Bear To The Bone (Bear Claw Security 1) (3 page)

But he was an outlaw now. He’d broken all his promises.

“What do you want?” she croaked out, wishing she’d left the door closed. She tried to shut it, but he caught it quickly with one huge, calloused hand and pried it open.

“What? I’m not allowed to come say hello to an old friend?” he asked, pushing his way into her house as she backed up.

She put her arms around her waist and looked around, embarrassed. “I wasn’t able to tidy up,” she said, pinning him with a slightly accusatory glare. “I didn’t know you were back.”

“Now you do,” he said lightly, walking into the living room and plopping himself on her couch, making it look suddenly smaller. The woman in her was glad he was there. The friend in her wanted to kick his ass.

“Are you going to explain yourself?” she asked, glaring down at him. “You’ve been gone ten years, and all that time, I assumed you were actually doing something with your life. That you were happy.”

In the early morning light, his serious blue eyes were shining like a deep ocean under moonlight. “Happy? How?”

She shrugged, feeling a blush moving up her shoulders. “I don’t know. A wife, kids? The army, then a steady job?”

“You got my letters,” he said, narrowing his eyes as he sat up. “And as for a wife, how could you say that?” His eyes twinkled as a smirk lifted one corner of his perfect mouth. “When I was twelve, I asked
you
to be my old lady.”

She gritted her teeth together. How dare he treat this so lightly? She hadn’t had a lot of hopes in her life, but he was one of those things she had hoped for. That he’d gotten out of this town for good, rather than taking after his dad and all of the other men who were ruining this town and making it necessary for people like her and Willow to try and step in and clean up their messes.

She walked to the door, heart pounding, and swung it open, gesturing for him to go out. “I told you I didn’t want you to be in the Aces,” she said. “No member of the Aces will ever be in my home.”

He finally dropped the light, humorous tone. His tight jaw ticked and his lip curled. “So things don’t work out exactly how you want and you think throwing a tantrum is the way to deal with it?”

She slammed the door, knowing he wasn’t going to leave until he damn well felt like it.

But wasn’t this how it had always been? He came and went as he wanted to, moving in and out of her life like storm clouds, unloading as he pleased.

She was done with that. “You don’t know anything about what I wanted or how things have worked out,” she said. “You haven’t been around to see. And now you’re going to walk back in, knowing damn well it isn’t what I wanted, and you’re going to kiss me in front of your damn MC and act like I’m some kind of property?” She shook her head and pointed a finger at him. “I’m nobody’s property, and you know damn well I’m not going to be anyone’s old lady.”

Though if there had ever been a man who tempted her to make an exception, it was Cage.

His eyes narrowed to slits. His entire body was tensed as if to spring. She was clearly pushing all his buttons, but she didn’t care.

Even though this Cage was more intimidating, more substantial than the Cage she’d last seen—a tall, gangly teenager with a cocky smile and a million dreams.

Dreams she’d thought had included her.

“What’s your problem?” he asked, throwing his hands in the air. “You knew I was coming back, and I did. Now you act like you don’t want to see me, just because of my choice in profession.”

Her lips tightened. “You know it’s more than that. I had hopes for you.”

“So did I, sweetheart,” he said sarcastically, taking a step toward her, his heavy boots pounding on her floor as he backed her to the wall, caging her there. “But life turns out weird sometimes.”

She tried to stand straight, lifted her jaw stubbornly, unwilling to be cowed by him, even as her body nearly melted at his closeness. He was Cage, the boy she’d been in love with since she was thirteen and had walked out of the woods to meet her and become one of her best friends until he left at eighteen. He was the only man she’d ever really
seen
. He was here with her, and she’d dreamed of it for so long. Wanted it.

But not like this.

She put her hands on his shoulders to push against him, but he didn’t budge. He was like iron, like steel.

His eyes burned down at her.

“You’re mine,” he said. “You know that.”

“Do I?” she spat. “You’ve been gone for years. You haven’t even written in years. I assumed you moved on. I’ve been fine on my own. At least I thought I was. But if you were going to come straight back here to wallow in your past, why didn’t you just stay here in the first place?” Her voice broke. “At least I’d have been with you.”

He went silent then. She could almost hear the sound of something breaking. A wall in his mind or the tension between them. She didn’t know.

He put a hand up and brushed her hair back off her face, making her suppress a shiver. “You missed me, then?”

She bit her lip and let out a sigh, daring herself to look up into his eyes. “Of course I did, you idiot.”

He cupped her chin and tilted her lips up toward his. She should say no, push him back, remember he’d betrayed her by joining the Aces.

But she couldn’t. He was still Cage, the man of her dreams, and kissing him was everything she wanted.

Just one. Just for now. She could wake up from this dream she was in then. Smack him. Yell at him.

But first she’d allow herself to indulge in what she’d been wanting so long.

She gasped as her lips met his.

His heat was searing, reaching her core as memories of the past went through her. As his tough, strong hands wrapped around her, she felt completely safe, completely at home. Suddenly, it didn’t matter what he was doing or where he went. He was just Cage. One of the only people she’d ever trusted or loved. The guy she’d always had a crush on.

Someone who was meant for bigger things than her. Someone who shouldn’t have come home.

But he had.

And here in his arms, she was home, too. She opened her lips and invited him in, wanting more of his warmth. More of the safety he offered.

Even if this had to end sooner rather than later, she wanted it now.

C
age felt
like a piece of shit for not telling her everything. The real reasons he was there, who he was now. But even though he loved her more than life itself, he knew he couldn’t.

Not yet.

Her lips were a cool drink he’d never get enough of. He just wanted to keep them joined like this forever.

Their first kiss had been just before he’d left town to join the army. That kiss had been a promise that he would come back someday and take care of her.

And now it almost seemed to be too late, because she was bitter, angry with him. For staying away too long or for coming back as a gangster? He wasn’t exactly sure.

And he wasn’t positive if he told her the truth, she wouldn’t use it to blow his cover.

He pulled back from the kiss and put a hand in her soft hair. How many times had he dreamed of this while deployed on missions overseas? How many times had he thought of her sweet eyes, her gorgeous skin just before he dropped out of a plane into hostile territory?

Countless times. As innumerable as the freckles on her body.

She looked at him, lips parted, eyes slightly glazed, and he stroked a thumb over her cheek, wondering that someone like him could have such an effect on this wonderful woman.

For now, he just wanted to get to know her again and hope she could trust him that everything would work out in the end.

“Why now?” she asked. “Why are you back now?”

Because you’re in danger
, he thought. But he couldn’t say that. He simply tucked her thick, wavy hair behind her small ear, wishing he could bend and place a kiss there. But he needed to go slow for now.

“It was the right time,” he said. “I wasn’t busy.”

Her face tightened as she started to turn away. He caught her gently by the shoulders, being cautious because she was so soft, so small compared to him. Though, she had an inner strength that far surpassed his. “Wait, Carrie. Can you just trust me? Please?”

She blinked up at him, pursing her pink lips. “I don’t know.”

“You know me,” he said, lifting her chin, making her look at him. “You know I won’t let anything happen to you.”

She pushed away from him with a bitter laugh. “Nothing is going to happen to me. I’ve been fine so far.”

His expression darkened as he folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “Oh, so you don’t mind being harassed by the Aces and having someone like Harv coming on to you?”

She gave him a mean glare. “Maybe not? Maybe I should be
his
old lady. He’s persistent at least.”

Cage’s jaw twitched and his teeth clenched together, hard, but he tried to play it cool. She was trying to bait him after all. “Interesting. Maybe I should just back off, then.”

Her eyes widened in surprise, but she tamped it down quickly. Was this how it was going to be? Them running circles around each other?

She finally walked to the couch and slumped onto it, hand over her eyes as she let out a harsh, broken breath. “I don’t know, Cage. I don’t know what’s going on with me. You being back here… it’s doing something to me.” She dropped her hand and wearily looked him over. “I never thought you’d be wearing that leather.”

“They aren’t that bad,” he said, feeling bile rise in his throat as he said it. Why was he defending them when he wasn’t even really a part of them?

He guessed the problem was he’d been born to that life, it was in his blood, and deep down, he’d always felt unworthy of her as the dirty son of the head of a biker gang.

No matter where he went or what he did, he never felt like he washed that stink away, like he’d ever be good enough for her. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t come back sooner. Because he was waiting to be good enough.

But if her safety were in jeopardy, and his sources said it was, then he had to come regardless of whether she was ready for him.

“I just wanted to see you,” he said. “I’ve been waiting so long. When I was deployed, and after, you were all I thought about.”

She folded her arms, pushing up her generous breasts. “Apparently not, because you haven’t spoken to me in years.”

“I know,” he said. “I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know when to come back.”

“But why the gang?” she asked.

He bit his lower lip and let it drag painfully over his teeth as he let it go. “I just need you to trust me for now. Even if I’m in the Aces.”

“I don’t know what you want,” she said, throwing up her hands. “You’re here. I get that. You want to kiss me, take ownership, I guess. You want to come and go as you please. But, Cage, I can’t let you break my heart again.”

Something inside him was shattered by that. “What do you mean break your heart?”

“You stopped writing,” she said.

He stared at her, words frozen on his tongue.
I didn’t know what to say. I was being a coward. I didn’t know how to come back.

“I didn’t mean to.”

She sighed and stood, stretching, and he tried not to look at her body. “I have to go over to Willow’s today.” She frowned. “I guess I can’t take you over to see her, not when you’re wearing the patch. I don’t want the kids there to get the wrong idea.”

He raised an eyebrow. Willow was the one who had contacted him about Carrie possibly being in trouble. She’d been the closest thing he had to a mother, after he’d gotten to know her through his frequent visits with Carrie. “She still taking in kids?”

Carrie nodded. “Of course. And I help her. I can’t keep any here. I work too much and I’m not foster approved, but I help support her. And I go see the kids a lot.”

“You support her?” he asked. “How? The bar?”

She nodded.

Damn
. He’d hoped maybe just letting go of the bar would be the best way to keep the Aces’s attention off her for now. But she couldn’t.

He’d also sort of hoped to be able to whisk her away from this town, take her to New York with him where she could live at his place while he did his security work.

But she had a life here.

“I’d love to see the kids,” he said.

She shook her head as she pulled a jug of chocolate milk out of the fridge and poured two huge glasses. “You aren’t exactly a good influence right now.”

He frowned. She was right. But he wanted to be a part of everything she was a part of, and he hated his current undercover assignment was messing that up.

But the info he was gathering on the Aces right now would shut down their chapter in Winter Falls permanently, allowing Willow and Carrie and everyone else in the town to finally have peace.

And then what? Some happily ever after where he swept Carrie away from this town? First, he’d have to tell her about his inner bear, and that was daunting.

It was all a big mess. He was almost glad he’d gotten the call to come out here to deal with the gang, because a sense of duty or a need to protect always overrode any of his stupid insecurities.

“Earth to Cage?” Carrie asked, holding out a glass.

He took it and drank it in one long go.

She grinned and refilled it, and he shook his head and set it down.

He sat at the small, round table in the center of her small kitchen and looked around. There was a sliding glass door that led out to a small grass lawn with a redwood fence right behind it and then another house behind that.

She had no space here. She deserved a mansion with lots of rooms of her own.

But she seemed happy. He watched her as she busied herself fixing toast for breakfast, her cute butt swaying in her work clothes, which she must have been wearing when she fell asleep in her chair.

Her hair was askew, her makeup faded. There were circles under her eyes from lack of sleep… and he’d never seen a more beautiful woman in his life.

She turned to him, a tired smile on her heart-shaped face, and he felt his heart skip a beat.

When she smiled at him, he felt more nervous than he’d ever felt in the field.

“It really is good to see you,” she said, buttering toast and putting it on a plate and handing it to him.

He slid it back toward her. “I already ate. You go ahead.”

She nodded and picked up the toast and began to eat it with her milk. “I couldn’t sleep last night. I keep dreaming about us, starting with when we met.”

“I thought you were the most beautiful thing ever, even then,” he said seriously.

“Oh, come on. We were kids,” she said.

“Nope, I really thought so.” He’d had to see her, had to let her meet the boy behind the bear she’d saved. He’d been so bonded to her, even then.

That had been a fun day. And a turning point in his life. His first real friend. Though, if he were honest, it was more like love at first sight.

When she’d refused to be his old lady, she’d been the first person to give him a glimpse of the life he could have outside the compound. If he left the gang.

“I thought you were cute, too,” she said. “We were such kids, weren’t we?”

“Yes,” he said. “But sometimes kids know even better than adults.”

“I had no idea what was coming for us,” she said. “I just knew I loved it every time I saw you. Willow loved you, too. She asked about you often, you know.”

“She wrote me,” he said. “Has been writing me.”

“I suppose I should have kept writing even when you stopped,” she said. “But it was painful. And I assumed you’d moved on and I was bothering you. After all, I wasn’t going to hold you to some some crush you had as a teen…”

“I was eighteen. I knew what I wanted. And here I am.”

She shrugged. “Here you are. So did you come back for me, or did you come back for the gang? Because obviously, they knew you were in town before I did.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. He could only hope this was over soon so he could explain everything to her in a way that would make sense.

Until then, he had to keep her safe from men like Harvey, men who wanted to claim what was his.

“You know it’d be easier for me if you’d take my patch,” he said.

“Ugh, the ‘property of’ patches?” she said. “No thanks.” Then her eyes lit up. “Is that why you joined up with them?” she asked. “Some misguided attempt to protect me from them by being one of them?”

He sighed. She was close to the truth but still so, so off. “No. Look, it’s natural for me to be there, no matter the reasons. Maybe I just want to make money for a while, or maybe I’m trying to work out some things from my childhood. But you should know me by now, Carrie. I’m not going to do anything bad, and I’m not going to let them do anything bad to you. But it’d be a lot easier if you were wearing my patch.”

“I’ve been fine for years,” she said. “I don’t see why you’re suddenly worrying about it now.”

“Because you’ve stayed off their radar for years,” he said. “You didn’t have anything they wanted. But then you had to go and buy Harry’s bar.”

“They were going to steal it out from under Serge, the latest owner. Not even leave him enough to move to be with the rest of his family.” She sighed. “I couldn’t let that happen.”

“I know,” Cage said. “But that still puts you in the spotlight. They want that bar. It’s prime real estate and would be perfect to deal out of. They aren’t going to let up. And now they’re noticing more than the bar. They’re noticing you, too.”

“And they wouldn’t if I had your patch?”

“No,” he said. “No other brothers could make a move on you. That’s all it means.”

Her mouth twisted in disgust. “Ugh, it’s all so caveman. There’s a reason I avoid the whole MC thing. I just… I don’t need a man to protect me.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, standing from his chair and coming over to her. “Yes, you definitely do need a man to protect you, and I’m just the one to do it.”

She pulled away from him, but his hands were on either side of her on the table, caging her in. She sighed and turned to face him. “Cage, what point are you trying to make? I’ve been fine on my own for years.”

“And now you aren’t on your own anymore. Come on. Be my old lady.”

“No,” she snapped. “I have to be an example to the kids at Willow’s. I love them. And someone has to.”

His mouth turned up ruefully at one corner. “That’s right. You’re good at loving the kids everyone else has forgotten.” He stood, removing his hands from either side of her, and looked down at her. “So was that all I was, Carrie? Pity?”

“No,” she said, standing to come chest to chest with him. “Never. There’s a difference in how I care for them and how I cared for—care for you.”

He flinched at the past tense, but she’d fixed it. What was the truth? Had he truly ruined everything for them by coming back too late and coming back looking like he was part of the gang she hated?

A muscle by his brow ticked.

No, it wasn’t too late, because he wouldn’t let it be.

“When we go see the kids, just don’t wear the patch. Just wear it at the bar,” he said.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“And I can come see the kids and just take the patch off.” He shook his head. “If it’s anything like it used to be, half those kids have family at the compound anyway.”

She nodded tightly. “It’s just like it used to be. Men taking what they want with no notice of the consequences.”

Cage’s chest tightened. He’d been one of those consequences no one cared about. No one until Carrie.

“I want to see what’s important to you,” he said, standing straight. “I want to protect what you want to protect.”

She walked closer, running her finger over the patch on his jacket. “You can’t. Not like this.”

He caught her hand in his, an iron, gentle grip, and tugged her against him. “Honey, the only way I can protect you is like this.” Then he jerked her up and caught her lips with his mouth, parting them and easily slipping inside to entwine his tongue with hers in a warm, wet embrace.

He felt her knees nearly weaken, and he slid an arm around her waist, anchoring her.

He was the only one that could do this to her. And every time she forgot, he’d be the one to remind her.

When she was breathless, gasping in his arms, he set her back on her feet. She stared up at him blankly, and he reached forward, coming close.

She held her breath, her lips slightly parted, and then he grabbed the last piece of toast behind her and took a huge bite as he walked away.