Bear Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire Book 2) (11 page)

Lena was so damned beautiful it hurt to look away. Which was why Jenner had been sitting in this old creaky chair for the past half an hour watching her sleep.

One more day.

With a regretful sigh, he leaned back in the chair and stretched out his legs. From here, his boot almost touched the cot Lena was sleeping on. The old abandoned cabin was just one small room, and the window near the door had been broken, letting the critters in. Something had made a nest in the corner, and it smelled like animal urine, but at least Lena was safe, encased in these thick log walls. And after last night, she needed to feel safe again.

Titus’s attack had rattled her badly. Any man with eyes in his head could see she was reeling. And after he’d radioed into the lodge and asked the Dawson cousins to bring them new horses, she’d fallen asleep hard on the cot against the far wall. He didn’t blame her. In fact, her body probably needed the sleep to deal and heal.

He couldn’t ask her to stay, and now the trip would be cut short and his precious time with her had just been ripped in half. Fuck, why did this hurt so much? Just the thought of losing her was enough to double him over, but this was his reality.

They would ride back with Chance and Dalton, and she would go back to her life soon after. He’d seen the pictures she’d taken yesterday, and they were incredible. She’d gotten the river bears and the two running away from Titus. They looked like two grizzlies charging and were likely a cover shot any outdoor magazine would cut off their fingers to own rights to.

Their belongings were in a messy pile near the front door, and through the broken window, a breeze fluttered the pages of Lena’s waterlogged journal. It had been splashed during Titus’s attack.

Standing, Jenner checked the bandage on his arm, then strode over to where the journal sat. It was open, and on the page was a picture of himself, casting his glance backward, looking irritated. With a frown, he bent down and opened the journal wider. The sketch was detailed and skilled, but he hated that she saw him cold like this. He flipped a couple of pages, both pictures of bears with notes in the columns, and landed on another picture of himself, walking in front of his horse, mouth open like he was talking to it. He didn’t look so unapproachable here.

There were more. One of him on the deck at the lodge, amusement in his eyes. One of him in front of the mirror in his room, claw marks jagged across his ribs. He had his hand out, as if telling her not to come any closer, but his eyes were soft. There was another of him with his back to her, riding his horse on a trail, and all around them were quickly sketched trees with a bald eagle flying overhead, but it was the last one that made him draw up in realization. It was a detailed drawing of him sitting on the other side of the campfire, smiling. He flipped through them again, faster this time. She’d captured actual moments between them, and as he studied the pictures, he could feel her falling in love with him.

Chest aching, he pulled her camera into his lap and sat heavily on the ground. He flipped through the pictures, one by one. She had taken lots of photographs of him when he hadn’t been paying attention, and they told a story. They transformed him slowly from a mysterious, cold soul to a warm man. Care had been taken with the last several pictures, and he stopped scrolling on one of him sleeping. She must’ve taken it that first morning in the tent when he’d slept through the night beside her. He’d never slept so good in all his life, which made no damned sense because they were out in the wild and his instincts were always on alert.

He wasn’t wearing a shirt and was sleeping on his stomach, his cheek resting on his arm and his face completely relaxed.

Jenner turned the camera off and looked up at where Lena lay asleep on the cot.

He’d screwed up.

He’d lost track of why he couldn’t make a move on her. Now their separation would hurt them both, and it was all his fault. Dammit, if he’d just kept it professional, he could’ve stopped the bond. Probably. Or at least he could’ve hidden it from her if he’d remained aloof like he’d meant to.

But no. Like a rutting animal, he’d given into his wants almost immediately, and then bore his entire freaking bear-tainted soul to her. Now she would leave. She had to. The pictures on her camera would give her huge opportunities in her career, and he couldn’t stand in the way of that. Jenner couldn’t ask her to be happy with a man who hibernated six months out of the year instead of following her dream.

He loved her enough to want better for her.

One more day, and Lena would leave, and when she did, she would take his heart with her.

****

“I have to take lots of landscape pictures so the art department has options in case they want to put an animal into different scenery.”

“Mmm,” Jenner rumbled distractedly as he skipped another rock across the creek.

He’d been distant all day, and her conversations had turned desperate. She wanted so badly for him to open up again, but whatever Titus’s attack had done to her, it had locked Jenner up completely.

Jenner frowned off into the woods, then back at the cabin that was barely visible through the trees. “I tracked down my mom.”

Lena stopped taking pictures and let the camera rest against her chest. “What? When?”

“Five years ago. I never told my brothers.”

“Why not?”

“Because I still don’t know how I feel about it. I found her in Anchorage. I was too young to remember what she looked like, but apparently she’s a big, respected news anchor. I’d been watching her on the news for years and hadn’t even known she was my mom.” He skipped another rock, then sank down onto the gravelly beach, resting his arms on his knees as his eyes got a faraway look. “We met for lunch at this nice restaurant, and I was sure I would feel this connection to her, you know?” Jenner leveled Lena with those vibrant baby blues.

Lena sat beside him and rested her cheek against his arm. “What happened?”

“There was nothing. I didn’t know her, and she didn’t know me. And she didn’t want to. My dad spent a lot of time convincing us that he didn’t care that she left. That wasn’t true. My dad had tried to make it work with her. Tried to co-parent us. Even thought about telling her what he was and what we would become.”

“She didn’t know?”

Jenner huffed a breath and shook his head. “Some people can be trusted with this secret. Some can’t. Dad was right not to tell her. I can hear a lie, and she was full of half-truths. I thought for a minute she wasn’t capable of being genuine, but then she told me the reason she left, and it was the first truly honest thing she said to me. She hadn’t wanted the life Dad offered her. It wasn’t enough.” Jenner rested his cheek against her head. “She hadn’t wanted to be a mother, and when she found out she was having triplets, she felt this heaviness, like she couldn’t breathe because her life was over. She had big dreams, and living in some cabin out in the middle of nowhere, raising multiples, wasn’t what she wanted. She said she tried for the first two years, but every day she woke up feeling like she was drowning. And then she told me that she was sorry, but she didn’t regret her decision because she’d made something of herself.”

“Wow, what a horribly shitty mother.”

Jenner sighed. “Yeah, her mothering instincts weren’t awesome.”

“You know she could’ve chased those dreams and been a parent too, right?”

“Lena, she didn’t even know what she was into, though. She had triplets, and that was breaking her. Imagine when she learned we were all bear shifters.”

“So what? You change into a bear. You aren’t man-eaters. You all have good jobs and good lives. You’re all successful. She bailed, Jenner. From age two to when you tracked her down, she had no contact with you, and her excuse was sorry but I’m not sorry? I got the life I wanted and fuck the rest of you?” Lena shook her head, baffled and trying to imagine leaving a child. She couldn’t even fathom the pain. Couldn’t. “I would never leave a kid.”

“And you won’t have to be put in the position to choose.”

Lena jerked back and frowned up at him. “What do you mean?”

Jenner looked sick right now. “You don’t know everything,” he whispered. “It’s not as simple as me just turning into a bear every once in a while.”

“Then tell me.”

Jenner gave his attention to the creek, so she shoved his arm. “Don’t close down again, Jenner. Tell me. Let me decide if it’s too much. Tell me!”

“What’s the point? Huh?” he barked, eyes sparking like blue flames. “I didn’t tell you that story about my mom to unload on you. I told you so you would understand why I’m doing this.”

Lena felt bear-slapped, and for a moment, she couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. She could only look at the man she loved and realize what this discussion was really about. He wasn’t just distancing himself. He was pushing her away. For good. “Doing what?” she whispered. She needed to hear him say it.

“You don’t belong here, Lena,” he murmured, but his voice sounded strange. Half-truth. “You have this huge career that requires a lot of you. I can’t ask you to become stagnant for me.”

“Stagnant? Have you looked around, Jenner? There’s a fucking porcupine over there.” She jammed her finger across the creek at the critter meandering down the bank. “There’s a picture. It’s not like I would be visiting some high-rise city with nothing but rats to photograph. And you’re wrong. I do belong here, or at least in a place like this. I feel at home out in the woods. I always have. I’m not saying I have to move in with you. I can visit or find a place nearby. I mean, I live out of a hotel! My belongings are what I brought with me. I had a pet plant, and it died on my last trip to Montana. I have no roots, and someday I’ll want some. This feels big between us, Jenner.” She clutched the sleeve of his sweater, desperate to banish his vacant expression. “Look at me! This is big. For you and for me, too, because I haven’t felt like this with anyone else.”

“You got a broken marriage with Adam, and now you’ll have a broken pairing—”

“Don’t you even finish that sentence.”

“I hibernate, Lena!”

“What?”

Jenner let off a long, shaky breath, and now the emotion in his eyes mirrored hers. “In a couple months, I’ll go to sleep, and I won’t wake up until April.”

Lena gritted her teeth and shook her head slowly back in forth in denial. “No.”

Jenner’s eyebrow’s lifted slightly. “Yes. Every year it happens. There’s no way to stop it. I’ve fucking tried! I can’t stay awake. Every winter, I pick a different den somewhere around here and hope hunters don’t stumble onto it while I’m asleep. That’s the reality of this life.”

“But…your brother is married.”

“Yeah, and Elyse is different. She’s tough as leather and a homesteader, born and raised in Alaska and more adept at dealing with her mate sleeping half the fucking year. And it’s hard on her, Lena. She’s scarred now from protecting Ian last winter. Do you want Elyse’s life? Really? When you imagine giving up your career for a man, do you imagine spending six snowy months trapped in a small house fighting cabin fever all alone? I don’t want that for you. Can’t you see?” Moisture rimmed his eyes, and through gritted teeth, he said, “I want better. I want you happy, and what I am will steal your happiness. I can’t do it.” Jenner stood and strode off toward the cabin. “I won’t.”

A sob left her lips as she watched him go. Hibernation? What a mess of a life. Half of his time was spent completely unconscious, and suddenly it made perfect sense why he wasn’t married with kids already. Because before, it didn’t. It didn’t make a damned lick of sense why he’d chosen her to give his attention to, but here was the rub. She could fuck him for a few days, but Jenner, in reality, was untouchable. She hadn’t really ever stood a chance at keeping him because his secrets were too big, and too dark.

She doubled over the pain in her middle. How could something hurt so badly? She’d been right to avoid attachment to people all this time because this was agony.

“Lena?” Dalton said in a soft voice. “Are you okay?”

Tears streaming, she looked up at the dark-haired man who stood near her with worry in his charcoal black eyes. Behind him, Chance stood, holding the reins of two horses, shifting his weight from side to side, clearly uncomfortable with the tsunami of emotion washing through Lena right now.

Jenner had timed it just perfectly, hadn’t he? Break her heart right before the Dawsons showed up. Right before the long ride to the lodge so she could wrap her head around the fact that the man she adored wouldn’t be in her life any longer. Just like Adam all over again.

“I should’ve listened to you,” she said, clutching her stomach.

“Shhh,” Dalton said, gripping her shoulder.

“Ow,” she gasped, jerking out from under his hand.

Dalton’s eyes narrowed, and he pulled her forward, yanking the neck of her shirt back to expose the bandage. “Please tell me that’s not what it looks like,” he growled out. He rounded on Jenner, who was packing the saddle bags of a black horse. “Please fucking tell me you didn’t claim her!” His voice snapped with fury, and a long, low snarl sounded from Chance.

Jenner ignored them both.

“Did you tell her what it means?”

“He did, and you don’t have to worry. All of the secrets here will go with me to my grave. And relax, Dalton,” she said, standing. She hoisted herself over the saddle of a bay. “Jenner’s bite is just a bite and nothing more. It didn’t stick.” She nudged her horse and guided him toward the trail they had come in on.