Page 1 of Bear's Rejected Love

Chapter 1

Tabitha

What did fifteen years do to a person?

It probably wasn’t the question that should have been on her mind, but that’s currently what she was having a nervous breakdown about, as she stood on the rough wooden porch of her mate’s home. Ex-mate. It was never made clan official with an un-mating ceremony, but his leaving in the middle of the night and never coming back was a pretty big red flag that he wasn’t relationship material.

Hah freaking hah.

God, she was so nervous her palms were soaking wet. She forced herself to bring her hand up. Make a fist. Knock gently on the door. Shifters had good hearing. She didn’t have to beat it down.

She held her breath and shoved her hands deeper into the folds of her threadbare thrifted woolen coat. At least it was vintage, it had the aura of once looking respectable in another era. She knew what she must look like. A decade and a half older, marked by a life which hadn’t been kind.

Okay, maybe she was being hard on her herself. Anyone else would say she looked great for forty-three. She’d had enough customers at the bar—her night and weekend second job—tell her that she was gorgeous, but those were also the same guys who wanted to slip a hand up her skirt, pinch her butt, or fall into bed with her. Probably all three, and maybe not in that order.

The sound of footsteps made her burrow her face down into the scarf and breathe lightly through her nose to keep the sudden flow of tears at bay. This was possibly the worst decision she’d ever made in her life.

She was only glad that she’d thought to park her car down the street, where it was within her line of sight, but barely, so that Corbin couldn’t overhear what was being said.

He knew his dad knew nothing about him, but just because he wasn’t a deadbeat asshole didn’t make up for his not being there. Corbin knew that she’d tried everything she could to find Roan. Her brother and parents had tried too. Half the clan fucking tried. Alas, no dice.

The lady at the diner on main street had given her Roan’s address, but it was still half a shock to see him open the door. She shrank back immediately. If she was very well aware that she was no longer the young twenty-something woman that he’d mated—his best friend’s little sister—she was also incredibly aware that fifteen years looked good on this man who still physically looked very much the same as she remembered.

His jaw dropped and his already frosty blue eyes turned to ice. The look he gave her told her she was the last person he’d expected to see on his doorstep.

“Tabitha.” His voice had changed, at least. It was deeper. A little raspier. Smoke and sex.

For goodness’ sake, seriously?

She cleared her throat and straightened up in her old coat. She forced herself to look at Roan’s forehead, so it looked like she was making eye contact. Any lower and she’d get thoughts about how his lips used to feel on her neck.

“Roan.”

He shut the door and stepped outside in a t-shirt and jeans. He didn’t appear the least bit cold, or even aware that it was drizzling rain at the rate that anyone would be surprised to find themselves soaked to the bone and frigid within a few minutes. March in other parts of the country could be brutal, and today even in Washington, which was supposed to be milder, wasn’t all that forgiving.

“How did you find me?” He didn’t seem entirely pissed about that, but he wasn’t curious either. He was doing his favorite thing which was basically to pretend that he had zero emotions at all.

She flicked her eyes down from his forehead and met his full-on blues. It was as painful as staring down the sun, but she needed to see what was in them. Not much, but there was a spark of something. She’d spent years with this man. He was once her mate. He’d fathered a child with her. She knew things about him that no one else knew, even if he’d never meant to let her in.

“You can’t be a shifter and not hear things, but unfortunately sometimes you hear it too late and by the time I heard you were in Maine, searching for any remaining people you might have known, you were already gone. It took me months of talking to people who might know something to track you down. Even this didn’t seem like a sure thing, but when I walked into that restaurant on main street and gave your name, I could tell that the human woman who owns it knew something. When I told her I’m a shifter and that I was part of your past, she told me where to find you.”

“You shouldn’t have come here.”

Finally. There it was. The old, surly Roan coming to the forefront. At least he didn’t bother to pretend that he’d changed in all the years he’d been gone. He was still acting like he didn’t need anyone or anything, but if that was true, what was he doing smack dab in the heart of another clan?

Why had he never come back to find his own? She could handle him rejecting her, but she couldn’t take the way he’d broken her parents’ hearts or how he’d destroyed her brother’s.

“Oh really? You’ve always been all about the rules. You think life is this endless drudgery of obligations and that might be your truth, but here’s mine. I do need to be here. You’re going to listen to everything I have to say before you decide if I belong or not. You’re going to want to hear every. Single. Word.”

Anyone else might at least be intrigued, but not Roan. He didn’t move or go back in and slam the door in her face, so that was something. He’d been running for fifteen years, or at least he thought he’d put her behind him and there she was. She’d half expected fireworks and disgust, refusals and denials. That might be coming yet.

Enough analyzing him. He was important only in that she’d always cared about doing right by him, even if he’d never done it by her. She’d never been the kind of person that had to play the petty game and being bitter about life’s dealings didn’t help anyone.

“Things fell apart with the clan.”

“Fell apart?” He couldn’t get that out without sounding like his throat had closed up, even if his face remained impassive.

“You are interested, then.”

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