Boarlander Bash Bear (Boarlander Bears Book 2) (4 page)

“I like that compliment,” she admitted breathily. “I think you look hot as fuck, too.”

His gaze lifted to hers, and for a few moments, they stayed just like that, searching each other’s eyes, locked in that moment right before something big happens to change the foundation of a relationship.

He looked at her lips and leaned forward slowly, giving her plenty time to bolt. And with anyone else, she would have, but this was Bash. The man she’d had a crush on from afar for a long time, the man who she’d fallen head over heels for at the diner, the man who’d won her heart completely with his thoughtful barbecue present.

“Bash!” the woman yelled, banging on the door.

When Bash growled, Emerson couldn’t help herself. She lifted up on the balls of her feet and pressed her lips against his. He inhaled deeply and pulled her hand against his heart, pounding like a drum. When her palm was secure on his hard pec, he brushed his fingertips across her cheek, pushing her curls back. He angled his head the other way and straightened up, walked her backward as he gripped the back of her neck.

“I’m rough,” he said between soft kisses. “Too rough. You tell me when I hurt you. I don’t want that.”

Her legs were locking and knocking uncontrollably now as he backed her toward a desk. “You’re doing good,” she murmured against his lips. So good.

She’d been tipsy before thanks to the whiskey, but now she was utterly lost in this moment. Gripping his wrists to keep her balance, she parted her lips, and he slipped his tongue inside of her mouth. Something nagged at her as her butt hit the edge of the desk. She was supposed to tell him something.
No! Enjoy the moment.
The door was banging under multiple fists now.
Tell him!
His tongue touched hers again, and she melted completely against him.
He deserves to know!

Guilt flooded her, and Emerson eased back, eyes closed, and rested her forehead on his.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “You smell sad. I don’t want you sad.”

“I have to tell you something big, Bash.”

“Tell me. Tell me anything.” His voice was tainted with worry now.

Dipping her voice to a whisper, she said, “I’m going to have a baby.”

He eased back and cupped her cheeks. “Woman, I don’t know much about much, but I know we ain’t done enough to put a baby in you yet.”

“No, no, not your baby. I’m going to have someone else’s baby.”

Bash released her so fast she almost fell forward. He backed up a few steps, and his eyes looked so wary. “You cheating with me? You have a boyfriend? A husband?”

“No, it’s nothing like that.”

“But you’re pregnant?”

“Not yet, but I want to be.”

“I don’t understand, Emerson. I don’t understand.” Bash scrubbed his hand down his face and looked panicked as he backed himself against the door across the room from her.

“I’m going to go to the doctor and kind of…get a baby put in me so I can be a mother. It’s what I want more than anything.”

“But that’s what I want too. I want cubs.” He wasn’t looking at her anymore, but instead his gaze was on her heels, and he was angling his head, exposing his neck.

“Bash, I like you so much, but this was already something I had in the works before I met you.”

“But it’s different now, right? I could give you babies if you want them.”

“Oh, Bash, that is a beautiful offer, but I…” She sighed and looked at the ceiling, searching for inspiration to somehow explain this in a way that wouldn’t hurt him. “I talked to my doctor about a shifter being a donor, but she said we aren’t allowed.”

“I can’t be a dad?”

“You can. You can be a dad the natural way when you pick your mate and you’re sure about her.”

“When I’m sure about
her
. Emerson, I like
you
. My chest don’t hurt when I’m with you.”

Her eyes prickled with tears, and her face crumpled because she didn’t know if she was doing the right thing anymore. “Those men on the computer were sperm donors.”

He reared back like he’d been slapped by her hand. “I helped you pick a daddy, didn’t I?”

Her throat closed around the answer, so she nodded instead. “I’m going in at noon on Friday, and hopefully I’ll get pregnant. I’ll finally get a baby of my own. It has nothing to do with my feelings for you.”

Bash shook his head back and forth, back and forth. His hand rested on his stomach like he felt sick, and with one last look, he opened the door. Before he left, he turned and locked his eyes on hers. “I wish I was smarter so you would pick me.”

He disappeared through the door, and she doubled over her sob. Ridiculous man, he was so smart, so sweet, so perfect. Their timing had just been bad. If she didn’t do this, she was making the same mistake she had with Brian. She was giving another man power to postpone her bone-deep need to build a family. Sure, Bash thought he wanted a baby, but he was hunting for a mate, and if she wasn’t it, she could be back in this same position, full of regret and childless, in another two years…or even five or ten years.

At some point she had to go and get her happiness, and for her, having a child was the joy she’d waited so long for.

So why then did it feel like her happiness had just walked out that door?

“You look like hell, man,” Harrison said over the noise of his idling chainsaw.

Bash cocked his eyebrows and looked pointedly at the long healing claw marks down the side of Harrison’s neck. His skin was splotched with purple bruising thanks to Clinton nicking an artery and causing massive damage. “
You
look like hell, Boss Bear.”

Harrison made a ticking sound and propped his foot on the log he’d just felled, then looked down the mountain at the evergreen valley below. “Clinton will fight you pairing up.”

“I can hear you, fuck-brains,” Clinton yelled.

“Flip me off one more time…” Bash dared him in a voice not even he recognized.

Clinton froze before retracting his stupid finger to his palm, then ripped his chainsaw cord and went back to work. Good call because, today, Bash’s normally playful bear wanted to kill everything.

“Talk to me,” Harrison said, cutting the motor of his chainsaw and sitting on a log.

Bash watched Kirk and Mason working below for a minute. They’d both been quick learners, and he and Harrison didn’t have to worry about them getting hurt as much anymore. Harrison patted the log. “Come on, Bash Bear.”

“Did talking help you?”

Harrison pulled his sunglasses off and hooked them onto the stretched collar of his damp, white T-shirt. He readjusted his hard hat, then gave Bash an icy blue look. “What do you mean?”

“Audrey knows everything about you.”

Harrison nodded. “A mate deserves to know everything. Even the bad parts.”

“She knows how your dad was, and how your bear don’t feel safe.”

Harrison’s eyes had gone hollow, but he nodded again.

“But you still patrol the border of our territory.”

“And I always will, because it’s a part of me. My bear thinks he’s keeping you and the boys safe by making sure our woods are quiet. But talking to Audrey, and sharing that burden with someone else, makes it to where I can patrol less. I sleep like a log beside her now where I used to get up fifteen times a night. I ain’t sayin’ talking about what hurts fixes everything, but it can help.”

“My chest hurts. I feel like I can’t breathe.”

“I can tell, man. You’ve been struggling for breath all day and wincing your face up where I’ve never seen anything but a smile. What happened last night?”

Bash stepped over the log and sat heavily next to his alpha. Resting his elbows on his knees, he said, “I think I picked a girl, but she don’t want me back.”

“Did she say that?”

Bash sighed and watched a pair of hawks flying across the sky. “I don’t know. I think so.”

“Well, women can be confusing.”

“Women will be the damned downfall of our trailer park!” Clinton called out un-helpfully.

“Shut up, Clinton,” Bash, Harrison, Mason, and Kirk all yelled at once.

“Tell me what she said,” Harrison said with a lingering dirty look for Clinton.

“We were kissing, and she seemed into it, but then she said she was gonna have a baby with another man. A man she picked on a website.”

“She’s pregnant?”

“Not yet. She’s going to the doctor tomorrow at noon. I spent half the night researching on the Internet what she was talking about. She picked a donor because she don’t like the stock she’s met here in Saratoga.” Bash ghosted a glance to his alpha, then back to his boots as his cheeks heated with shame. “She don’t want my cubs. She wants to mother a stranger’s get.”

“Oh, shit,” Harrison muttered.

“She’s probably a witch,” Clinton called.

“I wish I had a bow and arrow right now,” Kirk yelled, pointing his chainsaw blade at Clinton. “I’d put one right through your damned shoulder.”

The silverback shifter was apparently done with Clinton’s shenanigans after he’d attacked Harrison unprovoked last night. Or…not unprovoked, but for the stupid reason that Bash was getting that Meet-A-Mate party.

When Clinton lifted that dadgummed middle finger at Kirk, Bash stood, a feral snarl in his throat. Clinton ducked his head, his eyes warily on Bash as he tucked his fuckin’ finger back again and returned to work.

Mason chuckled below them and muttered, “I can’t wait to watch Bash kick your ass.”

Bash forced the growl in his throat to taper to nothing and sat down again.

“Okay,” Harrison said. “You said she wants to mother a stranger’s get, but Bash, to a human, you two haven’t known each other very long.”

“I’m not a stranger,” he muttered. He felt like he’d known Emerson for years. Like his life had been really little before she’d come into it.

Harrison sighed. “Look, for shifters things happen fast. We just know when we find the one. It don’t work so easily for humans, and if she is already going in for an appointment, it means she’s been wanting a baby for a long time and she’s been going to doctors long before she met you. She probably didn’t want to do the parenting thing alone, but she didn’t meet the right partner.”

“So you think I did wrong leaving last night?”

“No, I think your reaction was fair. That’s a big blow. I know how bad you want cubs, and now the woman you want is trying to get pregnant by another.” Harrison stripped a small branch off the log they sat on and broke it in half. “Bash, do you remember your real dad?”

“Yes,” he gritted out, void of emotion.

“How was he to you and your mom?”

“He was an asshole. Didn’t deserve her. Didn’t deserve me. I clawed him up as soon as I was big enough and able.”

“Yep. Now tell me about your stepdad.”

“I love Bill.” Bash crossed his arms over his chest and bit his bottom lip. “He came in when I was ten, and I was his, and my mom was his. I wish Bill was the real stock I came from.”

“Is he still nice to your mom?”

Bash nodded hard once. “They’ve been together nineteen years, and he still buys her flowers every Monday and tells her nice things about the way she looks.”

“And who sends you those funny birthday letters and cases of beer every October twenty-ninth?”

“Bill.”

“And did he ever make you feel less important because you weren’t his biological son?”

“No.”

“Do you think you or your bear will be mad at Emerson’s baby for being born with someone else’s donated DNA?”

Oooh, he saw what Harrison was saying. He could be a Bill for Emerson’s baby if he stayed friends with her. Bash scrubbed his hand down the stubble on his jaw as his thoughts raced around like a tornado. Okay, Emerson wasn’t picking him back, but he didn’t like the thought of her not being in his life. She wanted a smart daddy for her baby, and maybe that was okay. She laughed a lot at what Bash said, and not in a way that was making fun of him like kids used to do in school. She thought he was funny. It would be good if she had a smart baby. Bash imagined himself sitting in the front row when the kid played piano recitals and collected fancy awards, and no one would be prouder. He imagined Emerson’s belly swollen with a baby, and the ache in his chest eased. Did it matter that the child would be another man’s? It did, but how much? Would it be enough to keep him from being friends with Emerson? His life felt empty just thinking about it.

“I think I messed up,” he said low. “Emerson was crying last night. Shit. She’s probably scared to do this by herself, and I just left her there. I need the day off work tomorrow, Boss Bear.”

Harrison gripped his shoulder and shook him slowly. “You got it.”

Emerson choked down the horse pill the doctor had called pre-natal vitamins. She’d been taking them for months to prepare her body to grow a baby but, for some reason, this morning it was ridiculously hard to get down. She gagged and chugged water, then ate a cracker to bully the pill down her esophagus.

Maybe it was because she was nervous. She’d had chills since she woke up this morning and had peed about a billion times. She blew out a long, shaking breath as she looked at herself in the mirror. She was pale as a sheet, despite all the make-up she’d put on.

She was utterly alone.

Closing her eyes, she fought off another round of tears. Her family didn’t support this decision, so they had refused to come to the appointment. But…hopefully she wouldn’t be so alone after today. Emerson pressed her palms against her soft stomach and gave herself a tremulous smile in the mirror.

A knock sounded at the door, and Emerson frowned at the clock.
11:30
. She didn’t have time to talk to solicitors, but she had ordered pregnancy tests in bulk online and was waiting on that delivery. Hopefully it was Mr. Mark, the friendly postal worker who still delivered door-to-door in this neighborhood.

With a plastered smile, Emerson opened her door and froze. The saturated midday sunlight was bright around Bash’s wide shoulders. He stood straight-backed, much taller than her, but his weight was shifted to his back leg, as if he was uncertain of his decision to be here. In his hands was a small, floppy, black stuffed bear and a bouquet of bright pink roses wrapped in brown paper and twine.

“Don’t tell me to leave,” he said low.

“I won’t.”

“I’m sorry about the other night.” His eyes were so incredibly bright, raw, and vulnerable right now. “I panicked, and I was hurt. I just wanted to get away from the pain, but not away from you.” He handed her the bear and the flowers, and the corner of his lips turned up in a hesitant smile. “Emerson roses, and that one is a bear, like me. My fur is black.”

Emerson dragged a breath into her lungs, hugged the bear tightly to her chest, and clutched the wrapped flowers, blinking back the moisture that rimmed her eyes.

“It’s for the baby, but you can snuggle it until he gets here. Or she.” Bash shook his head like he was embarrassed. “The flowers are for you. Anyway, I want to take you to your doctor appointment if you’ll let me. You should have a cheerleader waiting out in the sitting room when you’re through.”

To hide the single tear that was streaking down her cheek, Emerson stepped into the sunlight, slid her arm around his neck, and hugged him as tight as she could.

He hesitated for a moment, but then his hands rubbed up her back, and he rested his cheek against the top of her hair. In an instant, she felt good and whole and secure again. She’d thought she’d lost him. And yeah, it didn’t make any sense for her to feel so attached to a man this soon, but some part of her had adored him since the day he’d paid her that genuine compliment in the library.

“I’d like for you to be in the waiting room,” she whispered thickly. “I want that very much.”

Taking his hand, she led him into her duplex. While she put her flowers in a vase, Bash looked at the pictures on her wall. “She looks like you,” he said, pointing to Amanda.

“She’s my younger sister. The kids are my nieces, and the guy with the big, goofy grin beside my sister in that top picture is my brother-in-law.”

“Three cubs,” he said, moving as he looked at each picture.

“Yeah, would you believe she was the one who never wanted a family? When we were growing up, my sister would give these elaborate speeches at the dinner table about how marriage was an outdated, meaningless ritual and that monogamy was unnatural and yada yada. But then she found Chris when she was twenty-one, and he changed her tune quick.”

“But you always wanted kids,” he murmured, squinting at a Christmas picture of her sister’s family.

“Yeah, I wanted the family, but it didn’t work out like it did for Amanda.”

“Does that make you angry?”

“No. It makes me sad sometimes when I spend time with them because they’re so happy. There is no loneliness in that family, you know? And I watch my parents with their granddaughters, and they’re always asking when I’ll settle down and give them more, like I haven’t been trying for long-term relationships. And I don’t know. Somewhere along the way, I just accepted it wasn’t happening for me and decided to go get a family myself. My parents and my sister are frustrated with my decision to use a donor, but it’ll be different when I have a baby. They won’t remember how he or she came to be. They’ll just love it.”

“You’re a strong woman,” Bash said, honesty pooling in those striking eyes of his. “Strong and brave, and I like you even more now.”

The stretch of her smile felt good after the last day of stressing about how they’d parted at the bar. She loved how he always said what he was thinking, and she loved even more that his head was full of nice thoughts. He was a good man. Maybe the best she’d ever met, and something inside told her she had only scratched the surface with him. “I don’t want you to leave if I get pregnant,” she admitted in a rush. Softer, she said again, “I don’t want you to leave.”

Bash was to her in an instant, and she gasped at how fast he was. His hand cupped her cheek. “I won’t do that. I can’t.” Leaning into her, he kissed her lips, then pulled away with a sweet smack. His eyes were still closed when he eased back, but there was a smile on his lips now. “I forgot how good that feels with you.” He inhaled deeply, and his shoulders relaxed on the exhale. “Come on now. I won’t have you late to the doctor.”

Feeling utterly drunk on that kiss, she set the vase of roses in the center of her kitchen table and floated after him in a daze. She almost forgot her purse, but remembered at the last minute when she didn’t have her key to lock the door. Outside, Bash held out his elbow formally and pulled her hand against the crook.

“I like your dress,” he said as he led her toward a gun-metal gray Dodge Ram.

Emerson looked down at her cream-colored sundress with the pink floral print. “It’ll probably sound weird, but it felt right dressing up for this.”

“Hell yeah. You’re meeting the vial of your baby daddy’s jizz today. One of those little tadpoles could turn out to be your baby. It’s a big fuckin’ deal.”

She giggled and bumped her shoulder against his arm. God, she really liked Bash. A huge part of her still couldn’t believe he was okay with this and supporting her, but under this big, burly, muscled-up exterior was a sweet and understanding man.

Bash winced against the sunlight and pulled a pair of aviator sunglasses off the V-neck of his black T-shirt. He put them on, then opened the door of his truck and helped her in. When she was settled, he closed the door and jogged around the front on his long, powerful legs. As he sat behind the wheel and turned on the engine, she realized something. Her baby wouldn’t look anything like the man she loved. Loved? She stared at Bash’s profile as he pulled out of her neighborhood. Strong jaw, straight nose, perfect dark scruff, and those gorgeous emerald eyes that lightened to such a mesmerizing color when his inner bear was close to the surface. He was perfect, but her baby would look different, like some blond-haired stranger. And now she was at about forty-two percent sure she wanted to go through with this.

There was a massive box in the back seat, and when she saw the picture on the side, she nearly choked on air. “Bash, did you buy a car seat?”

A soft growl rattled his throat. “Woman, you weren’t supposed to guess what it is. I turned it so you couldn’t tell.”

“You didn’t want me to know?”

“Well, my alpha said humans take things slower, and I don’t want to rush you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I pick you,” he said with a shrug and a duh look.

“You pick me for what?”

Another growl, and he turned up the radio.

“Sebastian Kane, what the hell are you talking about?”

“You’re my mate, and I’m only your friend, but I’m gonna hunt you until you give in, even if it takes a hundred years, and at some point in that hundred years, I’m gonna need a car seat in my truck for Bean.”

“Bean?” she asked, utterly baffled.

“That’s what I’m calling your baby until you name it.”

“Oh,” she said stunned as she stared back at the car seat.

“I researched it, and that’s the safest one Saratoga has to offer.”

Bash had just laid it on the line and admitted she was his choice. No one in her entire life had said anything like that. She’d fallen short with other relationships. They’d deserted her or picked other women, and she’d always been left feeling like not-quite-enough. But Bash was in this.

He not only had picked her, but he was choosing her future baby, too, by buying that car seat. Emerson hugged the stuffed bear against her middle to steady the nerves there.

Thirty-five percent. Shit, could she even do this anymore?

Yes. The last year of appointments and questions and planning had gotten her here to this day. This way Bash would have an out. They were new, and since it wouldn’t be his baby biologically, he could still bow out. It was too early in their relationship to talk about building a family, and she was ready. More than ready. So why did she feel like puking all the sudden?

She gave Bash directions to the women’s clinic and tried to anchor herself in the moment. It was normal to get cold feet. Dr. Mallory had said as much on multiple occasions, and that’s all this was. Cold feet. And besides, there was a chance this wouldn’t even take the first time. Wait. Was that what she wanted? For a baby not to take?

She felt like an ant in a toilet that someone had just flushed.

Bash rested his palm on her thigh and squeezed it gently. “You smell scared, but you don’t have to be. I read on the Internet it won’t hurt.”

Sweet bear. She intertwined her fingers with his and lifted his knuckles to her lips. She kissed him there to reward him for being amazing.

At the women’s clinic, she got out and straightened her dress, then clopped across the parking lot beside Bash. The air felt thin. And heavy. Unbreathable.

Bash led her through the sliding glass doors to the empty waiting room. “Slow day,” she said with a nervous laugh.

“Hey Emerson,” the nurse called from behind the check-in counter. “Dr. Mallory is ready for you if you want to come on back.”

“So soon?” she squeaked out. “Okay.” She offered Bash a smile, but it fell off her face with a lip tremble.

“It’ll be okay. You’ll make a good baby. Do you want me to hold that?” Bash asked, pointing to the stuffed bear she clutched to her stomach.

“Uhhh,” she stalled, frowning down at the soft present he’d gotten the baby. She hadn’t realized she was still holding it. “I think I’ll take it with me.”

Bash gripped her shoulders and leveled her with a look. “I’ll be right out here. We’ll go get some fried pickles or whatever you want after this and have some fun, okay?”

“Yeah.” Emerson hugged his waist and inhaled deeply. He smelled like a delicious combination of clean-breeze laundry detergent and masculine body wash. Gripping his shirt, she said, “I’ll be right back,” then eased away. She didn’t look back as she signed in, or even when she followed the nurse out of the waiting room. She would fold if she did.

Dr. Mallory came in before she’d even had time to shut the door to room three. She carried a tray with an array of supplies and set them on the small counter by the sink. Emerson jerked her gaze away for reasons she didn’t understand. Nothing on it had looked terrifying or painful, but she was having trouble coping with the fact that this was really happening. God, she’d waited so long for this day, and now she was freaking out?
Settle down, lunatic.

“Okay,” Dr. Mallory said brightly. “Put the gown on, and we’ll have this done lickety-split.”

“Lickety-split,” Emerson repeated low. Just like that, and she would be done. The wait would begin. A couple of weeks, and she could take a pregnancy test and know if this worked or not. But she had this really strong feeling it would, and she now was at twenty-five percent.

“Oh, and Emerson?” Dr. Mallory asked before she left the room. “You’re making the right decision with this sample. You’ll have a really good chance at a viable, healthy baby. A baby, Emerson. Not an animal.”

With a frown, Emerson asked, “What does that mean?” Her hackles were up but, damn it all, she didn’t like the way Dr. Mallory had said that.

“I mean you will be able to have your baby anywhere and get him any kind of medical insurance and attention because he or she will be normal.” Dr. Mallory shook her head like that should’ve been obvious.

“My child would be normal either way.”

“No, Emerson.” When the doctor’s cheeks flushed red, her freckles disappeared into the color. “If your child was a shifter, it would be a freak. It wouldn’t be natural.” With an irritated sigh, she bustled out of the room and clicked the door closed behind her.

A freak? Stunned and angry, Emerson stared at the wall. Bash sat in that waiting room, just a few plaster barriers away, and he was sweet and caring, and a gentleman. He was no
freak
, and his children wouldn’t be either. They would be lucky to have a daddy who cared so much about them.