I’d messed things up with him, though. He hadn’t tried to hide the annoyance at being kicked out of the house. He wanted to confront the issue and nip it in the bud. He was brave and honest and wanted to be upfront. Why did he think his brother was such a great man, but not himself? That’s not what I saw. Not at all.
Growling, I yanked the blanket over my head. I’d somehow managed to land a man who was hot as hell, thought I was sexy and beautiful, wanted me, and talked to me about how he felt. Jackpot! Yet, here I was, fucking it up all over the place. I was pretty sure that there was only so much hiding and sneaking around a man like him was going to put up with before he got sick and tired of it. In fact, he may have reached his limit tonight.
I slept like crap, tossing and turning through nightmares of Sterling walking away from me. It was miserable. I woke up feeling like I’d been through the spin cycle of the washing machine, and crying from an especially raw dream where Sterling rejected me and all my friends shunned me for hurting him.
I threw on some clothes and stumbled downstairs to clean up the mess we’d made the night before. Kyle was already gone, so after I finished, I just sat at the kitchen table with a pot of coffee. I had an article to write that day, but I’d already done the research and completed a couple short interviews with which to compile a few quotes. I could just write it at home and send it to Karen if I wanted.
After an hour of trying, I realized I couldn’t. I went to the library instead, and sat in Veronica’s office while she led a group of kids in a vigorous story time. I got the article finished, and it was passable, and then headed towards Sterling’s house.
I wanted to apologize and let him know that I was going to tell Kyle. After driving all the way up his driveway, though, he wasn’t even there. I went to Hutch’s and he told me I’d be able to find Sterling at the tracks, practicing.
He also gave me a disappointed look that sent me scampering away. I felt guilty enough as it was. I didn’t need Hutch to make it worse.
I parked in the lot and got out. Sterling’s truck was there, his trailer empty. There were a few other cars scattered around, but when I got to the track, I found that Sterling was the only person on it. He sped around the big circle, drifting around curves and sending dirt flying everywhere.
I spied several people, mostly women, sitting in the stands, eating and watching him, too. To my dismay, Kyle’s ex-fiancée was amongst them. My bear threatened to appear, but I tried to soothe her. Presley Gray wasn’t a threat to me. I had to remember that.
Sterling pulled the car to a stop in front of me and slipped out of the window. Instead of coming over to me, he leaned against the hood and crossed his arms over his chest.
I blew out a breath. Yeah, he was still upset with me. I gracelessly crawled over the shortest part of the fence and ended up stumbling to the dirt. I got up quickly though, brushing the dirt off my knees.
By the time I got to Sterling, he was grinning and shaking his head. “Even if I wanted to stay mad at you, I couldn’t. You’re so cute when you’re clumsy.”
I scowled and then grabbed his hat from his head. “You can have this back for a kiss.”
His eyes cut to the stands. “People are going to see us.”
I kept my eyes on his, noticing the way the blue-green flecks turned darker. “I don’t care.”
He grabbed me and spun us around. Dipping, he laid my back down on the hood of his car, his body wedged against mine. Kissing me hard, his hand slipped down and cupped my ass. “You done hiding me?”
I slipped his hat back on him and nodded. “I’ll talk to Kyle tonight. I owe you an apology. And I aim to give it to you. However you want it.”
Sterling buried his face against my neck and his tongue stroked out to tease me. “I have a few ideas.”
I kissed him again and then pushed at his chest. “Alright, that’s enough. We’re giving your fan club a little too much of a show.”
He glanced over at the group and then grinned down at me. “That was nothing.”
“I never thanked you for getting my car back home the other day after I locked the keys inside.” I sat up with him and wrapped my arms around his waist. “So, I owe you an apology and a thank you.”
“And you’re sure you’re not into giving them a show?”
I nodded. “What are they doing here, anyway?”
He shrugged. “I’m here almost every day, practicing. Sometimes people come to watch. There’s a potential sponsor coming to my next race, so I want to be sure I’m ready for it.”
And my man really thought he wasn’t a hard worker?
“What would a sponsor mean?”
“Bigger races. Races that end in five hundred.”
I felt his excitement and smiled. “You’ll do great. I won’t keep you from your practice, though. I just wanted to find you and apologize.”
“Want to do a lap with me?”
I quickly shook my head. “Not a damn chance, you nut job. Bears aren’t meant to fly.”
“Will I see you tonight?”
I shot him a wink. “I hope so.”
17
Ophelia
I was almost to my car when I heard Presley call out my name. I wanted to pretend like I hadn’t heard her, but I wasn’t that petty. Even though she had broken my brother’s heart. I turned to face her and crossed my arms over my chest.
Her grin was more wince than smile and she held up her hands as she got closer. “I just want to talk to you for a second. Is that okay?”
I nodded without speaking, feeling like I was making a mistake. It would pain Kyle to know that I was having any kind of conversation with his ex, but she’d always been so sweet to me, we’d almost been sisters-in-law, and she looked like she was ready to cry.
“I want to apologize for what happened.” She twisted her hands together and stared at her feet. “I feel terrible. I know we weren’t best friends or anything, but I still feel like I owe you an explanation, too.”
The last thing I wanted to hear was an explanation about why she’d cheated on my brother and slept with my mate. Just being reminded made me want to smack her. “You don’t owe me anything, Presley.”
She nodded. “I do. I’m sorry for hurting your brother, but after what he did, I just…I acted out. I made a very bad choice and I regret it. I should’ve handled things more maturely.”
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
She looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“You said ‘after what he did.’ What did he do?”
Her eyes filled with tears and she wrapped her arms around herself. “I loved him. No one else ever got it, but I did. Not many people come out to Macon’s Edge. When your brother came to see me, he made me feel special. He was kind and sweet and pretended to care about me. I didn’t have a clue that he had been cheating on me the whole time. When I found out, I kind of lost it. I went to that bar in Burden and met up with the first guy who looked my way. I just did it to get back at Kyle and it was so stupid and juvenile. I should’ve just ended it. Now, he feels like he has a reason to hate Sterling, too.”
I think my jaw hit the ground. “Kyle cheated on you?”
She nodded and a tear rolled down her face. “A lot, apparently. I don’t know why he even proposed to me when he obviously wasn’t finished playing the field.”
I wrapped my arm around her, despite my bear’s grumbling. She was clearly in pain. At my brother’s hands. “I’m so sorry, Presley. I had no clue.”
She nodded. “I guess he just told everyone that I cheated on him and said some pretty nasty things about me. I deserved that part of it.”
“No, you didn’t. I’m going to have a long talk with my brother. I’m sorry for what he did to you. No one deserves that.”
She looked back at the track and nodded to where Sterling was bent over the engine of his car. “He’s a good one. Seems like you’ve got his full attention.”
I resisted the urge to growl. “Why
are you here, Presley? Do you have feelings for him after what happened?”
She flashed me a grin and shook her head. “No. Not at all. In fact, I’ve sworn off men. This is the only place close by Macon that I can escape to, is all.”
I smiled back at her and grabbed my keys from my pocket. “I’ll make sure that Kyle feels my wrath for what he did to you.”
With a slight shrug, she turned back towards the track. “No use. It’s water under the bridge now.”
I watched her go and clenched my teeth. Kyle was proving himself to be the asshole that everyone said he was. It made no sense. I couldn’t reconcile the man who came to see me in Nashville with the man who lived with me in Burden. I was going to figure it out, though, and then have the conversation about my mate. It was time to stop hiding.
Kyle was at home when I got back, standing over the kitchen sink, eating a sandwich. He looked up at me and frowned. “What are you doing here?”
Unable to keep the sass out of my voice, I let it fly. “I live here. That going to be a problem?”
His frown deepened. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I just ran into Presley.”
He scowled and grabbed a beer from the fridge. “And?”
“I’ve spent the last few months hating Sterling Mallory because I thought he broke your heart. You said he did. You said he stole Presley from you and that you’d never hurt quite so bad, or something equally as dramatic. You were cheating on her the whole time you were together, though. What the hell, Kyle?”
His face burned red and he glared at me. He reminded me a little of a demon. “It’s none of your business.”
I scoffed. “It really is. I came home because you sounded so depressed. I was so worried about you. You said that Sterling stole your future! I physically assaulted the man for you!”
He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t ask you to punch him in the dick. That was just a great bonus.”
I shook my head and placed my hands on the counter, trying to calm myself down. “I’m being serious, Kyle. Why’d you cheat on her? Why did you play the victim when she decided to give you a taste of your own medicine?”
“This is rich. You’re going to lecture me on what I do or don’t do now? You’re the one stumbling into the house, drunk off your ass, breaking shit.”
“Just answer the question, Kyle. I’m having a hard time reconciling the guy who came to visit me in Nashville every time I was struggling with the guy who cheated on his fiancée and then tried to paint her as some kind of whore.”
“Well, isn’t she?” He drained his beer and shook his head. “Jesus, it’s not that big of a deal, O.”
Tears pricked my eyes and I tried my best to blink them away. “Not a big deal? What happened to you? What made you like this? I never saw this side of you before, but suddenly it’s become blinding.”
Kyle slammed his beer into the sink and grabbed my arms. “I think you should go back to Nashville. I don’t need you here. I’m fine. Obviously. Go back to Nashville where you act normal and I can handle you.”
I withdrew from him and shook my head. “What? What are you talking about?”
He shook me, anger and frustration marring his normally handsome face. “It was easy to be good to you in Nashville. You acted normal. None of this bear shit. You were just a normal girl who had a normal job and normal problems. I could forget that you’re one of them.”
My mouth fell open and I stared up at him in shock. My mind went blank and I searched desperately for something to say, but my thoughts were jumbled.
“I hate this fucking place, Ophelia. I hate bears. I hate shifters and all the shit that goes with them. I don’t want to be around it. You were normal in Nashville. You never shifted or talked about it. You were just a normal sister and it was a nice break from all this shit. Being in Nashville was the best escape. I don’t know why I thought you being back here was a good idea. I guess I thought you’d changed for good and I could have someone normal around here in this shithole.”
I wrestled his arms off of me and moved to the other side of the kitchen. “I’m a bear shifter, Kyle. I didn’t ask for it. It’s just what I am. How can you say you hate that?”
“It’s not hard.”
18
Ophelia
My chest ached as Kyle revealed to me that he hated an entire part of my nature that I was powerless to change. “I’m your sister. Mom was a bear shifter. So many people in this town are shifters. You’re saying you hate all of us?”
Kyle shoved his hands through his hair and looked up at the ceiling, like the answers he was looking for might be up there. “I don’t hate you, O. I didn’t hate Mom. She hid that shit, though. It’s just not normal. It’s weird and I don’t understand why you’d want to be a big ass bear, anyway. It’s not exactly attractive.”
I put my hands over my chest like that would help the pain he was causing me. “You can’t actually feel like this, Kyle. I know the gene skipped you and Mom thought that would cause some jealousy, but this is a little extreme.”
“Jealousy! You think I want to be a freak?!” He laughed and shook his head. “That’s the thing with all the shifters in this town. You all think you’ve been given some great gift. You think you’re the best thing ever because you can turn into a fucking bear. When really, you should all be hiding that freak show shit.”
I shuddered as his words washed over me. It was a nightmare come true. All the self-consciousness I’d felt my whole life about my bear came rearing to life and all I wanted to do was hide.
Kyle scowled at me and walked to the back door. Yanking it open, he looked back at me. “Maybe you should really think about going back to Nashville. Things could go back to normal and we could pretend like none of this shit happened.”
“Pretend like I’m not an attraction in a freak show?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Until you leave, you can stay here, but don’t break anything else, O.”
The door slammed behind him and I clutched at my shirt, attempting to get it away from my skin. It felt like I couldn’t breathe. My heart throbbed painfully in my chest and I started tingling all over. Panic overwhelmed me until I sank to the floor and pressed my back against the cabinets behind me as hard as I could.
I cried openly and buried my face in my knees. Feeling completely raw and exposed, I just wanted to run away. Running back to Nashville didn’t sound like a terrible idea. I could go back to real journalism and it would probably take only a few days to find an apartment.
Sterling’s face popped into my brain and refused to budge, though. No, I was staying in Burden. He was my mate. I might lose Kyle, but it felt like I’d already lost him. He hated what I was.
Needing to feel something other than the crushing weight of Kyle’s disgust towards me, I ran up the stairs to shower and get ready for seeing Sterling. I knew he’d be disappointed that I hadn’t been able to tell Kyle, but he’d get it. I just needed to see him and feel some of the peace he gave me when he was close. I’d deal with the rest as it came.
19
Sterling
Pure excitement tingled through me as I pulled up to the bar and parked my truck. I got out and straightened my button-down shirt. I’d taken the time to get dressed up for the night. It was the first time I was going out with my woman and it was a big deal. Ophelia had wanted to meet in public, so that meant no more sneaking around. That meant she’d told Kyle.
What the hell was wrong with me? My heart raced and my palms were sweaty. I was as nervous as a virgin on prom night. It suddenly felt real, like she was ready to commit to what we were. I still didn’t know if she really understood the mate bond, but I had plans to take her back to my place that night and explain it in graphic detail, complete with examples and demonstrations.
I pushed my way inside and spotted my little bear at the bar. There were already a few empty glasses in front of her and didn’t that just make my bear grumble. Something didn’t feel right.
I strolle
d past the guys, offering a wave, and came up behind Ophelia. I grasped her hips and brushed my lips over her hair. “Hey.”
She gasped and spun around to face me. For a second, it looked like there were tears in her eyes, but then she smiled and threw herself against my chest. Her arms held tightly around me and she inhaled deeply. “Sterling.”
I smoothed her wild hair and held her head to me. “What’s wrong, baby?”
She stayed still for a few more seconds and then pulled away. “Nothing. Sorry, just a bad day. I’ve had a few drinks while I was waiting on you.”
As she slurred her words, I counted the glasses behind her and suppressed a sigh. She was sloshed. Still adorable, though. I leaned down and planted a kiss on her mouth. “Tell me about it.”
She shook her head. “Let’s not—not right now. Let’s have a good night. I just want to be near you.”
That time, I did sigh. My bear was agitated and I couldn’t soothe him until he knew that our mate was okay. She looked like she’d been crying and I had to assume it was because of Kyle. Anger washed over me at the idea of Kyle saying something to hurt her.
“Is it Kyle? What did he say when you told him?”
She blinked a few times and then motioned to Allie, who was bartending, for another drink. “No.”
I sat down next to her and caged her between my knees. “Talk to me, Ophelia.”
“That’s not how you and I solve our problems.” Her grin was crooked and her hand rested on my knee and moved higher. “How about you join me in the bathroom?”
A twinge of regret coursed through me at her words. The evening was definitely not going how I thought it would. I shook my head. “I’d rather talk right now.”
She pouted and tossed back the drink that Allie had dropped off. “Well, I’ve got to pee, either way. I’ll be back in a minute.”
I caught her arm and looked her in the eyes. “I’m sorry if Kyle upset you. I wish I could’ve been there with you, to do it together.”
Bears of Burden Complete Series Box Set Page 36