Page 19 of Bear's Rejected Love

“Maybe I don’t wish them dead. That’s too easy.” Now Roan was trembling. Strong feelings was obviously a tremendous understatement. “Maybe I wish they had to spend an eternity on the flip side of their own experiments.”

“That would make me feel better if you downgraded to that.” She couldn’t begin to comprehend what those looked like, but she could think of a few scenarios in her head that were satisfying enough. She wanted justice for this man. Yes, he’d chosen to leave, but then he’d been taken. He’d been taken from his life, from the people who worried and watched for him, from all those who wanted him back. He’d been taken from her, even if he never truly belonged to her, and as his official mate, she had every right to seek justice and exercise vengeance.

“It’s an upgrade. Death is too easy.” He shifted on the spot, trampling some of the remains of her mushrooms. “Here.” He held out his basket to her. “That’s enough doom for one day. I’ll try this last thing. Just let me know when and I’ll be there.”

“Tomorrow. It’s Sunday. Can you get away? I know you have the girls and a baby and—”

“The girls are so independent they hardly need me, Honor naps in the afternoon, I can leave during that time. Around two, likely. I don’t want to rely on the girls, but they love being big sisters, so they’ll be happy to watch him for an hour or so.”

Dangerous hope bubbles shot up inside of her, but she burst them all before they could make her giddy. Every single time she felt like she could look forward to something, she had to remind herself about all that she stood to lose. Nothing had worked out yet. The only thing they’d solved today was that Roan was no longer rushing to Sam to get himself certified clear of her by ceremony.

Everything else was still very undecided.

“Two it is then.” She switched baskets with him.

“I’ll make sure it’s me this time. I promise.”

“It was you last time too. We just left before we gave you a chance. I’ll do my best to stop that from happening this time.”

“I’m not sure I deserve this. A second chance. More like a fifth or sixth, actually.”

The burn of that spread through her chest, reaching straight to her soul. She couldn’t allow it to reach her eyes, or she’d start bawling there in the middle of the woods. “Yes, you do. See you tomorrow.”

Chapter 8

Roan

“Oh. It’s you. What a random surprise.” He knew from the instant Corbin’s face turned into a stone hard mask, that ambushing him and Tabitha in the woods was a mistake.

Was it an ambush if it was planned? Yes. It was wrong.

He approached slowly. One step after another. One foot in front of the other. People were wrong. That wasn’t how you moved forward. It was how you threw yourself back and back and destroyed any chances of finding hope.

“This totally has to be an accident,” Corbin went on sarcastically. He proudly wore the teenage uniform of baggy jeans and an oversized t-shirt, but he wasn’t as slight as he had been even a few months ago. He wasn’t filling out either. He just wasn’t so pale. He looked healthier. Corbin shot his mom a betrayed look. “No way that you two would have worked this out to be in the same place in the middle of nowhere at the same time.”

“That actually happened yesterday for real,” Tabitha said in her defense. “We did talk. This is important. I haven’t changed my mind about how much I want you to know your dad.”

Corbin’s eyes slid over Roan. He was a few feet away, his empty basket hanging uselessly his side. The rest of him was just as useless. Just as bleak. It felt like it was going to split him in half to even be here. He knew it was a mistake. He knew how cruel hope could be.

“He doesn’t seem so hot on the idea.” It was monotone, impossible to read into just like Corbin’s stony expression.

Tabitha’s eyes looked like the forest right before it rained. Extremely bright with the reflection of gathering thunderclouds. Her dark brown knee length sundress and sandals with the straps that looped up her creamy calves like vines, and her loose, flowing hair gave her the look of something out of a fairytale. The basket hanging from one arm only completed the aura.

“He didn’t know how to approach us,” she told Corbin gently.

Roan wished that he could say something. He had a lifetime of words that he wanted to pour out into his son. Into Tabitha. Instead, he stood there, letting her work what magic she could. It was pathetic. He was pathetic.

“Getting within a few hundred feet of us and opening his mouth to produce the language that we both speak should work.”

Tabitha’s lips pursed. “Corbin. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have arranged it like this. I just thought if I told you that, you wouldn’t have come. Why don’t we hear what Roan has to say?”

“You’ve already heard it,” Corbin shot back, glaring between them like they’d hatched some kind of master scheme.

“I haven’t heard it, actually. We can still leave, if that’s what you truly want.”

“I’m not a child. I can hear him out without running away, shutting down, or sabotaging anything.”

Corbin might have been defiant. He might look like he’d rather do anything than have a conversation, but there he was, leaving an opening. Again.

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