Bearly Hanging On (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance) (The Jamesburg Shifters Book 6) (12 page)

"I heard that," Marmite said, squinting one of his eyes.

He was definitely an ancient thing, though through the wrinkled skin and drooping ears, Jamie could see that he had a hell of a spirit. He whistled through his two front teeth, and slid his feet into the bucket. "Gout," he said. "Hell of a thing. Cora! Get in here! Ryan brought a girlfriend."

"Hey, now," Ryan said, defensively. "Not a girlfriend. Just someone who I wanted to meet you. She works down town, at the—"

Suddenly, Marmite's face got very drawn and sour, like he'd just drank a beer that was about six years past it's shelf date. Ryan sensed it and headed off the irritation. "She's not the enemy," he said. "She's trying to help."

"Trying," Marmite said. "Always trying. But never doing. Never helping us old, useless—"

"Lay off her, Marm," Cora said, shuffling out from the back of the house. "Forgive him, dear, he's just... well, bless his heart, he's gotten on in his years and thinks that means he can say whatever it is what comes to his mind. Any friend of Ryan's here is a friend of ours. Are you expecting?"

Jamie smiled and thanked her, and then opened her eyes wide when she realized what just got said. "I'm... I'm sorry?" Speechlessness and blushing were two things not normally part of Jamie Ampton's personality, but getting asked if she was pregnant out of the blue had those exact effects.

"I'm... wait, what?"

"Expecting, dear," Cora was smiling in the way only a grandmother can, "you know, with child. Bun in the oven, what is it they say these days? The name of that funny movie with that unfortunate looking fat boy and the cute girl? Marmite, what was that?"

"Knocked Up?" Ryan asked, helpfully. "That was a good one. Listen," he tried to steer the conversation to other topics, but that wasn't going to happen.

"Yes!" Cora smiled again. "That one. So, when are you due? And it is with Ryan, yes? I always thought he'd make a good father for a brood of cubs. Although, you're going to have to stop wearing such tight-fitting clothes soon, what with the bump and all."

Jamie was just staring, eyes so wide it almost hurt to keep them that way. "I'm not, er, I—"

"Are those wings?" Marmite said, squinting again.

"Of course they are, you damn fool," Cora said, whapping her husband on the back of the head. "She's a halfsie, anyone can see that. Rare things, those. Don't see them often."

Of all the things to get her blushing, that was the one. Pregnancy could be laughed off, hell, even being called Ryan's girlfriend and being advised to stop wearing clothes with slim-fits. But... that? The thing that had haunted her since she was old enough to realize she wasn't like everyone else? Why did that have to come up and why did it have to happen right then?

She felt her face get hot, and she felt anger well up.
Not the time, Jamie
, she told herself.
She didn't mean anything by it. She is just talking. Calm the hell down.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Cora said, sensing Jamie’s discomfort. "I didn't mean anything by it, only that there aren't so many of you around. Used to be more. My best friend as a little girl was – was it the word I used?"

"No," Jamie said, her voice low. "It's just... I don't like to talk about it much."

"Oh humbug!" Cora said, smiling and chipper. She grabbed Jamie's arm and dragged her by it. "Come in here, I've got a photo album I want to show you. I don't have any way of doing all that Face business or the Tweetering. I've got old bones and do things the old way. Come on."

She shot a glance back at Ryan who just shrugged and smiled. He sat down beside Marmite with the bucket, and began to set up the chess board that the old koala had beside him, as Cora and Jamie disappeared. "Want to go a game or two, old man?" she heard Ryan say. "I'll go easy on you."

"Aw hellfire!" the old man swore in one of those cute, semi made-up swears that her own dad used to use in place of real ones. Just that was enough to get Jamie a little misty eyed, but she didn't have long to think about it before she was sat down in front of a massive old book that looked a whole lot like one of those coffee table bibles.

"Look here," Cora said. "I'm sorry dear, if you told me your name, I've forgotten."

She laid an aged hand on Jamie's shoulder and pushed her with a surprising amount of strength, down into the chair at the head of the very old and very well cared for dining table.

"Jamie Ampton, and no, you didn't forget."

"Very good," Cora said with a smile. "I'm Cora Dufresne. Tom doesn't mean all his anger. He's just... he's very protective, and, well, he's a lot like Ryan. But you could probably tell. The way you two were looking at each other, you've got a rare thing. Reminds me of us at your age."

Jamie cocked her head a little to the side. "I didn't know we were looking at each other."

Cora patted her gently on the shoulder. "Sometimes the most powerful looks don't have to be made with the eyes, you know. I saw how his hand on your shoulder made you relax when Tom started getting his cockles all riled up."

Jamie didn't quite know what to say.

"And I'm sorry about the baby thing. I just figured Ryan wouldn't bring anyone around to meet us unless he was planning to court her. He's like that, you know, he acts all rough and tumble, but he's as soft hearted as they come."

Jamie unconsciously brushed one of her tendrils of hair back behind her ear. "I've gotten that from him, but you want to know what's funny?"

"Hmm?"

"I only met him a few days ago. He came into the courthouse and stared down the town alpha. Then I saw him at a friend's field trying to boost a cow, and I bit him."

Cora was giggling. "He does things that get him in trouble. He always has, but he means well, Ryan does. He thinks we need more help than we do. We let him believe it. Gives him a purpose, you know?"

Jamie was, once again, unable to come up with anything to say, intelligent or otherwise.

"When Tom and I met, we were both on the run from families that weren't... well, not supportive, let's put it that way to keep things friendly. We fell in together, and were married a week later. Every one of our friends told us we were crazy, but here we are. Fifty years later. Fifty one," she corrected herself.

"And it feels like a hundred and eighty!" Marmite shouted from the other room.

"Oh, shut up with that," Cora shouted back, though there was a smile on her face. "No one wants to hear an old koala bellyaching!" Then she turned back to Jamie. "Now look here, see this one?"

"With the tail? Is that a dingo-shifter?"

"Mm-hmm. That's Adelaide. One of my very best friends. We grew up together. Lost touch over the years, but she'll send a letter every so often. When I, well, we, I suppose, moved to Jamesburg to settle down a little, she was still sewing her wild oats."

"And she's a... well, she's like me?"

"Oh yes, and it bothered her just like it does you. Are your parents the same?"

"They're dead," Jamie said flatly. "Oh, you meant half... no, they were both regular old folks. Well, as regular as we get, you know."

Cora was smiling, with a look of distant reminiscence on her face. "She always thought the same as you - that being different, you know, it was bad somehow. But it isn't. It took her a very long time to figure that out. I don't think it was until she met... well, until she met someone who looked at her the same way I noticed Ryan looking at you. There's someone for all of us, you know. Someone for all of us to grow old together with, to pester and pick on and jabber with. Someone that will take care of us when we're sick and make us laugh when we're sad."

Jamie found herself nodding along with the things Cora was saying. "Who is that?" she asked, pointing to a very grumpy looking old man. "Marmite?"

"Oh no, dear, that's his father. Apparently with koalas, the grumpiness is genetic." She chuckled softly and reached over for a stick of something that she began to chew on. "Sorry for the eating, it's just that we have to do it all the time."

Jamie shook her head. "No, no, I understand. Eating for me is something best kept in the dark." She didn't really mean that as a double entendre, but there it was. And there, a few seconds later, was Ryan.

"You show her your deepest secrets?" Ryan asked.

Cora looked at him with a very cross, grandmotherly face. "Now don't you know how rude it is to barge in when two ladies are chatting? You've no idea what you'll overhear."

Ryan raised his hands in a defensive gesture, but they were both smiling. "Old man beat me twice already, says he won't play me again because it makes him dumber."

Cora was shaking her head.

"Anyway, I'm guessing it's about time for us to head out, anyway. Don't want to take up any more of your time. “Thanks for showing her the pictures. What did you look at anyway?"

"Oh, just some old memories. Good ones. The kind that make you smile when you think about them, even though you know those times are long gone."

Ryan gave Jamie a questioning look, but Jamie just shrugged. She let her shoulders relax when his hand went there, although this time, she was conscious of what Cora told her when they first walked into the kitchen. Maybe she's right, she thought. Maybe...

Ryan was leading her away, and at some point, the hand on her shoulder turned to an arm draped around her, lightly, but enough that she felt the safety of the weight against her neck. They waved, Cora and Marmite waved back, and Ryan and Jamie walked in silence for a time, back to the wood pile where all this started.

"Why'd you take me to meet them?" She asked, turning him to face her and studying the lines of Ryan's face. "I was expecting something to convince me of the dire need to move faster with whatever we're going to do... but it wasn't, was it?"

His smile told her all she needed to know. "It's hard for me to imagine a life like that," he said. "That sort of contentedness."

Jamie felt like there was a 'but' coming.

"But," he looked away, trailing off.

She tilted his head back, searching his face. "But what?"

"But with you? From the first time I saw you, sitting in that courtroom... I suddenly," he took a breath. "Well, it all started to make sense. How a couple can be like that for so long. I can't explain it, it just... just sort of occurred to me."

"Her asking me if I was pregnant surprised me," Jamie breathed, "but somehow, you saying that? It doesn't."

The hand on her neck squeezed gently, and she laid her hand on Ryan's bare chest. His heart, thudding softly in his chest, possessed her imagination. For a moment, Jamie imagined him with her in his arms, kissing her, caressing her neck.

"This is a hell of a spot," Jamie said with a nervous laugh. "I'm supposed to be the detached, analytical one, and here I am, falling for a criminal."

The kiss he gave her was the sweetest, gentlest, one she'd ever tasted, and when he pulled away, Jamie's eyes were still closed. She pulled him back, parting his lips with hers as he explored her mouth with his tongue. Their breath seemed to mix in the air between them, in and out as one being with two bodies.

His fingers curled against her back, sending tingles up her spine all the way to the nape of her neck. That time when Ryan pulled away, she chased, but only for a second. His next kiss brushed her cheek and then behind her ear, in a place that made her purr and go a little weak in the knees.

She wanted him - needed him - but for the life of her, couldn't understand why.

"What are you doing to me?" she asked, eyes only slightly open as his tongue painted a hot trail along her jaw. He nipped gently on her chin, then enveloped her mouth again, breathing in through his nostrils, and groaning as he exhaled.

He pulled her tight against his chest, and she felt a stir in a place she hadn't felt one in way too long.

"This was just supposed to be me coming and seeing if I could find you," she whispered, before he bit at her neck and she gasped in pleasure. "See if I'd done anything... bad... to you."

"Bad?" he asked, a soft laugh reverberating against the hollow of Jamie's throat before he sucked another kiss. "What the hell bad could you do?"

The next thing she knew, her hair was in his hand, his fist closed around the bun, pulling it backward so he could kiss her neck wherever he wanted. Up and down, he warmed her skin, licked and sucked and bit. She shook her head, forcing her hair to fall down her shoulders in a blue-black tumble.

"I do plenty of bad things," she said, scratching at one of Ryan's huge biceps and then squeezing, more to anchor herself than anything else. "Sometimes I can't help it."

She felt him thicken against her softest place, the heat from his body pulsing against her, through her. "So do I," Ryan whispered. The hint of menace in his voice made her burn even hotter than before. She felt herself ache for him in a way she'd not allowed herself to ache in a long, long time.

"Why me?" she asked, running one of her hands through his hair, and trying to kiss back when he stopped for a second. The taste of salty sweat on her lips, the smell of man and work and fir filled her sensitive nose, setting all the tiny hairs on the back of her neck at attention.

"Why me?" he asked her, pointedly, as he slid his hand along the curve of her back, to rest just above the swell of her left hip. "I can play the same game you can."

The next time he pulled her against him, she knew what she felt - he was ready for her, and she was ready for him - but it couldn't happen, not like this, no matter how badly she wanted to give in and let him do whatever the hell he wanted.

With his hands painting a hot track up and down her back, Jamie began to feel a little prickle of heat - not the good kind - at the base of her spine. She put her hand on Ryan's sweaty, delicious, muscled chest, and whispered, "Stop."

Confused, he kissed her again, making her toes curl just a little, but then pulled away, cocking his head to the side and watching her face. "Is everything okay?"

She smiled a bittersweet half-smile and felt a mist in her left eye. She lifted her thumb to dab it away, and it came away red. She sniffled softly and took a step back, patting Ryan on the chest with both of her hands. A red streak marred him where she touched, and he asked the same thing again - was she okay?