by T. S. Joyce
“No, Jesse. You feel scared. There’s a difference.”
Jesse’s vision blurred as he thought about Jonathan. About how much it would hurt his son if Rae decided to stay, then left someday because Jesse couldn’t cut it as a mate. That failure echoed through his bones. He’d messed up before, and Jonathan had paid. Now, he was seven and old enough to understand if his father couldn’t keep a mate. He’d grow up wondering if he was the same—unable to keep a woman happy. Did he want to storm that house and tell Rae everything and beg her to try with him? Hell, yeah. But it wasn’t just him affected by this decision. He had Jonathan, too.
“I need time to think,” he said, voice hoarse like he hadn’t used it in a long time.
“We’ll take care of Rae tonight.” Logan sounded disappointed in him.
Swallowing a lump in his throat, Jesse stood and strode into the woods. He could feel Logan watching him leave, but he didn’t turn around. There was only so much disappointment he could shoulder at once. He had things to think about. It was his way. He’d always been a careful decision maker, and when he’d become a father, that had amplified. If he was going to claim Rae, he was going to do it with no question in his mind that he could protect her heart. If he was going to let her go, he had to figure out a way to rip his heart away from hers. Either way, this decision was too painful to make human.
A snarl exploded from his chest as pain blasted through him. Long claws shredded his fingers, and fur as black as pitch felt like a million needles piercing his skin. He deserved the pain of the change. Tonight, he’d been too reckless.
Lowering to all fours, he looked back toward the house through the trees one last time. She was in there. His shot at happiness was in that cabin, watching him out the front window with a hurt heart that he’d caused. She was a grenade without a pin, waiting to annihilate everything he’d recovered about himself. She teetered on the edge of giving him a life he could finally be happy in, or destroying him completely.
Rae wasn’t just some human he was growing to care for.
She was a weapon of mass destruction.
Chapter Six
Rae looked adoringly down at the baby in her arms. Samuel was just perfect.
Her throat threatened to close on her, and she brushed the moisture on her lashes to the sleeve of the blue, cotton T-shirt Muriel had let her borrow.
“This is why I don’t let myself hold the babies,” she whispered, feeling helpless to the emotional avalanche that had fallen the second Samuel gifted her with a tiny smile.
Breshia was squatted down in front of her, hands resting on Rae’s knees, concern pooling in her eyes. The woman was covered in striking, dark freckles, but the alluring color of her eyes was what held Rae now.
“Why don’t you like holding babies?” Breshia asked.
“Because I can’t have them.”
“Oh, honey,” Muriel said from her seat on the couch next to her.
Samantha Cress disappeared down a hallway, then returned with a box of tissues. Reese stroked her hair from her seat on the back of the couch. It should feel strange, being petted by an almost stranger, but the women were all affectionate. Maybe it was part of being a shifter, needing that touch—needing a connection. Reese’s touch comforted her.
Rae didn’t know why she’d admitted her failure to these women. Perhaps it was because she’d probably never see them again after Ethan released her. Or perhaps it was because they’d shared so much with her—the story of Bron’s brother, Trent, and his death. How hard they’d worked to find his murderer. And after Rae had admitted what had happened between her and Jesse last night, they each shared their love story. None had been easy, and each had to work for their happiness. And what made her like them even more was that none of them pretended to be perfect or have it all together. They were each, admittedly, a work in progress.
She pressed her hand against Samuel’s seeking palm. “I wanted a dozen kids when I was growing up. I was an only child, and my mom worked all the time to keep food on the table and the lights on. The loneliness made me swear to have a big family, but when I found someone to settle down with, everything went wrong. Ruptured cysts and scar tissue and surgery, and it’s just not in the cards for me anymore.”
“What about adoption?” Breshia asked.
A single, warm tear fled to Rae’s cheek. “I tried once. A couple backed out of an adoption at the last minute, and the mother was desperate. She hadn’t planned on keeping the baby, and I fell in love with the child. I moved to adopt, but it didn’t go through. I was single and didn’t make enough, and the baby went to a couple from Maryland.” She lifted her shoulder in a shrug and dropped her gaze back to Samuel’s dark hair. “I still think about her, but she wasn’t meant to be mine.”
“That’s exactly right,” Samantha said. “She was meant for someone else, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have a family someday, Rae.”
Reese murmured, “Has Jesse told you about—”
“Reese,” Muriel warned with a frown and a slight shake of her head.
“What about Jesse?” Rae asked. She’d been here all morning, and he hadn’t come back. Logan had promised he would, but it was nearly lunchtime and it was pretty plain and obvious her knight had ditched his shining armor and bolted. Still, her traitorous heart wanted to know every little tidbit about the man she couldn’t stop thinking about.
“Nothing,” Reese murmured. “Hey, you’re coming to my celebration tonight, right? We could use your help setting up before the party.”
“Yeah, I’ll be there. Becoming a ranger seems like a big deal. How long was the training?” Sure, Reese had done an obvious subject change, but Rae was game. They’d been more open with her than anyone else since she’d arrived yesterday. If they were clamming up, they probably had a good reason.
“A couple of months. Jesse is actually the one in charge of handling new recruits. He was the one who trained me.”
“Really?” Hmph. She’d seen Jesse funny and serious and angry, but she’d never imagined he was a teacher—a leader.
“Jesse’s important in the Seven Devils clan,” Reese explained. “After the war with the lions, Ethan has been pushing even harder for him to become his second. One more fight, and he’ll have it. Jesse has bled for his clan. He didn’t want the position because he didn’t think his bear was dominant enough, but he’s got heart. That man has fought tooth and nail for Ethan, trying to be good for the clan.” Reese’s voice dipped to a whisper. “He fought Rieland, Trent’s murderer, who had a bear much bigger than his, just to give me a chance to be closer to Ethan when I was trying to figure out if he was as important to my life as he felt. Jesse’s good people. He’s a good friend.”
Maybe Jesse was good, but he wasn’t good with her. Rae didn’t want to argue his virtues though, so she nodded and smelled Samuel’s hair for the fifth time in an hour instead. He puckered his little lips and made a sucking motion as his sleepy eyes closed.
“Rae?”
Startled, she looked behind her to the front door.
Jesse pushed the door open wider and leaned on the frame. The sunlight shone behind him, highlighting and shadowing the gray sweater that clung to his defined shoulders and chest. Dark jeans hung just right on his hips, and his hair was bound at the nape of his neck. He had draped a leather necklace around the thick cords of his muscular throat, and his jaw sported scruff that shone gold in the saturated noon light. Tall and lean, muscles rigid against the fabric of his shirt, Jesse looked like a damned model out of his forest ranger garb. His chest rose as he searched the women’s faces around her. “Do you mind if I talk to Rae alone?”
“We were just leaving,” Samantha said.
“No, no. You ladies stay and enjoy your time together. I want to take Rae with me.”
He was taking her back home. She was sure of it. He’d talked Ethan into trusting her, and now he’d be rid of her forever. Choking sadness filled her throat as she passed Samuel to Breshia and hugged t
he women goodbye, one by one. She was going to miss Reese’s celebration.
She was going to miss everything.
Jesse massaged the inside of his thumb as she followed him out, as if he was nervous to tell her to get lost.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I understand.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.” She understood he needed to get back to his life and stop complicating things for both of them. She understood he didn’t have time to babysit a one-night stand. She understood that he didn’t feel the same about her, and that last night had been different—less special—to him.
“Well,” Jesse said, frowning. “I had a speech planned.”
“No need, chap,” she said, clapping him on the shoulder and avoiding eye contact. “I get it. Let’s do this.”
“Really?”
“Yep, really.”
“Okay, then.” He grinned, the ass. He grinned! And then he nearly skipped to the passenger side of his truck to help her up into it, as if he’d dodged a bullet dipped in acid.
She wanted to stab him with those little scissors all over again.
Oh, she was boiling. Inky tendrils of fury crept through her, and she crossed her arms over her chest as he slid in behind the wheel, lest she get the temptation to claw him.
She was not going to cry again. Nope! Not one single, tiny, little miniscule molecule of moisture was going to be spared on account of Jesse fuck-em-and-leave-em Hayes.
With a tiny growl, she glared out the window and watched the dirt road turn to paved. He kept looking at her, casting her little glances as he drove, but she ignored him like he deserved.
Maybe this was best. She could go back to her little apartment and follow through with her plan of getting a cat or some-other-such pet that would be loyal and love her and be happy to be in her presence, unlike the stupid bear beside her. She could take that job offer and settle into work and go back to having no social life and…
Her shoulders sagged, and she settled her cheek against the window pane. Who was she kidding? Her life in Portland sucked hamster nuggets. She’d felt more alive in the last two days than she had in years, and most of that had been spent running for her life from wild animals and humping a man who probably ate jars of honey for dinner.
“You look pissed,” Jesse observed in a careful tone.
“I’m not,” she said primly.
“Anger has a smell—”
“Oh, of course it does! Everything has a smell or a feel to you. Why can’t you just leave my human emotions alone? Just don’t comment on my smells.”
Jesse opened his mouth, then closed it, and managed to look utterly sexy and baffled at the same time. “I think we’re having a misunderstanding.”
“You are taking me home so you can scrape my memory from your life forever. Am I close?”
His eyes went wide, and he pulled over to the side of the road, then parked the car. “Not even a little. I’m not taking you home, princess. I’m going to convince you to stay. With me. Here.”
She pursed her lips and tilted her chin. “Come again?”
“You ruined my speech with your angry smell.”
“Jesse,” she gritted out.
“I was a dick last night.”
She coughed out the word, “Understatement,” under her breath.
Jesse sighed and cut the engine, then leaned back in his seat and leveled her a look. “I know I was, Rae, and you didn’t deserve that. You were… God, you were perfect last night. You just… I can’t stop thinking about your body. Being with you was one of the single most eye-opening experiences of my life, and I bolted like a coward. And I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but dammit, I want to work for it. Here.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out her multi-tool.
She took it gently from his outstretched fingers. “When did you find this?” she asked softly.
“Last night. Took me three hours to find it in the dark, but it gave me time to think. We both have shit, you know? But mine haunts me and makes me scared of what’s happening between us. I have a lot more to lose than you know about.”
“But you want me to stay?”
The worry in his eyes evaporated, and he reached for her. Right before he touched her hair, he hesitated, then ran his fingers through her dark tresses, pushing them away from her face.
“More than anything, but you should know what happened last night—what really happened.”
She melted against his side as his fingers brushed rhythmically through her hair. “Tell me.”
“We bonded last night. It doesn’t happen to every bear shifter, just some. I never thought it would happen to me. I was with Miranda, my ex, from the time I was sixteen until I was twenty. I loved her more than I thought a man could, but we never bonded. I waited for it. I wanted it. She didn’t feel as much for me, and I knew if the damned bond would just happen, she’d stay with me.”
“Was that what I felt right before you closed off from me?”
“Yeah. When I saw you yesterday, I was drawn to you. Hell, I was drawn to you when I talked to you on the phone. I should’ve told you about the possibility of a bond between us before I slept with you.”
“Wait, you knew before we were together?”
“I knew you were different—that I felt different about you than anyone else I’ve been with. I lost my head, but I should’ve considered the possibility and warned you. I should’ve given you a choice to walk away.”
“So,” she said, sitting up straighter. “What does the bond mean for us?”
“I honestly don’t know what it means for you. I haven’t heard of one between a human and a shifter, besides Samantha, and she’s never talked about it to me.” He dragged his brilliant green eyes to hers and looked lost for a moment. “For me, it means I’m yours.”
“Then why did you leave me last night? If I’m yours, then why did you treat me like you regretted being intimate with me? Why did you treat me like some sleazy one-night stand?”
“God, is that what you thought? Rae,” he drawled, pulling her against his chest until she could feel his heartbeat against her cheek. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t regret. That was me freaking out about what I’d done to us. You’re human, with a life outside of Hells Canyon, and I’ve been hurt. Miranda leveled me to nothing when she left, and I never thought I’d put myself out there with a woman again. And then you came along, and it all happened so fast I panicked. I told Logan I needed time to figure stuff out, but it was because I wanted to have a decision made about you. I’m in this. Every time I think about you leaving, it rips me up.”
“Are you still scared of me?”
“Hell, yeah. I’m terrified. I can’t even remember being scared about anything, but you have me shaking in my fucking boots, Rae. You have me now—all of me. You can hurt me.”
“Is this all just the bond talking, or do you really care for me? I can’t tell what is real and what isn’t right now.”
“The bond isn’t controlling my actions or my thoughts. It’s just my bear choosing you. Trusting you. It opens me up to wanting to be with you, but the rest is all me.”
She inhaled a deep, steadying breath. Her heart clenched with the admission she was about to give him. “You said you knew I couldn’t have babies yesterday, but we maybe need to discuss that again before we do whatever we are talking about doing here. There will be no family with me, Jesse. I don’t know where we are headed, but I can’t give you that. Not ever.”
Pushing her shoulders back until he could look at her, he said, “I heard what you said about that when you were in Muriel’s house holding that little baby. Yesterday, I was talking about our inability to breed because we can’t. Humans and bears don’t work. I didn’t know you were talking about struggling with infertility.”
“When I told you Matt deserved better, and that you didn’t understand, this is what I was talking about. He wanted kids. We both did, but I was always going to be empty, so I let him go. I like gettin
g his Christmas cards. I know how stupid that sounds, but it makes me feel like I did the right thing. It makes everything I went through feel worth it.”
“God, woman.” Jesse adjusted her hips so she straddled his lap. He ran his hands through her hair slowly, searching her eyes with a look of such reverence. “You care so much about other people. Do you want a family, Rae?”
Her throat was closing in on itself, making it hard to talk. “More than anything.”
He brushed away moisture from her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs and massaged the back of her neck with his long fingers. “Then you’ll have one. Maybe it won’t be the one you imagined, but we’ll build one if you want to.”
“Jesse,” she whispered. “That’s a huge promise to make someone you just met.”
“Bullshit. It’s different for us now, Rae. If you’ll stay here with me and give us a chance, I’ll give you anything. I’ll do anything to make you happy. If it’s a family you want, we’ll build one.”
“How? You said it yourself. We can’t have children. Even if I could, we can’t breed, right?” Another obstacle, and now a family felt even more impossible if she chose to stay with Jesse. But looking into his eyes, seeing how affected he was by her heartache, it was hard not to consider how happy she could be here in Hells Canyon with him.
“I don’t know yet. I don’t have all the answers you need, but I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you have the family you want someday.” His voice hitched. “I saw you in there, holding that baby. Looking at him.” He swallowed hard. “I wish…shit.”
“You wish what?”
“I wish I’d met you sooner.”
Confused, she shook her head and touched the gold-red scruff that adorned his jawline. “What would that have changed?”
She could almost see him close off. His eyes dimmed, and he looked away. “I want to tell you everything.” His voice sounded raw and gravelly, and when he brought his eyes back to hers, they were lined with silver. “You’ll have to be patient with me.”