by Joyce, T. S.
Elyse’s hair was down and still damp from her shower, and as she picked at a little piece of masking tape on the counter, she’d let her tresses fall forward, hiding her face. He couldn’t stand not being able to see her eyes right now, so he reached forward and tucked a strand behind her ear, then lifted her chin with a hooked finger. “Okay?”
“You’re a good man,” she said so softly he wouldn’t have heard it without his heightened senses.
God, he wished that were true. If she knew her ex boyfriend’s blood was on his hands, though, Elyse wouldn’t be looking at him so gratefully right now. She was the good one. He was just here hoping some of her decency rubbed off on him.
Ian focused on pouring stew into the two wooden bowls Elyse pulled from the upper cabinets.
“Are you feeding an army?” she asked twitching her chin toward the vat of canned stew he’d heated up.
“Oh. I should tell you now. You’ll have to accept and get used to the fact that I eat a lot.”
“We’re going to eat all this in one sitting?”
“Look, I can’t explain why, but my body needs a lot of food to sustain itself. I’ll get sick as all get-out if I don’t eat constantly.”
Her delicate, sandy-colored eyebrows arched up in surprise. “Constantly?”
Ian handed her a bowl and settled his hip against the counter to tuck into his meal. But Elyse had other ideas about the way meal-time should go and made her way through the small kitchen to the table. She even pulled a chair out for him before she sat in the one right next to it.
“I usually eat standing up.”
“Why?”
Ian took a bite to stall as he mulled over why he was so damned comfortable avoiding tables outside of restaurants. After swallowing, he shuffled to the chair and sat down beside her. “I guess because I’ve always been alone. Tables are for families.”
“Well, now you have me.”
Now you have me. Her words lifted the hairs on his arms, and he sat there stunned, watching her eat. He had someone. Really had her. Elyse was wearing his ring as proof.
Ian Silver wasn’t a lone grizzly anymore.
Elyse was wrong, though. He wasn’t the one who had her. She’d had him since the day he’d woken up on Afognak Island with her picture tucked into that envelope. He’d wanted her. Feared her for what that attraction could mean for him. Deep inside, there was this warm tendril that unfurled like a fern frond a little more each time she spoke to him, or each time he learned something new about her. It wasn’t love yet, but if she kept declaring things like that, she was going to own him, heart and soul. A dangerous game for both of them.
“Where are you from?” Elyse asked between bites.
The temptation to tell her the truth was overwhelming. He was from a dark den in a dark cabin in a dark cave made for long sleeps. In his mind, he’d always called it the Monster House. That had been home base until Miller had burned it. She didn’t need to see the darkness of his life, though, so instead, he answered, “Everywhere. Here and there.”
She stopped eating and stared at him. With a slow blink, she said, “You know we’ll have to actually get to know each other at some point.”
“Alaska.”
Elyse pursed her lips. “Where in Alaska?”
Stifling a growl at her getting too close to his secrets, he leaned back in his chair and listed off the places he’d stayed this warm season. “Fairbanks, Coldfoot, Nome, Kodiak Island, specifically Port Lions and Larsen Bay, Afognak, Trapper Creek—”
“Okay. I get it. You don’t want to talk about where you’re from.”
“I’m from everywhere, like I said.”
“Or you’re from nowhere.” Elyse cocked her head with a challenging look glinting in those gorgeous green-gold eyes of hers, then went back to eating and completely ignored him.
Nowhere. A good place to hail from for a ghost.
“What about you? Where are you from?”
“Anchorage.”
“City girl,” he said, teasing in desperation to see a smile on her face again.
She scraped the bottom of her bowl, so Ian stood and refilled it for her. When he sat back down and settled the steaming beef stew in front of her, she said, “I used to spend time out here with my Uncle Jim in the summers when I didn’t have school. He and his woman, Marta, didn’t ever have children of their own, and my mom was overwhelmed raising me and Josiah by herself. She got the summers off of being a parent when she sent us here. And it was fine by us, because we got to help my uncle around the homestead.” Elyse ghosted him a glance, then returned to her food. “I fell in love with this place when I was seven.”
“Is that why you’re so hard on yourself for struggling here?”
“Yeah. When I stayed with my uncle, I thought there was nothing he couldn’t do, you know? He could fix anything and come up with a solution to every problem. I watched him dig a water filtration system to get water in this cabin, just because Marta wanted it. I saw him treat her like a queen as much as he was able, and he never got impatient with explaining how and why he did things around the homestead. My dad wasn’t in the picture, so Uncle Jim filled this void in me I couldn’t figure out how to fill up when I lived in Anchorage. Josiah always loved this place, but me? I loved this place.” She pursed her lips and shook her head, shrugging her shoulders. “It always felt like home, and my real home in the city felt temporary. I think my mom saw that, too, because even when Josiah started wanting to stay in the city and spend the warm months shooting the shit with his friends, she kept sending me here.”
“Why didn’t your uncle teach you to hunt?”
“He got me through the hunter safety course, but by the time most of the big game seasons came about, I was back in Anchorage going to school. And when I turned eighteen, Mom wanted me out of the house the second I graduated high school, so then I got a job in the city and my visits out here were few and far between. Life, you know? I got caught up trying to cover my bills. I missed the last of Marta’s life, and I missed the last of Uncle Jim’s. And I missed this place. I was unhappy and uncomfortable in my own skin. I didn’t know a damned thing about myself and couldn’t figure out what was missing, and then Uncle Jim left me this place in his will when he passed three years ago. And suddenly, everything made sense. It was like coming home after being away for a really long time. And I was proud of myself for the first time in a long time because the first year I did okay. Josiah helped a lot and settled twenty miles away. The grazing was better over his way, so we figured out how to run the cattle together. Sometimes I think he moved here to make sure I was okay, though. He liked Anchorage more than I did. He has friends there.”
“And you didn’t have friends after all that time there?”
“I did, but it wasn’t like with my brother. I have trouble connecting with people. No, that’s not true,” she said with a deep frown. “I have trouble picking the right people.”
Ian nodded slowly. He could see that. She was trusting and gave too many chances, and sometimes in this world, innocence like that drew in dark people who liked to take advantage. She’d put herself in a submissive position and drawn in the dominants who would feed off what she could provide, be it emotional or material. It was the easiest thing in the world to see why a woman like Elyse would want to make a life way out here where she didn’t have to make those decisions on who to trust.
“Is that why you let Cole come around?”
Elyse gave him a faraway look and an empty smile, then pushed her half-eaten bowl away as if she’d lost her appetite. “Cole came around because he found a good mark to use. And being too big a pussy to break it off with me, he made himself unacceptable so I would pull the trigger on our relationship. I’m going to go to bed.” She stood and walked abruptly into her bedroom, leaving Ian’s head spinning on what had just happened.
What had he said? He’d just asked about Cole because he was honestly curious on why a smart, hard-working, level-headed woman like E
lyse would allow a free-loading asshole to drain her like that.
Elyse closed her bedroom door behind her, and from the other side, he heard the trickle of water from her bathroom sink. Troubled, he ate slowly, going over and over their conversation. He didn’t want to be done talking yet. He was only just getting to know her. But maybe that was the problem. Perhaps she wanted to get to know him, too, but he’d shared nothing about himself and had asked her to share her deepest regrets with him. This shit right here was why he was going to make a terrible mate…er…husband. He had no social skills and was baffled by every single thing she did and said. Grizzly bear shifters were solo creatures. Too dominant to hold relationships with each other, as highlighted by his non-existent bond with his brothers, and the instinct to settle down only struck on rare occasions. And that usually turned out awful by the first hibernation because what woman on earth was going to deal with their man sleeping for six months of the year instead of carrying on a relationship with her? None. Even his own damned mother had been done with his dad long before she delivered his triplets. Overwhelmed and uninterested in mothering multiples, she’d given Ian and his brothers to Dad for full custody by their second year.
Maybe he should’ve told Elyse that part. Maybe she wouldn’t feel like she was giving too much for nothing in return then.
Ian washed their dishes and turned off the lanterns, and with one final troubled glance at her closed bedroom door, he made his way across the living room to his own bedroom.
The bed was lumpy and the pillows flat, but that wasn’t what kept him awake tonight. It was a small sniffle, just like the one Elyse had given off when he’d talked to her on the phone all those months ago. It gutted him.
Had he caused her tears? Had memories of Cole made her cry like this? The quiet kind where she was trying to hide her heartbreak. Ian made his way silently through the living room and pushed open her door. Illuminated by blue streaks of moonlight that filtered through the window, she lay with her back to him, knees curled up to her chest, her shoulders shaking. He couldn’t stay, but he couldn’t go any farther. Elyse hadn’t asked for his comfort, and he was an intruder on her private moment, but still, he couldn’t force his feet back to his own bedroom.
Trapped, Ian rested his back on the door frame and slid quietly down the wood.
And long after Elyse’s shoulders stopped shaking, he finally, finally fell asleep.
Chapter Eight
Elyse stretched and squinted at the early morning sunlight that was assaulting the room. She rolled over with the intention of snuggling her pillow for a few more minutes before she forced herself up to start the day, but a giant figure on the floor near her open doorway had a screech clawing its way up her throat. Swallowing it back down, she remembered all the events from yesterday and fidgeted with the gold ring around her finger.
Why on earth was Ian curled up in a giant ball sleeping on the floor?
As quietly as she could manage, she slipped out of bed and made her way into the bathroom, careful not to disturb him. Her reflection in the mirror was atrocious, but after she put her hair in a messy bun, brushed her teeth, and washed her face, she didn’t look as rough. That enormous bowl and a half of stew she’d eaten last night had done her some good, even if her eyes were a little puffy from…crying. Crap. Maybe that’s why Ian was on the floor. Maybe she’d been too loud.
Tugging the hem of her sleep shirt lower, she padded across the cold wooden floorboards and shook his waist gently. “Ian,” she whispered. “Ian.”
“Hmm?” he asked sharply, sitting up so fast he nearly bowled her over. “Shit,” he rasped, catching her arms before she put her tailbone through her throat on the floor. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” Elyse lowered down to sit by him and pulled her arms gently from his strong grasp. “Why are you sleeping on the floor?”
Ian blinked hard at her lap, then ran his hand through his hair as he looked blearily around her bedroom. “You were crying.”
Scrunching up her nose, she said, “I was trying to be quiet about it.”
“I have good hearing. Why?”
“Why was I crying?”
“Yeah, why?”
Elyse shook her head, not ready to admit all her demons. He already thought she was pathetic. Best not go proving he was right.
Ian rolled up much more gracefully than she’d expected and offered her his palm, upturned. “Purple panties,” he rumbled low.
Sliding her hand against his, she allowed him to pull her up. “I’m sorry?”
“You’re wearing purple panties.” His gaze dropped to her hips, then back to her face. “When you sat down, I saw them. Just thought we should get that out in the air.”
“Great, anything else?” she asked, mortified.
Ian cleared his throat and nodded once. “I like them. They’re a good color on your skin. And I like the cut. And you smell good. And your hair…it’s…nice. And your eyes.”
“What about them?” She swayed slightly, feeling yet again that she was unbalanced around Ian.
“I like those, too.”
She was fighting a smile now. Damn, sleepy Ian was a flattering little flatterer. “Anything else?”
“Yes.”
“You want to tell me what it is?”
Ian shook his head and stepped around her and into the bathroom. “Your turn,” he said in a sleepy, rumbling voice as he squeezed toothpaste onto his toothbrush.
“Okay. You’re tall and strong, and I like watching your pec muscles move under that undone button of the sweater you wore yesterday, and your eyes are also very nice, and twice I noticed you had a boner, and I was intimidated because it looks huge all pressed up against your jeans, but I like it.” There. Honesty for honesty, but now Ian was staring at her in the mirror as if she’d lost her mind. “What?” she asked with a frown.
“I wasn’t asking you to compliment me, woman. I meant why were you crying?”
“Oh.” God, this was embarrassing. “If you could just wipe that boner comment out of your mind, that would be great.”
“Hell no. That was my favorite part.” Now Ian was smiling behind his toothbrush as he scrubbed, and her cheeks were so hot that she pressed her palms against her face just to cool them down.
“I was crying over Cole,” she blurted out, then slapped her hands over her mouth. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not right to you.”
Ian’s smile slipped away, and he dragged his bright blue gaze away from hers in the mirror. “You miss him?”
“No. I feel…” God, how did she put this where he would understand? “He told me once I was the only thing that could save him, and I kept him around too long trying to be that for him. He died alone, off in the woods somewhere in some awful way. Bear attack. They aren’t quick, you know.”
Ian’s eyes tightened in the mirror, but whatever argument he’d been about to give, he kept it to himself.
“I feel guilty. I did love him. Once. There. I feel bad that I wasn’t enough. How pathetic, right? The man wasn’t even nice to me, and still, I can’t stop replaying those words in my mind. He was so serious, like he really thought I could make him into a better person. It’s guilt that has me weak, and you don’t deserve the ghost of that man in this house. Our house.”
Ian spat toothpaste and rinsed, took his time wiping his face with the hand towel, then turned and leaned back against the sink ledge. “You have nothing to feel guilty for.”
“But he died alone—”
Anger flashed across his eyes. “He died like he was supposed to, Elyse. There was nothing you or anyone else could’ve done to change that man’s ending.”
“But—”
“No.” Ian reached for her and crushed her against his chest, squeezing the air and her argument from her lungs. “Going over it in your head and feeling bad won’t change anything. This isn’t your fault. Listen to me.” He hugged her tighter and lowered his lips near her ear. “His death isn’t on you. That’s j
ust you scratching at a cut and keeping it raw. It won’t heal if you don’t leave it alone. You’re enough, Elyse. Cole wasn’t.”
Something changed inside of her. It was instantaneous, breathtaking, and warm. He’d said she was enough. No one had ever said that to her before. Before this moment, she’d been the kid in school who needed improvement. The daughter who couldn’t maintain the relationship she wanted with her mom. The girlfriend who couldn’t hold a man’s attention. The sister Josiah had to pack up his whole life for, just to make sure she was okay. The homesteader who’d steadily failed at carving out a life here. The niece who’d missed the last years of Uncle Jim’s life chasing an empty life of her own.
But here, in Ian’s arms, he was telling her differently with such conviction in his voice. You. Are. Enough. What that combination of simple words did to her middle was incredible. Where she’d shunned compliments before, convinced anything nice said about her couldn’t be true, these words stuck to her ribs. They rattled around in her head and landed right in her heart, and in this instant, she believed him.
To Ian, she was enough.
Slowly, she slid her arms around his waist and rested her cheek against his chest, over his pounding heartbeat. It felt so good to be right here with his words warming her from the middle like a good shot of whiskey. His arms were so strong around her, hugging her close as if he didn’t want to let go any more than she did. She’d been freefalling before now, and Ian Silver, a man she had no right to have this strong a connection with, had just reached out and plucked her from the sky.
Exhaling a shaky breath, she clutched the back of his shirt. No more tears for Cole. Ian was perfectly right. Even if she’d let him stay, the truth of the matter was that Cole had gone long before she kicked him out. He was staying with other women and drinking all night in Galena, avoiding domestic life. Avoiding her. How could she be expected to save a man like him? He hadn’t even tried.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her knees going soft as she melted against him farther.
