Bears of Burden: STERLING

by Candace Ayers

  Wyatt laughed. “Hell, I’ll skip the swimming and just head over with you.”

  I forced a grin and fit my baseball cap on my head. “Ya’ll have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  Hutch caught my arm and raised his eyebrow. “You okay? We still need to talk.”

  I shrugged his hand off and felt the strain in my grin. “I’m good, brother. I’ll be at the shop in the morning. The car needs some adjusting before the race tomorrow night.”

  I slipped away and headed out to my truck. I backed out of the lot and revved the engine before speeding off towards home. On the outskirts of town, my house sat near the top of a relatively small mountain, overlooking the creek that ran through town.

  It was a dark, starless night, and all I could see were shadows as I stripped out of my clothes and left them in a pile on my back porch. No matter, I knew the land like the back of my hand. I shifted and ran down the hill splashing into the full, cold water. I dunked my head and came up with a big splash. My mind strayed, as it usually did, to Ophelia.

  Thinking of her seemed to materialize her scent out of thin air. It flooded my senses until my bear growled for her, hungry for more than sweets for a change. I listened, but there was nothing but the sound of the creek running and the crickets singing. I was just haunted by her scent.

  I tried to distract myself by catching fish, but nothing worked. Having a mate, and knowing that she was nearby but didn’t want anything to do with me, left me with a bone-deep empty ache that pervaded every aspect of my life. It was worse than any pain I could imagined. A year earlier, I would’ve sworn that finding a mate would be fantastic. Settling down, having someone to wake up to, maybe little cubbies running around. I was wrong. Turns out that for me it meant one more person to disappoint. Hah! Not even to disappoint. I wasn’t even being given the chance to disappoint. What I’d give to have her care enough to find me disappointing.

  Surrounded day in and day out by my closest friends, as I watched them settling down, one by one, felt like the turning of a knife in my heart. My chest ached whenever I saw them with their mates, and I hated the jealousy I felt. I wanted to be happy for them. They deserved their happy endings. Yet, jealousy ate me alive.

  The thought of spending the rest of my life carrying around this ache was a very real and constant fear. I’d spent more than a few nights staring at my ceiling, consumed with anxiety-driven insomnia as I contemplated how I wanted to shower Ophelia with compliments, with kindness, with gifts, with love. But, I didn’t even know how to begin. It was all so fucked up. I’d messed up so badly without even trying.

  My carefree, youthful, okay—slime ball ways had caught up with me big time. I didn’t think of them as slimy until I started seeing myself through Ophelia’s eyes. I still put on a show for the sake of hiding my pain, but the thought of bringing a woman home who wasn’t her made my skin crawl.

  I climbed out of the creek and flopped over onto the bank. I hadn’t meant to make such a mess of things. I didn’t even know I had a mate when I’d fucked up. The kicker was, at the time, I hadn’t considered myself doing anything wrong. Sure, it was a dick move, but Kyle Barns was truly an asshole. Fuck, I’d considered myself doing the whole town a favor by hitting him below the belt.

  Sleeping with his fiancée, uh, ex-fiancée, a few days before their wedding was to be had completely blown up in my face. Kyle was the only family Ophelia had left, and the two of them were tight. Even though he was a giant dick stain, she loved him and I’d managed to humiliate him if front of all of Burden. Who knew his little sister was my mate? Before I’d even found out Ophelia was the one for me, I’d managed to not only alienate her, but also convince her that I was the lowest bear in the entire lone star state.

  Tossing a furry arm over my eyes, I groaned. Even as a bear, the sound was clearly a pained one. I needed her to be happy. I wanted her more than anything. I wanted to make her happy, but I’d fucked it all up. By being me.

  CHAPTER 3: Ophelia

  The Burden Gazette was a two-page paper that could barely scrape together stories enough to fill front and back of its pages. In a town the size of Burden, a reporter had a hard time fabricating enough news to warrant a paper, but one of the old-timers insisted on keeping it going, and for that, I was thankful.

  It wasn’t the exciting journalism career track I’d been on in Nashville, and it certainly wasn’t anything worthy of adding to my resume, but it was a job. Karen, an old hippie throw-back of a woman, the one who had insisted on keeping the newspaper alive, hired me straight away after I’d wandered into the tiny office to talk to her. She’d been doing all the research and writing herself and she was relieved to be offered a break.

  I was paid a penny a word, and on a good week, I’d make up to a hundred and fifty dollars. Normally, though, I made closer to a hundred. It was a mere fraction of what I had made in Nashville, but, again, it was a job.

  To be fair, I wasn’t sure how Karen was even able to afford to pay me as much as she did. The paper sold to a lot of the locals, but that didn’t account for much. By the time she paid for the weekly printing costs and office space, I had to assume I was being paid out of her own pocket. On the one hand, I felt slightly guilty about that, but on the other, I had bills to pay. Student loans and insurance ate up just about every cent of my income. Without Kyle’s help to buy groceries and such, I’d go hungry.

  Despite it all, I liked it. I found the gig quaint and charming in a weird way. Sure, the little Burden Gazette wasn’t anything I could take too seriously, but memories of seeing my parents reading it when I was a little girl were still fresh in my mind. I pictured mom at the kitchen table, sipping from the mug of coffee in her hand, as she devoured the tidbits of local gossip, and dad after work relaxing in his easy chair while scanning the same pages.

  It was easy work, and through interviews and such, I got to reintroduce myself to locals that I hadn’t seen in over a decade. I’d left Burden shortly after Mom and Dad had both perished in a plane crash. It happened just before graduation. My initial post-high school agenda had been to get a job in Burden, maybe save up some money for a few years before heading off to college. I had envisioned working during the days and spending the nights curled up in the sunroom, talking to Mom while she and Dad played cards. The horrible accident had changed all that. After my parents had passed, I couldn’t get away from Burden fast enough. Everything that triggered a painful memory.

  Kyle came to see me wherever I was, so I’d never have to set foot in my hometown. I hadn’t planned on returning. Ever. But, as I’d learned at too young an age, “The best laid plans…”

  A bad experience with a groping boss, and listening to Kyle’s painful lamentations on the phone over a lost relationship, had convinced me that now was the time to face any demons that may be lying in wait for me back home. I actually wanted to come home again. At least for a while. It was my turn to be there for my brother, like he’d been there for me for so many years. As my only living family, Kyle had taken on the role of my—everything. Anytime I was really hurting, he came to me. Now it was my turn to be his everything.

  Only, once I’d arrived in Burden, I learned that Kyle wasn’t the same man I had seen away from home. He had erected some sort of phony front that hid the hurt he’d faced. Saying his name in town often elicited grimaces and winces from people. Kyle acted like a pig. There’d been moments since I’d returned when I wondered which was the real Kyle—the caring, kind-hearted man who was my rock when I needed him, or the piggish creepy Kyle. Which was the phony front? Regardless, I had to do my best to be there for him, no matter what. Right?

  The Burden Gazette was housed in the same narrow office it’d been in since I could remember, and it still held the same musty paper smell as I walked in. Karen, was sitting at her desk at the back of the room, like always, round, wire-framed glasses with pink-tinted lenses perched on the end of her nose.

  Her face lit up when she saw me. “Philly! I have
a job for you! I forgot to mention it before you left yesterday. The races start tonight. You know the old dirt tracks, right?”

  My stomach turned over and threatened to toss the yogurt I’d eaten that morning. “Yes.”

  She wiggled in her desk chair, making it squeal. “Well, I want to do a piece on Sterling Mallory. He’s rumored to be the top contender again this season. I saw him driving that fancy car of his through town this morning and I must say, it’s a beaut.”

  I gritted my teeth. “I can’t do it tonight.”

  She frowned. “We’ve nothing else to put on the front page this week, Ophelia. Unless you want to headline that piece you wrote about the mystery smell at the school on the front page.”

  I could tell she was being a smartass. “It’s a fine story.”

  “Sure. The headline on the front page will read Shoddy Sanitation Breeds Ominous Odor. I can see it now. Great. Enthralling. Might even get you a Pulitzer.”

  I rolled my eyes and released a long, slow sigh.

  “C’mon, Philly. This has been the slowest news week in Burden ever. I need the piece on Mallory. It’s exciting. I’ve heard he’s quite the lady’s man. Maybe you can spin some of that into the story.”

  There was no way. Karen was pushing for something that she’d never understand. “Couldn’t you do it?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve got the trip into Dallas tonight. My daughter will be picking me up here this afternoon. The sleep study is going to figure out if I need one of those Darth Vader machines to breathe at night.”

  I closed my eyes and rubbed at my forehead. “Maybe I can find another story.”

  Karen’s face furrowed and I got to see the stubborn side of the woman that I wasn’t normally the focus of. “Do the story or I’ll have to find someone else who will, Philly. I like you and you’re the best writer this town has ever seen, but I need someone I can rely on.”

  I swore. I couldn’t ask Kyle to pay my bills. “Fine.”

  Her smile popped back onto her ruddy face. “Groovy! I think you’ll have a blast. The races are so exciting. There’s often a crash and the concession stands have nachos. It’s really a good time to be had by all.”

  I sat at the desk she’d provided for me, and as I landed on the weird faux leather fabric, my chair made a farting sound that I considered a fitting response. I opened my purse and snapped the easy open Tylenol cap before shaking a couple out into my hand. I swallowed them dry and looked at the smelly school article on my desk that I still wanted to edit once more.

  “If you take the camera, maybe you can get a good shot of Mallory. It’ll cost more to print, but he’s quite a handsome young fella. I bet a front-page photo will sell quite a few more papers.”

  I resisted the urge to slap my hand to my forehead. Barely.

  CHAPTER 4: Sterling

  I dropped the hood of my car and zipped up the fire-retardant suit all the drivers wore. The races were a surprisingly big deal for such a small area. The tracks were thirty miles outside of Burden and attracted drivers and an audience from all around. The dirt track was as refined as it could be and it was always a little rough on the cars, but I liked the edge it gave. Everything was a little more dangerous on a dirt track, and there was no telling what might happen.

  I’d been practicing all day and I was ready to get on with it. There was nothing like speeding around a track, competing with other drivers to get my bear riled and distract me from whatever issue I was dealing with. Bears weren’t meant to go that fast. I shouldn’t have even been able to fit in the car, but I loved the thrill and liked the challenge.

  I looked over the car at Hutch and nodded. “There’s a storm coming in. They need to get this show on the road soon or we’re going to be rained out.”

  He lifted his head and inhaled. “Still got about an hour. Enough time for the star to drive his laps.”

  I laughed. “I’ll pretend I believe you’re talking about me.”

  He grinned. “Try not to break anything too important tonight.”

  “That time I know you’re not talking about me.”

  “Hell, no, I wasn’t talking about you. You’ll heal. The car won’t.”

  I shook my head and leaned against the metal frame. A reinforced roll cage sat just under it, promising to keep me safe should anything happen. Being a shifter meant I’d heal from most things, but fires and explosions were different beasts entirely.

  “I’m heading to the stands, little brother. Veronica is sitting with Georgia and Allie. No fucking telling what trouble those three can get into unattended for too long.”

  I lifted a hand in a wave. “Good luck.”

  “You, too.”

  I looked around at the other drivers and inhaled deeply. I didn’t normally get nervous before a race, but something had my hair standing on end tonight. The weather promised a doozy of a storm, but it was more than that.

  As a gust of wind swept over me, I immediately identified the source of my agitation. Under the pervading scent of motor oil and rubber, I could clearly smell her. Ophelia. Her unique and delicious smell, whiskey and cupcake, had my dick springing to life faster than I could reach down and hide it.

  I muttered a curse and followed the direction of the smell. There she stood, across the parking lot, her wild hair blowing into her face. What the fuck was she doing here? Curly and sun-kissed, her windblown hair threatened to swallow her whole, but she expertly yanked something off her wrist and had it pulled back in a few seconds. I was sad to see it tamed. There was something about the unruly mass that made my heart race and my dick throb. She was made for me. Everything about her was pure seduction to every part of me.

  She lifted her head and her eyes locked onto mine. For a second, I let myself believe the parting of her lips was due to her hunger for me instead of shock at seeing me. Fuck, I wanted her.

  I hadn’t seen her in a few weeks and I’d missed the way the world seemed to light up her olive skin. She never just blended in. No, she was like the north star in the sky—always the brightest. I wanted to run my hands over her, touching every part of her, but I shoved them in my pockets instead. She didn’t want to be touched by me.

  To my utter surprise, Ophelia began walking towards me. Her posture said she would rather be anywhere else in the world and I could see her lips purse as she blew out a rough sigh, but still, she was coming over to me.

  I stayed where I was but leaned against my car to keep from grabbing her. I kept my mouth shut, afraid to fuck up any more than I already had.

  She stopped a few feet away from me and slowly lifted her eyes to mine. The dark blue outer ring held in pools of silver threatened to melt me. “Hi.”

  I couldn’t stifle a low growl at the sound of her husky voice. I wanted to hear that voice crying out my name. Shit. I balled my hands into fists and closed my eyes. It didn’t help. I could still smell her.

  My bear wanted to roll over on its back and beg her to forgive us. Just expose our belly and throat in an attempt to win her back. I, however, wasn’t that far gone. Yet. I shut him up and opened my eyes to see her watching me with wide eyes. “Hi, Ophelia.”

  She crossed her arms under her chest and it forced her cleavage higher. The little sundress she wore teased me more than any lover ever had. “I have to ask you for a favor.”

  I tilted my head to the side and furrowed my eyebrows. I couldn’t imagine what kind of favor she would ask of me. Maybe she didn’t know it, but I’d move heaven and Earth for that girl, or die trying. The wheels in my head started turning, though. “What is it?”

  Her wide mouth thinned and the dimples at the corners appeared as she worked the muscles there. Eyebrows that reminded me of a wolf, instead of the bear that she was, rose and then squeezed towards each other. “I have to interview you. I mean, I’d like to interview you. The paper, Karen, thinks an interview with you would be worth gold for the front page of the Gazette.”

  I bit back a grin, knowing it wouldn’t be appreciated. “
Karen wants you to interview me?”

  She nodded and pushed a stray curl back. “Yes. So…can I?”

  I grinned fully then, unable to help myself. Her reaction nearly had me reaching out for her. Her mouth went soft and her tongue danced out to wet her lips as the smell of her arousal hit me hard. I couldn’t stop the urge to tilt my head back and breathe it in, memorizing the heady deliciousness of her.

  Ophelia’s cheeks burned red and she took a step away from me. “Stop that.”

  I bit my lip and nodded. “Sorry. Yeah, you can interview me. Not here, though. After. I’m about to race and I need to focus.”

  She narrowed her eyes and her fingers started tapping out a rhythm on her arm. “Where?”

  She was at my mercy, I could tell. I knew Karen and I knew she could be one pushy old broad when she wanted to be. It was wrong of me to take advantage of Ophelia’s shitty situation, but I needed her. I needed my mate.

  I’d been going on the assumption that I hadn’t a chance in hell of winning her over, but I belatedly realized that an attitude like that was defeatist. I’d never been a quitter, and now damned sure wasn’t the time to start—not about this. I stared down at my sexy little mate and smiled. I might have to trick her into spending time with me, but her arousal was encouraging. Maybe there was hope.

  “Meet me at my truck right after the races.”

  She frowned but nodded. “Won’t you need to devote time to all your adoring fans?”

  I ignored the bitterness in her voice and slowly straightened from where I’d been leaning. I towered over her smaller frame and held her gaze. “I’m more concerned about my mate.”

  Her eyes darted around and then settled on mine in a glare. “Don’t call me that,” she hissed.

  I turned and walked to the other side of the car, needing the space so I could keep control over myself and my bear. “I’ll see you soon, Ophelia.”