by Edith DuBois
“Love is real, Marina. It’s as real as the air I’m breathing right now, as real as the softness of your skin and the silkiness of your hair. It’s as real as life itself. I’m going to prove it to you, and I’m going to change your mind.”
“Did you not hear a word I said?” she asked in a choked whisper. “I don’t believe in it.”
“You’re wrong. You’re so wrong.” He kissed her forehead. He kissed her nose. He kissed her eyes, and he kissed her lips so softly. “You do believe in love. Only thing is, you could never love without giving all you’ve got. You know it could destroy you, so you’ve convinced yourself it’s not real. You’re trying to protect your heart.” He put his palm against her chest, and she could feel her heart beating against him.
She shook her head and closed her eyes. She couldn’t listen to that kind of talk. She knew it would only end up tearing her up inside. Those kinds of words made her want to believe, but they’d been proven false time and time again. She couldn’t listen.
“Love is real, Marina. It exists. It’s the strongest emotion two humans can share.”
“You’re not even trying to hear me.” She hated that she was about to cry and tried to shove away from him. “Such a typical man. I’m a dumb woman, right. Nothing I say has any value whatsoever. Well, fuck that.”
He was calm, not releasing her with his hands and keeping her captive with his gaze. “You’re putting words in my mouth. I never mentioned anything about being me a man or you being a woman.”
“You didn’t have to,” she said, tripping on the words. “And why are you trying so hard to convince me? What’s in it for you?”
“Everything,” he said, smiling and leaning even closer. “Everything’s in it for me.”
She was breathing hard, trying to resist the spell of his nearing lips. “I could see Jeremiah and maybe Johnny behaving this way, but not you. James, please. Why can’t I have my beliefs and you have yours?”
“You have to ask that question?”
“Yes. What the hell are we doing here?”
“I thought it was apparent.”
“We’re just fooling around, right? Having a good time?” God, he was so close.
“That’s not how I see things, and you know it.”
“I met you last night. That’s too soon. This is too soon.” Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her body toward him and bestowed a fiery kiss on her lips. For a long, sweet moment, her mind went blank as she disappeared into the movement of their lips together. His kiss moved like a gentle tide, pushing and pulling on her in a dance as old as the earth itself.
If only she could let herself fall into it.
“You won’t convince me,” she said, breaking away almost on a sob. He pulled her close again, moving her on top of him, devouring her protests with his delicious, thought-obliterating lips. Marina clutched his shoulders, letting herself give in, just for one small moment. She gave into the temptation of everything he promised with that kiss. She tasted passion and desire, heat and possession. She tasted love, and she tasted forever. One little taste wouldn’t hurt her, she thought, so she let herself have it. She couldn’t resist it. She fed on his kiss and let herself dissolve into its promise.
“I’ve got you,” he said, breaking away and breathing heavily. He pulled back to look at her, his eyes triumphant. “I’ve got you, Marina. I’m holding on to you. I can’t let you go.”
She squirmed in his arms. “Stop it. You’re acting crazy. Even if I did believe in love, nothing would ever work out between us. You’re a fucking bear!”
He chuckled.
“What? What’s so funny? You’re a fucking bear! That’s the truth. It’s not funny at all. It’s sick!”
“It’s not sick, and what you said, it’s only half true.”
Marina let out a bark of laughter despite the panic she felt growing inside of her. “What? Now you’re going to try and convince me you’re not one of those bear-shifter thingies? Let go of me, damn it.”
“No, no. The bear part is true. The other part, not quite yet.” He rolled his body against hers, his cock pressing hard against her thigh. “I’m not fucking yet.”
She knew she should be revolted by his ribald words, but instead, desire flamed up so that she couldn’t think. All she could feel were James’s arms like a metal cage around her and his cock nudging against her. Everything was mixed up in her head. “James, let go of me right now. I need you to let go.”
“No,” he whispered. “If our time is limited, as you seem to believe it is, I can’t waste it on pointless bickering. I want you, Marina. I want every part of you.”
“I can never give you that.”
He rolled over, trapping her beneath his heavy body and moving his lips down to her neck. “Yes, you can. You want to. You will.”
“No, James.” Her protest sounded weak. She knew it, but she couldn’t find the resistance she needed. She turned her face fully toward him and let him claim her lips. His kiss was hot and fevered, hungry and aching for every morsel she could offer up to him to take. “James,” she whispered, desperate for everything yet fearing to surrender.
“I want to make love to you.”
She flinched. “No, James. You want to fuck me.”
“Damn it, Marina.” He grasped her arms and shook her once. “This could be more than that, but you have to let it be more.” He kissed her hard, completely dominating her lips. She fought him. She pushed back hard against his mouth, and she could feel the pain of their passion. Then his lips softened on hers. They became gentle and coaxing, and she yielded. She let him pull her. He moved down her body, trailing kisses so that his face was at her stomach. He put his cheek against her, and she held him for a moment.
But then everything came flooding back. Her doubts, her fears, the deep-down knowledge that if she let things go any further, she would be hurt. She wanted to give in. She recognized the urge.
But she couldn’t. No matter how much she wanted to, she could never avoid the inevitable.
The goodness and the pleasure and the rightness of being with the Greenwoods would fade. It would dim and slowly die. One day she would wake up, and they wouldn’t want her anymore.
She knew she had to stop things before they progressed. Without letting herself think another moment, she sprang out of James’s arms and off the bed. She darted inside the bathroom and slammed the door closed, locking it behind her.
She ran to the toilet, skidded to a halt, and dropped to her knees in front of it, dry heaves wracking through her body.
Holy shit, she’d been so close. She wanted to believe in everything so bad, and she’d been so close.
The thought filled her with dread because she now realized how dangerous the Greenwoods really were. Forget that they wanted to share her. Forget that they were frigging bear-shifter thingies.
If she wasn’t careful, those three men would break her fucking heart.
Chapter Seven
“Hurry your ass up, bro.” Johnny’s voice had a strange edge to it, and Jeremiah was instantly alert. His brother had called while he headed home from the singles nature walk at the Woodland Den. He waved at Susan Pope all bundled up in a scarf and coat, riding her bike through the square.
“What’s up? Is Marina still there?” he asked Johnny.
“Yeah, she’s here all right.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means hurry your ass up.”
“What’s going on?”
There was a long silence on the other end, and then Johnny said, “Actually, could you pick me up some socks at the Ninth Time?”
“Really? That’s all you’re gonna say?”
“Man, you’ll find out when you get here.”
“Fine, but I already stopped by and picked up socks for everyone. I think we’re gonna get snow tonight.” The Ninth Time was Savage Valley’s secondhand shop, and as soon as he’d woken up that morning
, Jeremiah could feel something cold shivering through the air. He couldn’t wait to get home to Marina and snuggle and fondle and burrow down with her. For some reason, he thought she’d need some warm socks, so he’d picked some up. No doubt his two brothers hadn’t waited for him to get back before shacking up with her. He thought maybe Johnny’s sullenness was somehow related to that.
“Hey, you know what?” Jeremiah said before Johnny hung up. “I think the Kinmans were right. I think the lions are trying to get the one-up on us in the mating thing.”
“What makes you say that?”
“When I saw Clayton today at the shop, he had a little of that mating musk smell on him.” Jeremiah crinkled his nose in mild disgust at the thought and then thanked the Shoshone spirits for making him a bear-shifter instead of a lion-shifter. He didn’t want to go around like a skunk, squirting any woman that got him excited with some damn mating musk.
“It was probably left over from the bar last night. You know how we all get when we drink.”
“Clayton Abbott? That grump wasn’t at Catdaddy’s. Besides, you know Anya, who works at the Woodland Den? She was all out of sorts with happiness when I mentioned Clayton’s name.”
“Those bastards,” Johnny muttered.
“No shit.” When Johnny didn’t say anything else, Jeremiah figured he needed a little prompting in the right direction. “So what happened with Marina this afternoon?”
Johnny heaved a long sigh. “She’s sulking in the bathroom.”
“Sulking?”
“Yeah, our asshole older brother had to go and scare her with some shit about love, and now she won’t come out. She’s been in there almost three hours.”
“Isn’t she hungry?”
“We tried coaxing her out with food.”
“Johnny, she’s not some wild animal you have to trick into eating from your hand. Why didn’t you just invite her to lunch?”
“Oh, we didn’t think of that.”
Jeremiah refrained from releasing the expletives that flew into his mind, but he had to really grit his teeth for a moment. He said, “Has she spoken to you at all?”
“Only to tell us that she wouldn’t come out until we left. She said she couldn’t be around us without being tempted to stay, so in order for her to abandon her post, we had to leave the house and go far away for a while.”
Jeremiah chuckled. “I’m guessing something happened before her retreat into the bathroom?”
“Hell yeah, it did. Holy shit, bro, she was perfect. She was a natural between me and James. The way she moved between us… It was like a river or the ocean or like the fucking wind.”
“That’s some real Walt Whitman shit, brother.”
“Shut up. How slow are you driving anyway? You should be here by now.”
“I’m about to pull off Treaty Lane.”
“Goddamn it, hurry up!” With that, Johnny clicked off the line, and Jeremiah shook his head in disbelief. He was gone a few hours, and his brothers had already managed to scare Marina off. It wasn’t exactly the scenario he was hoping to deal with when he got home.
The Jeep bumped along Treaty Lane, and a few minutes later, he pulled into the preservation center’s driveway. He pulled all the way around to the back. He wanted to check on the animals before delving into the mess inside. Right away he noticed that the outdoor animals had been moved inside. In the winter, their indoor habitats could get a little crowded. When he walked in, he was greeted by the sounds of chattering squirrels, barking raccoons, and yapping foxes. He heard the thud of one fawn pawing at its bed and the squawking and whistling of several birds. It was the most beautiful cacophony.
As he refilled water bowls and freshened up a few of the cages, Jeremiah thought about the best way to approach Marina. Obviously, they weren’t going to leave their home so that she could escape without having to deal with them. Hell, he didn’t want her to leave in the first place. Plus, the weather was turning harsh. He didn’t think Marina should be going out in that. He wanted her cozy and in his arms.
With her spitfire personality, he knew he couldn’t just barge in, break down the door, and insist that she quit hiding in the bathroom. She’d probably sock him in the jaw again. No, what she’d probably do was grab one of their cast-iron skillets and deck him upside the head with it.
He looked out the window to see how the sky was looking. It was bleak, and hung over the land like a shabby gray blanket. Snow was surely coming. Something red caught his eye in the forest. It was Reba the fox. She trotted toward the shelter, and even though he knew he shouldn’t, he opened the door for her.
“Reba, Reba, Reba, what am I going to do with you?” Jeremiah asked as she darted inside. Caleb Kinman, Savage Valley’s deputy, had found her almost two years before when she was a baby and immediately brought her to Jeremiah and his brothers. She’d had her first litter that summer and lost them only a day later. She’d shown up at the center, shivering and mewling. Jeremiah couldn’t turn her away, and against his better judgment, he’d let her stay at the center for a week. Now, even though she was technically a wild fox, she would show up every once in a while to say hi. It was always on her terms though. If she started to feel caged in, she would find a way out, even if it meant biting and scratching. That was her nature.
He couldn’t begrudge her a warm bed to hunker down in while the snowstorm hit. Smiling, he watched her trot over to a pillow and blanket, paw at the blanket for a moment, and then curl up on it, tucking her nose into her bushy red tail.
“That’s a good girl,” he said. “You know you’re always welcome.”
A few minutes later, he walked into the main part of the center, moved through the connecting hallway into their house, and then headed to the bedroom, praying that some sort of inspiration would strike him on how to get Marina out of the bathroom. As soon as he walked into the room, he spotted his round-neck resonator leaning up against the wall.
The guitar was an old family heirloom from the thirties. It was cut of a deep mahogany wood and had a burnished nickel-silver panel under the strings, which made it sound like a cross between a banjo and an acoustic guitar when he played it. It had that little bit of twang. There was a large scratch on the bottom near the neck. That was what made him dig the guitar out of the attic in the first place. He’d been scrounging around as a boy and pulled the resonator out of an old chest. The mark on the guitar matched the one on his face, and he’d known then that he was gonna learn how to play it and play it damn good, too.
After picking up the resonator and settling onto the edge of the bed facing the bathroom door, he started plucking one of his favorite tunes, “Bear Creek Blues.” The song had a little jounce to it, and it got his fingers nice and warmed up. When he finished, he noticed Johnny and James standing in the doorway. James sent him a questioning look, and Jeremiah held up a finger and then made a shooing gesture to his brothers.
Johnny flipped him off, but James tugged his younger brother out of the doorway, and Jeremiah had the room to himself. For a while at least.
He knew if anything could get Marina out of the bathroom, it was music. He’d seen her onstage at Catdaddy’s, seen the way her whole being became attuned to her songs. She wouldn’t resist the lure of his guitar and his voice. So he didn’t say anything to her, didn’t try to reason with her through the door, just went straight into another song called “The Birds Were Singing of You.”
He’d chosen that song in particular for its lyrics. It was a traditional folk song made famous by the Carter Family singers, and he sang nice and loud for her, letting his deep, cavernous voice fill the room. “I heard the birds a-singing out among the trees and views.” His fingers flew over the strings as he plucked and picked along. “And all the birds, my darling, were singing”—he let a slight waver roll through his voice—“were singing of you.”
He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard some rustling sounds coming from the bathroom. He kept going, h
oping she’d poke her head out before the end of the song. “I think of you in the daytime.” Was the doorknob turning? “I dream of you by night.” There was definitely a crack of light shooting out from the edge of the door now. “I wake and wish you was here, love.” Marina flung the door open and stood in the doorway, hands on her hips and lips in full pout mode. “And tears are blinding my sight.”
“Please, for goodness’ sake, stop that god-awful howling, Jeremiah.”
He grinned wide at her but kept playing the song, changing up the lyrics as he went along. “Marina, I’m so glad to see you. Your absence made me blue. Marina, you’ve got me thinking, got me thinking only of you.” He held the last note out with dramatic flair.
Rolling her eyes, she grabbed a hand towel from the bathroom and threw it in his face. “Please. No more.”
“What? You don’t like my serenade?”
She rolled her eyes. “You sound like a sad hound dog.” He noticed that she carefully avoided mentioning what had happened earlier, and he got the feeling that if he tried to push the issue, she’d just retreat back into the bathroom. So he let it be and continued with his teasing.
“Ma’am,” he said, gasping with mock dismay. “I am affronted by your cavalier dismissal of my affections.”
“If that warbling was supposed to be a representation of your affections, count me out. I’ll have none of it.”
“And you can do better?”
“Much better.”
“Prove it.” He held the guitar out to her, neck first, with a wide, challenging grin. Rolling her eyes, she crossed the room and snatched the guitar from his hands. “Watch it, Miss Sassy. Don’t you dare get a scratch on Abednego.”
She snorted. “Abednego?”
“Yeah.”
“You named your guitar Abednego?”
“No,” he said, trying to snatch the guitar back from her.