Can't Bear To Run (Kendal Creek Bears, #1) Read online

  “Oh shit,” I said, “I gotta get home.”

  “Why?” Karen asked, red-faced and obviously having a good time. “We should close this damn place down. It’s not like I have anything to do tomorrow and I haven’t seen my best friend in two years. Why the hell do you need to go home?”

  I clenched one of the napkins that had accumulated in front of me, in my fist. “I, uh... well Dan, he likes to see me at night.”

  She scrunched her face up, looking a little like a confused pug. “So? He’s a grown-up isn’t he? Can’t he deal with not having you around for a single night?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I was biting my lip.

  She looked at me with concern on her face, but was too nice to say anything and put it all out in the open. “All right,” she finally said. “Well, we can do this again later, yeah? Friday maybe? We can all get back together again since Matt’ll be home.”

  “Er, yeah,” I said, forcing a smile. “Yeah that sounds good.”

  Even as I was speaking, I knew it would never, ever happen.

  The entire ride home, vibrations were shooting through me. My heart felt numbed, my mind like a Jackson Pollock painting, just colors everywhere with no sense of what’s up or down. Dan was sitting on the porch when the cab pulled up.

  “Where the hell have you—oh, hey Karen!” Dan said, his voice switching from harsh to almost saccharine in its friendliness. I could sense the tension in the back of his throat that said I was going to get a hell of a lecture when she left.

  “Hi, Dan,” she said, her voice tight. “We had a good time – Matt and I miss you guys. You want to go back to Finnegan’s on Friday? He’ll be back from his trip to New York and we can all belt old shitty old songs like we used to.”

  “Oh, wow,” Dan said. “Yeah, yeah that sounds great!” He took my hand when I went to his side, and squeezed hard enough that I had to concentrate on not squealing. “For sure!”

  I looked at Karen with desperate pleas in my eyes, though I didn’t know what the point was. It wasn’t like she could shoot him and take me away, and hell, it’s not like I wanted that anyway. The shock to my system would make me shut right down.

  “Okay,” she finally said, smiling a little. “I’ll give you a call with details, take care of yourself, Raine.”

  She gave me one final look that told me she knew what I was saying with mine. I nodded. “Yeah, of course, I always do.”

  She trotted back to the cab, gave us a final wave, and shut the door.

  “Where the fuck did you go?” he asked.

  “She told you,” I pulled my arm away. “Finnegan’s. We drank some beer and sang some songs.”

  He was staring at me hard. Those pale blue eyes drilled holes in my brain. “Don’t you know how dangerous that is? Don’t you understand what could happen? You know how much crime there is in the city, what would I do if something happened to you?”

  I shrugged. “Nothing happened. Nothing even almost happened. There wasn’t the slightest hint of anything happening except us getting a buzz and singing.”

  Dan grabbed my hand again, and again I jerked it back. “Stop,” I said. “That hurts.”

  “Not as bad as you hurt me,” he sneered. “You betrayed me, abandoned me, you—”

  “Oh my God, Dan,” I said. “I went out with my friend for drinks. Are you really that much of a baby?”

  His eyes went dark. Uh oh. Make a note – calling him a baby is one step too far. Or about three, really.

  “What did you just say?” He grabbed my arm harder, twisting it behind my back and pushing me toward the door. “Ask me again.”

  “Nothing,” I said, biting my lip to kill the pain in my wrist. Once again, I thought about the dark-eyed stranger. I didn’t think he’d act like this if I went out with my buddy. I shook my head to banish that stupid fantasy. “I didn’t say anything, Dan, I’m sorry, I’m a little drunk. You said you were coming home late—ah!” He twisted harder.

  “Open the door,” he said, his mouth near my ear. “Open it.”

  I did as he said. “What are you doing? Why are you hurting me?” I asked, almost pleading. “Please! Stop!”

  “You didn’t ask if you could go. How do you know I didn’t want to?”

  “You said you weren’t coming home until late. You told me to go to bed and not wait up. Stop!”

  He eased up a little – not enough to stop the pain entirely, but enough that it wasn’t shooting through me. “You scared me, Raine. You made me worried that you were hurt.”

  There was no logic in the world that was going to stop him. Instead, I did what I always did when I made Dan angry. “I’m sorry, Daniel,” I said. “Please, please stop, I won’t do it again, I promise.”

  Dan grunted and then spun me around to face him. He had a terrible, grim look on his face. “I know you won’t,” he said. “We love each other. And people who love each other don’t want to make their spouses worry.”

  I nodded, tears running down my face that replaced the streams of karaoke sweat with a much more bitter taste. “Yeah,” I said. “I won’t, I promise. I just really wanted to see Karen and—”

  “Shut up,” he said, squeezing my shoulder. “We’re the only people we can count on. You know that. You know you can’t trust them. You can’t trust anyone but me.”

  “But why?” I demanded, wrenching my arm free from him. “Why can’t we go out with them? Why can’t we have fun with our friends?”

  His jet-black hair fell in a short cascade around his forehead, almost to his eyebrows. He was sweating too, but with the effort he used to restrain me. His face was flushed and he was breathing hard. “They aren’t your friends. They just want to take you away from me. You know that.”

  I shook my head, stepping back from him. “No I don’t. That’s what you say, but... wait, I thought you were angry that I went out because I could have gotten hurt.”

  “You betrayed me,” he said for the fourth time. “How can I trust someone who lies to me like that?”

  “Lie? When did I lie? She called me, then you called to say you were late. At what point did I lie to you?”

  He reached out a groping hand, trying to grab my arm, but I twisted away. I backed up again until I felt the soft pricks of wall texture scrape the bare skin at the top of my back. I couldn’t dodge anymore. The next time his hand shot out, he grabbed my wrist. “Come to bed,” he said. “I want to sleep and I need to know you’re there too.”

  “Can’t I get something to eat? Watch TV? Why do I have to—”

  He tightened his vice-like grip on my forearm. “You’re asking questions now? After what you did?”

  I lowered my head, staring at the tips of his dirty boots. “You tracked mud in the house,” I said. “I spent two hours this morning cleaning the rug and you got it all dirty again.”

  Dan laughed bitterly. “You gonna have something better to do tomorrow?”

  I bit my lip.

  “Didn’t think so. But now that we understand each other, and you’re going to apologize for doing what you did, I’ll let you come to bed with me.”

  I did, because... well, what the hell else was I going to do? He had his hooks in deep. As he turned, I yanked my arm back away from him, but instead of grabbing the heavy, bronze lamp that I bought from an antique store three years before, and cracking his skull open, I just followed him.

  Limply, numbly, I followed him back to the room.

  “Go brush your teeth,” he said. “And then come to bed.”

  By the time I’d rinsed and spat about eight mouthfuls of toothpaste, I went back to the room and heard Dan snoring.

  Well, I thought. At least I escaped THAT.

  Sometimes the world goes right. Sometimes it goes all wrong, and sometimes... well, sometimes you just have to be thankful for whatever small blessings come your way.

  I lay awake that night, staring at the ceiling and crying. By the time morning came around, I’d made up my mind. I was getting out of
this nightmare, and somehow, some way, I was going to find that guy that caught my imagination and never let go.

  I’m Raine Matthews, damn it, Raine Dodson is just a bad memory, I thought as he rolled out of bed and went to get dressed. No one’s ever going to push me around like that again.

  -3-

  Beared Up And Ready To Rumble

  “I’m done with this,” Daxon Mark, alpha bear of the Kendal Clan, announced as he stood from behind his desk, knocked his chair over backwards, and took a long pull on his coffee. There were a few grounds in the last swallow, but that wasn’t the bitterest thing he’d tasted that day.

  “I’m out. To hell with everything.”

  Fletcher White, his assistant and the sheriff’s department’s chief dispatcher, let out a long sigh. “We have to get a new sheriff, Dax,” she said. “You can’t just get pissed off every time things aren’t going your way and throw your hands in the air. Where would you go, anyway?”

  He shrugged. The huge muscles on either side of his neck rose to his ears. He sighed, too. “I don’t know. There’s a big concert in Denver. Some kind of festival thing. I could go hang out and drink for three days and come back with a horrible sunburn.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Is that, uh, really the best idea? Kendal Creek has no real law enforcement except for you beating up people when they get out of line, and Rollins as the acting sheriff. Also, don’t you remember the last time you took off? What was that, six years ago? You moped around town for three months pining for some girl you didn’t even talk to.”

  “Well he can handle it. He’s been around long enough.” Dax stopped for a moment, “And I told you, that Boston trip is off-limits to make fun of. I’ll find her again. No matter what.”

  “Yeah,” Fletcher said. “That’s the problem. Rollins has been eligible for retirement for about five years now. You really think he wants to be running around in the woods every time someone reports a fight or thinks they’ve spotted a poacher?” She carefully avoided any talk about the mystery woman. It was like she said though – Dax took another impromptu vacation to Boston six years before, and ended up falling in love with someone he never talked to. Bears tend to mate for life, sure, but such a fixation, Fletcher had never seen.

  “And anyway, beyond that we just worked out that truce with Jack Creighton and his slightly Deliverance-like clan.”

  “I know,” he said, rubbing his temples with an impatient hand. “I know all of that. I just need to get out of here for a while. I need to think.”

  Fletch pulled her horn-rimmed glasses off her nose, and stuck the left tortoise-shell earpiece in her mouth. She was irritated, Dax knew the signs. “Why don’t you take breaks when things are, you know, stable?”

  “What difference does it make?” he asked, sitting back down and exhaling loudly. “Where are we going to find a werebear cop? Hell, where are we even going to find more werebears who are willing to live all the way out here in the middle of nothing. The closest enclave is in Santa Fe, and I’m sure all the city slickers and weird ley-line worshipping hippies that live out there don’t want any part of a world without fast food vegan cuisine.”

  And I need to find her, Dax thought. She’s the one. I know it. I know it in my damn bones. Even if I don’t know her name. For a moment, he let his thoughts drift to her careless curls, her dark green eyes and the way her right cheek dimpled when she sang Michael Bolton songs. Somehow, her voice took him to a place he couldn’t explain; a place where he was calm. And Dax wasn’t one to ever be very calm.

  “Fair enough,” Fletch said. “But maybe it’s time we open up a little?”

  “Oh good, this again,” he said. “You know the rules. The Council won’t have any part of it. If I bring a human – or a bunch of them – here, they’ll be all over my nuts in a half-second. You’re talking about that girl again, aren’t you?”

  “Classy language. And yeah, of course I am.”

  “You’re the one who scratches herself when she thinks no one is looking,” Dax said with a grin. His silvery eyes twinkled with mischief, and his irises showed just a fleck of yellow. He was feeling feral.

  Fletch laughed, unashamed. “You gonna tell a bear not to scratch? Anyway, there’s more pressing things to deal with than your stress level. Go get a massage, eat a big hunk of pie down at Wilma’s, and come back refreshed. Sound good?”

  Dax shook his head. “Well yeah, of course it does. But that isn’t gonna solve anything. My heart’s a couple thousand miles away, and I know I can’t ever have her. Rules are rules.”

  “Assuming you could ever find her, I don’t see why you have to follow the rules. There have been humans before. Not many, yeah, but... I know I’m not supposed to talk about her, but I think she’d be good for you. Of course, I think you’re nuts to figure on finding her again.”

  As the two of them fell momentarily silent, the siren song of a 1980s vintage desk phone filled the air. It rang twice.

  “You gonna get that?” Dax said.

  Fletch shot him a nasty glance. She grabbed the receiver. “Kendal Creek town hall, how may I direct your call?”

  Her face grew taut. She pursed her thin, red lips, and crinkled her left eye. Whoever it was, she didn’t like the way they were talking to her. Dax couldn’t make out the voice, but he could tell that she wasn’t a happy camper.

  “Right, well, can I tell him who is calling, or are you just going to keep insulting me?”

  Dax couldn’t help but laugh. Just about the last thing in the world Fletcher was going to put up with was telephone rudeness. She didn’t like talking on them that much anyway – the irony of that wasn’t lost on Dax – but when people got snippy, she turned straight-up hostile.

  Fletcher was shaking her head.

  “You know what? Fine.”

  She handed the phone to Dax. “You deal with this prick. Won’t even tell me his name.”

  “Alpha Mark speaking, who’s this?”

  The voice on the other end was crackly, obviously old and obviously not having a very good day. “We have reports of your town not having police.”

  Dax took a deep breath. “Ah, Councilman Wyatt,” he said. “So nice to hear from you again. I was worried you’d fallen into a deep hole, broken a hip and gone septic.”

  Wyatt laughed, dry and sarcastically. “You’re as good a comedian as you are an efficient leader. Before you get any ideas, I mean you’re completely worthless in both ways.”

  “What do you want, Wyatt?” Dax hissed. He felt the blood in his forehead thump against his brain.

  “Such a snippy child you are,” he said. “Is that how you address your elders?”

  “It is when they’re presumptuous jerkoffs.”

  The old man laughed. “Your crass discourtesy doesn’t affect me, Daxon. And anyway, I’m trying to help you keep control of your city. The Council, you know, has an interest in keeping the peace.”

  “Is that so? Please, tell me how you’re going to help. Planning to try and kill me again?”

  “Oh no, not yet. In fact, I won’t be trying again. I’m too old to care much for power games. All I want now is to live out my days in relative peace. Since I’m the one in charge of the Rocky Mountain territory, I have to somehow keep you and your absurd little town from descending completely into madness.”

  “Are you from Victorian England?”

  “Cute, Daxon,” Wyatt said. “But I don’t have time for our normal verbal jousting. You’ll listen to my instructions and you won’t ask questions. There will be plenty of time for me to have my ears rung out by your ignorance when I arrive.”

  “Oh, good,” Dax said. “Haven’t you heard that it’s rude to show up without an invitation?”

  “Hmph,” the old man grunted. “You are a very difficult creature.”

  Dax let out a throaty sigh. “Just tell me whatever you have to tell me. I’d prefer not to spend any more time talking to you than I have to.”

  “Oh, believe me, the sentime
nt is shared. I’ve got some plans for the future of your territory. You can thank me later.”

  With a rattling cough, the old man dropped his receiver onto the cradle, and a whining tone reached Daxon’s ears.

  “What did he want?” Fletch asked. “I’m sure it wasn’t to ask you out on a date.”

  Dax chuffed a laugh. “Not exactly. Apparently he’s got some mysterious plans. With him, who knows?”

  “Oh, ain’t that just so nice of him? I’m sure this isn’t a power play or yet another of his plots to boot your ass out of town. Completely sure. Wyatt would never do something like that.”

  Dax took up one of the silver balls on his desk toy and sent it into clack-clacking motion. He shook his head, frowning so deeply that lines wrinkled his cheeks. He clenched his jaws and then snatched the balls in his hand, squeezing so hard his knuckles went white.

  “Whatever he’s planning, it’s going to be ugly,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Ugly enough to keep you from going to that concert?”

  “No,” Dax said, once again rising to his feet. “Ugly enough that now I know I’m going. I’m sure his stooge won’t show up for a while yet, and once he does, I’m absolutely certain I won’t be taking any vacations for a long, long time.”

  Fletch smiled sadly. “It’s good to be the alpha.”

  “Yeah,” Dax said. “It is. Sometimes. Get Jack Creighton on the phone. I need to make sure he knows the news, but I just can’t stand to smell him right now.”

  Fletch cocked a half grin. “I hear that. When are you leaving?”

  Dax shrugged. “Tonight, I guess. The whole shindig starts tomorrow, runs through Sunday.”

  “Are you sure you’re not too old for this? You did just say “shindig” after all.”

  “I’m spry and vigorous, I’ll have you know. My complete failure of a love life isn’t something you need to hang over my head.”

  Fletch picked up the phone, mindlessly dialing the numbers. “I’m not the one who brought that up, big guy,” she said. “Freud would have a field day with you. But for what it’s worth, I hope you find her.”