Liam's Bride: BBW Werebear Romance (Clan Conroy Brides Book 1) (15 page)

"He actually said that?" Tamar asked, aghast.

"He's an insensitive, Alpha pig jerk," Meredith said, pounding a fist on the bar. "I’m not one of his Bears! He treats me with an icicle chip on his shoulder all week, and then just arbitrarily picks my doctor and expects me to go along with it because he’s rich and has a dick and then tells me, tells me, he'll hunt me down! Like a- a caveman! Why are you grinning, it’s not funny!"

"It's kinda romantic, actually," Tamar said, leaning on the bar. She glanced at Alphonso, coming from the direction of the stockroom, sideways. "Shows he cares."

Meredith stared at her friend. "Are you out of your mind? It shows disrespect."

"What are you doing here?" Alphonso asked. He stopped next to Tamar, ignoring her as he addressed Meredith. "You’re pregnant. Get out."

Meredith gaped at him. "Has every Bear in this town lost their damn mind all of a sudden?"

"To many people in here smoke," he growled. "You don’t need to be breathing that shit in. Get out. Go somewhere... girly. And don't come back in here until after you drop the cub. No, until after you wean the cub."

"You can’t kick my best friend out," Tamar protested hotly.

He snorted. "My place. Just did."

Tamar whipped off her apron. "Then I quit."

Alphonso’s eyes narrowed, attention shifting from Meredith to Tamar. "You can't quit," he replied, flat. "You have a cub to feed. You're a responsible mother, aren’t you?"

Tamar's shoulders drooped a bit before her spine stiffened. "I’ll get a real job. Come on, Meredith. Let's go."

"Oh, well… maybe you should stay," Meredith stammered. "I mean, he's right- quit if you want, but not until you have another job lined up."

Tamar stood, apron dangling, glaring at them both. "Maybe I don’t want to work for someone else anymore. Maybe I want to actually use my fucking MBA and open my own business."

Alphonso crossed his arms. "That's what you want? Fine. You can manage my second location. And if you don't screw it up, we'll see about going halfsies."

"I- what? Halfsies? What?"

Meredith stifled a laugh, sliding off the stool, suddenly feeling much more cheerful. It was rare to see Tamar so... floored.

"Hey, I'll holla at you later, Tam. Looks like you got business to take care of."

She was pulling out of the gravel lot when Brick’s ringtone went off. She clicked her Bluetooth.

"Brick?"

"Meredith," the girl's half growl, half high pitched shaky sound of panic alerted her.

"Brick, what's wrong?"

"At the Y, hurry. Harvey's been stabbed."

"What?"

"Hurry hurry, damn."

Meredith clamped down on her spurt of panic, forcing herself to drive steady. It wouldn’t help if she got in an accident. "Brick, calm down."

"I’m calm." The girl’s razor sharp tone flayed Meredith.

"Are you safe?"

"For now."

"I need you to hang up and call 911. I’m on my way. Harvey is blood type A+, okay?"

"Alright. Hurry."

Meredith glanced both ways as she came up to the next stop sign, and floored it.

She beat the ambulance, probably because she was already on the way. Meredith screeched into the parking lot, engine jerking as she ripped out the key at the same time she put it in park. Cursing because she hadn’t bothered to ask Brick where she was, she looked around wildly, heart racing.

"Meredith, over here!" Bricks hoarse shout alerted her.

She ran to the garden, skidding to a stop behind the shed. "Go watch for the ambulance, I’ve got him," she said, forcing calm into her voice as she dropped to her knees.

Harvey was gray, lying in a pool of blood. Meredith saw, and approved, the strips of flannel wrapped around the site of the injury. Glancing at the teenager, she realized Brick was clad only in her usual cargoes and a thin tank, oversized flannel gone- used to make a field bandage. Sirens sounded in the background. She took her father’s hand as his eyes opened, dazed.

"Dad, the ambulance is here, it will be okay."

"Meredith," he whispered. "Baby girl. Sorry."

"Don’t talk, Dad. Brick, what happened?" she asked when the girl returned with paramedics who shooed the two women out of the way.

"It was Ron," Brick said, hoarse, wrapping slender arms around her middle.

"Ron?"

"My foster brother. He was aiming for me. Harvey stepped in the way."

"Oh my God," Meredith said, face white. The paramedics lifted Harvey onto a stretcher. "Can I ride with him? I’m his daughter. And my student as well, she's a witness to the attack."

One of them glanced at her, nodding. "The police will want to talk to both of you."

They walked briskly to the nearby ambulance, climbing into the back. The paramedics worked rapidly, voices a soothing monotone. They were doing everything they could do for him. He would make it.

At the hospital they wheeled Harvey straight into emergency surgery, leaving the two women behind in the waiting room. Meredith clutched Brick’s hand.

"He’ll be alright. We got here in time."

She kept saying it, hoping her words would make it true.

"Ma'am?"

Meredith glanced at the officer who approached her, controlling the instinctive shrink because he was a tall, blond male with wide shoulders. Military training from the cut of his hair and the way he held himself.

"Yes?"

"I have a few questions to ask you."

She nodded. "That's fine but my student Brick was the one who witnessed everything- I arrived after she called me."

He nodded, pulling out a pad. "Let’s start at the beginning."

Brick gave her report, telling of how her foster brother Ron had tracked her to the garden. They'd argued and he'd pulled a knife.

"What was the argument about?" the officer interrupted, looking skeptical.

Brick said nothing. The officer’s eyes narrowed. "Young lady, this is a very serious matter."

The girl muttered something, looking down. Meredith touched her shoulder.

"Brick, what is it?" she asked.

"No one will believe me."

"I believe you."

The teenager shrugged, jerky. "He's been trying to get me to sleep with him. Says since his parents feed me, I owe him. But he's this darling at school- good grades and popular. I’m just the troubled foster kid."

"I see," the officer said, expression grave. "Is this the first time he's approached you for sex?"

"No. I told him if he ever managed to rape me, he'd better make sure I was dead because I wouldn’t stop coming after him."

The girl continued her story, telling of how Ron cornered her, pulled a knife after a verbal altercation, how Brick had screamed for help. Harvey appeared out of nowhere and wrestled with the boy, who managed to stab him and then ran.

"Did he have the weapon when he ran?"

Brick's eyes narrowed. "No, man. I think- I almost think he dropped it. I glanced at him to make sure he was leaving while I was helping Harvey and I don’t remember seeing anything in his hands. He must have dropped it in the garden."

Meredith shook her head. Stupid. But she felt grimly satisfied. That knife would be the evidence they needed to put the boy away.

"Alright." The office pulled out his radio and called the squad car on the scene, relaying the data. Then the officer turned to Meredith, expression shifting slightly.

"You said your name is Meredith Tyler- you're Liam's woman, aren’t you?"

Meredith stared at him, taken aback. "Um... we're... dating."

"Does he know you're here?" The officer shook his head, seeing the expression on her face. She remembered Liam’s words about tracking her down.

"Yeah," the cop said. "I think you should call him, let him know. Might piss him off to hear about this from someone else, you know?"

"How do you know Liam?" she asked.

"How do you think?"

Meredith realized, then, that the officer must be a Bear, and a member of Liam's... Den.

"Thanks, Officer," she said. "I’ll call him." Only she didn’t.

CHAPTER

16

Fury threatened rational thought. She wasn’t here. He'd been so certain she would be waiting for him. Over the weeks together he'd become certain she must love him, must want a life with him. Meredith wasn’t a woman who indulged in casual affairs, formed commitments to people without coming to care for them. He’d held off biting her, making her his mate because he wanted her to have time. A Mating was permanent. Once he bit her, he could never let her go. So she had to be sure.

His first instinct was to track her down and shake her. The second instinct was to let her go- he couldn’t keep a woman who didn’t want to be kept. What shocked him the most was his sense of loss, almost... grief. He'd wanted her to stay with him of her own free will. Wanted a family with her. And she'd left him.

Liam realized he'd behaved badly that week. He'd been telling himself that he just needed a time to reconcile his past with his present, with his future. But now time was up. But damn her if she thought he was going to let her walk away because she couldn’t deal with him when he was feeling a bit growly. Liam pulled out his cell just as it rang, about the decline the call impatiently, then changed his mind.

"Conroy."

"Alpha? This is Officer Bret Anders."

"Bret?" Liam frowned. He knew Bret, though they'd never been more than acquaintances. He was a valuable member of the Den and one of Liam’s ears in the local police force. Bret was able to ensure incidences involving Bears were quietly referred to Liam and never reported. The Clans didn’t quite have legal sovereignty, but there was an unspoken understanding with local government agencies. As long as the Alpha’s did their jobs.

"Meredith is at the hospital."

His heart stopped, breath sucked from his chest. "What?
"
He was calm only because he didn’t have the power in his lungs to roar. Meredith. The cub.

"She's fine. She wasn’t the victim, just a witness."

"What the fuck is going on?" he growled, already striding out of the door.

"We only have a preliminary report, but it appears her father was nearly stabbed to death while defending a teenage girl from an assailant. One of the students."

"I’m on my way."

The doctor came out of surgery several hours later. Meredith was still up on fumes alone- and coffee, though she supposed she shouldn’t be guzzling it the way she was.

"He almost didn’t make it," the doctor said. "A few more minutes would have done him in. He lost a lot of blood, but we were able to repair the internal lacerations. I’d suggest you go home and get some rest, there isn’t anything else you can do. We'll call you when he wakes up."

Meredith shook her head. "I want to stay until he wakes up."

"Meredith."

Her head whipped around at the sound of Liam’s deep voice. She forgot her anger, her trepidation, and ran to him. His arms swept her into a tight hug, cradling her against his body.

"It’s alright, baby," he murmured. "This is my fault. I’m so sorry."

"How is it your fault?" she cried, looking up at him.

He grimaced. "Should have killed the punk when I started to."

"Liam- you can’t just-"

He shook his head. "I know, forget I said anything." But he glanced over her shoulder at the Bear Officer, who'd reappeared in the room.

Meredith realized who must have called her lover, but couldn’t feel resentment. She was too tired for resentment.

On the heels of that thought her knees began to tremble. "I think I need to sit down."

Liam lifted her, settling on a nearby bench with her in his lap. "Brick?" he called, voice deep with her ear against his chest. "Are you okay? Is there someone you need to call?"

"Who am I going to call?" the teenager asked flatly. "The social worker will probably put me in a group home until they place me again."

Liam was silent a moment. Meredith struggled to keep her eyes open. She was exhausted all of a sudden, the caffeine she'd been running on leaving her until there was nothing but mushy marrow in place of bones.

"I’ll talk to the social worker," she heard him say. "You'll come home with us."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You’ll have to earn your keep though- that my garden in the backyard is in a sad, sad state."

"No problem, I can do that."

Meredith smiled, hearing the deliberate nonchalance in her student’s voice. It exactly matched the nonchalance in Liam’s. They were both big teddy Bears, all bark and no bite. And on the heels of that thought she allowed her mind to drift and her body to go limp.

She woke briefly as he put her into the SUV, and again when he tucked her into bed. The next morning she didn’t wake up until well past the time of her first class. Recalled with a smile that in the past, whenever she read in a romance novel that the hero put the girl to bed without her waking up, it sounded silly. Glancing at her cell, she saw several missed calls and cursed, though halfheartedly, and only because Liam’s language was a bad influence. When she explained the events of the previous evening, her company would understand.

Meredith decided to shower and put on fresh clothing before going downstairs. Whatever issues she and Liam needed to deal with- she wanted to be clean. But when she emerged from the bathroom, soaped and lotioned, hair damp, he was sitting on the bed, waiting.

She stopped short, staring at him. "Are you mad?" she asked.

His brow rose. "Why would I be mad?"

"You said-"

Air blew out of flared nostrils. "I think, under the circumstances, Meredith," he said, voice hot and dry, "there isn’t much room for anger."

"Did the hospital call?"

"Yes. He woke up this morning. No, don’t go anywhere. He needs to rest. They said to come on by this evening, he should wake back up on his own then."

She nodded, hesitating. Liam sighed. "Come here, baby."

Meredith walked into the outstretched arms. He settled her on his lap, echoing the previous evening, lips brushing the top of her head

"I'm sorry, Meredith."

"What for?"

"I’ve been an ass." He paused. "What your Dad did for Brick- a girl he doesn’t even really know- he isn’t the same person."

"No, he's not." She'd seen that over the last few weeks.

"I can’t promise to be happy about it, but I can try to forgive him. A little bit at a time."

"Okay."

She turned her head towards him, seeking his lips with her own, capturing him in a soft kiss, hands going to his shoulders. His arms tightened around her as he deepened the kiss, tongue sliding in between her lips, fingers biting into her waist.

"Are we okay?" she asked after a minute, pulling back. "It occurred to me that we have been going pretty fast. I know it must be a shock to suddenly become a father. I want this to work out, and I’m willing to-"

"Shut up." He kissed her again, this time eschewing gentleness for pure male passion. "You aren’t going anywhere. I’m not going anywhere."

He stood, lifting her enough to toss her gently onto the bed, immediately covering her body with his own. "Don’t you understand anything yet? You're mine, Meredith. I’m not letting you go. Ever."

"Then-" she licked her lips. "Does that mean we're still dating?"

He laughed at her, dark and humorless. "Sweetheart, we are so not dating." Dark eyes paled to amber eyes her. "Humans and their... paltry... notions. Dating."

Shaking his head, he ripped the towel from her body, head lowering to nuzzle her breasts. She gasped as his mouth closed over her nipple. Hands roving over his chest after he took a moment to remove his clothing.

"Then- if we aren’t-
Liam
- dating, then what are we doing?"

Fingers plunged into her already slick pussy, playing with her, coaxing a moan from her throat.

"Right now? We're going to fuck. And while my cock is in you, I’m going to bite you. And you'll be my mate. My woman. Forever."

Those words strummed a chord of longing she’d buried so deep in her heat it pained her to acknowledge it now. It would be so easy to fall into the sexual haze, but…

“Do you love me, Liam?” she asked. He stilled, looking down at her. She plunged on. “Your mother told me why you started courting me in the first place. I know lots of people make marriages work where there is no love, but- that’s not what I want for myself.”

“What’s love, Meredith?”

She refused to look down, refused to allow the soft tone to divert her from this one truth she needed to move forward. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“Love is forgiveness, sometimes for the sake of another person. Love is responsibility, when you create life together.” His hand cupped her mound. “Love is passion.” Head lowering, his lips brushed hers once, twice, then trailed over her cheek and down her neck. “Love is also time, Meredith. And I want to spend the rest of my time with you. So yes, I love you.”

She took a deep breath, blinking. “Okay.” Her hands delved into his hair, drawing his face up so she could look into his eyes. “Okay. I love you, too, you know.”

He smiled, arrogance peeking through the softness. “I know that, Meredith.”

Her eyes widened and she released his hair to smack him. Liam laughed, knee nudging apart her thighs, eyes trained on hers, watching as her expression flickered, emptied of thought as he slid into her, filling her. Loving her, the pace he set slow and languorous. Pleasure built even as the scent of him, of them, filled her lungs. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she closed her eyes, losing herself in the feel of his cock inside her. It overwhelmed her, a rush of feeling, the sudden snap of a connection that felt… other. A contented, heated rumble in her head, like and unlike Liam’s voice. Demanding she acknowledge its presence. Her eyes snapped open and she cried out, climax overwhelming her just as Liam lowered his head to her neck, nuzzling the hollow above her collarbone.

And bit down.