Bears of Burden: THORN

by Candace Ayers

  “Me and Jon were… He was the closest thing I had to family. We were from a pretty small town, and neither of us was all that well behaved.” He smiled, presumably at some memory of the two of them, and the reflexive expression seemed totally at odds with the anguish in his eyes.

  “No one wanted to keep either of us for long, so we were in a lot of the same temporary homes together, the halfway houses for boys that were a bit too much to handle in a more… traditional atmosphere. At first it was because we were broken, hurt and lashing out. Eventually though, half our antics were just attempts to be placed in the same home again. We both felt less alone in the world when we were together. We joined the service together too, both made it through selection and training to become SEALS. Then he met Marsha and got married.”

  Everly said nothing, afraid that if she spoke he would retreat from her once again. Somehow she knew that if he retreated this time, nothing she could do would be enough to reach him.

  “I was so damn happy for him, so damn proud. I thought one of us had actually managed to make it through our childhood and still have a full, happy life, and it was good, for a while. It was. Then things started to change. It seemed like after every one of our missions, he left a piece of himself behind when we returned home, until…”

  Connor met her eyes then, and his anguish seemed to be its own entity, a heavy presence robbing the room of light and air. “Eventually there wasn’t anything left of Jon, the Jon I knew, at all. He started going missing when we were overseas, even though it’s forbidden to go anywhere alone in a combat zone. When he’d come back, he’d seem…kind of… strung out. I thought maybe he was using. Not surprising, considering how we grew up. I still think he might have been.”

  Connor let his eyes go to the floor then, and Everly could tell that he could barely force himself to speak the next words.

  “When we were ambushed, Jonathan’s face contorted into an eerie smile, like he was having the time of his life, then he… He… He started killing our team, Everly. He was like a man possessed. I… I… aw, fuck, I had to take him out. I knew I had to do it. I knew it. I froze, though. I’ve never frozen before, no matter what I’ve faced. But seeing him killing our own teammates, it was like my mind just couldn’t believe my eyes, you know? If I’d shot him sooner, I could have saved every last one of them. Hell, if I’d just mentioned to someone when I noticed something wasn’t right…”

  Everly could hardly breathe through the lump in her throat, and she couldn’t stop the tears that were trailing down her cheeks any more than she could stop the sun from rising, not any more than Connor could go back and change that which had already come to pass.

  He continued speaking after a moment. “I didn’t help him when he needed me the most. I failed him. But, the least I can do is let him die a hero, keep his wife and children from knowing that he died a traitor, a cold-blooded killer.”

  She laid a shaking hand on his arm.

  “I’m so sorry, Connor. I never guessed…I won’t tell a soul. I want you to know that. I swear it.” She moved her hands for emphasis, and his gaze fastened on the DVD that she’d forgotten she still held in her hand. She flinched as he tore it from her fingers.

  Gone was the teasing lover from the night before, the broken man of just a few moments ago. All she could see in his eyes now was a grief-fed anger that she feared might consume him. He threw the DVD across the room, and the sound of it hitting the wall was as loud as a gunshot in the quiet of the morning.

  “Get the hell out, Doc.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The following days became weeks in which Connor sank into an alcohol and grief laden haze. He no longer waited for evening to use liquor to dull his pain. He’d taken almost all of his saved leave after his confession to Everly.

  His commander had rushed the packet through for him, gotten the time off approved in hours, rather than days or even weeks. Connor wasn’t sure why he’d done so, but he was thankful. He didn’t know how he was going to face anyone again.

  Somehow, speaking of Jon’s death had made it more real, like a slap in the face. Before, he’d been able to push it down, distance himself until he almost felt like it was a bad dream. Words had the power, though, to bring darker emotions to life. He’d given the memory of Jonathan’s death that power, and now it threatened to choke him with every waking breath.

  Day after day, he tumbled deeper into the bottle. He wasn’t even sure anymore if he was doing it to escape reality or if he was trying to punish himself for what he’d done, wreck the body that had caused so much grief and pain. A little of both, or neither maybe. It really didn’t matter in the end, as long as he didn’t have to sober up and face himself in the mirror.

  Things continued on that way for a month and a half. His heavily muscled frame lost mass, and when he did bother to look in the mirror he didn’t recognize the tortured soul who stared back at him. That was good, he thought to himself. He hated the strong, confident, arrogant man who’d murdered the only family he’d known. Anyone he became had to be better than that.

  Eventually, though, there came a day that he woke without any liquor in the house. At some point over the last few days, he’d misplaced the keys to both his truck and his bike in a drunken stupor, so it looked like he would be going to fetch a bit more liquor on foot. He could have called a cab, of course, but after so many days in solitude, the thought of making conversation with another person seemed an almost insurmountable task.

  He would rather walk the two miles to the liquor store than try to speak around the grief in his throat and his heart. Even if he was inclined to, he felt that the words would be large and awkward in his mouth. No, he would walk to the liquor store this time. Then, after he’d had a few drinks to calm the shake in his hands and the pounding in his head, he’d find the fucking keys so that this didn’t happen again.

  The sunlight and heat left him shaking and queasy. His head was swimming and sawdust filled his mouth. Every breath felt too heavy for his lungs. The sunlight offended eyes that hadn’t seen nearly enough daylight in recent weeks. Even so, something about the walk cleansed him, sobered him at least fully enough to take a real look in the mirror when he got home. What he saw left him sick and ashamed. He showered off the sweat and the liquor scent that was oozing out his pores.

  Then he sat on his couch, unsure of what to do next. He stared at the room before him. It was cluttered with takeout containers and empty booze bottles. Some of the bottles had been left on their sides to leak their last few drops on the carpet, adding the scent of old alcohol to the smell of stale grease. He shook his head in disgust.

  That was as good a place to start as any, he supposed. He grabbed a garbage bag and was almost done picking up the worst of the clutter when he saw the DVD that had been laying on the floor since the morning he’d kicked Everly out.

  He found his laptop and placed it on the coffee table. With shaking hands he inserted the disc. It was a series of video clips from his childhood, all of them short, homemade by Jon and himself. Even through the pain he couldn’t help but smile at their childish antics. More clips followed of them in the service together, at Jon’s wedding, and at barbecues with Jon’s family. He watched it all with dry-eyed longing. What had happened? What had he missed? How had his friend slipped so completely off track without him noticing?

  The screen went black for a moment, and then Marsha’s face filled the screen.

  “Hi Connor. I’m recording this because I’m not sure I will have the strength to say what needs to be said to your face without getting mad. I’m sure that however Jon really ended, it was…bad. I can’t even imagine, and I don’t want to know. I wanted to show you how I remember him though, and how you should too. That’s what he’d want. I get if you can’t look at me for a while, or ever, without hurting. Just don’t throw out the good memories with the bad, okay? Jonathan wouldn’t want that.”

  He saw the tears start to fall slowly down her face as she reached forw
ard to stop the recording. He was shocked to realize that there were tears in his own eyes as well. Only a few, too little to actually fall, but still, he thought he’d cried every last one in his youth. A couple solitary tears that represented cleansing, starting over, and he knew what he had to do.

  Chapter Twelve

  Everly could hardly believe her ears when the secretary had called her to say that Connor Mitchell was there to see her.

  “Thank God,” she whispered after she’d asked the secretary to send him in.

  She stood uncertainly as he entered. He was thinner, to be sure, and paler. But there was a softness in his eyes that had been missing the entire time she’d known him. She waited, uncertain of how to proceed.

  He made his way to her, ignoring the professional boundary of her desk as he always had. Her heart hitched at having him so near after not seeing him for a month.

  “So I stayed drunk for a little over a month,” Connor began with a rueful smile. “Then, once I finally stayed awake and sober for a few hours at the same time, I thought about Jon, thought about the things you’ve said.”

  He took a deep breath, and Everly waited for him to continue.

  “I do need help. I don’t want to tell anyone else what really went down with Jon. It won’t bring anyone back and it will only hurt everyone involved, the way I see it. The families of everyone who died thinks that those men died at the hands of terrorists. I don’t want to rob them of that any more than I want to see Jon’s memory trampled through the dirt, but I need some help to deal with this, so I’d like to make an appointment to come back and see you.”

  “You don’t have to come here. I could help you any time you need it, Connor. Day or night.”

  “Still, we’ll do it here. You might as well get paid for all the trouble I’ve caused you. Before I start with those appointments though, there’s something else I could use your help with…”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next weekend Connor and Everly walked hand in hand. Marsha walked beside them through the park, while her two older children scampered ahead of them toward the playground. They’d just gone out for ice cream, and now they were going to give the children a chance to play themselves out before Marsha brought the kids home, and before Connor brought the beautiful woman beside him back to his place.

  He reveled in the feel of Everly’s hand in his own. It seemed amazing that a week ago, he’d been drowning himself in liquor, half hoping he’d follow Jon to an early grave, but now he felt…peace. He and Marsha had spent the entire time in the ice cream parlor telling Everly stories about some of his and Jon’s escapades, and he found that he could laugh and remember the past fondly. Not without a twinge of pain of course, but this pain was bittersweet. After the soul-rending anguish he’d felt before, he could handle bittersweet, especially with a strong woman by his side to help him through.

  He couldn’t resist leaning in for a quick kiss, and loved how her lips curved into a smile at the simple gesture.

  “Uncle Connor and Everly sitting in a tree—“

  “Jenny, that’s enough,” Marsha told her oldest daughter in a scolding tone.

  Everly just laughed, and Connor couldn’t help but join her.

  “I guess we do seem a little whipped,” he admitted with a smile.

  “A little?” Marsha scoffed, “Everly, this man has never brought a single girl home for me to meet, and you have him eating out of the palm of your hand. He’s most certainly whipped.”

  Connor stopped and turned Everly so that she faced him, so that he could look into her beautiful eyes.

  “Well, Marsha,” he spoke to her, but his eyes never left Everly’s, “For the first time in my life, I’m thinking that being whipped is just fine with me.”

  And it was.

  THE END

  BEAR’S (mail order) BRIDE

  STORY DESCRIPTION

  Lilly needs a way out. The mail order bride agency may be her only hope of escaping the clutches of her cruel and abusive husband. But, will any man want a jaded, “no longer fresh” 27 year old woman?

  Eli doesn’t want a wife, but he needs one. The wealthy bear shifting brothel (ahem… saloon) owner needs to present an image of respectability. He needs a wife—in name only.

  Lilly sounds perfect. Older and widowed, she’s not some young virgin preoccupied with illusions of love and romance.

  Unfortunately, once his bride-to-be arrives, Eli can think of little else but disrobing her and claiming her as his wife in every sense of the word!

  Chapter One

  Eli stepped out onto the front porch of the saloon, the freshly painted doors swinging shut behind him. A woman was perched on the edge of one of the rockers, her hair artfully curled and piled high atop her head, cheeks and mouth a painted pink color. She greeted the men who came close enough to be tempted by her buxom beauty and husky, suggesting voice.

  Flowers spilled out of the window boxes, their fragrance another heady reminder of Eden and temptation, and Eli swept a critical eye over the whole building. Everything about it was fresh and beckoning. The new shutters, the candles in the windows. He could find nothing amiss. This was just the kind of place a hungry man might come when he was looking for some sweet, feminine company, and a good time.

  The woman on the porch drawled a greeting to him, and he felt her eyes linger on his body as he stepped off the porch, her own hunger for him palpable. He pulled his hat low over his eyes, in what he hoped was close enough to a response. “Ma’am,” he said, not pausing or inviting conversation.

  The countryside spilled out in front of him, an endless view of gorgeous sunset, mountains draped in the background. Nevada had certainly been a wise choice for him. Just the kind of place he needed to take his newly found wealth for a fresh start.

  He’d found a lot more than just the gold in Sacramento. Although, it certainly wasn’t the thing that had changed his life the most. He didn’t linger on the dark thought for too long, just long enough to remind himself of why he’d come out here in the first place. It certainly wasn’t for the women. His eyes drifted toward the mountains in the backdrop. They were why he’d come here, after all. Refuge.

  He shook his head. It was up to him to seem like any other entrepreneur, searching for a way to invest his money wisely — not like a man skulking on the edge of society and trying to hide his secrets.

  So here he was, in the outskirts of Reno, putting his money to work. And so far it was working pretty damn hard. And in the process he’d been able to create a life that supported his…specific needs. He was grateful for all of that because he knew that hadn’t been a guarantee, but, if he continued to have to dodge these tiresome come-ons from these pretty working girls, he was going to lose his mind.

  Eli knew what the real problem was, of course. Aside from the problem that had led him to Reno in the first place. He was unattached, and it was an open invitation to be pursued. He’d tried to suggest gently he wasn’t interested, but those women looked at him like he was a walking piece of gold. He tried less gently. He was downright rude. Nothing seemed to work. And whether he claimed disinterest or not, they wanted to believe they were going to be the one that was different from all the others. Or that he was playing hard to get. Or that he just didn’t know the kind of opportunity he was passing up.

  When it became painfully clear that claiming he didn’t want a woman wasn’t the answer, he’d tried to tell them he had someone waiting back in California, anxiously waiting for him to send for her.

  That hadn’t worked either. Out of sight, out of mind, and the girls assumed she didn’t mean that much to him if she wasn’t there in bed beside him.

  Desperate times called for desperate measures. Having a wife in the traditional sense just wasn’t an option for him. How would he explain his unaccounted for nocturnal activities? His unusual proclivities. Even before Sacramento, he had enjoyed the occasional woman, but never thought he was the marrying kind. But being single was clearly not the
option he had thought it would be.

  He stalked through the back of the property toward the simple cabin he called his home and resolved to put this whole damn woman issue behind him, whatever that might take.

  Lilly arranged her hair just so. She was trying to place her bonnet strategically so her face was in the deepest shadow possible. She’d done her best to cover up the bruises, but the harsh truth was, no amount of powder could hide the swelling, the creeping blue and yellow. She would just have to keep her head down and not make eye contact.

  She was going to be just another woman walking into the broker’s office, and, God-willing, there would be a man out there who would take a chance on something other than a wholesome, fresh-faced girl, unbroken and not yet ravaged by life.

  She certainly didn’t have that to offer anyone.

  Lilly sat through the interview the best she could, trying to ignore the throbbing across the side of her face and the stiffness in her shoulder, hoping nothing she did would betray her secrets.

  As far as the broker was concerned, she was a young window, her husband tragically lost to a timber accident. Their region of Canada was in the midst of a building boom and it happened all the time. She was just one of many women out there, looking for a man who would be willing to take care of her.

  But the set of her mouth and the pain in her eyes wasn’t left over from sickening grief, the loss of a mate. The broker didn’t need to know that, though. It was Lilly’s burden to carry, and she was finally in a place where she felt she could do something about it.

  The broker shuffled some papers and said he would be in touch, letting his eyes linger on her, and Lilly wondered if he was thinking she would be easy to place or if she would prove to be one of those women who sat on a shelf and didn’t move. She desperately prayed it would be quickly. Every day there was a little bit less of her left to get her through to the next morning.