by Joyce, T. S.
“What stake? A dilapidated homestead out in the middle of nowhere?”
“No, woman. You.”
Elyse sighed and rested the side of her face against his arm. Shaking her head with a soft scraping sound of her cheek against the sleeve of his jacket, she said, “I’ll owe you for always.”
Ian froze for a moment, hesitating, then lowered his cheek to the top of her hair. “That’s not how this is supposed to work, and I think deep down, you know it. You’re mine, Elyse, just like I’m yours. Sure, we didn’t come about this the normal way—”
“You mean because I hired you?”
“Yeah, but so what? We aren’t here to impress anyone but ourselves. I like you, you like me, I like to see you smile, so let me take care of you while I can.”
“While you can?” Those words dumped dread into her stomach.
Ian frowned and stood. “You know what I mean. While we’re together.” He walked off and greeted Mr. Barns behind the counter as Elyse leaned back against the wall, troubled to her marrow by the thought of him leaving. She didn’t know Ian’s story yet. He’d shared so little with her that she was at a disadvantage. If he left now, it would hurt her. It would cut her worse than Cole had done because she’d let Ian in more than she would ever admit out loud. She’d grown hopeful and imagined their future stretching on and on. He made her feel good about herself. She felt whole around him, and braver, and more hopeful they would keep the homestead if they did this together. For the first time in years, she didn’t feel any loneliness at all. The idea of losing him, of losing herself again, was too painful a pill to swallow.
She would have to become stronger so that Ian could lean on her as much as she was leaning on him.
Chapter Eleven
Ian stifled a chest-rattling growl just thinking about calling his asshole brother. He didn’t get why things had to be so tense when he talked to Jenner and Tobias. Okay, their bears hated each other. Loathed each other and wanted nothing but to fight when they were close. That didn’t mean their human sides couldn’t get along, though.
He huffed three slow steadying breaths, then sat on the goat milking chair in the barn. He dialed Tobias’s number and wasn’t surprised one bit when he didn’t pick up. A quick message about how he was throwing him some delivery business, and Ian hung up, leaned back on the stool, and waited.
Tobias might not like him any, but he was a bush pilot, too. If he wouldn’t answer for a brotherly chat, he might answer for money.
Five minutes later, Ian’s phone rang. Reception was spotty at best out here, so he stood and got two bars on his phone before he accepted the call.
“What business?” Tobias asked.
“Hey, brother.”
A feral growl rumbled across the line. Okay then. “I have to take a break on deliveries for the rest of the season. I don’t want to leave my customers high and dry, though, so I was wondering if you wanted to take them over for me.”
Tobias huffed a humorless laugh. “Ian, if you give them to me for the season, they’ll stick with me.”
“Worth the risk. I’m settled now, and I can’t get back to deliveries until after hibernation. If you took some of the load off my hands, I’d be grateful.”
The silence from the other end was so heavy, it held weight. “What do you mean by settled?”
“I got a fiancé and a homestead.”
“Fuck, Ian! Tell me you’re joking. Tell me you’re not shacking up with a human and threatening to expose us all.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you?”
Ian cast a look at the open barn door and lowered his voice. “Look, Tobias, I don’t expect you to understand, but I love her. I’m ready to settle. I can’t help it.” He lowered his voice to a barely audible whisper. “This is my animal’s choice. Instinct. I can’t leave her.”
“You can’t leave? And what about in a couple months when you go into hibernation? What are you going to tell her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ian—”
“Tobias! I don’t ever ask anything from you, do I?”
Silence.
“Do I?”
“No.”
“And I want to, man. All the time, I want to call just to fucking chat with you and Jenner, and I don’t. I know you don’t want the relationship, but I was so fucking lonely, and this makes sense to me. I have a purpose now. I get to take care of a woman. I didn’t call for your blessing. I called to ask if you would take over my deliveries.”
“Shit,” Tobias muttered. He let off a loud sigh and said, “Well, tell me what she’s like.”
Ian straightened his spine and hooked his free hand on his hip. “She’s a foot shorter than me and skinny as hell. She’s had a rough go of it.”
“She sounds weak—”
“I wasn’t done. She’s headstrong and running a homestead by herself, and she doesn’t quit. She just doesn’t. She works hard and long, and she woke up this morning before dawn just to get her day started and fuck it all, I respect her for what she’s done with this place by herself. She doesn’t need me emotionally, but I want her to.”
“What’s her name?”
“Elyse.”
“You’ve got the McCalls hunting you, man. I saw your den on Afognak.”
“What were you doing out there?”
“I like to go back home from time to time. I was checking that your shit is in order, and it definitely is not. You got Miller after you, and you’re shacking up with someone he can and will use as leverage. You get that, right?”
“Yeah.” Ian couldn’t bring himself to admit Elyse was Cole McCall’s claim. Tobias was actually holding a conversation with him—the first in years—and if he admitted how much risk he was really taking, Tobias would disappear and be a ghost in the wind once again.
“You gonna tell her what you are?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“It won’t work if you don’t,” Tobias said in a defeated voice. “That’s where Dad messed up with Mom. Secrets destroy pairings.”
“I didn’t know pairings were a thing for us.”
“Yeah, well, your dumbass is mated, so it must be, right? Text me the deliveries and I’ll get them taken care of. I’ve got to go.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Ian?”
“Yeah?”
“She sounds real nice. Don’t fuck it up.”
The line went dead, and Ian stared at the screen as it went dark. Holy hell, Tobias had actively participated in a civilized conversation with him.
A sharp yip sounded from the doorway, and he turned, startled. The puppy came bouncing toward him, nothing but a ball of black and white fire and a curly tail.
“No!” Elyse whispered as she stumbled out from behind the open barn door.
“Elyse! What are you doing out there?”
She bit her lip and looked guilty as hell. “What happened was…I was coming out here to see if you could help me fix some broken fencing near the horses’ gate, but then I heard you talking and I didn’t want to interrupt, so I just stood there, waiting until you were done.”
“So, eavesdropping.”
Her cheeks were flushed like cherries now as she nodded once. “I didn’t know you were talking about me at first, and then I couldn’t pull myself away.”
Panicked, Ian went over and over the conversation he’d had with Tobias, but he didn’t think he’d given anything away about the bear that lived inside of him.
“You said I’m headstrong and you respect me.” Her smile was faint as she looked up at him, then back down to his work boots.
Shoulders relaxing, he gestured her to him and hugged her close. “That was my brother.”
“You have a brother?” Genuine shock painted her tone.
“I have two.”
“Older or younger?”
“The same exact age.”
“You’re a triplet?” Her voice was so loud, it hurt his sensitive
ears. When he hunched, she lowered her voice. “When will I meet them?”
“Probably never. We don’t get along.”
“Why not?”
“Well,” he said, searching for a way to tell her without spilling their secret. “We can’t. It’s an instinct thing.”
“You’re competitive?”
“Massively competitive,” he murmured, grateful she got it.
“Okay, so no holiday celebrations with them?”
Pain slashed through his chest as he thought about the holidays. He hibernated during the big ones, and he hadn’t thought about her being all alone on Thanksgiving and Christmas before now. Even New Year’s wasn’t doable. Shit.
“No,” he admitted low. “No holidays.”
“Well, I want you to meet Josiah. He’s good people. Maybe you won’t be competitive with him,” she said hopefully.
“Yeah, I want to meet your brother.” He wasn’t on a quest for friends, but Josiah was a big part of keeping Elyse’s cattle safe, and her brother should know he had back-up from Ian during the warm months if he needed it.
The puppy was tugging at the hem of his work jeans and growling as he shook his little fluffy head ferociously.
“I’ve named him,” Elyse said.
“Tell me.”
“Miki. It’s an Inuit name meaning—”
“Little,” he finished, approving. The little furry terror had released his pant leg and was now barking and bouncing around him, trying to scare his denim apparently. “It’s perfect. Do you want to bring him with us today?”
“Where are we going?”
“Far away.”
“For our date?”
Ian dipped his chin once and eased out of her embrace so he could better see the green and gold in her eyes. Damn, she was beautiful.
“Maybe it should just be us today,” she said, scrunching up her petite little nose. He wanted to kiss it, but big tough bear shifters didn’t do cutesy shit like that.
“Good,” he rumbled, picking up the pup.
The dog nipped him, and without thinking, Ian latched his teeth onto the scruff of his neck and let off a low snarl as a warning. Miki’s growl died in his throat, and he hunched in submission. Good pup. Ian released his neck and nuzzled his little face as a reward, and got one timid lick on the nose in return. Then he set the puppy into the small enclosed stall he’d cleared out for him to sleep in until Miki was big enough to wander the yard when they weren’t home.
“I can’t believe biting him worked,” Elyse muttered when he turned around. Her eyes were round, and she stood frozen in the same position she’d been in, her hands still out like she was surprised he wasn’t hugging her anymore.
“Mmm,” he said noncommittally, not about to explain dominance or how he knew so much about animal behavior. “Miki will be a good watchdog, but he has to learn who is boss. You ready?”
“After we fix the fence. I don’t want the horses getting out while we’re gone.”
“Yep.” Ian grabbed a box of nails and a hammer and followed Elyse out of the barn. They would need to hurry if he was going to take her to his favorite fishing spot. He was all about a date, but it would be the kind he understood. The multi-tasking sort where they brought meat home at the end of the day because winter was coming up, and fast. Hopefully she liked what he had planned.
One of the posts was rotted and leaning heavily to the side, so Ian clipped the wire and pulled it out while Elyse blocked the horses from escaping. He replaced it with a log he’d brought up this morning with the four-wheeler, all the while calculating how much lumber Elyse’s wood burning stove would require for the winter. He didn’t want her running out and having to go too far alone to haul and chop more. Not while he was sleeping and couldn’t help her with the heavy work.
And when they were done, Ian packed the back of the truck with his nets and fishing poles, then opened the door for Elyse and laughed at her as she practically hummed with excitement.
“I know what we’re doing! We’re going fishing. Where? The Yukon? There’s a stream off it near here that I’ve caught fish in before.”
“This will be nowhere you’ve been and up in bear country.”
“Bear country? Black bear or brown bear?”
“Both.”
Her delicate eyebrows jacked up, creating little wrinkles of worry across her forehead. He wanted to kiss them smooth. “I’ll keep you safe,” he promised.
“Against a grizzly?”
Ian swallowed his smile down as he pulled out of the homestead. “Yes, Elyse. Against a grizzly. I brought the right weapons.”
Sure, his high caliber rifle sat in the back of the truck, ready to be loaded and emptied into a bruin if they were charged, but that wasn’t the weapon he was talking about. Ian had claws and teeth and had fought many a wild bear in his adventures in the Alaskan wilderness. Sometimes, his inner monster required a good fight.
He was much more afraid of what Elyse was doing to his insides than what a bear could do to his outside.
“Ian, I saw a bear once. A big one. It was the scariest moment of my life.”
“Relax.” He slid his hand over her thigh and squeezed it reassuringly. “Elyse, you’re mine to take care of, and I wouldn’t put you in a situation that was dangerous or that you couldn’t handle. We probably won’t see a bear, but if we do, you do exactly what I say, and I promise, I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“You are dangerous to date,” she accused.
“It’ll be fun. Plus we need to start filling that empty freezer of yours.”
“Freezer of ours.”
Ian pulled onto the main dirt road toward Galena. His plane was stored near the landing strip just outside of town. “Ours,” he agreed, though he wouldn’t be eating meat out of it this winter. He would be sleeping deep in a snowy den on Kodiak Island. The thought of being so far away from her suddenly socked him in the gut and stole his breath away. Kodiak Island was the natural choice that would make it hardest for Miller to track him, but the closer he got to Elyse, the more his instincts screamed to stay here, deep under one of those old cabins on the back of her homestead near his mate. His mate? Fuck. Tobias had been right about pairing up. Ian was deep, deep in this now. There would be no turning back or pulling away from her. Not after today.
Now the thought of her finding out about his bear was more unacceptable than ever.
Chapter Twelve
Elyse pulled a hiking backpack from the floorboard and unzipped the biggest pocket. Ian seemed to need to eat constantly because he was built so muscular, so she’d packed him extra food for today. She pulled out an apple and handed it to him. “Here.”
With a grin, he took it and bit a piece off, then handed her the apple, and she crunched off a bite. With a giggle, she gave it back and wiped the juice from her mouth with the sleeve of her thin sweater. Ian ghosted a hungry glance at her lips that turned her middle to churning hot metal.
“I didn’t sleep that well last night,” she said carefully.
“Why not?”
She gulped the sweet fruit down and stared out the window, too chicken to look at him when she said, “I was thinking about you.”
Ian took another bite, and the crunching of the apple was the only sound in the truck for a while. “Thinking about me how?”
Elyse licked her lips. “Thinking about you, like I wished you would come into my room and sleep with me. Beside me. Sleep beside me.”
“Did you…?” Ian canted his head and left the unfinished question hanging in the air between them.
“Did I what?”
“Never mind.” He made his lips into a thin line and shook his head. “Nope. Not appropriate for a first date.”
“I thought you didn’t know anything about first dates, and besides, we’re engaged, remember? Ask me.”
“Did you touch yourself?”
Heat blazed up her neck and landed in her cheeks. “God, Silver.” She definitely couldn’t meet his g
aze right now, so she kept her focus on the evergreens that blurred by.
“You don’t have to answer.”
“Yes,” she answered on a rushed breath.
He inhaled sharply, and she huffed a laugh, shocked that she’d just admitted that out loud.
“Did you think about me?” he asked in a low gravelly voice that brushed chills over her skin.
Elyse covered her burning face when she whispered, “Yes.”
“Shit, woman,” Ian said, adjusting his dick and then gripping the steering wheel in a choking grasp. He was smiling so big right now. “Next time you feel like a slumber party, you let me know and I’ll be in your room in a second flat. I was trying to give you space.”
“In case I cried again?”
Ian nodded. “I listened for it last night. I had trouble sleeping, too.”
Finding her bravery, she asked, “Did you touch yourself?”
“No, and now I’m going to fucking explode. I’ve thought about you a lot.”
“A lot?”
“Yeah,” he murmured, leveling her an honest glance before he pulled his attention back to the road. “An embarrassing amount a lot. It’s hard to focus on the things I need to get done.”
“I feel close to you,” she whispered, terrified he would reject her sentiment.
Ian squeezed her leg again, this time higher up her thigh. “Me, too. I’m trying to take things slow with you, though.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to do this right. Cole is still kind of fresh for you, and I don’t want to be a rebound fuck.”
Elyse laughed in shocked surprise. “Ian Silver, you are nobody’s rebound. No one else compares to you.”
“Not even Cole?”
“Especially not Cole. When I think about him now after spending time with you, I’m even more disappointed I stayed in that relationship as long as I did. I’m not crying over that man anymore.” She took the apple from his hand on her thigh and chomped another bite.
Ian looked over at her several times, but whatever he was searching for on her face, she hadn’t a clue. At last, he murmured, “Good,” and took a sharp left onto an old dirt road right before they got to the Galena welcome sign.