Page 28 of Bear's Rejected Love

The dull ache inside of him that he’d always felt when he was around her, at least after he’d come back from college and found her a grown woman, only intensified. She was still so stunning. So ready to laugh. So full of life, even though what he’d done to her should have broken her and beaten her down. She’d lived in poverty, lived without her clan, lost her parents, was far away from the rest of her living relatives. He kept telling himself that, reminding himself of all the things that should have dulled her glow, but they hadn’t.

She still burned as bright as the sun.

A sudden growl of thunder overhead wrecked whatever they were about to do. Corbin groaned and the girls immediately scrambled off the blanket. Ora took Honor while Helena gathered the basket and bundled the blanket in her arms. They looked at the sky anxiously.

Somehow, out of nowhere, the sun had disappeared, and a storm was rolling in. Big, bruised clouds hovered ominously overhead. The mountains were very likely responsible for the sudden storm. The weather could change pretty much every few minutes since they were in such close proximity.

“You owe us, Roan,” Corbin said as he scrambled to grab his and Tabitha’s basket. The wind started to kick up, blowing through the woods, shaking and bending the trees around them. “You too, mom!”

“Yeah, we’re literally taking a raincheck!” Ora yelped out and then took off after her sister as the rain started to come down in sheets. They didn’t get a few drops warning before it unleashed.

The girls tried to shield Honor, but he was laughing just like the rest of them as they all took off running towards their cabins.

Roan didn’t feel like he’d dodged a bullet. He felt like he wanted to make good on that for new times’ sake that Tabitha suggested.

Chapter 11

Tabitha

“Corbin!”

Her scream echoed through the cabin, her son’s name ringing off the wooden paneling and bouncing off the ceiling.

“Mom?” He rushed into her room, just a vague shadow at first. He flipped the light on and they both blinked, eyes watery and half asleep. “I’m right here. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Her heart slammed hard, and her palms were clammy. Her chest was a bundle of knives, her stomach making sick loops and twists. She reached for Corbin, running her damp hands all over his face. “Sorry. I- it must have been a dream.”

“You’ve never called out like that. It sounded like you were- like you were…” Her very mature, never one for showing emotion, fourteen-year-old’s eyes filled with mist, and he was back to being her little boy once more.

“No. I’m fine. I’m sorry I scared you.” She hugged him with brute mom force, and he didn’t even try to wriggle away. He smelled like sleep. “It must have been a dream,” she repeated, but she didn’t remember.

Corbin stared at her solemnly, both of them wide awake now that she’d yelled down the house. “I’m right here and there’s nothing wrong, but grandma once told me something about mates. How you’re connected forever. You never said talking about my dad was off limits, but it’s not like I asked them any questions. Them being anyone. One day, she was making cookies, and I was so young that it was hard for me to even get up on the stool at the island in the kitchen by myself. You were outside gardening, I think. She said that mates are connected forever, even if they don’t want to be. Looked right at me when she did it and stopped stirring. It raised the hair on my arms even then, even though I had no idea what she was talking about.”

Tabitha frowned, trying to figure out exactly why Corbin was telling her this now.

And then suddenly she flung the blankets back and bolted out of bed. “Oh my god. Roan. The girls. The baby.”

She’d always preferred a t-shirt and shorts when it came to pajamas and Corbin was the same. They wouldn’t have stopped to get dressed anyway. They raced to the door together. She didn’t stop for shoes. She flew down the steps and into the night, racing alongside the gravel road so that the sharp stones wouldn’t cut her bare feet.

“Mom!” Corbin was faster than she was. He caught her easily and grasped her arm, tugging her to a panting, frenzied stop. Her chest still felt cut to shreds. It was worse with the new panic. “Here.” Her arm was tugged hard, and she went down at the side of the road. Corbin slipped her shoes on and tied them and then hauled her back up. She was shaking so badly it was like the whole thirty seconds was a blackout.

“Look.” She pointed to the sky where an eerie orange glow lingered.

“Oh my god.”

She started running again. Running so fast she couldn’t breathe. Corbin puffed along beside her. “I’ll knock on doors. Get help. You keep going!”

Pride nudged up against the brutal fear inside of her. She nodded once and watched her son split off and run down the road ahead of her until it veered off to a series of cabins. The windows were all dark. It was probably the middle of the night.

She hadn’t let her bear out in years. Was it really four or five, like Corbin said earlier in the woods? She could feel her with her now. She never fought to get out. Never tried to take control. Never tried to break free or wrest control away from her. She wished the bear would burst out of her now. She’d get there faster. Instead, she kept running, hair whipped wild by the wind.

There hadn’t been any hail, but the wind was insane. Tavish and Kier both stopped at their house late in the evening to say that the power was out in half of Greenacre because a large tree had been uprooted and fell on the line. They were just checking in to make sure that everyone else was okay.

Her heart was going to explode, and she thought she was in shape. Thank god for her shoes. Thank god for her son who had stopped her and dressed her like she was a toddler. Her lungs were aching, but her feet and legs would have been far worse.

She didn’t stop until she felt the heat.

“Oh my god. No!”

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