Bear My Soul (Fire Bears Book 1) (6 page)

Rory’s heart felt too big for her chest, and her throat was closing by the second. Her own mother had never been so open and candid, had never strung so many nice thoughts about her in a row like this. “He mentioned he looked for me.”

“He searched hard, dear. He was desperate to thank you somehow. We’re all so happy you’ve decided to come back.”

Rory’s heart dropped to the floor. She hadn’t come back from the good of her heart. She’d come back desperate to help Aaron, not for Cody’s benefit at all. “I should’ve come sooner. I’m sorry, Mrs. Keller.”

“Oh, honey,” Mrs. Keller said, shaking her head and wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. “You had your reasons for staying away. You were trying to protect your cub. I have four boys of my own and imagine I would’ve done the same thing if I was afraid their father would put them at risk.” She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at Aaron, who was giving a tall man with shoulder length hair and tattoos up his arms a high five. “You raised a strong little cub and kept him safe without the protection of a crew. You’re a right proper momma bear. And no more of this Mrs. Keller crap. Call me Ma.”

Unable to hold back the tears at Mrs. Keller’s offered and undeserved forgiveness, Rory hugged her tight again as another weight lifted off her shoulders. At this rate, she was going to feel free as a bird by week’s end.

“Now let me get my arms around my grandson,” Ma said, reaching for him.

Aaron gave Rory an uncertain look, but she nodded in encouragement. “This is your grandma.”

He reached for her slowly.

Ma plucked him from Cody’s grip and swayed gently as she said, “Do you know, you look just like your daddy did at your age?”

“I do?” Aaron asked in that little squeaky voice of his.

“Exactly like,” she said, lifting her shoulders so he settled better on her hip.

“Cody, did you hear?” Aaron called over the murmur of the crowd.

“I did, boy, and it’s true. I’ll show you pictures when we visit grandma’s house. You,” he murmured to Rory. “You come here. I have some people I want you to meet.”

Rory beamed and stepped around Ma. Nervously, she waved to the three men gathered around Cody.

“Rory, this is Gage.” He gestured to a man with dark eyes and darker blond hair that brushed his ears. He nodded a greeting and offered her a friendly smile.

“Boone.” Cody clapped the man with the longer blond hair and sleeves of tattoos down his arms. “And this is the baby of the family, Dade.” That baby of the family was the tallest one of them all, towering even over Cody.

Rory arched her neck back and whispered, “Holy mayo,” as she shook his hand.

Dade laughed and surprised her by pulling her into a rough hug. Boone followed suit, and when she was thoroughly embraced and her spine nice and cracked, Gage pointed to a woman sitting at a table holding a sleeping girl around Aaron’s age. The woman had dark hair and eyes and a pixie-like turned-up nose over full, smiling lips. Her eyes danced as she waved.

“This is my mate…I mean wife, Leah. My daughter, Arie. My boy, Tate, is over there trying desperately to get grandma to let your boy down so he can play with him.”

Indeed, there was a little dishwater-blond boy jumping up and down, holding onto Ma’s shirt with one hand and pleading to play. Aaron was grinning down at him, and they were holding hands.

“Sit by me,” Leah offered, patting the long bench seat beside her.

“Okay,” Rory said shyly, then scooted all the way through to where Leah sat against the wall. “She’s beautiful.” She settled beside the woman.

Leah stared down at the girl, blond pigtails piled high and a sleepy smile on her face. “Don’t let her fool you. She’s a little monster in the mornings. It was easier to just let her fall back to sleep in here.”

Rory giggled and said, “Aaron is a morning person.”

“Like his daddy.”

“Yeah, I’m coming to realize he’s a lot like Cody.”

Leah looked lovingly at her brother-in-law and then to Aaron. “It looks like the Keller curse has struck you, too.”

“What do you mean?” Rory asked.

Leah lifted a lock of her hair, almost as dark as a raven’s feather, and set it beside Arie’s fair tresses. “The genetics are strong with those Keller boys.”

“Yeah, annoying right?” she joked. “Aaron got freckles. That’s my only claim. I carried him for nine months, sick as a dog the entire time, and he came out looking nothing like me and every bit like a little baby Viking.”

Leah snorted a laugh and nodded. “Finally, someone who gets my pain.”

“Hey, I’m going to order food,” Cody said, leaning on the table until his annoyingly sexy triceps flexed. “What do you want?”

“Uhh…” She squinted at the chalkboard menu at the front but it was too blurry to read from this far. “Just get me whatever you’re having. I’m not picky. Oh, Aaron will want—”

“A chocolate-covered donut? He’s put in his order six times already.” Cody winked and sauntered off toward the line with his brothers.

Now, some men looked weird when they winked, but not Cody Keller. Instead, he looked even sexier, oozing all that confidence. It was almost unfair.

“Uh oh,” Leah muttered as Ma settled in with Aaron and Tate across the table. “Incoming.”

Up at the line, the woman Cody had been with at the pizzeria approached and pulled him off to the side. Boone snuck a glance behind him, probably to check if Rory was seeing this, and she definitely was.

Ma smiled sympathetically as Rory forced herself to look away. “Shayna is partly our fault. We were encouraging him to date, and she has been relentless for a couple of years now. If it makes you feel any better, I think he was just going out with her to appease me.”

“It’s none of my business who he sees,” Rory said low. “We’re just friends.”

“Lies,” Leah said lightly. “We can hear them.”

Rory puffed air from her cheeks and rested her chin on her forearms before she tried again. “It’s none of my business who he sees because he said we should only be friends, and he wants us to date other people.”

“Truth,” Leah said darkly. “That sucks. Why?”

“Because she scares him, that’s why,” Ma said. “And honey, wielding the ability to scare Cody isn’t a bad thing. Give him time.”

Time she didn’t have. In four days, Rory would be going back to her life. She just hoped the friendship they forged this week would be enough to carry their little team through until the next time she could visit.

Rory glanced up just in time to see the woman kiss Cody on the cheek and slide a narrow-eyed glance her way. Something green and ugly slithered through Rory’s veins as she watched the woman walk out the front door.

When she looked back at Leah, the woman was grinning from ear to ear. “You look pissed.”

Lifting her chin, Rory said, “I’m unaffected.”

“Mm-hmm, I told myself that about Gage for an entire year, and now look at me. Raising his little mini-mes and utterly smitten.”

“It’s different for Cody and me. We don’t really know each other, and if we don’t find a way to get along, it’ll be Aaron who suffers for it. Cody was right. The safest way to do that is to be friends and focus on our son.”

Cody walked back with Boone, but a man stopped him and shook his hand. “Thank you for your service,” the man said.

Cody nodded and smiled, then made his way back to the table and slid in beside her, folding his long legs under the table.

“What was that about?” she asked.

Cody shook his head, apparently uncomfortable, but Ma spoke up. “Cody served our country. Two tours.”

Rory stared at him. “What? You’re military?”

“Was, and I hate talking about it, so let’s don’t.” His voice was hard and cold, snapping like a rubber band, but whether that leftover chill was from his encounter with Shayna or from a haunting experience overseas, she couldn’t tell.

“Okay,” she murmured as embarrassing heat crept into her cheeks.

From the edge of her vision, she could see him watching her with an unsettled expression, but she didn’t care. If he didn’t want to talk, and if he wanted to lock her out of that part of his life, fine. They were just friendly strangers anyhow, and it was obviously none of her business.

His hand slid over the top of her thigh, and she tensed, then scrambled over his lap. “I’m going to the bathroom,” she muttered as she stumbled off the end of the bench seat.

He didn’t get to touch her how he liked after talking to her like that in front of his family. Shocked, she’d asked an honest question. It wasn’t like she’d asked him anything too personal. For chrissakes, a stranger shook his hand and thanked him for his service, yet the mother of his child wasn’t allowed in on the secret? She felt like grit.

She slipped into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. She didn’t really have to pee, but for lack of anything else to do, she gave it the ol’ college try, then washed her hands. She could do this. Just friends. She wasn’t allowed to ask him about his life until he was ready to bestow his history upon her. Really, that was fair, because she hadn’t talked about her parents with him when he’d asked, and he hadn’t pushed her to share. She hadn’t rejected his question in front of her family, though. Gah, her head was beginning to ache. Puffing air from her cheeks, she turned and unlocked the door.

Cody’s giant torso filled the frame, and she squeaked, startled. Without a word, he pushed his way into the bathroom and locked the door behind him.

“What are you doing?” she raged in a whisper. “This is the women’s bathroom. No
dicks
allowed.”

He crossed his arms over his chest until his arm muscles bulged. “You’re mad.”

“I’m not.”

Cody shot her a look that called her out on her bullshit and stepped closer. Rory’s back bumped the sink as she tried to maintain space between them.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” he whispered, placing his arms on either side of her, trapping her. “I’m proud of serving, but it wasn’t my choice to go to war.”

“What do you mean it wasn’t your choice? There is no draft.”

“There is for my crew. The government knows about us, Rory. We have to do what they want. At the time they asked me to serve, my instincts were screaming to stay with my people. They recruited my brothers, too. They separated all of us while it was my responsibility to protect them.”

“Why is everything your responsibility?”

“Because I’m alpha. I’m the leader of the Breck Crew. When my dad died…” Cody swallowed hard and straightened his spine, releasing her from his blue-flame gaze. “When he died, the title went to me.”

Rory inhaled deeply. “So people do know about bear shifters.”

Cody nodded. “For now it’s just the people who want to use their knowledge of our existence as leverage.”

“That sucks,” she muttered, stunned.

He ran a hand over his short hair and laughed. “You have no idea.”

“You know what else sucks?” she asked, crossing her arms.

“What?”

“Shayna.”

His golden brows arched high as a slow smile took his face. “You jealous?”

“I mean, it’s hard watching someone else kiss the father of your child. I don’t care how unattached or mature you are, it’s an awkward situation. Even if we’re just friends.”

A soft knock sounded against the door. “I have to pee.” It sounded like Leah.

Cody shot the door a troubled look, and then leveled Rory again with that intense gaze of his. “This is harder than I thought it would be.”

“Don’t worry, Keller. I’ll be out of your hair in four days. Then you can go back to banging whoever you want.”

She stepped around him and reached for the doorknob, but he grabbed her arm and spun her to face him. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Call me by my last name and talk about leaving.”

His lips crashed down on hers. Inhaling in shock, she balked against him, but he cupped her neck and dragged her waist closer. And as his lips softened and moved against hers, she closed her eyes and melted against him. He angled his head as she ran her hand up his chest. Opening her lips, she allowed him to taste her. A mortifying, helpless sound wrenched from her throat as his fingers turned gentle and the pace of his kiss slowed. He plucked at her lips once. Twice. Resting his forehead against hers, he said, “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Don’t,” she drawled out. “Don’t take away from this. What you meant to say is, ‘I shouldn’t have given you our first kiss in the ladies bathroom of a donut diner.’”

A tiny huff of laughter sounded as he swayed them gently from side to side. “Technically I gave you our first kiss in a bar.”

“Yeah, that’s not any better, Keller.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Don’t gripe at me in front of your family.”

“Our family now, Dodson.”

She narrowed her eyes, readying for a retort when he leaned forward and gave her the sweetest, softest kiss. The kind that ended with a quiet, sexy smacking sound and made her go warm from her mouth to her knees.

“I knew you were trouble from the first time I saw you in that bar, woman.”