Page 26 of Bear's Rejected Love

“We might be able to find some still.” Tabitha straightened and put her hands on her hips. He tried not to notice that when she stretched, her shirt pulled very taut over her breasts. She ruffled her hair and swiped a hand over her forehead. “Is anyone else sweltering out here?”

“You’re working too hard, mom.” Corbin picked up their basket, which was pretty much overflowing. “There’s a nice breeze. It’s keeping most of the mosquitoes off.”

“Up we go!” Ora was back to giving the plane rides. Honor screamed. They were making enough noise that even the birds had flown away. Their laughter was a beautiful sound.

“What about this one?” Corbin held out a mushroom to Tabitha and even from a distance and past eight huge trees and clumps of greenery, moss, and logs, Roan could tell that it needed to be discarded. He hadn’t been asked, though, so he waited silently. He wasn’t very useful out here, between just watching Tabitha and Corbin with a mixture of pride and amazement and hanging back to make sure the girls were okay with Honor.

But that was alright.

It was alright to just be out here, enjoying the sun and the breeze and the fact they were all together and no one was pissed off.

He didn’t need to push himself so hard. He could just watch and let that be enough. He didn’t know how to do that. Relax. Savor the moment. He knew how to work himself half to death so that he was too busy and too exhausted to think straight, but he wanted to stop doing that.

“What do you think?” Tabitha nudged the basket away from Corbin subtly. There was no way she was letting that death fungus get in their food.

“I think it might be… uh… one you have to boil?”

“Are you sure?”

“I think so. It’s got… wait.” He flicked the mushroom away and wiped his hands on his jeans. Tabitha passed over a bottle of soapy water and a bottle of sanitizer. “I shouldn’t have picked it. Now it’s wasted.”

“I think the earth will reclaim it just fine. The bugs and birds will find it all the same.”

“Ugh,” Corbin snorted. “If it was up to me and I had to survive out here, I’d poison myself in a minute.”

“Foraging takes practice. Mushroom hunting especially. This is your first day out here. You have to cut yourself a break.”

“Like how long?”

“Months? Maybe longer.”

“Wow.” He helped his mom with the basket, taking the handle from her. “I’d rather shift and go do bear stuff.”

The girls froze. Honor didn’t mind being in mid-air one bit. He still laughed and giggled away. Roan felt his heart drop straight out of his chest. He kept expecting Corbin to look over at him, basically counting on him to fail sooner rather than later. Kind of like the mushroom picking thing, except Roan was doing life. He could poison things all the same.

Except, when his son turned his head towards him, there was zero animosity there. He wasn’t shooting eye daggers that said he felt like his dad was wasting precious oxygen just by existing and it offended him.

He walked over to the girls, holding onto the basket up high so Honor, when he got set down on his bum, wouldn’t make a fast break for it. “How about it?”

“Oh. Uh- we…” Ora looked at Helena. Helena looked back at Ora. They both turned to Roan.

“We didn’t bring anything with us.” Tabitha walked up behind Corbin and set a hand on his shoulder. “No extra clothes or anything. The girls might like to treat their shifts with more privacy.”

Corbin flushed a deep scarlet. “Oh. Yeah. I- sorry.” He wheeled around to Roan, who felt the first stirrings of an actual heart attack coming on. “What about you guys? You haven’t been able to shift in forever, mom. You should do that. Just double back around to the spot where you shifted. We’ll all stay here and give you your privacy.”

He watched Tabitha carefully, waiting to see what her reaction would be. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” she mumbled. When she looked at him, she was thrumming with energy as bright as a star about to fracture and he could tell how much he wanted to despite her cautious protests.

“How long?”

“It’s been like, four or five years since she last shifted,” Corbin insisted.

Tabitha shot him an annoyed look, flushing so bright that the constellation of freckles across her nose stood out. Roan knew they were there and maybe that’s why he hadn’t even noticed them until now.

“She taught me everything I know.” Corbin kept going. “Got me through shifts in a dark alley at night and in our apartment living room with all the furniture pushed to the side. Turns out black bears aren’t very big, but we didn’t do it until we had it under control, even the first time.”

Ora sat bolt upright. Helena had Honor and was currently holding back so he didn’t make a fast crawl into the woods or straight into other kinds of trouble. He was exactly the kind of kid who would be the first to stick his full face straight into an anthill or unearth a skunk, not to mention how everything and anything he saw still had the tendency to disappear into his mouth. He didn’t really need to eat dirt, bark, moss, or pine needles.

“You could control it the first time?” Ora gaped at Corbin.

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