Bear’s Midlife Surprise: A Fated Mate Shifter Romance (Bear Mates Over Forty Book 4), page 9
Lily swept in with a big plate full of cookies. “I’ll just leave these right here and get the tea.”
“Let me help,” Sam said, leaping up.
“I’m okay.” She shooed him off, but the smile she gave him was unmistakable.
“Oh, I insist. That teapot is probably heavy.”
“It is, because it’s the kettle with hot water. The teapot is on a separate tray. It’s easier in the kitchen, but we don’t need to move in there.”
“No, we can move in there,” Sam said. He circled Lily’s waist with an arm. “Would that be okay?”
“Sure,” January mumbled. She glanced longingly at the door and fearfully towards the hallway down to the kitchen, like it was a snake pit of no return that she was being asked to enter.
“I have a great idea,” Lily suddenly said, all eagerness.
Tavish wasn’t sure if there was hope to be found in whatever Lily’s idea was, but he was willing to embrace it. What kind of hope he was looking for, he wasn’t sure. January had made up her mind to leave. Whatever happened in her marriage, or maybe whatever didn’t happen, had set her mind. Maybe it had nothing to do with her marriage. Maybe it didn’t even have anything to do with him. He had to admit that they were basically thrust together through the machinations of others.
Asking someone out for dinner was a lot different than saying you were fated mates with entwined destinies and implying that you’d really like to spend a life together, or at least work towards seeing if that was possible.
“What’s that, my love?” Sam kissed Lily’s forehead. They were never shy about their affection for each other. It never made Tavish uncomfortable, but it did make his throat sting now. How was it that he hadn’t been worried about finding anyone and was comfortable with being alone just a week ago. Whereas now he was getting choked up and wistful seeing two people in love?
Maybe love was like that. It made things lonelier before they were ever better.
“I said I pushed my classes back to this afternoon.” She smiled brightly at January. “Would you like to come to the school with me for it? You could meet our boys and a whole bunch of other great kids.”
“I really should probably—”
“I’m sure that Tavish would love to have you for dinner at his place, so you can discuss things before you head back to Phoenix. Don’t worry if it gets late and you’re scared to drive back to the city. You could stay here in our guest room.”
January looked like she’d rather eat the business end of a thistle. “Oh, I’m fine driving in the dark. I’m not worried about that.” She studied the floor. It was pretty clear what she was worried about.
“I won’t try to convince you to change your mind,” Tavish promised. “But if you would do me the honor of dinner and a parting conversation, I’d appreciate it. I promise dinner won’t be interrupted by untimely shifting either.”
He’d never heard such a gravelly throat clearing. “Alright.” That one word had never sounded less certain, and he vowed that he’d stay true to his word and no matter what it might cost him in the future, no matter how much missing or heartache or grief, he’d make good on his promise not to try to talk her out of or into anything.
Chapter 12
January
“Oh goodness, this is too much fun.”
January loved every single smiling face. Children were wonderful. She loved her nephews, but she didn’t have much of a chance to interact with them on a regular basis, so it made her happy to be included in the dancing.
Sam and Lily’s oldest son, Leo, helped out with his younger brothers. By helping out, it really meant trying to corral their wild enthusiasm for line dancing into real steps, not the hurricane blurs of wild, laughing, shouting energy that they wanted to be instead.
“Very good!” Lily encouraged. She’d just run through basic steps, and because she was a genius at what she did, she had most of the kids in the room lined up. They ranged in age from toddlers to teenagers. The older kids had been paired up with the younger ones to help.
“Not like that, Rowan. This way.” Leo demonstrated the first steps. “Don’t be silly. Come on. I know you can do it.”
“But I want it to go like this.” Rowan took a crouched stance and waved his arms madly.
Lily looked up from the pair she was helping and laughed. “That’s a wonderful interpretive dance, Row, but not the steps to this one.”
“We’re supposed to be learning this one,” Leo insisted. He wrinkled his nose at his younger brother, but he was encouraging too, and demonstrated the first few steps, taking a few and then turning and kicking up his heels “It’s not that hard.”
Rowan studied Leo for a second, then finally nodded. He executed the steps perfectly, then crouched down again and swung his arms madly.
Lily and January both burst out laughing. “Goodness. So much energy at that age,” January said when Lily walked past her. She felt a little bit out of place just hovering around in the school’s small gym where the dance classes were held, but it wasn’t as bad as when she’d first arrived.
After tea and cookies, Tavish and Sam took a walk, which was probably code for giving the women some alone time to talk. Lily was gracious enough to let January help her clean up the kitchen and tidy the house instead of talking about things she didn’t want to talk about. Namely the future or the past. Or the present. It seemed she didn’t have answers for anything.
Except one thing.
After seeing Sam and Lily together, she finally understood what had been missing in her marriage. She understood why she’d felt compelled to change things.
She’d always thought that she’d loved Jotham and that he loved her. There were obviously different kinds of love, and her marriage had been more of that best friend love right from the start. Even when they were dating, that fire that she’d expected to feel had always been missing. She loved Jotham’s intelligence, kindness, and overall goodness. Physically, they never burned bright, but they weren’t cold either. They were always just somewhere in the middle. There was never any of those I would die for this person feelings, and she couldn’t speak for Jotham, but she thought she could say with some real certainty that there had never been that on his end either.
“January!” Emma, the only little girl in the class, had recently moved to Greenacre when her mom fell in love with one of the men and they’d started a life together. Lily had explained that Glendy owned the small store on main street. She’d offered a super short history of every child there.
“Yes, sweetheart?” January let Emma take her hands. They were so tiny, very hot, and incredibly sticky and clammy. She didn’t mind in the least. “Will you be my partner?”
“Of course.”
“You looked like you needed one. You were all by yourself.”
“But what about yours?”
Lily’s kids quickly opened their little circle to let the older boy who was paired up with Emma work with them.
“Okay,” January whispered. “I see.”
“We should work on this.” Emma twirled, throwing in a few steps to the side. “It’s my own move.”
“Wonderful,” Lily praised them as she walked by. She winked at January.
It wasn’t exactly subtle, what Lily was trying to do. She would never ask or tell January to stay in Greenacre, but after they’d cleaned up after tea, she’d taken her down main street, and walked the long way to the school, explaining all about how she and Sam met, talking about the village, about her passion for dance. She was probably trying to show January around Greenacre, and then let her meet some of the people there, especially the kids, in hopes that her resolve would soften and maybe crack.
How could she not stand there and love all these enthusiastic kids? They were adorable, each and every single one.
Lily did say that most kids went to school, but it was a different kind of school. They went part days if they were younger, and all day when they were older. The older ones helped out with the younger, just like with the dancing, and there were only one or two teachers. They taught the regular subjects, but also the shifter stuff. Lily hadn’t expanded that part and January forced herself not to ask. They went to school even in summer, but none of the kids complained. They didn’t do conventional learning. There probably weren’t even any desks in the classrooms, although January hadn’t gone and looked when they’d entered the school.
It wasn’t one of those small, one-room buildings like very old schools were. There was a hallway, several rooms, and a large gym with polished a wood floor. It was sided nicely, painted dark brown with lighter unstained cedar accents. Most of the buildings were built from wooden planks or more rustic with split logs, which made sense, given that the community was surrounded by forest.
“Watch me!” Emma did another twirl. She raised her leg this time, like a ballerina. “I want to do ballet, but Lily can’t teach just me.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Lily rushed over.
“The boys don’t want to do ballet.”
“It’s more that I don’t have the right training,” Lily mused. “But I’ll teach you what I know. I promise. We can all learn a few steps, and after each class, if you can stay for fifteen or twenty extra minutes, we’ll work on it.”
“Really?” Emma’s eyes went wide.
“Absolutely!”
Emma winced. “Mom said not to ask you. She said you were busy enough.”
Lily set her hand on the little girl’s shoulder. Every single child there was a shifter. Lily did say that didn’t start until they were ten, but it was hard to believe that this sweet, petite, blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl would ever be a roaring, powerful bear. “I’m never too busy to dance. That’s what I love most in the world.”
Emma giggled. “You love Sam more than dance.”
Lily’s whole face changed, and it made January go soft inside, but also hot with longing. It didn’t make sense. How could she want to leave and be jealous of what Sam and Lily shared at the same time? It wasn’t like she was going out there, back to her old life, to find anyone. She wanted the exact opposite, and she wasn’t just saying so. She’d always thought, even when she’d dated and was married, that she and Jotham were just so independent and that’s why they didn’t miss each other with that heart aching, burning, horrible kind of intensity when they were apart. Or why they didn’t burn so bright when they were together.
“You’re right,” Lily giggled, flushing like she was a teenager even though she was probably January’s age. “I love Sam even more than I love dance.”
“My mom loves Thaddius even more than vintage clothes,” Emma declared.
Lily ruffled the little girl’s hair. “I wouldn’t doubt it for a second.”
“That’s a lot of love, because my mom really loves vintage. It’s her job.”
January ran through the next steps of the dance with Emma, but her mind was whirring at a speed much more frantic than her body was moving and she certainly wasn’t thinking about anything dance related.
She was thinking about Tavish. As if she ever stopped... The strange sensations she'd been wrestling with, which seemed something more than love or lust at first sight—it was like her body wanted him. It didn't matter that she was thinking rationally about the whole mates thing, or the long distance between them—it was as if the moment she’d stepped into Greenacre her body had decided it was home. But she'd made mistakes before, so there was no way she was going to listen to her hormones.
Would she ever stop thinking about him, though? Would she stop thinking about this community that she’d only spent a few days in? Would the craziness that was obviously sweeping her away ever abate? Because she couldn’t want to stay here based on some vague weirdness about destiny with a man she’d only just met. She couldn’t want to be part of a town when her life was with her family nearly a twenty-four-hour drive away.
Her family thought she was absurd to have asked for a divorce and followed through with it when to them everything had seemed perfect between her and Jotham. What would everyone think if she declared that she was going to move across the country for a man she barely knew? There would be no end of worry, even if she moved in with June temporarily.
More importantly, what would she herself think? She knew that was the only thing that mattered.
Damn it, she didn’t want to waver. She wanted to be strong. Resist the temptation to uproot. Resist taking a chance. She’d already wrecked enough of her life. She’d taken the harder, shittier, far less travelled road. Sometimes loneliness seemed the better, safer option than having to go through the upheaval of another heartbreak. Maybe if she’d been ten years younger the risks wouldn’t have seemed so immense? But now she was older, wiser and scarred, the thought of opening herself up to a fresh onslaught of pain was too much.
She didn’t need to diverge from her path just when the potholes and bumps were lessening. But whenever she closed her eyes, Tavish was standing at the end of the road waiting for her.
Chapter 13
Tavish
January agreed to stop by the house around four. It wasn’t really the dinner hour, but it was roughly when Lily’s class would be over. They’d drop Emma off at her mom’s store, then walk the boys home, and Tavish knew how long that often took. The kids could turn a ten-minute walk into a two hour trek by getting sidetracked along the way. Even on a cold, rainy day, they were all about being outside exploring.
It didn’t matter how early they ate. Tavish hadn’t had a single bite since yesterday afternoon other than the cookie he’d choked down just to make Lily happy. He doubted January had anything more either.
He went through the process of popping a roast into the oven and cutting potatoes, all the while knowing that he wouldn’t enjoy it. He wasn’t a terrible cook, but even if he outdid himself and made the world’s juiciest, tastiest roast, it would probably taste like sawdust.
He’d promised not to say anything about January leaving. The decision to stay had to be hers and she didn’t want to, which made a ton of sense. It was far more irrational to try to make an argument for her staying. He hadn’t said he wouldn’t argue for her coming back, but he wouldn’t do that either. It felt like cheating. If she didn’t stay and didn’t ever come back, could he go to her? Could he live without his friends, his family, and his clan? Be a shifter out in the human world permanently?
It didn’t seem like it was the location that January was most against. It was him. If he went to Phoenix and gave up everything he knew, she’d probably appreciate that gesture even less than his blurting out they were destined for each other.
He sat down at the kitchen table and put his head in his hands. How did Sam and Trace and Thaddius live like this? How did any of them live like this? It was hard being alone, but it was worse finding the one, or thinking that you potentially had. Even if they were with you, the worry that something would happen to take them away from you must be enormous.
He was so lost in his head that he didn’t hear anyone approach until a soft knock sounded on the door.
Tavish leaped up, nearly upset his chair, and stalked frantically to the door. He forced himself to calm down and breathe before he opened it.
She was there. January.
She was beautiful that morning, in a state of sleeplessness and disarray, but seeing her now, hair even messier, a twinkle in her eyes, the slightest smile on her lips, made his whole body go soft and warm. She hadn’t looked happy just a few hours ago, but her time with Lily and the kids changed that. She stepped closer towards him and he could see the fine lines at the corners of her mouth, etched there by years of smiling.
“Hi,” she said. “I hope I’m not too early.”
“No. Not at all.”
“We didn’t take as long to walk Emma home or the boys as we thought.”
He didn’t unwish meeting January. He didn’t unwish the chaos and havoc that his life had been thrown into. He didn’t wish the strange feelings away, the sensation that his body didn’t even belong to him anymore, that a greater purpose had been hanging over him the entire time and was finally revealed. He didn’t want to fight it, but he didn’t know how to live with it either.
“Will you come in and sit down? The roast won’t be ready for a little while yet, but we could talk and then you could get back to Seattle early. Still not in daylight, but earlier than late.” Wow. That was smooth.
“Sure. Thank you.” She seemed a hundred times more composed than she had been earlier that morning and he was probably a hundred times more flustered.
January didn’t look out of place in his living room. She didn’t mind the plaid couches or the dated coffee and end tables in all their blonde wood glory either.
“You have a nice house.”
“It’s not like Sam’s. I should do the log cabin thing out in the woods, but I guess I’ve always liked living in the middle of everything. Most of that is just log siding.”
“I still like the tongue and groove pine.” She studied the flooring. “And those wide floorboards are amazing. They look aged, they have that lovely patina that comes from decades of polishing.”
“Thank you.” He sat down across from her, on the matching blue and green plaid loveseat. They might have been extreme nineties, but they were in good shape, and they were comfortable. Plus, the couch converted into a bed. For all the company he never had. But you never knew when you needed a spare. His house was small and only had one bedroom, but the living room and kitchen were both decent sizes. It had always suited him fine.
He refused to start thinking of how much of a bachelor pad it must look. He kept it clean, so that wasn’t the regular bachelor style, or so he’d heard and read. If January knew how many modern fiction books he read every month, she’d probably laugh. No, she probably wouldn’t believe it. She could believe in him being half bear, but not in his taste for romance novels.
“I hope this doesn’t break the rules, which are don’t talk to you about staying,” he blurted. He couldn’t stop himself. He’d been thinking about it endlessly ever since the morning. “But I was wondering if I could write to you.”
