by J. K Harper
He gave his head a savage shake before answering. "Terrified that I'll be like him."
There was another short pause. They both know what "him" he was talking about. Elodie drew breath to speak, but Shane beat her to it. "Besides, even without that role model of fantastic gentleness in my life," he couldn't help the bitter note at the old hurts that crept into his voice, surprised though he was to hear it since the ugliness of his cubhood was many years back, "I've only been responsible for myself my whole life. Shit, I've never even had a dog. Or a plant. What the hell do I know about taking care of a kid?"
At that, Elodie straightened up. With a precise edge to her tone, she said, "I don't want to ever hear you say that sort of bullshit again."
Whoa. Shane eyeballed his aunt. She wasn't the type to let loose with bad language. Ever.
She narrowed her eyes, which were getting the colorful intensity that meant her bear was scratching at the surface. "You are nothing like him. Don't you dare hide behind that as an excuse to cut yourself down and not live up to your potential. I won't hear of it."
With that, she folded her arms across her ample bosom and gave him a challenging look. Mouth slightly open, for a long moment Shane could only stare back at her. Finally, he muttered, "It's not an excuse. I'm not hiding behind anything."
"You had better not be. Because the Shane I know, the one I've watched create a solid life for himself here over the past year, is much too smart and much too honest to do that."
Shane snorted out an irritated laugh. "I'm honest now, yeah. But for a lot of my life I didn't care about anyone or anything. If I had to lie to save my ass, I did. So I'm capable of it."
Elodie shook her gently silvering ash-blond head. "Everyone is capable of doing the worst possible things depending on what situation they're in. People who say they would never lie, never steal, never do anything bad, are people who've never been tested beyond what they should be. At heart, Shane," and now she softened a bit again, the smile creeping back onto her face, "you're a gentle, kind soul."
"Oh yeah? How do you figure that?" Shane glared down at his hapless pie plate, curling and uncurling his fingers on the table. But his aunt's next words had him snapping his gaze back up to her again.
"Because of who you are now," she said simply, settling back into her chair. Her smile grew broader with every moment. "If deep down you actually were the way you behaved for all those years when you lived as an outcast without clan, without family, just scrabbling for survival the best way you could, you would still be like that now. You would have fleeced us all. Lied, stolen, possibly even killed."
She got up and went back to the stove, glancing out the window as a small sheet of snow dropped down the pane in the day's bright sunshine. "Instead, you proved yourself to be a hard worker, a productive member of this community, an extremely valued member of this family, and you never say a bad word about anyone. Except," she turned to look back at him, "about yourself. Stop doing that. You're a father now.”
Her voice sharpened. “One of the most important things you can role model to that adorable little boy is that you value yourself. By doing that, he'll be well on his way to growing up as someone who values himself also."
Shane sat in thunderstruck silence as Elodie got two cheerful mugs out of the cupboard and ladled some of the spiced cider into each of them. Along with her uncanny ability to sense when anyone she cared about needed some nurturing, she also had a highly developed ability to see right into people and note their true character. She was an excellent judge of others, even without knowing them very well. She also said things like they were. Elodie Walker would never blow smoke up his ass.
Well, hell. That exploded his ideas about himself as a big, badass bear shifter. Thoroughly disgusted with himself, Shane snarled. His aunt just laughed. "You knew when you came to me that I would listen to you, but I'd also give you brutal honesty."
"True that." Shane unclenched his curled fingers and drummed them instead. "I guess I've just been so busy working here." He spoke slowly, articulating his thoughts even as he spoke them. "I wasn't paying much attention to anything outside the day to day. That's what you're saying, right? That it's possible for us to change."
Elodie turned back around with two steaming mugs. She placed one in front of Shane and settled back onto her stool with her own mug cradled between her hands. To his surprise, she shook her head.
"I believe that it's not so much that people change, as that they actually become more of who they really are,” she said. “They get closer to their true self as they learn that trust exists in this world. As they realize they don't need to look at life like it's a constant battle."
She shrugged as she blew on her drink to cool it. "People's true selves will show when given a chance to. And they always come back to that true self eventually. No matter what."
Shane frowned. "What if that just means that my time here hasn't been long enough for my true self to show up again? Now that Jessie and Grant are here, maybe it means I'm just gonna go back to being an asshole. Just like my dad."
"I don't believe that.” Elodie took a thoughtful sip of her drink. “I think you know the right thing to do. Because," she eyed him carefully, "you really do want to go see them, don't you?"
"Yeah.” His voice was gruff. His bear thumped around inside him, somewhat agitated. It still made Shane nervous. “I don't know what the hell to say to her, don't know what the hell do with him, but I do want to see them both."
Now his aunt gave him a knowing smile, her eyes soft. "Because you never stopped thinking about her, have you? She was the one that got away."
Shane let the silence stretch again for a long moment between them before he could admit the thing that had been gnawing at him for the past two years. The thing he thought he'd kept hidden from everyone, had never once mentioned, and had tried to forget by enjoying the same mindless hookups that had been a constant part of his life up till meeting Jessie. But they'd all left him cold, and he'd dwindled in the past several months to no contact with women at all.
The only woman he could think of was Jessie. He'd been stupidly desperate to find her again. Only her. Apparently, it sure as hell was some sort of fucking Christmas miracle that she and his son had shown up right here in Deep Hollow.
Looking back at his aunt, he held her eyes as he said what might've been the truest statement of his entire life. "You're right. I've never forgotten Jessie. I've never been able to stop thinking about her. So why is it that now she's here, I'm," he paused before shoving the word out, "afraid to see her again?"
Elodie smiled with such compassion and understanding Shane felt it smack his heart. Leaning forward again to touch him, this time covering part of his big hand with her own, she gently said, "Oh, my sweet little boy.”
He snorted at that, especially since he towered over his not-small aunt by nearly a foot and easily outweighed her by about a hundred pounds. Yet her next words slammed him sideways.
“Shane, it's because you love that girl. She's your mate."
Her words dropped between them with all the force of an atomic bomb. Shane reared back on the stool, mouth agape. A crash of wild heat spread throughout his body as the word mate seemed to shimmer in the very air before him.
Elodie's smile engulfed her entire face. “You couldn't acknowledge that when you met her, because you probably didn't even understand what the bond would feel like. Trust me, it's why she somehow found her way here. The two of you are meant to be, just like that adorable little Grant was meant to be born. It will all work out. Don't you prove me wrong now," she added in a teasing chide, playfully shaking her finger at him.
All Shane could do was sit there blinking at her. The truth of it spread over him as certainly as the planet spun on its axis.
He had a mate. A real mate.
And a son.
With his mate.
That was why his bear had almost gone crazy. Had burst out of him, uncontrolled, totally freaking out. Not b
ecause he was reverting back to his brawling days, his days of fighting on the shifter circuit, of fighting in back alleys, of raging and crashing through a life that had never treated him fairly.
No, it was because his bear had recognized Jessie as his mate and Grant as his son. He knew that, and wanted to protect them with every ounce of possessive pride he could. His bear wasn't out of control again. His bear now had a purpose. Shane just hadn't been able to understand it.
His job now, his purpose, was to be with Jessie, to raise Grant, and to keep them safe. Always.
He sat there unmoving for another long moment as everything ticked over in his brain. Then he exploded into action. Urgency gripped him so badly he thought his heart would whack its way out of his chest.
“I've got to find her right now.” He stood up so fast he tipped the stool over. Blindly righting it, he turned to thump down the few stairs to the mud room, skidding along the hallway in his sudden desperation to find them. Flinging open the door, he remembered to holler back over his shoulder, “Thanks for lunch!” as he shucked off his clothes and galloped off into the snow, his bear form bursting back over him as he ran. This time, though, it was more controlled. Focused. Driven by purpose.
Somewhere behind him he thought he heard a delighted laugh, but he barely paid attention.
He was on his way to find his family. Hopefully, it wasn't too late.
5
“Hi, Jessie.” Shane's deep rumble set things aflame inside Jessie and zipped shocked little shivers down her back. Standing there in her little yard, he looked like some wild creature of the woods, all burly and big and just outrageously—manly. He smelled like the snowy forest mixed with spicy, sexy man. Jessie felt suddenly almost dizzy from his scent.
He also seemed slightly out of breath, like he'd been running. Her mind was so boggled she couldn't get out any words. She just gaped at him like a dumb fish or something. His next words about knocked her flat as well.
“I'm sorry. I was a total ass the other day.” The words suddenly fell over themselves, like he'd been thinking them over and over and just needed to get them out. “Can I come in? I want a do-over on meeting my son. And on saying hi to you again. In a much better way than I did before.” His voice dropped on that last sentence, seeming to wrap around Jessie with a sensuality she remembered.
From head to toe, she flushed as she abruptly recalled hours of sweat-slicked eroticism with him. The most amazing, mind blowing, exciting, adventuresome, wild, sweet, fantastic eroticism of her life. Swallowing hard, she managed to nod and finally find her voice.
"Yeah. Of course." Jessie had no idea how she kept her voice casual. She juggled Grant over to one hip and reached forward with her free hand to unlatch the little gate in the fence that encircled her approximately two square yards of snow-covered front lawn. But Shane beat her to it, taking an easy stride forward to reach out his own dark brown denim clad arm to open the gate for them. Murmuring a thank you, Jessie slipped past him toward her door.
Despite herself, she felt another flash of warmth as her body slipped past him at a distance of only about four inches. Wow. She'd forgotten how big he was. How masculine. How incredibly—dammit. Fine. Incredibly arousing. Forcing herself to remember that she held a bouncing little baby in her arms and that this was no time to be letting her thoughts go to some pretty debauched memories, she took the few steps toward the apartment and opened the door.
"So you're already embracing the Deep Hollow way of life and don't bother locking your door, huh?" Shane kicked the snow off his boots just outside her door, then entered the house behind her.
Trying not to focus too much on how much incredibly sexy space he took up in her tiny little apartment, Jessie went into the middle of the main room that basically tripled as living room, office, and dining room. She gently set Grant on the floor so she could begin getting him out of his warm layers.
"Livy told me I didn't have to worry about that here. This place literally didn't even come with the key to the door lock. Everyone's assured me that nothing ever happens here, anyway. That all the shifters in town are better than any state-of-the-art security anyone can buy, anyway."
Shane made a low sound of agreement behind her. She could hear him taking off his jacket, but other than carefully draping it over the back of the chair pushed in behind the two-square-foot table that she jokingly referred to as her impressive dining table, he didn't say anything else. She sensed him watching as she tugged the wiggling Grant out of his snowsuit.
She somehow felt extremely heated at the moment. Which could perhaps be because she was hyperaware of Shane's proximity to her. Of his amazing scent, the one that made her think of the wildest depths of mountain forests, dark mossy caves, and snowstorms whipping with gale force winds of strength.
To cover it up, she said, "Would you like a drink? I've got tea and coffee."
Jessie turned around. Shane's wild hair and dark beard made her want to rake her fingers through it. She wanted to feel it rasp against her skin as he kissed her.
Oh, for pete's sake. Dumb whacked-out hormones. She made herself smile at him. Yet even as she did, something shifted in his expression. Something hungry and possessive crept over his face as he looked back at her. The whiskey-colored depths of his eyes darkened into a bronze sheen as his tongue dipped out against his upper lip for just a second, like he tasted something good there.
As if something divine lingered on his mouth and he wanted more of it.
Jessie realized, as she stood rooted to the carpet, her son's babbling little voice muted beneath the weird roaring in her ears, that the divine something Shane wanted more of was her.
* * *
Shane felt rocked to his core as he stood in Jessie's little apartment. The place was tiny but decorated with such care and attention, filled with such holiday festivity, that he could feel how settled here she already felt. As he stood big and hulking in it, he felt something swelling and bursting with a combination of deep pride, exultation, still some lingering shock, yet most of all an unmistakable desire. Inside him, his bear roared and paced in the strong need to protect. The heavy footfalls of his enormous paws echoed in Shane's mind.
Something wild and hot in him just wanted to claim Jessie for his own, right then and there.
Shane took a deep breath, then released it on a long exhalation. He took another deep breath, followed by another exhalation. After doing that several times, he felt like he might have a handle on the totally crazed emotions running around inside him. He'd spent his whole life attracted to the spiky precipice of danger that beckoned for him to throw himself off the cliff into a free fall, consequences be damned. Most of his life, he willingly answered that call. It led to a lot of hard-core intensity, not to mention sheer stupidity. After the final major blow up just over year ago, the one that brought him up short and informed him in no uncertain terms that life was finite, even for shifters, he found his way back to Deep Hollow and the bear clans of his origins. He'd spent the past year slowly learning how to not go off half-cocked, but instead take his time, assess the situation, and settle into something better and deeper.
Right now, he used every single thing he had learned to keep himself in check. To not completely scare the shit out of Jessie before he could tell her that they were—mates.
It sure as hell didn't help that he easily scented her own sharp arousal, wafting through the air to him like a beckoning harbor that promised a wild mix of both safety and crazy excitement. A deep comfort for which he longed, even as he still wrestled with the reality of the situation.
It was enough to make a bear shake his head and roar, trying to figure it all out.
After another long moment, during which he tried to be as sure as possible that when he spoke he wouldn't have the growl of his bear beneath it, he responded, "No, thanks. I'm fine. I really just want to spend this time talking to you and," he tore his gaze from Jessie's clear blue-gray eyes and looked down with an almost equal fascination at th
e blond little boy playing with his own toes at her feet, "Grant."
Jessie's voice went soft with the gooey sort of adoration he'd heard all the women in town and most of the shifters, whether male or female, adopt every time they talked about a shifter baby. "Sure. He is pretty amazing." She gracefully sank to the floor, sitting crosslegged beside Grant. Shane followed suit, allowing himself to be entranced with the chubby little bundle cooing between them.
Then the kid let out the loudest fart, giggling uncontrollably as he did it.
Jessie rolled her eyes, and even Shane couldn't help his own snort of laughter. At the sound, Grant's little head turned up toward him, his tiny mouth circling into an “oh” of interest as the bright amber-brown eyes stared at him.
“That's your daddy, Grant.” Jessie's voice was soft. Tentative. “He's your daddy.”
Shane felt something bizarre clutching his chest, spreading a different kind of warmth over his body than he felt each time he looked at Jessie. This warmth was like nothing he'd ever experienced before. He instinctively knew that it was the protective pride of being a—father. The same sort of pride a guy had to feel when he reached the top of Mount Everest or something. The tiny prickle of happiness was something he recognized as well. It had taken him a few years to identify that particular emotion. It wasn't something he'd ever known in his life until he got to Deep Hollow. But he could recognize it for what it was.
Happiness and pride in his family. And his sexy as hell mate.
Glancing up at Jessie again, he was able to furtively study her because she now was engrossed in tickling Grant's tiny feet and listening to more of the kid's wild giggles. The curve of her breasts under her shirt as she bent toward their son, the creamy smoothness of her neck, the dark blonde hair that tumbled down her back, the soft, inviting swell of her hips all tugged at him.
Jessie glanced up too quickly for Shane to pull his eyes away and caught him staring at her. Her giggles died in her throat as she saw what had to be an intense expression on his face.