If Pippa was expecting Bear to do anything except scowl at her the next morning, she was sorely disappointed.
They’d had a certified moment together yesterday outside the lawyer’s office, and he’d come to her defense yesterday when his lawyer had been so awful—she’d gotten choked up just thinking about it the rest of the day—but this morning he was being, well, a bear.
Her greeting probably hadn’t helped matters. She’d seen him working on the garden boxes, and her heart had done this wild leap, like a bird suddenly realizing it could fly but still afraid of falling. So she’d said, “You’re breaking the law” to him, way too loud.
She’d meant it as a joke, except she was too nervous to be funny. She didn’t know how she wanted to be with him, so she defaulted to sassy. Also in her defense, she hadn’t slept well, for a very silly reason she’d never tell him about.
He’d missed a step. Wrong thing to say. “Call the sheriff then,” he’d said, low and angry.
Things had only gotten surlier from there.
Currently Bear was staring down a pile of gardening soil. The soil was quite innocuous, rich and black and smelling of deep earth, but Bear was glaring at it as if Satan himself had scooped it up out of the depths of hell.
It hadn’t been Satan but the magic of the house that had left the pile of gardening soil. It had been a gift from whatever powers were helping them here. Bear didn’t need to be such a… a… a bear about it. Really, did his parents have to name him after an animal known for being cranky? It was too easy to default to calling him that.
“We’ll move all the dirt,” Pippa said shortly. “We can build our own garden. You knew we were doing this; you heard us with Ansel—”
“I know.” His interruption was as vicious as his scowl. “I’ve got the damn tractor. It’d be stupid for me not to move it.”
She set her mouth in a thin line. “I’m not stupid.” He’d been almost tender yesterday, and now he was… horrible. If she cried because of him…
“Didn’t say you were.” But his tone implied she was being so now as he turned for his awful, massive tractor. “Said the situation was.”
“You don’t have to do this every morning,” she yelled after him. “No one asked you to. In fact, the lawyer told you not to.”
She regretted telling him to keep coming so much right now.
“It’s my property,” he yelled back, and then the tractor started up, so she couldn’t respond.
She watched as he removed the old dirt—goodbye nasty Bermuda grass—and filled the beds with the good, new soil. Lulu had started some seeds inside yesterday, and they could put in the other seeds today. Pippa ought to be happy, but instead, the tears kept threatening. She couldn’t even appreciate how deft Bear was with the tractor, going back and forth and turning even as he worked the scoop at the same time.
He’d been especially deft when he’d been building the boxes, finishing what she and Lulu had started yesterday. She’d come out this morning to find the pile of soil and Bear working on finishing the boxes, looking furious about it. Which had made her feel guilty and ashamed, that he was doing all this for her against his will. And then she’d said he was breaking the law, and it had all gone wrong.
“Stupid,” she muttered, rubbing her fingertips over her eyelids. The tractor rumbled past her. “Stupid.”
No reason to be so upset like this. He was going to see; then he’d sneer at her, say something about how this meant she wasn’t supposed to be here. That she couldn’t make it.
Well, wasn’t what he was doing now proving that entire point? She couldn’t make her own garden, had to rely on magical gifts, had a family curse hanging over her head.
And her cat didn’t love her.
The rumble of the tractor cut off.
She lifted her head, took in what Bear had done. So quickly, he’d made it so she could plant here. In the place he wanted to eject her from.
Maybe he was right.
His jaw was set in a mean dare. Say something rude, something snarky. Go on, I want a fight.
She didn’t though. “Thank you,” she said stiffly. “I need to get ready for work now.”
His expression dissolved, all the antagonism just gone. “Hey. Look, I’m sorry I was an ass. I promise I’ll be nice from now on. Things are… I…” His mouth turned down. “I got into it with Thorne yesterday.”
Probably because of what had happened in the lawyer’s office. Guilt piled onto her, along with all the other dark emotions she was carrying. So she edged toward the house.
“It’s fine.” Her voice wobbled dangerously. That awful, disobedient voice of hers.
“It’s not.” He was climbing down from the tractor. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She went for the house as fast she could without actually running.
Bear followed.
“Hey.” He caught her arm, just enough to slow her down. She found herself wishing he’d held on longer. “You’re upset. Why?”
She gave in to her first instinct to be flippant. He was too much like yesterday’s Bear, and it hurt. “Because you’re trying to destroy my house.”
“I’m doing that every morning,” he said wryly. “And you’re not this upset every morning. What happened?”
She stared at a corner of the raised bed where the nail heads lay flush and smooth against the pale, fresh wood. He’d hammered them in so neatly and competently, same as he did everything. Ruthless. That was another way to describe how he’d done it, not a bit of fumbling.
He didn’t feel ruthless now. He felt… comfortable. Someone she wanted to rest her head on, just for a bit.
“Okay.” She released a tense breath. This might be a terrible mistake. “You’ll think I’m dumb—”
“Never.”
“—but Tybalt didn’t come cuddle with me last night. And he didn’t wake me up this morning. So after everything that happened yesterday, I’m feeling a little rejected. And raw.”
Even more so now that she’d admitted all that to him. Pouting over a cat. He’d probably laugh. And then she’d feel even worse, when her mood was already almost six feet under. And honestly, she was confused over him too. What was going on here?
But when she snuck a glance at his expression, it was solemn. As if he really cared that she was hurt.
“You think he’s cheating on you with your sister?” His deep tones were deadly serious. If he was making a joke, he was being incredibly dry about it.
So maybe he wasn’t.
“It’s silly,” she said slowly, “but I love that cat to death. And he’s… Well, Tybalt doesn’t like physical affection. He doesn’t want to be held and he tolerates petting, but waking me up in the morning… I tell myself that’s how he shows me he loves me.”
Sometimes it felt like Tybalt was the only thing she had left. Which wasn’t true. She had this house—kind of—and her sisters, but at her lowest points, Tybalt was always there.
To her horror, her eyes and nose began to sting. Her throat closed. Tears collected in the corners of her eyes. Everything just sort of snuck up on her at once, with Tybalt’s abandonment this morning being the last flake of snow to set the avalanche off.
“I’m sorry.” She wasn’t even sure what she was sorry for as she rubbed her eyes with the tips of her fingers.
“Christ.” The curse from Bear was low and vicious.
Pippa flinched, waiting for him to run off. Or tell her tears weren’t going to work.
When his arms came around her, gathering her close, the warm shock of it almost stopped her heart. The buttons of his shirt were cool and hard under her cheek while the shirt itself was soft, warmed from his body. And his body…
She madly swerved her thoughts from that dangerous direction, but then she crashed right back into her grief. Tears leaked out from her eyes, wetting his shirt, and she couldn’t take any breaths deeper than stuttering little gasps. They were like hiccups of sadness.
Bear’s large hand stroked down her hair. And then heated, soft pressure on the top of her scalp.
He was resting his face in her hair.
Something that had been knotted so tight within her she couldn’t even begin to untangle it suddenly loosened. It didn’t release completely, but she felt like she could almost see the trailing ends of it, could begin to grasp at it.
“My sister stole my dog,” Bear said into her hair.
She had to muffle her laugh because it really wasn’t funny. The laugh was more a release of tension anyway. “How rude.”
“Maybe not exactly stole,” he amended. “I gave him to her. He’s a little dog, the kind we can’t have out here. They’re prime targets for coyotes.”
His hand began stroking down her back, small, light touches. Very correct. Also very comforting.
“How did you get him then?” she asked. “And what’s his name?”
“Bozeman. Someone dumped him out here. It happens a lot, people setting animals loose. I guess they figure we rural people can take whatever animal they don’t want anymore.”
We rural people. She was included in that, which touched her. And then the rest sank in, the horrible part where a poor dog was tossed away like trash.
“How terrible.” She put her hand to her throat, her arm trapped between them. Bear didn’t loosen his hold on her. “I’m glad he found you.”
“Yeah.” Bear’s tone was so distant he almost sounded sad. “It would have been bad out there on his own. He loved to ride in the truck with me when we went to feed. Would sit up on the middle console and take everything in.”
She recognized the emotion in his voice—she talked about Tybalt the same way. “Why did your sister take him from you?”
Steal was the word she’d wanted to use, but it wouldn’t be right to accuse his sister of that.
“He was attacked by a coyote. It was bad.” His words were so bleak; she wrapped her arms around him and held tight, same as he’d done with her. “Penny was on the ranch, preg checking cows, by some miracle. She saved Bozeman’s life.”
Now Pippa was stroking his back, down the channel of his spine, his muscles rising on either side. She tried to keep it light, comforting, but his body was so intriguing. Still, she fought it because he was truly upset.
“Is he okay now?” she asked softly.
Bear nodded. “After that, it made sense to have him stay with Lark. He loves her too, and she’s got a place in town, nice high fence, no coyotes. He’s happy there.” A long pause that Pippa didn’t rush to fill. “He was never meant to be out here.”
She tried to imagine letting Tybalt live somewhere else, somewhere safer. It almost broke her heart, just the imagining.
With a long exhale, she realized she was still stroking Bear’s back. She forced her hand to quiet.
She had to admit if there was a place Tybalt could be happier, then yes, she’d send him there. His happiness came first. Even though that also made her heart want to break.
“I keep Tybalt inside,” she said. “Because you warned me about the coyotes.”
“Does he try to escape?”
She shook her head, her cheek brushing his chest. “Tybalt’s always been an indoor cat. Honestly, he seems happier here than in San Diego. Maybe because there’re mice in the house.”
“Hmm. Did he like your boyfriend?” Bear put his face back into her hair before she could look up to catch his expression.
It took her a moment to connect who Bear meant. “James? My ex? No, James wasn’t a cat person. Tybalt tolerated him, but barely.”
Bear muttered something that sounded like smart cat, but it was too muffled by her hair to be clear.
“You can’t be jealous of James,” she said into his chest. Bear smelled so good, not like soap or cologne, but like pure sunshine and fresh air. “We broke up.”
When he didn’t say anything, she looked up at him. He was watching her with steady intensity, an expression that made heat shimmer through her all the way to her toes.
“I can’t be?” His deep, quiet tone rubbed like velvet over her.
She pulled in one breath, then another. The atmosphere was so still, but her heart felt like it was hanging from a very high place, trying to decide if it was safe to let go.
Probably not. But she wanted to let it try to fly anyway.
“I think I want to kiss you,” she said.
That one eyebrow of his crooked up. “You think?”
That little bit of offense in his tone made her heart bobble on its ledge, one toe slipping over. “Okay, I know I want to kiss you.”
She could see the fine lines gathered at the corner of his eyes from here. The shadow of his stubble, dark even though his skin shone from a recent shave. His beard would be positively wolfish if he let it grow out. Or maybe bearish…
If he kissed her, she’d feel his skin against hers. And his stubble. If he just came a little closer…
“What are you waiting for?” he asked.
Her heart did a swan dive. She raised her arms, looped them around his neck, rose up to her tiptoes, and sealed her mouth to his.
The first taste of him was… Her eyes flared wide in surprised delight. It was like a mountain morning but with the sun rays burning off the chill, like every morning she’d had here but also so achingly familiar. Not a memory, but almost deeper.
He touched her lips, each corner of her mouth, her upper lip, even her chin, which was unlike any kiss she’d ever had. Most guys liked to get right to the part where his tongue went into her mouth, but Bear was taking his time. Every inch of you should be kissed, he seemed to be saying.
Her toes curled at the thought. He wouldn’t rush. Ruthless. That was how he’d hammered in those nails, each stroke powerful, sure, unhurried. And every nail had gone exactly where it should, driven deep.
Oh God, he’d be just like that in bed. He’d be sure but tender. Capable but slow. Willing to do it right no matter how long it took.
She licked at the corner of his mouth, the corner that quirked up when he was trying not to smile, because if she didn’t, she’d explode from the frantic heat inside her.
He made a noise of hunger and warning. We can go slow. To prove his point, he kissed the boundary between her lip and cheek, right where it creased when she smiled, right on the line that remained even when she made her mouth flat.
She almost gasped. How had she never known how sensitive that spot was? Probably because no one else had thought to pay particular attention to it. Never thought it as worthy of kissing as her lips.
He smiled against that spot, clearly pleased he’d surprised her.
So she took his bottom lip between her teeth, more caress than scrape, but enough to have him groaning. Now it was her turn to be smug. She could surprise too, and surprising him like this was proving to be best of all.
When Bear lifted his head, he looked dazzled. Intent. Craving. Her expression had to mirror his because she felt the same way.
He anchored his hand in her hair, his big, capable, gentle hand, and her knees didn’t so much as go weak as go tingly. Thank God she was already hanging on to him. He lowered his head and brushed the seam of her mouth with his tongue.
She met his next stroke with her own. It was like falling into heat and light, tumbling end over end, but still so securely anchored by his grip. She could rise up to reach for anything in this kiss, because he would help her reach it.
If she weren’t so overwhelmed, she might be frightened by that feeling.
They were breathing hard together, her pulse drumming through her, thundering between her legs. His arm was tight around her, crushing her against the hard length of him, and his pulse had to be as out of control as hers was.
When they broke off, it took her a shockingly long time to catch her breath. Bear rubbed his thumb over her smile line, the exact place he’d just awakened to her. His brows were drawn tight together, although his touch on her was gentle.
“We’re in deep,” he said.
He didn’t clarify exactly what they were deep in. Trouble? Lust?
Pippa supposed it didn’t matter since both were true. Certainly both were making her heart pound with mingled excitement and fear—but she couldn’t summon any regret.