Rock pulled into the driveway and shifted his truck into park. “Can I come in?”
Gemma slid out of the passenger seat before he could turn the engine off. “I’ve got to go,” she said breathlessly. “I’m sorry, Rock.”
Before he could answer, Gemma darted off and into the house.
Chapter Four
In the morning, Gemma lay in bed for a long time. She could hear Arthur was up and yelling for breakfast but she couldn’t even make herself feel motivated enough to go feed her son. Instead, she pulled her phone into her hand and scrolled through the news. Rock had texted and called all night, and she’d eventually just muted his number. Now she didn’t exactly feel better, but her stomach had stopped twisting into knots.
You can’t keep chasing someone who doesn’t really want you, Gemma thought grimly whenever she began to miss Rock. You know he doesn’t want a relationship, just sex. That’s what Talia said.
One of the headlines from the previous day caught her attention. “Bear Goes Wild In Local Bar!” The headline proclaimed, as if it was something that happened occasionally, like the big mattress sales on Memorial Day. Gemma stifled a laugh as she read through the piece – apparently, somehow a bear had gotten into the bar that Talia, Tony, and Matty had taken Gemma to the day before. It must have been right after we left, she thought to herself with a grin. I would have liked to see that. The paper didn’t mention anything too bad – apparently the bear had chased two patrons outside (an Anthony Trevari, 34, and a Matthew Frimg, 31 – both locals) and then disappeared.
Gemma’s phone rang and she answered automatically, hoping that it would be Rock. Instead, Talia’s voice shrieked hysterically at her from the receiver. Gemma winced and pulled the phone away, rubbing her forehead with her hand.
“Tals, what is it? What the hell are you screaming about?”
“A bear, Gemma,” Talia said, sounding exasperated. “A fucking bear came into the bar! It chased Tony and Matty away, and I haven’t heard from Tony since!”
Gemma couldn’t help but giggle. “Serves them right,” she said, too low for Talia to hear. “Are you okay?”
“Of course I’m okay,” Talia said. She sounded annoyed. “I can’t believe it, though. Can you? A bear? I didn’t even know there were bears around here!”
Gemma laughed again. “Yeah, that is crazy,” she agreed. The doorbell rang and she put the phone down for a second, her heart slamming against her chest. “Hey, Talia, I have to call you back,” she said quickly. “Someone’s at the door.”
Gemma walked nervously into the front hall. Arthur was shrieking in his room and she went in and grabbed him, holding him firmly on her hip as she opened the door.
Rock was standing there. His hands were twisted in front of him and he looked deeply upset. “Can I talk to you?”
Gemma let out a shaky breath. “Sure,” she said, stepping back. “Come on in.” As Rock came into the living room and lowered himself down onto the couch, Gemma felt self-conscious about her ragged yoga pants and ratty t-shirt. Arthur was evidently happy to see Rock – instead of being shy like he normally was, he was grabbing with his little hands and reaching out for Rock’s big body.
“Sorry,” Gemma said. “He’s unusually active this morning.” She set Arthur down in his playpen and watched as he crawled around, picking up pieces of a toy train and slamming them down on the floor. “What’s up?”
Rock swallowed hard. “Gemma, this sounds crazy,” he said. “But I’m Arthur’s father.”
Gemma’s jaw dropped. “What?” The word came out softly.
Rock nodded. “It’s true,” he said. “Haven’t you ever wondered why he doesn’t really look that much like you? Or about his eyes? Or about his immense strength and size for a two-year-old?”
Gemma felt like someone had punched her in the gut. She nodded. “Yeah, but-“
Rock shook his head. “No, let me finish, please,” he replied. “Gemma, I’m a bear shifter.” When she didn’t react, Rock kept going. “My clan – the other bear shifters and I – were contacted by Speculon Labs for a research project. They wanted us to donate sperm. It was stored at Speculon, and somehow there was a mix-up…..I fathered a child. And it was Arthur. We were contacted by a lawyer last week, and I’ve been searching for you and Arthur ever since.”
Gemma stared. A million thoughts were running through her head. “Is that why you came to the party?”
Rock nodded. He gave her a sheepish smile and Gemma felt some of her resistance melting away. “I had to see you and my son,” he said in a deep voice. “I had to. It was like…well, I can’t explain it, but it felt like a need,” Rock finished. “Do you understand?”
Gemma wasn’t sure that she did, but she nodded anyway.
“The other guys, I mean the other bear shifters, well, they’re my family. We always looked out for each other,” Rock said gruffly. “But now I’m thinking that I’m going to have to leave them.”
Gemma frowned. “Why?”
Rock laughed again. “Because I found my mate,” he said softly, reaching out for Gemma’s hand. There was a small, electric thrill that ran up Gemma’s spine when Rock touched her, more powerful than before. Suddenly, she understood.
“Are you kidding me?” Gemma wanted to believe Rock’s words more than anything, but suddenly she was afraid. She’d spent her whole life alone, and she couldn’t handle the disappointment if Rock wanted to walk away. After all, it wasn’t very likely that her soulmate would literally stumble into her backyard.
“No,” Rock said. “I’m very serious.” He paused. “I never thought I wanted to become a father, but as soon as I found out about you and Arthur, I knew I had to be with you,” he said slowly. “I want to be with you, Gemma.” He waved a hand in the air. “I had my fun in the past, but you’re my future. You and Arthur.”
Tears formed in Gemma’s eyes and she wiped them away hastily. “I want you, too,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry I ignored you before….I, I thought I was doing the right thing.”
Rock stood up and walked over to Gemma, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close. As he nuzzled her ear, Gemma felt a sexual and emotional thrill shoot through her body.
“Now that I have you,” Rock whispered softly. “I’m never letting you go, ever again.”
Gemma’s heart warmed and she snuggled closer against his muscular body. “This is what I’ve always wanted,” she said. “You. A family. A real family.”
Rock kissed the top of her head, sending a rush of pleasure through Gemma’s body. “I feel exactly the same way,” he said, squeezing her close.
Gemma knew that somehow, despite all odds, she’d managed to finally find her happy ending. She closed her eyes as Rock’s lips met hers, kissing her in a way that made her feel safe, loved, and warm. She knew that for the rest of her life, they’d be together. My happy ending, she thought as another tear ran down her cheek. Finally.
Breakwater: Leo
Star Bears I
by
Becca Fanning
As a little girl, Annie had pictured how her dream wedding would go. She’d wear a white dress and walk down the aisle, looking out over a sea of smiling faces as she approached the altar. Her groom she had pictured less as a specific person and more as an amalgamation of traits she wanted: kind eyes, a warm smile, broad shoulders… things she associated with a gentle, good-hearted man. Her mother would be alive, and her father would be sober.
She had always known this little fantasy of hers had been a mess of impossibilities. She just hadn’t pictured it going this awry.
Running a hand over the bodice of her dress, Annie stared at herself in the mirror. Her reflection looked morosely back out at her. One pale, manicured hand ran over the bodice of her gown, fingers tracing over the thousands of crystals dotting the fabric like stars. Annie had never been this close to a diamond before. She’d certainly never thought she’d be wearing this many of them. Her auburn hair was piled on top of her head in an elaborate ser
ies of braids and curls and there was shimmering powder swiped across the lids of her grey eyes, making them seem bigger and brighter.
Annie had never looked better, and she had never felt worse.
Not for the first time since she had received the news of her own impending nuptials by way of her father drunkenly sweating through a confession, Annie cursed at the series of mundane-to-regrettable events that made up her life. She’d always been told growing up that if she worked hard enough, she could be and have anything she wanted. Bright-eyed idiot that she had been, she hadn’t realized that it was just a condescending platitude doled out to the have-nots of the universe to make them more complacent with their lot, to shift the blame away from the people overworking and underpaying their employees. Instead, she’d planted her feet, ignored the throngs of people she’d known growing up who worked hard day in and day out and barely had enough to eat, and decided to become a politician.
She’d ended up as a waitress at dive bar instead. It hadn’t been all terrible—the other servers were friendly and she got free drinks—but spending anywhere between eight and fifteen hours a day avoiding groping hands and belligerent drunks hadn’t been how she wanted to spend her life. This was without her father showing up and explaining that he needed money—just this once!—and that he wouldn’t spend it all on cheap booze, only for a friend of his to call her to come pick him up once he’d drunk himself unconscious. At the time, it hadn’t seemed like much, just a continued state of existence tinged by the frustration that she could be so much more. Now it seemed like paradise. It was funny what made you learn to appreciate what you had. Sometimes it was a death, or a breakup, or getting fired. Sometimes it was your father telling you he’d accidentally sold you into being what amounted to a sex slave for a demonic autocrat with a warship that could eat the sun and a private army decked out in gear reminiscent of Civil War uniforms.
Annie had laughed when her father had first broken the news, and she hadn’t laughed again since. The next week had been a blur of the sickening realization that no, it wasn’t a joke, and she needed to go to a meeting point, where Captain Jacob Strathmore of the ITC Appomattox had looked her over with his pale eyes like she was a side of meat and declared her acceptable as a wife so long as she knew her place. She’d been whisked away for fittings and lessons. The dress, decorations, and a priest had appeared seemingly by magic. It was impressive what one could do when his footsteps echoed across the universe. It had been so hectic that Annie had barely had time to plan her escape.
The best course of action, of course, would have been to disappear while still planetside, but that hadn’t been an option. As it were, she had looked at her choices, fluttered her eyelashes at the gaunt, spidery tyrant who owned her, and done her best to seem cowed. She had convinced him that he couldn’t see her in her dress, and he had smirked down at his pretty, witless bride-to-be and agreed to adhere to her charming little superstition. He had, of course, had a few of his agents watch her and serve as makeshift bridesmaids; all three of them lay unconscious on the floor, the spiked punch making a sticky puddle where one had dropped her cup on the way down. Annie felt a pang of remorse for the women who Strathmore would doubtlessly punish severely when he discovered her absence, but then again they had all continued to wake up and put on their horrendous uniforms and do an unhinged warlord’s bidding day after day when the mechanics behind putting a blaster to their heads and pulling the trigger were fairly simple. She quelled her sympathy and checked the hallway outside her door.
She’d demanded to be taken on a grand tour of the Appomattox in order to “acquaint herself with her future home.” This had given her general knowledge of two things: where the escape vessels were and the guard’s patrol schedules. Since the rise of technology, few people had physical patrols anymore. Instead, most relied on security measures such as bio-locks and cameras. Strathmore used both. Luckily, the room that had been given to Annie had, by her request, come with a great view off the side of the ship, and since the escape vessels were located at either side of the ship, this meant she was relatively close to the portside emergency escape station. All she could do was book it down the corridor, key herself in with an ID card she’d swiped from one of her napping guards—along with the woman’s boots—and pray.
Taking a deep breath, she did exactly that. She made it to the door just fine, which she’d expected, but as soon as someone saw her on the security feed or the emergency alert went off when she opened the doors to take off she’d have some of the best soldiers in the galaxy swarming her. Sure enough, she heard shouting as she closed the door. She looked around for something to block the doorway with, but didn’t see anything she could move. Instead, she hurried to one of the sleek, black Needles lined up for takeoff.
Needles were escape vessels designed to maneuver out of combat situations, which meant that they had both full-cover plasma shielding and a simplistic flight situation geared towards avoiding pursuers. In short, it was perfect for Annie but only if she could get in one and start it before the guards got in. She lowered the interior bay door and released the boots keeping one of the Needles in place easily enough, but as the metal shutter began to lift, Annie heard shouting from just outside the door. Cursing under her breath, she hitched her skirt up and dashed for the newly released Needle. She had just managed to get inside and close the hatch when the bay door slid open and seven guards charged into the room.
“Annie Heathcoat,” one boomed, “please exit the escape vessel. Compliance will earn you lenience.”
“Shove a blaster in it!” Annie shouted back as the Needle’s engine thrummed to life. She hit the button to activate the plasma shielding as soon as she was able. A split second after the blue-white field appeared around her vessel, a blaster bolt slammed into it, dissolving in a flash of light. A screen on Annie’s dash showed that her shield was now at ninety-five percent. Needles had excellent shielding for their size, but that wouldn’t help her for long against many more point-blank blaster bolts.
The interior bay door creaked upwards, almost complete in it’s ascent. Most modern ships required the interior bay door to be manually opened. After that, the exterior bay door was set on a timer. A countdown was programmed in, usually around forty-five seconds, from the time the interior bay door was fully up. After that, the exterior bay door would rapidly lift, allowing takeoff. This enabled the person commanding the bay doors to open to either get in a ship or get out of the room and avoid being sucked into space. As the beep sounded to alert the room the countdown had commenced, one guard hurried over to the station to stop the doors from opening. Annie watched out of the corner of her eye, breathing deeply and steading her hands on the steering column. It would take the guard far less than forty-five seconds to re-lower the interior bay door. It didn’t matter; this was why Annie had reprogrammed the countdown to two seconds.
All sounds outside the Needle abruptly cut off as everything not properly latched down was swept into the inky vacuum of space. Annie took a moment to silently apologize to the seven guards who had been ejected from the ship and then entered warp 2. She double checked to make sure the autopilot was functioning, then slumped back. Pressing a hand to her chest, she closed her eyes and breathed out. Her heart was thumping far too fast under her hand, but she refused to let herself begin to hyperventilate. She was already on a ship with limited shielding and limited fuel in the depths of unfamiliar space. She didn’t need to add “overtaxed the oxygen recyclers” to her list of problems.
She reached into her bodice and pulled out a scrap of paper. On it was a set of coordinates. She’d done a little research while in captivity and she’d found the location of a Class 6 planet: breathable air, civilized settlements, but not important in terms of strategy or resources. With any luck, she’d be able to stay there until Strathmore lost interest and left. After that, she’d try and catch a ship out, or maybe just stay there. After all, there were dive bars all over the galaxy.
She plugg
ed the coordinates into the ship’s computer and closed her eyes. There wasn’t much she could do until she was planetside, and unfortunately that gave her time to do the one thing she really didn’t want to do: think. The worries and fears that had been building up for the last week surged forward in her mind, demanding her attention. With nothing to distract her, she gave in.
She wondered how her father was. She’d screamed at him, telling him he was no father of hers and that she never wanted to see him again. It had been largely to keep him away from Strathmore, but it had come naturally. At the time letting out years of frustration and disappointment had been cathartic, but now that the chances she would ever see him again being depressingly low she wanted to take it back. Carl Heathcoat hadn’t been the best father in the galaxy, but he was the only one she had. Hopefully he was so deep in a bottle that Strathmore’s men wouldn’t be able to find him.
Jackson (BBW Secret Baby Bear Shifter Romance) (Secret Baby Bears Book 3) Page 19
