Bear Next Door (Midlife Shifters Book 1)

by J. L. Wilder

  “You don’t have any non-shifter friends?” she asked.

  Brady shook his head. “It’s too hard to maintain friendships outside the shifter community,” he said. “You know that from the time you spent in Vegas, right? You didn’t have any outsider friends there.”

  “I didn’t make friends because my husband wouldn’t allow me to,” Evelyn said. “That’s not the same thing.”

  “Well, you’ll have to take my word for it, then,” Brady said. “It’s tempting to get close to people outside the community when you interact with them regularly. I understand that. But it isn’t something you can invest too much of yourself in.”

  “What do I have to invest in?” Evelyn asked.

  Brady was confused. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m cut off from my family,” Evelyn said. “I’m not allowed to get close with the people I work with. I almost never get to see you.”

  “You see me almost every day, Evelyn.”

  “Well, it doesn’t feel like it,” she said. “It feels like you’re a guest in my life, not the father of my child. It feels like you and I are nothing to each other.”

  He felt slapped. “Is that really how it feels to you?” he asked. “Like we’re nothing?”

  She sighed. “No,” she said. “Not nothing. Of course not. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “What did you mean?”

  “I just mean...” She sighed and ran her hands through her hair. “This isn’t working for me anymore, Brady. I don’t know if I can go through with it. This forced distance between us. Pretending that we don’t know each other. You can’t seriously tell me that this is how you want the birth of your child to be.”

  “Of course not,” Brady said. “God, Evelyn, you know we’re not staying apart because of anything I want. It’s about your safety. The baby’s safety.”

  “I know,” she said. “I know that. But the more I think about it, the more I think that this can’t possibly be the best way to guarantee our baby’s safety.”

  “What do you suggest?” Brady asked.

  She looked up at him. “I think we should leave Chicago,” she said.

  He stared at her, unable to find the words to respond.

  She rushed to fill the silence. “Think about it,” she said. “We could go anywhere. Anywhere in the world, as long as it’s far away from here. We could stop worrying about Steve and the den. It wouldn’t matter that he’s the alpha if we were somewhere else.”

  “Where?” he asked. “Where would you want to go?” Not Vegas, surely.

  “Anywhere,” she said. “We could go somewhere unsettled. A forest. We could build a cabin and start our family there.”

  “A cabin in the middle of the forest,” he repeated numbly.

  “Or the ocean, if you don’t like that,” she hurried on. “We could get a beach house. Or we could move to another city. That would be fine too. Anything would be fine, as long as it isn’t here.”

  “Evelyn, what are you saying?”

  “I just want to get us out from under Steve’s thumb,” she said. “He’s the reason we have to hide. He’s the reason we can’t be together. He’s the reason I have to tell everyone my baby doesn’t have a father.”

  Her eyes were full of tears. He wanted so badly to embrace her, to make everything that was hurting her recede into the distance. He wanted to tell her that everything was going to be all right.

  If he could have, he would have given her everything she was asking him for.

  But he couldn’t. It wouldn’t be right.

  “We can’t go anywhere,” he said quietly. “I know this is awful, Evelyn, believe me. It’s hurting me too. But running away isn’t the answer.”

  Her face collapsed, and he felt as if he was watching her heart break right before his eyes. “Why not?” she asked. “Why can’t we just go?”

  “Because this is our home, Evelyn,” he said. “This is our family. Our den. We belong here.”

  Evelyn was already shaking her head. “This isn’t my home,” she said. “I just got back here. I don’t feel any need to stay.”

  “Well, I do,” Brady said. “The South Side Bears are my den. I owe them my allegiance.”

  “You want to be their alpha,” she said. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? After all this, you’re still putting the idea of becoming the alpha ahead of anything else.”

  He felt a spark of anger. “You know I’m not,” he said. “I told you that you and the baby were more important to me than the idea of being alpha. I said it, and I meant it.”

  “If that was the truth, you’d be willing to leave,” she said. “You wouldn’t insist on staying here for the sake of a den that has never treated you like you’re worth anything.”

  “What about you?” he countered. “If our baby is your priority, you can’t overlook the fact that it might be a boy, and if it is, he’ll be born to the role of alpha of this den. He’ll have the right to lead one day.”

  “So what?” she demanded. “He doesn’t need to lead the den. Maybe that’s not what’s best for him.”

  “That isn’t for you and me to decide,” Brady said firmly. “I had my rightful role as alpha taken away from me, Evelyn. I know what it’s like to lose something that you were born to be. I know what it’s like to live with the knowledge that you’ll never become the thing you were meant for. I’m not going to be responsible for doing that to our child. I’m not going to take him away from here before he has the chance to decide for himself.”

  “You would make us stay here?” she said. “When I’m begging you to go? You would make us stay because of that?”

  “It’s the biggest regret in my life, Evelyn,” Brady said. “The fact that I lost my chance to be alpha. I won’t put my child through that.”

  “So I’m right,” Evelyn said. “You are still obsessed with the idea of being alpha. You do still think it’s more important than anything else. Even the possibility of our family being together.”

  “Come on, Evelyn,” Brady protested. “That isn’t what I said.”

  “No? You just refused to leave town on the off chance our baby might become alpha one day.” She was openly crying now. “I hope every day that this baby is a girl, Brady. I can’t think of a worse fate for my child than for them to have to worry about alpha politics.”

  “What about growing up without a den?” Brady said. He was really beginning to feel angry now. “I would have thought your time in Las Vegas would have taught you something about the importance of having family around you.”

  “We’re all the family this baby needs!” she protested. “You and me. That’s enough.”

  “Like hell,” Brady said. “Running away didn’t work out for you last time, Evelyn, so I don’t know what makes you think it would work this time.”

  He knew immediately that he had crossed a line. The blood drained from her face.

  “You’re going to throw that back at me?” she whispered. “Now?”

  He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”

  But she was on her feet now. “Is that really what you think?” she asked. “That this is just how I respond to problems? Do you really think my wanting to leave right now is the same as my wanting to leave with Marty?”

  “No,” he said. “I know that isn’t the same thing.”

  “You’re damn right it’s not.”

  They stared at each other in silence for a long moment.

  “Maybe you should go,” Evelyn said.

  It hit him like a punch to the gut. “What?”

  “Maybe you should just go home,” she said. “If the den is so important to you, I don’t want to keep you away from them. Maybe you should run back to Steve.”

  “You don’t mean that,” he said.

  “You want to be alpha,” she said. “You don’t want to deal with me. You don’t want to have to worry about building a life where I can feel safe and happy. Anything that isn’t part of the den isn
’t good enough for you. So maybe you should go back to them.”

  He got to his feet and went to her, tried to take her in his arms.

  She pulled away. “Don’t,” she said. “I believed you when you told me that this baby was more important to you than anything else. I believed you when you told me you were going to put the baby ahead of the den, ahead of your goal of becoming alpha.”

  “I am doing that,” he said. For God’s sake, the number of times he had itched to challenge Steve to a fight for the position but had held off because he couldn’t afford to risk getting himself killed—

  “You’re not putting us first,” she said. “If you were, you would at least consider what I’m asking for. You wouldn’t just tell me that it’s not possible.”

  “I wish it were,” he said. “I wish there were some way you and I could have a normal life together without sacrificing everything. But I won’t take my family away from the den.”

  “Then go,” she said. “I don’t know what we’re doing here anymore.”

  He could tell she meant it.

  “I’ll call you later,” he tried.

  She turned away.

  Despondent, Brady turned and exited through the window, the way he had come, and climbed down the fire escape to head for home.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  EVELYN

  I must be hormonal.

  It was all Evelyn could think as she went through the motions of making herself a cup of tea to calm herself down. Why on earth had she blown up at Brady like that?

  All right, it was true that she was disappointed in the way he had responded to her request to leave town. She had hoped that he would say of course they could go, they could do whatever made her most comfortable. She had hoped that he would help her start packing her bags immediately, and that they could have left that very night.

  But now that he was gone, now that the heat of the moment had passed, she could see how irrational that hope had been.

  Of course he wasn’t going to just leave his den on the spur of the moment. They were his family. They were everything to him. She didn’t know what she had been thinking.

  And it had been very unkind of her to call him out for his desire to become alpha. He wasn’t like Steve—some power-hungry asshole who just wanted the ability to control the rest of the den. He was a good person and a good leader. He wanted to take control of the den because he felt that it was what was best for them.

  And what was more, he was right. Steve was a terrible leader, and Brady would be a good one. The whole den would benefit from his leadership. Evelyn’s childhood friends, her parents—everyone would be better off if Brady managed to take control.

  It was Steve’s leadership that she was tired of. Not the den itself.

  She should have communicated that better. She should have been clearer. And she certainly shouldn’t have kicked him out of the apartment. Now that he was gone, she wished more than anything that he was back.

  There was a part of her that wanted to go chasing him down the street, to find him and bring him back to the apartment to talk things over. But she couldn’t do that. The most important thing in all of this was that they keep quiet the fact that they were still involved with one another. It would be far too easy for someone to see them if they had a public confrontation, even if they were away from the heart of the den.

  She would wait until he got home, she decided. It wouldn’t be too long. He only lived a few miles away, after all, and she could wait long enough for him to travel that distance. She would give him an hour, and then she would call him and apologize for the way she had acted. She would ask him to come back.

  She just hoped he would.

  He will. This baby means the world to him.

  She knew that much to be true. Even though their instincts about what to do to best protect their child’s future had been different, it was clear to her that Brady had been thinking of the best interests of the baby when he had refused to leave the den. He wanted his child to grow up with the privileges he had had growing up. He wanted his child to be part of a den, and maybe to have a claim to leadership.

  Evelyn could understand that.

  She remembered being a child herself. She remembered running out her parents’ front door and into the street, where the other children her own age were always waiting for her. Every day, she had woken up knowing that there were adventures to be had and friends to have those adventures with. The den had been a built-in family.

  It was the greatest loss she had experienced when she had left with Marty. Even in the beginning, before she had realized how cruel and controlling he would be, she had mourned the loss of her den. She had understood that life would be different without them, that she wouldn’t be part of a big family the way she always had been in the past. It had been a difficult adjustment.

  And if she was really honest with herself, that sense of community was something she did want her child to have.

  My problem is that my child won’t have that while Steve is in charge, she thought. I can’t go back to the den while Steve is in power. And if I ever do go back, I’ll have to lie about who my baby’s father is. We’ll always be outsiders.

  She and Brady were planning for two different futures. That was the trouble. He was planning for a world in which Steve was no longer a threat, and Evelyn had seen no reason to believe that that world was ever going to come.

  No wonder Brady got upset. He must have thought I was questioning his ability to take power.

  Maybe she had been questioning his ability to take power.

  Maybe she didn’t believe he would ever really do it.

  Evelyn didn’t need her baby’s father to be an alpha. She didn’t care whether Brady ever rose to power, beyond the fact that she wanted him to be happy.

  But she did need Steve out of power. There was no future for her, or for her baby, in Chicago if he held on to control of the den.

  Maybe she hadn’t given Brady enough credit. Maybe he did have a plan to take control of the den.

  I just wish he would tell me if that’s the case!

  Well, she would call him. She would get him to come back over. And this time, they would speak calmly. She wouldn’t allow her emotions to get the better of her. She would just tell him that she needed to understand what the future was going to look like if she was going to keep going through this difficult time.

  The tea was ready. She took her cup back to the bedroom and sat on the bed, cradling it between her hands. She sipped slowly. The tea had the desired effect—she felt calmer now.

  There was still time to kill before she could hope to call Brady. He wouldn’t be home yet. After a moment’s hesitation, she picked up the phone and dialed Pauline’s number.

  She felt a sense of guilt and misgiving as the phone rang. Brady hadn’t wanted her to stay close with Pauline. Maybe she was making a mistake by making this call.

  But she couldn’t resist. Brady didn’t understand what it was like for her. He was in the middle of the den, surrounded by people that he considered family. She was the one who had had to abandon her parents after having just gotten them back. She was the one who was out in the world by herself, with no other shifters to talk to. It was true that Brady visited as often as he could, but whenever he wasn’t here, she was alone.

  She had to be allowed to have a friend. She could keep the shifter part of her life to herself. She and Pauline had enough in common without that.

  “Evelyn?” Pauline answered the phone after the second ring. “What’s up? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

  “You said you were going to bed,” Pauline reminded her. “I thought, if you were still up, it might mean that something was wrong.”

  “Oh.” Evelyn felt a stab of guilt, remembering that she had lied to get her friend out of her apartment. “No, nothing’s wrong. I just couldn’t sleep. Is it too late to call?”

  “It’s only nine-thirty
,” Pauline said.

  “Right,” Evelyn said. It felt much later somehow, maybe because she had already been through so much tonight.

  “Are you sure everything is okay?” Pauline asked. “Do you want me to come back over?”

  For half a beat, Evelyn was tempted to say yes. She wasn’t enjoying being on her own, and any company would be helpful.

  But she wanted Brady to come back. She couldn’t forget that. And having Pauline there would definitely be a problem.

  “No, it’s all right,” she said. “Honestly, I just wanted to thank you again for the baby shower today. It was such a nice thing to do. You know I’m new in town, and I don’t have a lot of friends here. I hadn’t imagined a baby shower as something I would get to have.”

  “You deserve it,” Pauline said. “Every mother-to-be ought to have a party. And I know you would do the same thing for me if I was the one who was pregnant.”

  “I would,” Evelyn agreed, realizing as she said it that it was the truth. She really did care about Pauline. This was a friendship she didn’t want to lose.

  If we’re going to stay in Chicago, she thought to herself, maybe this is my price. Maybe Brady will have to find a way to understand that I need friends outside the shifter community.

  After all, she had been living away from the den for a long time. She valued what the den had to offer to her and her family—at least, she would value it under different leadership. But she had also grown very used to integrating herself into the human world, and that wasn’t something she could just drop.

  “Listen,” she said to Pauline. “Do you want to come shopping with me sometime next week? All the baby shower gifts are wonderful, but they just made me think that I should probably be picking out the big items too, like a crib and a playpen.”

  “I’d love to come,” Pauline said. “That would be so much fun!”

  “It would mean a lot to me to have somebody to do it with,” Evelyn said. Since Brady and I can’t be seen together in public, that is.

  “Well, count me in,” Pauline said. “We’ll make a plan tomorrow at work, okay? You’re working tomorrow, aren’t you?”