Page 3 of Bear's Rejected Love
“I didn’t take another mate. I’m raising two teenage girls and a one-year-old baby because they needed someone, and they attached themselves to me. The girls went through something horrific before they found me. I don’t have a shiny, happy life. Happy enough for their sake. We’re safe here. They can be who they are here. But it’s not as golden and rosy as you think. Now that the introductions are over, why don’t you tell me why you’re here, because it’s sure as hell not to drag me back to Maine to set up house with me.”
Raising children who attached themselves? She could hear the protective note in his tone. He loved those kids. He just couldn’t say it. She could have been jealous of those girls, that baby. They had Roan’s love and his affection. His protection, his time, his presence. They had him and she had nothing. He wasn’t hers. He never had been.
“No,” she sighed painfully. “What happened was a long time ago. As much as I wanted to tell you to go fuck yourself then, the urge to act like a five-year-old has faded in favor of using reason. Neither of us wanted to be mated. It wasn’t your fault that I had feelings. I know you left because you thought it was best. The fallout wasn’t something you should pay for. You couldn’t have foreseen the clan breaking up and all of us having to go our own ways. None of that is your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault.”
“If you’re not here to collect on past debts, then why?”
“Because, fifteen years ago, that night we spent together… I got pregnant.”
Oh. All it took was one little word to knock this man back. To fade all the color from his face. To make him look far less than invincible, to set off a wildfire blazing in his eyes. “That’s impossible,” he hissed.
She didn’t want to laugh, but a genuine mirthful chuckle escaped. “Uh, yeah, it is, and it was. You have a son.”
He backed himself straight into the round logs. The whole cabin was so picturesque and neat and tidy, with its little porch and adorable windowpanes and shutters. The whole town looked like that. A little resort villa perched on the edge of the mountains. It might be gray at the moment, but when spring and summer took over, there was no question that it would be gorgeous.
“No. No, that’s not—”
“It’s possible and it’s a thing. I’ve been trying to find you all this time to at least tell you, but no one knew where you’d gone. You stayed hidden too well, until you came back to Maine, asking questions and searching for your people, even though you kind of just said they weren’t yours because they weren’t blood relatives. What were you doing there? Why leave here at all? Aside from the rain and general gloom, this seems like a paradise. It seems a lot like how our clan was before it didn’t exist anymore.” It was impossible not to get weepy over the destruction of a whole way of life. Her way of life.
“We almost lost Greenacre.” A shadow moved over his face. “It wasn’t safe here. The girls have been through it and then some. I was trying to protect them. I thought it might be safer back home in Maine.”
She softened seeing his true pain. “But it wasn’t.”
“No. It worked out here.”
“Thinks have a way of doing that for you, it seems. Karma clearly took a fifteen-year hiatus when it came to you.”
He ignored that. “I have a son.”
At least he was getting it, letting that reality sink in. He didn’t even look half as appalled as she thought he might. He didn’t ask, like a tone-deaf douchebag if she was sure it was his. There was actually the smallest bit of wonderment “Yes. You have a son. He’s currently inundated with teenage hormones to the point where I can barely keep him under control. He’s either going to end up in jail, or as a science experiment because he won’t—”
“No!” Roan roared, shocking her just about senseless.
She’d never been afraid of him in her life, but right now? He was borderline terrifying. It looked like his bear was going to split him in half. He was practically vibrating. If shifters did that flashing thing that they showed on tv when it came to aliens and paranormal creatures, he’d be flashing from bear back to man at an astronomical rate.
“He will never be an experiment.” He wasn’t okay. He wasn’t even trying to be. That vein ticking at his temple threatened to burst through the skin. With him, his insecurities and vulnerabilities that he’d tried so hard to eliminate had always transferred over as irritability and anger. Tabitha might not have seen his anger for what it was if she hadn’t known him better, but she did, and she knew that rage was straight up anguish, it looked like he couldn’t get his breath.
“Roan.” The urge to reach out and touch him scalded her from her fingertips all the way through her chest, straight to her foolish heart. “Roan, no.”
He stepped back, out of reach even though she hadn’t moved. “You brought my son here.”
“Yes. To protect him. It’s not because I expect you to help with him, but I was a single mother and I can’t be working two jobs, barely making ends meet, and keeping an eye on him twenty-four hours a day to make sure he’s staying out of trouble. He’s not. He’s doing everything short of hard drugs and gangs. I know he’s stolen multiple times, even though he’s never been caught. I’ve smelled cigarettes and other smoke on him, but he says it wasn’t him. He’s fallen in with a bad crowd. I could live with, if it wasn’t for what he was. He can control his bear, but for how long? Until he does some stupid party drug or someone blows the wrong shit in his face or he gets into some street fight and his life is in danger so he can’t stop the shift? Jesus. It’s just a disaster waiting to happen. I brought him here because I’m looking for sanctuary. I don’t expect money or any kind of help from you if you don’t want to give it. What I’m asking for is for you to talk to your alpha about us staying here. Indefinitely.”
“I’m barely a part of this clan. I just made a decision about making my stay here official. Sam is a good man, but I’m not sure coming here is—”
She wasn’t going to pull rank or make this about him making up for the past, but she’d do anything to protect her son and if that meant getting down on her knees or playing dirty, then she’d do it. “You owe me, Roan, but even if you didn’t, he’s your son. Do it for his sake. Please.”
Chapter 2
Roan
In the past, he’d lost whole days of his life. Some to medically induced blackouts while those bastards experimented on him like the cliched lab rat, injecting him with blood that wasn’t his and stealing his own. In that lab he’d perfected the art of burrowing inside himself and blocking out what was happening.
He barely dreamed anymore, but walking through Greenacre beside Tabitha, going straight to her car to retrieve a lanky, tall, dark-haired teenager who looked exactly like him, talking to Sam and Lily, and getting them squared away in one of the spare cabins that Sam just had built, all felt like a haze.
He’d ridden with Sam in his truck after, while Tabitha followed in her beaten up ancient station wagon. It was packed full of boxes and suitcases. He could see them through the window. She hadn’t intended on leaving.
Sam did, though. After handing him the keys, he cleared his throat. “I’ll leave you to… uh… yeah. I know we told them to come to us if they needed anything, and Lily will be over there in a few hours armed with at least two different choices of welcome casseroles, but you obviously have some unfinished business and I know you’ll want privacy.”