by T. S. Joyce
Hands shaking, she yanked the door open and stomped into the hallway.
“Hey, Emry, wait!” Graylan demanded. “What did I do wrong?”
What had he done wrong? Stolen her heart, knowing he was only here for a minute in the span of her life. How was she supposed to find another man after this? That wasn’t just some mind-blowing sexual experience she’d shared with some random one-night stand. Graylan had changed her heart completely, bound it to him, wrapped her soul around him, and made himself the one she’d always compare the men in her life to. And dammit, she’d allowed it! God, that was a terrible idea. She’d known going into this what it was. A fling. Friends with benefits, because really, how could they be anything more knowing he was fated to be a nomad for always? There was no cure for his need to find new dens. The bear and all the instincts that came with his inner animal were part of him.
“Talk to me! What did I do?” Graylan asked from the open doorway of his room. His hands were out, palms up, his eyes pleading and panicked.
“You didn’t do anything. You’re leaving in a couple of days, Graylan.” Emry bit back tears and dropped her gaze to hide how badly those words hurt her. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” she rasped out, throat clogging with emotion. “I made a mistake. This hurts too much.”
Graylan jerked as if she’d slapped him, but she couldn’t go back to him and smooth this over. She couldn’t pretend that his leaving wasn’t going to rip her guts out.
Unable to witness the hurt in his eyes for another moment, she turned and bolted for her room.
And bless her tears for staying put until she’d closed the door behind her.
Chapter Seven
Emry dragged her attention away from the couples dancing in the middle of the sprawling room and smiled politely at a trio of giggling older ladies.
“We heard you made an adult punch this year, dear,” Leona Andrews whispered. “We want the fun stuff.” Her hair was dyed blue like her two friends. The trio had made quite the name for themselves in the community as the Blue-Haired Ladies.
Grinning, Emry poured generous paper cups of punch from the giant bowl on her left. The other was for the kids. Her own little screw-you to Braden for the irritating text message he’d sent her this morning.
She finished filling the Blue-Haired Ladies’ glasses, then waved them off and told them to, “Have a good time.” There was no doubt in her mind they would. Those ladies were a hoot.
The song had changed to a slow one, and Emry sighed as the puny feeling she’d been fighting all day drifted over her. Graylan was out in the snowy weather, still working his snow-plowing shift, and Helena had told her at breakfast he was going to leave this evening. She’d tried to keep busy at the T-shirt shop she worked at on Main Street, and even though it had been hectic because of tourist season, she hadn’t been able to keep her mind off Graylan. And then she’d gotten the text.
What are you doing right now?
Her stomach had dropped when she’d read who had sent the message. Not the man she’d wanted. Braden was trouble, just like he always had been. When they’d been together, that was how he’d always texted her when he’d wanted to come over for a quick naked party. He hadn’t messaged her since the cheating scandal with Emelia, so there was only one reason he was starting now. He was growing bored with his relationship and thought Emry had little enough self-respect to play his stupid games.
Emry looked toward the corner where Braden was talking to a group of prominent figures in the town. As if he’d been watching her, he gave her the slow smile that used to make her stomach do flip flops. Now, it made her feel cheap and queasy. His poor wife. Her relationship with her husband wasn’t in any danger from Emry, though. She’d turned off her phone completely after that stupid text came through.
Heaving a frustrated sigh, she filled a punch cup for herself and gulped it down. This was her favorite time of year and her favorite community event of the year, and yet she felt hollow. Helena was at home alone, and Graylan would be gone by tonight. And Emry, the coward that she was, didn’t even have it in her to tell him have a nice life.
She hated goodbyes, always had, and avoided them like the plague.
When she saw the Keller brothers dancing to the slow song with their mates, an involuntary smile took her face. Now that was the feeling she wanted. Utter devotion. If only Graylan had been a grizzly shifter instead of a polar bear, she would have had a mate, too, like those lucky women. It wouldn’t have been hard for her and Graylan to live a beautiful life here. The Kellers had paved the way for shifter-human relationships from the day they came out to the public. People around here were mostly used to bear shifters. Like now, no one even stared at the Kellers or made rude gestures as they had in the beginning. These days, the townies said hi and spoke with them as if nothing had changed.
She and Graylan could’ve had a good thing here if his animal would only let him stay in one place.
The tragedy of it all was too much. Emry pursed her lips and blinked rapidly against the burning tears that blurred her vision. She waved to Janie, one of the other volunteers. “Would you mind pouring the punch for a few minutes? I need a little break.”
“Sure,” Janie said. Rubbing Emry’s arms, she asked, “Is everything okay?”
“It’s fantastic,” she lied. Turning, she ran smack-dab into a wall of solid muscle.
Gasping, she arched her neck up. Graylan was wearing a black sweater that clung to his shoulders like a second skin and dark jeans. And, as always, his eyes were that impossible blue that ensnared her. Heart thumping erratically, she whispered, “You’re here.”
Graylan looked up and smiled at Janie. “Do you mind if I steal her away for a dance?”
“N-not at all,” Janie said, stumbling over her words.
Emry looked down in shock at his hand wrapped warmly around hers as he led her to the dance floor. Graylan turned suddenly and slipped his hand behind her back. The other held up her hand as he leaned down and rested his cheek against her hair. “You didn’t answer your phone all day,” he rumbled.
“I’ve had it turned off.” Nope, she wasn’t going to mention Idiot Braden’s text message right now.
“You’re killing me, woman.”
“I’m killing you?”
Easing away, he leveled her with a hard look. “You said your piece yesterday but didn’t give me a chance to respond. And I’ve been working all day, stuck plowing these old back roads, unable to get you out of my head and feeling like complete shit about last night, so let me get my apology out.”
Apology? “Okay.” Her eyes were probably the size of the moon right now.
“First off, you look fuckin’ beautiful tonight. And not just tonight. From the first time I saw you all strapped in the car, face smeared with chocolate, I couldn’t stop staring at you. I don’t know what you thought last night was for me, but from the way you tore off, I didn’t say something right. Woman, I’m sorry if I messed that moment up, but I’m no poet, nor am I going to pretend I have a way with words. I’ll try my best to be faster with my reactions, but you’ll have to be more patient with me when we have arguments in the future.”
“In the future? I thought you were leaving tonight.”
Graylan stopped swaying side to side and cupped her face. With a sigh and a shake of his head, he murmured, “Leaving you would be like telling my heart to stop beating. I can’t do it. I can’t even think about it anymore without feeling sick.”
A soft gasp left her lips as she slid her hands up his arms until she pressed her palm against the back of his hand, just to keep his touch warm on her cheeks. “Graylan, what are you saying?”
“Last night you left before I could get my head on straight. I bonded to you, Emry Mason. I chose you from the moment I saw you in that car, all wide-eyed and startled, but my bear chose you last night.”
Emry shook her head in disbelief and leaned her forehead a
gainst his chest to hide her ridiculous, teary smile. She threw her arms around his waist.
He dipped his lips near her ear and shifted his weight to the side, then back, picking up the slow dance again. “I want to stay here with you. I want to make Christmas dinner with you and Helena, and I want to be the one who takes the decorations down from the house and then puts them up again next year. I want to be the one to take you to this dance next year and the next, and I want to be the one you lean on for always. No more running from den to den anymore. You are my den now.” He kissed her hairline and eased back. “If you’ll have me.”
Tears streamed down her face, and emotion filled her throat, making it impossible to speak. Instead, she nodded her answer.
Graylan huffed a shaky laugh and drew her hand up against his chest. His heart drummed fast against her palm. “I have to tell you something else.” He pulled her knuckles to his lips and let them linger there before he said, “I didn’t come here alone.”
Emry frowned. “What?”
Graylan jerked his chin toward where the Blue-Haired Ladies were standing, laughing, and throwing back punch. In the center of them, beaming and talking, was Helena. Joy in her eyes, Helena waved, then pressed her hand against her chest, as if she was trying to contain her happiness.
“Oh my gosh,” Emry said, trying to contain her emotions, but failing. “Helena came out of her house for you?”
Graylan hugged her against his side. “She didn’t just come out for me, Emry. She came out for you, because you have this unique ability to make people around you want to live better, to be better.”
“Funny.” She smiled up at him and squeezed his hand with hers. “I feel the same about you.”
Emry looked around at the festive holiday decorations and the smiling couples dancing around them. At the children who weaved through the crowd, chasing each other and laughing. Her heart swelled when Helena blew her a tiny kiss. And when she finally swung her gaze back to Graylan—her strong, steadfast Graylan—he was watching her with such adoration in his bright eyes.
Heart overflowing with joy, she whispered, “I love you, Graylan Young.”
“Mate,” he murmured, resting his forehead against hers. “I love you back.”
The End.
For more of these characters…
Check out T. S. Joyce’s bestselling Fire Bears series.
(Amazon US buy links)
Bear My Soul (Book 1)
Bear the Burn (Book 2)
Bear the Heat (Book 3)
HOLIDAY BRIDE
By T. S. JOYCE
Holiday Bride
Copyright © 2019 by T. S. Joyce
Copyright © 2019, T. S. Joyce
First electronic publication: December 2019
T. S. Joyce
www.tsjoyce.com
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
Published in the United States of America.
Chapter One
Maya
Three Nights Before Christmas
I hadn’t been back to Colorado Springs in three years, and I’d nearly forgotten how bitterly cold it could be in the winter.
Hopping off the single step of the covered carriage, I pulled my shawl closer and looked around. It struck me straight in the heart how different everything seemed. The streets were much louder, and teaming with people and horses. It seemed more crowded then when I’d left.
The dressmaker’s shop was now a home décor store. Whatever had happened to Mrs. Havish? That woman was horribly rude, and didn’t much appreciate my mixed race, but she’d been a damn fine seamstress. I assumed that old coot would outlive the devil himself with that horrid tongue, and keep making dresses until the day she dropped like a fly.
“You okay, Miss Maya?” Mr. Hartland, the driver asked from his perch up front. He held the reins, and his pair of bay horses pranced, showing darker shades of sweat on their necks and down their legs. Their backs were covered in a fine layer of snow.
“Oh yes, sir, I’m just taking it all in.”
“Looks a mite different than when you were here last, don’t it?” he asked. Mr. Hartland had always been kind to me and my family when he was in town.
“Positively different, but the same all at once,” I told him, wishing I could better describe the sensation of homecoming that shivered through my stomach.
Mr. Hartland handed me the floral bag I’d travelled with and I nearly went down to the ground with it. Lord, what had I packed in this thing? Stones? He chuckled at my struggle and asked, would you like me to carry it to the top of the stairs at least, Miss Maya?”
“Oh, no, no, no, I’ve got this. It’s my own fault for packing my entire life into this bag. I’m only here for a few days.”
“Holidays here and then back to your life in Boston?”
But Mr. Hartland had only been my driver for the last leg of my journey. “How did you know I lived in Boston now?”
“Oh, nobody ever left this town but you. Everyone knows what you’ve done.” His eyes twinkled as he offered me a wink. “We’re all real proud of you.” He flicked his wrists and clacked the reins against his horses’ backs. “Hup!” Over his shoulder he called out, “You behave while you’re here, Miss Maya. Don’t need no more fires at the water tower.”
My eyes went so wide I nearly caught a snowflake right in one. This town sure did have a long memory. Yes, I’d been a hellion in my younger days and yes, I had absolutely accidentally burned down the water tower. Ukiah had helped.
Just his name brought a wave of strange feelings washing straight through me.
It was winter. He wouldn’t be here. He would be at the reservation with his Ute family. Not here. Not in Colorado Springs. He had been much older than me, but we had grown up together and he was and would always be my dearest friend. Even if we didn’t speak anymore.
“Outta the way,” a man demanded as I was nearly trampled by his gray dappled horse. The creature reared and screamed, and the man glared at me with pure and undiluted anger sparking in his dark eyes.
“So sorry,” I murmured, rushing to haul my bag up the stairs to the newly renovated home décor store. I should go straight to Mother and Father’s home down the street, but I was putting off seeing their old restaurant, Cotton’s. That old kitchen had built me in so many ways. How many hours had I spent with my mother, learning to cook, serving the hungry town, making people see we were a family worth getting to know? Even if my mother was black, and my father was white, and I was in between. How many times had my friends walked through that door and sat at a table and enjoyed a good, relaxed meal?
That’s what my mother had always done—provided happy and joyous moments at meals. She wasn’t just a cook. She poured her heart and soul into her food, and provided an environment in Cotton’s where no matter what age a person was, or their gender, or the color of their skin, or the animal in their blood…everyone was welcome, and everyone could talk openly, and laugh loudly, and enjoy some downtime from their difficult lives, even if for just a little while.
And now it was gone.
Mother and Father had closed the eatery last year, and honestly, I didn’t know if I was strong enough to walk past the old buil
ding where Cotton’s had been without breaking down.
Cotton’s had been home for most of my twenty-six years on this earth.
So, weakly, I hoisted my bag to my hip and meandered along the wooden floorboards of the long porch that stretched on and on in front of the connected shops of Main Street. Some shops were the same, and I waved through the windows at the owners. It was three days before Christmas, so many of the front windows were decorated for the holiday. Colorful toys and trinkets and dresses and shoes adorned the shops, beckoning me to go inside. I would need to do some holiday shopping this week, before the Christmas Eve celebration began, but for now, it was freezing and I wasn’t dressed for this weather. The full skirts of my dress dragged along the porch boards, picking up the snowy mush and mud that had accumulated from the muddy boots of uncareful men. The breeze was frigid and snowflakes drifted right under the eaves and against my cheeks. It was getting darker with each passing minute, and I grew restless to see Mother and Father. They expected me tomorrow, but I couldn’t wait to see the looks on their faces when they opened the door and realized I was here an entire day early. In the distance, the choooo of the train echoed through town, and if I looked hard enough, I could see the steam from it through the snowy fog.
My arms were burning with the weight of my bag, so I shuffled my heeled shoes faster across those hollowed out old wooden boards. I stepped down the stairs and onto a wooden plank that had been settled on the muddy street. It was covered in a thin layer of snow, but I found it with my heels just fine. One alleyway, and two more buildings and I was there, looking up at the old building that used to be Cotton’s. Mother and Father still lived in the small home I’d grown up in, right beside the abandoned restaurant. The windows were boarded up, and the door had a hefty metal lock on it. The Cotton’s sign had been taken down and hadn’t been replaced. It was snowing in earnest now, catching even on my short eyelashes. They melted on the tears that streamed down my cheeks.
