Bachelor Bear

by Elsa Jade

  Yeah, fair was fair.

  Chapter 4

  He hadn’t actually expected Gin to show up for his garden club, and something about her watchful gaze made him twitch like a cat’s tail, even though he was a big, strong bear and didn’t have much of a tail in either of his shapes. He showed the club ladies how to position the plants with the tallest in back to the shortest in front so everyone had access to sunlight.

  “Just like picture day for the kids at school,” Marcia said. Which made him think about the natural outcome of choosing a mate—having cubs—and he felt a little hotter than even the Four Corners summer sun could explain. Gin gave him a knowing smirk as if she could read his mind. Could witches do that? He hoped not, or he’d be a frog for sure. Frogs didn’t have tails either, at least not once they weren’t tadpoles anymore.

  But he was a good bear, and he deserved his day in the sun like everyone else in Angels Rest. Never mind that he was suddenly intrigued by moon-goddess pale skin and hair as red as midnight secrets.

  To his not-surprise, the unexpected addition of frozen daiquiris to his garden club resulted in more giggling than gardening. Which was fine. It gave him a chance to observe the women in their natural, uninhibited state.

  Except for Gin, of course, who semi-politely refused a cup and angled her almost-pointy black hat (she gave him a hard time about his Bear Buns Bakery shirt while she was wearing a witch’s hat?) away from the others. Did she ever let down that briar-prickly wall?

  Not interested in walls, he reminded himself. He was here to make a connection with someone who wanted him, not win over a wary witch.

  Even though bears were very good at climbing trees and walls and whatnot.

  While Marcia and her chamber friend discussed whether they could convince the two-inch herb starts to grow big enough to spell out Angels Rest, he showed Dena Begay the heirloom tobacco plants he’d special ordered through Sunday Landscaping.

  The coyote shifter, who’d recently mated one of the Domingo brothers who owned the landscaping company, stroked her fingertip across the gray-green leaf. “I didn’t even know you could still get these. I remember them from my grandmother’s garden.”

  He grimaced. “I’m sorry. Your pack has been here a long time. I should’ve consulted you before I started the club.”

  Dena flashed him a bright white smile of the coyote kind. “No worries, but I have some aunties who’d love to harvest in the fall, maybe get some seeds for next year.” Her smile tilted toward the wicked. “Although a few of them may be more interested in a husband than an herb.”

  And he’d thought one overly observant red witch was bad.

  The trickster coyote, still honeymooning with her wolf mate, grinned at him as if he were a particularly tasty rabbit. Hopefully she’d think the red in his face was nothing more than heatstroke. “As you say, we’re just planting some seeds here,” he said nonchalantly. “We’ll see what pops up.”

  She chuckled. “Well, you just let me know if you’re tired of things popping up and not having anyone around to help you yank out the weeds.”

  He winced. “I don’t know about yanking…”

  She patted his shoulder. “I’ll tell my aunties you’re willing to learn.”

  Probably, if he was so intent on finding a wife, he should head north, back where he was born, into wilder lands where he’d have more options among the un-mated bear shifter females. But he loved Angels Rest and couldn’t see himself anyplace else, like a plant that had set down roots too deep to let go. He let his gaze track across the small downtown park, past the glimpse of Main Street, up toward Mesa Diablo looming over town. Yeah, there was just something about this place…

  “Or maybe you’ve already found someone to jerk your twig,” Dena murmured.

  He realized his gaze had settled on Gin again, and he arrowed his attention back to the coyote female. “Gotta wait to see what blooms,” he hedged.

  He watched as the ladies laughed their way through the thermos of daiquiris and settled the plants and a few seeds for late-season harvest. He knew most of the women, of course—with the exception of the Wick sisters, new blood wasn’t exactly common in the Four Corners—but after the trouble of the last few years between the bear clan and the rest of the shifter community, he and his cousins had mostly kept to themselves. It was nice to garden with some of the prettiest flowers in Angels Rest.

  But even as he settled happily into the evening work, his gaze kept going back to Gin. In her short-skirted black tank top dress, she was like some hothouse orchid, velvety pale and exotic in this high desert land. She would be a terrible choice for a mate, and not just because she was a witch. But he liked the way she handled the starts and the seeds, ignoring the jewel-tone gardening gloves he’d brought along in favor of thrusting her bare fingers into the dirt. She settled the roots exactly as he explained, though she gave the hidden seeds an encouraging and totally unnecessary pat over the turned soil before she rose smoothly to her feet.

  “All done here,” she announced.

  A spurt of disappointment twinged through him. Why had she even come if she just wanted to hurry up and leave? Then he wanted to smack himself. Her sister had mentioned that she had things to learn; he was the one here under false pretenses. Marcia poured the last of the daiquiris as the other women gathered around him to contemplate the garden beds.

  “This looks great,” he said sincerely. “I know it doesn’t seem like much yet, but that’s how gardens grow.”

  Marcia linked her elbow through her chamber friend’s arm. “We’re going to go do our homework at Gypsy’s,” she said. “If anyone wants to join us.” She eyed Ben meaningfully.

  “I need to give these babies a good watering,” he said. “Next time we’ll talk about irrigation management techniques.”

  As the ladies drifted off—good thing Angels Rest was small enough that they’d all walked rather than driving, considering how big that thermos of daiquiris had been—Ben ran a hose from the municipal line to their new garden. He waved to the last of the stragglers as he dampened the earth, releasing the rich scent of future growth, but when he turned, he found Gin crouched behind one of the raised beds. “Hey, I didn’t see you there. Good thing I didn’t spray all over you.”

  She snorted as she rose to her feet, dusting her palms together. “Give me some of that hose.” She held out her cupped hands in demand.

  They were still talking about the garden hose, right?

  Even as eager parts of his body twitched in anticipation, he directed the stream of water over her dirty fingers.

  “I think you should choose Marcia.”

  Distracted as he was watching her stroke her hands—she had big hands for her frame, strong, long fingers, pale skin gleaming through the mud—he only repeated dumbly, “Choose her?”

  “For your mate.”

  The flat, sharp syllable in her mouth made him flinch. “It’s not like that.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “It’s not just that,” he amended, wondering if he’d sunburned the back of his neck. It sure felt like he’d sunburned the back of his neck. Most of his body, actually. “And we’ll get a community garden out of it anyway.”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “Hey, it’s no worse than the way witches do it.”

  He frowned, the comparison rankling. Mac had explained how witches never took a life-long partner. Instead they chose their one-time mates from quality sperm donors and never saw them again. At the time, Mac had been rather outraged to discover Brandy had kept his son a secret from him. But considering how witches had been treated through the centuries, Ben sort of understood. Heck, hadn’t shifters done the same? They’d always kept themselves to themselves. Which was one of the reasons he was lonely.

  Maybe his wary witch wasn’t the only one with walls.

  “After our…discussion at your aunt’s house, I realized I need to find a mate.” He grimaced. “I don’t want to turn rogue and end up taking a mate by bite.”r />
  “Instead you’ll use your big, dumb dimple,” she muttered.

  He tilted his head. “What?”

  She pulled her hands away, and he redirected the water back to the new plantings.

  For the first time with her, he let an edge creep into his voice. “There are teeth behind most smiles,” he told her. “Whether you see them or not.”

  She flicked her hands dry in a dismissive gesture, pivoting to survey the garden. “Do the other women know what you are?”

  “Some of them.” He thought of Dena’s knowing coyote grin. “Some of them not. But they are all natives of the only town in the shadow of Mesa Diablo. Even if they aren’t shifters themselves, all of them have experienced the unusual.”

  “There’s unusual, and then there’s…” Gin made another, more indecipherable wiggle with one hand.

  Since he didn’t turn into a frog, he assumed it wasn’t a magical gesture. “Something wrong with that?”

  “Nah. Being normal was always Brandy’s thing,” she informed him. “I liked being different.”

  He eyed her, standing there, all moonlight and blackness and open flame in a high desert land where the sun did all the burning. “Yeah. I could’ve guessed.”

  Actually, the desert had beautiful, wild nights for those who stayed awake.

  She flicked her hands once more, shedding the last of the water and her interest in his assessment. “I stayed behind because I have a question about this plant. The flower looks like a rose, but not.”

  Shutting off the water, he followed her around to the raised bed until he saw the object of her interest. “Ah. It is a rose. But it came from a witch’s broom.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Are you being funny?”

  “Not to someone who could turn me into a frog.”

  She scowled. “I know what a rose looks like. This is all…weird.”

  He smirked. “I thought you said you liked weird.”

  She gave him a steady look. “I really don’t think a frog would do well out in this desert.”

  With a whoa-take-it-easy gesture, he hunkered down next to the plant. “A rose by any other name… Once upon a time, a single bud on an otherwise normal wild rose took a turn for the really wild—and became a witch’s broom. Sometimes buds are stressed, damaged, or infested by insects or fungi that cause a radical change in the growth pattern. Usually the broom is dwarfed and sometimes twisted in strange ways, and it can weaken or even kill a plant. But sometimes, a genetic mutation to that one bud spontaneously causes the broom. If it’s a stable mutation, a cutting can grow or be grafted into an entirely new cultivar.” Gently he lifted aside the curled silvery leaves to show her the swollen knot where edges of bark had overlapped. “Like this. Rosa woodsii ‘Mesa Diablo’.”

  “Wow.”

  The single word sent another hot flush of embarrassment down the back of his neck. Sometimes he got too excited about plants.

  But then she dropped to her knees beside him and reached out to stroke one of the five petals on the single tiny bloom. “Mesa Diablo. You mean this was created—or discovered, I guess—here?”

  “Yeah.” He cleared his throat, averting his gaze from her bare thigh exposed by the short skirt. “I found it, actually.”

  She swiveled her head to look at him. “You?”

  From this close, her disbelieving huff feathered his hair, and he huffed back. “Why not me?”

  “You’re a bro bear.”

  Was that what she thought of him? He sat back on his heels, affronted. “Men can like flowers too, you know. And bears eat rosehips.”

  “If you say so.” She pursed her lips. “But this is just so…”

  Keeping silent, he refused to fill in the gap.

  “Beautiful,” she admitted at last on a slow exhale. “The way the stems and leaves twist, and the thorns go every which way.”

  “You would like that part,” he muttered. But gratification at the note of wonder in her voice made him grin.

  “And the flower is just stunning.” She caressed the silky blossom where the white inner petals gave way to a sweep of bold, bright red, like flame erupting from snow—an unusual pattern in a wild rose that tended toward a cheerful but unvarying bubble gum pink.

  Of course the Mesa Diablo rose would be different.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said.

  “And you won’t again, not for awhile. This is the only existing specimen.”

  She snatched her hand back faster than if one of the thorns had pricked her. “The only one? Shouldn’t it be in a hot house or something?”

  “It wouldn’t be happy all locked up.” He carefully/casually bumped her shoulder with his as he leaned forward to pet the rose around the thorns. “Some plants like to be touched. Tomatoes are more productive when they are handled. Peas like to be talked to. And roses do best with extra love.”

  She made a sound he couldn’t interpret. “Not everything likes to be manhandled and pawed.”

  Okay, that sounded like a challenge to him. If Gin Wick meant she didn’t like to be touched, he had no doubt she’d say exactly that.

  His bear, which had been watchful but quiet during his presentation, whuffled softly, more than willing to show her its paws if she wasn’t interested in a mere man.

  Ben forced himself to focus on the flower. “Blooming here in the middle of Angels Rest, the Mesa Diablo rose will have a chance to shine. By the time winter comes, it’ll be well established, and next spring, maybe there’ll be enough to take more cuttings.” He smiled at her. “Then I’ll have baby diablo roses.”

  Her sidelong glance danced over his face, more lightly than if she were touching thorns. “I bet you’re good with babies.”

  Something shivered between them, an invisible swirl of heat and light and awareness like the first stirrings of a dust devil. It tightened around him, tilting him toward her.

  From whuffle to rumble, his bear strained at his vigilant hold. He hadn’t lied to her that the beast ate rosehips, but the hunger that churned in him now had nothing to do with anything so simple as rich venison steaks or fresh berry cobbler. His jaw clenched hard, though there was nothing to bite on, and for a moment, he would’ve sworn his canines had descended. A quick, surreptitious swipe of his tongue along the front line of his teeth reassured him, but the bear stirred impatiently under his skin, testing him. Keen to try her.

  As if in echo of his hidden bite, Gin’s tongue flicked out, moistening her lips. He throttled a groan at the sight of pink like the rose’s inner petals. The fall out of her tree hadn’t killed him, but that glimpse of her tongue might do it.

  She glanced down again, once more reaching out to touch the rose. “How would you feel…” she asked slowly.

  Oh, he’d feel. He was feeling so much. He imagined it would feel silky but strong, her mouth under his, like the firm curve of an unfurled rosebud. And maybe she’d let him feel more, all those other curves he’d seen when he was peeping through her bedroom window. “Yes?” he urged, a little too eagerly.

  “If I wanted…”

  Yes! He wanted too. She must feel his wanting, feel the beast’s hunger. Even through her prickly wall, she must feel this burgeoning connection between them.

  “Want,” he urged.

  “To ask you…”

  “Anything.” He couldn’t believe his quest to find a mate was coming along so easily.

  “For one of your roses,” she finished.

  “A rose,” he repeated dumbly.

  “Just the one,” she added. “If it’s too much to ask—”

  His fingers curled at a mental flash of the image of the bear’s claws tearing the rare plant from the ground, offering her the gift as clumps of mud fell at her feet. The beast didn’t go for half measures.

  Her glance dipped to his inadvertent gesture. “Or never mind—”

  “Why do you want it?”

  Her lips pursed from one side to the other. “I’m working on a spell,” she said
with a hint of reluctance in her voice. “A potion, actually. You might call it my witch thesis. I have to present my study to the circle in order to complete my ordination. And I think this flower could be an interesting footnote.”

  As a shifter, he’d always been part of a secret society, but Gin’s world was even stranger. This peek inside intrigued him. “What kind of spell?”

  She breathed out silently and for a moment he thought she might decline to tell him. But then she settled her hands on her knees and sat back. “Aunt Tilda raised us in the traditions of her circle. There are many traditions, and ours was…well, I guess you could think of it sorta like Disney fairy godmothers.”

  “Bippity boppity boo,” he murmured. When she gave him a look, he shrugged. “For obvious reasons, I always liked talking animals in my cartoons.”

  “We don’t really grant wishes, but natural magics, positive energy, and harmonious balance are fundamentals of the circle’s teachings.” She paused. “But there’s another side.”

  “Why did I sense a but coming?” He quirked one eyebrow. “So you’re a wicked witch.”

  She glowered back. “The night isn’t evil just because the sun isn’t shining right on you. Inward focus isn’t automatically selfish. And the shadow circle—that’s where I’m seeking my ordination—isn’t wicked.”

  He flashed her a grin. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

  Her huff was louder this time. “As a gardener, you should know a plant isn’t just photosynthesizing leaves and showy flowers. What’s going on underground is equally important. The shadow circle compares to the roots and the bedrock underneath.”

  “I think I get you.” He wished he might keep her talking all night. She practically glowed—a subtle night-light glow, sure—when she waxed poetic on her magic.

  “Originally, the circles and their shadows existed in harmony,” she continued, just as he’d hoped. “But some shadows attracted the worst sorts of attention—from the Malleus Maleficarum condemning witches in Europe to the Salem witch trials, and even some really crappy B movies—so the circles forbid the alternative training. Only a few shadow followers survived.”