Page 87 of Cross To Bear

“Coober Pedy?” Mum’s tone rose dramatically.

“Seems like the best place for me,” he replied flatly. “Away from the city. Away from all of the shit. I can get my head together and…” He shook his head slowly. “Try to start over.”

“You’re not going up there!” Mum asserted. “You’re not.” She turned to my dads. “Tell him. Tell him he’s not going to that god forsaken place!”

“Fox shifters run that place. You know that, right?” Jake said to Jesse.

“Roxy was the one that found me the job,” Jesse replied. He tried to smile and failed. “Seems like they’re the only ones that will give me a chance, so…”

I didn’t regret putting out the ban on my brother. Jesse pushed and pushed until someone pushed back, and I had. Coober Pedy didn’t exactly have the best reputation in Australia. It was a little mining town near the South Australia/Northern Territory border, also known as the opal capital of the world. It was also insanely hot, very, very dry and a lot of people lived in homes underground that they’d excavated from the raw rock. We’d driven through it a few times and it seemed like a bloody wasteland. It was also over an eight hour drive away.

“Tell Jesse he’s not going,” Mum snapped at the dads. “He can go back to working in your garage.”

“No, he can’t, love,” Taz replied firmly. “He did that and fucked up someone’s very expensive Merc and anyway.” He met my gaze finally. “Bjorn’s right. Jesse needs to stand on his own two feet. He’s more than capable of it.” Dad turned to look at my brother. “I’m proud of you, kid, being willing to give that a go. You’ve always got a place here, but—”

“Sure.” My brother tried to smile, failed, and then got to his feet. “Well, that’s my news. Just wanted to come past and say goodbye.” He got to his feet, walking past the lot of us to get to Mum, wrapping his arms around her shoulders for a brief hug before pulling away. “I’ll be fine, Mum. I’ve been through harder shit than this.” She winced at that, grabbing at his arms when he went to pull away. “I’ll let you know when I’m back in town.”

I thought that was it, but Jesse wasn’t done yet. When he stepped away from Mum, he turned to face me.

“This is where I should say sorry. I am, don’t you worry about that, but…” He did smile then but there was none of his usual mischief in it. “It’s not gonna cut it, is it? I took something from you and I don’t even know why…” His blue eyes went wide as he stared at the wall, the cogs turning inside his head, then he nodded. “Yes, I do. I wanted to feel what you feel, to be what you are.”

His voice started to waver, but his gaze didn’t, boring into the framed picture of a beach.

“I wanted to be the one to turn into a bear so fucking much and when that didn’t happen… It was like nothing else fucking mattered. I’d never have a fated mate. I’d never have a band of brothers that would stand by me, no matter what. I’d never have another chance…”

He forced himself to smile as his voice broke entirely, looking somewhat embarrassed when he finally met my eyes.

“I wanted to be you, Bjorn. My big, tough, capable older brother. I wanted to be you and when it became clear I couldn’t be, well, I took what I could from you. Your mate was mine, even though every day we were together, she slipped further and further out of my grip, and I’m sorry for that. So fucking sorry.” His focus shifted to the rest of my sleuth. “To all of you. But hey, you won’t have me in your hair anymore, my ‘sexy’ fingers fucking everything up.” He wiggled them in the air for emphasis. “I guess now that it’s become real fucking clear I can’t be Bjorn, I need to work out who the fuck I am. Maybe working in Buttfuck, Nowhere will help with that.”

Mum made a strangled sound, ready to protest, but he just gave her shoulder a squeeze before walking out. But my mother was never one to take something lying down. She jerked herself to her feet, bustling over to the kitchen, picking up stacks of plates and dropping them down on the counter, not stopping until an unmistakable crack ripped through the air. She picked one plate, then another up, with shaking hands, the dads swooping in when she got to the broken one at the bottom.

“This is all her fault…” Mum said, her tone swinging from emotional devastation to rage in seconds. “If she hadn’t… If she wasn’t…” When Mum’s eyes met mine, I knew I was going to hate what she said next, but I had no idea how much. “I’m glad I went and had a word with her, made clear how things are.”

“With. Who.”

The bear growled that out, and my dads didn’t even protest this time, taking an instinctive step backwards as Mum slammed the broken plate down onto the counter, shattering it into a million pieces.

“Maddie.”

Of course, it was Maddie. Who else could it be? Everyone wanted a piece of my fated mate, but right then, as my lips peeled back in a snarl, I knew no one would. No one but me and my sleuth.

Jesse was right in a way. He wanted to build a family independent of this one and right now, that’s all I fucking wanted too. People talked about Mum being a bit of a busybody, always in everyone’s business, but basically harmless.

Though people said the same about Jesse.

And look at the devastation he’d caused.

“What did you do?” It wasn’t me that asked the question. My dad did, staring at Mum like she was a stranger. “Nelly, love…” Did she hear the pleading tone in his voice? “What did you do?”

“What I had to in order to keep this family together,” she said, not an ounce of remorse in her eyes. “I made sure Maddie understood what she was getting into. Her family didn’t approve of Jesse. How the hell were they going to accept four men like them, when one was bad enough?”

When I stared into my mother’s eyes, it was as if they were a stranger’s, because how could anyone who claimed to love me say these words?

“Not every sleuth ends up with their fated mate.”

Her tone was all sweetness and light, trying to make what she was saying more palatable, but she was interrupted by the ring of Razor’s phone.

“Babe…” he said, making clear who was on the other end of the line. “I was gonna call you tonight. We’re just at Nelly’s right now…” He looked at me now. “There’s a whole thing going on. Can I call you back?”

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