Chapter Eight

Bert

“Where are you going?” Conrad asked as I put my boots on near the front door. I’d checked to make sure there were logs on the fire, and the temperature was damned near stifling to me but probably perfect for humans.

We’d had a long talk that night about his life and what happened to his mate—his husband. Now I knew why he was here on the holidays without him. My heart broke for the deep sadness. apparent in his tone and the words he used to describe his mate, Natalie’s father. Gods, he was alone in this world, alone with a child. No wonder he had circles under his eyes and a wistfulness about the way he spoke. He must’ve been as lonely as I was.

But at least he had his sweet girl with him.

She had been lovely at dinner. While she had some sass about her, she also had good manners and said please and thank you more times over the meal than my brother had in his life. He could take a few pages out of her book.

My worries about having my mate here, while he was with someone else, had been erased by his story, though I wished he was single for another reason.

Still, perhaps there was hope after all.

He could stay here with me. They both could.

“I thought you’d gone to bed,” I whispered, not sure if my volume would wake Natalie. She’d zonked right out in front of the fire after reading a chapter from a book with her father.

“I heard you moving around the house. Is everything okay?”

He’d heard me up, which meant he was still awake. I wondered what kept him up at night. Whatever it was, I wanted to chase it away. Let the man rest. He deserved it after all he’d been through.

I nodded. “I’m sorry I woke you. I’m going to try and fix that heater. I’m worried the pipes will freeze.”

“Don’t you sleep?” He chuckled. His hair was tousled and he wore plaid pajamas right out of a Christmas card. Red and green and beautiful all over.

Me? Sleep? Under the same roof as my omega? With him in the next room? Not a chance. There were all kinds of sounds whipping around us, and my bear was aware of every one. He had an omega and a cub to protect now. He was on high alert. Wouldn’t even let me sleep.

“Um, not really.” I rubbed the back of my head. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back soon.”

“Oh, okay. Don’t forget your jacket.”

Right. A jacket. Because he didn’t know that I was a furnace underneath this human exterior.

I fought my bear while walking away from Conrad and my cabin, but I had things to do. With the heater out and no fire to heat up the cabin, I didn’t want Rudy to come back to frozen pipes and a potentially flooded house.

I loved my brother, but he was one houseguest I didn’t want. He and I got along at a distance. A close distance but a distance nonetheless. It was natural for bears. Other than our mates, we didn’t want a lot of people around.

Exactly why we appreciated this place.

There was also the alternative. I could get to know Conrad, and things could be going great, but there was a chance he would not accept my bear. A big chance.

Who could blame him? Finding out a person who could potentially be in your life—your partner—turned into a grizzly bear at will? Might be a bit jarring for a human. Or anyone.

I picked up my phone and put in a call to Rudy. He would be up, like me. His bear would be restless among the humans. As was mine.

“Trouble with the human already?” he answered. “Did you turn beast and scare them off?”

“Not with the human but with your cabin. You left the human with a heater that doesn’t work and a broken water heater as well. What were you thinking? This whole idea was hairbrained at best, but this?”

Rudy scoffed. “I did not. Everything was working fine when I left. I mean, to my knowledge. I don’t really use either much when I’m home. I use the woodstove as you know.”

“You know better, Brother. Humans need more heat than us and besides, you have to keep it on low. You should’ve checked before you left.”

“So, are you going to fix it?” he asked. “I’ll pay you back for whatever.”

“You will not. And yes, I am trying to fix it. In the meantime…” I didn’t even want to speak the words. I could only imagine how he would laugh. “In the meantime, the human and his daughter are staying in my guest room.”

As I’d expected, my brother broke out in loud laughter. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I’m not. And it’s not funny.”

“It sounds like it to me.”

“I…” I started. “There’s more. He’s my mate, Rudy.”

My brother gasped. “You…are you serious?”

“Yeah. I am.”

“Bert, he’s a dad. There’s another father in the picture. You can’t—”

“He’s widowed.” I paused for a moment to let that sink in. “We just had a talk about it.”

“You told him! You told him he’s your mate? How did that go?”

“No. He told me that he lost his mate—his husband. I didn’t tell him anything about being my mate. Hell, he doesn’t even know I’m a bear. He might not even be aware of shifters.”

“Damn.”

“Double damn, in fact. What I’m worried about right now is your cabin. I’m worried about the pipes freezing.” I had tried all the options, and I could fix things but needed to get to town for some parts. Turned out, I didn’t have any in my tools.

“Yeah. I mean, thanks for taking care of that. Let me know how this mate saga unfolds, will ya?”

I laughed and hung up on him before answering. He’d left me with a mess and a shady situation, but those two things combined also had my mate in my guest room, warm and toasty.

Gods, my bear even saw his young as mine already.

Too soon, bear. Too soon.

I did what I could in the meantime and drained all the pipes. That was all the prevention I could manage. Leaving a woodstove burning unattended was a recipe for fire. I put my hands on my hips and breathed in the winter air once I got outside. Our cabins were older than old. We both needed upgrades, and there were miniscule things needing to be fixed in every room.

But now that my mate was here, those tiny things became huge. I didn’t want him to think I was a bear who didn’t manage upkeep of his home. Conrad should think of me as an alpha who took care of his mate and his home—his family.

Damn it. There my bear went again, thinking of Conrad and Natalie as his family.

I was still a stranger to them in most ways.

The words mate and alpha and beast might not mean anything to him. There was still that slim chance that he might not feel anything for me and run at the first sight of claws.

I had to figure out a way to tell him. And then we would hopefully find a way to tell his daughter. Not scary at all.

My bear rumbled and clawed me from the inside. He wanted to get out and run under the full moon. More than anything, he loved to romp and play in the snow. What might Natalie think about riding my bear over the wintery landscape? As long as she didn’t call it frolicking, I would run with her all day.

More than that, he wanted to run in front of our mate. Show him what a big, bad bear we were. Show him that nothing and no one would ever cause him harm or the tiny female either as long as he was in the picture.

He wanted Conrad’s fingers through his thick fur. To look him in the eyes and tell him he was mine. That I was his. That we belonged together even in this crazy way of meeting.

My bear craved a lot of things he had no business thinking about…yet.

But now that I knew he was single—widowed—at least there was hope.