One Chance, Fancy (Bear Bottom Guardians MC 5)

“This takes a while, though,” she pointed out hesitantly. “Like an hour at least. If we’re lucky. It could take upwards to three if we don’t find anything.”

I shrugged. “I don’t care.”

Her smile that she shot my way was radiant. “Okay, then let’s go. But stay back because she needs to be following my cues, not yours. Ready?”

And that’s what we did. For the next hour and a half, I followed behind her a few hundred yards while she tried to scare up game from the ground for the hawk in the air to take down.

It was on our second round that she scared up some doves.

I saw the hawk’s head whip around and focus on the eight birds like a, well, hawk. Laser-focused and intent.

But the hawk didn’t go after the doves, and that was all because of the woman that flashed a hand signal and a short whistle.

The hawk dove like a missile, and moments later she was on the ground and tearing its claws into a rabbit’s back.

“Holy shit,” I said.

I hadn’t even seen the damn rabbit.

Phoebe and the hawk had, though.

“Most hawks have a tough time letting the most obvious targets go,” Sam said, stopping next to me. “From what I’ve learned, they’re very instinctual predators. But Birdie and Phantom have been doing this a long time. Plus, Phantom prefers rabbit.”

With the bird’s wingspan spread as it was, it looked a whole lot bigger than the rabbit it was currently making a meal. But I knew that it was possible that the hare could weigh more than Phantom did.

“It’ll take her another couple of minutes to eat,” Sam said. “Now let’s talk about something.”

I turned to give the man my undivided attention.

Based on Sam’s tone of voice—something I’d been trained to clue into due to it being something that was hit or miss for me when I was younger—I knew that he wanted my full attention. He also wanted to keep our conversation quiet because of Fancy being close.

“Don’t break her heart,” he said. “If you don’t intend to do anything with her, don’t keep coming around here acting like you are today. She’s had a thing for you since she saw you that first time.”

His eyes were a hundred percent serious in that moment.

I also didn’t know what to say.

For once in my life, I didn’t have a reply forthcoming.

Why? Because I hadn’t expected him to say that to me.

“Do you think she brings every random guy out here that thinks falconry is cool?” he asked. “This is our home. Our refuge. Her refuge. If you didn’t mean something to her, she would’ve never brought you here. Let you see this. Falconry is her passion. That bird is like a friend to her.”

For some reason, the thought of her bird being her friend made my heart warm. “Red-tailed hawks can live up to twenty plus years in captivity.”

Sam snorted. “You and your random ass facts. You used to do that when you were a kid, too. Dixie and I were talking about something random, something that we probably shouldn’t have been talking about where we were talking about it. And you heard the conversation and butted in with this ‘relative to its size, a tongue is the strongest muscle in the human body.’” He grinned. “Your dad had a shit fit, pissed as hell that his ten-year-old son had anything to say about the conversation we were having. Dixie thought it was hilarious, though.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and studied the bird that was still enjoying its meal.

“My dad didn’t like me, period. I don’t think it had much to do with the conversation we were having as much as me just being near him in general,” I admitted.

Sam’s face sobered. “I’ve noticed that.”

Well, he’d be the only one.

“Dad’s pretty damn good at hiding his feelings when others are around,” I pointed out. “But he’s made it no secret to me that he dislikes me for being different.”

“Some people can’t handle different,” Sam said, sounding like he knew what he was talking about. “Others think they can and can’t. Your dad’s never been accepting of things changing his life, either. Not until it came to that girl.”

That ‘girl’ being Brielle.

“Yeah,” I rasped. “Brielle was his little girl.”

Brielle was also different—just like I was—but got treated like she wasn’t. When I was younger, that used to hurt. Now, I understood. Brielle was the only living reminder of his best friend, and he’d treat her like gold.

And that hadn’t changed in the years that she’d been with us. Still, to this day, when Christmas rolled around, Brielle had three times the number of presents that Hoax or I did.

Phantom’s head popped up, did a full body shake, and then jumped off her prey.

Fancy’s arm came up, and the bird launched itself at her.