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

freaking loved this.
    She loved him.
    Her eyes went wide at the thought. She loved him? She hadn’t used that word since her college boyfriend. Love. Love? Yes. As she watched Tagan’s chest heave and eyes close against the pleasure of his release, she knew it was true. She’d never felt more right than she did right now with him. And it wasn’t because he was amazing at naked parties. It was the in-between moments, too. Holding her when she had nightmares, waking early to change her brake pads, making sure she had everything she could need at the barbecue last night. He was a man she could be happy with. And to make him happy in return, she needed to fix herself. Needed to heal from what her attacker did to her heart, so she could be open to Tagan’s affection. So she wouldn’t hurt him.
    From this moment on, she was going to fight for herself, and in doing so, she was going to fight for Tagan.
    He deserved a strong woman.

Chapter Nine
    “So, you guys are called the Ashe Crew because you live in the Asheland Mobile Park, right?” Brooke held onto the grab handle to save herself from smashing her head against the window of Tagan’s truck.
    The roads were washed out and dangerous, but Tagan was sitting there with his arm draped across the wheel like the jarring didn’t bother him at all.
    “The Ashe Crew has been around for a very long time. That trailer park was named after us.”
    “But those trailers look about thirty-five years old. You can’t be a day over thirty.”
    “Not named after us exactly, but the others in the Ashe Crew before our time. Ashes hadn’t been on this land for a decade before the sawmill opened back up.”
    “Then why aren’t there any older men in your crew. You guys all look the same age.”
    The side of Tagan’s lip twitched, and he looked out the side window, as if he was hiding his eyes from her. “There aren’t many old-timers left. Too many rules, and when times started changing, they struggled to adjust. They battled each other into oblivion.”
    “Like lumberjack wars?” How had she never heard about this before?
    “Sort of. Not all of us are lumberjacks. Some are firefighters, some are homesteaders or ranchers. We usually lock up with others who earn the same living. And usually that living includes physical labor. It keeps our…it keeps us centered. Keeps us calm and able to live normal lives.”
    “I don’t understand. So, crews are like an underground club? Like a motorcycle club or something. Or a gang?”
    “Sure.”
    His voice said he wouldn’t give any more on that topic, so she made a crafty switch. “So, the Ashes, the Boarlanders, and the Gray Backs are all lumberjack crews.”
    “The Boarlanders are cutters. They switch back and forth between our site and the Gray Back’s. They go down the mountainside and cut the trees. Look,” he said, pulling to a stop and pointing.
    Sure enough, the side of a hill was covered in felled trees. They looked like messy stacks of toothpicks from here. At the top was what looked like a work area with gigantic machines.
    “They leave one tree up called a lift tree. They pick a big sturdy one, and that’s what we attach the cables to.” He dragged his finger through the air, across a long cable traveling down the mountain. “That’s called the skyline. We have a machine that can haul logs up using that, but they need a crew down there attaching the cables to the lumber. That’s my job.”
    She found it fascinating and leaned forward. Pointing to an enormous red machine with a long arm off to the side of the clearing, she asked, “What’s that machine called?”
    “That’s the processor. Connor runs that one. Watch the arm there.”
    Finger-like metal appendages reached down the hill to a pile of rough logs. With one in its grip, the tree was pulled through the claws and stripped of its limbs, then the ends were cut off to make a clean log.
    A trio of logs was hooked to cables hanging off the skyline, and they