True North (The Bears of Blackrock Book 4) Read Free

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    They both stopped as they caught a light, female voice swearing softly nearby.
    A figure appeared at the corner of the building and Theron’s mouth fell open.
    “Who the hell are you?” She said, glaring at him.
    It wasn’t the first time someone met him with such disdain since he arrived in Labrador, but this woman didn’t need a gun to knock him over.
    The woman was pale faced, freckles across the bridge of her nose and wild auburn hair in coarse ringlet curls, swirling around her face in the cold air. Theron swallowed hard, forgetting his bum ankle for a minute and almost stepping down. He caught himself, holding out a hand to introduce himself. “Good morning. You must be Miss Dalton. I’m Theron.”
     

 
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER TWO
     
    SINEAD
     
    The small piece of course stone cracked in her hand, driving her fingernail into the chalkboard before she could react. The grinding sound echoed through the empty room and sent a shudder through her very bones. Sinead stepped away from the chalkboard and squealed to herself, doing a little dance of jittery displeasure.
    There were very few sensations she hated more than nails on a chalkboard.
    She glanced at the floor and found the broken stone, worn down on one side, now a sliver of its former size. She couldn’t write with it anymore.
    Sinead Dalton sighed, pulling her coat around her shoulders. Her breath was visible even in the small schoolhouse, but she didn’t dare turn on the heater until the kids arrived in another hour.
    Not that they needed the heat. These kids were all special. The cold didn’t bother them like it did normal people.
    Still, the Extension only had so much power. She couldn’t bring herself to take more than she absolutely needed.
    “Well, god damn it,” she said to herself, striding over to the window to look outside. It was early Autumn, but the weather outside was still bone chilling when the wind blew. At least in the small schoolhouse, she could burrow into her coats and pretend she was roughing it.
    That thought was much nicer than reality.
    The subtle sound of a few footsteps in the gravel notified her to someone coming down the road. Sinead leaned into the window and caught a quick glimpse of a familiar dark haired girl. Sinead rushed over to the schoolhouse door and peeked her head out.
    “Bunny Holden, what are you doing out and about so early?”
    The young girl turned back to her, eyes wide, feigning innocence. “I’m just going for a walk. I’ll be in school on time.”
    Sinead gave her a raised eyebrow. “Oh, I’m sure you will.” They stared at each other for a moment, but Bunny wouldn’t break. Sinead knew better than to expect otherwise.
    Buniq Holden was only eleven years old, but she carried herself with the same regal air as the grown women of her family. Despite that air of grace, Sinead knew full well today was the third Sunday of the month, and the officers would be dropping the commodity boxes off this morning. Buniq was looking to get an early peek at what was inside the crates.
    “Well, if you’re going to be out there anyway, why don’t you make yourself useful and find me a couple more stones for the board? Think you can do that for me, sweetheart?”
    Buniq smiled and nodded, then skipped off down the gravel road, her long black braids bouncing behind her.
    Sinead shut the door to the schoolhouse, watching her breath dissipate into clouds of vapor. Without the heat on, it would take a couple seconds for the air to warm up inside the schoolroom again. Sinead deliberately exhaled toward the ceiling to watch her breath fade, then shot off toward the back of the room.
    She was going to have a second cup of tea that morning.
    Damn it.
    They say Irish Breakfast tea is made with gunpowder. At least, that’s what Sinead’s father always said. Not that she had Irish Breakfast tea available. The Extension received only so many commodity boxes each month, and since the gates to the Extension closed