word. Steve knew how small towns worked. None better.

“Hmph. You better bring your coffee over to our table.” Stan got up and clumped back to the corner on stiff, bow-legs.

When Lily had refilled his mug, Steve followed Uxbridge.

* * *

“You might say that Clive Bascom made Success a success,” Stan Uxbridge said. The other men at the table smiled at this dusty witticism.

“How’s that?” prompted Steve.

“When Clive came out here after the war, he bought the old Rivers place,” Stan said.

“That’s right.” Alfred Smith wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Bill Rivers was down to a hundred head and none of his boys came back from the war.” He shook his head. “And his missus up and died on him, so my daddy said. Sold up to Bascom in ’46 and went out to Montana to live with his daughter. Nessie Buckle. She married some fellow out there. She and my grandma used to write letters every month, right up until my Gran died.”

“Yep,” said Stan wresting the reins of the conversation from his pal. “Don’t know where Clive got his stake. But he had a good bit. He kept buying land and running cattle – till he found oil. Next thing we knew, there was money coming into town, left, right and center. Pretty soon, he owned most of the range around here. Paid full price too. Wasn’t nothing mean about him in those days.”

“He changed,” put in Eldon Ramirez. “When his boys didn’t come back from the wars.”

“Do you blame him?” asked Stan in a reasonable voice.

Alfred stuck a chaw of tobacco in his cheek and sucked air. “Never cared for the way he was always marrying and unmarrying. The good book says ‘What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.’“

“That’s as may be,” Stan muttered. “But Steve here ain’t interested in things that happened when he wasn’t even a gleam in his grandpappy’s eye.” He drank coffee and glared around at his peers until they were silent. “Bunch of wittering old men,” he pronounced scathingly. “Where was I?”

“You were telling us that Clive Bascom’s sons didn’t come home after the war,” Steve prompted. “Which war would that be, sir?”

“How many they got?” interrupted Alfred. “All them Bascoms was wild. They couldn’t wait to light out and do their military service. Not that that’s unusual around here.”

There was a general round of nodding and solemn agreement.

“Only them Bascoms was always volunteering for every dangerous thing there was. Got themselves killed for their trouble,” interjected rotund Wally Castle.

“They was heroes,” said Stan loudly. “And don’t you forget it. Mr. Bascom, he had a case in his house with all their medals. Damned big case too. Seen it with my own eyes. But he never was the same after his boys died. Left kids most of them, and wouldn’t you know it, those youngsters signed up as soon as they were done with high school.”

“And did they all die too, sir?” asked Steve.

“Some did. Some didn’t,” Wally told him. “But Clive was in a lather every time one of them enlisted. Why,” his face wrinkled in a reminiscent smile, “When Gilbert and my boy went down to Colorado Springs and signed up with the Air Force, I purt near thought old Bascom would split a gasket.” He chortled and the others frowned in disapproval.

“And did Gilbert get himself killed?” Steve inquired, although he knew perfectly well that Gilbert Bascom had, until the previous year, been CEO of B&B Oil.

Wally guffawed. “Nah. My Bobby he got his self a ruptured duck and a purple heart, but Gil, he got a chestful of medals before he resigned and came back to help his grandpa run B&B. That’s what they called the oil company,” he explained to Steve. “Still do.”

“Yeah,” Stan said, giving Wally the evil eye. “Still a family business. And the ranch is the biggest one in Colorado. Miss Laura is running twenty thousand head of Black Angus on two hundred thousand acres. Not bad for a bit of a girl.”

“Tough job for a woman,” Steve remarked.

“She’s been doing it as good as any man these ten years,” said Stan. “If you want work, you go ask. Gary Evans is the foreman these days, and they are always looking for hard workers. Or you could ask at the stud. Miss Laura has herself a Quarter Horse operation out there.”

“My niece Rosa is married to the stud foreman,” Eldon Ramirez put in. “Carlos says they’re short a hand. One of the fellows quit last week.”

“And the Bascoms are partial to hiring veterans?” Steve asked.

“Yep,” said Stan. “Which is why it had to be them blamed lawyers put that there clause into Clive’s will.” He turned an indignant face to the rest of the group who were nodding wisely, and then to Steve.

“Said none of his great-grandchildren could inherit unless they left the military. Now why would a man who wouldn’t hardly hire a man unless he was a vet, put any such thing in his last will? Had to be the lawyers come up with that. And Zeke a Major too.” Stan paused and drank coffee. “I don’t suppose you knew a Zeke Bascom in Special Forces?”

“I served under majors,” Steve gave the answer he had prepared. “I was just a sergeant myself.” Which was true, but wasn’t the question Uxbridge had asked.

“NCO’s run the damned Army,” said Stan.

“Damned straight,” said Alfred.

“Miss Laura’s brother Calvin, he’s in the Reserves,” said Wally. “A Captain. Him and his cousin Patrick both. Shouldn’t be legal to tell a feller he has to leave the service to inherit what should be his by right. Damned lawyers.”

“You got that right,” said Alfred. And the old men were off telling old stories and capping one another’s creaky jokes.

Steve leaned back and listened. You could learn a lot if you kept your mouth shut and your ears open. Between the internet and Bob Willis of Thompson, Thompson and Willis, he knew a fair bit about the provisions of Clive’s will.

Now he discovered that none of the men around these tables liked Zeke and Patrick’s father Jeremy Bascom, although they did like his sons. And they had nothing but good things to say about Freddie Bascom and his children. Good to know.

“Damned shame about Luther,” Eldon said. “Freddie and Laura, they took it hard.” There was a general nodding.

“How did he die?” asked Steve.

“Accidental death,” Stan said. He snorted. “Accident my eye. In my day they didn’t give you a Bronze Star for no accident.”

Nor in Steve’s. “So there’s not many Bascoms left?” he asked.

“A good few. Not so many live in Success these days, but they come to visit every now and again,” Eldon said.

“I’ll say this for Clive, he insisted those kids go to school right here in Success. Lots of towns around here have lost their schools, but not Success.” Alfred smacked his coffee mug down on the table.

“All except Piper and Nolan Belington,” put in Eldon in the tone of a long-held grievance.

“Them Belingtons ain’t really part of the town,” Stan said hastily. “Mary Bascom – she’d be one of Clive’s grandchildren – she married a feller from back east. Massachusetts or one of those states.” From his tone of horror, he might have been saying Mary had married a Martian.

“Oh, yes,” said a tall, quiet man. Steve searched his memory. Foster, Doug Foster.

“The Belingtons are too good for folks around here,” Foster continued. “My granddaughter-in-law took a job out at the Belington place one summer. All the family got homes on the ranch,” he explained in an aside.

“That Piper made her life a misery. Couldn’t so much as lift a plate for herself. Never saw people more surprised when Janice told them where to stick their money.” Foster made a noise at the back of his throat. “Quite different from Freddie and Brenda’s girl.”

“That would be Miss Laura?” Steve checked. According to the diagram he had drawn up, Laura Bascom, was his third or fourth cousin. Steve’s great-grandma had been Clive’s first wife Alta. Laura’s great-grandma was Clive’s third wife Flora.

Even with a chart, trying to keep it all straight was enough to make his head spin. Great-grandfather Clive must have been a fucking horndog. Literally. Not much of a bear. Or a man.

“That’s right,” confirmed Stan. “Miss Laura is the one that runs the ranch and the stud. A fine woman. Comely.” He looked meaningfully around the table.

The old men nodded, looked at Steve and firmed their lips. He guessed they were being discreet about the clause in Clive’s will that forced Laura Bascom to marry and have a baby or face seeing her inheritance pass to the much disliked Belingtons. He didn’t know what that was about, but it did seem part and parcel of the old bastard’s nastiness. The man that would ask a young mother to surrender her child, was capable of anything.

CHAPTER THREE

Steve pulled his motorcycle into the graveled parking lot that separated the handsome stable block from a small utilitarian building. The spaces were occupied by a variety of vehicles, a couple of pickup trucks painted orange, a small white SUV, and three battered sedans.

The stables had three long blocks framing three sandy enclosures. The white aluminum siding on the office building had Bascom Quarter Horse Stud – Office painted in red. As Steve turned off his engine, the outer door opened and a short, skinny guy in a parka and jeans came towards him. Like the men at the coffee shop, he was a wiry, grizzled specimen. Steve dismounted. Time to meet the family. He tucked his helmet under his arm and waited.

“What’s your business?” asked the skinny guy. He was neither friendly nor hostile, but definitely in charge.

“I heard in town that you might have work for a veteran, sir,” Steve replied.

“Might do. I’m the stable foreman.” He held out a small hand in a dirty yellow leather glove. “Carlos Diego.”

“Steve Holden.”

“Regular Army, Holden?”

“Special Forces, sir.”

Diego snorted. “You know anything about horses, son?”

“We kept four when I was growing up in Idaho. Cow ponies.”

“Huh.” Diego’s eyes went to the helmet under Steve’s arm. “Well, if you move your motor sickle over by the office, I’ll show you where we keep the pitchforks.”

The foreman waited for Steve to roll his motorcycle over to the end of the building. He led him into the dim, warm stables. The rich scent of horses and hay brought back a lot of good memories to Steve. Big brown and black heads poked out over stall doors and stretched towards Diego.

Diego pulled his glove off his right hand and scratched muzzles and crooned at ears as he went past. He pointed to the labels over the individual stalls. “That’s what we call ‘em,” he said. “Ain’t their book names.”

Steve pulled off his own gloves and gave each horse an opportunity to sniff him. He scratched a few noses and ears, but he kept pace with Diego, who turned down an aisle where a row of scratched but spotless wheelbarrows was leaning against the wall beside a line of gleaming pitchforks and shovels.

“We turned out the stalls this morning,” Diego said. “We do it twice a day. Manure pile is behind the barn. Needs turning. You choose yourself a pitchfork and get started. I’ll come for you around lunchtime.”

The three concrete bays held a pungent mixture of rotting straw and horse dung. Two sections were full and one was empty. The stuff smelled about how half-rotted horse dung smelled. It was obvious that this was a job for the little earth mover Steve had seen parked in a shed on his way into the stables. Using that would get it shifted in about ten minutes.

It was equally obvious that Carlos was making sure his new hire wasn’t lazy. If there was one thing the army was good at, it was making sure you understood chain of command. This was far from the first job Steve had handled the hard way. And he had tested his share of rookies with worse. A little hard work never hurt anyone.