Read A Reason to Kill (Reason #2) for Free Online Page B

to take on a life of its own as my anger increased.
    Dressed in Bermuda shorts, long-sleeved T-shirt and boots with his trademark dreadlocks pulled back into a ponytail, he looked arrogant and full of himself as he spoke with the man. As I approached, I heard Donald say, “The bears are my main priority, not this town.”
    The pudgy man turned beet red at this news and then shouted in return, “You’ll put the whole town out of work.”
    “Donald, what’s going on and why in the hell are you here?” I questioned as I came to a stop next to both men.
    Donald turned, smiled at me, and then like he usually did, he reached out and touched me inappropriately. Only this time he put his hand on my waist and drew me closer. With a huge smile in place when he looked at me, Donald leaned in and announced, “I did it, Mia. I got Congressman Sheppard to agree to sponsor a bill to reclassify this area as a national forest. All I need are fifty thousand signatures and he’ll push to get the land around Grizzly Pointe reclassified.”
    “Say that again?” the same rumbling voice from before asked from behind me, but this time the anger was lethal in tone.
    “Hello, Hunter,” Donald replied with disdain.
    Turning fully to Max, his mouth pulled tight over his teeth, and his brows pinched in anger as he responded with nothing short of malice.
    “I suppose you should be the first to know. Once I have the signatures needed to sponsor a bill, and I will get them, I promise you that, this whole mountain range will become a national forest. When that happens, eminent domain takes effect and you’ll be forced to sell. Your logging is pushing my bears further north out of their summer feeding range and it’s affecting their reproduction. I’m done standing by as I watch my bears dwindle in numbers so you can kill trees. So, the only recourse I have is to shut you down.”
    As soon as the words left his mouth, I closed my eyes. What was he thinking? He’d kill this town if that happened and he knew it. Then I heard Maxine, who’d walked up next to me, gasp, then seethe in a tight voice, “My husband’s family has been on this mountain for over a hundred years. Most of the people in this town depend upon the jobs we provide to survive. Are you sayin’ the lives of a handful of bears are more important than the livelihood of twenty-five hundred people?”
    “Of course, he isn’t,” I tried to explain to her, but Max took that moment to grab Donald by the shirt and haul him off his feet.
    Donald shouted, “You can’t bully me into stopping,” as his feet left the ground, but Max didn’t listen and kept right on threatening him.
    “No? But I can kill you before you kill this town,” Max roared in his face.
    Donald paled and tried to push him off, but it was pointless. Max outweighed him by fifty pounds and if his size wasn’t factor enough, his anger was so great that Donald never stood a chance.
    Onlookers watched as I grabbed Max’s arm and tried to pull him off. Lucy, Frank, and Jake ran up at that moment and the men tried to pull Max off Donald as well.
    Maxine and I stepped back from the scuffle as Jake reasoned with Max to let Donald go. Finally, with a shove, he let Donald go with a warning.
    “Don’t fuck with me and don’t fuck this town,” Max growled.
    When he turned towards his mother, he glared at me with an intensity I’d never felt in my life. It was clear right then he hated me because of who I worked with and I didn’t blame him one bit. Lowering my eyes, ashamed to look at them both as they walked away, my head snapped up when Donald said, “It’s best not to get friendly with the natives, Mia. It’s our responsibility to look after the bears. You’ll only cloud the issues when you interact with them.”
    I wasn’t a violent person, but at that moment, I could have killed him myself for treating people so callously. Shoving past him, needing to be anywhere but in his presence, I was stopped short