Bearly Enough (3 page)

Thursday morning found Lucy downstairs, showered and
dressed, her backpack filled with textbooks. It was almost nine, and she knew
that any minute Gabby would be pulling into the driveway to pick her up.

Lucy hadn’t dressed up for Gabby; instead she was in her
favorite color—black. Her long dark hair fell straight down her back, and she
was wearing a pair of tight black jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt.

She couldn’t really remember when she had started wearing
mostly black, but it had been sometime during the beginning of her senior year.
The color seemed to suit her—she had always favored darker colors, and somehow
she just gravitated to black. It made sense, and it seemed to fit; half the
time she was moody or pissed off and black just felt right.

She saw Gabby’s car pull into the driveway and she ran out
to meet her.

“Hey,” she said, sliding into the passenger side and
dropping her load of books down on the floor.

“Damn!” Gabby exclaimed at the books’ thud.

“I told you I had a lot of work.”

Gabby eyed her suspiciously. “Have you been keeping up?”

Lucy huffed. “What kind of idiot do you think I am? I may
not like it, but I’m doing it.” She was slacking just a bit, and she was a
little worried about her mid-term grades, but she still had the rest of the
semester to catch up.

Gabby pulled out of the back alleyway and began to head
toward her house.

“How is Mom?” she asked, trying to sound cool and detached;
it was a technique both sisters had picked up.

“Fine, I guess. The same. I had to buy groceries the other
day because she hadn’t.”

Gabby nodded, keeping her eyes on the road. “She hasn’t
bought groceries in years.”

“Yeah, well, she doesn’t mind eating the ones I buy!” Lucy
exclaimed, feeling a flare of anger when she thought about the bag of potato
chips that had been emptied while she had been in class yesterday morning.

Gabby nodded again. “Yep. She likes to snack when she
drinks.”

The rest of the ride was spent chatting about Gabby’s job,
which actually sounded pretty damn great. She managed the finances for the
state park, and not only that, but she was able to do it from home. Lucy didn’t
even realize that Gabby knew anything about finance.

“It’s actually really simple,” Gabby said, pulling into her
driveway. Lucy had only been to Zane’s house once, and it still looked as
impressive as she remembered. “All I do is input numbers correctly, and the
program does the rest for me.”

Lucy looked at her dubiously. It seemed unfair that she got
to do something so easy.

Who was she kidding? She was jealous. Gabby had this great
life now; a hunky boyfriend, a new job, a beautiful house. It made her head
spin just thinking about all the changes.

Lucy got out of the car slowly, looking up at the house.
This area was surrounded by trees and backed right up against the state park.
Even though Zane’s house was clearly only a few years old, it had been
constructed in such a way that it blended effortlessly with its surroundings.

She followed Gabby inside, and dropped her bag on the
kitchen table.

“Is Zane at work?”

“Yes.”

“So, what’s it like?” Lucy asked, sinking into a chair and
watching her sister move about her new home, reaching into the stainless steel
fridge and pulling out a pitcher of iced tea.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Gabby said carefully.

“Bullshit, Gabby. You can’t fool me. You freaking fell into
shit and came out with gold!”

Gabby’s eyes flashed. “Watch yourself, Luce! I’m not in the
mood!”

“What? What did I say?” she asked angrily. “Is no one going
to address the fact that you’ve been living an entirely different life for the
past four months?”

“I met someone!” she argued. “Are you going to hold that
against me? Are you going to begrudge me finding a person that I love? Finding
a better job? For moving out of my shithole apartment?”

Ugh. When she said it like that it made Lucy feel like a
first-class bitch.

“No,” Lucy said quietly. “I’m not holding it against you. I
just feel,” she paused, looking for the right word, “I just feel lost.
Everything is different now that I’m out of school.”

Gabby’s face softened, but she shook her head with disbelief.
“You hated high school. Do you not remember how you almost didn’t graduate? And
now you’re saying that you miss it?”

“I do
not
miss it,” Lucy clarified, “I’m just not
used to everything else. You know, I thought it would be easier afterward.”

Gabby laughed. “It’s not easier, trust me.”

“Certainly seems easier for you,” Lucy muttered.

Gabby sighed again. She bit her lip, and stared at Lucy.
When had Gabby started acting so reserved?

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Gabby said and Lucy felt
a knot in her stomach, though she didn’t know why. She sat up straight, feeling
her nerves get the better of her.

“Zane and I are getting married.” Gabby looked down at her
hands.

Wait.

What?

Lucy stared at Gabby, her jaw hanging open.

Married?

As in a white dress and calling someone her husband?

Part of her breathed a huge sigh of relief, but another part
of her filled with questions and honestly, jealousy.

“But—but—you guys just met each other,” Lucy stuttered.

Gabby gave her a small smile. “It’s been five months. It is
a bit fast, but it’s not unheard of.” She paused. “And it’s right for us.”

Lucy knew the correct response was to congratulate her
sister. And she
was
happy for her. “Wow. Wow! That’s—that’s great news!”
She hopped out of her chair and went around the couch to hug her sister.

Lucy had always figured this day would come. Someday Gabby
wouldn’t belong entirely to her; she would be someone else’s family. Lucy had
always known this, but it still didn’t stop the deep pang that cut through her
heart.

So she did what she always did, and pushed those feelings
deep down inside. She didn’t want to feel those things, didn’t want to feel
anything that made her weak or soft.

Gabby pulled back to look at Lucy. “I want you to be my
maid-of-honor, of course! I mean, it won’t be anything big, but I still want
you to be by my side.”

Lucy felt herself swell with happiness. “Really?”

“Of course!”

“I’d be honored, Gabby.”

“We haven’t set a date yet, but we’ll probably do it soon.
We’re going to have it here in the backyard—there’s plenty of space. And
really, I don’t have many people to invite.”

“Well, whatever I can do to help,” Lucy said, though she and
Gabby both knew she was terrible at helping to plan anything.

“Of course,” Gabby said graciously.

Lucy looked around her sister’s new home, around her new
life, and felt more out of place than ever.

Stone sank back into the deep chair in Jeremy’s office,
warily eyeing the alpha of the clan. Jeremy was a good ten years older than
Stone, and except for Stone’s older brother, Torn, being one of Jeremy’s
friends, he didn’t usually have much contact with him.

“Thank you for coming,” Jeremy said stiffly, sitting down
across the desk.

Stone nodded, looking around the worn room. Jeremy lived in
one of the older houses on the clan lands, and Stone was trying to figure out
how old it actually was.

“Do you know why I asked you to come over?” Jeremy asked.

“I have no clue.” And honestly, Stone didn’t want to be
here. He had better things to do.

“You remember what happened last spring?” Jeremy asked.

Stone frowned. “The bear girl?”

Jeremy rolled his eyes. “Yes. She was the daughter of the
last bear king. Who happened to have been the leader of
this
tribe
before he was killed.”

Stone remembered the plotting and planning to bring the
young woman into the tribe. Capture was a better word. But he hadn’t spent much
time listening to her backstory.

“But we failed,” Stone said, waving his hand dismissively.

Jeremy narrowed his eyes; obviously he wasn’t happy about
it.

“Yes, we failed,” he said through gritted teeth. “We came so
close, only to have the damn Virtus steal her right from under our snouts. She
belonged to us!” His voice rose on the last word, and Stone watched him
carefully.

“But we have other women,” Stone said slowly. He should have
paid more attention to the tribe matters back in the spring.

“Yes, but her blood was far more powerful. She would have
produced cubs for us. We could have increased our numbers greatly.”

Right. Everything was always about multiplying.

More cubs meant more bears.

More bears meant more power.

Especially when so many of the tribe were marrying humans,
which gave them only a very small chance of producing a full-blown cubs.

“Right. Powerful blood. She settled with the other tribe.
Traitor. I still don’t see where I come in.” He didn’t add that the attempt to
bring her to the tribe was downright violent.

Jeremy nodded. “The princess has a sister.”

Stone remained still, carefully watching Jeremy. He really
had no idea where this was going, but it had certainly gotten more interesting.

“Okay,” he said slowly, “definitely interesting, but I’m not
sure how it affects me or our tribe.”

“Many don’t believe that her blood holds any power, in fact
she’s been completely neglected. But I, on the other hand, don’t want to
believe that until we know for sure.”

Stone sat up in the chair. “What, exactly, are you asking me
to do?”

Jeremy’s brown eyes widened with excitement. “I want you to
befriend the sister. Clearly our tactics in the spring didn’t work, and I don’t
want to lose any more of our clan through fighting. I’ve been learning about
the girl, Lucy. She attends the community college in Salem. I want you to sign
up for the same classes, become friends with her, flirt with her, whatever it
is that you need to do to get her to trust you.”

“That’s bullshit,” Stone scoffed. “She’s never going to just
warm up to some stranger.”

Jeremy smiled. “Plenty of other females in this tribe find
you attractive. Why not her? Besides, in the short time that I’ve studied her
she seems somewhat reckless. Just the right type of personality to trust a
stranger.”

Stone pursed his lips, rubbing at his three-day stubble. “I
don’t know.”

“Maybe I should rephrase it;” Jeremy explained, “this is not
a choice. This is an order.”

Stone felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up; he
didn’t like being given orders.

“You owe me,” Jeremy said in a low voice.

Fuck. He did owe Jeremy.

A year ago Jeremy had caught Stone in bed with one of the
leader’s mates. It had not been his proudest moment. Jeremy had ordered the
woman home and had promised he would not tell her husband. But Stone had known
that he was in Jeremy’s debt. Had the woman’s husband found out, Stone was a
dead bear.

Damn him and his dick! If he had just kept it in his pants,
he wouldn’t be in this predicament.

Most of the time he made fairly good choices, but whenever
it came to sex, he failed miserably. Stone would have thought that by
twenty-four years of age he would have learned how to control his damn urges.
It hadn’t helped that the woman had been coming on to him.

“Fine,” he spat. “Tell me what to do.”

“Don’t get angry at me,” Jeremy said, “you made your
choices.”

Sometimes he was such an ass.

Jeremy pulled out a small manila file. “Here’s the little
bit of info I have on her,” he said as he slid the folder across the table.

Stone ran a hand through his dark hair and opened the file.

Damn.

There was a photo of Lucy; he hadn’t expected her to be so
sexy.

It was a photo taken of her crossing a walkway on campus,
and her dark hair fell down around her shoulders. She was wearing a short black
dress over black tights and a pairs of black heels.

She looked like a handful.

He flipped through the few pages and found her home address,
her school schedule and a menu from the diner where she worked, as well as a
schedule scribbled on the front.

“She seems to work the same schedule at the diner,” Jeremy
explained.

Stone closed the file and nodded. “Thanks.”

This was definitely more appealing now that he knew Lucy was
sexy, but he still didn’t think it was going to be easy.

“So, can I ask what happens when I get her to trust me?”

“You lure her here. Once she’s here, we can decide how we
want to handle things.”

Stone narrowed his eyes. He knew their tribe, the Cruentus,
was not the kindest clan. He didn’t see how anything good could come from Lucy
being hurt.