by Joyce, T. S.
Elyse snuggled deeper into her jacket and strode toward the hayfields behind the cabin. This was the second crop of the season, and a late one, but necessary since the first hadn’t produced enough. They needed another fifty square bales for the cattle if they wanted to make it until the grass turned green again. For the millionth time since she’d taken over the care of this homestead, she was amazed at what Uncle Jim and Marta had been able to manage.
Ian would’ve scared her by jumping out from behind the cabin if Miki hadn’t given him away. Elyse tried to run, but Ian was too fast and had her thrown over his shoulder before she could even inhale once. She laughed and swatted his backside as he strode toward the hayfields.
“What took you so long, woman?”
“Ask that little hellion,” she said affectionately as she wiggled her fingers down at Miki. He was much too little to reach her, but he tried anyway. If he wasn’t so darned cute, he would be much easier to reprimand.
“The milk again?”
“Always.”
Ian let off a little growl and set her down, facing him. “Good morning,” he murmured, cupping her cheeks and kissing her lips. He’d been up before her, and this was the first she’d gotten to see him today. He was all mint toothpaste, three-day scruff, mussed hair, bright eyes and grins, and the stress of getting the animals taken care of before going out to the fields faded away.
Melting against him, she nipped his bottom lip and hugged his waist. “Morning.”
“You ready?”
“Yes. No. There’s something I should tell you before you meet my brother.”
“Okay,” he said, rubbing his hands up and down her arms to warm her. “Lay it on me.”
“I didn’t actually tell him about you yet.”
“Ha!” Ian shook his head and jacked his eyebrows up. “Why not?”
“Well, because he knew about the advertisement, and he gave me so much shit over it, and I was afraid he wouldn’t understand if he didn’t meet you in person. I wanted to keep his pre-conceived judgments to a minimum.”
“Trouble,” Ian accused lightly as he draped his arm across her shoulders. He kissed the top of her head and led her down the dirt road that wound through dense, lush vegetation to the hayfields.
Unable to help herself, Elyse scooped Miki up and snuggled the wiggling puppy. “We like to keep daddy on his toes, don’t we?” she crooned. But when she looked up, the smile dipped from her face at the expression on Ian’s. “What?”
The corners of his eyes tightened as he walked beside her. “Nothing.”
“Spill it, bear-man.”
His jaw clenched in the early morning light as he gave her his profile. “I won’t make a good daddy, Elyse. Best you don’t get used to calling me that.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?” He looked at her incredulously. “You want your sons to end up like me?”
“How do you know we won’t have daughters?” she teased, but he didn’t laugh.
“No daughters, Elyse. I can only give you sons, and when they turn sixteen, they Change for the first time and start hibernating. And trust me when I say, you don’t want to deal with a pissed off teenager who can call a bear out of himself.”
“Your dad did it?”
“Yeah, and me and my brothers nearly put him in the grave with stress.”
“Maybe we won’t have multiples, and one kid will be easier. And why can’t bear shifters have daughters?”
“I don’t know. Science. Maybe evolution decided females make bad bears or something. At least it’s not like werewolves. They can have daughters, but they die at birth. Only the sons survive.”
Elyse nearly dropped Miki in shock. “Werewolves? There are werewolves?”
The blood drained from Ian’s flushed face, leaving him pale as a corpse. “Shit. Forget I said that.”
“Not likely! Do they live in Alaska?”
“Elyse,” Ian warned.
“Dammit Ian, this isn’t an unreasonable question. I have wolf tags! Am I going to accidentally shoot some shifter?”
“Accidentally? No.” Ian started walking again while she stood there with her head spinning, clutching Miki to her chest.
“What does that even mean?”
“It means if you get close enough to a werewolf, you’ll know it. And that reminds me, after the hay is cut and stored, we’re going to work on your marksmanship. You can’t go into winter missing every damned target. I won’t be awake to protect you.”
“Protect me from what? Werewolves?”
A frustrated growl vibrated the air, but Ian didn’t turn around, and he didn’t slow down either.
“Ian!” He ignored her so she stomped her foot and let a pathetically human growl rip out of her. “I want kids.”
“Cubs, Elyse,” he gritted out, rounding on her. “They’re called cubs. You know why? Because I’m a fucking animal, and your kids would be fucking animals, too.”
“Don’t you dare talk like that to me, Ian Silver. Don’t you talk to me like I don’t know the man I’m bedding. You aren’t an animal.”
“I am, Elyse.” He stopped in front of her, eyes blazing and darkening by the second. “This is the gig. You can have me, but I’m not doing kids.”
“Because you don’t want them?” Damn her voice as it shook with anger.
Ian scrubbed his hands down his face and stared at her, shaking his head slightly in denial. “No, not because I don’t want them. I wouldn’t want to curse a kid. I don’t talk to my dad for a reason, and neither do my brothers.”
“You said it was because you were all dominant male grizzlies.”
Ian ran his hands through his hair and linked them behind his head. “That’s true of me and my brothers. But with my dad…shit.” Ian spat. “He was always so proud of what he was and so disappointed when me and my brothers struggled. He’s more bear, and we’re more human, and we were always this huge mistake.”
“Mistake?”
“That’s what he called us. He said we didn’t make sense, and that we were weak and not meant to be given bears. He raised us, but he didn’t like it. We were on our own after our first hibernation. He’d moved to Anchorage by the time we came out of that first winter, skinny as shit and scared because he’d never thought to tell us what to expect. He’d thought we should just know. Instinct or something.”
“Your first hibernation at sixteen?”
Ian nodded.
Utterly dumbfounded, Elyse murmured, “He just left you?”
“He came in and out for a while. I learned to fly and so did Tobias, so we picked up his deliveries in the summers while he lived in Anchorage. I get it. Me and my brothers weren’t easy, but there is still a big part of me that hates him. Not just for pushing us out into the world early the way he did, but because he put the bear in me in the first place. I never want a kid hating me for cursing him.”
“I didn’t know,” Elyse whispered, devastated for what he’d been through.
She imagined Ian as a child, scrawny after a hibernation, hungry as sin, and with no parental guidance—no mentor to tell him how to navigate a really difficult life. She respected him more for where he was now. He was not only alive still, but he’d bought a plane and found a job that made him a good living, and now he was here, a decent man who treated her sweetly. Who balanced a fine line between taking care of her and making her strong enough to stand on her own when he wasn’t around. The way he was with her, Miki, and the other animals around the homestead, she would’ve never guessed he’d had a cold upbringing. He was so confident, and his anger was the quiet kind that he held in until he was ready to talk about things calmly.
Elyse set Miki down and wrapped her arms around Ian’s neck.
“Woman, I’ll get you an entire dog sled team of pups if you want, but I can’t give you babies. It wouldn’t even feel right leaving you to raise them while I sleep half the year away.”
“Okay,” she said, tears burning her eyes. She would
keep taking her birth control and accept this for now. Perhaps in a few winters, he would feel differently, but this was something Ian was giving her a hard “no” on right now, and she had to respect it.
“I want to give you everything you want, Elyse—”
“It’s okay.”
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Josiah said quietly from ten yards away.
Ian started in her arms and turned, crouched slightly as he shoved her behind him. To stop the soft growl in his throat, Elyse rubbed his back and stepped around him. “Uh, Ian, this is my brother, Josiah. Josiah, this is my husband, Ian Silver. Er…not husband. Fiancé.”
Josiah looked a lot like her. Sandy brown hair peeking out from under his winter hat, and the same odd-colored gold eyes they’d both inherited from their absent father. He was a lot taller though, much wider in the shoulder, and intimidating in his quietness to strangers. She knew her brother, though, and she adored him.
“Fiancé?” he asked, his face a frozen, emotionless mask.
Ian cleared his throat and straightened his spine, then strode over to her brother and offered his hand. “Nice to meet you. Elyse talks about you a lot.”
Josiah’s eyebrows quirked up. “Funny, she’s said nothing about you. Fiancé,” he repeated, ignoring Ian’s outstretched hand. “Please tell me you didn’t answer her advertisement.”
“Josiah,” Elyse warned. “It’s not what you think.”
“You didn’t hire him to be your husband?”
Aw, shit-cicles. “Well, yes.”
“Are you fucking kidding me, Elyse? I told you that ad was a terrible idea.”
“Actually, it was an awesome idea because I met Ian.”
“Well, forgive me if I don’t throw my trust at you, Mr. Silver. My sister doesn’t exactly have good taste in men. The last one she brought home was a worthless little shit.” Josiah’s lips lifted in a dead smile. “What do you want with my sister? Is it the land?”
Ian went rigid, hands hooked on his hips. He cast Elyse a ghost of a glance, then dragged his attention back to Josiah. “Look, I appreciate that you’re protective of your sister, and I’m not asking for you to like me right now. I’m asking you keep your mind open to me, and I hope I earn your trust in time. Elyse and I met in unusual circumstances, yes, but I’m only interested in her land when I’m running it beside her, and I’m here because I care for her. We’ve got hay to cut and shit to do, so if you’re up for it, we could use your help cutting and hauling it. I’ll let you two have some time. ’Scuse me.” Ian strode off in the direction of a pair of green tractors bouncing toward the fields.
“Why are you acting like this?” Elyse asked, mortified by her brother’s behavior.
“Because look at him, Elyse? Does that man strike you as a mail-order husband? He can get any girl he wants. Think real long and hard about why he’s here, Elyse. I can’t fucking stand watching you go through another Cole McCall.”
“I learned my lesson from Cole, you swamp turd.”
Josiah’s judgy little eyebrows jacked up even higher. “Did you?”
“Yeah, Jo, I did. You want proof? That man you just insulted has filled the hen house, fixed my snow machine and four-wheeler, and brought his own snow-machine, just in case you’re comparing him to my moocher asshole late-boyfriend. Ian has been working himself to the bone chopping firewood, and he gets up earlier than me every morning and has my breakfast warming on the stove. He works until sundown getting our place ready for winter. He’s gone on two hunts, has my once-empty freezer half-filled, and he protected me from a fucking bear attack without a thought for his own safety.” She yanked up the hem of her pant leg and showed him the scabbed over claw marks. The stitches were still in the worst one. “And it’s him who’s been doctoring me without me ever asking, and no he doesn’t need the money or the land, you snooty dick-weevil. He has a plane and runs a successful bush pilot career that he put on hold to come prepare me for winter. And,” she growled, stomping past him, “I love the guy, so there’s that.”
“You were attacked by a bear?” her brother called after her.
“That was your only take-away from that entire tirade?” Elyse asked. “Seriously?”
The sound of Josiah’s boots became louder and louder as he jogged to catch up. “When?”
“Two weeks ago. We were fishing, and a brown bear sow and her cubs went after our fish. And then after me.” The memory still made the blood in her veins run cold.
“Why were you fishing in brown bear country in the first place?”
“Because my freezer was empty, Jo. I missed the big salmon run, and it wasn’t hunting season yet, and we needed meat fast.”
“Why was your freezer empty? Hey!” Josiah pulled her arm, yanking her to a stop. “Why were you that hard up for meat?”
“Because Cole drained me dry.” Her voice shook with the admission of her weakness. She’d kept all this from Josiah. Sure, he knew that Cole had been bad news, but he hadn’t known just how much Elyse had let him take advantage of her. “I know you thought that advertisement for a husband was stupid. I know. But I was desperate, and I got lucky as hell when that one showed up.” She jammed her finger at Ian, who was talking to Mr. Fairway and his wife near the tractor with the baler on the back.
“Elyse, why didn’t you tell me it was that bad? I knew you were losing weight, but I thought it was a vanity thing. You could’ve told me, and I would’ve hunted for you.”
“Don’t you ever get tired of taking care of me, Jo?” She let her shoulders hunch forward and sighed. “I do.”
“As opposed to him taking care of you?”
“It’s not like that. Ian doesn’t coddle me. He’s teaching me to snare rabbits, shoot worth a damn, and can food more efficiently. I even killed and plucked my first chicken last week because he thought I should know how to do that kind of stuff. He’s not taking care of me. He’s making me stronger.”
Josiah took a step back and scratched at his beard as he watched Ian laugh and shake Mr. Fairway’s hand. “I still don’t like it,” he muttered, but the vitriol had left his voice.
“You don’t have to like it, big brother,” she said, clapping him on the shoulder as she passed him by.
“And I’m not a swamp turd,” Josiah called from behind her.
The stretch of her smile felt good. If her brother would give Ian half a chance, he would see the good man she’d fallen for. Ian and Cole were like night and day. Josiah was just being stubborn.
“Don’t eat that,” she said to Miki, who was chowing down on what looked like pebbled rabbit crap.
“He’s a good lookin’ dog,” Josiah said, walking ten paces behind her.
“He’s a hellion.”
“They all are at that age. How’s potty-training going?” There was a smile in his voice that said he already knew.
“Not awesome. How are my cows doing?”
“Fair enough. We lost one to wolves week before last. When do you want to come and get them? The temperature’s dropping.”
Like she couldn’t feel the chill. Now she dreaded the winter for all sorts of reasons. With a sigh, she turned, waited for him, and didn’t even kick his shin over the obnoxious grin on his face like she did when they were kids.
“My sister, the grizzly attack survivor. Shootin’ and huntin’ and plantin’ and cannin’. Uncle Jim would be right proud of the Alaskan woman you turned out to be.”
“Don’t tease.”
Josiah’s voice went serious when he said, “I’m not.”
When she dared a glance up at him, walking beside her, his eyes were sincere. Emotion swelled inside of her chest, and her throat went tight. “Thanks for saying that.”
Josiah hopped on his four-wheeler he’d parked at the edge of the field and pulled it toward the first row of hay Mr. Fairway was already mowing down. Josiah turned on his seat and jerked his head in invitation. With a laugh, Elyse scrambled up onto the small trailer he was hauling and bumped and
bounced along behind him as her brother managed to hit every danged pothole in the field to reach his destination.
She waved to Joanna Fairway as Josiah pulled to a stop and chatted with the neighbor until Joanna’s husband was far enough ahead with the mower for her to start the baler on the line of cut hay. Elyse always paid them with a cow for their troubles, especially since Ricky had a gimp leg from getting kicked by a horse a few years back and had trouble hunting for them. Still, Elyse was extremely grateful they had been friends of her uncle’s and offered to help bale the hay when she needed it.
The morning passed quickly as Josiah drove slowly beside the new, square bales Joana left behind her baler. She and Ian hauled them up into the back, stacking them high until her arms fatigued and she switched Josiah spots driving the four-wheeler. And when they had as much as the trailer could carry, she drove it slowly back toward the empty cattle pen. The storage building for the hay was dilapidated and half the wood rotten. She jogged inside the cabin and threw together a quick lunch for everyone while Ian and Josiah unloaded the bales from the trailer.
And when she came outside with a basket full of food, she smiled when she overheard Josiah and Ian’s conversation. They were talking about fixing up the hay storage before Josiah headed back for his cabin.
They didn’t know it yet, and she’d never admit it to them out loud, but they’d just given her a moment she never thought she would have. Cole and Josiah had fought like wolverines, and the tension had always added stress, but seeing her brother and her fiancé talking cordially about how to improve and expand the wooden hay shelter had her feeling incredibly relieved. She could imagine holidays together…
Wait. Elyse frowned and gripped on tighter to the handle of the food basket, causing the wicker to creak. Ian would be in hibernation and would only be awake an hour to celebrate the holidays. And how would she explain that to Josiah? Maybe one year she could convince her brother Ian was sick, but Josiah was sharp as a tack and wouldn’t fall for that two years in a row.