The Bear With No Name (10 page)

He looked down at his hospital gown and wished like hell that he had something else to wear.

Lauren’s beautiful face peeked around the edge of the door, with Fran behind her. Lauren smiled uncertainly at him.

“Come in, don’t just stand there!” He waved them in.

When Lauren met his eyes, he felt the immediate spark of their connection, as strong as ever. He held out his hand without even meaning to, just an instinctive reaching out to her, and she took it immediately. He tugged her toward the bed and she sat down at his side, still one prim inch away from him, but leaning like she might not mind sitting closer.

“So it turns out that David is
not
the name of my worst enemy,” he said to her.

“Guess we dodged that bullet,” she quipped, then her eyes widened as she must have realized her unfortunate choice of words, and she buried her face in her palm. “I am so sorry, I am
such
an ass … I guess I’m really nervous right now.”

David laughed and pulled her hand away from her face.

“Believe me, I’m really nervous too,” he reassured her.

“Would that be ‘nervous because you’re not sure how to let me down easy’?” She tried to sound relaxed about the possibility, but he could see the way she sat up straighter, as if bracing for a blow.

“Absolutely not. It’s ‘nervous that the bear thing is a deal-breaker’.” His heart hammered in his chest. He couldn’t believe he was finally talking about it with
anyone
, least of all with the woman he loved with all his soul.

“Well, then let me reassure you,” she said, lifting his hand and kissing his knuckles, “It’s a little out there, but I can roll with it.”

Joy surged through him. This was what he’d been waiting for for half his life – for someone to know his bear and love him anyway. And this was not just any someone. It was a beautiful, smart, determined, sexy woman, and now that he knew she could accept his other side, he knew there was no problem they couldn’t overcome together.

He pulled her hand closer, turned it over, and kissed her palm. He gloried in the taste and scent of her, and he was
this
close to pulling her down onto the bed on top of him, regardless of who else was watching, when Lauren took a deep breath and moved a little further away.

She reached out for one last caress of his cheek and gave him a starry-eyed smile. “I’m going to let you and Fran talk for a little while, but then I’ll be back, okay?”

“Okay.”

It was so hard to watch her go. His bear wanted to trot after her like a puppy, but David couldn’t deny that he was also curious about what Fran had to say.

She pulled one of the clunky visitor chairs closer to his bed and sat down. She opened her mouth to speak, and then just stopped for a moment. “There’s so much to tell, I don’t even know where to start,” she said, shaking her head.

“Why don’t we start with introductions?” David said. “Hi, I’m Dr. David Aronson. My parents were Isaac Aronson and Abigail Carter.” He held out his hand to her, and she shook it.

“I’m Frances Carter, and Abby was my daughter.”

David’s head was reeling. His suspicions were true! The jumble of emotions he felt was overwhelming. He was overjoyed to have finally found someone who could explain what his bear side meant, and bitter to have had to wait such a long and lonely time to find her, and suspicious that whatever drove his mother away from her made this woman someone that he couldn’t trust.

“I have so many questions to ask you,” he said, finally marshaling his thoughts in order. “But what I think I need to know first is … what was it about my father that you couldn’t accept?” He kept his voice firm and level.
Start with the hardest question first
. He could imagine answers to this question that might cause him to ask her to leave and not come back.

“Oh, we were so stupid about everything! If I could go back in time I would change every bit of it. But what we were upset about back then was that not only wasn’t he a shifter, he wasn’t even from the mountains! He was going to take Abby away from her home!” This thought still drew a harsh sob from the old woman, even after so many years, and David could feel the depth of her pain.

“We have a special tie to the mountains,” Fran continued, wiping her eyes. “The Abenaki say that shifters were the first people here. But we don’t keep to ourselves; we’ve always become a part of every kind of people who’ve moved here. That’s part of protecting the mountains – keeping the community together, and keeping nature and man in balance. Probably a quarter of the people who were in the square that day weren’t too surprised when you turned into a bear, and they sure as hell weren’t surprised when I did.

“But ever since Vince died, I’ve done a shit job of keeping the balance. I know I have. I’m tired and bitter and I let grudges run away with me … I could see it happening, but I couldn’t find a reason to pull myself together.”

An old bear with a grudge…
That gave him an idea. “Were
you
the bear who scared the Valentis?”

“Yeah. I was just so angry with them! When I saw Alicia alone in the garden that day, I finally gave in to my anger and gave her a good scare. I was an idiot, and that was an abuse of my power. That’s what I mean about me not doing a good job of keeping the balance anymore. When I saw that you almost died cleaning up the mess I made, it was like losing Abby all over again. When will I stop making these stupid mistakes that I can’t take back?”

Fran covered her mouth, sobbing silently for a few moments. David felt tears welling up in his own eyes, and felt an aching hope that maybe a breach that death had unfairly extended by decades would finally be healed.

“We looked for you,” Fran said, once she had composed herself. “We never gave up looking for you. Can you tell me … were you happy? Were things okay for you?”

“Well, I missed my parents,” David said, feeling the ghost of that pain rise up again like it always did. “I still miss them every day. But my Uncle Eli and Aunt Rachel adopted me, and they love me like their own son. And I love them, too. But somehow I could never find a way to tell them about the bear. They still don’t know. Nobody knew.” David sighed and then went on, “We moved to Europe for my uncle’s work just a month after the funeral. That’s probably why your P.I. couldn’t find me. I didn’t come back to the States until I was in college.”

“So what do we do now?” Fran asked quietly. “I would understand it if you never want to see me again, after everything that’s happened. I can introduce you to some shifters who live further north in Maple Valley if you want to learn about shifter ways from someone else.”

“What do
you
want to do?” David asked her, still uncertain of whether he would really be welcome.

“What I want to do, more than anything, is to try my hardest to be a family for you. Not to replace the family you already have – I know I could never do that. And I know my track record is none too impressive. But I want to be someone who is there when you need me. Not just because you’re Abby’s child, but because I think you are a man I can respect and care about.”

That just did David in. The tears started flowing openly, and then Fran was crying again too. It took a minute before he could even speak.

“Okay,” David told her. “That sounds good to me.” But there was one more part of his life that had to be considered here – something irreplaceable and nonnegotiable. “And what about Lauren? Because you need to know, I cannot and will not imagine a life without her.”

“We shifters have a way of knowing when we find the right person. Once you find your true mate, you just can’t stay away. I asked Abby if that’s who she had found; I still wouldn’t have been happy, but I would have known we had to accept it. But she wouldn’t even tell me! She was just so angry that we wouldn’t trust her … But there I go, dragging up the past again. If you love Lauren, that’s all I need to know.”

His true mate
. Was that what this amazing, life-changing connection was? “I don’t know anything about mates. I just know that I love her like breathing, and I would do anything to be with her.”

“Sounds like your mate, then,” she said, patting his hand. “Speaking of, she’s probably anxious to get back in here. We’ll talk more later. I’ll be staying with friends here in Pittsford until they open the bridge again.”

“Take care,” he told her.

Lauren was in the door as soon as Fran was out of it. With no hesitation, she came right to his bed and wrapped him in her arms.

He hugged her back with all his strength, losing himself in the intoxicating feel of her soft warmth. He hoped that she had heard part of his talk with Fran, because he had already wept more today than he had since he was a child and he knew that if he tried to tell her all the things she deserved to know right now, it would only start again.

She kissed him softly and leaned their foreheads together. “I want to you know, I’m not jumping into this blindly. I’ve been giving the bear thing a lot of thought, and I’m good with everything I’ve learned so far, I seriously am. I know you still have more to learn about it, too, but I believe there is nothing that we can’t handle together.”

“Thank you,” he said in a husky voice, and kissed her again and again, claiming her lips.

And then he told her, “While I was alone here, I just sat in this hospital bed wondering over and over about all the ways this could have gone differently. If I had met you without losing my memory first, I would never have let myself fall in love. My secret always got in the way. I remember now how I got to that river bank in the first place: I was trying to rescue that bear cub from the river during the first rain storm. It’s like … my bear kept me from everyone for so long, but then my bear brought me to you.”

“It’s fate, obviously,” she said, gently nibbling on his lower lip and then giggling as he nipped back. “You can’t argue with that.”

“And I wouldn’t want to. You’re everything I’ve always dreamed of, and more.”

“Aw, that was going to be my line,” she said.

He couldn’t help laughing. He loved the joyful spark in her so much.

But there was one more thing she needed to know. “I just remembered, I haven’t even told you my name yet. Hi, I’m David Aronson – will you marry me?”

“Nice to meet you, David Aronson. I certainly will.”

They fell into each other’s arms again, laughing and kissing at the same time. And David knew that they were in for a lifetime of trust and love and joy.

Epilogue

Lauren was not a patient person, and in the last half-hour she’d gone from checking the clock every ten minutes to checking it every five. Finally, she saw David coming down the street. He waved up to their window when he was still a block away, because of course he knew that she’d be there watching.

When he made it up the stairs he hugged and kissed her, and then kissed her a few more times.

“Mmm,” she said, “very nice. But what on earth took so long?
FREIGHT COMPANY GRAARGH
is not the most specific text I’ve ever received.”

“Ugh, the truck took a wrong turn on Route 13 and then they tried to turn around in a farmer’s driveway, and they knocked over his mailbox, and it just went on from there. I have no idea why they sent such a big truck. My office furniture was just rattling around in there. So do we still have time to make it to the campsite? Or should we postpone?”

“I think we’ve got just enough time if we leave right now. So grab your pack and hop in the car.”

It had been a hectic couple of months with David getting ready to open his practice in Ashton, and the journey hadn’t been without drama.

For the townspeople who weren’t already in on the shifter secret before that momentous day, it had taken some getting used to. But in a strange way, it helped that the secret had come to light during such a terrible disaster. Everyone had already spent a few days depending on each other and working to overcome obstacles together, and it created a kind of trust that hadn’t been there just a few days before.

When David was released from the hospital and they all returned to Ashton, there had been a lengthy conversation with the Valentis requiring lots of apologizing from Fran. She did it awkwardly but sincerely, and once the Valentis learned her whole story they seemed more willing to reconcile. And now, a few months later, they seemed much happier and more included in the life of the town than they had ever been before.

Lauren wasn’t sure what to make of Fran’s philosophy that shifters bring balance to the mountains, but there was no denying that David was making a whole lot of people happy. Doc Etheridge in Sheldon had been trying to retire for years but people kept talking him out of it; now he was cheerfully packing for Florida. And Fran said that practically every shifter in the state was happy to have a doctor around that they could trust. And of course he made Lauren’s parents happy; they had driven up from the city to meet him and they were thoroughly charmed.

David was even making bears happy – the mother bear and cub had been successfully reunited and guided back to their home range.

But of course no one was as happy as Lauren. The life she was living now was better than a dream come true.

They reached the parking lot for the trailhead and unloaded their gear. As David swung his pack up to his shoulders and settled it into place, he said, “I wonder if I could rig a pack that would fit a bear’s back? Then I could cover more ground
and
carry all our gear.”

“Yeah, but then we couldn’t have any conversation as we hike,” she pointed out, laughing.

“Okay, but you
could
run your fingers through my silky, luxuriant fur, and don’t even try to pretend that you don’t like that.”

“Guilty,” she agreed, and they both laughed.

They spent several hours hiking up to the high meadow campsite. It was a perfect autumn day, with a warm sun in the cloudless sky and a crisp wind rustling through the brilliant fall leaves. They were predicting frost overnight, but Lauren was sure they’d have no trouble staying warm.