Beauty In The Bush (Alaskan Bush People Fan Fiction)

Chapter Thirteen

~COPYRIGHT 2016~

After another three hours, the Browns arrived at Groundhog Bay. They anchored the boat and drove the skiff to shore. Ami and the women stayed on the boat. Danielle got a ride into shore with Bird. She wanted to watch and help as much as possible. If she was going to be with Bear, she wanted to learn how to do certain things.

Once they hit shore, they met up with a man by the name of Todd. His daughter Natalie, who looked to be about 20 years old, was standing beside him. Billy and Bam approached him first and had a short conversation with him to debrief.

After their short conversation, they came over to the family to explain what was going on. It turned out that the car they were hauling hadn't run in three years. The wench didn't work which meant they couldn't use that to pull it up onto the barge. The good news was that the steering and the brakes worked. Basically they needed to push it up onto the barge by hand.

"This is going to suck," Matt told Danielle.

She smiled. "I'll try to help as much as possible," she told him. "It looks like you guys are going to need as many hands as possible."

"The family has a stack of lumber up on the beach that can be used to make a ramp," Billy told the children. "We need to be careful with this car. The car has sentimental value to Todd's daughter. She actually learned to drive in it."

"A daughter, eh?" Bear asked, a smirk on his face. Danielle frowned at Bear. Why was he interested in knowing about the daughter? "Well we'll be extra careful with it if it means something special to her."

Pushing her jealousy to the side, she just wrote it off as Bear being kind hearted. He always cared about what other people thought and wanted to be sure to get the job done correctly.

"Why don't you guys get to work? I'll leave this one to you guys," Billy ended the conversation.

All of the children hopped into the skiff to go out to the boat to get the barge. Billy stayed on the boat as they all drove the barge to shore. As soon as they got it set up, Natalie came out to help them make the ramp. She led Bird, Bam, Bear and Danielle over to the stack of lumber on the beach. Bear walked beside her, making conversation with her.

"Can I cut the ties off?" he asked as they came to a stop in front of the stack of lumber.

"Sure," she smiled, handing over the wire cutters.

"Awesome!" Bear exclaimed, taking them from her.

He cut the ties off one by one, counting them as he went. Danielle smiled. He found the fun in every single task. She loved that about him.

After cutting the ties off, everybody went to the task of picking up boards and hauling them over to the barge. Natalie and Bear were the first to take off caring a board. Danielle nearly threw up as she heard Bear feeding her similar lines that he had said to her about how he liked to get an even workout with everything he did.

"You can always tell when Bear likes a girl because he starts acting more normal," she heard Bam whisper to Bird.

Bird was quick to slap Bam on the arm, making eyes at Danielle. She acted like she didn't hear anything, but inside she was aching. Natalie was closer to the type of girl that Bear needed. She grew up out in the woods. Danielle didn't. She was so much prettier than Danielle too. It was clear that he was getting tired of her and this girl Natalie was capturing his attention now.

"Uh, Danielle, it takes two people to haul one board and we have an odd number of people, so why don't you go help the others get the car ready to head down on the barge?" Bam suggested.

Danielle nodded her head, not saying a word as she headed up to where the other brothers and Rain were.

After the ramp was set up, the men put Rain to the task of manning the wheel. They explained how to brake and steer and before they knew it, she was steering the car down the hill and onto the barge. Of course Matt and Gabe were telling her to slow down, but she stubbornly disagreed. At 13, she was trying to do more for the family and this was a big responsibility. She knew she had it. They didn't have to tell her what to do.

The car was secured and they were ready to go. Danielle was the first to get into the skiff, not bothering to say goodbye to the clients. They didn't notice her anyways. The rest of the kids joined her and they hauled the barge back out to the boat.

"Are we ready to go?" Billy asked twenty minutes later.

"We're all tied! Let's go!" Matt exclaimed from the back of the boat.

"Da, we got this. Go sit down and relax," Bam tried to reassure his father.

The man reluctantly went to the back of the boat to sit with his wife and the other women while the kids took over. Danielle joined him. She sat looking out the window as they took off, not saying much.

"So is it what you thought it would be?" Addie, Bam's girlfriend, asked, sitting next to her.

She simply shrugged, not exactly responding. Addie didn't know what was wrong with the girl and she wasn't exactly good with that whole thing.

"Are you alright?" she finally settled with questioning.

Once again she shrugged. When she grabbed her arm and forced her to face her, Addie was shocked at the tears that were welling up in her eyes. She turned to look at Belle, Lorelei and Angel and the moment they saw Danielle, they knew they had to get her away from Billy and Ami. They were stressed enough. They didn't need to see Danielle crying. Lorelei immediately went into mother mode and took over the situation.

"Ami, would you mind taking care of Caleb for a little while? Danielle and I have some things we need to talk about," Lorelei said.

"Of course I'll take my grandson!" she exclaimed, taking the 2 month old into her arms.

"Come on, girl, let's get you out of here," Lorelei whispered to Danielle.

Together they walked out into the wheelhouse. They walked past the boys and outside to the back deck. Lorelei laughed when she found her husband asleep in a hammock.

"Spill it. What's going on?" she asked Danielle.

Danielle looked over at Matt and Lorelei shrugged it off.

"He's passed out. The man could sleep through a tornado," she reassured her.

Danielle opened her mouth to explain the situation, but what came out instead was a sob. Lorelei pulled the girl into a hug, attempting to comfort her. What had happened on that beach?

~COPYRIGHT 2016~

So what's your opinion? Was Bear just being nice or is he getting tired of Danielle? Is he going to break Danielle's heart?