Bearing It All

by Vonnie Davis

  “It was a gift from my grandfather when I graduated high school. I’ve had to take it off a couple of times, but mostly I always wear it. The necklace was my grandmother’s, which makes it extra special to me. It’s probably my most cherished possession. She was Italian, and as you can see, I’ve inherited her curves. My mother got the wonderful, slim French build. I’ve inherited grandmother’s eternal battle with weight. Beauty skipped a generation.”

  “Aye. And are’na ye the lucky one. Ye got the beauty and the curves.” He let go of the necklace. “Family jewelry handed down has a special meaning. Do ye think ye can go back to sleep? If ye hear any more strange noises, dinna hesitate to come get me.” He gave her back the gun, which she slipped in her holster.

  “Thank you for not making me feel stupid over a nightmare.” She crawled off his bed and went back to the sofa, using the flashlight Ronan insisted she take with her.

  Ronan crawled back under his covers, closed his eyes, and searched deep within his soul to find his alter ego. He’d only done this twice before and both times drained him. Seeing one’s animal within oneself wasna how twofold reality worked. Sure they could talk to each other and they could see the one who had shifted to the front of their dual existence, but, normally, not the one hidden in the background.

  Brother Bear? With his mind’s eye, Ronan searched through the corridors and chambers of his soul. Dinna hide from me. Ye ken to sneak out of me body without me knowledge is wrong. ’Tis against our shifting rules. This makes the third time ye’ve broken the confines of our set.

  The first time, his bear had escaped to kick his brother Bryce’s bossy, overbearing bear in the arse, knocking him asshole over tin cup. Christ, Bryce was bloody well pissed when he shifted back with a bruised and sore butt. He gave Ronan a black eye no matter how hard Ronan tried to explain his bear had snuck out without his permission.

  Then there was the night Brother Bear stole into the kitchen and ate all of Cook’s honey. Ronan woke with a tummy ache and Cook Edweena screeching like a banshee. Now this…

  I was only trying to bring her to ye. She…she pulled a gun on me. I willna wake her again. She doesna play nice.

  Ronan headed in the direction of his bear’s voice.

  “She pulled a gun on ye because ye scared her. Is this is how ye make friends? By frightening a woman?”

  His bear shook his head as he sat with his back toward Ronan. I’m sorry. I didna mean to upset her. I want her to be happy with us, so she stays. His massive shoulders were hunched and his head bowed. It appeared he was fiddling with his claws in a nervous gesture.

  He pulled at Ronan’s heartstrings, so he did. Snagged his sympathy. Ronan had to struggle not to cave in. Why, when he was the one brother of the three who followed the rules every feckin’ time, did he end up with the bear who gave little regard fer shifters’ regulations?

  “Ye better have a damn good reason fer sneaking out to shift. I’m pissed with ye. Fookin’ pissed in fact.”

  Her. I want her to like me.

  “I’ll introduce ye to her when the timing’s right. She’s not ready to see me shift yet. I will decide when she’s ready to meet ye.”

  Chapter 4

  Anisa limped to the window and took a quick visual measurement of the amount of snow that had fallen through the night. She’d estimate eight to ten inches. There was also no evidence of bear tracks on the steps or in the snow. She couldn’t have had such a realistic dream. I could hear it, feel it, and smell it.

  Ronan had stacked wood on the porch, but not in front of the windows. He’d brought a large supply into the cabin last night, evidently while she slept and fought the secret service in her dreams. It wasn’t until she woke and talked to Ronan that the nightmares had vanished.

  “Eggs or pancakes?” Ronan held the griddle in one hand and the frying pan in another. He wore jeans and a green flannel shirt over a dark green t-shirt. His hair hung loose this morning and her fingertips involuntarily rubbed against each other as she wanted to feel how silky his long tresses were.

  “Whatever you make will be fine.” She hobbled back to the sofa and folded the blankets she’d used.

  “I make a mean omelet. How does omelets and coffee in front of the fire sound? Then ye can start telling me yer story of how ye came to steal an airplane and earn the label ‘terrorist.’ ”

  “Sounds fine. I owe you my story.”

  He stilled and glanced over his shoulder from the open refrigerator door. “Nay, Anisa. Ye owe me the truth…every bloody word of it. If ye want it kept secret, fine. I’m an expert at keeping secrets. But if I’m to house and protect ye, there willna be secrets between us. Do I make meself clear?”

  Well, would you listen to this? A man who sometimes wears a skirt with no underwear beneath thinks he can order me, an officer in the French military, around. I know I owe him a full accounting, but I’ll be damned if I’ll be browbeaten into doing it.

  She kept her thoughts to herself, nodded, and retrieved her gun from the coffee table, placing it in the outside pocket of her backpack in the bedroom. When she returned, she sat on one of the barstools. “First I have a question for you.”

  He quickly diced vegetables on a wooden chopping block. “Ask away.”

  “The man you apprenticed under in Paris, what was his name?”

  Ronan sliced off a chunk of butter and smiled. “Pierre LeBlanc. An excellent craftsman. A demanding teacher. Particular as hell. God, I loved that man.” He placed the butter in the pan and tilted it back and forth as the butter melted. “His nephew ran a café—Gaston’s—where ye and I met. I ate a lot of me meals there.” Ronan added chopped onions, green peppers, ham, and mushrooms to the melted butter. He broke eggs into a bowl in quick, efficient movements.

  A sense of homesickness swamped Anisa and she could barely catch her next breath. Would she ever see her beloved Paris and family again? Tears burned her eyes and she blinked them away. She would not show weakness. “Pierre is my mother’s father, my grandfather. He’s the one who told me it was okay to go places with you. He respected you highly.”

  Ronan’s whisk stopped in the egg mixture. “Ye’re kidding! So, Pierre is yer grandda?” He poured the egg mixture in the pan and began grating cheese. “Ye had hair down to yer waist back then and a love of long, flowing, flowered skirts. Me God, ye were quite the beauty. Ye still are. Och, I had such a crush on ye.”

  She gasped. “Your hair was very short then and your Scottish burr so thick I could barely understand you. Do you remember the day we walked to the Notre Dame Cathedral, and you were more interested in the building than in me?”

  He waved a spatula at her. “Now that’s nay true. I was quite infatuated with ye, but I could tell between yer French and what little English ye knew back then and me burr, we couldna understand each other that well.”

  She laughed. “It was like dating in sign language.”

  He leaned his hip against the counter. “I do remember the underground jazz club ye took me to. We had a good time that night.”

  “I recall you held me very close when we danced.” She batted her eyes.

  “The dance floor was no bigger than a postage stamp.” He grinned. “What choice did I have? Now see, ye hurt me feelings. Ye recall how close I held ye, but not me name.” He arched one eyebrow. “I remembered yours.”

  They talked about her grandfather while he flipped the omelets onto plates and she sliced bread and toasted it. Working together, they were soon seated in front of the roaring fire with their plates and cups on the coffee table.

  “My grandfather’s blood pressure is too high for him to work for long periods of time on ladders. He does most of his work at a workbench and hires apprentices to do the upper work. He complains every day that the doctor has taken the joy from his life, that he is too old, and no longer serves a purpose.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I remember Pierre as energetic and precise as bloody hell. Och, he loved what he did. The man taught me w
ell. He had an eye fer the women, as I recall.” Ronan winked at her.

  “Yes, he did. He still does. Funny how he comes to life around a good-looking female.” She smiled into her coffee mug. Her grandfather was a true Frenchman. “The summer you saw me, I’d just graduated from Saint-Cyr, the French version of America’s West Point, located in a northwestern town of Coëtquidan. Yes, I did wear a lot of skirts that summer after all that time in officer pants. I wanted to feel feminine again.”

  “Och, ye definitely looked feminine. I could barely keep me eyes off ye.” Ronan cut another bite of omelet with his fork. “I remember his talking about his top-notch soldier grandchild. I had nay clue he was referring to his granddaughter.”

  “He felt I should go into fashion or finance or get married and have a baby. I’m surprised he talked about my time at Saint-Cyr at all.” She chewed the omelet that practically melted in her mouth. “Ronan, you cook as good as a French chef.”

  He scowled at her and she found it half comical. “I’m a Scot. Dinna compare me to a Frenchman.” She batted her eyes just to irritate him a little more. “Lassie, ye need yer arse beat fer yer cheekiness.”

  All her female parts went on hormonal overload. Time to change the subject before this volatile man made good on the sexy threat spoken in his Scottish burr. She sipped her coffee. “We were talking about Grandpa. He was even less pleased when he found out, because of my math and physics scores, I’d been singled out to attend Kansas State University in America, which offers a Bachelor of Science in Unmanned Aircraft Systems. Which was where I was sent at almost a moment’s notice.”

  Ronan’s fork stilled halfway to his mouth, his dark gaze sweeping over her face. “Ye mean like drones?”

  “Yes.” She sipped more coffee. Ronan knew how to make it—strong and smooth, like the French. Perhaps she shouldn’t mention that. “Instructors at university used a hands-on approach for learning and attaining the skills needed to build, maintain, and safely operate drones. Thanks to my time at the academy, what classes I’d already had there, I got my degree from Kansas State in two years.”

  “Wow, ye must be one smart woman.”

  She laughed briefly, embarrassed yet proud. “Well, because I’d excelled, my reward was a three-week survival course in the swamps of Alabama. Their army calls it SERE training, mainly for high-level Special Forces. I was told it was part of my French officer training.”

  His thick eyebrows dipped into a V. “Ye were being fed a load of horse shite.”

  “Looking back, I agree. With mosquitoes bigger than a French poodle, it was horrible. I was always hot and sweating. Officers, mercenaries”—she brushed her curls away from her forehead—“whatever one called them, they treated me as if I were an enemy, captured, and tortured in another country. Would I keep my mouth shut? Or would I cave and divulge information to make the cruelty stop?”

  “Those bloody bastards.”

  “SERE is a short nickname that includes training to evade capture, survival skills, mind control experiments, and the use of the military code of conduct for special ops considered to be at a high risk of capture. I was kept in a dark cubicle with music blaring twenty-four hours a day. Some days, it was a baby crying all day and night. I was beaten. Two of my fingers were broken in an effort to destroy my spirit.”

  Ronan’s hand jerked up in a stop gesture. “Are ye telling me they broke yer bones on purpose? What the hell? Was this the military or terrorists? Friend or foe?”

  “To be honest? Sometimes I wondered the same thing. Still, that was only minor. We were also punched and whipped as part of SERE training.”

  His eyes were wide, almost wild. “I canna believe they did this to ye.”

  A bear growled and she jerked to stare out of the windows.

  “If ye’d tell me their feckin’ names, me clan would be on a plane as soon as the weather cleared to administer some Scottish Matheson justice.”

  She caressed his chest with the palm of her hand, hoping she’d calm him down. This was a reaction she hadn’t expected. “The good thing is I passed. I was so proud to bring some honor to my native country. Then I was sent to Florida’s Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, which now includes drone piloting in its curriculum. I spent a year there with a heavy load of classes.”

  Ronan shifted toward her, his coffee cup in hand. “Me God, what were they training ye fer?”

  “I was told I’d be the French expert in drones. I was given a promotion.” Her ego had taken a gigantic boost moving up the ranks where few Frenchwomen were endorsed for a higher position. “Of course, there were the typical snide remarks in my division. People wondering who or how many men I’d had to screw or blow to get such a high ranking. Malicious whispers from the women. Crass remarks and pats on the ass from men.”

  A bear growled again. Low. Menacing. She spun around. “Did you hear that?”

  “Aye. We have a lot of wildlife up here. Sounds as if ye had a lot of wolf bastards where ye worked.”

  She almost laughed at his turn of phrase. “You’re right, Ronan. People like that steal one’s joy of what they do. What they’ve been trained to accomplish.” A pain-filled sigh escaped her lungs. Many days had been emotionally rough, but after all she’d been through, she handled it. “Then I was shipped out to Israel for a month of hellacious teaching in more survival torture and combat with the Mossad.”

  A muscle bunched and ticked on his cheek before he finally spoke. “Are ye shitting me? Just how did they justify that strange assignment? What does all that physical self-defense training have to do with designing drones? Can ye tell me that, Anisa?”

  “I was told by superiors, in confidence, that I was tagged for the French position on the secretive International Coalition Against Terrorism, or ICAT, because I was the definitive expert on drones.”

  “Okay, but that still doesna make complete sense to me.” He stood and paced in front of the fireplace, slicing the air with the edge of his hand. “I can understand the schooling and the extra training in drone construction.” The fingers of both hands slipped into the front pockets of his jeans. “But why the survival and training should ye be captured?” His brown eyes widened for a beat, as if comprehension struck him. “Ye were supposed to fly the damn thing, were’na ye? After all, ye flew it here. The plan was fer ye to fly low over terrorist outposts or camps and fire on them, flying so fast they wouldna see ye, and so low radar couldna pick ye up.”

  “You add things together quite well, although the truth is I’m certified to fly almost any small- to medium-sized aircraft. But you’re right in your assumptions. They were preparing me for capture and eventual torture should any part of our design fail.” God, when she put her training sequence like that, she sounded like an idiot—and a gullible one at that. Ronan was right. She’d been set up for a highly probable suicide mission, and her superiors knew it. She lifted her cup, found it empty, and set it back down.

  Ronan gathered their dirty dishes. “Want some more coffee? I’ll bring the pot over.”

  “Yes, please. You know, sharing all this with another person makes me realize how senseless I’d become. How focused I was on moving up in my military profession. All I could see was the big picture of my career, but not the details where the devil resides. I never took the time to think things through.” She glanced away and exhaled a long, slow breath. “My ego had gotten the best of me. I was sworn to secrecy and signed papers, so I couldn’t talk all this over with family or close friends. Now that I’m telling it all to you…” She ran her fingers through her short curls and, for a minute, allowed shame to wash over her. Being one of the highest-ranked women in the French armed forces was an intoxicating goal. Yet the joke had been on her.

  She held her empty mug out for Ronan. “Then I saw a memo that made me question everything.”

  He poured coffee in both their cups and set the pot on a pot holder on the coffee table. “What did ye see?”

  “I have the highest security clearance
in my country.” She looked him directly in the eye. “Even though I want to tell you, I feel a strong sense of right and wrong, which is crazy considering all I did after I dug deeper and found more information.”

  He nodded. “Aye, I respect that. Tell me what ye feel comfortable with, then.”

  Anisa stared into his espresso eyes for several minutes and thought of all he’d done for her. Especially how gentlemanly he’d behaved last night, even though it was obvious she’d overreacted about a nightmare. Why not be truthful with a man her grandpa thought so much of?

  “I’m being silly. I’ve been labeled as a traitor and a terrorist, for God’s sake. It’s not as if I’m giving away any French government secrets, ones that will hurt national security. Surely, I can be honest with a man who’s taken me into his home, especially one with such a firm, biteable ass.” She fluttered her eyes just to tease him.

  A ruddiness crept across his chiseled cheeks. “I think we can keep me arse out of this conversation.”

  She wrapped her hands around her mug of hot coffee. “I’m sorry. My peeking at you last night is exactly how I got in this awful mess at work. Even as a child, I had my nose in everything. I was one of those kids who searched high and low for the hidden Christmas presents. Once I found the gaily wrapped packages, I’d carefully open them, slowly so as not to tear the paper, and peek. I couldn’t stand not knowing things.” She shrugged. “It’s just how I am. I have to know.”

  “Ye sound like our Colleen. She doesna miss a thing.”

  “I’d taken a report into my superior’s office. One I felt he should look at immediately. I saw a Post-it note on his monitor: ‘Check out latest video on Anisa’s file.’ I couldn’t think of any flight testing I’d done recently or any new designs I’d come up with. So, what file could the writer mean? And it looked like Mitch Franklin’s slanted scrawl.”

  “Who’s Mitch Franklin?” Ronan’s eyebrows wrinkled and his eyes bored into hers.