Page 5 of Bearly Yours
Roarke- He was an idiot.
Lyonel?
Roarke- Yes.
I thought for a minute.
You know, at some point I have to acknowledge that I’m the common factor in these encounters.
It’s me. I’m the problem, it’s me.
Roarke- The only common factor is the fact that you’re going out with—
And then the rest was literally bleeped out with blobs of words that had black shadows over them and symbols. The symbols meant that it was a particularly vicious curse. He’d paid for an app to be created that blocked outgoing curse words in any language and installed it to his phone for me. And he’d done it without ever saying a word about the cost or inconvenience, which I knew from what little I knew about coding and the cost of creating something like this, must have been a lot.
Roarke!
My phone rang. I rolled my eyes and answered. “Do you kiss your mama with that mouth,” I asked, in lieu of a greeting.
He chuckled, and the smoky deep sound made my stomach flutter again. “When she was alive, I did, yes.”
I winced.Great, Emrie. Way to go bringing up his dead mom. A for effort.I took a careful breath and closed my eyes, shutting out my deep, blue-grey walls and my fluffy white comforter. After a beat of silence I said, “Do you know how much I value your friendship? How much I value you?”
The line went quiet. In fact, I couldn’t even hear him breathing for a moment. “I do. I value our friendship as well.” His voice was husky. “I valueyou,cailín.I think you’re amazing.”
I blinked back the sting of tears in my eyes.
“Thank you,” I said quietly. “Good night, Roarke. Sleep well.”
“G’night, cailín. You too.”
I curled up on my side and drifted to sleep. And the only thing on my mind as I fell asleep was that smoky, deep voice of Roarke’s, the warmth of his body next to mine in the gardens earlier, and the bright ember of our friendship.
Chapter 2
Emrie
Sunday was one of my only days off.
So, after getting up and getting a shower, I got dressed in jeans and a sweater and puttered around my house, watering plants, working on some small woodworking projects for my own home, and just generally being a lazy, lazy bear.
Roarke was off on what he called astretchingflightand wouldn’t be back until after my weekly dinner with the Clan, so hanging out with him was out. I missed him. Was that weird? Was I turning into one of those women who was obsessed?
After nearly drowning my plants in too much water and putting the first coat of paint on what would be my built-in bookshelves for my den, I jumped into the shower again to clean up and get ready for the Clan dinner.
Every Sunday, rain or shine, my alpha asked everyone to be present at Sunday dinner. Usually, only a dozen or so could make it because the rest of the bears were either working or patrolling our Clan property.
Bears are funny, in that we’re happy in a Clan, but just as happy to be alone or with a small family unit. If left to our own devices, we would just do our own thing, and Alpha Riggs knewthis about us, and knew that wasn’t what being in a Clan was all about.
In order to bond, Clans needed to socialize.
And honey truffles did we socialize! I mean, I loved my Clan, but there was a reason I lived in my own house and not in the lodge.
Being in a bear Clan gave you a sense of community. Nowhere else could you get so many diverse kinds of bears together. My Clan alone had everything from pandas to polar bears to sun bears and black bears. I, myself am a black bear, which is one of the more common bear shifter forms.
The mile or so walk through Clan property to the lodge was beautiful.
While most non-shifting bears were hibernating right now, I enjoyed the light dusting of snow, the icicles on the evergreen trees, and the clean, fresh air.
