by Anya Nowlan
And all of a sudden, she gave Ethan a big hug. Feeling her soft body against his both startled and aroused him. He sure as hell wasn’t ready for a reception that welcoming, though he didn’t mind it the least. Neither did his cock, which was growing harder every second of being pressed against the curvy beauty. He left the embrace much faster than he would have otherwise wanted to in order to keep from completely blowing his suave, laid-back cover. At least what passed for suave and laid-back when you were a 250 pound bear of a man with a 5 o’clock shadow and clad in plaid.
Their bodies pulled apart slightly and he looked into her eyes. She was looking right back at him, her green eyes wide and sort of expectant.
Don’t rush it, Ethan thought to himself, if she really is the one, there’ll be plenty of time for that later.
He let go of Jen, catching a hint of a puzzled look on her face. Had she wanted him to kiss her? Dammit, that was going to haunt him now.
Ethan grabbed his hat from the kitchen table and headed towards the door. He stopped with his hand on the handle and gave Jen one more long look, standing in the middle of the kitchen and looking a little flustered and flushed. He memorized that look of frustration. He was going to make damn sure that he’d sweep all of that wanting out of her real soon – if she’d let him.
“Sleep tight, Jen,” he said, slipping out into the cold night air.
I need a cold shower, he thought glumly, clambering into his truck and revving it up.
With more longing than he cared to admit, he drove off into the darkness of the night, already knowing that he’d be soon returning to patrol her home. He didn’t trust the Clearponds as far as he could throw them, and it was just like Ryan to prey on a city girl without the heed to keep a shotgun by the door. Ethan wasn’t going to let anything happen to Jen. Not as long as he was still breathing, anyway.
No wolf was going to get between him and his mate.
Seven
Ethan
Ethan was back early the next morning, and countless mornings after that one as well. Though the work he had to do on Jen’s house wasn’t backbreaking by any stretch of the imagination, there was plenty of it. He could have invited his brothers to help out, all of them being nearly as handy with a hammer and a bucket of nails as he was, but the bear in him made it very clear that it was in no mood to share.
No, he wanted to keep Jen all to himself.
He was more than happy to ignore his Alpha duties to the clan for a little bit, if it meant being able to spend more time together with his soon to be mate. And that was exactly who she was. His bear was convinced she was the one that was meant for him and him alone, and Ethan was no fool. He knew there was no point in arguing with the grizzly within on matters this important. Besides, the redheaded minx was exactly what he was looking for in a woman – attitude, body and spirit. He was sold and falling hard, and he didn’t mind the process one bit.
It wasn’t hard making himself useful around the house, seeing as he was building the damn thing. Whenever she needed a tall drink of water to fetch her something from the top shelf, Ethan was right there, leaning over her and getting just a tiny bit too close. When she needed something carried in or out of the house, there he was again, usually in a mild state of undress due to the hot weather.
And maybe a little because she obviously enjoyed the view. Hell, Ethan was a gentleman after all – he wouldn’t keep a lady from staring if she wanted to.
All in all, the time spent at Jen’s house went by like a breeze. He enjoyed the work and, more than that, he liked her company. The conversations they had during his lunch breaks had gotten progressively more intimate until both of them had started sharing things with each other they’d otherwise only tell their closest friends. In Ethan’s case, it meant that he’d told her about some things that only his brothers knew – being a werebear in rural Wyoming didn’t really make for having a lot of friends, after all.
Still, he was wary of telling her about the biggest secret of all – his bear.
Shifters were a bit of a common secret those days. People knew they existed but sort of wished they could forget about it. Shifters were stronger, fitter, often cleverer and just damn better at a lot of things than humans were. It made people jealous as much as it made them uncomfortable, and the shifter communities of the world tried their best to keep kosher with everyone. If they didn’t step on anyone else’s toes, no one would stomp on theirs. It was a delicate balance, but one that Ethan had always respected.
Every night, the bear would prowl around the perimeter of Jen’s house, keeping guard of her sleep. Ethan wanted to be sure that the wolves wouldn’t lay a paw on her and, as far as he could figure, the best and only way to achieve that was by keeping close to her. Not that he could have left if he wanted to – whenever he went too far from Jen, his bear immediately objected.
He was sure that with plenty of willpower, he could get over that feeling, but he wasn’t necessarily looking for an excuse to do so. On a few nights, he had smelled the wretched mongrels scouting around just out of reach, hiding in the shadows and snickering like the mangy mutts they were. They did well not to provoke him too much. Ethan wasn’t sure if he’d be in a forgiving mood if any of the wolves tried to test his patience, of which there was little.
So, it was no surprise to Ethan when Jameson Chase came to see him one late afternoon when Ethan was fixing some of the roof shingles.
Ethan stood up, sweat glistening on his broad chest, and frowned as he watched the jet-black truck of his friend roll into the front yard. Jen was out for a bit, getting some groceries and apparently ‘looking for a decent dry cleaner’ (Ethan didn’t have the heart to tell her that she’d be sorely disappointed in the region’s offerings in that regard). By the look on Jameson’s face as he hopped out of the truck, Ethan was glad she wasn’t there to witness the conversation.
“Jameson,” Ethan acknowledged, putting the hammer down on the roof and jumping off the edge with the ease and grace of a big cat.
He never did it when Jen was around, but spirits above, getting around was so much faster when he didn’t have to pretend to be entirely human.
“Ethan. I assume you know you’re in deep shit, yes?” the other werebear queried with a raised brow, blunt as usual.
Ethan chuckled.
“You’re going to have to be more specific.”
Jameson flipped his hat back a bit, revealing his worried gray eyes and the slight stubble that all the men around those parts seemed to carry. There wasn’t much occasion to get all shaved and decent, as far as Ethan was concerned.
“Clearponds. I think they’re out for blood.”
Ethan bristled. Of course it had to be the damn wolves ruining his perfectly pleasant day. He hadn’t slept in days because of them, just catching short naps in the bed of his truck when he could. But that didn’t bother him none, the bear kept him alert and ready. However, it was just one more thing that the wolves were screwing with and the list was growing far too long for comfort.
“They have no claim on the land,” Ethan railed, ready to launch into the tirade of perfectly adequate reasoning he had constructed during one of his many stints of thinking about the situation at hand.
Jameson raised his hand, shushing Ethan. Wiping the sweat from his brow, Ethan reluctantly obliged.
“They don’t, as far as the rest of us are concerned either, but you know that’s not the way they see it. After Danny sold the land out of the clan’s possession, the wolves claim that the old rules don’t apply anymore. It’s not our land, ergo it must be their land. You know as well as I do that they don’t recognize human decency or law. At least Ryan doesn’t.”
Jameson looked as sour as Ethan felt about the whole thing. They were standing as mirror images of one another, their arms crossed and their mouths drawn into hard, thin lines. Ethan had just been eagerly anticipating Jen’s return, if for no other reason than to see if she was wearing that low-cut top that he liked, and now all that h
appy buzz had been squashed like an annoying gnat flattened under a fist. He grumbled under his breath, his bear joining him in cursing the wolves and all their bloody kin to the pits of nothingness.
“May their tails fall off and their mange scab,” Ethan remarked gruffly, a familiar anger boiling inside of him.
“Way I see it, we have two options. Either we buy the girl out and send her on her way,” Jameson said, but Ethan interrupted him quickly.
“Never,” he said, the word carrying the kind of conviction that came from knowing absolutely and without question that if she left, his heart would go with her.
“Or we fight them,” Jameson finished flatly. “If she stays, we’re putting her into a conflict she has no part in. You sure you want to do that?”
Ethan quieted. Her safety came first, of course. If she’d been the kind of woman that he could just talk out of doing something then hell, maybe he would have tried. But as little or as much as he knew about Jen Howell, one thing was for sure, she wasn’t going to do anything she didn’t want to do, and he couldn’t make her.
“Then I fight them.”
Jameson gave Ethan a hard look and Ethan raised his hand, quieting the other bear. He was the Alpha of the clan and while he appreciated what Jameson was saying, this was going to be his war. If he could sort things out without hurting Jen or dragging the entire clan into a violent exchange, he would do it. And if that wasn’t an option… Well, he’d just have to sort that out then.
He hadn’t been keeping his ear to the ground quite as much as he should have with Jen in his life now, so he appreciated Jameson’s information. But as Alpha, the final decision was his.
“I’ll let you know if anything changes or if I need help. Just let the others know that they should be ready, but not to let the wolves provoke them. We don’t need anyone dying because the wolves are hungry for an ass-kicking again, alright?”
If things were getting serious enough for Jameson to come warn him, Ethan knew that things weren’t far from getting very dangerous for everyone involved. Just stalking around the grounds wouldn’t be enough anymore. He’d have to stay right by Jen’s side from now on. He wasn’t completely sure how he was going to swing that, but he’d think of something. He’d have to.
After a small pause, Jameson nodded.
“She’s got you good, huh. She the one?” Jameson asked, letting an uncharacteristic smirk curl on his worried expression.
“I damn sure think so,” Ethan replied, grinning.
His bear knew exactly what he wanted. And what he wanted was a sexy piece of Phoenix booty. If he had to go through a few wolves to get it, so be it.
Eight
Jennifer
Sweetwater was small.
Now, this wasn’t anything that Jen didn’t know before, she’d seen it on the maps, read it in the town’s reviews, heard her realtor lament about it more times than she cared to admit, but after all that, it still hadn’t sunk in entirely.
Sweetwater was small.
There wasn’t a place to just casually grab a big caramel macchiato if you felt so inclined. Best you could do was beg Maisy to find a paper cup and pour some of her black as tar coffee to go and hope it didn’t keep you up all night. All the locals lugged around thermoses and Jen sort of felt like she’d been transported into an alternate dimension where Starbucks had never happened and the whole world was still teetering on the edge of madness, having never known the sweet taste of a triple whip mint chocolate chai.
Not only that, but Sweetwater seemed to exist in a world where time stood still. No one was in a rush, until there was fear of a wildfire somewhere or something, and no one was stressed out. Everything just sort of… happened. Always on time, always perfectly correctly, but in a sort of leisurely way that made Jen stop every now and then and just take a big ol’ breath of air and sigh with relief.
Sweetwater wasn’t Phoenix, and thank god for that.
But was moving from Phoenix to the middle of nowhere really the right choice, Jen contemplated. Maybe I’m just trading in one extreme for the other. It’s really nice here, but maybe taking that big of a plunge was too much.
Jen shook her head. Stop that. You remember Phoenix. And really, you can live with the fact that this town only has one dry cleaner and it’s forty-five minutes out of your way. Not to mention the men, in Phoenix you’d never find someone like Ethan.
Jen’s mind often wandered back to him. His broad shoulders, his stern but calming eyes. His muscular arms. His whole appearance that exudes the calm and confidence of a man who has his life together and knows what he wants.
Literally nothing like the men in Phoenix.
She mischievously smiled to herself at her last thought. None of her exes could hold up anything to the likes of Ethan and she was enthralled by the fact. The last guy she’d dated, Chad, had been an asshole of epic proportions. Not only had he spent most of their relationship ignoring the fact that she existed at all, unless he needed to get his rocks off, but he’d also been screwing Jen’s best friend behind her back. When she found out, the thing that stung the worst was the fact that she hadn’t even really been surprised.
It all sort of made sense. Of course Chad was a douche. Of course her best friend had been sucking his dick like it was going out of town. And of course she hadn’t noticed it for months on end. It just seemed so poetically cliché to her that Jen could barely even think about the whole thing without descending into some sort of mild depression that made her feel like she’d been thrown into a meat grinder.
But with Ethan, all of that disappeared.
Time had been flying by with Ethan working on the construction and Jen helping out where she could, doing the occasional easier tasks. It was unfamiliar territory to her – as an executive assistant she never really had much experience with doing anything physical. Like renovating a house, for example. But now she relished the physical activity and working on something that was her own.
Watching Ethan work was no small boon either. The burly man’s movements were calm and powerful. He lifted stacks of planks like they were twigs and moved heavy furniture like they were mere matchboxes. She had to constantly remind herself to shut her mouth so she wouldn’t openly drool when she watched him do his thing.
Everything he said and did came off as sensible and logical to her. It all made sense and she caught herself agreeing with him on most things, only deepening that feeling of mutual connection she’d gotten the first day they’d spent together.
What she didn’t see as sensible and logical were her feelings. She was falling for the plaid-clad, hard-working man, head over heels. And mere days after meeting him, too. Even more unexpectedly, she could feel it being mutual, their lunches going on for longer and longer and their conversations getting deeper. He didn’t even hide the way he stared at her sometimes, not anymore.
She’d started cooking for them and Ethan would devour a portion that could feed three grown men every time. Jen didn’t mind one bit. She liked to cook, liked to eat and if anything, she always tended to cook a bit too much. That, however, turned into an advantage when it came to Ethan – his appetite was not easy to satisfy. Although Ethan was not a man of many words, their conversations always left her fulfilled but curious for more. It was a welcome change from the big city men who talked far too much even when they had nothing to say. And they never had a god damn thing to say.
Though she felt his attraction toward her, Jen couldn’t help but wonder why he wasn’t doing anything about it. Maybe Wyoming men were just too damn gentlemanly for their own good? When topics veered onto the intimate, she often felt him pulling back. It was almost as if he wanted to continue the subject but forced himself to stop.
He doesn’t seem to be toying around or just flirting for the sake of it. So what’s his deal? she found herself wondering for the umpteenth time. I wish he’d just make a move already so I wouldn’t feel like a lovesick puppy.
Jen had just gone to Sweetwater for groce
ries and was driving back to her house along a road that was becoming more and more familiar with each trip. Something at the roadside caught her attention.
Oh it had not better be that again, she thought to herself, a slight chill of fear moving down her spine.
A big brown wolf was sitting by the road, just staring at her. Third time that week! Jen discounted the first two encounters as pure chance. After all, she was surrounded by forests and wilderness and wild animals weren’t something surprising around those parts. But it was the same wolf, she was sure of it. And it wasn’t just seeing a wolf – it was how he stared at her, as if glaring right through her.
She’d occasionally had the same feeling in her home when Ethan wasn’t around, but had just attributed it to being alone in a big house in the forest. Jen slowed the car down as she approached the wolf, and the animal didn’t move a muscle. Out of annoyance, she hit the horn on her car, but the big beast didn’t react even to that. Jen checked the rearview mirror, and finding that there were no other cars on the road with her, she sped up again.
Screw that, she thought, feeling a cold lump at the bottom of her stomach.
That wolf was giving her the creeps and she couldn’t wait to get some distance between her and it. Those cold, golden eyes were etched in her mind and, lately, she’d been getting the feeling that they were watching her all the time. She would often feel a chill run down her spine that matched the one she got when she met the large wolf on her drive home. She could swear that the thing was just toying with her, but that thought sounded far too ridiculous even to her.
Reaching the house and seeing Ethan milling about the house put Jen’s mind at ease. Maybe she was just overreacting and that wolf’s presence there was no more than a coincidence. Maybe it was on its way to a regular watering hole or hunting grounds.
That glare though. How can a wild animal be so... creepy.
