He charged toward a barbed wire fence, but yanked himself away at the last moment. He picked up the scent and shot off into the woods. He charged and roared, crashing through the woods, bashing at small creatures and scratching at tree trunks. He didn't know how many small woodland creatures he crushed in the night.
In the morning, he found himself naked and smeared with blood. There was a small bird dead beside him in the dewy grass. He pressed his eyes closed with guilt. The grizzly inside him scratched at his eyeballs, reminding him that his mate was in danger.
Standing in the chill forest morning, Leland stretched and tried to clear his mind. It was still quite early, and the sun was barely eking out over the eastern mountains.
As he padded down the slope to the road, walking on bare feet along the gravel driveway toward the house, he heard a motor screeching behind him. Leland snapped his head around and immediately shifted into his bear.
Chapter 20
He could see Sylvia's terrified eyes as the truck barreled toward him. His grizzly reared up on his back paws and jumped onto the trunk of the truck. The driver screeched to a halt and two men jumped out of each door. They had guns trained on Leland’s grizzly, but all he could sense was Sylvia's fear wafting out of the cab of the truck.
"You had your chance," one of them said.
"Sell the ranch now or you both die," said the other.
The two strange hyenas had their pistols pointed at Leland as he charged onto the hood of the old pick up. He crushed the engine and the gas tank started to leak. His grizzly was out of control, ferociously roaring into the air. Sylvia inched toward the open door as Leland’s grizzly snapped at the hyena shifters.
She slid through the door, her mouth gagged and her hands tied behind her back, and backed behind the truck and ran toward Buck's house. The hyena shifter who had come out of the passenger door turned to her and gritted his teeth, jumping into his hyena form to give chase.
Leland jumped from the hood of the car and charged at him, bashing at the smaller animal with his heavy front paw, just as the animal was peeling out of its human clothes. The other man shot a bullet right past Leland's shoulder. Sylvia screamed through her gag and the sound ignited Leland's rage. He turned to the shifter holding the gun and charged at him, knocking the weapon from his hand.
A shot cracked from the front porch of Buck's house down the road and hit at the rocky cliff over the bed of the old truck parked in the road. Leland's younger brother was shirtless in his jeans and boots, charging up the driveway with a shotgun in his hands. Without another word, he sent a second bullet that hit the leaking gas pooled on the ground.
It ignited.
The hyenas jumped on Leland’s grizzly as Sylvia ran passed Buck and was caught by Jessie on the way and rushed into Buck's house. Leland was in a fit of rage and blood and teeth and fangs as he fought the two hyena shifters.
One of them bit into his shoulder and the other jumped onto his back, trying to throw him off balance. Buck shot again, trying to cause a distraction. Leland glanced toward Buck's house. He didn’t see Sylvia. She had to be safe. He growled as he craned his neck to bite the hyena on his back. They were much smaller than him, but fast and vicious.
Buck shot at the cliff one more time, trying to get the hyenas to stand down. The truck exploded, throwing Leland and the shifters down the road. Fragments of the car smashed into the cliff. Buck growled and shifted into his own grizzly, joining his brother on the gravel road. The two grizzlies took out the crazed hyenas as the truck burned and smoldered. Smoke billowed high in the air.
Sirens announced the Bear Patrol closing in. Buck and Leland stood over the incapacitated hyenas on the ground when the police car rolled up behind the burning truck. Leland shifted and stood up. Rocks had started to fall from the cliff, and among them, huge chunks of shining gold spilled onto the ground. Commander Morris and Deputy Carter went about arresting the hyenas as Buck and Leland stared at the gold dripping from the hillside, nude, scratched, and bloodied in the cool morning air.
“Where is Sylvia?” Leland growled.
“She’s safe,” Jessie said, joining his brothers with wool blankets in hand.
"Is that what I think it is?" Buck asked, wrapping a blanket around his waist.
Leland had never seen the gold nuggets up close before. "Could it be?" Leland said, stepping forward to pick up one of the chunks.
“We were supposed to get a percentage,” one of the hyenas whined.
“Shut up. Hyenas never squeal,” said the second.
Leland sniffed the chunk and tasted it, testing it with his teeth. He had no idea what gold was supposed to taste or smell like; never really owned any gold jewelry except the ring he'd given to Sylvia.
Sylvia.
He dropped the gold nugget in his brother's hand, then ran past the police car and charged naked all the way back to his brother's front door. He swung the door open with a crash and barreled into the house. He found her shaking and quiet, lying in a fetal position on the couch in Buck's living room.
Leland rushed to her and sank to his knees, touching her gently on the shoulder. There were bruises on her wrists and on her face and it was clear that she had been crying. Her eyes were rimmed red and puffy, her mouth was swollen from a gag. Everything in him wanted to go back outside and murder the men who had done this to her.
"Are you all right?" he asked softly.
She threw her arms around his neck and collapsed on her knees on the floor beside him. He gathered her in his arms and stood, carrying her back to his house. Gently and slowly, he took her upstairs, where he set her on his bed and gave her a soft kiss on the forehead.
"I'm going to run you a bath, baby," he said.
He went to the master bathroom and started to run a bath in the big garden tub. When it was full of warm water, he went back to get her. He helped her into the bath and wrapped himself in a towel to sit beside her as he slowly ran a sponge over her shoulders.
"Did they hurt you?" he asked. He needed to know that she was all right, that they hadn't violated her so badly she needed to go to the doctor.
"I'm okay," she said, her voice growing stronger. "My wrists hurt and I'm shaken up, but I'm going to be all right. I heard the police siren. Did they get the bastards?"
"They did. They kept demanding that I sell the ranch."
"They thought they could use me as a bargaining tool.”
"It didn't work out very well for them," he growled.
"Do you think it had something to do with the Updikes?"
"I'm positive it does. But until the Bear Patrol investigates, there's no way to connect the Updike's to those two losers. I don't even know why the Updikes would want Timber Bear Ranch. They aren't going to work the land."
"Maybe they just wanted to resell it for profit."
"Maybe they knew about the gold," he muttered.
"Gold?" she said, standing from the bath.
Leland grabbed a bathrobe and draped it around her shoulders as she climbed from the tub onto a fluffy bath mat on the floor. After she dressed, they found Jessie and Buck waiting in the parlor, their eyes wide with disbelief.
"Did they take that scum away?" Leland asked.
"A while ago," Buck said.
"What about those rocks?" Leland asked, steeling himself for disappointment.
He was probably just excited from the fight and the fear over his mate's safety and been confused about what he'd seen.
"We've been looking at it. We can't test it yet, but from everything I see on the Internet, this stuff is most likely gold," Jessie said.
"Most likely gold?" Leland quizzed.
"Probably gold," Buck continued.
"There's gold on Timber Bear Ranch?" Sylvia asked, stunned as well.
"Well, if there is," Jessie said with a laugh, "then we won't have to sell the ranch or the herd or any of our equipment."
All three Kincaid brothers smiled, exchanging happy, satisfied glances.
 
; 22
After several weeks of mining the depths of the gold vein on the Timber Bear Ranch, the brothers had collected a hefty sum. Leland joked that they would bring the five hundred thousand dollars down to the auditors in gold dust and hand it directly to Sylvia's boss.
She asked him not to, even though it made her giggle every time he said it. Even though he didn’t want to let her go, she had to go back home to take care of her job and her cat Charlie.
Leland, Buck, and Jessie piled into Leland’s truck and made their way down the highway to the city. The whole way there, the brothers joked and laughed, holding their big sacks of gold dust. When they arrived at the tax headquarters, they all piled out of the truck, hefting their sacks as they walked across the parking lot.
"I can't believe we’re doing this," Leland said as they approached the front door of the office.
"How could we not?" Buck asked.
"I wish Cyrus were here," Jessie said.
"Me too," Leland said, pulling open the door.
They marched into the office with big smiles on their faces and set the set sacks down on the reception desk. The girl behind the counter looked up at them with raised eyebrows. They were all dressed in wranglers and flannel shirts, topped proudly with cowboy hats. She looked from one brother to the other, to the next, obviously growing more confused with each passing moment.
"Can I help you?" she asked.
"We have an appointment with Sylvia Becker," he said.
"Right," she said, pressing a button on her telephone.
She picked up the receiver and spoke when Sylvia picked up on the other end.
"There are gentlemen here to see you. They say they have an appointment. Your name, sir?" she asked.
"Leland Kincaid and the Kincaid brothers from Timber Bear Ranch," he said proudly.
"It's the Kincaid brothers from Timber Bear Ranch," the woman said.
"I'll be right there." Sylvia's excited voice carried through the earpiece of the telephone.
"Very good," said the receptionist said before setting down the receiver.
"She's on her way," the receptionist said just as Sylvia burst through the door.
"Leland," she said, running to him.
"Sylvia," he said, wrapping her in his arms.
The people sitting in the waiting room stared at them strangely as Buck and Jessie picked up the three bags of gold dust. Leland planted a kiss on her lips and Sylvia lifted her pretty, kitten-heeled foot into the air behind her.
"This probably isn't appropriate office behavior," Leland said, stepping back with a grin.
Sylvia giggled. "Right this way, Kincaids," she said, leaving the brothers into the back side of the office.
They passed two rows of cubicles until they came to a conference room where a group of auditors in sharp gray and black suits waited for the Kincaids arrival. Everyone walked in and sat down. Mr. Stands sat at the far end of the table, staring the brothers down. Mr. Stands’ fingertips pressed together, forming a sharp triangle out of his arms over the table.
"You are here to make a formal payment toward your obligation?" Mr. Stands asked.
"That's right," Leland said.
"And what are those sacks?" he asked, raising his eyebrow at the brothers. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.
"These are sacks of gold from the Timber Bear Mine," Jessie spurted out. He and Buck exchanged a smirking glance.
"You're paying us five hundred thousand dollars with gold dust?" one of the auditors asked.
There was a murmur throughout the room, eyebrows narrowed and heads shaking.
"This is highly irregular," Mr. Stands said.
"Is it even legal for us to take this?" one of the suits asked.
"We’re paying in gold dust because that’s the easiest way for us to pay. We have proper certifications of its worth," Leland said, still standing with his palms rested on the conference room table. He stared down the length of the room at Mr. Stands.
He could see Sylvia’s shocked and giddy expression out of the corner of his eye and smell her bubbling excitement. Leland took a long draw of breath through his nose as he stood up straight. Just then the sharp scent of hyena filled his lungs.
He looked around the room, glancing at each person individually until his gaze settled back on Sylvia's boss. His eyes had the subtle glow of the shifter. Leland knew that the hyena scent was coming off of him. Leland’s teeth pulled back into a toothy grin as he crossed his arms.
"What do we need to sign?" Leland asked firmly.
"The papers are right here," Mr. Stands said, tossing a packet of papers across the table.
It slid down the highly-polished wood surfaced to the Kincaid brothers. Buck caught the packet and brought it front of Leland and Jessie. Leland looked down as the two brothers went through the packet.
"We need your signatures wherever there's a sticky tab," Mr. Stands said, rising from his seat.
There was plenty of grumbling from the other auditors as Mr. Stands left the conference room. The rest slowly packed up their papers and trailed out behind him, leaving Sylvia, Buck, Jessie and Leland in the conference room.
"I can't believe you just did that," Sylvia giggled.
A security guard came into the conference room and picked up all three bags of gold dust, including Leland’s certification of value, and carried them off on a rolling cart.
The entire time. They all had to hold back a laugh that came bursting out the moment the guard left the room. Leland was the first one to let his chuckle break through his tightly pursed lips, followed by Sylvia, then Jessie, and finally Buck.
Sylvia helped them go through the paperwork as they each signed the places they needed to sign. A secretary came back a few moments later with a receipt of payment. She handed the receipt to Leland, and Leland handed the secretary the documents they'd signed. She hurried out of the room with a blank expression on her face.
"Should we celebrate?" Leland asked his brothers and his mate.
"Of course we should," Jessie said.
"I have to stay at work," Sylvia said.
"But do you really?" Leland asked.
"What you mean?" she asked as Buck and Jessie left the room.
"Do you really need to stay here and keep working in this place you hate?" he asked, gathering her hands in his and looking deeply into her eyes. “Why don't you just come with me now? You could help me run the ranch. Goodness knows we need an accountant. There will always be work for you to do at Timber Bear Ranch. We need your help, baby.”
"Leland, I can't believe you are offering me the honor of helping you run your ranch. I never would have asked for such a thing. It's been in your family for generations. I don't have the right to…"
"Of course you do, Sylvia. You've been there for us all along, helping us through this process. My brothers wouldn't have it any other way. I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that I need you every day in every way. Please come with me. What do I have to do to convince you?"
"You don't have to do anything to convince me, Leland, because I already am," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck.
Chapter 21
Sylvia looked at herself in the mirror, admiring the cascading layers of silk and lace that flowed down the skirt of her wedding gown. She squeezed her eyes closed, trying not to let the tears escape and ruin her makeup. Her mother stepped beside her, squeezing her hand and patting it gently. It felt so good to have her mom here with her on her special day.
"I wish your father could see you today," her mother said softly.
"I do too," Sylvia said, opening her eyes. "I wish he were here to give me away on my wedding day. But I'm so glad you are here to share this moment with me, mom."
"Are you sure you want me to do this?" her mom asked her, putting her hand on her exposed shoulder.
"Of course I am, Mom. There's no one else I would want give me away to my mate."
"I know I haven't always been the most tactful,
Sylvia. I pushed you when I shouldn't have. But all this time, all I wanted was for you to be happy.”
"I am happy, Mom. I appreciate everything you tried to do for me. I really do. Now that I found Leland, I can understand what you wanted for me,” she said with a sigh.
"You're lucky woman, my dear. Appreciate him while you can."
"I will, Mom.” Sylvia opened her arms to embrace her mother.
The two women hugged tightly for a long moment. When they pulled back, Sylvia's helped her arrange her veil down her back. Sylvia looked at herself in the mirror one more time, admiring the drop sleeves of her plunging neckline. Her honey brown skin glistened with softness. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes were bright. Her mother handed her a long cascading bouquet of white orchids. The fragrance blossomed in the room, filling Sylvia's lungs with their beautiful scent.
There was a soft knock at the door and a woman glanced inside. It was the head receptionist at the Fate Mountain Lodge, Kelly Green.
“It’s time,” she said softly.
"We’ll be right out," Sylvia's mother said.
The older woman picked up a Kleenex and softly dabbed the corners of Sylvia's eyes. She handed her a lip gloss to touch up her lips. After dabbing the gloss for just the perfect coverage, the women nodded at each other and started out the door into the antechamber between the hallway and Fate Mountain Lodge’s legendary atrium.
Leland had spared no expense for their wedding. Sylvia wanted to invite all their friends and family for the special occasion. Her mother had been there for the last week, helping her get settled into the ranch and giving her tips on married life. Most made Sylvia giggle or blush, but many she took to heart and would keep with her for the rest of her life.
Sylvia and her mom stood together in the antechamber as Buck and Jessie moved nervously in their tuxedos. They were escorting Sylvia's two best friends who'd come up to serve as bridesmaids for her special day.