Her Bah Humbug Bear (A BBW Paranormal Holiday Romance) Read Free Page B

latest problem. He’d have a damn good reason for leaving Riverton and the dark haired woman who’d awakened his bear.
    He opened his front door, uncaring if Marcus followed him in or left. He’d prefer it if the man left. He needed to shift and run off some of the energy sizzling inside him. He decided he needed to take a trip to the city fast. Slake his thirst, get his animal back under control. If a shy, curvy librarian was all it took to arouse the bear to such heights, it was damn time to seek out female companionship.
    Hearing Marcus enter the house behind him, he headed to the kitchen. The quickest way to get rid of the male bear was to feed him. Marcus was older than dirt but still had yet to learn how to cook a decent meal. Dirk shed his coat and headed to the refrigerator. There he took out the pan of lasagna he had made last night. He also took out the makings of a salad and the last loaf of homemade bread. Looked like another trip to the bakery on his way home tomorrow.
    There was just enough food for both bears—if they had second helpings of salad and ate the whole loaf of bread. He couldn’t begrudge the other man any of the food. He’d given Dirk more than a full belly and roof over his head. He’d given him a reason to live again.
    And our mate.
    He cursed at his bear. Yeah, if Dirk acknowledged the pull, then, yes, inadvertently, Marcus had made it possible for Dirk to meet Mercy. That wasn’t to say it wouldn’t have happened someday. His bear snorted. Dirk’s trips to town had been few and far between before Marcus had opened the Christmas tree lot for the season. Dirk had come very close to going rogue. He’d lived alone so long that he’d forgotten how to be around humans. A very dangerous thing for a shifter, especially a bear shifter.
    As he started chopping the vegetables, he thought of the meal Mercy had offered him. The stew she’d cooked had smelled wonderful. He’d noticed the tantalizing scent when he’d first stepped into her house. Would she like his lasagna? He was a fair cook, having helped in the kitchen since he was a small cub. His parents had tried to prepare him for life.
    And he’d failed them. His hand tightened on the handle of the knife until it broke. The metal pierced his skin and he cursed. Throwing the remnants into the garbage, he ran his hand under water, washing away the blood.
    Dirk grabbed a towel to wrap around his hand as Marcus came into the kitchen. The other bear had a surprisingly cheerful disposition given how old he was. Bears, and shifters in general, grew cranky as the years continued to stack up, one upon another. Especially those who had never found their mate. Dirk knew Marcus had seen some shit throughout his long life that would have put a lesser bear in the ground—or hiding in a cave. Like Dirk had.
    “You have to let it go, man.” Marcus stood at the doorway, his arms crossed across his chest, his stance wide. Dirk was a big man, but Marcus was massive.
    Unwrapping his hand, he saw the cut had already stopped bleeding, the skin knitting together.
    “My family is dead, how can I let it go.”
    “You didn’t kill them.”
    “I wasn’t there. I didn’t protect them.”
    Marcus let out a deep sigh and crossed the room to lay a comforting hand on Dirk’s shoulder. “You can’t protect someone twenty-four hours a day. I know, believe me.”
    While Marcus was always friendly, that friendliness only went so far, as was typical with almost any type of shifter. That was the first brief glimpse Dirk had seen of the bear’s personal past life. Strangely, Dirk felt a small amount of hurt disappear at the other bear’s statement. As if the burden, once shared, lessened it somehow. “I killed those wolves.”
    “It was an honorable kill. Justifiable. You gave those other families closure. Now take it for yourself.”
    The wolves who had killed Dirk’s parents and two younger siblings had terrorized the shifter community for six months