Coveted by the Bear

I pushed my last two pancakes around my plate. I’d been starving when we walked through the door and smelled the home cooking, but sitting under a magnifying glass the entire meal as everyone in Rooney’s leaned closer to hear our conversation made me lose my appetite. Caleb frowned at my unfinished meal.

  “Excuse me, Sarah?” he asked our waitress as she bustled by our table. “Could we get a to-go box? And the check whenever you have a minute.”

  “Sure,” she said sweetly. Sarah slid a glance in my direction and then back to Caleb before she leaned closer to him and lowered her voice. “Anything for a McCreedy,” she said through a flirty smile that boasted much too much dark lipstick.

  When she came back with a to-go box and the check, I looked curiously across the table at the tiny, white piece of paper to see how much a breakfast for two cost. Caleb pulled out a wadded up ten and a five from his pocket and put them under a plastic cylinder that held the sugar. He crumpled up the receipt, but not before I saw the waitress’s phone number written across the top of it.

  I stared at him as he downed the rest of his coffee. How many times had girls given their numbers to him in hopes that he would call? From the way he flippantly threw it in the trashcan on his way out, it probably happened regularly.

  He took a toothpick from a small plastic container on the front counter and offered it to me. I declined politely and headed for the door as he exchanged small talk with an older gentleman behind the bar.

  “What do you think you are doing?” a woman asked as I stepped outside.

  Automatically, I sidestepped the flurry of motion I saw coming in fast from my right. Becca.

  “What are you doing with Caleb? Are you stupid, or is it unclear to you that we are a thing?” she asked. “Why on earth would he be eating breakfast, for the entire town to see, with a freak like you?”

  There really was no need to try and keep up my end of the conversation. A response from me seemed completely unnecessary.

  Becca lowered her voice and laughed. “I bet he is trying to make me jealous.” She turned a death glare on me. “Won’t work, though. I’d never be jealous of Crazy Mira.”

  Caleb cleared his throat from behind me. Annoyance soaked his tone when he asked, “Everything okay here, ladies?”

  “What are you doing?” Becca whisper-screamed. “Did you even think about how embarrassing this would be for me? I had to find out about this”—Becca waved her hand frantically in my direction—“from Nora Leadby, and she heard it from, like, thirty other people!”

  “Believe it or not,” Caleb said, putting his hand on my hip to push me toward the truck, “I didn’t think about you when I asked Mira to breakfast. You and I aren’t together, Becca. We never really were, so I’d appreciate it if you left her alone.”

  Caleb took his sweet time tucking me into the truck and sauntering around the front, looking as if he didn’t at all notice everyone gathered outside of Rooney’s staring blatantly. He gave the crowd a friendly wave and a, “Y’all have a good day,” and then we were off to the butcher shop so I could apply for a job. Again.

  Caleb, after seeing my apparent lack of fear when it came to bloodier situations, had decided a job in the back at Don’s Butcher Shop would be the perfect one for me. I didn’t really care, nor was I picky. I’d do anything shy of standing on a street corner with my boobs out to earn some money if it meant I’d reclaim my independence.

  A more disappointed look I had never seen on anyone’s face than on Butcher Don’s when I walked through the door to his shop.

  “What can I do you for, Miss Fletcher?” he drawled, wiping his hands on his apron. It was clear as water he hoped I was ordering a pound of beefsteak.

  I clenched my hands together to steady them as I approached the counter. “Your sign still says you’re hiring. I think I would fit what you need. I process my own game and am comfortable with a knife. Would you mind if I filled out an application?”

  I could see the answer written all over his face before he even opened his mouth to speak. “Mira, I just don’t have a position open for someone like you.”

  I left the butcher shop about thirty seconds later, having received almost, word for word, the same rejection I had obtained two months ago.

  Caleb sat in the truck with the stereo blaring. His arm dangled comfortably out of the window, and he raised it in a what the hell gesture when I hurried across the sidewalk to hop into the cab.

  “What happened? You weren’t even in there a minute,” he said.

  I shrugged miserably. “Mr. Don said the same thing he said last time.”

  Caleb growled. It was the only word I had for the angry noise that burst from his throat. “Come on,” he ordered before I even had the chance to warm my fingers by the heater.

  “Caleb, it’s fine—”

  “No, it’s not, Mira. It’s fucked up,” he said, heading for my side of the truck.

  I slithered out of the cab before he could reach the door. “Okay,” I muttered, shutting the door gently behind me. That creaking metal door didn’t even know I had just saved it from the slamming of its life.

  “Caleb,” Don greeted with a smile. His face fell when he realized I was hiding behind him.

  “Don Forbes, you have a sign up on the door that says you’re hiring, and you won’t even let her fill out a damned application for it?” Caleb asked. The walls seemed to move inward with the volume of his voice. “She has a high school diploma, which is more than I can say for the last dipshit who worked here. She knows her way around an animal, and she’s strong enough to handle what you need her to. What’s the hold up?”

  “Caleb,” the portly man behind the counter said low. “It ain’t that I don’t want to help her out. It’s just I’m barely making it right now. I can’t handle a dip in business, or I’ll lose it. She,” he said jabbing a finger in my direction, “will scare off all of my business, even if she doesn’t mean to. I can’t help you. I have a family to take care of.”

  Caleb swung his gaze to me, and I grabbed his forearm when I noticed the gold in his eyes. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not,” he argued, tilting his head.

  He began to turn away from me, but I flung my arms around his shoulders and held him close. “Your eyes,” I breathed. “We need to go.”

  He rubbed the side of my face, his short stubble rasping against my cheek. “Okay.” His grip tightened on my waist, and my legs went numb. I wanted to stay like this forever, holding him. It had been an impulsive thing to do, but he’d reacted in the most unexpected way. Like he was enjoying my touch.

  Caleb inhaled a long breath and stepped around me and through the front door, leaving me to try and look like I hadn’t just had the most life-altering moment of my entire existence.

  “Sorry, Mr. Don,” I murmured, then spun for the door.

  “This ain’t right,” Caleb fumed from the driver’s side of his truck. His deep southern drawl came out more when he was angry. He wasn’t even trying to keep his eyes human-looking right now, and I tossed up a little thank-you that the windows of Caleb’s truck were heavily tinted.

  “It’s not right, but he has a point,” I said. “I would hurt business for anyone in town.”

  I didn’t know why I was defending any of them from the wrath of a McCreedy. They had never lifted a finger for me, unless it was to throw stuff.

  Caleb threw the truck into reverse, and we headed back up Main Street. “There isn’t any real point in trying to find you a job right now. The answer will be the same with everyone.”

  I curled my knees to my chin and leaned up against the door. Caleb was quiet on the way back to my house, but it was the kind of silence that had weight. I looked at him exactly two times to blazing eyes and no response. He was completely lost in thought, enough to miss the turnoff for Dark Corner.

  Was he disappointed with me? Had he realized I was a lost cause and that he was wasting his time trying to help me carve out a life in this town?

  I kept my
questions to myself for fear that he would confirm my racing suspicions. My rejection cup was full for the day.

  Some time alone at the house would do wonders for recovery after this morning. I didn’t think he would work today. In fact, he would likely never come back to the house again. The change had been nice, but it was time for me to prepare for winter as I always did. It was time for me to recede into my woods—to become a part of them again.

  Town wasn’t for me. Town would never be for me.

  He didn’t say a word as his truck crept up the incline of the newly made dirt road to my house. As I shut the door behind me, he surprised me and leaned over to open the window.

  “My family has dinner together every Sunday night at six o’clock,” he said.

  I waited for the punch line.

  “I’ll pick you up around five-thirty.”

  My mouth was only able to form a wa sound before he pulled the truck around and headed back toward the gate. He didn’t look in his rearview mirror as he disappeared. I knew because I watched for him to. I waited for him to turn around and tell me he was just kidding, but as he was swallowed up by my woods, he gave no such satisfaction.

  In one day’s time, I would be expected to share dinner in the McCreedy den. Most of the people in town would have sold their best boots for such an unlikely invitation, and here I was in full-blown panic mode and cursing under my breath at Caleb’s mile-wide stubborn streak.

  I was starting to think he was trying to kill me. Clearly, Caleb’s plan was to maim me slowly with food and social engagements.

  Chapter Ten

  Caleb

  Mira was what happened to Neverland when all the lost boys had gone but one. She clung to her ever-changing, never-changing woods because it was all she knew.

  For the first time in my entire life, I wished my name meant more. She’d come out of the butcher shop with that disappointed and wholly unsurprised look on her face, and I had wished I could fix it with a single word. Not for the good of the town or even for the good of Mira, but for the good of me.

  She would need a letter of recommendation from someone who meant more than I did to the town. She would need to be on my father’s good side, a tiny bird under his outstretched wing if she was to have a chance at getting a job.

  Before, I had hated the difference in the way people had treated the McCreedys. But right now, in this moment, I wished I could use the name for more.

  ****

  Mira

  Hope was a hummingbird. Tiny in size and fragile by nature. Beautiful.

  Flitting around a garden in search of an early morning drink, but my garden hadn’t had roses in years and hummingbirds hadn’t existed. A tiny weed had poked through the cracked and dry earth, and ever so slowly it had grown into a flower. And the hummingbirds had returned.

  That’s what Caleb had done for me. I was beginning to hope for more from this life, and as scary as that was, it was also exciting.

  Not on Sunday, though. Sunday, my hope was the lack of noise around the house when I awoke late in the morning meant Caleb had given up and I wouldn’t, in fact, be subjected to embarrassing myself in front of his father at dinner tonight.

  Sadey showed up at four o’clock in the afternoon to flick my hummingbird right out of my garden.

  “I thought I would come by and help you get ready,” she said.

  “He’s still going through with this?” I couldn’t hide my disappointment if I tried.

  Sadey laughed like I’d been joking. “Afraid so. He already told my dad you were coming. No turning back now.”

  I showered and Sadey used a set of terrifying looking instruments to heat my hair into submission. I was pleasantly surprised at the effect when I looked at it in my old bedroom mirror. Instead of organized chaos around my face, it was shaped by soft and elongated waves of dark tresses that tickled my back and collar bones. She had insisted I wear the white sundress I loved so much and pinned the front of my hair to the side. She put makeup on my skin, not much, mind you, but enough to show there was effort made. My gray eyes looked even lighter in contrast with my dark hair and mascara, and my full lips held an attractive hue of deep glossy pink.

  It became abundantly clear that Sadey McCreedy was a miracle worker.

  “Thank you,” I whispered, turning again to look at the unfamiliar girl looking back at me through the mirror.

  Sadey smiled into the reflection. “Of course. You don’t have to worry about tonight, you know. I’ll be there, and Caleb will be there. Brian will be there, too. You’ll already know half the people at the table.”

  “It’s not you guys I’m worried about. It’s your dad.”

  Sadey shrugged. “He’s not so bad. He’ll be honest about what he is thinking, but his thoughts are never cruel. To me, he is a big teddy bear.”

  “That’s because you’re his daughter, though. I am a thorn in his town.”

  “You’ll be fine. I promise. I’d better go before Caleb shows up to pick you up. He has been in the worst mood lately.”

  I helped her gather all of her beauty supplies into a bright pink tote bag and followed her to the front door.

  “I’ll see you in a little while,” she said. She turned and grabbed my hand. “Do you want me to sit beside you at the dinner table?”

  “Please,” I said, more grateful for her thoughtfulness than I could ever express. The idea that Sadey would be there as a buffer did actually make me feel a lot better.

  Caleb arrived just half an hour later. He pulled his Ford to a halt in my front yard and I rushed out the door before he could blast the horn. He was already getting out of the truck and didn’t see me until he was at the stairs of my front porch.

  “Hey,” I said shyly.

  He glanced up at me, and his look of deep thoughtfulness turned to one of surprise. Shock, really. “Wow,” he said softly.

  His hand lifted slowly as he took in my dress and, not knowing what he intended, I placed my hand in his and used him to help me down the stairs. He recovered quite nicely…though he was probably just throwing his hands up in shock that I had used a brush on my hair. He opened the door to his truck and waited for me to climb in before he shut it and leaned against the open window.

  His eyes were earnest and clear and his face so close to mine. “Mira, you look beautiful.”

  Heat crept into my cheeks and traveled to the very tips of my ears. He was waiting for me to respond, but all I could do was look into his impossibly blue eyes and fight the urge to move a strand of blond hair, which had lifted gently in the breeze, behind his ear with the tip of my finger.

  When it became apparent I had frozen lamely into place and wouldn’t offer a response other than the dumb smile that inched embarrassingly across my lips, he pushed off the door and strode to the driver’s side. I cast my eyes heavenward and puffed air out of my cheeks in frustration.

  When he climbed in, I cleared my throat. “Sadey came over to help me get ready. She did all of this.”

  “She did?” he asked, his golden brows winging up. He turned the engine over and it roared to life.

  “Your sister is really nice,” I said over the noise.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “She’s the best of us.”

  I smiled because she had said the same about him.

  It was cool outside but not enough to run the heat. Caleb seemed to prefer to drive with his windows down no matter the weather. Did he feel as trapped as me in small spaces? Perhaps that was the new animal inside of him. As we crawled slowly down the rough road toward the front gate, I held my hair at the nape of my neck to keep it from whipping in the breeze and losing its curl. He noticed the movement and pulled to a stop.

  “You can roll the window up if you’re worried about your hair,” he offered.

  I hesitated. I didn’t want him to think I was a girl who cared about such things. Because I wasn’t. But I did want to look presentable for Mr. McCreedy.

  Caleb seemed to realize my dilemma. “Best you
do it so Sadey doesn’t lynch me for ruining all of her hard work.”

  I tried to roll up the window but the lever was stuck.

  “Here, let me,” he said, leaning over my lap and jerking the lever a couple of times before it wised up and moved under his will.

  I breathed as lightly as I could. I looked down at the musculature in his arm, easily visible under his thin, gray, cotton shirt and the strain against the window lever. His body was so close to mine, I could feel the heat, and my stomach clenched inwardly. The tops of my breasts fought for air and space against the bust of the dress, and when he straightened up, he froze in place and seemed to notice them, too.

  His eyes lifted to mine, and I could see tiny flecks of green in them. I wondered if anyone else had seen those tiny specks of unexpected color but me. A piece of me wished I was the only one.

  “You’re beautiful, too,” I whispered before I could stop myself.

  The sides of his mouth turned up in the barest of smiles, and his eyes fell to my lips. He rested his hand on the other side of my leg, fingers curling against the fabric of my dress like he needed me closer. Then he leaned in and kissed me lightly on the neck.

  A helpless sound came from my throat, and my body turned boneless as my eyes rolled back in my head.

  “I can smell how aroused you are,” Caleb murmured against the tripping pulse under my ear.

  My breath came in a pant as he slid his hand up my leg and under the billowy material of my dress. I clenched his shirt in my fists and pulled him closer.

  A deep chuckle reverberated against my collarbone. “Is this what you want, Mira?”

  Fooling around in the cab of a truck with the man I felt more connected with than any other person on the planet? “Hell yes,” I breathed.

  I squeaked in shock as Caleb pulled the lever under the seat and rocketed the bench backward. In one swift motion, he pulled me over his lap and ran his hands up my legs, rucking my dress up to my hips. We were definitely going to be late to dinner, but I couldn’t find it in me to care right now.

  I fumbled to unbutton his shirt, but he grabbed my hand and lifted somber eyes to mine. “No.”