Chapter Eight – Theo

Theo had climbed to the top of the world, scaled the highest peaks, and yet the one thing he wanted stood before him—his mate.

If only it could be that easy.

Fern was hugging herself, as if she could ward him off. She didn’t want him. Or didn’t know how to want him.

“Fern.” He took a step toward her, and she took a step away. Her eyes told him she was ready to flee, to get in her car and drive as far away as she could from what he wanted to give her.

“I’m OK.” However, she looked shaken, her face pale, eyes huge as she looked at him. “It’s a shock, that’s all.”

“Of course it is.”

Understatement of the year, his bear said sarcastically.

What else am I supposed to say? Theo asked his bear.

His bear fell silent, neither of them knew. But they both acknowledged that they had to do something. “Pie?” His voice came out high, like a prepubescent boy’s. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Pie?”

Fern’s arms tightened around her, and he knew she was going to say no. Her eyes flicked up to the left, she was trying to come up with an excuse not to stay. If she did, he would let her go. He would let her walk away from him, if that was what she needed.

Her jaw tightened and he prepared himself for the rebuff, but then she surprised him. Blowing air out of her cheeks, she took a sharp intake of breath and said, “Sure.”

“Yes?” he asked, his voice high once more.

Fool, don’t give her a chance to back out, his bear chided.

“Yes.” With some effort, she flexed her arms and let them drop to her side. “On one condition.”

“Anything,” he replied, throwing his gratitude into one word.

“That you explain this all to me.” Fern waved her hand up and down at him.

“I can do that.” He cracked a smile, and risked allowing himself to feel hope. Fern was braver than he’d given her credit for. Yet with the notion came another one. If she was strong enough to stay, what could have happened to her, what hurt had she suffered, that made her believe no one could ever love her?

“I think pie might help too,” Fern suggested, a small waver to her voice.

“I find pie helps with anything,” Theo agreed.

“Maybe we have something in common,” Fern told him.

“I’m sure we have lots in common.” He took her hand and led her toward the house. “And I, for one, am looking forward to finding out.” He raised his eyebrows, looking at her seriously. “I am particularly looking forward to finding out what pie is your favorite. Or are you a cake-kind-of-a-girl?”

“Cake. Chocolate brownies in particular.”

“I make amazing chocolate brownies,” Theo said eagerly.

“There, you have won me over already,” Fern told him, but she didn’t lift her eyes to his for more than a brief moment.

Theo opened the front door and stood on the threshold, where only an hour before he had planned to kiss her. “I want to win you over, Fern. I really do. I know you don’t feel the same as me. But I hope one day I can find a way to make you love me.” He wanted to add, the way I love you, but he remembered her words, how she thought no one could love her, and he didn’t want her to think he was making a mockery of her feelings. For an ordinary human, it took more than a half a day in another person’s company to know for sure they were the one for you.

He could not expect Fern to believe he had experienced love at first sight. But he damn well was going to make sure he showed her how he felt, and he didn’t mean sex. That could wait, no matter how much his body yearned for her. And boy, did it yearn!

OK, time to stop staring, he told himself. “Pie.”

Fern nodded, looking at him as if he were halfway to crazy, which he was—for her.

Ripping his gaze away from her, he turned and went into the house, faltering when he entered the small sitting room that led off the hallway.

“Are you OK?” Fern asked, placing a hand on his arm.

He let her nearness soothe him, although the touch of her hand on his arm was more stimulating than relaxing. “It looks the same, even smells the same.”

“When was the last time you were here?” Fern asked.

“Six months … maybe more.” He gave a short laugh. “It never feels so empty when Dad is here. He is always busy doing something. ” Theo looked around, and then tilted his head to listen. “It’s different being here when no one else was around.” He glanced down at Fern, and quickly added, “I don’t mean you…”

“It’s OK, I know what you mean. You’ve never been here without your family around you.” She took a step back out of the room, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her close.

“Come on. Ghosts and memories can’t hurt us.”

“I don’t know, they can seem real enough.”

Theo stroked her hair. “Whatever ghosts and memories you have, if it helps to share them, I’m here for you.” He tilted her chin up and looked into her face, then he bowed his head and kissed the downturned corner of her mouth. “I want to make you happy, Fern.”

“I want to be happy.” Fern forced her mouth into a smile. “Being here in Bear Creek is the happiest I’ve been since I was a young child. I keep thinking something will come along and ruin it.”

Theo wrapped his arms around his mate and pulled her close, holding her tight against his chest. “I won’t let it, Fern. And our relationship won’t ruin your happiness either.”

Fern rested her head on his shoulder and sighed. “You don’t know me, Theo. Maybe it would be better if you didn’t ever get to know me. If I just walked out of your life and let you move on.” Her hands gripped his shirt, as if she were afraid of letting him go, afraid that he might agree with her words, but that was never going to happen. Never.

“There is no one else for me, Fern. You are it.” He pulled away from her, his finger tucking under her chin. “Don’t look down, Fern, don’t hide yourself away. Open yourself up to possibilities.”

“And pie.”

“And pie,” he agreed, and then he did what he had wanted to do since he first saw her in the airport terminal. He bent his head and kissed her lips. And just as he thought, she was sweeter than any honey. So much sweeter.

Their kiss was soft, gentle, a question. Theo didn’t want to pressure Fern in any way. They had time, all the time in the world. He might want her so much it hurt, he might crave her like a drug, but he also had willpower enough to conquer those emotions. His job had taught him how to survive mentally as well as physically during the toughest of challenges.

Yet as their kiss broke, and he ran his tongue along his lower lip, savoring her taste, he feared this might be his toughest challenge yet.

Fern stood breathless, her lips slightly apart, and it took all his willpower not to scoop her up in his arms and carry her upstairs to his single bed, in his little room under the eaves.

Theo took a step back, needing some small distance between them. “Coffee and pie,” he said out loud, more to himself than to Fern. He needed something to take his mind off her, but if he thought cherry pie was going to do it, he might be wrong.

Fern put her fingers to her lips and touched her skin, before self-consciously dropping her hand to her side and nodding. “Coffee and pie.”

She turned from him and went to the small kitchen. “Do you want me to warm the pie?”

“Yes, please.” He pulled the freezer door open and looked inside. “The old man has some ice cream, great.” He took it out, and while Fern cut two generous pieces of pie, he went to the coffee pot and put a nice fresh pot on. “This is something I missed too.”

“Coffee?” Fern asked, the flushed look their kiss had brought to her cheeks fading.

“Yes. We had coffee, but not the good stuff.” He smelled the rich roast flavor. “I didn’t think I’d ever drool over coffee.”

She chuckled. “Is that a bear thing?”

He swiveled his head around to look at her, trying to judge how he was going to find the words to explain it all to her. For a man who traded in words, he was not used to searching for them; they usually flowed out of his fingers like magic. But talking about being a shifter, that wasn’t something he had ever done.

How do you explain the thrill of being able to turn into an animal, of the different sensations that emerge from your other side? Wondrous scents, or the feel of dirt under your paws, or standing on your hind legs to scratch your claws on the bark of a tree, and then turning around to wallow in the bliss of a back rub.

Fern took a step toward him, and placed her fingers on the corner of his mouth. “That good?”

“Am I drooling again?”

“Not quite. But you have this smile on your face that makes me long to be what you are.”

He took her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers, and a shiver passed through her. “I wish I could share it with you in every minute detail.”

“Are you born able to change… able to shift?”

“Yes, or at least it’s in your blood. In your genes, but you don’t begin to feel that side of things until around puberty. Good thing, or else the schoolyard would be filled with little bears popping out all over the place.”

“Is it hard to control?” Fern asked.

“For some. Others have it easy. Isn’t that how puberty works, on the whole?”

“It is.” She looked out of the window, staring at Walt’s garden. As much as she longed to be what he was, Theo also longed to peer inside her brain and see what she saw when she drifted off into her own world. A world he wanted to be part of, good or bad, so that he could defend her from the specters that haunted it.

Yet he also knew that to be truly free, she might have to fight those specters herself. But when she did, he planned to be at her side, every step of the way.