A Bond to Bear

by Harmony Raines

  Jared had been eighteen, the oldest, his brothers thirteen and fifteen respectively. He had been about to set off on a trip around the world, to explore distant countries, to allow his bear to roam free through Alaska. Instead he had to step into the role of breadwinner and fight for his family, learning to become harder, tougher with every decision he made.

  In a need to get his head straight, he drank his coffee, and then headed out of the door and into the night. He needed to run as his bear, over the mountain and on and on until there was nothing to think about other than the ache in his muscles and the scent of the forest. At some point he returned to the cabin. Checking in on her, he found her asleep. But he couldn’t lie in the bed next to her, he didn’t trust himself. So he lay down on the sofa and waited until morning.

  ***

  Waking up, he took a minute to go over the events leading up to him spending a night on the sofa. He had been an idiot, a complete and utter jerk to leave her alone like that. Getting up, he shook his head, and decided he needed coffee.

  Stalking out of the room, he went to the kitchen to put the kettle on the stove to boil. Keeping busy, he went out to the car, and fetched all the luggage in, setting the box filled with groceries on the counter. Taking her battered suitcase into the bedroom, he saw she was awake and winced when he heard her crying. Then he ignored her, as she hastily wiped her eyes before reaching a hand out to grab her clothes.

  “Here,” he said, collecting them up from the floor where he had dropped them and handing them to her. Although he wanted to insist she walk around naked so he could have access to her body whenever he wanted. He had paid for the whole weekend, after all.

  “Thank you.” She took them from him and pulled them under the blankets, determined not to let him see her naked.

  To give her some privacy, he went to the kitchen and made some coffee. He stood and looked out of the window while he drank a cup, waiting to see if she joined him, or if she was going to avoid him. He looked at the trees outside, knowing it was a mistake to bring her here. This was his sanctuary, his place away from the world. Now it would be forever tainted, each visit filled with the memory of this weekend.

  Don’t deny her, his bear said.

  But no matter how much he believed his bear was right, he couldn’t let go of his idea of self-preservation. If he fell apart, if she left him, then what?

  You are not weak, his bear said. And she is not your father.

  But she is human, Jared answered.

  Doesn’t she deserve to prove herself? Jared hated when his bear spoke sense.

  He poured another cup of coffee, and took two cups into the bedroom, setting them down on the nightstand. Kelly was dressed, her hair a mess and her eyes red from crying.

  “I’m sorry.” He couldn’t remember the last time he had uttered those words.

  “You have nothing to apologize for.” She said the words, but he didn’t believe them. He didn’t deserve them.

  “I’m not used to taking other people’s feelings into account.”

  “I know.” She sniffed and then wiped her eyes with her hands. “It was stupid of me to get upset, I knew exactly what sort of man you were when I agreed to this.”

  “You don’t know me,” he said, his head filled with all the things he wanted to say to her, to try to prove to her that he wasn’t a bad man. He wasn’t a cruel man. But he didn’t know where to begin, because he no longer knew what kind of man he was.

  “You have nothing to prove to me. You paid me a lot of money to come here. I don’t know why. And it doesn’t matter. If I could just use the bathroom...”

  “Kelly. Please let me explain,” he said reaching out to touch her, but she shrugged away and stood up.

  “The bathroom?” She folded her arm across her chest to ward him off, and his bear moaned in disapproval at the way he had treated her.

  “The second door on the left,” he said pointing down the hallway.

  Grabbing her wash bag, she left, and he sat down on the bed, knowing he had to make this up to her.

  Damn it, this was so confusing. He had focused so much on business, had become so successful at walking all over people’s feelings and lives, he was now beginning to see the other side. To understand what it was like to watch your life spiral out of control.

  It’s not too late, his bear told him.

  He hoped his old friend was right.

  Chapter Twelve – Kelly

  Going to the bathroom and shutting the door behind her, she went over to the sink, looking in the mirror at her red puffy face. She never looked good in the morning, even when she had been crying, but now the face that stared back at her was bordering on hideous.

  She had overreacted. When she took his deal he had never promised her a happy ever after; if he had wanted to marry her and settle down with her, he wouldn’t have paid her. Instead, he would have dated her, taking her out to dinner or to the theater, not brought her here for sex. She had to stop living in the fantasy world she had created in her head. Ever since she had gone to work for Jared she had been crushing on him, and now it was coming back to bite her in the ass.

  Running the cold tap, she filled the sink and then proceeded to scoop handfuls of it up, pressing it to her face in the hope that she would be able to get rid of some of the redness. The shock of the cold water hit her and made her gasp, but at least it seemed to bring her to her senses. All she had to do was get through two more days. It wasn’t as if the experience wasn’t pleasurable, perhaps that was the problem: it was too pleasurable. Her body still ached, her muscles sore from the tension that had threaded through them last night.

  Thinking about sex was not a good idea; her body already felt needy for his touch. If she followed her instincts, she would be pulling the bathroom door open and running into his arms, begging him to make love to her again. That wasn’t going to happen. Going along with what he wanted to do was one thing, instigating it was another. She had some pride left, didn’t she?

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she repeated to herself.

  Cleaning her teeth and wiping away all her smudged makeup, by the time she was ready to go back out and face him, which she knew she had to, she had calmed down. More than that, she was ready to put on her waitress’s face, the one that fixed a smile on her lips, no matter how crappy she felt. She had done it for years; she could do it for a couple of days here with Jared.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, as she headed back to the bedroom to find him sitting on the bed staring into space. In the weeks since she had started working for him, Kelly had always thought Jared was self-assured, self-confident, and arrogant. To sum it up, she didn’t think he was a particularly nice person.

  Yet the man before her didn’t look any of those things. Instead, he looked confused, as if he wasn’t sure what was going on or what he was supposed to do about it. About her. She frowned, and then remembered herself, and put the bright smile back on her face.

  “Is the coffee still hot?” She picked up the cup, and took a sip. “Yuck, no. Do you mind if I make some more?”

  “No, of course not.” He got up from the bed, eyeing her warily, and then led her to the kitchen.

  “I would love something to eat too,” she said, her stomach hollow. She blamed it on not having eaten since yesterday lunchtime, but she suspected it had to do with Jared being so close to her. She was attracted to him in the worst kind of way. She thought back to the crushes she had on boys when she was at school, and figured this was the same thing.

  “Sure, what can I get you?” he asked, going over to a box on the counter and proceeding to pull out all the groceries he had brought. “I can make you a breakfast of eggs and bacon, or there’s some bread; I can make toast.”

  “I never expected a man like you to be able to cook breakfast. I thought it would be part of my job description this weekend,” she said, succeeding on keeping the smile fixed on her face, despite her muscles wanting to droop into a frown.

  He relaxed
a little and then said, “I enjoy cooking. I just don’t have the opportunity very often. Especially when I’m in town, cooking for one always seems a bit pointless.”

  He began to pull pots and pans out of the cupboards, and she let him carry on, enjoying watching him work. For a man who spent most of his time in the office, there was nothing about him that screamed geek. His body was toned, and from what she could remember of him last night, he was also well tanned.

  “When you’re in town, does that mean you live somewhere else too?” Of course, a man like Jared would have homes all over the world.

  “We have a family home in the country. My mom lives there all the time. I try to get back and visit whenever I can. But business usually keeps me away.”

  “So you still live with your mom? There, we do have something in common.” She shrugged her shoulders, rolling them backwards to try let go of the tension in them. If she stayed like this all day, she would be exhausted.

  “I expect we have a lot in common. We both know what it’s like to have our families depend on us.” He began heating some oil in a pan and then putting the bacon in; the sound of it sizzling filled the air. Her stomach rumbled in anticipation.

  “Only my family is a lot poorer than yours.”

  “I just got lucky. When my father left, we had nothing. Well, that’s not true: we had a house, and so much debt we could have drowned in it.”

  “I never knew. You always seemed to be the kind of man who had just been given it all.”

  “I was never given anything.” He took some bread out to toast. She felt like she should help, but she also felt like it wasn’t her place. This cabin didn’t belong to her, this kitchen wasn’t hers, this man wasn’t hers.

  “You fit into the world so well. The business world, I mean. I’ve seen the people who come to the office; I see the respect they have for you.”

  “Respect or fear?” he asked. “I hold so many people’s lives in the balance. Their businesses, fortunes. I’ve never really thought about what it must be like for them. I forgot where I came from.”

  “We all forget where we come from if we can.”

  “Have you? You look after your mom and your brothers; you work two jobs to keep it all together. I don’t see that you’ve forgotten.”

  “I’ve just never had the chance. I moved out when I was 20, got a place of my own, I really thought that I was a grownup. I knew everything. Then when my mom had her accident and I had to go home and live with her, I realized I knew nothing. Nothing about how hard it all is, how hard she worked.” Kelly shook her head. “Can we talk about something else?”

  “What do you want to talk about?” he asked as he began to cook the eggs.

  “Why this cabin? You live in the city, and you have a house in the country. I expect the house is big, maybe you have servants, and yet you choose to come here where there are hardly any facilities at all. Why?” She had calmed down and gotten used to being around him, and the sexual energy between them had dissipated. This might be the only chance she would ever get to have a proper conversation with him and to try to understand who he was. What kind of man he was. And why he was willing to pay her half a million dollars to come here with him.

  “I like the peace and solitude. I spend a long time in the woods, not having to think about anything. No business meetings, no staff problems, no calendar. No Rosemary to tell me where I should be and what I should be doing.”

  He got two plates out and began to serve the food. “Did you make some more coffee? We can go and sit outside under the trees to eat.”

  “I’d like that.” Kelly made herself busy making two cups of coffee, while trying to work out if Jared Sinclair had multiple personalities. Because the man who stood before her, making breakfast, seemed in no way connected to the man who ran a multi-million-dollar company and paid women to sleep with him.

  Chapter Thirteen – Jared

  They talked, they laughed, and they ate. Jared actually began to feel like a human being, not some businessman in a stuffy suit, in a stuffy office. It had been months since he had been up here in the mountains, and he was beginning to realize that part of himself, the shifter side of him, needed this. His bear needed to run free, and in denying his bear, he had been tipping the balance in their relationship.

  Of course it was made more special by having Kelly here. Her presence made everything complete. Her smile, her laugh, and the way her eyes danced when he said something funny, all endeared her to him. Why he hadn’t just asked her on a date, he couldn’t understand. Maybe it was because she was different too. Away from the challenges of her daily life, she allowed herself to relax and feel free, and let him in. The woman who had brushed him aside at the office was gone.

  She no longer looked tired. The tears of this morning were gone; her eyes no longer red, she looked happy. He looked around, taking in their surroundings. The trees all had new leaves on them, the spring beginning to give way to summer, and in the branches of the trees the birds sang, calling to their mates, and calling to their young.

  Inside him, his bear stretched, and then sat staring at Jared as if staring into his soul. There was a yearning inside him, a yearning to have cubs of his own, to have young ones to look after and feed and protect. Just like all the other animals in the forest around them. He had lost sight of what he was, of what he was meant to be. A shifter wasn’t supposed to spend his life in an office, surrounded by concrete and buildings so high he could barely see the sky. He was supposed to be out here surrounded by nature, surrounded by life.

  “Shall we go for a walk?” he asked after they had finished eating.

  “I’d like that.” She sounded surprised.

  “Did you think I was going to chain you to the bed all day?” he asked evenly.

  “I don’t know what I expected, Mr. Sinclair.”

  He stopped collecting the plates, and looked at her. “Mr. Sinclair…? Jared, please.”

  “Jared,” she said awkwardly. “I’m not sure what I expected.”

  She was searching his face, trying to fathom him out, and he wanted to tell her, to show her his bear and make her understand that she was his mate. He wanted to make her promise that she would stay by his side forever, would raise his cubs, and live a long life with him here, or in the house in the country, in a world filled with love.

  Yet he couldn’t do it. She wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready.

  Before he could tell her about his true self, he had to understand what it was he wanted.

  A wife. A mate, his bear said.

  But what if she leaves? Jared asked.

  And what if she doesn’t? his bear replied.

  “A life without love, is no life at all,” he said quietly.

  “I didn’t know you were a romantic,” Kelly said.

  “Neither did I.” He smiled at her again, and she smiled back, a wistful smile that confused and comforted him.

  By offering her money to come here and sleep with him, he had taken away any chance of knowing what she truly felt. It hadn’t mattered at the time, he only wanted to get her out of his system—foolish, he could see that now. The mating bond wasn’t a phase; it was a lifelong bond that he could not escape.

  So his task had changed: his mission was to try to put things right. Damage limitation, a task he had never undertaken before.

  “I thought I would pack some food,” he said. “There’s a lake a couple of miles up the mountain with a waterfall that I would like to show you.” It was one of his favorite places to visit as a bear, and he could think of no other place to take Kelly that would perhaps show her that he had a softer side. It was a beautiful spot, and he wanted to lay her down on the spring grass and make love to her again.

  “I’d like that. I can’t remember the last time I left the city. We used to go on vacations when I was younger, when David lived with us. David is the father of my brothers.”

  “And he left?” Jared asked, thinking that this was one more thing they had in comm
on.

  “Yes … and no. At least, he did leave. But not in the way you think, my mom found it difficult to adjust to living with a man. Before David, it had just been me and her. I think that she was in love with the idea of having a proper family, of having a father figure for me. But the reality was different.”

  “So she kicked him out?” he asked packing some food for them.

  “Yes. It was very hard on him, hard on all of us. But she made up her mind.” Her face went pale, and he could see that she was reliving that time of her life.

  “How did you feel about it?” he asked. What he really wanted to ask her was whether she was the same as her mother. Was she the sort of woman who thought she was better off without a man?

  “For a long time I thought I hated her. Not that I ever showed her my feelings, I was too scared to lose her too. She did her best by us, but I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t want us to live together as a family. Why would she force David out, leaving my brothers without a father? I suppose it was because I’d seen what it was like, before when it was just me and my mom and then having David there; things were so much easier when we were complete. She was selfish, but how do you say that your mom?”

  “My father left.” He turned to face her, wanting to let her in. His feelings had been shut away all these years. It was like he had shoved them all into a trunk, shut the lid, and bolted it, never to be opened. Jared was afraid of what he would find if he opened the trunk, but knew that if he wanted a life with Kelly that it had to be done.

  “How old were you?” she asked.

  “Eighteen. He walked away out of our lives, and my mom fell to pieces.”

  “And did you have to pick up those pieces?”

  “Yes. We would have lost everything. But I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “You’re right. We are more similar than I could ever have imagined.” She walked towards him, hesitating only once before she reached out and put her arms around him and laid her head on his chest.