Bull in a Tea Shop Read online

  Bull in a Tea Shop

  (Bodyguard Shifters #5)

  by Zoe Chant

  Copyright Zoe Chant 2019

  All Rights Reserved

  Author’s Note

  This book stands alone and contains a complete HEA romance. However, if you’d like to read the other books in the series, here’s the complete series in order:

  1. Bearista (Derek and Gaby’s book)

  2. Pet Rescue Panther (Ben and Tessa’s book)

  3. Bear in a Bookshop (Gunnar and Melody’s book)

  4. Day Care Dragon (Darius and Loretta’s book)

  5. Bull in a Tea Shop (Maddox and Verity’s book)

  You may also enjoy Bodyguard Shifters Collection 1, collecting books 1-4.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One: Maddox

  Chapter Two: Verity

  Chapter Three: Maddox

  Chapter Four: Verity

  Chapter Five: Maddox

  Chapter Six: Verity

  Chapter Seven: Maddox

  Chapter Eight: Verity

  Chapter Nine: Maddox

  Chapter Ten: Verity

  Chapter Eleven: Maddox

  Chapter Twelve: Verity

  Chapter Thirteen: Maddox

  Chapter Fourteen: Verity

  Chapter Fifteen: Maddox

  Chapter Sixteen: Verity

  Chapter Seventeen: Maddox

  Chapter Eighteen: Verity

  Chapter Nineteen: Maddox

  Chapter Twenty: Verity

  Epilogue: Finding the Way Home

  A note from Zoe Chant

  If you like Zoe Chant, try …

  Chapter One: Maddox

  The truck pulled over to let Maddox off on the wide gravel shoulder of the highway, next to a painted wooden sign in a field of goldenrod and thistles. In old-timey letters the sign announced: SILVERMINE, ARIZONA, POP. 1643. And below that: "A Friendly Place To Live."

  Yeah, maybe, Maddox thought with a slight smile, but not for people like me.

  "This look good to you, buddy?" the truck driver asked him.

  "Looks just fine." Maddox collected his backpack, and reached down to retrieve the cane leaning against the seat by his leg. "Thanks, man. Buy you a burger as a thanks for the ride, if you want to stop for a while." It'd just about tap him out—he was down to his last few bucks. But hell, he had a blanket in the pack, and it wouldn't be the first time he'd slept in a field.

  The trucker shook his head. "Nah, I want to get on into Flagstaff before dark. If you're looking for chow, there's a pretty good diner in this town, though. It's called the Whistlestop."

  "Thanks," Maddox said. He stepped down carefully to the gravel, taking a minute to find his balance on his stiffened-up leg and hip.

  "Good luck, buddy," the trucker called down. "Hope you find what you're looking for."

  Maddox grunted acknowledgement. The truck pulled out in a cloud of dust.

  He looked after it for a minute, then shouldered the backpack and began limping along the side of the road that turned off the highway. He loathed the cane, but he had resigned himself to the fact that he couldn't walk very far without it, at least not without being in excruciating pain afterwards.

  It had been a year since he'd hurt his leg, in a past he didn't talk about, at least not to the kind of people that he tended to meet in mom-and-pop cafés in small towns along the highway. Mostly, he tried not to think about it much.

  Hope you find what you're looking for ... yeah, that would be hard, since he didn't even know what that was. He just knew that the life he'd left behind wasn't it.

  He kept moving because it made it easier not to look back.

  But it was a pretty place here. Damn, it was pretty. He hadn't been in the Southwest much, and he drank in the clear, dry air and the sharp beauty of the mountains against vivid sunset skies. The higher slopes were dusted with gold as the aspens and cottonwoods turned colors; farther down, the hills were tawny as a lion's flanks.

  Maddox thought he might like to find out what winter in the desert was like. It wasn't as if he had anywhere else to be.

  He could see the town across the open countryside, roofs of buildings and radio or cell towers and a water tower, but it looked like the road wound around in a big loop before it got there, following some old right-of-way. No reason why he had to go the long way, though. Maddox ducked under some strands of wire cattle fencing and began to walk across the pasture as the sky went from pink to purple overhead.

  It took him a few steps to get his equilibrium on the rougher ground of the pasture; his bad leg kept trying to throw him off. But once he got the hang of it, it was easier than walking on the road's soft shoulder. There were a few cows here, settling down for the night. The herd's bull grunted at him. Maddox grunted back, and the bull gave him a long stare before deciding he posed no threat to the cows and settling down again.

  Maddox felt his bull stir slightly inside him, before it sank back into the depths of his soul. He hadn't been in touch with his bull much since his injury, and what little contact they'd had was strained. He wondered if such a huge and powerful beast as it had once been was ashamed of what Maddox had allowed them both to become.

  Once, he'd made his living with his muscles. As a bull or as a man, Maddox was huge and intimidating, afraid of no one. He was still a big man, still in good shape, but a man who walked with a limp and a cane couldn't intimidate people as a bouncer or bodyguard. He couldn't even get physical labor in a warehouse or on a farm, though he would have appreciated a job like that, some kind of thing where he could lose himself in the physical activity and forget about everything else for a while.

  Walking was that way, a little. It cleared his head. And his senses were still shifter-sharp. On the evening air, a sudden sound broke through the quiet and peace of the countryside: the sound of someone distantly screaming. It sounded like a woman's voice.

  Startled, Maddox turned and picked up his pace, plunging through thorny brush and clambering with difficulty across rocky ground.

  He came to the top of a small ridge in the purpling dusk. Below him, the headlights of a couple of vehicles—one with sheriff's markings, the other a massive brand-new truck—illuminated a small cluster of people.

  Two of them were teenagers, Maddox saw in surprise. Just kids, a girl and a boy. It was the girl who was screaming. A big, muscular man was holding her. Another had the boy in an armlock. There were a couple more thug types in front of them, along with a man in a sheriff's uniform.

  "Let him go!" the girl cried. She tried to kick the man holding her. Looking at the rage twisting her face, Maddox thought her earlier screams had been fury more than fear. She had a short, spiky hairdo and jeans ripped in the intentional way that some people liked. The boy had a long ponytail and dark, hawkish features.

  "Now, Bailey," the sheriff said. "We can't have you two messing around in our business, can we?"

  He turned his head, and that was the point when Maddox noticed another man standing at the edge of the circle of headlights, quietly watching the proceedings. Everything about him screamed "money." He wore a nice suit and his graying hair was slicked back. He couldn't have looked more out of place in this cow pasture.

  But Maddox would lay odds that this was the guy calling the shots, and he knew it for sure when Gray Hair gave a small nod to the sheriff.

  "Teach him a lesson," the sheriff said.

  One of the thugs drove a fist into the boy's stomach, and at that point Maddox had had enough.

  "Hey!" he bellowed down the hill. "Let 'em alone."

  He had their attention, certainly. As he limped down the hill, he could see them take in first his huge size, and then the cane and the limp.

  "Son," the sherif
f said, "this doesn't concern you. Just keep walking."

  "I'm not your son," Maddox said. "Let these kids go. Pick on someone your own size."

  The gray-haired man spoke up in a smooth, cultured voice. "You're messing with something you don't understand. These 'kids,' as you call them, are a public nuisance to the good businesspeople of this town."

  "I don't care," Maddox said flatly. "If they broke a law, arrest 'em. But that's not what you're doing, is it?" He glanced over the thugs. "I've been where you guys are. This was my job too, once. I'm gonna say this one more time: let these kids go, or you're gonna have a problem."

  The sheriff laughed. "We're not gonna hurt 'em. Just scare 'em some."

  "You don't have to explain yourself to him," Gray Hair said calmly. "Walk away, boy. Or else you're the one who's going to have a problem."

  Maddox could see the way they'd taken in his cane and limp, and then dismissed him as a threat. He sighed, measured the distance carefully between him and each of them—this kind of thing took more planning these days than it used to—and then moved.

  A punch that had the strength of a bull behind it lifted the thug holding the girl off the ground and dropped him. The girl stumbled forward, free. Maddox was already turning around to slam his cane into the kneecaps of the one holding the boy.

  The two young people scrambled away, clutching each other. The sheriff was reaching for his gun, but Maddox moved with shifter speed and punched him in the gut, the same way the sheriff had ordered his men to hit the boy. The sheriff doubled over with a gusty breath, and Maddox spun to punch the last standing thug, sending him to the ground.

  It had taken no more than seconds.

  Maddox glanced at Gray Hair to make sure the well-dressed ringleader wasn't going to try to interfere. Gray Hair just stared at him. So did the teenagers, wide-eyed and clinging to each other a few yards away.

  "Go on," Maddox told them. "Get somewhere safe."

  They didn't need to be told twice. As the two of them vanished into the darkness, Gray Hair said in a voice that was perfectly calm, "You've got some balls on you, son, I'll grant you that. Are you interested in a job?"

  Maddox let out a short laugh. "I've spent too much of my life working for men like you."

  "I'll make it worth your while. I could use a man with your talents."

  "Didn't you just hear me say no?"

  The way the guy was looking at him, it was clear that this old jerk wasn't used to people saying no to him. Maddox knew his type, all right. His last employer, Darius, had been like that in the beginning, though he'd changed toward the end. And before him, there had been a string of bad men like this one, making Maddox do things he now regretted down to the bottom of his soul.

  He hadn't been able to do this to them, but this man was just as deserving.

  Maddox punched him in the face.

  Gray Hair didn't even try to dodge; he obviously didn't expect it. Maddox pulled his punch somewhat, not wanting to do serious damage, because it was clear that this guy—unlike the sheriff and his men—didn't know how to take a punch. Still, Gray Hair went down flat on his backside, getting his nice pants covered with dirt and cow pats.

  He stared up at Maddox in shock, his composure shattered, clutching at his face and nose with blood welling up between his fingers.

  "You hit me!" he said, muffled.

  "You just ordered your thugs to beat up a couple of kids. I'd say you had it coming." Maddox turned his back on the man on the ground, on the groaning sheriff and his men, and limped off into the gathering night.

  "You've made a mistake!" Gray Hair shouted after him. "You're going to regret this!"

  Yeah, he already did, actually. As soon as the darkness had covered his retreat, Maddox switched from his unconcerned saunter to the fastest stride he could manage with his bad leg, just short of a run.

  Yeah, that's it, piss off the guy who's probably the number one big shot around these parts. Good thing he wasn't planning on sticking around this town very long.

  The sound of an engine roaring up behind him made Maddox duck off into the brush. The headlights raked across the road, and the big truck and sheriff's cruiser rocketed past him, spraying dirt and gravel from under their tires. Once they were gone, Maddox picked himself up and brushed himself off.

  Yeah, he might ought to forget spending the night in this town. He thought about walking straight back to the highway and thumbing a ride, but he was hungry enough that he decided to grab a burger to go from the first place he found in town that had food and was open. And then he'd walk back to the highway and thumb a ride.

  Sorry, kids. He hoped they had the sense to stay out of sight for a while.

  He was no longer quite as worried by the time he got to the edge of town. It was full dark now, the last light vanishing from the sky over the mountains. Just ahead of him was an inviting little Main Street done up like an Old West town, with colorful false fronts on the buildings and wrought-iron lampposts glowing warmly on the streetcorners. It did look like a nice little place. A sign halfway down the street read WHISTLESTOP CAFÉ. He quickened his stride again, looking forward to getting some food and a hot cup of coffee. Maybe he'd just hang around the diner 'til the sheriff got tired of looking for him, then see if he could hitch a ride up to the highway ...

  He was keeping an eye open for headlights, and one ear cocked for any vehicles coming up on him. But the sudden revving of an engine didn't ping him as a danger sound until it was too late. With no headlights, the dark bulk of a large vehicle came out of nowhere; it had been parked behind a billboard, lying in wait. It slammed into Maddox from behind, and sent him tumbling down the embankment into the ditch.

  Despite the shock and pain, he wasn't completely knocked out. He lay dazed in the ditch, and heard the sound of a car door slamming over the rumbling of a large engine, and men's voices.

  They're coming to finish you off, he told himself. Do something. Get up!

  His bad leg was completely useless, and it felt like he'd done something to the ankle of the other leg as well. When he started to pick himself up, pain stabbed him viciously in the side. Ribs, he thought, panting through the agony. Cracked or broken. There was a splitting pain in his head and blood running into his eyes.

  But none of that would matter if he couldn't get out of this ditch in the next few seconds without being seen.

  Flashlights raked across the rocks above him. Breathing through his mouth, trying not to make noise, he used the cane as a support to struggle to his feet. One of the backpack's straps had come loose, and he had to slip out of the other one; there was no way he could move stealthily while wearing it. There wasn't anything in it that he'd mind losing too much. Just some camping supplies, a change of clothes, and a couple of paperback books.

  "Down there!" he heard someone say.

  Nothing like being well motivated. The first few steps were agonizing, but he managed to stumble into the brush.

  If only he could shift ... but after all these months of avoiding contact with his bull, when he reached down inside himself, it simply wasn't there. It was like there was a wall between him and his animal.

  Come on, come on ... In the dark, it was hard to see where he was going. He just knew that he needed to get away from the road.

  "Hey!" a voice whispered. "Hey, mister!"

  Maddox flinched and managed to support himself unsteadily on both feet so he could swing the cane into a defensive position.

  "It's us!"

  The girl with the spiked punk hair emerged from the bushes. Her boyfriend was a step behind her.

  "Come on," the boy whispered. "You're only in trouble because of us. We'll help hide you."

  Maddox didn't think they were lying, and anyway, they were just kids, and human kids at that. If he was going to have to fight somebody in his current condition, he'd much rather go up against a couple of teenage punks than a bunch of armed thugs.

  He let the kids lead him away from the road, deeper into t
he darkness. He wasn't sure how much longer he could keep going. His mouth tasted like blood, and deep pain stabbed his side at every breath. Only shifter resilience kept him on his feet.

  A small hand touched his arm cautiously. He jerked away.

  "Sorry!" the girl said. "You can, uh, lean on me? If you need it. You're breathing really loud."

  He didn't take her up on the offer, but he tried to breathe quieter. It was really dark here. The kids were leading him through a band of trees behind some houses. He could still see flashlights in the woods behind him.

  "Where should we take him?" the boy whispered. "He needs help. We can't just leave him behind a bush or something."

  "Aunt Verity's place," the girl said after a moment.

  "Your aunt's gonna kill you."

  "I know, but where else can we go? When we explain how he helped us, she won't mind, I hope."

  "Yeah, but that'll mean telling her what we did this afternoon, and then she's going to kill you even more."

  "What'd you do?" Maddox asked. His voice came out thick and hoarse.

  "Uh ..." the boy said.

  "Classified," the girl said quickly.

  Maddox's knees tried to buckle before he could ask more questions, and pain washed everything else out of his head. Hands touched him again, one of the kids supporting him on each side, and this time he was unable to fend off their help.

  "You'll be okay," the girl whispered. "We're almost to my aunt's place."

  "She's gonna kill you."

  "Shut up, Luke! If you want to leave, you can leave."

  There was no answer from Luke, but he didn't move away. Maddox clenched his teeth and pushed them off him, one at a time. "I can walk by myself," he gritted out.

  They moved back, but continued to hover, looking up at him with wide eyes like anxious little deer.

  "Here we are," the girl said suddenly, and unlatched a gate in a wooden fence. They entered some kind of garden. Maddox smelled fragrant flowers.

  What kind of place had they taken him to? The garden was a dark blur, but looking up, he glimpsed a pretty little two-story house, an old-fashioned kind of house with a pointy roof and dormer windows.