Energized by his resolve, he hit the shower. Five minutes later, he was pulling on a pair of black jeans and a jade-green v-neck tee, before hurtling down to the kitchen. He was going to make her a honeymoon breakfast, he decided, rummaging through the fridge. But the problem was that his cooking skills weren't the most advanced. Most of the time he either ended up hunting or going to his mom's.
"I'm going to fix this," he muttered, raking his fingers through his hair. He was surprised to discover that he owned a cookery book, wedged in a corner of the kitchen and covered in dust. He opened it up and leafed through the breakfast section with growing agitation. Eggs? Toast? He was pretty sure that he could cope with those. But a look around told him that he had neither eggs, nor bread. "Damn." What does Harper like for breakfast anyway? He trawled his memory. That time in French class. The teacher had brought in some things for them to try. There were croissants, and those pastry things with chocolate inside. Harper had loved them. He remembered her eyes closing in ecstasy as she bit into the pastry, the pink tip of her tongue flickering over her lips to clear stray crumbs. She'd made him promise to take her to Paris when they were grown, so she could eat the original ones, sitting in front of the Eiffel Tower. Unexpectedly, he got a lump in his throat at the memory. Before he had time to change his mind, he put a pot of coffee on and headed out to the Broken Hill bakery to buy some for her.
They were still warm when he returned, and he plated them and poured the coffee, then put everything on a tray and carried it upstairs.
There was no answer when he rapped gently on her door. He knocked a little louder, and there was a sleepy sigh, followed by the sound of her clearing her throat. He took that as a sign he could enter, and he opened the door and walked into the room. It smelled sweetly of her – her warm body, lying between the sheets all night. She was sitting upright, wearing a white tanktop, and the curtains were open. Her hair was adorably tousled and curled a little at the ends.
"I brought you some breakfast," he said.
"Thank you." She smiled at him politely, as she might smile at a waiter. "They smell good." He set the tray down and put the coffees on a night stand.
"Mind if I join you?" he said, realizing at the same time that he hadn't put any chairs in the room. She shrugged.
"Sure." He sat down awkwardly at the end of the bed and took a croissant. His gaze flickered over her face as she ate, noticing that she was pale and the delicate skin beneath her eyes had a purple tinge.
"Did you sleep okay?"
"Yeah. It's a very comfy bed."
"Some guys in the clan made it."
"That figures."
"How's the breakfast?"
"Good. I haven't eaten these in years, actually." He cringed inwardly. Did she mean since French class? Was he reminding her of something she didn't want to think about? "Are they home made?" He opened his mouth to lie, but realized he couldn't exactly get away with it.
"No, they're from the bakery. But it's a real great bakery actually. It's run by Melissa. You'll like her." He was babbling, totally uncharacteristically, but he was on edge, which also wasn't common for him.
"I'm kidding," she said, amusement flashing in her narrow green eyes. "No one actually makes croissants and pain au chocolat."
"Oh," he said, feeling dumb, and grinned, trying to share the joke with her. But the good mood disappeared as fast as it had arrived.
He fell silent, her obvious reluctance to talk making him self-conscious. But he wasn't a man to let things slide passively by.
"Harper, look – can we at least be natural with each other?" he blurted out. "I mean, we can't carry on being stiff like this the whole time. It's going to make things difficult for both of us." She stared at him and opened her mouth and closed it again, as if rethinking what she'd been about to say.
"Rocco, I – I don't know you any more. Actually, I realized a long time ago that I never really knew you in the first place. So you might as well be a stranger to me. And I really, really don't know how to act around a stranger who happens to be my mate. So please forgive me if I seem a little stiff, but I feel like I'm acting in a play where I don't know the script." Her words were harsh, but she was blinking quickly and he saw that her eyes were very bright. He sighed.
"I know. And I know that neither of us chose this situation. But shall we try to make the best of it?"
"Did Xander give you an opportunity to say no to the mating?" He shook his head.
"No, he didn't. But, seriously, let's forget about that, Harper. We're mated now. And I want to make you happy. I really do." She sighed, wriggled her toes beneath the comforter, in a way that gave him a twinge of nostalgia.
"There was a time when those words would have set my heart on fire, but things have changed. A lot," she said, and she looked so sad that his throat tightened. At the time, it had killed him to do what he did to her, and now the pain felt no less raw.
"I know," he said. "And I regret that, a lot. And I know you hate me. But can we call a truce? We're together now, like it or not, and we might as well try to make the best of things." She was silent for a moment, her long, arched brows drawn together.
"You're right. I can't live like a robot. But it'll take me a while to get used to being around you again."
"I understand. Take all the time you need." She flashed a smile.
"That's more like it."
"What is?"
"The Rocco I knew would just sit back and let things resolve themselves. 'Chill', you used to tell me whenever I got worked up over something ridiculous." He grinned.
"I guess I've grown up, and worked out the difference between what's ridiculous and what's really important."
She ate the remainder of her pain au chocolat in silence, gazing into the middle distance, her tongue flicking out and catching the stray crumbs. He took the opportunity to steal a glance at her. She wasn't wearing a bra beneath her tanktop, and he could just make out the outline of her nipples. God, she's sexy. Absolutely my perfect woman, he thought, as his bear let off a purr.
Suddenly realizing that he might be intruding on her privacy, he got up and grabbed the breakfast stuff.
"I'll leave you in peace. Let me know if you want to do something today," he said, already walking out of the room, straining against his bear, which was doing everything in its power to try to make him stay.
"Okay," she said, an unreadable expression darkening her eyes.
7
Harper's first week in Broken Hill was one of the longest and most difficult of her life. She went through the motions of shopping for furnishings for her bedroom and a second room that Rocco had put aside as her private living room. He told her to feel free to spread her stuff all over the house and to make it her own, but she didn't want to. She wanted to maintain her own space and that was all. To the outside world, she seemed to be coping well, but inside, she was in agony. It was so difficult being around Rocco. Every time she laid eyes on him, it was a painful reminder of how wrong things were. Of how what they had now looked so much like the life she'd dreamed of, but was just a terrible parody of it. She'd been affected by the things he'd said the morning after the mating ceremony, and in the days that followed, she'd come to realize that he was right – she couldn't exist by continuing to be so hostile toward him. Instead, she was studiously polite around him, as if she was a guest in his house – answering his questions, asking him polite questions – how his day was, if he was enjoying coaching the young kids. She only let her mask slip when she was in the privacy of her rooms. There, she spent a lot of time numbly watching TV shows, interspersed with unexpected episodes of crying. She also spent as much time in her bear form as possible, running in the woods, happy to be away from the claustrophobia of the cabin.
After a week of doing nothing more than wallowing in her misery, she couldn't stand it any more. Harper wasn't a woman to sit around doing nothing. Rocco told her that she didn't need to worry about work; the Broken Hill Bears had more money than they knew what to do with, but it didn't sit well with her. She forced herself to get up, put on some make-up, and head down to the local kindergarten to see if they had any positions open.