RANCHER BEAR’S BABY(74)

A bird swooped low and plucked a fish straight out of the lake and then hurriedly flapped away with it. A breeze gently floated the scent of water and pine over to me. My dog, Whiskey, snored lightly at my bare feet. Things were peaceful. I should’ve been dozing in the warm sunshine.

Yet, I couldn’t relax. I hadn’t been able to in months, but I’d chalked that up to living in LA. I wasn’t cut out to be a city boy. I didn’t like big buildings, tight spaces, smog, or even people, really. I’d stayed with my girlfriend, Mandy, in her penthouse apartment for more months than I cared to remember. It was part of our deal, but most of the time I spent feeling like I was beating my head against a wall. I got nothing done, felt sick from the air quality, and grew to despise take out.

We had agreed that I would try out LA for a while and then she would try out Wyoming for a while. Looking out over the water and trees, I couldn’t imagine having to make a deal with anyone to coax them into coming here. Landing, Wyoming had been home for me since birth. My family owned the ranch where I worked, when I wasn’t off in LA. Wyoming was beautiful, and to me, it was everything.

Mandy hated the idea of it, though. She was a city girl. She’d been weaned on red carpets and luncheon dates with A-list celebrities. She acted as though Wyoming was a death sentence. Part of me knew she was only giving Wyoming a few months simply to say she’d tried it. She was also supposed to be working on a book, so the time away from the hustle and bustle of the city would be good for her.

No matter how much I knew that Mandy wasn’t my mate, I also thought that she was, maybe, the girl for me anyway. Not every shifter is fortunate enough to find his true mate. My brothers were enigmas. All four of them had found their mates fairly recently. Somehow, all of their mates had just ended up in Landing.

I knew that wasn’t going to happen for me, though. It was just a gut-deep feeling that I couldn’t get rid of. I’d had it since I was a kid. When I heard stories about bears finding their mates, about my parents finding each other, I just knew, for whatever reason, that it wouldn’t happen for me.

It was why I was okay to settle down with a woman who wasn’t my mate. I loved Mandy enough. It wasn’t the kind of unbreakable bond of love that my brothers had, but I wasn’t my brothers. I didn’t need that kind of wild and passionate love. I just needed enough.

Mandy wasn’t ideal. There were things that I wished were different, but she was a nice enough girl underneath, besides being attractive and vivacious. I liked the woman that stayed in with me and cuddled on those rare Tuesday nights in LA. She was soft and she smelled good. I was a simple guy.

When I’d finally talked her into following me to Landing, though, the tightness in my chest just clenched harder. My bear became more restless than he’d ever been in LA, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spent so much of my days as a bear.

I’d spent the last couple of weeks fixing up the house so she could enjoy her time there, but I wasn’t too blind to know I had a bad case of cold feet. A part of me wanted to call it off. I didn’t know what my end game was here. Did I expect her to fall in love with Wyoming and choose to stay? Did I even really want her to stay?

I had never before been so confused and wishy-washy. I was the level-headed brother. This back and forth wasn’t me.

Yet, as I sat drinking my beer, my mind was playing ping pong with my thoughts. I looked over my shoulder at my house. It was my space. I hoped Mandy would be pleased and excited when she arrived, but I was slightly skeptical that it was going to happen that way.

The tension in my body too strong for me to relax, I went back inside and sat down at my desk. I had a hundred pages due soon and the deadline was sneaking up on me. My editor would be pissed if I asked for another extension. He didn’t seem to understand that my brain couldn’t function properly in the blaring horns and chaos of LA.

I opened the document I’d been working on earlier that morning and starting typing out the story that’d been trapped in my brain the entire time I was in the city. I had a whole lot to do and not much time before Mandy arrived, so I got busy.





*****Bunny*****

Working for Mandy had already proven itself to be a pain in the ass. She texted me at all hours with new demands. Her latest texts had nearly sent me to LA to slap the hell out of her. She had no manners and I doubted she’d ever been taught to play nice, especially not with the hired help. Barely two days in and I want to throttle her. Two days.

When I thought about it, I envisioned Star’s couch and felt warm tingly feelings for it. It never sent me to Rodeo Drive just after midnight so I could be standing outside of Gucci first thing when it opened for the purse she already had in two different shades. It never put me in a rental car and sent me driving through the middle of nowhere to find the house she’d be moving into. And it never forgot to mail me the key to said house but asked me to break in instead.