~

 

“What’s got you thumping around like a bear with a sore head?” Jon asked as he lowered himself onto the high backed kitchen chair with a small huff.

He was starting to feel his age, and he didn’t like. He missed the days when he could roll out of bed before the sun was up, work hard, and go to bed at night like he’d achieved something.

“Bear with a sore head, ha! You hit the nail on the damn head,” Jordan muttered back.

“I take it you’ve met Harvey,” Jon grinned to himself.

The man was a man’s man, at least that’s what they called them back in his day. He was big, gruff, and as straight shooting as they came. Jon quite liked him, but he could see how the man might ruffle Jordan’s feathers.

“That man’s got an attitude problem,” Jordan bit out as she grabbed a spoon from the drawer before she nudged it shut with her hip, using just a little more venom than was necessary and finding the thud of wood on wood satisfying.

“Does he now?” Jon gave a silent chuckle. His shoulders moved up and down as he tried to hide the grin that wanted to break free on his lips.

“Oh, he does,” Jordan said, she raised the teaspoon towards her father and stabbed the air with it.

“I’ve always found that the man calls it as he sees it.”

“Well, he called me a shitty parent,” Jordan bit out her annoyance, and then she took it out on the coffee that she was making, vigorously stirring the dark liquid before tossing the spoon upon the counter and finding enjoyment in the clattering sound that it made.

“He probably just got the wrong end of the stick,” Jon offered back.

“Well, I’m going to take that stick and shove it up his…”

“Mummy! Mummy! Look what I’ve done,” Macy said racing into the kitchen clutching her latest drawing and holding it up for her mother’s approval.

Jon chuckled again. He had no idea what had taken place between Harvey and his daughter, but he guessed it was a humdinger to have her that rattled.

He mentally thanked the man. It had been a while since he’d seen Jordan all fired up. That damn ex-husband of hers had made her run home with her tail between her legs, and he still hadn’t got to the bottom of it.

Jordan could be a hothead. She reminded him of her mother, like a Spitfire one moment, and the next as soft as a feather. Damn, but he missed that woman.

“Hey, Macy, did you meet Harvey?” Jon asked, stirring the pot where his daughter was concerned.

“Harvey is a bear,” Macy said, all wide eyed innocence and brimming full of excitement.

“Harvey is a man, but he does have a bear inside of him,” Jon corrected his granddaughter.

“Dad, can you not?” Jordan rolled her eyes with a sigh. She didn’t need her daughter's enthusiasm to be pumped up any more than it already was where the man was concerned. Macy hadn’t stopped talking about him all the way home.

“What?” Jon tossed back. “Harvey’s a good man.”

“He says bad words,” Macy offered back in a whispered voice as if she were sharing a secret.

“Me too,” Jon grinned. “Especially, when I hit my thumb with a hammer.”

“Harvey did that!” Macy grinned from ear to ear at the memory.

“When I caught up with him, he was stalking Macy through the woods with some vampire in tow,” Jordan bit out.

“That would be Owen,” Jon gave a small nod of recognition.

“Owen’s funny,” Macy said with a little giggle.

“Macy, I want you to stay away from both of them,” Jordan warned her daughter and watched the child pull an exaggerated face. She looked older than her years and Jordan hated to think that she would miss out on some of her childhood if she grew up too fast.

“But…”

“No buts. Now, if you’re done drawing then go and put your stuff away,” Jordan was ending her daughter's protests before they had even begun.

Macy’s shoulders dropped at the same time as the excited look on her face fell off. She turned on her heels, muttered something that wasn’t meant to be heard, and stomped out of the room.

“That child takes after you,” Jon chuckled, bringing a look of disbelief from his daughter in his direction as she eyed him with contempt.

“You know that none of this would be happening if you hadn’t sent Macy to play alone,” Jordan huffed.

“You mean you meeting Harvey?”

“I mean Macy meeting Harvey,” Jordan shot back.

His daughter’s answer was a little too rushed for Jon’s liking. He sensed that there was something more there, but he wasn’t going to pick her up on it just yet.

“Well, if you’re going to play in the woods then you are going to meet a few bears,” Jon said as he pushed up from his chair, gave a little chuckle, and strolled off. “You just gotta hope they aren’t pooping at the time.”

“There are no words,” Jordan muttered to herself.

 

~

~

~

 

Harvey had heard her coming from a mile away, not quite a mile, but she couldn’t have snuck up on him if her life had depended on it. It wasn’t her fault, she was a human after all, and she’d never had to learn to hunt.

At first, he’d listened to see if it was the kid out alone again, but after determining that what he heard were adult footsteps, he’d been tracking her for a while.

Harvey told himself it was out of a sense of curiosity, but there was more to it than that. He just wasn’t sure what it was.

The moment that Harvey had picked up on her footsteps and realized who it was that was close by; he’d felt the strangest feeling inside. At first, he thought he was hungry, but it wasn’t hunger, it was more like the feeling of bees buzzing around a beehive.

Harvey had resisted the urge to sniff the air. He had the irrational need to find her scent and consign it to his memory.

He told himself it was so that he would know when trouble was coming his way, but it was more than that. He just didn’t know how much more, and he didn’t know if he was ready to find out.

She was close. Her feet were crunching down on the debris that lined the ground of the woods that she was skirting through. That part of the woods might have been her family land, but it still annoyed him that she’d taken a shortcut through a dangerous area.

Harvey felt protective. Too protective. His beast was on the prowl inside of him as if the bear perceived some kind of a danger that he couldn’t quite register yet.

Harvey heard her footsteps stop, closer still, and he wanted to sniff the air like other people needed to breathe in.

“I guess I overreacted,” Jordan said, and the sound of her voice washed over him as if she’d run her hands over his skin.

“I guess I can see why,” he offered back.

Harvey had the urge to turn and look at her. It was more than an urge, more of a necessity, but he did his damnedest to ignore it.

“I’m Jordan.”

“Harvey,” he tossed back at her.

“So, I guess we started off on the wrong foot.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he tossed his answer back over his shoulder again without turning.

Jordan got it. He was miffed at her. She could see the tension in those big, broad, muscled shoulders of his, and she guessed that it was due to her presence.

The man had taken off his shirt, and the sun was beating down on his tanned skin, and boy, did he look good. Her eyes feasted on the way that his muscles moved under the skin, and she couldn’t seem to drag her gaze away. She didn’t really want to, and she didn’t see any harm in it while he wasn’t even looking at her.

Ogling him was between her and her conscience.

Jordan had to admit, even if only to herself, that the man’s sculpted body was making the excitement sing within her. It wasn’t as if she was a muscle man junkie, hanging around the gym, and getting her daily dose of the good vibe. She’d never really paid it much mind before.

Men were men just as women were women. They came in all shapes and sizes, but for some reason that she couldn’t fathom, his hard body bewitched her.

But that wasn’t the point. The point was that she’d accused him of something and she’d been wrong. When she’d made a mistake, she liked to own up to it, and take her medicine no matter how bad it tasted.

“It matters to me.”

“Why? You want to be friends with a shifter?” Harvey gave a little grunt of disbelief at the thought of it.

Even if she’d wanted that; Harvey knew that it would have been a mistake. She was human, soft, and soft didn’t work well in his world.

“I…” Jordan had been taken by surprise by his question. She stumbled over her words, and he jumped right on that hesitation.

“Didn’t think so.” Harvey felt the first rumblings of the growl within his chest, and he knocked it right on the head.

“Look,” Jordan tried to correct her mistake, but Harvey jumped right in again with both feet.

“Are you shifter groupie?” That rumble of a growl was back.

“What? No…”

“But, you’re curious.”

“I’m not…”

“I know that some shifters do that. I don’t do that,” Harvey did growl a little that time.

He wasn’t certain if it was his beast annoyed at him for challenging her like that, or the fact that what he was accusing her of sent images into his mind which excited the hell out of him.

Harvey hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her from the moment that she’d turned her back on him and walked away earlier. Most of those thoughts had been pretty damn X-rated.

He didn’t mind thinking about her so much when she wasn’t around. Now she was back again, taunting him with the up close and personal, making those images more powerful, those thoughts more personal, and he had the urge to bring her closer and push her away at the same time.

“You’re an asshole,” Jordan bit out.

She’d felt bad for thinking the worst of him over Macy, but now she just wanted to pick up a branch smack him over his thick head with it.