Bearly In Time
Authors: Kim Fox
Tags: #PNR, #Paranormal Romance, #Shifters, #bear, #Werebears, #shapeshifters, #alpha, #romance, #romantic, #hea, #kim fox
BEARLY
In Time
Connor & Rebecca
By KIM FOX
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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Contains explicit love scenes and adult language.
18+
Copyright © 2015 by Kim Fox
Other titles in the Werebears of New Hampshire series:
Book One
Book Two
Book Three
Book Four (Last Book)
one
Five days before the wedding…
Rebecca gave a bitter smile as Linda, the baker, placed the sample wedding cake in front of her. It was three layers high, each level lined with sugary, pink flowers. Their initials would be on top, an R and an M, in sparkly, silver letters. It was even better than she had pictured it.
So why did it feel all wrong?
“This one is for a wedding this week,” Linda said, wiping her hands on her icing-stained apron. “I can make it with vanilla or chocolate. Or a mix of the two.”
Rebecca stared at the cake with blank eyes. The smell in the tiny bakery was making her nauseous. She glanced over at Mark. His soft body was turned away from her, his eyes on his phone.
“What do you think of this one?” Rebecca asked the black and gray hair on the back of his head.
“How much is it?” Mark asked without taking his eyes off his phone screen.
“This one is five hundred dollars,” Linda said.
“For a cake?” he asked. He swatted his hand in the air like Linda was an annoying fly. “No.”
“Look how pretty it is,” Rebecca said. “And that’s a really good price.”
Linda gave her a tight smile before glancing over her shoulder and looking up at the ceiling.
“Do we really need a cake?” Mark whined, finally taking his eyes off of his phone. He looked at her with narrow eyes.
Rebecca hated when he acted like this. Like she was the enemy. They were shopping for their wedding cake. This was supposed to be fun. She pictured sitting here with Connor. He would’ve fed her the cake and laughed as he touched her nose with an icing-filled finger.
Stop it. That guy doesn’t exist. It was all an act.
“I’ll let you two discuss it,” Linda said, picking up the cake and walking back to the counter. She was shaking her head.
“Thank you Linda,” Rebecca called out.
“If I’m going to spend five hundred dollars on something I expect to get my dick sucked,” he said, snorting a skin crawling laugh.
“I don’t like it when you joke like that,” Rebecca said. Mostly because she couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.
He rolled his eyes. “I’ll make a deal with you,” he said. “You can spend a hundred dollars on a cake if I can go see Jeff at the pub.”
“Now?” she asked, her shoulders slumping. “I thought this was something that we could do together.”
“It’s just cake shopping,” he said. “We’ll have time to do all kinds of boring shit like this when we’re married. Jeff is only in town for two weeks babe.”
Rebecca sighed, her stomach in a knot. “Fine,” she said, looking at the worn-out table in front of her.
“Thanks babe,” Mark said, kissing her cheek. She winced as his rough lips hit her. “One hundred dollars max.”
She wondered how much he was going to spend at the pub.
Linda came back once Mark was out the door. “So? What do you think?”
“It’s beautiful,” Rebecca said, feeling tired with a sudden lack of energy. “It’s just out of our price range.”
“I understand,” Linda said with a smile. She glanced at Mark’s empty seat and sneered. “I hope you two are very happy together.”
Rebecca felt a pang in her stomach as a feeling of dread washed over her.
Me too
.
Rebecca walked along the streets of Manhattan with the foggy, dark sky reflecting her mood perfectly. She turned into a park and sat on a bench, watching the New Yorkers and tourists enjoying the city. She felt like she didn’t belong among all of the smiling faces.
She sat quietly, her hands folded in her lap, as he came back to her. He always did, no matter how many times she tried to push him away. His hard body. The way that his dimples made his gorgeous face light up when he flashed her a warm smile. The easy way that he made her laugh.
Rebecca sighed.
It was all an act. It was a one night thing to him. She was just another notch on his bedpost. She had been foolish to think that he had felt the same way. That he had wanted something monogamous.
She had went back the next weekend and saw his true nature. She saw how he really felt about a relationship. And she had been devastated.
And Mark used that to worm his way back into her life.
Mark had convinced her to go along with the wedding. It was the logical thing to do. They had an apartment, they shared a car, a cat. Their whole life was already set up. They even had all of the deposits paid for the wedding.
He had an affair and now she had had one too, although Mark would never know that. They were even. They could start fresh.
It had been easy to slink back into her old life and pretend that Mark’s infidelity had never happened or was just a one time thing.
The only hard part was trying to forget Connor. No not Connor. The idea of Connor. The Connor that she fell in love with didn’t really exist. He was playing her. Like he probably did to countless other women.
Rebecca glanced up at the dark clouds smothering the bright sky.
She had made a very important life decision when she was heartbroken and upset. And now she was feeling like she was in too deep and unable to get out. The wedding was on Saturday, only five days away. Everything was set up and ready to go.
Five days.
To the biggest mistake of her life.
two
Two months ago…
Rebecca cranked up the radio and smiled as she saw the sign announcing her entrance into the state of New Hampshire. Her anxious foot pressed down on the gas pedal as she sang along with Beyoncé, flying around the curvy mountain roads.
The past week had been torturous with all of the waiting. Every minute was spent thinking of Connor and planning for this weekend. She had organized her week with military-like precision. Manicure and pedicure on Monday. Bikini wax on Tuesday. Tanning bed on Wednesday. Clothes and new bikini shopping on Thursday. Hair on Friday. She would need to make more than the salary of a kindergarten teacher while dating this guy. Or she’d go bankrupt before he proposed.
Proposed? Maybe one day.
Rebecca had a strong feeling that one day he would. And that one day would be soon.
She smiled to herself as Beyoncé came through her shitty car speakers, telling all the single ladies to put their hands up.
Oh Beyoncé,
she giggled.
Get all of the single ladies fired up and then you go home to your husband.
Rebecca had packed a couple suitcases even though she was only staying for the weekend. She was hoping that Connor would ask her to stay for the summer. She was free until the school year started at the end of August and she had big plans on how to spend it: curled up in the muscular arms of a sexy bear shifter.
She had no more attachments back home. Hell there wasn’t even a back home. Mark had kept their apartment and cat, Lucky, and Rebecca was currently living in her childhood room back at her parent’s, cramped townhouse. She was excited to escape her nosy mother who couldn’t quite seem to understand why the wedding was called off.
Rebecca grabbed a piece of licorice, her kryptonite, and then threw the bag into the back seat where it would be out of reach.
You’re going to be spending the rest of the summer by the river in a bikini,
she thought as she munched on the candy,
you don’t need to gain any more weight.
Rebecca drove the next hour with her fingers clutching the steering wheel, her knuckles white with anticipation. She couldn’t wait to see Connor. He thought that she was only coming tomorrow but she left a day early to surprise him. In the past hour she had managed to go through her TLC, No Doubt and Cranberries CDs (she had always been a sucker for 90s music) and eat half of the bag of licorice that she stretched and contorted backwards to reach like a yoga master.
The sunny afternoon was near its end but she would still have time for a quick dip in the river and maybe still have a bit of time to tan before the sun packed it up for the night.
The hand painted Brooke Excursions sign finally came into view on the side of the road. Rebecca’s pulse raced faster than her crappy car. She was almost there. She pulled over on the shoulder, her tires sinking in the soft dirt. She didn’t want her car to announce her arrival. She wanted to see Connor’s excited expression when he saw her.
I’ll walk up and surprise him.
She shut the door quietly, checked her reflection one last time in the side mirror, fixed her brown hair and headed down the dirt road that led to Connor’s kayaking business.
Her heart thumped as she quickened her walk. She turned around the bend and the guesthouse came into view. She turned her head away and winced when she saw him. She closed her eyes tight, feeling like she was going to throw up.
You’re such an idiot!
Connor was sitting on the porch swing with another girl. He was touching her, stroking her hair and whispering softly to her.