Page 6 of Cross To Bear

Leaving me just standing there to face down the firing squad.

“He tried to make the salad himself this time,” I explained, my fingers lacing together and then separating, before getting tangled again. “It didn’t end well.”

“What grown man can’t boil some spuds and some eggs?” Bjorn asked me, but his gaze when it landed on me was considerably softer. There was some frustration there, though not directed at me, along with something else. Something I ignored, pushed aside, each time I caught him looking at me when my head was turned.

“Jesse.” Nelly let out an exaggerated sigh. “Remember when he tried to make me pancakes for breakfast when he was a kid?”

“There’s still batter on the ceiling.” Taz squinted, looking up at the ceiling. “We tried to get most of it off, but some just had to be painted over.”

“He’s always been a shocker with things like that, though he tries.” Nelly smiled at me. “He always tries. Lucky he has you though, Mads. I don’t know what he’d do without you.”

She’d said that more than once, even taking me aside and talking me through some of the ways Jesse needed looking after when we first got together. Not in an oppressive way—it was more like a shelter manager handing over a pound puppy, making sure I was aware of all its quirks, lest I bring him right back. But… I let out a long breath and then stepped forward.

“We got you some wine as well.”

“Penfolds!” Her eyebrows jerked up. “Ooh, it’s got a gold medal on it and everything. We might have to give that a crack. You’ll join me for a wine and orange juice, Maddie, won’t you?”

She looked up at me expectantly, waiting for me to answer as she set glasses on the kitchen bench. They all did. I smiled on automatic and then nodded.

“Sure, I’d love that.”

Chapter 4

Bjorn

I’m not sure which of the fucking bear gods I’d offended, because I’d obviously pissed one of them off, because I was in hell. My dropkick brother came wandering into the house, carrying slabs of beer because we didn’t have enough beer to drown a fucking horse in, completely ignoring the goddess that trailed behind him.

Our fated mate.

We’d all been a bit leery when Jesse came home one night, gushing over this girl he’d met. Jesse fell hard but fell out of love just as quickly, so we’d met a whole lot of Ms Perfects over the years.

But Maddie was different.

Because she really was perfect. Not for Jesse, Mum didn’t get that, because she didn’t know. The minute a nervous looking Maddie had walked in the door of the family home, the bear had shoved so fucking hard against my boundaries that I’d nearly taken fur in that second.

Mine! he declared.

She was. I knew it from the second I saw her, because suddenly my life was a fucking 80s rock song. I was obsessed with Jesse’s girl. I’d stared at my dads, making clear what I knew and they stared back. It was the sadness in their eyes that had me sitting back down, because somehow I’d started to rise out of my seat.

The girl always chooses, that was the motto we lived by, and right now, she was choosing Jesse. I didn’t know how, why, or what stopped her eyes from swinging my way and pushing him aside, but she didn’t. She merely flushed slightly when introduced to us all, her eyes only widening slightly when she saw me.

I’d waited for the relationship to fizzle because that was the same way they all went, but Maddie was too good for him to do that to. It wasn’t just that she was fucking stunning, with all that creamy pale skin and long, thick dark hair. My fingers flexed, wanting to wrap it around my fist as I tugged her closer. She looked after my fuckup of a brother and that was something Jesse was never going to walk away from. Mum babied him stupid as a kid and that didn’t stop when he got older. She even took Maddie aside and taught her ‘the way’ in handling my brother.

She shouldn’t have been handling anything.

He should’ve been handling her just fucking right, like me and mine would, if she ever looked our way. Making sure her every need was cared for, not her rushing around to look after him. Our jobs as men in the bear shifter community was to ensure our women were cared for, cherished and never doubted for a second how loved they were.

Not this.

No one else seemed to see it, because they were too caught up in the fact that little baby Jesse had found someone patient enough to look after him. They didn’t catch the way the skin around Maddie’s eyes tightened or that her breath came in too fast too often. That I knew the way her knuckles looked like as they pressed white against her skin. It gave me hope and was my greatest torment. Because I watched Maddie obsessively, and deep down, I didn’t think she was happy. If she wasn’t, I needed to step in and make sure she was and then…

“Your brother is a fucking cunt.”

Mum had moved the party outside, where the rest of the extended family was gathered. Uncles and aunties kicked back and relaxed while the kids all ran wild in the garden. My brother, Crash sidled up to me, letting me know what he thought. He got his nickname because he dropped his first real custom painted motorcycle spectacularly badly in front of the entire garage, but it suited him. He didn’t mince words or fuck around.

“What’s the bet the mess was a whole lot worse than what Maddie let on,” Hawk said, his brows furrowing.

“And she’ll be the one cleaning it up, just like we used to.” Razor shook his head. “Like, how fucking long is she going to put up with this shit from that dickhead?” He nodded to where Jesse was playing at being a bear with the little kids, which made sense. He was kind of on their level. “I get he’s pretty—”

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