by Tasha Black
“I agree,” he said simply.
“Then it’s settled,” she said. “Are you calling them or am I?”
“I’ll deal with them,” he said immediately. He had no intention of letting Angela get in those boys’ crosshairs. She wasn’t wrong about them being immature, from a behavior standpoint. Physically, Sam and Clyde Rattle were nothing short of enormous.
“That’s nice of you,” she said.
But she didn’t get up and rush off like she normally did.
“Something on your mind?” he asked.
She bit her lip and leaned forward in her chair.
“Max, I was wondering if you might like to have a drink with me this evening,” she said at last.
Shit.
He observed his lifelong friend.
Impartially, he knew she was beautiful - kind eyes, long pretty hair, athletic figure.
But Max had never seen her that way.
He wished he could.
Angela was the total package. She would be the perfect mate, and he knew instinctively that she would be okay with the shifter piece. He could pretend he didn’t know why he wasn’t into her, but that wasn’t true. He knew exactly why.
Sarah Bennett.
“Never mind,” she said, getting up quickly. “I had no intention of making you uncomfortable. I apologize.”
“Angela, I…” he had no idea what to say. “I respect you and I think you’re beautiful. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”
“Thank you, Max,” she replied. “And thank you for not saying yes when you don’t feel the same. Honesty between friends means everything.”
He swallowed back the lump in his throat.
“Let’s pretend we never had this conversation, ok?” she asked and winked at him.
“Sure,” he managed.
She left the room, closing the door gently behind her.
Max lowered his head into his hands.
He wished more than anything that he could forget Sarah Bennett, but the more he tried to push her out of his mind, the more he found it impossible to think of anything, or anyone else.
At the thought of Sarah, the bear inside him perked up, flashing him an unhelpful image of the petite, curvy woman with the sparkly green eyes and floating him a remembered whiff of her enchanting scent.
Sarah had come out to buy a sizable chunk of land. And she’d met with Max, since his logging outfit was near the parcel she wanted.
More and more rich people had started doing that since the stock market crash. They bought land since it couldn’t disappear on them. And they met with loggers first, because they’d heard that loggers would take advantage of them at harvest time if they weren’t careful.
Unfortunately, not all of them realized that the loggers they’d met with might be dead and buried by the time the trees were ready to be cut.
Sarah was smarter than that, though. She’d engaged him in a deep conversation about where he thought the logging industry was going, and who was likely to be around and working when the time came for her trees.
She made him feel smart - hanging on his words, taking notes as if he were a college professor instead of a glorified lumberjack.
And there was something else between them too, from the very first moment, something that he couldn’t find the words for.
Sarah smelled like rain and tasted like heaven that night he’d been brave, or crazy, enough to make his move.
But she’d disappeared the next day without so much as a goodbye.
And now he probably wouldn’t see her again until the trees on her land were mature.
By his calculations they might both be nearing retirement by then.
Whatever his own feelings about Sarah, it was clearly just a one-night stand for her. He was a logger, and she was some kind of tech inventor, from what his furtive internet search had told him. It wouldn’t make sense for her to be interested in anything but his work-hardened body and maybe his expertise in this one small area.
If only his bear hadn’t latched onto her, he could get over that one night stand, he knew it.
Then he could marry a good woman like Angela, and have a family of his own with someone who actually cared about him.
If only he could forget Sarah Bennett.
But the bear had made his choice.
4
Sarah
Sarah sat at the kitchen island of the Pennsylvania farmhouse drinking a cup of the best coffee she’d ever tasted and looking out at the sycamores that lined the path to the red octagonal barn between the house and the fields beyond.
Though the world seemed to be coming down around her ears, Sarah had felt at peace from the moment she’d pulled up at Harkness Farms with her sister Mandy and baby Orson in tow. The kids who lived there had convened around the car to greet them politely. And they brought the three of them in to see Mom, no questions asked.
Kate Harkness stood opposite her with Orson tucked happily in the crook of her left arm as if he had grown there - an apple on this tree of a woman.
Kate’s sun-tanned skin spoke of hours spent in the orchard. Her twinkly blue eyes, long braid, and even her floury apron gave her appearance a cozy timelessness.
Sarah could understand how generations of fostered shifter children had felt comfortable with her immediately.
Shifter.
The word felt strange to her, though she’d repeated it to herself again and again since her conversation with Derek. A conversation where after he’d stopped being a giant bear, he had explained that shifters were real, that Orson wasn’t alone. And that Derek’s foster mom, Kate, could help.
“Well, bear or no bear, he’s obviously a very special boy,” Kate said firmly.
Sarah smiled. Kate wasn’t going to find any argument with her on that point.
“May I ask if his father is a shifter?” Kate asked, turning to grab another mug from the cupboard.
Sarah was grateful for the moment’s respite to decide what to say.
On the one hand, it didn’t do much to improve her character in Kate’s eyes to admit to having had a one night stand.
On the other, this woman could help Orson. The least Sarah could offer her was honesty.
“I, um, don’t have a relationship with his father,” she offered.
As she said it, she couldn’t help the flash of memory that filled her mind…
A magical walk in the woods, a drink at a bar, a night in Max’s strong arms. His hands on her, feeling like home…
“He doesn’t even know about Orson,” she continued, the words spilling out now. “It was just one night. I went down to North Carolina to invest in some timberland, and he owned a logging outfit there—”
There was a terrific crash as Kate dropped an earthenware mug into the sink.
“Gracious, how clumsy of me,” Kate declared.
Orson chuckled.
“Everything okay?” Mandy asked, poking her head in the kitchen door.
“It’s fine,” Sarah told her sister. “I was just explaining to Kate about Orson’s dad, and I think I kind of shocked her.”
“Goodness no, child,” Kate scolded her. “Do you think I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be young?”
Sarah couldn’t help grinning.
“Now,” Kate said, “as I see it, you’ve got a very special boy here - a boy who has a heritage he may want to know more about one day.”
“That’s what I said,” Mandy agreed.
“So you’re saying I should reach out to his father?” Sarah asked.
A tingle of excitement went up her spine, even as her mind began to fret about what it always did when thinking of Max.
What if he tried to take Orson away?
Or - somehow just as horrifying - what if he didn’t even care?
“Did he seem like a good man?” Kate asked.
“Yes,” Sarah said, without thinking about it.
“Go find him,” Kate said. “Go now. Leave Orson with me, I’ll spoil h
im like a grandchild.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that,” Sarah said immediately.
“Of course you can,” Mandy said. “I’ll stay too. He’ll have Kate and his auntie to spoil him.”
Sarah began to protest, but she knew they were going to prevail.
It would be easier to test the waters with Max without letting him know about Orson right away. And, once she told him, any serious conversation was sure to be more productive without a baby on her hip.
It was a risk, but her will to keep Orson all to herself was not as great as her will to do what was best for him.
If his father could help him, then she had to go to his father.
5
Max
Max paced his office.
He’d just gotten off the phone with Sam Rattle.
Sam and his brother Clyde were none too pleased to hear that Oberon Logging was not interested in doing their harvesting. The two had all but said they were planning to drag Max’s good name through the mud around town.
Max hoped that any listeners would consider the source.
He stepped through a rectangle of moonlight on the floor and felt a shiver of recognition.
The bear was awakening in his head. He’d been pawing around more often lately, snuffling like he was looking for an opening in Max’s control.
Suddenly he thought of the letter again.
* * *
The coming moon is the 300th since a staying spell was put on your bear to help curb your shifting until you were old enough to control it…
* * *
His parents always told him he probably wouldn’t begin to actually shift until his late twenties. He’d never thought to ask why.
The room suddenly felt warm.
Max loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. He didn’t often dress formally, but today he’d had a big meeting with potential clients and had to dress the part.
He was deciding between unbuttoning a second button and just going upstairs to change when the bear stilled in his head, drawing his attention to the hallway outside his office.
Someone was there.
A familiar scent tickled his nose just before the knock on the door.
“Come in,” he called out.
The door swung open and there she was.
Sarah Bennett…
It had been a long year, but she gazed up at him with the same luminous emerald eyes. Her pert body released waves of rainy scent. If anything, she was a bit curvier than last time - mouthwateringly curvy.
The bear leaped in his chest, cavorted and preened before her.
Max himself wanted to embrace her, tell her how glad he was to see her, beg her never to leave again.
But he fought for control.
“Miss Bennett,” he managed, through a tensed jaw. “I didn’t expect to see you for another twenty years at least.”
She recoiled slightly as if he had slapped her.
The bear roared with frustration.
Sarah pursed her lips and stepped forward again, feet slightly apart as if she were about to punch him.
“I’m here because I understand you’ve sold off half your company,” she retorted. “I thought I had met with the owner of Oberon Logging last year, but I see I’ll have to begin my work all over again.”
“I sold a forty percent share of my company to a friend,” he said, seething inside. “I still control the business.”
“For now,” Sarah said coolly. “May I have the contact for your friend?”
“You may not,” Max replied. “I won’t have her disturbed in the evening by someone who isn’t a client yet.”
“When will she be available for a conversation with a potential customer?” Sarah purred.
When hell freezes over.
“If you have any questions you can run them by me,” he said. “I’ll be sure to get back to you once I confer with Angela.”
“I’ll come back in the morning to see her myself,” she replied, turning on her heel.
“Why are you really here?” he asked.
She paused long enough for him to hope she might answer.
Then her cell phone rang, breaking the silence.
Sarah marched out of the room and down the hallway.
Sarah, wait, please, he begged her in his mind.
But he suspected that running after her now would only make things worse.
She would be back tomorrow, she had said as much. He would find a way to patch things up with her when they had both cooled off a little.
The bear chuffed impatiently in his head, straining against the confines of his mind.
Down, boy. We’ll talk to her tomorrow.
The bear moaned. He had no interest in talking. He wanted only to claim their beautiful mate. His human side would be allowed to chatter endlessly with her if he wanted, once she was safely theirs.
That’s not how it works.
6
Sarah
Sarah walked briskly, begging herself not to cry.
She reached the front door to the office, and answered her ringing phone as she stepped outside.
“Hello?”
“Sarah, are you okay?” Mandy asked.
“Yes, I’m fine,” she replied, pausing to gather herself.
Oberon Logging was housed in an old Arts & Crafts bungalow with a porch overlooking the creek and the valley below.
The view was exquisite. A pair of well-used rocking chairs set up on the porch told her Max felt the same. She imagined sitting in one of the chairs with Orson in his sling, looking out over the scenic vista.
Somehow, the panorama of fall beauty only made things worse.
Her eyes began to water, and she tripped down the steps out to the gravel lot where her rental car waited.
“You don’t sound fine,” Mandy said. “Did you talk to him yet?”
“Oh, I talked to him,” Sarah said, opening the car door and sliding in.
“Well, how did it go?” Mandy asked. “What did he say?”
“I, um, I didn’t tell him about Orson,” she admitted.
“What?” Mandy asked.
The phone switched to Bluetooth and Mandy’s last question echoed accusingly through the car’s speaker system.
Sarah turned down the volume and pulled out of the parking lot.
“I just didn’t have the heart,” she sighed. “I’m going back in the morning. But I don’t think I’ll tell him then either.”
“Why not?”
“He was kind of a jerk,” she said.
“Oh,” Mandy said, sounding taken aback. “I thought you really liked him.”
“I did,” Sarah replied. “I guess it has been a whole year. He was really cold.”
There was a moment of silence so long she almost wondered if the call had dropped.
“Maybe you should come back now,” Mandy suggested. “There’s no point in seeing him again if you’re not going to tell him”
“No, I’m exhausted,” Sarah said. “It was a nine hour drive. I need sleep. And besides, I really do need to meet with him at the office tomorrow. He took a partner, and I want to meet with her in person, since I’ll need both of them when the trees are mature.”
“Hmm,” Mandy replied.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing,” her sister said. “Just… do you think the fact that the new partner’s a she has anything to do with him being cold?”
The silent roar of jealousy in Sarah’s chest took her breath away.
“Sarah?”
“Who knows?” she replied quickly, thinking of the pair of rockers on the porch in a different light. “I should go now, since I’m driving, but I’ll call back when I get to the hotel so I can talk to Orson. Is he doing okay?”
“I hate to tell you this, but he’s happy as a clam,” Mandy admitted. “I’m sure he misses you, but between Kate and the kids and his Aunt Mandy cuddling and playing with him, he really doesn’t have time to pine.”
; Relief flooded Sarah’s body.
“Oh, good,” she said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“If things turn around just take your time,” Mandy said. “I planned a week out here when you said you needed me.”
“Have I told you lately that you’re the best sister ever?” Sarah asked.
“Yes, but it never hurts to have it printed on a t-shirt,” Mandy teased. “Get some sleep. And don’t worry too much about that guy. Orson’s got everything he needs with you.”
They signed off, and Sarah was alone in the car with her thoughts.
The road wound around the hillsides, occasionally opening onto a spectacular view of the valley.
It was hard not to be reminded of her trip here last year.
The bright foliage through the windshield gave way to the memory of the crisp woods and Max beside her.
She’d been ridiculously attracted to him from the moment she’d stepped into his office.
By the time he answered her questions about the industry she had scooted her chair close enough to practically see her reflection in his dark eyes.
When he stood to shake her hand, the scent of the forest tickled her nose, and his hand sent a tingle of awareness down to her toes.
“Would you like me to walk the timberland with you, Miss Bennett?” he asked, just as she was turning to go.
“It’s Sarah, please,” she’d said. “And yes, I’d love that.”
They spent the day hiking the trees she was about to buy.
Sarah considered herself the outdoorsy type, but Max didn’t even have to stop and consider his wanderings, he clearly knew the ridges and sky outside Asheville like his own backyard.
When evening came, they’d gone to a small pub where he’d plied her with hard cider until she finally agreed to dance with him.
And after they walked back to his office, he invited her in.