The Bear's Arranged Bride: A Steamy Paranormal Romance (Bears With Money Book 8)

by Amy Star

  He whispered her name again: “Fiona…” And into this whisper, he poured his sorrow and regret for the way they had turned out, for what had happened that he never intended—and for the way he’d had to leave her. Jaxon believed very much in the old saying that one regrets much more the things one did not do in life than the things one actually did. He would never regret the times he’d had with Fiona. They had honestly loved each other. But in his heart of hearts, Jaxon knew he would always regret the way it ended, the awful toll that it took on her and the pain and sorrow that it cost him. If he could make that part not have happened, if he could make it so that they could just say goodbye without any of that, he surely would.

  Fiona, he accepted, was the past, a past he could not change. So, on he walked, down the tree-lined streets, past houses with hedgerows in front and along the driveways and set his mind to walking forward instead of looking back. Fiona was the past. Sherry was the future—at least the immediate future. She was about to become his bride. He resolved to think only of her now.

  Along his way, Jaxon thought he heard something in the bushes, something rustling and moving there. He paused to look and could not make out anything. He shrugged and dismissed the idea that it was anything besides some little animal, a raccoon or an opossum, rummaging through the hedgerows. There was only one “bush” that really concerned Jaxon now, and if he could just get through the night, the ceremony, and the reception, it would be all his. Picking up his pace as if to hasten tomorrow, he walked on down the street.

  When he came to the end of one hedge at the driveway of one house, Jaxon saw something out of the corner of his eye: something large that welled up and out from behind the shrub and loomed fast in his direction. It was a shape that he thought he recognized, silhouetted as it was in the dark, but he couldn’t believe it. This was something he had never seen in Smithintown, never in the place where he grew up. What was this doing here, now? He reared back and away from the looming, spreading shape—the shape with wings—that reached out for him. He opened his mouth to cry out into the night. But something soft closed over his mouth and his nose, and he felt himself grabbed and restrained. Things started to turn fuzzy all around him and inside his head. Any voice that he might have given into the night was first muffled, then completely smothered and cut off. Jaxon felt his limbs go limp and felt himself sinking down to the pavement. Then, he saw, heard, felt nothing at all.

  _______________

  Sherry had climbed back onto the sofa bed in the room over the garage and would have loved to stay there for the rest of the night. The sheets were still warm from Jaxon and still smelled of their being together. How wonderful it would be just to wrap herself up in these sheets and pretend she was wrapped up in him ’til morning.

  But no. Tomorrow was going to be a very big day, and she really ought to go back to the house and sleep in her own room. That way, there would be no need to tidy up this room, and she would be able to “hit the ground running,” so to speak, for the wedding breakfast and getting her hair and makeup and nails ready and getting into her mother’s—now her—dress. There would be so much to do before they went over to the church. And there she would make her entrance, and all the guests would see her in the dress for the first time. And he would be standing there in his tuxedo at the altar, no doubt looking like the handsomest creature that ever lived, and he would see her in the dress for the first time. She would walk the stately bridal walk down the middle of the church to join him, and there they would take their vows and…and…

  …and do something that neither of them would have ever believed they would find themselves doing. If the Sherry of this moment were somehow to send her spirit back in time right now to whisper in her own ear as she prepared for her belated college graduation and tell herself what was awaiting her, the Sherry of just a few weeks ago would have thought she was out of her mind. Go home from school and into a ridiculous old promise made between their families? Go home and get engaged to her old Ursan boyfriend, and sleep with him again, and marry him? Was she serious?

  She pondered again the inexpressible delight of what had happened twice in this bed before she shooed Jaxon out, and what had been going on so many times every night since the two of them agreed to the craziest thing they could possibly have imagined doing, and she knew it was the most serious thing in the world. The most wonderfully romantic, passionate, sexy, serious thing. All of the arguments against it were truly gone. Sherry was actually going to marry Jaxon. And tomorrow night, after the reception, they would check into the bridal suite that Humbert had arranged for them at the best hotel in the neighboring city, and Jaxon would take her to a very large, very comfortable bed, and he would surely make up for everything that she had reluctantly not allowed to continue tonight.

  The biggest, silliest grin covered Sherry’s face, and she turned very wet down under the sheets in which she was wrapped at the thought of the ravishingly gorgeous, madly horny—but very sweet—groom that Jaxon would make, and what a torrid time they would have on their wedding night. It would be so worth cutting short their last pre-nuptial bed romp. Jaxon was right; from the time the door closed on the bridal suite, nothing more would stop them flinging off clothes and climbing into bed, and nothing would stop the wickedly, wondrously carnal things that would follow. Sherry could feel him on top of her and inside her even now.

  She cooed and whispered at the image of him in her mind, “Oh, Jaxon…I love you…”

  And then, her entire body froze. Her eyes, half-closed in the thought of how it would be in just twenty-four hours, snapped all the way open. Her mouth hung open with the disbelief of what had just slipped out of it.

  Had she actually said it? Had she actually said that? Had she actually meant it?

  She gulped at the realization. Yes—she had meant it. The truth had slipped out of her just as surely as Jaxon—sweet, gorgeous, ever-horny Jaxon—had so many times slipped into her. Sherry had just sighed out an accidental truth. It was no mistake; the words and the feeling were real. Somehow, against every intention that she had brought home from school with her, she had walked right into feelings that she thought she’d wrapped up in cherished memory. By agreeing to that dusty old tradition just to satisfy a wealthy, dying old bear, and by reliving adolescent memories as a young woman entering adult life, Sherry had actually opened the hope chest of old love stored away and found that old love just as fresh and new as it had been.

  Oh my God, she called out in her thoughts. It’s true. I actually love him. Again.

  Well, of course she actually loved him again. How could it have been the way it was between them in bed if that old love had really been laid to rest? Her feelings for Jaxon had not died. They had only gone into hibernation—like a bear in winter. And now, wintertime was over. This was summer again, and everything she had felt for Jaxon was back in season.

  And, she knew, Jaxon had come out of his own long winter’s sleep for her. What they had done to satisfy his grandfather and help her family had turned their mutual winter to another shared summer in every way. And this season did not necessarily have to end—did it?

  Much as she could not believe she was asking herself the question, Sherry now could not help but wonder: What if they decided to keep it?

  A sudden need to get moving in the face of this reveal of her feelings propelled Sherry out of bed. She flew from one motion to the next, spurred on by the uncanny surprise of what she had just confessed with no one present to hear it. Before she knew it, she was dressed again, the bed linens were in a bundle, the sofa bed was folded up, the lamps were off, and she was headed out the door with the sheets and bedspread tucked bulging under one arm.

  Through it all, the thought reverberated in Sherry’s mind. I’m actually back in love with him. I’m not just marrying him in name only. I’m not just sleeping with him again. This is for real. I’m in love with him—again.

  Coming down the stairs from above the garage and entering the driveway, Sherry tho
ught, I have to tell him. I have to tell him… Then came the certain realization: I’m going to tell him. There’s no way I’m keeping this inside; I’m going to tell him. Either I’ll blurt it out when we’re in bed, or it’ll slip out some other time, or… Or I’ll tell him on purpose. I shouldn’t just blurt it; I should let him know when I’m not carried away with things or when we’re lying there after he’s finished. That shouldn’t be the way. It should be some real, conscious moment, when we’re not just excited and worked up, or some other time when it’s just about how we feel and not what we want to do. I’ll find the time to tell him. Maybe when we get to the hotel, right before… Maybe that’s when…

  Sherry had just reached the side door to the house, the door that led both to the kitchen and the basement. Her mind was almost completely occupied with this new resolve about her feelings. There was nothing else except the less urgent idea of getting the bed linens down into the basement and putting them in the laundry bin next to the washer, then getting herself upstairs to her room for the night. She had just gotten the outer screen door open and was going for the knob to the inner door, when at last she was just dimly aware of something behind her. The thought of Jaxon and her revealed and confessed feelings had crowded everything else from her mind until that instant. Now, suddenly, there was a large, dark, looming shape reflected in the glass of the inner side door, and an equally large shadow coming up between her and the moonlight. She was startled and bemused. Her only thought was that Jaxon had not been able to accept her dismissing him from bed after all and had doubled back. Why did he have to do that? Why did he have to put her through the temptation to go back up over the garage with him? It was going to be painful to see him off again, now of all times.

  With a look both smiling and scolding, Sherry turned around with the screen door propped open, and started to say something—but her voice was abruptly cut off by a hand putting something over her nose and mouth and an odd chemical smell filling her nose. She felt herself held in a strong, rude grip, and a voice in the back of her mind screamed that this was not Jaxon. Seized with shock and horror, Sherry dropped the linens and began to squirm and kick and struggle. But there was something in what she now dimly recognized as a cloth covering her face, and immediately things grew dimmer still—so much dimmer, murkier, and so hazy. Her thoughts faded away, and her squirming and kicking turned to stillness and limpness.

  In a moment, there was nothing at the side door of the McCabe residence but a tangled bundle of linens.

  Chapter12

  Sherry awakened to the rough and uncomfortable feeling of lying, not flat down but partly sitting up, against something hard and cool that she recognized as metallic and found oddly familiar. Her eyes fluttered open into partial darkness. She was inside somewhere, a very large interior space that also seemed as if she knew it. What was it that was lighting this place? It seemed to be electric lighting, but not turned all the way up. And what was it she was lying or sitting on?

  The next thing she was aware of was the feeling that she could not move, or that she did not have full freedom of movement. Her arms were behind her back and something was around her wrists. Ropes? Was she actually tied up? How? By whom?

  Groaning with the feeling of a strange and oppressive fog lifting in her head, Sherry managed to force herself upright and get a better look at her situation and surroundings. What she found seized her with complete disbelief. She did know this place. She had not been here in more than six years. She was sitting on a lower tier of the aluminum bleachers of the gym of Smithintown High School. Her wrists were bound behind her back with ropes, and the ropes, she guessed, were tied to a support beam behind her. There was no slack. She could not stand up. She gritted her teeth, struggling vainly against her restraints. She had always hated these damned aluminum bleachers. They were uncomfortable, and there had never seemed to be any money in the school’s budget to replace them. It was always, Maybe next year, maybe next year… And next year came and went, and at every home game of the basketball team, it was always the same damned uncomfortable metal bleachers. Now she found them much more than uncomfortable. How had she gotten here? Who was responsible for this?

  She peered out into the space of the gym and found that what lit the place at the moment was not the overhead lighting, which would have made the whole gym fully bright, but rather four electric lanterns, one placed at each corner. It gave the space an eerie look, almost the way a darkened cave would appear if one went inside it with those same lanterns or with torches. Sherry was completely bewildered. Why would anyone bring her here, and why would they have the gym this way? She looked harder, to the center of the playing area, and saw a group of figures standing there. Or three figures standing and the other apparently tied to a chair in the same way as she was tied to the bleachers. The three men standing were all shirtless and barefoot, perhaps the most unsettlingly strange thing she had yet noticed. Creasing her brow and looking even harder through the semi-dimness, she focused on the one in the chair—and shock and horror widened her eyes when she made out in the low lighting exactly who it was.

  Her outcry split the half-dark silence of the gym. “Jaxon!”

  The largest of the three figures gathered around Jaxon in the chair looked up in her direction. The other two did likewise. That first, biggest man said to the others, “It looks like our audience just woke up.”

  All three of the strange men fixed their eyes on Sherry, and the big one who spoke left the other two and came over to her. When he addressed her, Sherry noticed his accent: British, not upper-class, but definitely British. “Hello, young lady,” he said. “My sons and I did a little homework when we arrived here. From the announcements in the paper, you must be Sherry McCabe, am I right?”

  “What is this about?” Sherry demanded. “What do you want? Why are you doing this?”

  “My name,” said the big man, “is Norris Jones.” He gestured to the two figures standing over the bound Jaxon, pointing first to the one on the left, then the one on the right. “These are my sons, Clyde and Ross. My family and I knew young Jaxon here,” he cocked his head behind him, “when he was stationed at Croughton Air Force Base. We saw a lot of him. Especially my sister, Fiona. She saw him the most—probably about as much as you’ve been seeing him lately.”

  Sherry looked over with dread at the two younger shirtless figures. They were both like snapshots of their father from years gone by, except Clyde was a leaner, taller Norris, and Ross was slightly between Clyde and Norris in muscle bulk. Both brothers looked as friendly as their father, which made Sherry’s heart sink.

  And then, a conversation that she’d had with Jaxon over breakfast not long ago came scrambling back into Sherry’s head. His words returned to her: It was in England. We got serious. And…I got her pregnant. I was gonna do right by her, whatever it took. I was gonna step up. But I never got the chance. The baby didn’t make it. And it didn’t end in a good place. It went really bad. And it was over.

  At first, Sherry wanted to gasp, but her breath froze at the cold look in the big Englishman’s eyes. Jaxon had not actually told her the name of the woman in England, but Sherry was quickly making the connection between Jaxon’s story and what this Norris Jones was saying. Her eyes betrayed the sick and awful awareness now in her mind. Oh no…

  “It’s our understanding that you and young Jaxon are getting married,” said Norris flatly, without warmth. “My sister might send you her regards for the occasion, except she’s not quite up to it just now. She hasn’t been feeling up to anything for some time.” He glanced behind him. “Did your fiancée mention anything to you about that?”

  Her voice trembling at first, Sherry made herself respond. “He told me there was someone…over there…”

  “Is that right?” said Norris contemptuously. “So, it wasn’t just out of sight, out of mind. And it wasn’t just on to the next bed. That’s very touching to know. Yes, Ms. McCabe, there was ‘someone over there.’ The ‘someone’ was
my little sister, who I was meant to look out for and take care of. But I got a little lax in my duty, and I thought Fiona’s Yank airman boyfriend would look out for her. I didn’t see the harm in it; the Yank airman seemed like a decent bloke, even if he wasn’t really our kind. You see, we’re not Ursans like him. We’re dragons. But I didn’t see the harm in my little sister being with a bear. Not ’til it was too late. Too bloody late for anything except what happened.”

  “She got pregnant…,” Sherry said quietly, gravely.

  “He got her pregnant,” Norris barked, a frightening edge coming into his voice. “Your fiancé got Fiona pregnant. A dragon woman, carrying the child of a bear man. It’s not a proper mix, Ms. McCabe. Have you ever heard of the kind of things that can happen when two totally different breeds of shifters make a baby?”

  Her shoulders slumping with realization and despair, Sherry knew that she had heard of such things. No such thing had ever happened, as far as she knew, in Smithintown where the only resident shapeshifters were Ursans. But she had heard people talk, sometimes in very hushed tones, of things that they’d heard had happened elsewhere, when partners of two different shifter breeds ran afoul of an accidental pregnancy. They were not happy stories. They were decidedly unpleasant accounts. Sherry’s heart sank to recall again Jaxon’s words: The baby didn’t make it. And it didn’t end in a good place. The meaning and import of what he said was coming home to her, and she now guessed—an awful and, she had no doubt, tragically correct guess—the fate of Fiona Norris. She wanted to cry for the English woman as much as for herself and Jaxon.