by Zoe Chant
"Okay, the system's armed again," Ben said. He put his phone away. "If anything trips it, you'll get an alert and so will I."
"Thanks," Dan said, heartfelt. "For helping us. For helping her."
Ben clasped Dan's good arm. "Anytime, brother," he said, and let himself out into the snow.
Just to give himself something to do, Dan went upstairs, but he realized immediately that he couldn't put his arm back on without having to just take it off again when he showed Paula his bear. From her bedroom, he noticed that the window looked across the fence onto the back of the diner. Snow was falling softly outside, settling on the fence and covering the trampled slush in the alley.
He liked it here, he was starting to realize. He never could have seen himself living in a small town before. But as Derek had apparently found out also, once you found your mate and cubs, home was where they were.
The door slammed downstairs. "Honey, I'm home!" Paula's voice called. Then she giggled nervously. "Okay, that's just silly. Dan? Are you here?"
He came down the stairs. Paula was taking off her coat in the hallway, shaking snow off the shoulders.
"Kids all squared away?" Dan asked.
Paula spun around, and ran to slide her arms around him. "Hi," she said into his shoulder.
"Hi," he said, caught off guard. Her warm weight settled against him, feeling perfectly and exactly as if it belonged there. He leaned into her.
Mate.
"Ben came by to reset the security system," he said into her hair, realizing as soon as the words left his mouth that it was literally the least sexy thing he could have said in that particular moment.
"I'm so tired of that thing," Paula sighed. "I can't wait until we work out this Terry situation and I can just live my life." She looked up at him, a shy, quick glance. "Our lives."
His heart flipped over. Being invited into Paula's life—it was all he wanted. All he needed.
And at the same time, he refused to accept it under false pretenses. Or even the hint of false pretenses. Not after Terry.
No. There could never be anything but honesty between them.
"I need to show you something," he said.
Dan stepped away from her, giving himself room. Paula looked curious, and her eyes went wide when Dan started stripping off his T-shirt.
"If you're trying to distract me," she said breathlessly, "it's working."
"It's not a distraction," he said firmly, though now he was thinking of Paula, naked and writhing in pleasure last night, and he could feel himself developing an erection that she was going to get a good view of in a minute. "I want to share myself with you, Paula. All of me."
"I think I got most of you last night."
"Not quite." Dan slid his jeans and underwear down his hips.
"Seriously, if this is—look, if it's another scar or something, I don't care," Paula said fervently. She took a step toward him.
"It's not that." He stood before her, naked ... and mildly erect, half mast at least, just from her nearness. He saw her take that in and smile. "It's—Paula, I can't really explain this to you. I wish I could show you this somewhere more romantic."
He had thought about it. There was a part of him that wanted to take her out to the middle of the woods, bring a picnic, make it beautiful.
But shifting in the woods last night had reminded him how extremely unromantic it was to shift in a snowy forest in the middle of winter. Her living room would do just fine. It was, after all, the place that he wished and hoped could be their shared den someday. It was only appropriate that this house was where they had made love for the first time, and where he would now show her the other half of his soul.
She was the center of his heart, and her heart was here. So his was too.
"If you want to have sex on the couch, Dan, I have to warn you that I think there are a bunch of Cheetos ground into the cushions from the last time I had a movie night with the kids."
"It's not about sex," he said, and then plunged forward, going for it. Shifting without warning probably wasn't the way to go. "Paula—I turn into a bear."
Paula froze in the act of moving toward him.
"What?"
"You know, like a werewolf? It's sort of complicated. I don't go around telling people this."
"I can see why," she said, frowning at him. "Is this like ... a roleplaying thing? I think I've heard that bears are a thing in, um, in sex for ... some people. Is that what this is about?"
Possibly taking his clothes off before telling her hadn't been the best order of things.
"No, I mean I literally turn into a bear. A grizzly bear, specifically."
"Okay," she said cautiously.
"Is it all right if I show you?"
".... okay?"
Well, that was something like a yes.
Come on, bear. Showtime.
At least he didn't have to deal with his bear being a dick about it this time. It was probably a good thing that he'd gotten a test run last night. The shift was instant. The warm prickle of fur flushed over him, and he dropped to all fours—that is, all threes.
Paula stumbled backward. She smelled alarmed.
"Don't worry!" he tried to say, but it came out as a coughing grunt.
Paula stopped in the kitchen doorway. She clutched at the doorframe and stared at him.
Dan sat down on his back legs—bears at least were fairly well suited for this. Shifting in a living room was a little less familiar.
"Okay, wow," Paula said faintly. "That is—yes, there is definitely a bear there."
Well, she hadn't screamed. That was good? Probably?
"Can you change back?" she asked in that same small voice.
He shifted. Abruptly he was aware of his bare, human ass pressed into the carpet, his legs splayed out, one hand pressed against the carpet's rough nap.
Paula jumped.
"So I turn into a bear," Dan said, looking up at her.
There was a long, still moment.
Then the diner security alarm went off.
Paula
It took Paula a moment to realize that the ringing was external and not happening in her head.
A bear, she thought.
A bear.
He's a bear.
Huh.
"Damn it!" Dan snapped, scrambling to his feet. He was still gloriously naked. She could have stared at that all day, even if the circumstances were a bit weird.
—he's a BEAR—
And oh, okay, someone was breaking into the diner; that was a thing. That they should probably deal with.
Possibly she wasn't handling this as well as she thought.
Dan was charging for the back door leading to the yard and the fence. Paula caught him by his bare arm. She caught him without thinking about it, no hesitation. She had no fear of touching him. No fear of him, generally. Even though—bear. That was going to require some explanation later.
"Pants," she told him firmly. "My diner is a no shirt, no shoes, no service establishment. I'll waive the shirt, but pants aren't optional."
Dan stared at her for an instant, gave a slightly strangled laugh that turned into a cough halfway through, and lunged back to get his jeans.
He didn't bother with anything else. She opened the back door and he ran out, barefoot and bare-chested, into the snow.
"You'll freeze!" Paula shouted.
"Shifters are tough!" he called back.
Right. Bear. He probably didn't even feel the cold. Still, she stopped to grab their coats before charging out after him.
"Here," she said, shoving his coat at him.
Dan pulled it on, barely slowing down. Paula lagged behind, struggling into hers. The snow was coming down more heavily now, fat wet flakes falling all around them.
Dan burst through the door in the fence, with Paula stumbling behind.
There was someone bent over the diner's back door, trying to open it, fumbling with the lock. It was a man, the collar of his wool topcoat turned up agai
nst his dark red-brown curly hair.
Paula had a moment to think that there was something weirdly familiar about him before Dan grabbed him by the coat and slammed him into the wall.
"Hey!" the intruder yelped. The thing that was in his hand, which turned out to be not lock picks but keys, slipped out of his hand and fell into the snow.
"Terry?" Paula gasped.
At the sight of her ex, she was frozen in shock. Of all the people she expected to see here—of all the places she expected to see him—
Then he saw her and gave her one of his old familiar smiles, the warm smile that had charmed her in college and then had somehow turned into a deflection, a mask, a cover for his secrets ... and her temper snapped.
"Paula," he began.
She lunged forward and punched him in the face, snapping his head back against the wall.
It wasn't hard enough to hurt him seriously—she just wasn't that strong—but Terry staggered, looking stunned.
"How dare you," she snarled.
Rage swelled inside her like a red-hot balloon, filling her to the brim.
"Ow!" Terry protested, covering his face with his hand. "Paula, okay, this is not how I wanted this to go down, I swear."
"Are you okay?" Dan asked her quietly.
"I'm fine." As much as she would enjoy watching Dan crush Terry against the wall of the diner, she put a hand on Dan's arm; he put up slight resistance but allowed her to guide him back.
"Is she okay," Terry muttered. He wiped a cautious hand under his nose and looked relieved when it wasn't bloody. "Did you change the locks?"
"Why the hell do you even have a key to my diner?" She almost said My parents' diner, because back when she was married to Terry, it had been. That was how thoroughly he'd rattled her.
"You gave it to me," he said. "Years ago, when we visited your parents."
"Oh." She didn't remember that. But then, when she married Terry, she had believed in an ethos of share and share alike—sharing everything with her husband. Heart of one heart, soul of one soul.
She still believed in it. She just didn't believe in it with Terry any longer.
Paula crossed her arms and stood shoulder to shoulder with Dan—or more like shoulder to upper rib cage given their height difference—presenting a united front against Terry. With his back pressed against the wall, her ex-husband looked as if he was starting to realize the magnitude of the mistake he'd made.
"Yes," Paula said. "I did change the locks. Or I guess I should say that Dan and his friends did, because someone trying to find you trashed the place and has been coming around threatening me."
Terry's mouth fell open. He looked shocked, and although she didn't want to still be able to read Terry's expressions that well, it seemed genuine to her. He wasn't that good a liar. The only reason why he had gotten away with it so long with her was because she wanted to believe him so badly.
"Paula, I swear, I had no idea. I would never have wanted you and the kids to get in trouble because of me."
"Yeah, right." A decade of ruthlessly suppressed anger surged out of her again. "Because you cared a lot about me and the kids when you ran off to God knows where and didn't even bother to leave a forwarding address."
"Paula, I swear—" He started to move forward. Dan placed a big hand on Terry's chest, just high enough that it could slip up to the throat very easily. Terry was shoved back against the wall.
"Maybe you better think carefully about what you want to say to her," Dan growled.
"Who are you, anyway?" Terry asked. He made an attempt to squirm free, but Dan had way too much bouncer experience to let him. Dan shoved a knee against Terry's legs and pushed him into the wall again.
"I'm her mate, asshole," Dan snarled.
A warm, delighted feeling sank into Paula's chest. They hadn't even really talked about dating yet, and it was a slightly odd, old-fashioned way to say "boyfriend." But the way he said it was so matter-of-fact and right that she could almost feel the rightness of it click into place.
Terry's reaction was weird: his eyes bugged out, and all the fight went out of him. He sagged limply against the wall, propped up by Dan's hand.
"Oh," he said quietly.
"Yeah. Oh. Now here's a suggestion—how about we go somewhere a little warmer and have a chat."
"Your feet," Paula said. She had forgotten Dan was barefoot. Now she looked down, worried, at his cold-looking toes in the snow.
"I'm all right," Dan said, but between the bare feet and his bare chest under the open coat, he looked like he was finally starting to notice the cold. He was shivering slightly.
Paula unlocked the back door of the diner and reached into the hidden panel to reset the alarm keypad, angling her elbow so Terry couldn't see the combination she punched in. She opted for the diner rather than the house because she didn't want Terry in her house, though it was hard to put her finger on exactly why. It wasn't that she was afraid he'd steal her stuff or anything like that. It was more that she just didn't want him there. The house was her place.
The diner was her place too, but at least it didn't feel like she was letting her ex tramp all over her home place, her nest.
She turned on the lights and reached for a roll of paper towels. "Here," she said, handing it to Dan. "In case you need to dry off and warm up your feet. Are you sure you aren't frostbitten or anything?"
"Not in that short a time," Dan said. "Oh, hell, I better call Derek and Ben, and let them know to call off the cavalry before—"
A large black truck skidded to a halt in the alley, outside the half-open door. Derek and Ben piled out.
"Never mind, too late."
Derek was pulling off his jacket, revealing a massively jacked torso. Before today, Paula would have been puzzled. Now she had the sudden, shocking realization that he was preparing for a shift.
He's a bear too!
It was like the entire world rearranged itself around her. Maybe Lissy really had seen a bear in the alley.
"We got an alert on the system," Ben said.
"Who's this guy?" Derek demanded, jerking a thumb at Terry, who had backed all the way up against the wall and looked like he wished he could fade into it.
"My ex," Paula said. She crossed her arms again.
As one, all three of the other guys in the room turned to look at Terry. And Paula wondered why she had never noticed it before: there was a wildness to Dan and his friends, like she could almost see the animal beneath the surface.
"So this is the guy who's caused all this trouble," Derek said. A growl vibrated in his throat.
Paula sighed deeply.
"I can't believe I'm defending this deadbeat, but how about we don't rip him apart before we find out what he's doing here?"
"Thanks," Terry said.
"I'm not doing it for you, idiot. I'm doing it because my kids deserve a dad, even if it's you."
Ten minutes later, everyone was sitting at a couple of diner tables, pulled together in the middle of the floor, while Paula brought out coffee. Terry was on one side; all three of the other men were grouped on the other side, boxing him in so that he would have to go past them to get to either the front or back exit. He looked almost pathetically grateful when Paula came out of the back with a coffeepot.
Paula filled their cups, pushed sugar and creamer to the middle of the table, and sat down beside Dan, leaning against his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her. All his body language said Mine. She nestled into the unaccustomed feeling of being loved and wanted and protected, having all these big guys here just to make sure that her ex didn't bother her.
"So talk," Paula said. "Why are you showing up here, now?"
Terry's gaze darted around the room, back and forth between the men. He was a good-looking guy, tall and well-built with that curly hair she used to love to run her hands through. It was strange to notice how the desire to do so had faded completely.
"It would be easier if it was just us," he said.
"No,"
Dan said shortly.
Paula shook her head. "These guys are my bodyguards. They stay. Whatever you plan to say, you'll say in front of them, or you can walk out of here and don't bother coming back."
Terry blew out his breath. He caught Dan's eyes for a moment. "This is about—people like us. You get that, right?"
Paula felt Dan tense up.
"They're all like us," Dan said. "Paula knows. You can say whatever you need to say."
Terry picked up his coffee cup, like he needed something to do with his hands. "I swear, Paula, I never meant to lie to you—" he began.
"Oh, stuff it," Paula snapped. "If all you've come here to do is shovel up more apologies and self-justifications, don't bother."
She was expecting him to double down on how it wasn't his fault. Instead, he squared his shoulders and looked her in the eyes.
"You're right," he said. "I hurt you, and I hurt the kids, and I can never make up for that. And I lied to you about things I should never have lied about."
"You got that right," Paula said flatly. "And you still haven't said where you went or why you came back."
Terry's gaze darted to the hostile wall of bodyguards staring at him across the table.
"There are parts of it I can't talk about," he said.
Paula's temper burst out of her. She slapped both hands on the table. As tightly wound as the tension was in the room, everyone jumped.
"You used to give me that line when we were married too! Forget it, buddy. You're telling me everything, and you're telling me now."
"I literally can't!" Terry said, his voice cracking. He pulled up his sleeve.
Paula remembered that tattoo very well. It was red ink, an elegant twisting glyph that curled around his forearm. It looked almost like a pair of wings. She used to tease him about it, because he was so straight-laced otherwise. He had always told her that he got it in high school on a dare.
"This stops me from talking about it," he said. "I want to, Paula, but I can't."
Paula stared at him, then looked at Dan to see how he was taking this. Dan and Derek were both looking at Ben.