Lumberjack Werebear (Saw Bears Book 1) by T. S. Joyce

squeak anymore. I replaced them. They were due.”
    “You changed my brake pads?”
    “Yeah.” He stood, looking worried. “Is that okay? I don’t like the thought of you going down those back roads with old brakes.”
    “That’s…” Oh God, she was not going to turn into an emotional crybaby first thing in the morning. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.”
    “That’s sad,” he deadpanned, and she laughed. When the tools were back in the bucket that had been overturned, he stood and wiped his hand on a rag that had been hanging out of his back pocket. He approached slowly, but she’d be damned if he’d go back to treating her like just another friend after last night. She jumped off the last porch stair and catapulted herself into his arms.
    He chuckled and squeezed her tight. “You’re going to get me in trouble, woman.”
    “How? By hugging you?” She clung to him tighter, and he lifted her until her feet came off the ground.
    “Connor is gonna maim me.”
    “Connor can get over it.”
    Tagan winced and set her back on her feet. “Yeah, about that—”
    “T, you ready?” Denison asked from the front of his trailer. He was loading a lunchbox into the passenger seat of an old beat-up Bronco. “Hey, Trouble.” He greeted Brooke with a cheeky grin. “I shoulda known you were gonna come in here and stir things up.”
    “I like the name Trouble more than princess.”
    “What about Trailer Park Princess?” Haydan asked as he jogged down the stairs of his trailer next door.
    “Veto,” she called out. “Hey,” she said, turning to Tagan. “Can I come to the job site with you guys today?”
    “It’s not safe up there, and you’ll be bored. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
    “I’ll sit somewhere out of the way, and I won’t bother you, I swear. I want to see what you guys do all day up in those mountains. Plus, I want to bring my sketch book and draw a new place. I was thinking of switching mediums for today and see if that’ll loosen me up a little. I can’t draw Markus’s face forever.”
    “Markus,” Tagan repeated darkly. “That’s your attacker’s name?”
    “Yeah.” She frowned. She hadn’t said his name out loud that she could remember, and just now, she’d skated right over it without it shredding her. Huh. “I swear you won’t even know I’m there.”
    Tagan sighed and hooked his hands on his hips, then stared at Denison’s Bronco.
    “I’ll make us lunch,” she said, bribing him.
    Tagan’s dark eyebrows arched, and he cocked his head at her. “You must really want to go.”
    She laughed and bit him gently on the shoulder. “Saucy man. Wait for me. I need twenty minutes.”
    “Denny,” he called out. “I’m taking my truck up there. I’ll come up right after you.”
    “Okay, bossman,” Denison said with a wave. “See you up there, Trouble.” He winked at her, as if he’d heard everything she’d said from way over there. Then he hopped into the driver’s seat while Haydan took shotgun.
    Connor got in the back seat, but his hard glare never left Tagan until the door was shut behind him.
    “Get to it,” he said, giving her a swat on the rump. “I’m gonna go clean up real quick and put the tools away, then I’ll be over to help.”
    Excited, Brooke bounded up the stairs, put the bacon in the skillet for a couple of BLTs, and got dressed in record time while it sizzled away in the kitchen. By the time Tagan came through the front door, she’d figured out what he meant by not cooking bacon in a trailer kitchen. The vent was worthless, blowing the air right back in her face, and didn’t suck the bacon-flavored smoke outside at all. And now the entire trailer smelled like breakfast. Her clothes would probably smell like it until she got a minute to do laundry.
    “You were right,” she muttered under her breath.
    He boomed out a laugh and promised to cook the bacon in the fire pit next time she had a hankering. When the