“Haley admitted you were meant for me all along.” Her eyes locked with his and her throat constricted with longing. He was perfect. If she got to choose, he would be the one she picked.
“I am meant for you, Tiana,” Mason said quietly, and she believed him. Even though dating was the last thing she wanted. The last thing she needed.
“My life is complicated, Mason.” Oh, goodness, complicated did not even begin to cover it.
“I’m a simple man, Tiana. I have simple needs. I can fit in with whatever kind of crazy you have going on.” His words were heartfelt. Which made him too good to be true.
“I’m not so sure you’d want to.” She drank her soda, wishing it was something stronger. But she didn’t need a buzz from alcohol, Mason’s presence was intoxicating enough. Never one to fall into bed with a man on the first date, let alone a blind date, she was willing to make an exception just this once. Her body craved him like a sugary donut.
Or a sugary dessert. The waiter returned with the menu, which was an indulgence after such a wonderful meal, but this was a special occasion, the first date she’d been on after a couple of disastrous rebound dates after Quentin left. But they’d been to bolster her low self-esteem more than because she wanted to be in a relationship. It didn’t take long for Tiana to figure that out and settle down to a life of raising Rhett alone.
Tiana ordered a tiramisu and Mason ordered apple pie and ice cream. The pause while the young waiter took their order and collected the menus was long enough for Tiana to compose herself. She needed to play it cool, and not jump in feet-first only to regret her decision at a later date.
“Why move to Bear Creek?” Tiana asked Mason as they waited for their dessert.
“Why not?” he asked. “It has everything going for it. But the main draw is the mountains. I’ve lived in the city for too long.”
“Won’t you find us a little dull?” What did a man like Mason do in his free time? Looking at his well-toned muscles, he must spend a lot of time at the gym.
“Not from what I’ve seen so far.” The heat of his gaze burned her flesh and she wished the waiter had left a menu, so she could fan herself with it. Or perhaps she could open a window. “There is a movie theater and the restaurants are good.”
He was teasing her. “I always thought city folk would be dry and boring. But you have quite the sense of humor, Mason Tennant.”
“What about you, have you never thought of leaving Bear Creek after your marriage broke up? You didn’t think of moving back to your family?” He looked up as Austin returned with their desserts. “Thank you.”
“No,” Tiana replied as they were left alone once more. “When I first moved here with Quentin, it was strange, I’d always lived in a large town. But then I met Haley and then Sorcha. We have been there for each other. They helped me through the shock of Quentin cheating. My parents were coming up to retirement age, and they moved here when Quentin left. We’re pretty tight-knit.”
“Is that a warning?” Mason asked. “Will they pin me down and interrogate me when I stop by to pick you up?”
“Ahh, that is presumptive of you. Who said I’ll give you my address?” Tiana’s eyes sparkled as they talked, she’d missed this. Missed talking about nothing, with words that meant everything. The attraction between them was undeniable.
“I can follow your scent.” He lifted his head and inhaled. “Grapefruit and almonds.”
She laughed. “That’s the hand soap from the hotel restroom.”
“Anything smells good on you.” He ate his dessert and then drained his beer before asking, “Where do we go from here, Tiana?”
“I told you, I’m going home.” She dared to look at him, dared not dream of him being hers. “After that, I don’t know.”
“Can I see you again?” he asked as if his heart would break if she said no.
“Yes.” She nodded. “But I honestly don’t know where I want this to go.”
“Will you promise me to give us a chance?” In this moment, he was vulnerable, letting her see his naked need for her.
“I promise to try.” She looked down at her dessert and concentrated on eating it, one spoonful at a time. After she’d scraped the last of the sweet gooey chocolate from the plate, she placed the spoon down carefully. The raw emotion in his words moved her, she wanted to say yes, she would give them a chance.
However, there was something about the intensity in his voice and in his expression that unnerved her. An image of Quentin slid before her eyes, broken and sobbing over the death of his partner. His grief was tangible, a monster stalking him at every step, every turn.
“Tiana.” Mason’s voice pulled her out of the dark memories and into the light. Whatever she might share with Mason, it was not the same as the love between Quentin and Nicky. She wouldn’t allow herself to be consumed by another person. Her heart was too battered and bruised to ever fall that hard.
“I should go.” Tiana looked at her watch. “My family doesn’t know I’m skipping work for a dinner date. They’ll worry if I’m late.” She twisted around, trying to catch the waiter’s eye so she could settle her half of the check.
“When can I see you again?” Mason reached out and touched the back of her hand and she jumped as her skin tingled as if she’d been shocked by an electrical current. He felt it, too, and her heart fluttered with longing.
“I don’t know.” Her forehead creased as she tried to recall her schedule for the next few days.
“Tomorrow?” he asked.
“Tomorrow,” she repeated. “I’m busy most of the day. I have a hospital appointment with my mom, and laundry, so much laundry.” She smiled weakly. “Then I have a long shift. It’s Friday, the restaurant is busy, and the tips are good.”
“After work?” he was insistent.
Her jaw tightened, he was too eager. What if he was a stalker or something?
She took her phone out of her purse and tapped on the screen before passing it to him. “Add your number and I’ll text you.”
He accepted the phone and tapped in his number, before returning it to her. “Are you brushing me off?”
She shook her head. “No, but I need a little time to get my head around this.” She signaled the waiter. “I hope you understand.”
“I’m going to try.” He watched her intently, as if etching her face into his brain. Definitely too intense, she should run away now and keep running.
“Check, please,” she said to the waiter as he approached.
“Add it to my bill. Room 210,” Mason told the young man.
“I’ll pay half,” Tiana said, digging around in her purse for her wallet.
“My treat,” Mason told her. “As a thank you for saving me from my own company. And for persuading me that Bear Creek is the place I belong.”
“We didn’t talk about the area very much,” Tiana told him, not wanting to feel as if she owed him anything.
“We talked enough.” Mason stood up, the conversation about the check done as far as he was concerned.
“I’d feel more comfortable paying my half,” Tiana insisted.
“Why don’t we agree that you pay for our next date?” His eyes twinkled with mischief.
“I can see why you’ve done well in business,” she told him. “Those negotiation skills are killer.”
“I hope so.” He grinned as they left the table and headed to the exit. “Maybe our second date could be a tour of your favorite places around town.”
“You want to visit the grocery store?” she joked as they crossed the hotel lobby.
“If I’m with you.” He held the entrance door open and cool night air caressed her flaming hot face and her body, which ignited in a heat all of its own.
“Can we back up a little and take it slow?” She turned to face him. “I can’t allow myself to rush into something I might regret.”
“You won’t regret anything, I promise.” He was so sincere, and she wanted to believe him. But she’d already lost h
er heart to a man who promised her ‘til death do us part. And look how that ended up. “But, I also see you need space to figure that out for yourself. So we’ll take it as slow as you want.”
“Thank you.” She smiled, stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, and then turned on her heel and walked away. Ignoring the sensation in the pit of her stomach that she was walking away from one of the best things in her life.
Chapter Four – Mason
Mason stood in front of the hotel and watched Tiana. His protective side wanted to make sure she got to her car safely, his primal side wanted to run after her, grab ahold of her and take her somewhere private to consummate their mating bond.
He didn’t need to be a business mastermind to know option B would ensure she ran and kept on running from him.
This was going to be tricky. Did Tiana know about shifters?
He’d never told Haley about his other side. As far as he was aware, when they knew each other at college, Haley didn’t know about shifters. But since moving to the Bear Creek area, she might have learned of their existence. Which meant Tiana might know, too.
It wasn’t an easy subject to broach. How did you explain to someone that you could turn into a bear?
He raked his hand through his hair. When he agreed to this blind date he’d expected nothing more than an hour or two in the company of a woman. If Haley hadn’t been so insistent, he’d probably have said no. Who knew how right Haley would be about them having a lot in common?
Mason closed his eyes and recalled the scent of Tiana. When she’d brushed past him as he held the door open, he’d inhaled deeply, pushing to get past the smell of hand soap and drown his senses in her unique scent.
“Mr. Tennant, is everything all right?” a voice asked from behind him.
Mason took one last look at Tiana’s taillights disappearing into the distance and then turned around. “Yes, thank you, Julius.”
“I trust dinner was to your satisfaction?” the hotel owner inquired.
“It was more than satisfactory.” Mason couldn’t remember a single mouthful of the food he ate; his senses were too consumed by his mate. His eyes could see only her, his ears were tuned to her voice alone and…
“And your guest, was she more than satisfactory?” Julius smiled as if they were sharing a secret.
“She was perfect.” Mason looked over his shoulder and into the darkness. “Unfortunately, I don’t think she is aware of what I am and what she means to me.”
Julius stepped forward and stared into the distance alongside Mason. “My advice would be to make her aware of exactly who you are and what you are and how much she means to you. I let my mate go when I first met her because I thought it was the right thing for her. Only when we met again some years later did I realize I’d gotten it all wrong.”
“But you found her again?” Mason asked.
“Yes, I found Catherine, and made her my wife.” He smiled and gave Mason a sidelong glance. “And she made me the happiest man alive.”
“Thanks, Julius.” Mason nodded and then inhaled deeply. “I think I might go for a run.”
Julius pointed toward the mountains. “I can recommend the trail just to the northeast of here. It leads out onto a wide grassy plateau and gives a wonderful view of Bear Creek and Bear Bluff.”
“I’ll go check it out.” Mason walked back into the hotel with Julius at his side.
“If there is anything else you need, just let me know. Have a good rest of your evening.” Julius went back to the reception desk.
“And you, Julius.” Mason took the stairs and went back to his room, where he changed out of his suit and tie, opting for jeans and a T-shirt, along with a pair of comfortable hiking boots and a light jacket to ward off the chilly air on the mountain.
Then he headed back downstairs, exiting the hotel through the back entrance and jogging across the parking lot. Not that he was taking his car, his plan was to tire both the human and the bear side of his body out. If not, sleep would evade him tonight, and he needed to be awake and aware tomorrow when he set a plan in motion to win over the heart, mind, and soul of his mate.
Mason crossed the road that ran along the base of the mountain and followed it northeast as Julius had instructed. Hugging the side of the road, he kept a look out for the trail that would take him up into the mountains. His bear itched to be free, to run until his lungs burned and his heart strained with the effort.
There it was.
Mason shifted midair as he turned onto the trail and ran hard up the first section of the slope, which rose slowly out of the valley. The muscles in his short legs strained as the terrain grew steeper and the trail more uneven. Soon it twisted around on itself in a serpentine, zig-zagging back and forth under trees and around scrubby bushes.
Ahead the stars shone brightly in the clear sky, watching the bear whose life was so insignificant in the whole of time and space. But Mason did not plan on remaining insignificant, not to Tiana. He would find a way into her heart and turn her life around. He would make everything all right for her.
One day she would look back and see that this blind date was the best thing that ever happened to her. That Mason was the best thing that ever happened to her.
He stopped himself in his tracks. Literally.
Poised on an outcrop of rock, he looked down at the world below. The town of Bear Creek stood in the distance, little pinpricks of lights illuminated the streets and people’s homes. Homes where families lived, connected by blood, by love and by the bonds weaved by life. He could not expect to appear in Tiana’s life like a knight in shining armor and turn her world upside down.
No matter how much he wanted to help her, he had to be sympathetic to her life as it was now and the people in it. She had a child, she had parents that obviously loved her.
And an ex-husband who lives at the end of her garden, his bear interjected.
Okay, so maybe some things would have to change. And getting rid of an ex-husband might be one of them.
Maybe? His bear huffed loudly into the night. I’d say definitely. The man hurt her once, we can’t allow him to hurt her again.
His bear was right. But that was for the future. He couldn’t jump in bear jaws snapping at the heels of Quentin as he chased him away. Not until he’d assessed the situation.
Pushing thoughts of Quentin out of his mind, he turned and climbed higher up the trail until he reached the large open grass plateau Julius described. But he didn’t stop there, instead, he ran on, and on, climbing higher until his muscles ached and fatigue seeped into his bones. Only then did he stop.
High on a distant peak he lifted his head and roared to the world. He had a mate. At last, he had a woman to share his life with. A woman who would be his partner in life. A woman who might bear him a child of his own. They weren’t too old.
Or so he hoped.
His bear thought otherwise as they began their long descent. Mason’s human side was at peak fitness, but his bear had never had the luxury of roaming wide open spaces except for when they were on vacation. This move to Bear Creek could not come soon enough for his four-legged alter-ego.
A wave of guilt washed over Mason. He’d neglected this part of himself for too long. But he’d done it for the right reasons. When he began his business empire it had been for the sole reason of creating a fortune for himself and his mate, plus the children he’d expected to breed with his woman.
When neither mate, nor children materialized, he’d filled his days, and many nights, with work. Planning how to scale his empire until he’d amassed a fortune.
From the beginning, he’d been hands-on. The first property he’d bought had been rundown and in need of modernization. Mason had moved in and begun the renovations immediately. With no kitchen, he’d cooked on a camping stove and worked long hours, painting, plumbing, knocking down walls and building new ones.
The end result had been stunning and sold within two days of it going on the market. While the sale went through, h
e searched for the next property, and then the next, a never-ending stream of walls and roofs, all transformed into homes, but not for him. He always had other people’s idea of a home in mind.
Even today, the apartment he lived in was not a home. It was a place to sleep conveniently close to his offices, where he managed his property empire. His net worth was in the tens of millions. Yet he was unfulfilled. Until now.
Nearing the bottom of the trail, he shifted back into his human form and walked on two feet, enjoying the night air. He had to make a plan of action. He needed to see Tiana again with a burning desire that threatened to consume him.
But she’d asked for his number and said she would call. If he approached her, if he pushed himself into her life, would he frighten her away?
He’d never been so out of his depth. His life so far had been a series of well-planned and well-executed steps. This was his most important project, he could not afford to fail, and yet he felt just as he did that first night, lying on an old sofa in a drafty room, with no clue as to how it was going to turn out.
But he’d succeeded in business, there was no reason he couldn’t succeed in his personal life.
He simply needed a way in. A way to ensure Tiana needed him as much as he needed her.
Chapter Five – Tiana
“Are you all right?” Tiana’s mom, Philippa, asked the morning after her date with Mason.
“Yes, why do you ask?” Tiana looked down and realized she’d been spreading butter across the same piece of toast for a couple of minutes, while staring out the window.
“Because you’re mooning around like a lovesick teenager,” Rhett said, swiping the toast from her plate and shoving it in his mouth. “Thanks, Mom.”
“Hey, sit down and eat properly,” she told him as he headed for the door.
“I have an early class.” He hesitated, his back to the door. “Unless you need to talk.”
Tiana stared at her son for a moment and then waved him away. “Get to your class, it’s much more important than anything I have to say.”
“Are you sure?” Rhett asked, coming back to her and kissing her cheek. As he pulled back, he examined her face. “Lovesick. I can spot it a mile away.”
Blind Date Bear Page 3
