Hero Bear: BBW Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance Read online

  He got dressed and slunk out of her house, then drove home like a man in a trance.

  Chapter Seven

  “I hate this damned town and I wish I’d never moved here.” As soon as Michaela got off work the next day, she called Brenda, and that was the first thing she said.

  “Oh honey. What’s going on?”

  “Caleb turned out to be a jerk.” Michaela had been fighting back tears all day at work, and at this point she couldn’t tell if she was mad or sad. Maybe both. “I can’t believe I actually let myself think that someone like that could really be interested in someone like me.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re great.” Ever a good friend, Brenda was instantly to her defense. “Start from the beginning. Tell me everything. You said the first date went good, you bad girl.”

  Michaela couldn’t bring herself to tell Brenda everything. It was too humiliating. “Let me put it this way: going out with me was just a joke. He tried to give me some outrageous story to rope me in further, but I didn’t fall for it, so he left.”

  The worst part was, she didn’t even have to figure out why he slept with her. She knew there were guys like that, who’d sleep with a girl who wasn’t in their league and then deny it or make fun of her. Any day now she was going to start running into friends of his, and they’d all have nasty, knowing grins on their faces. Well, let them. She’d punch the first man who made a snide comment to her.

  “No, he sounded so nice!”

  “He did. I thought he was.” Cracks started to appear in the dam she’d been keeping in place all day, and tears filled her eyes. “I really thought— I thought there might be something there.” She sniffled.

  “Michaela, honey, don’t cry. He’s not worth it.”

  “I just feel so st-stu-hu-pid!” Michaela tried to speak around the sobs that poured out of her. The pain in her chest was literal, and she thought she’d break open at the sheer meanness it must have taken to act the way Caleb had.

  “Girl, you are not the first woman to get taken for a ride by a good-looking man, and I’m sorry to say you won’t be the last.” Brenda didn’t sound unsympathetic, just brisk.

  Michaela gave in to the sniffles for a few minutes, then took a deep breath. “You’re right. I mean, we only went out twice. And it could have been worse. I could have believed the crap he told me.”

  “Atta girl,” Brenda said. “Hey, listen. I know it’s last minute, but how would you feel about some company this weekend? You sound like you could use a distraction.”

  “I’d love it. You don’t have to work?”

  “Not this weekend, thank god. Reuben decided not to start that shit until next month, so I’ve got a reprieve.”

  “Come on out then. I can’t promise to introduce you to any of Caleb’s friends, though.”

  “Huh, after how he did you, I’d spit on ‘em.”

  Michaela got through the rest of the week by hanging on to seeing Brenda again. She’d forgotten how much she missed seeing her every day. Marty and Dottie and the others were good people and she enjoyed working with them, but it wasn’t the same as the friends she made at the old place. It would just take time.

  Brenda pulled up to Michaela’s house just after eight on Friday night. After a flurry of hugs and greetings, Michaela asked, “Have you had dinner yet?”

  “I drove straight on through, and I’m starved!” She took her bag out of the trunk and Michaela led her into the house. “Oh, look how cute this is!” Brenda exclaimed. “I swear, I think it’s twice the size of my place.”

  Michaela swelled a little with pride. “Well, rent’s cheaper out here, I can say that much for it.” While she got Brenda settled in her guest room she asked, “What sounds good for dinner?”

  “I don’t care, as long as it’s out,” Brenda said. She gave Michaela a shrewd look. “Cause I’ll bet you ain’t been out since that boy.”

  Busted. “Well, come on. It’s a small town, it’s not like there’s a real big nightlife going on.”

  “Uh huh, that’s what I thought.” Brenda snagged Michaela by the hand and pulled her to sit on the guest bed. “We are gonna fix you up, and then we are gonna go find whatever nightlife there is here in Hooterville.”

  Well, there were really only two bars in Salem Creek proper, and only one of those served food, so they had a pretty easy choice to make. Michaela let Brenda do her hair and makeup and wound up sitting at a table at Willie’s feeling over-lipsticked and ridiculous. A band blasted country music loud enough they had a hard time hearing their server, and the tiny dance floor was crowded. Conversation was out of the question, so they people-watched while waiting for their food, and drank ice cold beer.

  Michaela should have known it was only a matter of time before a couple of guys came over to their table. The cute blond one made a beeline for Brenda, of course, and his buddy, a burly, shorter redhead, came to her— probably just to be polite. He asked her to dance just as she saw the other guy leading Brenda onto the dance floor. Well, if he could be polite, so could she.

  “My name’s Dylan.” He put his arms around her and was a complete gentleman. “Dylan Ellis.”

  “Michaela Baker. Thanks for asking me to dance.”

  “Shoot, thanking me for asking a pretty girl to dance is like thanking me for taking seconds of my Mamaw’s banana pudding.” He grinned, and the force of it made him awfully cute.

  Michaela resolved to enjoy herself. They danced for a few songs, and Dylan made her laugh talking about his brothers and the antics they got up to. By the time they got back to the table, Brenda was there having a shouted conversation with the cute blond, and their food had arrived. The boys snagged their beers and they all settled in. When the band’s lead singer announced they were taking a break, Michaela let out a sigh of relief. She still had no idea what Brenda and her blond were talking about, and she was starting to get a headache.

  “So anyway,” Dylan was saying, “I tried to warn them that Jesse would get pissed off if they messed with his truck, but they went ahead, and next thing you know, that old pickup is sprayin’ glitter all over the highway and Dalt’s on his ass in the middle of the road about to bust a gut laughing.”

  “Dalt?” Michaela looked up from poking at her food. That was Caleb’s brother’s name, she was sure of it.

  “Yeah, Dalton Bentley.” Dylan pointed at his friend sitting next to Brenda.

  Michaela started looking around. Was Caleb here? Were these two in on the joke too? Worse, was she about to be set up, again? “Oh. So do you know Caleb Bentley?” She had a horrible sinking feeling that Dylan knew exactly who she was.

  “Sure! We grew up with the Bentleys. You know, this one time—”

  “Did Caleb have a good laugh with y’all about what he did?” She should have known. Small towns. Everybody knew everybody.

  “You know Caleb?”

  “Oh sure,” Michaela said, aware that Brenda and Dalton were listening to her. She glanced at Dalton, then back to Dylan. “I’m sure all y’all were in on it, since you like pranks so much. Which one of you had the idea he should tell me he was a werebear? Him saying he couldn’t shapeshift to prove it, that was a nice touch. What would he have done if I’d believed him?” She laughed and slammed back the last of her beer. “Guess he would’ve been stuck with me.” She stood up. “Bren, I’m going home. You coming with me?”

  Neither of the men said a word, probably too surprised— and maybe a little ashamed— that their target had started talking back. They both stood when she did, and then Brenda followed suit.

  “Michaela, honey. What are you talking about?” Brenda was pulling money out of her purse to settle up.

  “I didn’t get to tell you that part. Guess it wasn’t enough to lead the new girl on, Caleb figured he’d try to make me look like a fool too.” She finally spoke directly to Dalton. “Tell your brother he can go to hell!”

  She stormed out, with Brenda on her tail. “’Chaela, wait.” Brenda stopped her in
the parking lot.

  Michaela pulled her arm away. “That was his brother you were dancing with!”

  “I didn’t know, honest,” Brenda said. “He didn’t give me his last name. You think he was in on the joke? What were you saying about bears?”

  “That’s what Caleb tried to tell me.” Michaela ached with how foolish she felt. She headed for the car again, and Brenda didn’t stop her. “I guess he wanted to see how much bull I’d believe, so he said he was, I dunno, part bear or something.”

  “Dalton seemed so nice...”

  “See what I mean? So did Caleb!” Michaela unlocked her car door and got behind the wheel, pausing to consider if she was drunk or not. Once Brenda was in the passenger seat with the door closed, Michaela dropped her head to the steering wheel. “I can’t believe I slept with him.”

  “Honey, if it’s any consolation, if he’s as cute as his brother, I can understand why.” Brenda rubbed her back. “You okay to drive?”

  Two beers over the course of the night. Yeah, she’d be fine. “Yeah. Let’s go home. Sorry about your night out.”

  Chapter Eight

  Caleb was never going to be able to show his face in the holler again, much less in town. When Dalton came home and told him what had happened at Willie’s, it was already too late. Dylan Ellis would have told the whole damn Ellis family by now that Caleb Bentley had lost his bear. The shifter community in Salem Creek was small and tight-knit, and like any family, they razzed each other mercilessly. For something this serious, though? They might be quietly sympathetic, and that was a thousand times worse. As if he didn’t get enough pity these days.

  He rolled over and stared at the alarm clock. Much as he wanted to hide out in the house, he was going to have to get up and go to work soon. He hadn’t slept a wink all night, tossing and turning.

  He told himself Michaela didn’t understand what she’d done, blurting out his problems like that. That she didn’t understand how hard it had been to tell anyone. It didn’t make it feel any less like a betrayal. He sat up and rubbed his face hard. Might as well get up and face the day. His hands went through the practiced motions of attaching his prosthetic, so much a part of his morning routine he hardly thought of it anymore.

  Michaela really didn’t understand though, and that was the thing. How could she, when she didn’t believe him? At least hearing what had happened last night made that much clear. It hurt, though. He felt like he’d opened up his soul to her and she’d thrown it in the mud.

  He got up and went to start the coffee. Lucille followed behind him, whining softly, so he let her out into the backyard. The sky was still dark, stars twinkling overhead before the sun came up and made them vanish. The cool quiet was a balm to his hurting heart, but looking up at the stars just reminded him of that first night with Michaela. Everything had been so perfect that night. And now it was ruined.

  He went back in when he smelled the coffee. Nothing for it but to push on. He couldn’t change what had happened.

  Saturdays were one of the few days Dalton got to sleep in, so Caleb stayed quiet while he got ready and headed out to Smithson’s. For once he was grateful for the busy Saturday rush. It kept him from thinking too much. He told himself he was imagining Janine Ellis looking at him different this morning.

  He was doing just fine until old Miss Coleman, one of the Ellis cousins, came through his lane. “Afternoon, Caleb.”

  “Hey, Miss Coleman.” He started ringing up her shopping, aware of her eyes resting on him heavily.

  She leaned in and said quietly, “I’m awfully sorry to hear about your bad time. My uncle Otho, he lost his wolf for years after an accident in the mines. Got it back after my aunt started making a tonic for him. You come see me, I’ve got that recipe.”

  Caleb’s face got hot and he couldn’t ring up her groceries fast enough. “That’s awful nice of you, Miss Coleman, thank you.” She patted his hand and made a cooing noise. He wanted the ground to open up and swallow him right then. If word had reached an eighty year old widow, everybody knew.

  Jake and Daniel Ellis, two of Janine’s younger brothers, came in not long before Caleb was due to get off work. The teens bought some snacks and some soda and headed right for Caleb’s register. “Hey Caleb,” Jake said, and shot a quick glance at Daniel. “How’s it going?”

  “Not bad, you?” Caleb was ready to go home.

  “Oh, all right. Bearing up.” Both boys snickered.

  And right then he knew what was coming.

  “How do you like working with our sister?” Daniel piped up. “Is it bearable?”

  Caleb forced a thin smile. “More bearable than dealin’ with some of her puny brothers.”

  “Yeah, Dylan’s a jerk. I dunno how you bear it.”

  “He doesn’t!” Daniel delivered the coup de grace, and both boys giggled. The brats knew they could get away with it, because how was Caleb going to explain beating the tar out of two paying customers over some harmless-seeming comments?

  “Go on, get on home.” Janine came over and shooed the boys away. “I tell Daddy what you’re up to in here and he’ll whoop you.” Her brothers postured, but left. So he’d been wrong before, and even Janine knew. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Caleb shrugged. “At that age, I woulda thought it was funny too.” For a young shifter, it was like finding out a guy couldn’t get it up— a lost symbol of manhood. Which was stupid, considering that women were shifters too, but nobody was ever going to accuse Daniel and Jake Ellis of an overabundance of smarts.

  “Get on out of here. I’ll close up.”

  Caleb should resist— he still had a half an hour to go and he didn’t want the pity, but he just wanted to go be alone for a while, lick his wounds. “Thanks, Janine.” He pulled off his apron and took his register drawer with him to count out.

  Michaela hadn’t realized how much she missed having girl time. Despite the disaster that was Friday night, they were up bright and early on Saturday. Brenda declared they were going to finish decorating Michaela’s new place, so off they went. Salem Creek wasn’t exactly a shopping mecca, but they drove around until they’d at least found the nearest Wal-Mart and Target. Michaela spent way more than she should have on curtains and new pots and pans and decorations, but came home feeling better than she had since the whole mess with Caleb. Maybe there really was something to retail therapy.

  The very first thing she did was strip off her old comforter and replace it with the new one she’d bought, one that Caleb Bentley hadn’t touched. She’d put the old one in the closet, and never wanted to sleep under it again.

  They spent the afternoon puttering around the apartment, hanging things on the walls, rearranging furniture, and by the time they were done, Michaela looked around with a deep sense of contentment.

  “Now it looks like a home,” Brenda declared.

  Michaela impulsively gave her a hug. “Thank you. I probably never would have gotten around to it without you.”

  “You would have eventually. Now what do you say we go make a mess in your kitchen?”

  They cooked enormously. Michaela had a pile of vegetables from Miss Harvelle’s garden, and they needed to be used. Brenda made a giant pot of green beans like Michaela’s mom used to make, with plenty of salt pork and some bacon fat, while Michaela fried the zucchini and summer squash, slices coated with a crispy layer of cornmeal. There were fresh sliced tomatoes and cucumber, and Brenda insisted on making cornbread (from scratch, Michaela noted with a small, mean pleasure). There was so much to choose from, there was no need for a meat.

  “Look at that, we’re practically vegetarians,” Brenda declared as they sat down.

  Michaela laughed. “There’s pork in the beans, I think that rules us out.”

  “I don’t trust anybody who makes beans without salt pork. It’s just not natural.”

  Michaela, who was going to be eating green beans for a week from the looks of it, didn’t complain. With the smell of good Kentucky cooking in t
he place, it really did feel more like a home. They took their plates out on to the back porch. The duplex butted up onto a patch of woods, and between that and Miss Harvelle’s lush garden off to one side, it felt like they were sitting in the middle of a forest.

  While they were eating, Brenda asked, almost too casually, “When you were working with us, did you ever see anything that... just seemed wrong?”

  Michaela tried to be just as casual. “I don’t know, seeing that client who kept coming in wearing a skirt and high heels and trying to use a balance ball was pretty wrong.”

  “Lord, I remember her.” Brenda flashed a brief smile. “No, I mean, from our side of things.”

  Michaela had seen plenty, but she’d sworn to stay quiet. The wrong word would be the end of her career. She shrugged. “What did you see?”

  Brenda paused for a second too long. “Never mind. It was probably nothing.”

  She didn’t mention it again, but the question stuck with Michaela. Were things still bad at Silverwood? She’d hoped that after she left, they would have improved.

  Monday morning came and Michaela headed to work with a vague sense of unease. Since Brenda had left the night before, her apartment felt a little emptier, and she was forced to face all of the feelings she’d been avoiding since ending things with Caleb. And since it was Monday, Caleb would be coming in for his physical therapy today.

  As soon as she walked in the door, she knew something was wrong. Marty was looking at her funny, and Dottie wasn’t looking at her at all. Before she had a chance to put her things away, Dottie called her into her office.

  “Shut the door, please,” Dottie said, and Michaela did, a tense knot in her belly.

  “Morning, Dottie. What’s going on?” Michaela tried to smile.

  Dottie didn’t smile back. In fact, she looked as grim as Michaela had ever seen her. “Have a seat.” Dottie opened the folder in front of her. “You had some glowing references when I hired you. Did they know the whole story?”