Bears of Burden: THORN

by Candace Ayers

  He had to get out of the house. For the briefest moment he considered a trip to the brothel, maybe a distraction from the beautiful woman just a few rooms over, but, in the end, the call of the mountains was too strong. He wanted to feel the dirt beneath his feet, the cool air against his face, that impossible contentment that seemed to come only when he was in his truest form.

  He moved through the house, hardly making a sound, and was out the door and melting into the darkness. Moving faster until he was running, his feet having no trouble in the dark, his eyes seeing more than any human should.

  The further from the house he got, the freer he felt, and when his house was just a haze of distant light, he stopped suppressing the beast he kept at bay most of his life, and with a snap and a roar, he felt his body begin to change, the man he’d been just moments before a distant memory — the large, dark bear he was now the one driving his needs and wants. And, most importantly, easing his mind and soul.

  Lilly sat on the edge of the bed, wondering if she was supposed to wait until Eli returned before settling in for sleep. The thought wasn’t entirely displeasing. She remembered the size of his frame, how broad his shoulders were, and wondered what his skin would feel like beneath her hands, what shape his body would take as he lie down beside her in that ridiculously too-small-for-two bed.

  She let her mind wander for a few more moments before she reined it in and told herself there was no use in waiting for him to return. Besides, as much as she seemed suddenly interested in physicality with him, he’d made it perfectly clear he had no interest or need for her. Waiting for him to return just so they could lie awkwardly in the dark next to one another while they waited for sleep, didn’t seem too appealing.

  It was hard enough when they were awake and fully dressed in the same room together. She didn’t want to think about what it might be like when their bodies were close enough to touch. There was something so hypnotically compelling about him; it seemed to overrule any of her common sense.

  She’d never wanted a man before. Not really. She’d been young when she’d married, and well sheltered. She hadn’t known what the marriage bed would be like. She hadn’t even known what would be expected of her. James let her know soon enough, though. Her time with him had done little to spark any interest she had in a man, his body, or what he could do to hers.

  But now, for the first time, she was wondering what it would be like to have a man she actually wanted to touch her, to revel in the feel of fingertips on her skin, instead of dreading it.

  She had to stop wondering about it though, because the one thought spiraled into the next, and then she was thinking about Eli without clothes on, of fulfilling all the wifely duties and not just the ones he had listed he expected.

  She extinguished the bedside light and let the dark engulf her, wishing her inner flame could be so easily controlled

  It was definitely best if she was asleep when he returned for the night. There was no good that would come of waiting for him to crawl into the bed beside her.

  She had expected him to be beside her in the morning, to have woken at his arrival in the night. The years had trained her to be a light sleeper, and there was little that wouldn’t wake her, heart thudding in her chest, adrenaline already peaking.

  But this night she slept soundly, dreamlessly, like she had finally come home after too long away.

  The bedding beside her wasn’t even disturbed, and she knew she had spent the night alone.

  Instead of the thrill of happiness at sleeping alone — something she had become accustomed to feeling — she felt the smallest stab of disappointment, and wondered where her new husband had whiled away the night.

  Perhaps, she considered, he was respecting her and waiting until they had finalized their marriage with a preacher. Not that it would bring much validity to their marriage, since she was technically already married, but Lilly certainly didn’t let herself linger on that for too long. And, as far as she was concerned, Eli would never know that was the case.

  Or maybe it was a fluke. Or maybe there was another woman. Or maybe the “other” wasn’t a woman at all, and that was why he needed one in his bed. Appearances, he had said, were the most important part of the arrangement. She gnawed on her lower lip. Thinking of all the hows and whys and maybes wasn’t a good investment of her time, and she resolved that she would leave it be.

  She took a deep breath and launched herself out of bed. It hardly mattered what the parameters were. She would just have to make the best of it, and ignore the urges that were growing inside of her. The urges she knew nothing about navigating.

  They settled into a tenuous routine. Lilly’s new dresses had been ordered and made, and the last vestiges of her life from before tossed away. She’d taken great satisfaction in disposing of them. With her new look, she set out to create her new life. She made sure to spend time outside. On the porch. In the garden. Slipping her arm through Eli’s, thrilling at the contact, and letting him lead her through the town and by the front of the brothel he owned and regularly referred to as a saloon, as though Lilly would be unable to put all the pieces together. They were pleasant to one another, but instead of feeling like they were growing closer, Lilly had the distinct impression that the more time they spent together, the more distant Eli became.

  She worried on her lower lip. That budding desire she’d felt for him in the beginning hadn’t dissipated. As he became more disinterested in her, she was becoming more aware of an ache for him. But there was no mistaking it; he found great relief in leaving her, and spent as little time as possible with her. When he had to be with her, he left at the earliest juncture.

  She’d spent a lifetime disappointing others, and she wasn’t sure why she felt this failure so much more acutely than she had the others. It didn’t seem to matter what she did for him or how she acted. She tried to be sweet, the way James had liked her to be. She tried to be welcoming. She did everything she’d been told men liked, and yet, each encounter was even more remote than the last.

  And, just when she was starting to think she should stop even trying, that nothing she did would change the way he felt toward her, or make him look at her differently, she would turn and find him watching her, or see something unexpected and hungry in his eyes in an unguarded moment.

  Each time she was left breathless, almost burned by the heat that would swell up inside her.

  And each time, he would disappear, as though aware that he’d been caught, and desperate to put whatever space he could find between them, leaving her once more by herself, alone with her shortcomings.

  Chapter Four

  Lilly woke with a start.

  At first, she wasn’t sure what had woken her. But then she heard it again. A rustle and a distant bang from outside.

  She sat up in bed. She wasn’t sure where Eli spent his nights, but she had grown used to waking up alone, and tonight was no different.

  “Eli,” she whispered aloud, even though she knew if he was in the house, he wouldn’t have been able to hear her.

  She flipped back the corner of the covers, and slipped out of bed, her bare feet padding on the wood floor, still new and unworn.

  She called his name again when she was in the room off the entrance, listening for any indication he was in the house with her.

  By now, she knew he had a habit of whiling away hours in the office, and she made her way in the dark toward it. It was unclear when he slept, but it wasn’t when she did.

  Lilly gave the door a little push, but it opened to nothing but darkness and emptiness.

  She was alone in the house, and something was still making noise outside. She could hear the scrambling, something tipping over.

  She was weighing whether she should wait out whatever was out there, when it occurred to her that maybe it was Eli out there, and maybe he wasn’t alone. Maybe he even needed help, or was being loud on purpose.

  Lilly pushed open the front door, not bothering with shoes, and grabbing the
lit lantern from where it hung. She made her way around to the back, moving as quickly and quietly as she could.

  She slowed as she reached the corner, where her bedroom was, and peeked around the corner.

  But there was nothing to see. “Eli?” she whispered again, hoping she wasn’t going to run into someone else in her state of undress. A little tremor slid through her, and she realized the night was cool, the air slipping up the bottom of her nightgown to leave a trail of goosebumps along her legs.

  She wrapped her arms tightly around herself, and said his name again.

  Just when she was thinking she must have made a mistake, that maybe there had never been a sound at all, she saw something on the edge of the property move. Something large and black.

  And it was moving toward her.

  Lilly brandished the lantern like it was a weapon, knowing that many animals would move away from the flame. But this one did not. The hulking grizzly bear moving steadily toward her.

  Lilly stepped back until her body was pressed up against the outside of the house, willing to go unnoticed and for the bear to change its path. But it was close enough to see its eyes were trained on her body, their darkness glittering in the night. She had clearly been noticed, and the bear was most definitely not interested in changing its path.

  She tried to control the beating of her heart while she considered what sort of options she had, and whether or not she could get to the door quickly enough. She cursed herself for coming outside without the shotgun that hung on the wall off the kitchen. She cursed Eli for not having a back door. She was ready to curse whatever came to mind, if she were being truthful.

  The bear had finally come to a stop a few feet from her, well in the meager circle of light the lantern provided. She could see the varying shades of brown in his fur, could see the way his nostrils quivered in the air as he took in her scent.

  His mouth opened, exposing his teeth and tongue, more like a smile than the baring, snarling thing she had expected. Lilly knew she shouldn’t look at him, but couldn’t tear her eyes away. His glinting eyes seemed to have caught her in their spell, fixing her to her place beside the house.

  Several long moments passed before the bear gave his head a violent shake and exhaled a loud sound of unmistakable displeasure, before turning his back on her and lumbering quickly into the darkness.

  Lilly stayed rooted to her spot, waiting for her heartbeat to return to normal, for her breathing to come more easily, before hurrying back toward the house, her legs unsteady, her whole body trembling with the cold sweeping through her.

  Safely inside, she pushed the door closed firmly behind her, taking great pleasure in sliding the locks into place and thinking bitterly that it would serve Eli right if he were to come home and expect to be able to walk right in. Perhaps next time he could be the one to deal with bears, unprotected and unprepared.

  She moved quickly to the room she had begun to think of as hers and leapt under the covers, pulling them up tightly to her throat, waiting for the chills to stop moving so violently through her body, and for the warmth to creep back into her bones.

  Chapter Five

  Lilly woke in the morning, feeling far from refreshed.

  She thought for a moment that the night before had been nothing more than a terrible dream, but from the bedroom window she could see the vague imprint of her feet, the more defined gouge where the bear and spun and run in the opposite direction.

  She didn’t want to risk a closer look, not knowing where that bear had come from or where it might have gone. It was still early enough in the day that she wouldn’t have been surprised to see him lingering nearby. She definitely did not want to repeat that experience.

  Lilly dressed quickly, taking comfort in the additional layers of protection. In just her shift she had felt vulnerable, exposed. She couldn’t shake the way she had felt under the bear’s gaze. She unbolted the front door, thinking about how Eli had yet to come home. She hadn’t spent much time at the brothel, but she found herself wondering again if maybe there was a body there he liked to have warm his bed instead of hers. There weren’t many other place she could imagine he routinely slept.

  She busied herself with the day, focusing on tidying her room and preparing the meals for the day. For the first time, she felt uncomfortable in the space, anxious to leave the house and wary of what might be beyond the walls.

  When Eli finally joined her for lunch, she was in a state of agitation. She clung to a piece of embroidery she’d decided to work on, but couldn’t focus on long enough to do anything productive.

  “Eli,” she said when he walked in, her tone cold and unhappy. She was surprised by her boldness and quick words. Lilly had spent the past weeks trying her hardest to be the woman she thought he would want her to be, even expected her to be. Angry wasn’t one of the qualities she tried to embody.

  “Lilly,” he returned, seeming as equally taken aback by her outburst.

  She wanted to demand where he had been; the words were on the very edge of her tongue, but she curbed them at the last moment, knowing that was outside of the scope of their arrangement. Instead, she snapped, “You should tell me when you will not be occupying the house over the night.” That came about as close to addressing the issue as she could get without actually saying she didn’t want him sleeping somewhere else.

  There was a weighted silence between them, and for a moment Lilly worried that she had gone too far, that he wouldn’t allow her to speak to him in such a way, that she would be back in the kind of marriage she had tried so hard to escape from.

  He blinked at her, once, before coming to terms with her words. When he spoke, it wasn’t with the kind of anger she had feared her words might engender. “I’m sorry,” he said, as though choosing her words carefully. “I didn’t realize it mattered to you where I spend my nights.”

  “It matters,” she snapped. “If you aren’t going to stay here you should at least have the decency to let me know so I can plan accordingly.”

  She hadn’t realized she was pacing before then, her shoulders stiff and angry, and Eli seemed to suddenly understand that she was shaken, like it had taken him a moment to put all the pieces together.

  His eyes narrowed at her, and she met them with her own, glaring back, surprised by her boldness, but not enough to stop.

  “What happened last night?” His words were hard, and rough, and Lilly thought she should maybe shrink back from them, offer apologies for her behavior and retract her demands.

  But somehow, she couldn’t find it in herself to be afraid of him. Eyes narrowed or not, she didn’t see the kind of unrestrained anger in them she had become used to seeing in James’ eyes.

  “I heard noises outside and when I couldn’t find you in your office,” she stressed that he was to blame for that one, “I went outside to see if you were out there. If you needed any help.” Hearing the words out loud, it seemed like a much less logical plan than it had at the time, but she couldn’t change the facts, so she was just going to have to own up to poor planning, and maybe blame it on the fact that she had been sleeping at the time. “And when I went outside, without the gun, I might add, it turned out it wasn’t you out there at all, but a giant bear. Huge,” she added for emphasis. She stopped moving long enough to stare balefully at him.

  To his credit, Eli’s face blanched, and Lilly took a grim satisfaction in his appalled look.

  “Well,” he murmured, more to himself than to her, it seemed. “I’m certainly glad you didn’t have the gun.”

  “Cornered. By the bear. Why is there no back door?”

  If it seemed to be a vague segue, he didn’t point it out. He also didn’t provide her with an answer.

  Lilly crossed her arms over her chest, anger still bubbling up from deep within her. “If you had been kind enough to let me know you weren’t going to be around, I might have at least armed myself before investigating.”

  He moved so quickly she barely had time to register his
advancement, and then he was clutching her elbow. “No investigating,” he growled. “No arming. If you hear something, you stay inside. Keep the windows shuttered. I don’t want to see you in that position again.”

  Her heart was hammering, this time not from fear, but because he had come so close to her, his eyes alight with concern, anger, and something else she couldn’t quite identify. His face was inches from hers when he said, “You should know better than to go waltzing off in the night like that. You’re lucky you weren’t hurt, or worse. Keep yourself inside. Keep the door bolted.”

  His eyes lingered on her lips, and her mouth suddenly went dry. This close, she had to tip her head back for their eyes to meet, and it was strangely intimate, vulnerable.

  He studied her for a long moment and when he spoke again his voice was low and raw. “I will be sure to keep you apprised of my sleeping habits, wife.”

  The word sent a strange spiral of longing through her, and Lilly was grateful for the hand that still clasped her elbow. She was fairly certain that she would have melted at his words otherwise.

  Another moment passed between them. He seemed in no hurry to release her. Then he dropped his mouth to hers, capturing it in a demanding kiss, searing and hot.

  She let him kiss her, unprepared to do anything else, reveling in the feel of his warm skin on hers, the heat he sent through her, the way his hand had crept up into her hair and disrupted it from its confines, the long dark strands falling freely over her shoulders and down her back.

  And then, to her surprise, she was kissing him back, letting her lips move against his, letting his tongue slide between her lips to explore her mouth. A low husky sound, she didn’t know she could make filled the air, and seemed to bring Eli crashing back to the present.