13

Why the fuck was Cordelia at Bethany"s place again, and why was she still crying? How the fuck did Owen fuck this shit up so bad, that Cedric couldn"t even go and see Bethany, and was instead driving out of town when he should be driving into her.

That was all they had been doing the past few days, having sex. It was all she allowed from him. Sex. A lot of sex. Sex all over her cabin. And then she would go to sleep, he would sneak out, and...

And he was a chicken shit, scared to ruin the best thing in his life by asking if she really wanted to be a mother, because he was ready and willing to give her that, but feared she would want it with someone other than him.

He would rip apart any man who dared touch her, to lay claim to what was his. And she was his, whether she knew it or not. She wore his clothes, was covered in his scent, and possessed his dreams. She was his. And if she wanted a cub, that would be his as well.

But if he was too scared to talk to Bethany about what she wanted in life, then he was doubly so scared of a crying Cordelia, so for the second time in three days, he turned his truck around and drove out of town, heading towards Owen"s place.

It was his brother"s fault that he wasn"t warm between Bethany"s thighs right now. He couldn"t fix his own personal shit, but maybe he could fix Owen"s, and if Owen fixed his shit, then maybe Bethany would stop being so damn distracted, and would be willing to talk to him again, both about what she wanted, and if she wanted it with him.

The drive didn"t take him too long to reach the turn off the towards Owen"s place, but one look down the barely cleared dirt road, and he was pulling off his clothes and putting the truck in park. No way in hell he was risking getting stuck out there.

And besides, depending on the mood Owen was in, showing up as a bear was likely safer.

Finally reaching the cabin, he was unsurprised to find his brother out front, swinging an axe, and looking like he had been at it for a while. Probably working through whatever bullshit had sent Cordelia back into town when she wanted to still be in the cabin. Physical labor was also Cedric"s way of dealing with the heartache of being away from Bethany.

Bears.

He shifted back into human form and approached his brother, uncaring for the fact he was naked. It wasn"t like the cold bothered him anyway.

"Huh," he said, watching as Owen split another piece of wood. Fuck, he and Gareth wouldn"t need to split wood for the next year at this point.

"What do you want?" his older brother asked, not looking up from his work.

"Damndest thing. Went to fuck my girl in town, and—"

"Since when do you have a girl in town?"

It took Cedric a second to remember that, while Gareth was aware of what he had been up to each evening, Owen had no clue. The few times he had ventured this direction, he could either hear or smell what was going on in the cabin... and he had no interest in interrupting that. He wasn"t an idiot.

"Since you decided to go and shack up. Sounded like a good idea." Of course, Cedric had also met Bethany before Owen met his girl, but it wasn"t until Owen had talked about missing Cordelia and wanting to bring her out to the cabin that Cedric had stopped fighting the desire to return to her.

"You don"t know how to talk to women," Owen pointed out, something Cedric knew all too well.

"Don"t have to talk to them to fuck them," Cedric pointed out, ignoring the pain in his stomach, knowing that was the cause of his problems. "But if you have any advice on how to get her to talk to me, I"ll take it."

Then again, his brother was at his cabin alone and moping, while Bethany was probably looking out her window, wondering where he was...

If he had Bethany in his cabin, he would never let her go. Big brother he might be, but Owen wasn"t any wiser with age. In fact, he was near as stupid as Gareth.

"What do you want, Cedric?"

Cedric crossed his arms over his chest, thinking over what to say next. The truth was, he really did need some advice. Someone to talk this out with, at least. Needed to somehow voice his thoughts about what he wanted, and what Bethany wanted, and how they could all be happy, if he just figured out how to propose the idea, knowing it was at the risk of losing her if he had misread the whole fucking situation.

If Cordelia were there, she would be the one Cedric talked to, but he doubted the woman even knew who he was, or that he had been fucking her cousin.

Wait, fuck, and Owen definitely had no fucking clue the woman he just found out about was his woman"s cousin...

"Her bed smelled like you. Faint-like, which tells me your girl was there."

Owen swung the axe again before piecing the clues together, asking, "Your girl"s name Bethany?"

"Yup." At least his brother wasn"t completely clueless.

Cedric gave him another few minutes to think about things before he finally pieced it together for himself... how to ask what he really wanted to know, while also maybe giving his brother a helping paw. He would still need to do the work, but if Cordelia got the fuck out of Bethany"s cabin, then Cedric could be the one in it instead, talking to her about how she wanted a baby, and how he wanted to have a baby with her.

Pity it was so fucking easy to think about, but impossible to say.

"So my question is this—" Cedric began, only to be cut off.

"Can you hurry up and fucking ask it?"

Touchy, touchy... "Why is your girl in town, and not in your cabin?"

Cedric might as well have hit his brother with a truck, because that was how Owen looked at the question. His face dropped, his shoulders sagged, and even the axe dangled in his grip. Whatever pain Cedric thought his brother felt, it was nothing compared to the truth. The pain of missing his girl, and whatever he had done to upset her, was ripping his big brother apart.

Cedric would never be that fucking stupid. Ever.

"Why do you think Dad never came back to Mom?" Owen finally asked, sounding younger than he had in years.

And fuck, if that wasn"t the million dollar question. Cedric had asked himself that same one a thousand times over, and Gareth as well. The truth was, he didn"t understand it. He had convinced himself, over time, that if he ever had cubs, he would, but now that he knew Bethany, and knew what he could have with her, he was further away from the truth than ever.

And so, he went with the answer Gareth, who didn"t give two shits about their father, always gave. "Because Dad was an asshole and Mom was a bitch. Is that what this is about?"

"Bears don"t mate for life," Owen pointed out feebly, but it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself rather than stating a fact.

"Fucking and?"

"And... we don"t have soulmates."

For fuck"s sake... Owen had all those muscles and not a single fucking brain cell in his head. Bears not having soulmates was not the reason they didn"t mate for life. They didn"t mate for life, or what fucking ever, because they liked solitude and their personal space. The fact he and his brothers lived so close together was already different enough to most bears. Adding a mate to the close living? That was nothing, when Cedric regularly had Gareth"s naked ass raiding his fridge.

"Neither do humans. Doesn"t stop them from finding a person they like and sticking around with them for a while." Half human, half bear. If they could stomach living near each other, the way humans did, then...

"Is that why she was crying at my girl"s place? Because... you brought her back into town because... you"re not soulmates?"

Was Cedric dragging it out heavily for effect so that Owen could see how much of an idiot he was? Yes. But given Owen"s fallen face, he could see it was doing the trick.

"Brother... you might be the worst of the three of us with girls. How is that even possible?"

"Gareth is worse than—"

Fucking Gareth who would sleep with anyone who fed him... or—

"Gareth sleeps with any girl who will smile at him in some desperate attempt to have approval because he was never mom's favorite. He still knows how to keep a woman from crying."

His brother was silent, but Cedric gave him the time to come up with another weak excuse. He was almost there, though. Almost ready to fix his shit.

And then, Cedric would fix his as well... as soon as he figured out how.

"I can't go back and get her now," Owen said, sounding embarrassed. "I mean... I took her back. It's for her own good. I mean—"

Yup. His work here was done.

"Oh, fuck off. If I wanted to hear bullshit, I would go drink in town. Go get yourself some liquid courage then figure your shit out. I'll see you after winter is over."

"What—"

"I'm not coming back here if you're fucking your girl constantly in there, nor am I coming back if you're moping around because you miss her. Get her or don't go get her, but she's going to be lonely in town pretty soon."

He said it without thinking, but once the words were out there...

"Why—"

"Bye."

Cedric shifted back into his bear form and started the walk back to his truck, his mind racing, replaying what he had just said. Cordelia was going to be lonely? That would only happen if Bethany wasn"t in town. And Bethany would only leave town if...

If he took her out of town.

Fuck. That was how he fixed this. No more dealing with Cordelia crying on her bed. No more waiting for her to get off work. And no more falling asleep after sex and them never getting a chance to talk.

Because they couldn"t spend all winter long only fucking. Eventually, she would have to talk to him, and he would have to talk to her, and...

And that was how he fixed this shit. He would take her to his cabin, convince her to let him breed her, and spend all winter long showing how he could be a good provider for her and their cub. Somewhere along the way, he would tell her he was a bear, and she would fall madly in love with him, and—

It was a terrible fucking plan, but it was the only one he had.

And if she put up any fuss, he would just throw her over his shoulder and take her out to his truck. She would forgive him for it eventually, even if he had to spend all night between her thighs. She liked it when he ate her out for hours. After that, she would have to see that it wasn"t a terrible idea.

...

No, it was a terrible idea, but either he did this, or he never showed his fucking face again because wanting to tell her the truth of his desires, but being a chicken shit to voice them, was going to kill him otherwise.

He wanted her. He probably loved her. He wanted more of her than he would get driving into town every night.

And he would have time to figure out his own feelings while she was in his cabin with him.

But first...

Rather than driving back into town once he reached his truck, Cedric headed back to his place, intent on fixing the place up a bit. There was nothing wrong with his cabin, but it was meant for a man living on his own, and not for a woman to feel comfortable in, nor for them to raise a cub in. While there was no way he could go about building onto the space, he could move the bed upstairs onto the loft, so the heat would rise and she would be comfortable, and he could throw some of that cleaner that burned his eyes into the bathroom, and restock the pantry in the house from what was out in the root cellar and in the barn.

Probably do some dusting and sweeping while he was at it too... and pick up his dirty underwear from the bathroom floor.

It was going to take time to fix the place up right, but he was now in the business of wooing a woman, and making her fall madly in love with him, so she never wanted to leave. Bethany was more than worth the effort he would have to put in. She was worth fucking everything.

Three days later, Cedric was sitting in his truck in front of Bethany"s house, beyond nervous. He hadn"t meant the whole thing to take so long, but Gareth had convinced him to clean out the barn and restock the wood from Owen"s pile, and cleaning had taken longer than he expected, and at some point, he had fallen behind on laundry, which was a difficult task to do when he only had a basic washer and no dryer. The labor had been hard, and he had slept too many hours, thanks to the desire to hibernate, but when it was all done, he wasn"t mad at the effort it took, nor the final result.

Only at how long it had taken.

It was the longest he had stayed away from Bethany, but as night fell the first evening, he knew that if he went back to her place before he was ready to take her to his cabin, he would be unable to resist and end up taking her back to his place. His decision was made about where she belonged, and so he stayed away until he was ready.

She would have to forgive him for it, and she would, once he explained it. That was what he kept telling himself as he prepared to climb out of the truck.

Her truck was missing from in front of her cabin, but the chimney was blowing smoke, and he could hear her inside, messing around with something. She was in there. He just had to find the courage to walk in.

In a few hours time, she would be in his cabin, and all of the stress and anxiety of getting her there would be gone. All that would be left was, well...

He climbed out of the truck, leaving it running with the warm air blowing so she wouldn"t freeze when he hauled her ass out there, and nearly raced to the front door. He didn"t bother knocking, and instead pushed his way inside. She spun around from where she was in the kitchen immediately, her hand frozen where it was washing a plate, but a smile spread over her lips, so he knew he would be forgiven.

"Rick? I... Where have you been? I thought you said you wouldn"t... Are you okay? You look sick! What"s—"

"I"ve been working on something, for you," he answered, not knowing how to say what he needed to. He hadn"t really thought that part through.

"For me?" she asked while turning off the water and drying her hands with a towel. "Take off your boots and shut the door."

"Can"t do that," he said, then cursed himself mentally. Fuck, he really should have thought this part through during all of the cleaning he did, rather than thinking about fucking her on every inch of surface he"d been fixing up. "Fuck. Should've prepared a speech or something, but I"m just going to fucking say it."

Her smile was now gone, and instead, she looked nervous... and cold. He needed to hurry the fuck up, so he could get her warm in his truck, and under the blanket he had brought with him.

"I ain"t one for jealousy, but you make me insane. The thought of you being with someone else? I know there was men before me, but there ain"t gonna be one after me, not so long as I can help it. And if you"re wanting—"

"There"s no one else," she said, cutting him off as she approached. "We"re not exclusive, so I would have a right to, but there"s no one else."

"Fuck, no, I know that, and I know I"m fucking this all up. But if you want a baby—"

"I don"t want to talk about—" Bethany began, but he wasn"t going to let her cut him off. Not when he had something to say. Not when they needed to talk about this.

"If you want a baby, then you can have one with me. I"ll give you a baby. The prettiest fucking baby a son of a bitch like me don"t deserve. You want it? You got it, Sunshine."

She was staring at him, not speaking, but he wasn"t done yet. He would take her silence as a sign that she was at least considering it.

"But I ain"t doing it here in town, not when I have to share you. This whole me driving back and forth thing? It"s done. Pack your shit. I"m kidnapping you."