OSO Ready: The Boys of Beartooth Bay: Harrison

by Claire Ryann

  Harrison had been so upset he couldn't make it to the ultrasound appointment, she'd promised to stay over no matter what the results were.

  They still hadn't had a serious discussion about what they were going to do either way. Jess had been afraid to start a new packet of birth control pills if she was, indeed, pregnant. So the last week had been rough on both of them.

  The good news if she was pregnant was that they could stop worrying about getting pregnant and the amazing sex life that they'd both gotten used to over the last month could get back on track.

  The bad news was that if she wasn't pregnant, it was going to be another month before the pill was back in effect. And after this little episode, she wasn't sure how much she still trusted it.

  She walked up the graveled circular drive in front of Harrison's house. She wasn't sure exactly how she was going to deliver the news yet.

  They'd had some discussions about their options but neither of them had really put their true feelings on the line yet. She honestly didn't know if he was hoping for or against a baby. She knew he cared about her, but he hadn't put it in words yet. He hadn't talked about living together or getting married or meeting his parents or any of the things that couples usually face together long before they're about to have a child.

  The front door swung open and Harrison's face appeared in front of her, sending her thoughts scattering in the wind like fall leaves.

  He took up most of the space in the open door, his shoulders nearly wide enough to touch both sides at once. He was tall enough that there was only a few inches of clearance between the top of his head and the top of the door jam. He was wearing a pair of thick canvas work pants that looked too big for him and a black t-shirt that didn't seem quite right either.

  Other than the slightly askew clothes, he was even more gorgeous than the first day she saw him in the salon. Maybe it was because she'd gotten to know him better. Maybe it was because she knew he felt the same way about her. Maybe it was because he was smiling at her warmly, like he was welcoming her home after a long day of work.

  Like she was home. Not just an overnight guest.

  A thrill ran through her at the notion. It was a cozy little fantasy and she decided to enjoy it while it lasted.

  "Hello beautiful," Harris stepped out of the doorway and took her bag from her with a cautious look at the beverage she was holding.

  He bent to kiss her sweetly on the cheek as her ushered her inside.

  Jess stopped in the entryway and turned as soon as he stepped in behind her and closed the door.

  "Buh buh buh!" Harrison waved his free hand to stop her before she could make her announcement, "Not yet."

  He gestured for her to meet him in the living room as he took her bag back to the master bedroom.

  Jess had been all ready to just blurt it out.

  As soon as she'd seen him, it had bubbled up in her throat and all she wanted to do was just get it out.

  Now it was obvious that Harrison wanted to have some serious conversation first.

  Her stomach knotted with anxiety as she wandered toward the living room by way of the kitchen table.

  She couldn't help but aim for it. It was usually clear. She'd often teased him about the lack of so much as a center piece in the middle, but he said he just never used it.

  A stack of books lay on the edge and from where she was when she'd noticed, it looked like a pile of small cards. As she got closer, she realized the cards were really about a million paint chips.

  Several magazines were scattered about. A notebook computer was in the middle of it all, its sleeping screen coming to life as soon as she brushed against the table to reveal several open browser tabs that all looked to be for cribs and high chairs and other baby stuff as well as a few that were for parenting blogs and articles.

  Jess felt her jaw drop open a little in surprise. She turned her attention to the paint samples, a blue and a brown one together, set against a catalog page with lots of little forest creatures and paw print decals.

  Her surprise picked up into a grin.

  The books were all childrens' books, about a dozen of them all stacked together on top of a magazine opened to an article about the importance of reading for a child's development.

  "The articles all say that the baby can hear your voice while it’s still inside you," Harrison had come around to the dining room from the other direction, "they say that babies know their mothers' voice before they're even born cuz they hear it all the time."

  He picked up the stack of books and began sorting through them, showing each cover to Jessica before laying it back down on the table.

  "So I thought I'd read to him every night so he'd know my voice too. Plus he'll get a head start on reading so he'll be really smart."

  Jess looked up at Harrison. He was all goofy grin and shrugging shoulders, sounding almost apologetic about the books as if she'd caught him stealing pie from the cooling rack.

  It made her heart swell with emotion for him but the right words just wouldn't come, so all she could do was offer him a comforting smile as she watched him set the last book down and reach for the catalog with the paint samples.

  "I know we haven't really talked much about what we're gonna do," he handed her the colorful little cards, "but I was thinking maybe an outdoorsy theme for the nursery."

  His face suddenly dropped. His bashful enthusiasm falling away to be replaced by a panicked look and sad eyes.

  "I didn't know you'd been planning a nursery," Jess wanted to see that look come back to his eyes. The way he'd looked at all those books while he'd been showing them to her. The look that was hopeful and excited and filled with plans for the future.

  She watched him blink. Just once at first and then a few times rapidly. His jaw tightened and she watched his throat constrict.

  He brought his hand to his face as he made a quarter turn away from her. Four deep scratches ran down the length of his forearm.

  "OH!"

  The short shriek that escaped her was shrill and horrified and totally caught them both off guard. Jess covered her mouth with one hand as the other pointed at the wounds on Harrison's arm with the same frantic movement as if there'd been a scorpion on him.

  "What happened?!" She asked, her voice a mix of awe and fear as she pulled his arm back where she could inspect the scabbed over gashes more closely.

  She could feel the tension in him as he allowed her to run her finger across the quickly healing scars.

  "Got in a fight."

  Jess narrowed her eyes and looked up at him. Fights weren't part of the Harrison she'd come to know, they weren't part of the picture she'd painted of him in her head. Somehow it didn't really surprise her, one of the things she found most attractive was his rough edges, but it reminded her how little she really knew about him.

  She dropped his arm and took a small step back from him. Her face still contorted in a pained expression from the indecision of how to react.

  "Those were deep, Harris," she said slowly, "they look like they happened two weeks ago, but they weren't there yesterday."

  "That's because it happened this morning, Clay got a good swipe at me before I could push him off the boat."

  Jess's eyebrows shot up in surprise, "You pushed Clay off the boat?"

  "No. Luke broke it up before it got out of hand."

  "I don't understand, you're saying your brother cut your arm up like that? It looks like you got in a fight with a bear!"

  Jess watched something change in Harrison's eyes. Light flickered across his pupils for only a second or two as his entire expression went scared and hard at the same time in a way she couldn't quite process.

  "Yeah, I guess it does," he mused as he held his arm up so he could see it.

  "Jess, I have to tell you something," his voice was strangled as if he was holding his breath while he said the words, "I know it's going to sound crazy and I don't expect you to just take my word for it, I can prove it, but before you have my
baby it's really important that you know what you're getting into."

  He was leading her across the living room and sitting her in the same chair she'd been in when she'd told him she might be pregnant. His voice was deadly serious and it was like pouring a bucket of ice directly into her veins.

  She promised herself she'd stay calm. She'd hear him out before she said anything. Whatever it was, it was something she needed to know about him.

  She silenced the thoughts rampaging through her brain from "Oh my god, he's married," to "he has a terminal illness and won't even be here to raise a baby."

  "You OK?" He asked once he'd gotten her seated and propped her feet up on the ottoman. It seemed silly for him to be so worried about her comfort when he was acting like he was about tell her he'd killed someone.

  She nodded silently, her eyes wide and fixed on him as he paced nervously in front of her.

  "Good, good," he rubbed the scabs on the back of his arm as though they inspired his thoughts. Finally he turned and looked down at her with a quizzical look, "I did get in a fight with a bear."

  "Sort of!" He added vehemently before she could get a word out.

  "I sort of did get in a fight with a bear today," he said as though that cleared it all up.

  "You 'sort of' got in a fight with a bear today." Jess repeated it simply, "I thought you got in a fight with Clay?"

  His head slowly nodded.

  "Clay is a bear?" Jess wasn't sure she was following.

  His nodding became more affirmative, his eyes widening as though he was excited that she was catching on.

  Jess shook her head to match his nodding, "You're brother is a big guy, you all are, but I wouldn't call him a 'bear.' "

  Harris's face fell. He took a breath and tried again, "We're all bears."

  Jess felt giggles building in her gut. They were threatening to bubble up and spill out of her mouth and she was pretty sure this was a very inappropriate time for the giggles. She just didn't know how else to react.

  "Harrison, I don't understand your metaphor," she finally killed the urge to laugh and hoped for a straight answer.

  Harrison knelt in front of her, moving up against the edge of her chair and placing his hands on the the cushion beside her. He leaned toward her, staring deeply into her eyes the way he did that made her insides go all gooey.

  This time was no exception. Jess couldn't help but sit forward, dropping her feet to the floor, her face only inches from his.

  "Jessica," he whispered, "I know you've already seen it. You know there's something different about me and you've already accepted it. I just need you to know what it is."

  His hands fell into her lap and wrapped around hers firmly.

  Jess paid careful attention to what he was saying. He was right, from the first time they'd been together she'd known he was different. She just chalked it up to him being the one. The One. The One for her.

  What if he was about to tell her something else?

  She held her breath and watched his eyes.

  "We're shape shifters. Bears."

  . The words didn't mean anything to her. He seemed to be confessing some deep secret to her, something important that he worried she might not accept, but the words he was saying might as well been in a foreign language.

  She blinked once. When he continued to silently wait for her reaction, holding her in his dark eyes while the little flecks of golden light played across the soft brown irises, she blinked again.

  "Harrison, I don't know what that means," she said in a soft apology.

  Harrison gave her a look that said he was worried about her reaction, "Just, don't freak out. Stay right there," he backed away from her slowly as if he was worried she was about to run out the door as soon as he took his eyes off her.

  Jess watched as he moved to the center of the big room, looking around him as though he was making sure he had enough room and began taking off his clothes.

  Then she watched as the lines that made up Harrison's familiar features began to shimmer and move. Fur began to appear, his neck elongating, his head growing and dropping down low before his shoulders.

  It happened so fast and yet so smoothly. It was had to focus on the exact sequence of changes but in only a few seconds Harrison had disappeared and a pretty big bear sat on the living room carpet.

  Just sat. Its rear legs splayed out under it, its front legs propping its weight up. Its huge head turned at an angle, watching her curiously. Waiting for her reaction.

  Jess stared at the bear. She wasn't sure what to think. She wasn't sure what just happened or what she was supposed to do about it. Or what it meant.

  Her hand flew to her stomach as a wave of nausea sent her fleeing the chair and running for the bathroom.

  Chapter 11

  "Jess?"

  The knock on the door was soft, the voice behind it worried.

  Jessica flushed the toilet and collapsed against the cool tile side of the bathtub, pulling her leg out from under her and stretching it out on the bathroom floor.

  She groaned something that she hoped communicated her willingness to let him come in and then she let her head fall back so that it was resting on the edge of the tub. It was an awkward position that wasn't in the least bit comfortable, but she didn't have the energy to do much else with it.

  The door opened slowly and Harrison's face appeared around the edge, "Are you OK?"

  She nodded affirmatively at the ceiling.

  "You know, when you took your clothes off, I was expecting something better," her voice was raspy from vomiting and she wished she hadn't left her drink in the kitchen. Although, now that she thought about it, it was probably one of the contributing factors to puking her guts up. That and the whole her boyfriend being a bear thing.

  She groaned again as she pulled her head up-- and the last week. And the doctor's office this morning.

  And her boyfriend could turn into a bear.

  She leveled her gaze wearily at him, waiting to see if he had anything more to say. The tension of the week was beginning to ebb from her body, leaving her with nothing but an exhausted numbness.

  She still hadn't told him the results.

  Harrison laughed, "Sorry. Didn't mean to get your hopes up."

  She smiled weakly. They hadn't had sex in over a week. Since she hadn't wanted to start taking birth control again until she knew for sure, they'd been on something of a break. Jess was starting to go a little crazy.

  Harrison sat down on the bathroom floor next to her. It took some effort for him to fit his wide shoulders between her and the wall, but he managed to get wedged in and pull her to his chest with one arm around her shoulders.

  He'd slipped on a pair of his own pants somewhere along the way. Black fleecy cotton pajama like things that looked warm and comfy.

  Jess let her hand drop down over his thigh.

  The waistband of the sweat pants hung low on his waist, clinging to his hip bones. They looked good on him. She let her fingers trace little figure 8's over his thigh.

  "The baby won't start shifting until around puberty." Harrison's voice was soft and thoughtful as he held her, her head against his bare chest. "It's just something you need to know. About me. About our children," his voice was cut off by her suddenly raising her head.

  "Children?" Jess asked.

  She dropped her head back to his chest. It felt better there anyway.

  A deep breath filled his lungs, expanding his chest under her head, "I figure you'll move in here. We'll remodel the spare room across the hall from the upstairs master. When the next one comes along, we can decide if we're going to keep that as the nursery and put the oldest downstairs or just remodel the office into a new nursery."

  Jess realized she was smiling. A genuine, happy smile, as she listened to him prattle on with his plans for their future. He sounded so confident about how it was all going to play out. Like he'd been planning it for years.

  "Harris," she started but he kept talking.
<
br />   "I mean, after this one comes along, we'll get married-- if you want?" His voice wavered, as if he was worried she was going to say no.

  When she snorted out a short, soft chuckle, he continued, "We'll get married. Maybe next summer. We'll have to go up to visit my folks before you're too far along to travel, you're really going to like Mom, and then they'll probably come out and stay for a while when the baby gets here. Then we'll work on the next one."

  He finished triumphantly and kissed the top of her head.

  "But Harris--"

  "Our kids will be just the right age to grow up with Ethan's!" Harrison's voice rose again, laced with a note of excitement.

  "I'm not pregnant."

  She could feel his head tilt down to look at her. She felt his body deflate as though the air had gone out of his lungs. She sat up and forced her eyes to his, "You don't have to marry me."

  The rush of emotion that threatened to choke her words and send tears spilling over her cheeks caught her by surprise. She hadn't realized how much his plans for a future together had appealed to her.

  "You don't have to worry about a baby or a wife I know you aren't ready for."

  Watching the light go out of Harrison's eyes was heartbreaking. The dancing flecks of gold that she found fascinating dimmed, replaced by hollow sadness.

  "Mate. A mate and a baby." He said the words so softly she wasn't sure she heard right.

  "A mate and a baby that I am ready for," his voice picked up in volume, his word measured and precise as he turned and held her face between his hands, forcing her eyes up to his, "that I've been ready for since the first moment I saw you."

  Jessica's eyes betrayed her, tears flowing down her cheeks in torrents. Within seconds she was a blubbering mess, but he kissed her anyway.

  Tenderly, passionately, as if it was the first time.

  She only broke away when she couldn't breathe any more.

  Harrison struggled back to his feet and pulled her up with him, wrapping his arms around her and pressing her tightly into his chest.

  "But if you're not pregnant, why were you throwing up?" He finally asked.

  She shrugged lightly, "well that is my second double latte today, it has been a helluva week, and you did just turn into a bear in the living room. I guess it was just too much."