Bearing It All

by Vonnie Davis

  Oh hell, I’m gonna pee my pants! He’s coming straight in my direction and I have nowhere to run that he can’t catch me.

  If she screamed, she might startle him and he’d kill her with one slash of his paw. He sat in front of her and tilted his furry head to peer into her face with his golden glowing eyes. A low crooning murmur drifted from his chest. For a few minutes they stared at each other. When she trembled, he patted her hand, almost in comfort.

  “Br-Brother Bear?”

  Darn if he didn’t nod his big head once and pat the darker patch of fur on his chest. Was it possible he understood what she said?

  She imitated him. “I’m Anisa.” She nodded her head once just as he had and then patted her chest. “Anisa.” Holy mother of Prada, she was talking with a bear. A living, snorting, smelly bear.

  Big Brother patted her chest and she fell backward on the floor. Did he mean to be so rough or didn’t he know his own power? How silly! Bears certainly didn’t think about their strength. He made a blowing sound through his nose and lifted her onto his lap.

  She gasped in fear and he patted her head, moaning softly almost as if he were remorseful.

  Dare she venture to show him how to touch her? Or would she pull back a bloody stump? Ronan had said the bear liked her. Should she trust his words? Her trembling hand reached the bear’s chest and gently patted. “Brother Bear.” She gave him another mild tap, followed by a tender caress with her palm. “Brother Bear.”

  He made popping noises with his jaws and rubbed her chest with a much lighter touch. There was almost a sing-song response from his throat.

  “My, what a smart bear you are.”

  He straightened and preened as if he were showing off how proud she made him.

  “Do you like your ears rubbed?”

  His jaws popped some more and he leaned his head toward her.

  She rubbed his ears and he exhaled a blowing noise. As she scratched the backs of them, he closed his eyes and murmured a low soothing sound.

  “I think you’re very handsome. Maybe just as handsome as Ronan.”

  Oh, the bear perked up at that remark. Why, he understood every word she spoke. How incredibly odd—and beyond fantastic.

  “Will you be my friend?” She’d love to study him, to try some experiments on his communication skills.

  The bear nodded. He stroked her arm, even though a couple of his claws got caught in the silk and tore the long sleeve. Yet he didn’t touch her skin to harm her. His low growling was more a contented humming than anything menacing.

  Brother Bear suddenly shook his head and growled loudly as if he were angry. He pressed her head to his shoulder, shook his head, and he sniffed her hair. Finally, he picked her up and set her on the floor.

  This whole experience did not happen. I’m asleep in the bed, dreaming.

  Just as before when Ronan had gone through his shifting process, the bear flickered and his edges became blurred. Bones popped as they grew in some places, shrank in others, and changed shape. Anisa took the opportunity to bolt for the bathroom. One’s bladder could only take so much excitement, and she’d had her quota for the week.

  Ronan was in his kilt and stockings, yanking on his boots when Anisa stepped out of the bathroom. Her heartbeat was nearing normal range again and her trembling lessened. To help recuperate from her harrowing experience, she’d washed the sweat from her face, neck, and the arm where Brother Bear had shredded her sleeve.

  Ronan’s dark eyes locked on hers as he tied the leather cord around his ponytail. “Are ye okay, Anisa?” His body language displayed an inquiring yet worried nature. “Did me bear scratch ye when he shredded yer sleeve?” He reached to check her arm and she jerked it behind her back.

  She wasn’t ready to have him touch her yet. Silly, she knew, but her nerves were still teetering on a seesaw. “Don’t you know? Can you see what your other half is doing? Hear what is happening and being said?”

  “Depends. Usually, we can tell what’s happening with each other. If we want, we can close our telepathic shield which blocks one half’s awareness from the other. Brother Bear gets so excited, he doesna always get the shield closed all the way. All I can detect is vague movement through a fog, hear muted conversation as he talks to himself, and sense his emotions with a dimmed grade of awareness.”

  “I see. Why did he seem angry before he started to shift back?”

  “I told him it was time to shift back. He wasna ready to relinquish his time in the forefront, as we call it. If he had his way, he’d still be with ye. Did ye brag on him? I detected a deepening of affection and devotion fer ye, as if he wasna crazy about ye from the time ye landed on him near the stream. Nay, this was more intense.”

  “Perhaps because I told him he was a handsome fellow and very smart. I wanted to study how much of our language he understood.”

  Ronan nodded and smiled. “That explains his current behavior.”

  “What do you mean?” She fiddled with the shredded sleeve.

  “He’s dancing and singing his version of a childhood rhyme sung over daisies: ‘She loves me, she loves Ronan not.’ Hold on, I’ll get ye a sweatshirt to keep ye warmer.” He entered his bedroom and rummaged through a chest of drawers.

  “So, the two of you can talk to each other? Do you do it by thought process? How?” She followed on Ronan’s heels and accepted the faded orange top he handed her. A peculiar uneasiness slipped into her heart as she tugged on the sweatshirt. Would the bear touch her in a sexual way? Would that even be possible? After what she’d observed this evening and all she’d learned in her many classes, she’d accepted with hesitancy that almost anything was conceivable.

  “I can hear his voice. At home, I talk to him, mentally, like we humans talk to ourselves, but up here, where no one can hear us, I talk to him out loud. Ye should be in me head and body right about now. Ye have captivated Brother Bear since ye fell from the sky.”

  Oh, dear God. She backed up a step. “He wouldn’t try to…to…ah.” Is that why he came to her in the middle of the night?

  “Bears don’t mate with humans, do they? I mean, my mind tells me I know better, but I just observed a human morph into a bear so, I’m more than a little confused right now. Or as one would say, ‘I’m freaked out.’ I mean, why would he come into my bed my first night here? How did he get out of your body without your knowing it?”

  Ronan’s large hands encircled her biceps. “Let me put yer first fear to rest. Nay, luv. He does not think of ye sexually. More like a boy for his mumma. In some ways, Brother Bear is childlike. In others, he’s ferocious. Nay, he willna, nor can he, touch ye sexually. But our bears do often pick our mates, or try to. Myths tell us our inner halves contain an inherent ability to decide on who would be the best match for us.”

  “Surely you don’t believe that! A bear picks your wife?”

  “Aye, it might sound bizarre, but ’tis how me brothers’ bears helped select their mates.”

  She forked her fingers through her curls. How much more weirdo-wacko was she going to have thrown at her tonight? She took a deep, cleansing breath. Hell, she’d had more physical and emotional trauma shoved down her throat before. Listen and ask questions, Anisa. She rolled up the long sleeves of the shirt Ronan had yanked over her head and she’d shoved her arms into. “He can say anything to you? But not to anyone else?”

  “Dinna look at me like that. Our bears lead a rather lonely existence. At times, a bunch of them are allowed to shift to play or run through the Highlands together, but often they go for days hidden within their humans. We develop our own way of speaking, I suppose. To be honest, I’d never given it much thought.” Ronan scratched his knee between his kilt and stockings, his eyebrows furrowed as if he were giving the topic some consideration now. “The tone of Brother Bear’s voice when he crooned to ye was different, too. I’d chalked it up to shyness. Ye were the first human to talk to him.”

  “What about your mother?”

  He clasped h
is fingers behind his head and stretched his long legs. “Och, aye. But she’s Irish and canna speak to him the way I do. Only as ye did, but they have their own relationship, ye see.”

  “This is all rather complicated.” Anisa sighed. So often, human nature was. Throw in some bears and it became relationship mayhem.

  “As our bairns grow into adolescence, the children of the humans knowingly shift. Before that, the human babies do change into bears, but dinna understand the significance of it. Their awareness of what happens to them doesna strike them until they are around ten years old. So, bears long for family just as many humans do.

  “They also have different personalities. Brother Bear is a mixture. Quick to get into trouble. Bossy and prone to throw tantrums. But he also gets his feelings hurt easily. He has a deep need for affection. I tend to discipline him too often because he is so willful.”

  Ronan stood and stalked over to the wood rack and grabbed some logs to fill the fireplace. The flames quickly licked around the bark, as if the fire were hungry. He stood and brushed his hands together while she settled on the sofa. “I’m not the easiest man to get along with. I suppose because I always have to be so damn polite to visitors at the lodge every feckin’ minute.”

  “Yes, that would get old after a while. It leaves no room for emotions to change.” She scooped the books, chosen to read earlier, off the massive coffee table. Not that she was in the mood for reading, but she did need to grasp at something to hold her trembling hands still.

  He sat next to her, covering her jittery hands with one of his large ones. “Ye’re still upset by what happened earlier, watching us shift and being so close to the other half of my being. Please, dinna be. Brother Bear wants ye to approve of him, so when ye paid him compliments, his heart melted. He will protect ye from anyone or anything fer the rest of his life. To him, ye are his family. I am, too, but I dinna smell as good as ye.” Ronan slapped his hand over his forehead. “Bloody hell!”

  “What?”

  “Do ye remember the tune, ‘Are We Going to Scarborough Fair’?”

  “Of course.” The ditty immediately popped into her mind.

  “ ’Tis an auld English and Scottish melody. Only Brother Bear has changed the lyrics to ‘Strawberry Hair.’ ”

  “What do you mean?”

  “ ‘I’ve just smelled her strawberry hair. Better than honey, it smells of her.’ ” Ronan sang the bear’s version to her.

  “Oh, that is so sweet. He’s singing about me?” Her hand covered her heart before she realized it. Must be the mountain air. I am going insane, getting sentimental over a bear that likes me. My thoughts make no sense. Maybe I have a concussion.

  Ronan placed his hands over his ears. “Bloody hell. I need to close me telepathic shield before he drives me fokin’ nuts. Have ye ever heard a bear sing? They canna hit a note for shite.” He blinked a few times before touching her fingers. “There, that’s better. Ye must have many questions about what ye saw earlier. I’ll answer them all. All ye need do is ask.”

  Goodness, where should she start? “Does it hurt to shift? I could hear your bones cracking.” She motioned toward the sides of her head. “Your ears moved and you grew a muzzle. Do you feel all of that when it happens?”

  “No. Not unless I’m verra tired or hurt. It requires a large amount of energy to make the shift. Sometimes, if we’re hurt badly, the transition either way canna happen or takes longer to happen. Let’s say I break a leg. His leg will be broken, too. Whatever injuries or illness the one half has, so does the other.”

  She might as well get to what really bothered her the most. “How could he shift to the…forefront, as you call it…when you were asleep? Didn’t the changing wake you up?”

  “ ’Tis against the physical laws of our dual existence. The human is the superior of the two and retains ultimate control. Brother Bear, the sneaky willful beast, has shifted four times now without me knowledge. Every time he does, he creates havoc, dinna think he doesna. Then I must cover it up or lie or…”

  “Or walk around the room in shredded pajama bottoms with your bare ass sticking out.” She chuckled at her memory of the sight.

  “Aye, well…” A blush crept across his cheeks. “ ’Twas not one of me proudest moments.” He exhaled a long breath, stretched out his long legs, and crossed his ankles. “I ken ye fear being captured by the CIA or other government groups, but ye have to know Brother Bear and I will keep ye safe.”

  His fingers lightly trailed down her neck. “Still, I see in yer eyes something bothers ye.”

  Many things bothered her. Some she’d rather keep to herself. “I’m still confused as to why Brother Bear shifted and leaned over the sofa? Why did he waken me? What was he going to do?”

  “He wanted ye to get to ken him, to like him. Since ye’ve arrived, all I’ve heard from him are ‘family.’ He wants me to marry ye so he has a family.” Ronan shrugged a shoulder. “He thinks if he has yer affection, he’ll be less lonely.”

  Sadness squeezed her heart. Poor, secluded creature. “But how will we communicate?”

  “Through me, with my telepathic shield open. He’ll ask me to tell ye good morning or ye can tell him he looks handsome today.”

  “Can I give him a name?” What was wrong with her? She was feeling sorry for this bear, for his lack of a real life and people to love him. Of course he had Ronan, but obviously the bear had a great hunger for love.

  “Do ye plan to choose his name or have him pick what he wants?”

  “Open your shield and ask him so I can hear your side of the conversation.”

  “Ye might live to regret this.” He blinked a few times. “Brother Bear, Anisa wants to ken if she can call ye by a special name. One only she can use.” He slapped a hand over his eyes. “Magnus? Ye couldna come up with anything better than…”

  She squeezed Ronan’s arm. “Tell Magnus, I really like him. Maybe tomorrow he and I could have a snowball battle.”

  Ronan laughed. “Och, aye, he loves that idea.”

  “Tell Magnus to get some sleep so we can play tomorrow and that I love him.” Ronan rolled his eyes and she socked his shoulder. “Magnus asks if he may call ye by yer first name and not use your official rank. He canna differentiate a major from a private.”

  She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. “Yes, that would be fine. Tell him I said he’s adorable.” Ronan frantically shook his head. She leaned in and circled her tongue around his earlobe. “Please?”

  Apparently having delivered her message, he blinked again, a sign she now associated with the opening and closing of the telepathic shield.

  “So Magnus is happy?”

  He shot her a look of exasperation. “Aye. Brother Bear is happy.”

  “You have a stubborn side to you. Not that there’s a thing wrong with that. I’ve got one myself. Poor Magnus, what he’s had to endure with your domineering macho nature.”

  She batted her eyes at Ronan and he laughed, pulling her into an embrace. “And what nickname will ye have fer me, Frenchy?”

  Chapter 11

  He kissed her until her toes curled. “Och, what a piece of work ye are. Stretch out with me. Snuggle fer a wee bit. Show me what ye chose yesterday to read.” She landed on her side between him and the back of the sofa. Ronan turned on his side enveloping her in his arms, wrapping his legs around hers, and planting slow warm kisses on her face. His whisker stubble sent all kinds of sensations through her system—and all of them good. Yes, the hormones were doing the cancan again.

  “What books do ye read fer pleasure? Or do ye only read drone manuals and how to knock a man on his arse in three easy moves?”

  She bit his square jaw with a gentle nip. “I can knock a man down in two. Three would be for amateurs.”

  He leaned his head back and laughed in a hearty manner that warmed her soul. “Ye are a treasure. And did I mention how fetching ye look in that auld orange sweatshirt ye’re wearing? Ye’ve got an hourglass
figure that turns me on every time I set me eyes upon ye.” He grazed her nipples with his fingertips, making them stand up as if they were going to sing the French national anthem. “Or how nice those silk pajama bottoms hug the sexy firmness of yer arse, especially when I ken there’s a purple thong beneath them.” His hand skimmed over her bottom before he squeezed it. “Ye are every man’s dream and will bloody well be mine forever.”

  “You say so many fancy words when you flirt with me.” She trailed a fingertip over the design of his tattoo and pressed her head to his shoulder. “They’re not necessary. Even so, they’re words a woman enjoys hearing once in a while.”

  His whole countenance changed as his muscles tensed. When she pulled back to look at him, thinned lips replaced his smile. Brown eyes blinked and the golden flecks in them grew, nearly glowing.

  Ronan fisted his hand in the curls at the back of her head and jerked her face to his. “Ye need to understand some things. I’ll flirt with ye, because I care fer ye. Aye, I might be awkward at it, because I’ve never had to do much of it. ’Twas always the lassies who dallied with me, so forgive me if I’m a bungler at it. But me lack of wooing a woman doesna lessen the power of the feelings I have. God, woman, ye can make me go from happy to bloody pissed in a second. But damned if I’m not fookin’ crazy about ye the whole time.” He swung his legs to the floor and sat on the edge of the sofa, his hands hugging his head. “Maybe that’s me problem. I’ve just lost me mind over ye and ye dinna feel the same about me.”

  She thumped him on his back. “Do you think just because you’re a good-looking Scot with all the women chasing you that I’m going to do the same? Well, I won’t. You’re not used to putting out the effort with a female and I’m not used to a man coming on as strong and as fast as you. I think that makes us both a little gun-shy, prone to make mistakes, and say things we shouldn’t. We need to be more tolerant of each other’s shortcomings.”

  “A man’s ego is verra important to him, especially a Scot’s. ’Tis hard to be put down by a woman he cares fer.”