Page 18 of Bear's Rejected Love

“It wasn’t yours either.” Hearing him say it brought a cooling relief to her flushed face and her overheated blood. “The only thing we still need to change is our mind.”

“It won’t work. It wouldn’t have worked then. It was never supposed to be real.”

She reached into her basket, grabbed a mushroom, and hurled it at him. She wasn’t thinking. Some wild impulse told her to act like she was five and rage and him with fungus. “Why do you have to be allergic to catching feelings? I know that your parents died, and it messed you up, but you’re older now. You’ve been through hell and back. You have to know that life is precious and the best we can do is live it, even if it hurts because anything less is just wasting it and that’s unforgivable!” Another mushroom sailed past his head. She tried again, and that one smacked against his chest and burst into pieces on contact. It might have been a direct hit, but it was so oddly quiet. “You don’t have to do a ceremony to un-mate us, for goodness fucking sake. That would destroy Corbin. I know you think he doesn’t want anything to do with you, but he still has faith in you. He still wants to believe. He might be fourteen, but when it comes to you, you’re like the easter bunny when he was little and he believed so hard it was real, and then when he knew all of it was fake, he still wanted to believe so badly.”

“All of that is based on a lie.”

“We don’t have to be anything, and we can move on from what happened. We can even call it a mistake—although it was the best mistake because it gave me Corbin—and we don’t have to be anything other than co-parents and maybe borderline friends, ever and I mean that. Just please.” Her fingers loaded up with another mushroom.

Roan put up his hands. “Stop throwing mushrooms at me, Tabitha!”

“Make an effort for Corbin. Please.” The fungus fell back to the basket. She pursed her lips. She should apologize for losing it like that, for food fighting and for wasting perfectly good mushrooms.

“I don’t know if I—”

“I’ll get down on my knees right now. I’ll beg you. If that’s what it takes, I can do it. I’ve never cared about my pride.”

“Tabitha Catherine, don’t you dare.”

“I’ll let you call me Tabby Cat for the rest of my life, and I’ll even pretend that I like it.”

His face went from a bleached-out pale to bright red. “I never called you that. Tabby Cat was your mom’s thing, I thought it was silly.”

“I can’t hate it as much now that she’s gone, so maybe that’s also a bad example. I’ll do whatever you want me to do if you’ll just make an effort. Stop avoiding us. Figure something out. It doesn’t matter if Corbin has the whole of Greenacre. It’s always going to be brutal for him if he doesn’t have you.”

He still looked resolute, and she suddenly had another thought, one that made her stomach clench. “You haven’t met someone else, have you? That’s why you want us to be un-mated?”

He shook his head, and she felt relief surging through her body.

“Then please, if not for me then for your son, make an effort.”

“What do you want me to do?”

Joy surged inside of her. This was just about the messiest way she could have imagined this conversation going, but it was over and there was hope now. “Take him foraging. I’ll come too. He’s getting more into gardening. It’s a natural progression.”

“You’d have to trick him to get him to agree.”

“I don’t think that’s right, but in this case, I know that I wouldn’t be forcing him or going against his wishes. He’s always wanted to know you, even if he says he hates you. He might still be angry, but beneath that is just a kid who wants to know what it’s like to have a dad, or wants to know where he comes from. If I thought it would truly harm him then I would never do it, but the woods are fair game. If we happened to just bump into you…”

“He could always tell me to go to hell and storm off at that point.”

“Yes. Or it could be the start of a conversation that he doesn’t have to feel like he’s losing face over.”

“It’s still devious.”

“I know, but I can’t think of another way to get to get him and you both together. Just give it one more chance. I know neither of you will be sorry.”

“I’m sorry already, I panicked. I freaked out. When that happens and I’m not in perfect control, and the other animals show. The bear I can always control because he’s part of me, and with the others I might be able to hold them back or even embrace some of them, but the bird? It’s the worst. I have zero say in what’s happening. The flight thing is straight up awful.”

“You make a beautiful owl.”

He was still red, but now he looked flustered. “I’m amazed you didn’t say that I’d make an even better stuffed mount.”

“Good lord. People who wish ill on others really must be hurting.”

“I wish every single person from that lab was dead.” Pure liquid hatred glistened in his eyes. She’d never seen him look so feral before.

“I can see that.” She was such a gentle person, but honestly? She wished that some pretty nasty stuff would befall those people and she had just the slightest idea of what they’d done. She wasn’t there. She didn’t know the depths of it. Silver didn’t talk about it, but then, she’d never been brave enough to ask. They weren’t on that level of friendship yet, and she’d never, ever ask the girls anything of the sort. At best, she saw them around. She had zero right to pry like that. “There, you might have a right. It’s an extreme on so many levels. Strong feelings are inevitable.”

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