One in a Bear-llion (Polar Heat Book 3) (7 page)

He didn’t know what part of him had insisted on bringing her out there and ravishing her in the gardens. It had been beautiful, though, a moment he doubted anything in his life could top.

An image of her, round with his cub, popped into his mind, proving him wrong. Yes, that would be amazing.

But he felt something twisting inside him, locking away the warm feelings that had threatened to surge forward. He knew exactly why they were there. Exactly who was to blame. He stood up abruptly from his desk, his heart pounding in his ears, and stormed to the elevator.

I
t was
time to talk to his dad about something that had been a long time coming.

S
am Weston had had
an interesting couple of days. Since his sons had been busy with the potential mates he’d brought onto the island, he’d had much less to do. He’d looked into some new investments, checked into the day-to-day of the hotel that Scott usually took care of, and then had a lot of time to himself.

To think.

None of his sons had had an easy time finding a mate. Most shifters were focused on it, but all of his had avoided it, probably due to baggage he’d caused for them. It was why he’d brought mates out, because he knew that it was partly his fault and so he should be part of the solution. He knew his disastrous mating had affected them all. Probably Sky the least, because he was the youngest when it happened. But definitely Sebastien, and probably worst of all, Scott, who was the oldest and had to take the most responsibility when things went south.

Sam hated himself for being weak in those days. And for lying to his boys. He’d been so blind with grief he’d barely been able to see, let alone think.

All he could think about was getting as far away as possible from where it all had happened.

And when you mess up your kids’ childhood, it’s not like you can go back and fix it with an apology. You can’t go back and let them be kids again, let them deal with it.

You just have to wait until they confront you with it and be ready with the best answer you have.

So Sam wasn’t surprised when the first to come see him was Scott. He knew it was his son by his scent, and by the harshness of the knock on the door. Scott was the son who had pushed things the deepest beneath the surface. He’d been the perfect son, made the business and their investments flourish. Thrown himself into his work, and before that, thrown himself into taking care of his brothers when Sam was unable to.

He opened the door, taking a deep breath to brace himself against the anger that was coming. But Scott looked deadly calm as usual as he pushed past his dad to enter the room.

“We need to talk,” Scott said, whirling on him the second Sam shut the door.

It was painful to see fury burning in his son’s eyes. Scott was the closest copy of him, with his build and his short hair, and it was like looking into a mirror at himself years ago, back when everything in his life had been perfect, and then irrevocably wrong.

“Don’t do that,” Scott said. “Don’t shut down on me. You don’t get to be the one who shuts down this time.”

“I’m not,” Sam said, standing straighter. “I’m here to hear whatever it is you need to say. And maybe tell you something as well.”

Scott stepped forward and jabbed a finger into his chest, hard enough to hurt. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, fucking us all up so bad that we don’t want to find mates, and then bringing women out here for us to fall for. What the fuck were you thinking? That you could just fix it all, just like that?”

“Scott, calm down,” Sam said, alarm rising in him. “What’s wrong?”

Scott pushed him away, and Sam could feel that his animal was close to the surface, snarling. In a way, it was good. Scott had been pent up for too long, hadn’t said anything that needed to be said. He should have been the one to bring it up, but he’d been a coward.

“What do you think is wrong? I had to grow up watching you crying and not handling your shit. I had to take care of Seb and Sky. I had to take care of everything so that we could survive. All you could handle was work. And you know? When we went to work, that seemed to be the only time you kept it together.”

“We needed it,” Sam said dully.

“Right,” Scott said. “And now I’m stunted. Now work is the only thing I can do. Everything else feels like a scary mess.” Scott sat in a chair with his head in his hands. It was physically painful for Sam to watch his son like this, but he knew he couldn’t fix it, he could only listen.

“You were a complete mess. Do you know what that feels like? When the person you should be depending on is just falling apart? I know mom is somewhat to blame, but—”

“She isn’t,” Sam said quietly.

“Stop it,” Scott said. “Stop acting like she’s innocent. She left us. She ruined your life.”

“Scott, my life isn’t ruined.” He sat in a chair across from his son, hoping the other didn’t erupt. His son was a good man. He knew that at least. “I have you boys.”

Scott looked up with grief-stricken eyes. “And what did we have? A roof over our heads? That isn’t enough. We were grieving too. But there wasn’t any room. Sure, Seb could cry. Sky would ask where Mom went. Where were you? Hiding in your room. And when we came to find you, the noises we heard…”

Sam blanched. “You heard.”

“Screams. Horrible, tearing noises.”

“I tried not to share that with you,” Sam said. “I was in so much pain it was incomprehensible, but I tried to shoulder it myself. The problem is sometimes grief is so huge that it leaks, flowing over everything. I tried to hold it all but I couldn’t.”

“I’m mated,” Scott choked out. “I’m doomed. Like you.” He covered his face with his huge hands. “She doesn’t want me.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“She doesn’t want me as I am now. Since I can’t offer her everything.”

“What can’t you offer?” Sam asked.

“What do you think?” Scott asked. “I don’t want your life.”

“Ah,” Sam said. “So you think you’ll get left and end up like me.”

Scott nodded.

“A successful businessman with three beautiful sons who make my life better everyday.”

Scott’s eyes widened.

“And one particularly beautiful son who has been carrying more than anyone knew.” He reached for his son but Scott shrugged away. “I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t want to be weak like you. I don’t want to love.”

Sam went quiet. “You think love is what hurt me?”

Scott nodded. “Those noises.”

Sam leaned forward. “You must have been a good kid, to be so bothered by it. But it’s not what you think.”

Scott froze and looked up at him. “Then what was it? If you have an answer for me please for pity’s sake tell me. Because I’m about to lose someone who’s everything to me if I can’t figure it out.”

Sam frowned. “I don’t know. It might take time to undo the damage. You were never able to be a kid, when you should have been. All I can say is I’m sorry, and that if I could go and do it all again, I would fall in love with your mother.”

“Could you even help it?” Scott asked. “When I was with Mara…”

His father shook his head. “She made me happy.”

“Until she made you miserable and ruined our lives.”

“She gave you life,” Sam said. “That’s all you need to know. Not all shifters stay together. Some are more wild at heart. She promised to be my mate forever. But not all can keep that promise. When she disappeared, it tore me apart. But we hadn’t made promises. I had made assumptions. That she would want to stay with her sons. I hadn’t realized how wild the animal was inside her. I hadn’t realized it was torture to be tied down. She was my mate, and I loved her with my life, but she gave me far more than she took.”

“How can you say that?” Scott asked, torturing his hair. “When you know how much she messed us all up?”

“It’s your choice to be messed up or not,” Sam said. “It has tortured me for years as I’ve tried to find your mother. I don’t even know if she’s alive out there. But I knew there was a chance she could run when I met her. At the time it didn’t matter. She was it for me. But no one gets promised a certain amount of time with those they love. We just have to take what we have. You can say I made a mistake being with her, but you wouldn’t be alive to say that if I hadn’t.”

Scott was silent then, and Sam sat back with a heavy exhale of breath. What else was there to say?

“This girl, this woman you’ve mated, what’s she like?” he asked.

“She’s soft. Gentle. A talented artist. She’s in trouble,” Scott said. “It started because I wanted to protect her.”

“How does she feel about it?”

“I think she wants me. A part of me feels like she trapped me, but I know that’s not the case. I trapped myself.”

“Or was it just that your bear knew what was best for you and helped you achieve it before the stupid, broken human in you could take it away?”

Scott’s eyes widened and then narrowed. “Or maybe I just fucked up.”

“I’ve never known you to be careless, son. If anything, you’ve always had too much control. In fact, this week you’ve taken more time off work than you have in ten years. That says something.”

“Like what?”

“That you enjoy being with her. How did you end up mating her anyway?”

“I was trying to just take her to Cove House to help her let her bear out.”

“Ah, and then what?”

“One thing led to another,” he grated out.

“You mated her. Does that really sound like you? To be so careless? To me, the fact that you took her to Cove House tells me that deep down, somewhere you weren’t ready to acknowledge, you knew exactly what what was going to happen there. You wanted it to happen.”

S
cott froze
at his father’s words. Something about that rang true. Something about it also made him want to run.

Maybe he’d always been running. It’d just been easy to ignore it because he’d felt so productive, felt like he was doing something, even as he watched a normal life pass him by.

He eyed his father. He couldn’t really face the lie the man had been living with. Couldn’t address it right now, or maybe ever. He needed to focus on Mara, so he simply gave his father a nod and walked out.

A few moments later, he found himself on the beach, looking out at the ocean. He liked to walk along the shore at night, making sure guests were in and safe.

It was also his quiet time, his time to think.

Right now, all he could think about was the feel of Mara’s luscious, soft body in his arms. How fun it had been to play with her bear. How right it had been for them to be together.

Maybe his father was right.

But maybe his past was still going to hold him up if he tried to be with Mara. He realized now how locked up inside he was. How tightly he’d had to suppress all his emotions just to keep his family alive. But the question was how to let it all out now, when Mara needed him to.

He wasn’t a monster. He felt he could make a good mate. He had a beautiful home, and he could already imagine raising cubs with her there. They could travel wherever she wanted to paint.

As he thought about it, he found himself walking in the direction of her suite.

When he saw her step out with a taller, curvy woman, both of them smiling and talking, his stomach dropped to the soles of his shoes.

She was beautiful, wearing a silky, colorful wrap over a swimsuit, curvy legs revealed and glowing in the late sun. She was setting a painting on an easel and smiling with pleasure.

The sight shook him to his core. This was happiness. This was what he wanted. But it was like looking at a buffet, not being able to reach it because it was behind a glass wall.

But he wanted so badly to smash through and be with her fully. He just didn’t know how.

The women turned to look in his direction, and Mara’s eyes met his, hesitant and curious.

The pity in the other woman’s eyes told him he must look as desperate as he felt.

“Can I talk to you? There’s something you don’t understand,” he said, wanting to talk to her away from anyone else. It would be hard enough to say only to her, let alone to anyone else.

Mara exchanged a few words with her friend and then turned to him with a shrug. “Sure.”

His heart beat double time as she walked out to meet him. Damn, she was amazing.

He resisted the urge to put an arm around her as they walked to the ocean’s edge. It was getting cooler and he found himself needing to get closer to her warmth. But he had no right to, not yet.

“So you’re painting again?” he asked.

She nodded. He could almost feel the joy radiating from her, and it made him happy, despite everything else that was going on at the moment.

He turned her to him, rubbing her shoulders lightly. “Can I have one of the paintings?”

She blinked. “Oh, right, to lure him in.”

He nodded.

“I was thinking. Do we really have to bring him out to this island?” She hunched slightly, not meeting his gaze. “I’m just enjoying being able to paint again, and I don’t want to think about him being close.”

He put a gentle finger under her chin, forcing her to look up at him. “Mara, I’m not going to let him hurt you.”

She held his gaze for a moment and then turned away, breaking the contact. She brushed off his hand and began to walk in the surf again, letting it just brush over her feet as she went. “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?” she asked. “Just your next plan of action for catching him?”

“No,” he said. “Though it did come to mind when I saw the painting.”

“I really don’t think he’ll be a problem until I go back to New York.”

His heart thumped. She couldn’t go. “Mara, I’m sorry for what I said the other night. I was overwhelmed.”

She turned on him, eyes flashing. She was so much smaller than him, but damn could she be intimidating when she wanted to. “And you think I wasn’t?” She put a hand to her chest. “This is complicated for me, too. And you know what? I talked to my mom, and this thing between us… it’s permanent. But I have no idea what you want from me. You say you want to take responsibility, but what does that even mean? You say you can’t love me, so do you want me to just go back home?”

She shook her head and looked down, and when she looked back up, she was calm again. “But the thing is something about what we did opened up something inside me. I can paint again. I can’t say how happy I am that it’s finally possible.”

He nodded, throat tight.
Speak up, stupid. Tell her you don’t want her to leave.
But the words wouldn’t come.

Love me
, she was saying. He couldn’t.

“I want to make you safe,” he said. “It’s the least I can do.”

She frowned. “Safe? What, so I can walk away from you without you feeling worry or guilt? Is that enough?”