Babysitter Bear

by Zoe Chant

  "I think you're right."

  Paula began unbuttoning her blouse, but Dan stepped closer and brushed his fingertips across hers. "Let me," he murmured.

  She took her hands away and looked down as he carefully, one-handed, popped each button out of its hole. "That's really impressive."

  "They taught me how in physical therapy."

  "It's still impressive."

  Dan grinned. "Wait'll you see me undo a bra."

  "They taught you how to undo bras in physical therapy?"

  Now he laughed softly. "No, but I bet I can get this."

  "You're on." She slipped the blouse off her arms, one at a time, and saw Dan's eyes grow heated as her full breasts were exposed in the lacy cups of her bra.

  She turned around and held her hair out of the way. Dan was right about being able to undo her bra. It only took a moment, and a little bit of fumbling that she could feel from the movement of his fingers against her back, and then it separated and fell loose around the shoulders.

  "Some guys can't do that two-handed, you know."

  "It's all technique," Dan said.

  He kissed the back of her neck and slid the bra strap down her shoulder. She reached up to get the other one as she turned and peeled it off her breasts.

  "Holy shit," Dan said.

  "Always how I want a man to react to my rack."

  "You have an amazing rack."

  It was the soft, awestruck tone that got to her. He gently guided her to sit on the bed, and one at a time, caressed and kissed her breasts, lightly tonguing her nipples.

  He was half-hard, and she felt a light surge of arousal as he caressed her, but it was slow and easy, without the urgency of earlier. She lifted her hips to slide her skirt off, and they were finally naked with each other, fully and completely.

  "Things were a little rushed downstairs," Dan said. He ran his hand down her leg. "I don't think I have another go in me tonight, but I'd be happy to do anything you want me to do."

  "Honestly?" She held out an arm. "Turn off the light, and hold me."

  She hadn't thought it was possible for his face to soften any more. She was wrong.

  "Anything you want," he whispered, and reached over to turn off the lamp.

  The bed was soft and yielding, and big enough for two, though she had never had another person in it with her. Not here, in this house. She was suddenly, deeply glad of that. There was no ghost of an ex-husband in this bed with her. Just the two of them, his body warm against hers as he got settled. They had to roll around a little until they found a good position, with Paula spooned up against him and Dan's arm wrapped around her waist.

  "Hey, I just thought of a big advantage here," she murmured.

  "Mmmm?"

  "You don't have the 'what do I do with the other arm' problem in spooning."

  Dan laughed.

  She felt guilty immediately. "Sorry."

  His thumb chafed gently at the soft curve of her stomach. "You don't ever have to apologize. Remember, black humor is the amputee's friend. You're getting the hang of it."

  She laughed too, and nestled back against him.

  After a moment, he said, "Should we be using protection?"

  Paula shook her head against the pillow, for all the good it did in the dark. "I have an implant. I got it about a year ago, thinking I might start dating again, now that the kids are getting older." She shrugged, feeling her shoulder move against his chest. "Between the diner and the kids and the extremely small Autumn Grove dating pool, it didn't really work out for me ... until now."

  Dan kissed her neck. "Sometimes you just gotta wait for the right one to come along."

  "Sometimes you do," she whispered sleepily, and sank into his embrace, letting the tide of the night carry her away.

  Dan

  Dan woke in midnight darkness, lit only by dim street light coming in through the window. Paula's smooth, gorgeous body was sliding out of bed. It must be time for her to go open the diner.

  He lay in a state of lazy bliss, slowly working himself up to moving as he listened to Paula talking quietly on the phone, not too far away. He wanted to get up and make breakfast for her before she went to work. Eventually he mobilized himself to sit up, but Paula was already sliding back into bed.

  "Go back to sleep," she murmured, planting a hand on his chest.

  "Mmmm." He kissed her sleepily. "Want to get up, send you off to work right."

  "I'm not going to work. I just called Mitch to tell him he has a day off with pay. The diner can stay closed today. It won't be the end of the world."

  He woke up a little more. "Are you sure?"

  "There's no place I'd rather be than here with you," she murmured, and rolled over on top of him.

  As it turned out, neither of them was actually that sleepy after all, and it was some time later, after the quiet moving in the dark and the gasps that both of them tried to stifle, that they fell asleep again, sweaty and relaxed and wrapped up in each other.

  This time, when he woke again, jerking out of dreams, there was dawn-gray daylight filtering through the window. Someone was moving around in the hall. A door shut. Water ran in the bathroom.

  "I think that's Austin," Paula whispered, stirring against Dan. "I'm surprised he's up after the late night everyone had, but that's teenagers for you." She sat up and yawned. "Guess I'd better get the kids ready for school."

  "I volunteer to cook breakfast," Dan said with his face buried in the pillow.

  She placed a hand on his shoulder. "You don't have to. You can stay in bed."

  Dan yawned and pushed himself up on his elbow. "It's my pleasure. Or at least it will be, as soon as I find my pants and make some coffee."

  "Your pants are downstairs."

  Dan pressed his face into the pillow. "Right."

  "I swapped them over into the dryer when I was up for a drink of water last night. I'll go get your clothes if you want to nap a bit."

  He drifted until Paula came back with an armload of clothing. While she went to rouse Lissy and take a shower, Dan got dressed and went downstairs.

  "Jeez!" Austin said, spinning around with a box of Pop-Tarts in his hands. "I didn't know you were still here." He made a horrified face. "Okay, you know what? I'm gonna pretend you just got here."

  "Thanks, dude," Dan said. He scratched his stump—he hadn't bothered putting the arm on; he noticed Austin trying to look without staring—and located Paula's coffeemaker. "Is that what you're having for breakfast?"

  "It's got fruit in it," Austin said defensively. "Says so right here on the box." He wrapped his arm around the box of Pop-Tarts.

  "Sounds good. Give me one, and I'll make you guys some omelets in trade. We can have the Pop-Tarts for the fruit course."

  Austin eyed him with something more baffled and open than his usual hostility, and held out a Pop-Tart. Dan accepted it and took a large bite, then filled the coffeepot with water. He couldn't hold both at once.

  "You weren't kidding," Austin said. He opened another of the foil-wrapped packages and put the box back in the cabinet. "Mom won't touch these."

  "I was in the Army," Dan said. "Pop-Tarts were high cuisine. Do you know where your mom keeps the coffee?"

  Austin shrugged and shook his head. Dan started opening cabinets.

  "But seriously," Austin said. He dropped his voice, with a nervous glance at the kitchen doorway, and whispered, "Did you tell her?"

  "I promised I wouldn't. Man to man. I'm not going to break that promise."

  Austin was quiet. There was nothing but foil rustling and munching as he worked his way through a Pop-Tart two-pack, while Dan scooped coffee into the top basket of the coffeemaker.

  Finally Austin said, "Are you gonna tell her? About you?"

  "I think I have to," Dan said.

  After everything she had told him about her ex, about Terry's secrets and lies—and especially now that he knew what at least one of Terry's secrets had been—he understood that he could no longer keep
his own secret from her. Austin's happiness was riding on it as well.

  Austin nodded without speaking.

  "Once she knows about me, it'll be easier to tell her about you. I'm serious, I won't violate your confidence. It's up to you. But I think you'll feel better once she knows."

  Austin shrugged.

  "Dan!" came a squeal from the doorway. Lissy barreled into the kitchen in her pajamas and threw her arms around his legs.

  "Uh, hi," he said, startled. He patted the top of her head.

  "You came to visit again!" she declared, looking up at him.

  "Right, kid," Dan said, steadfastly not looking at Austin, although he could hear faint snickering sounds from the teenager. "I came to visit. And to make breakfast. I'm cooking omelets. What do you want in yours?"

  "Olives and gummi worms," Lissy said promptly.

  "Uh ... I think I can do olives, if there are any."

  "There are," Austin said, breaking off a piece of Pop-Tart. "There's a jar in the fridge. There always is. She loves them for some reason. I think they're like eating eyeballs."

  "Ewww, no!" Lissy protested. "They're nice." She let out a sudden shriek. Dan almost dropped the coffee. "What happened to your arm?"

  "Whew. Jeez, kid. Don't do that to me. I just don't have the prosthesis on."

  "You literally never noticed he has hooks for hands?" Austin asked. He had moved on from Pop-Tarts to eating peanuts directly out of a jar on the counter.

  "I know that!" Lissy said. "I just didn't know you could take it off!"

  "Yeah, it's not actually attached to me," Dan said. He crouched down and held out the stump of his arm to Lissy. "This is what it looks like underneath. Want to feel it?"

  "No," Lissy said, but she reached out obediently. Her small hands tickled. "Wow, it's soft. Does it hurt?"

  "Not at all." It wasn't entirely the truth. Little sparks still danced through his nerve endings, trying to tell him about the arm that was no longer there. But it also wasn't entirely a lie. He'd mostly stopped noticing, and he had adjusted to it to a degree he'd once believed impossible.

  He had worried, once, that a woman might see him as less than a man with both arms. But nothing in the way that Paula responded to him, or to his arm, had ever made him feel that way.

  We are the entire person that we are. His bear seemed baffled. We could not possibly be less.

  Dan tried to keep his wry smile on the inside. You're right.

  Lissy lost interest in his arm and went to pester her brother for peanuts. Dan found a skillet and a mixing bowl, and started whisking eggs. By the time Paula came into the kitchen, wearing a fuzzy red sweater with her damp hair straggling in squiggly curls on her shoulders, Dan was already scooping the first omelet out of the skillet.

  "Mine!" Lissy said. "It has olives!"

  "We figured we'd go in order of age," Dan said. "Reverse order, that is." With a flourish, he deposited Lissy's omelet in front of her at the table. "Austin's up next. Put your order in—what do you want?"

  "I'm not used to giving breakfast orders instead of taking them," Paula teased. "How about I grate some cheese?"

  They moved in sync, perfect teamwork just like back at the Ruger house. He was intensely aware of her, especially when their hips brushed, or she reached for something just as he reached for it, and her warm skin slipped across his.

  "There's something I need to talk to you about, after the kids go to school," Dan told her under his breath, during one of the lulls in the action. Lissy, with some reluctance, had gone upstairs to change out of her pajamas, and Austin was on his second omelet, which he had asked for politely while Paula looked on in amazement.

  "Of course." She looked up at him with a little frown of worry. She was wearing no makeup, the first time he'd seen her without at least a hint of mascara on her lashes, and she was, as always, gorgeous. "Is it about Austin?"

  "No," he said quietly. "It's about me."

  "Oh," she murmured, and went wordlessly to put the milk away in the fridge.

  Damn. He hadn't meant to worry her. Still, there was no way to lead gracefully into So, by the way, I turn into a bear.

  He had no idea how to tell her. He was going to have to show her; there was no other way. He wished now that he'd asked Derek and Ben more questions about how they'd revealed their shifter status to their mates. Different circumstances were different, but still, it would have been nice to have a little more guidance than Derek's brief pep talk last night.

  Oh well. He'd simply have to do what he always did, and wing it.

  They finished breakfast, the plates scraped clean. "Go get your books and see what's keeping your sister," Paula told Austin. As Austin ran out, she got up and put her plate in the sink. "I can't believe how well you two are getting along."

  "We bonded, I guess," Dan said.

  "He said please! He doesn't even say it to me half the time."

  "He's a really sweet kid. He's just going through some stuff."

  "Thanks to Terry," Paula sighed, but it came out with surprisingly little heat. "So I'm gonna drive the kids to school; I think I'd be more comfortable doing that than having them take the bus."

  "I'll get the kitchen cleaned up."

  She looked, as always, mildly surprised, as if the idea of someone else cleaning up for her was a shock she couldn't get over. Dan was getting the distinct impression that Terry hadn't been much for household chores. Yet another reason to dislike the guy, as if breaking Paula's warm, soft heart wasn't enough.

  "Okay," she said. "And then when I get back, we'll—um—talk?"

  "Yeah." He wanted to reassure her that it wasn't a bad thing. But honestly, he had no idea how she was going to react to having a bombshell like I'm a bear and you're my fated mate dropped on her. He'd never tried to explain it to someone who wasn't a shifter before.

  Paula went to corral the kids. Dan rinsed the dishes and loaded Paula's dishwasher. The Rugers need to get one of these, he thought.

  "Dan! We're leaving!"

  Paula came running in, with her coat on one arm and hanging off the other. She gave him what was apparently meant to be a quick kiss, but turned into something long and lingering and soft.

  Dan ran his soapy thumb across her chin. "See you soon," he murmured.

  "Mmmm," she hummed, and leaned into his chest briefly before she pulled away and darted out of the kitchen. Moments later, the door slammed.

  Dan finished loading the dishwasher and started it running, then wandered into the living room.

  It felt very strange to be in Paula's house without Paula here. Intrusive, almost. But, no. She had welcomed him here. He could almost feel his bear starting to settle into it, as if it was curling up in a new den.

  Someone knocked on the door. Dan nearly stumbled over the coffee table, then went to answer it.

  "Hi," Ben Keegan said. He slipped in with a light dusting of snow on his dark hair. "Derek told me about the kid disappearing last night. Why didn't you call us?"

  "Because he ran away, he wasn't kidnapped," Dan said. "I handled it." He watched Ben go to a box on the wall. "What are you doing?"

  "Checking Paula's security system." Ben touched some buttons, looked at his phone, swiped something. "Is there anyone at the diner?"

  "She closed it today."

  Ben nodded. "I normally have the system set to turn off during the day. If it's going to be unoccupied, it should probably be armed."

  "So when does Paula get to stop living in a state of siege?" Dan demanded.

  "When we find her husband," Ben said, attention focused on his phone.

  Sudden inspiration hit Dan with the force of a thunderbolt. "Would it help if I tell you I'm pretty sure he's a mythic shifter?"

  Ben froze. Very slowly, he turned around to stare at Dan. "You're just telling us this now?"

  "I didn't know!" Dan protested. "Until recently. I've been asking around."

  "Are the kids shifters?"

  "I don't know," Dan lied blatantly. It
was too big a confidence for him to even think about betraying Austin's trust in him. "I found a guy—look, it's complicated. I just need to know if mythic shifters have some kind of ... grapevine, or group chat, or something, some way of networking with each other, like if you wanted to find a specific one ..."

  "I spent most of my life not talking to the dragon side of my family, so no," Ben said. "At least if there is, I'm not in on it. But I don't think so." He gave Dan a sharp, suspicious look. "Why is all of this coming up now? What happened?"

  "I'm sworn to secrecy on this," Dan said. "I can't tell you who, what, or when, but—"

  "So yes, something happened."

  "Seriously, man, do not pump me for details. I can't give them."

  "It's interesting that you said 'mythic shifter' and not 'dragon,'" Ben said. "Because even most people who do know about dragons think that's all there is." His sharp gaze sharpened further. Dan had a sudden sympathy for people Ben had grilled for information back in his police days. There was steel in those gray eyes. "Is he a gargoyle?"

  "I can't tell you, how many times do I have to say this?"

  "Because gargoyles and dragons are ancestral enemies."

  "Oh, so you're carrying the family feud forward. Good to know."

  "It's not a feud," Ben said. "They literally wiped out part of my family. They threatened my child and mate. So yeah, if there are gargoyles involved, I need to know."

  Dan rolled his eyes. "No gargoyles. Slow your roll. There's no threat. He's not a gargoyle, he's not a dragon; it's something different, something I didn't even think existed, and seriously, that's as much as I can say and probably more than I should have. I just needed to know if you have some way to get me in touch with the mythic shifter underground, if there is any such thing."

  "Like I said, not that I know of. I can ask my dad. Or lean on Tessa's old connections with the Corcoran clan. Between the two of them, someone's bound to know."

  "Be discreet, would you? I don't want to get anyone riled up. And seriously, there's a promise at stake that it's important to me not to break."

  "I'll be careful," Ben promised.

  He had to trust that. Had to trust Ben. It wasn't such a big deal when he was trusting his own safety to his brothers in arms. But this was Paula's safety at stake, and the emotional health of Paula's children. It was a lot.