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Chapter One
Marney
Every time I closed my eyes I saw the scene. Me waiting in the bride’s ready room, after all the days of preparation, weeks of planning. My hair in that hideous style, the dress and veil as fluffy as marshmallow instead of the sleek one I’d wanted. But when you love someone, you want to look your very best on your wedding day. And, to me, that meant the way he’d like me best. I let my mother-in-law-to-be send in her esthetician, even, although I rarely wore much makeup, and the petite woman with the clearly fake French accent had applied the stuff with a trowel. She’d extended my lashes, applied brows so heavy I felt like a neanderthal, and otherwise left me completely unrecognizable in the mirror. But it was only for one day, right? And for the pictures.
Marrying into this family was a privilege, I’d been informed, and the modest wedding I’d wanted with a little party at home afterward was completely out of the question. If I’d known Claude was so wealthy, and, worse, from old money with high expectations, I’d have never gone out with him. Evil mama might think I was after their assets, but she couldn’t be more wrong. His pedigree was a check in the no column.
But he had so many in the yes column. A great sense of humor. He could hold up his end of the conversation on almost any topic, and concede a point with a smile. And while looks weren’t my first criteria, I couldn’t hate it when my friends made envious comments about my great catch.
All of which must have made me miss something about him because the time when I should have been walking down the aisle had come and gone, and I was all alone in the ready room waiting for my cue.
Creeping out to the back of the church, I found my bridesmaids looking up at the front to where my fiancé should have been waiting for me. No ushers were there at all, and a buzz of conversation alerted me to a problem. “What’s going on?” I asked, and my tulle-clad bridesmaids all turned such looks of pity on me, my heart sank into my toes. “He’s late?”
My maid of honor, the groom’s first cousin Genia, who I’d only met two weeks ago, shook her head slowly. “They’re about to make an announcement.” She faced forward again, giving me no more information, although the smirk visible in profile gave me a hint.
The officiant appeared from a side door and moved to the center of the altar area. “Thank you for coming, but the bride and groom have decided not to get married today. We apologize for the inconvenience and wish you a nice afternoon.”
I couldn’t breathe as people began to file past me. The bride and groom have decided not to get married today. No, I had not decided that. What was going on? Where was Claude?
“Don’t make a scene, dear,” Genia hissed, taking my hand and smiling at the people walking by.
“But I didn’t decide,” I wailed, far less afraid of making a scene than Claude’s family would approve of. In fact, if they’d talked him out of marrying me or even talking to me about it, I knew he would’ve told me. I saw his family and friends on their phones gossiping with anyone who was not here, to make sure everyone knew. Clinging to the shadows, I still stuck out; so finally, I ran out the door to the limo, and opened the door for myself, hopped in the back, and told the driver to take me to a bar where nobody could find me. It wasn’t until he let me out and I stood on the street that I realized I was still wearing a wedding dress. There were sure to be questions. But no tears.
Chapter Two
Nacho
“We already have six cords of wood, Ig,” Riggs said, stepping out in a pair of shorts. He had a soup ladle in his hand.
I picked up another chunk of wood and placed it on the stump where we split firewood. Slamming the ax into the round of oak, I smelled the carrots, onions, and elk simmering on the stove from out here. Riggs always kept a pot of soup on the stove once the snow stuck to the ground. It was his thing. “Not cutting it for the warmth,” I murmured, knowing he could hear me, even if I whispered.
“Yeah. Wanna go for a run?” he asked. “I can put off some things. Work later.”
It wasn’t like I couldn’t go for a run alone, but Riggs was my best friend. We usually ran together. “Nah, it’s okay. I’ll just finish this pile and be done.”
“Okay.” He went back inside, and I blew out a long breath and took off my shirt. The sweat on my shirt from exertion was turning to ice despite my hotter temperature. I inhaled deeply, taking in the smells around us. We were so far out in the forest the only other animals we saw were the random deer mama or the eagle perched in the tree above our home—the tallest tree in the area. She made her nest there and in the spring, we could see her and her mate raising their young.
Winter was well on its way. My bear was elated to be in the snow and running through the woods with the cold burning the inside of his nose and his heavy paws making tracks wherever we went.
The winter for my human side was a reminder of how alone I was, physically and mentally. Yeah, I lived here with my best friend, but my bear and I craved more. So did Riggs. We knew from the time we were teenagers that we would share a mate. Our bears knew it. We knew it. Wasn’t even a question. We’d tried to date in college but every time we did, the girl wanted one of us or the other, but never both. Some simply were turned off by the idea of being shared.
Our bears knew there was one female out there who wanted us both, but, with the way we lived, out here, among no one but the stars, finding a girl, a specific kind of girl, wasn’t a small task.
There was a bar about a half hour away from the cabin, but the only people in that place were the couple who owned it and some old-timers who had lived here all their lives. It was a local spot. You didn’t go in there to meet anyone new; you went in there to get a tepid beer and listen to talk about the incoming snowstorms and how things had changed since they were kids.
We went to the city once a month to go to Costco, but it wasn’t the place to meet a woman.
We were screwed, and certainly not the way we wanted to be.
With enough wood split and piled for more than three winters, I made my way inside. The smell of the soup or stew that Riggs was cooking made my mouth water. While we didn’t hibernate like non-shifter bears, we packed on a bit extra fluff before the below-zero temperatures hit us.
“Want me to make bread? Or do we still have some?” I asked Riggs who was nursing what smelled like a vanilla cappuccino, homemade, of course.
“I ate the last two slices this morning for breakfast. You mind making another loaf?”
I shook my head. “Wouldn’t have offered if I did. Plus, it gives me something else to do. I’m between books—waiting for edits on the latest one. I hate waiting on edits.”
I got out the bread flour, yeast, and all the other ingredients and made two loaves of bread. Our animals had a preference for whole food. In college, I’d tried to live off the typical ramen and whatever-I-could-grab junk food, but my bear was sick of me before the first semester was over.
