Bear Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire #2)(23)

“You’re teasing. I bet you say that to every girl you take to bed.”

His dark eyebrows arched high, and he let out a surprised laugh. “Is that what you think of me?”

“Well…yeah. Look at you.”

And he did. He ran a quick glance over his bare torso and gave her an uncertain half smile as if he thought she was the one teasing now. “Yeah, I’m a great catch. Scarred up hunting guide, off in the woods most of the time, prefers to be alone, emotionally constipated, and sleeps half the damned—” Jenner dropped his gaze and cleared his throat, attention back on his food.

“Day away? I like naps, too. That won’t scare me off.”

But the smile she’d been trying to conjure didn’t return.

“I have six sisters,” she said low, desperate not to let their connection go just yet.

“Six?”

“Yep. It was an all girls’ club growing up, especially after Dad passed. He wanted a son so badly that he and my mom just kept trying.”

“Let me guess. You’re the oldest.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Super responsible, looking out for others, independent.”

“Wrong, wrong, dead wrong. I’m the baby of the family. And”—she scrunched up her nose in disbelief she was about to admit this out loud—“the black sheep of the Rhodes family.”

“No.”

She laughed and tossed a pepper at him. “It’s true. My sisters are all married or engaged. Three of them have given my mom grandbabies, and all of them were settled by my age. Every time I go back for the holidays, I get so excited about seeing everyone and connecting again, and then after about a day with them, I’m clawing my eyeballs out to leave again.”

“Why?”

Lena sighed and lifted her shoulders to her ears in a shrug. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. Why do you run?”

She bit her bottom lip and pushed a piece of steak around her plate. “Because that was supposed to be me.”

“You and Adam?”

She nodded and huffed a laugh. “Sounds so stupid because it was a marriage out of friendship, but I was eighteen and hoping and praying on my knees every night that Adam would pull through, and then I was widowed three weeks after I turned nineteen. I was so young, you know? And for a minute, my life had made sense, and then all the sudden it didn’t anymore, and I didn’t know how to stop the tailspin. Every time I go back home, I have to hear the speeches about how it’s time I moved on, and I get so angry at them. It’s so easy for people to say that. Easy to say and almost impossible to do. It’s so flippant. Just, ‘Lena, you need a man.’ But I had one, and I didn’t recover. Every time I go home, I come out of it eager to travel again for this job. I take more assignments than anyone else because I have no one tying me to anything.”

Jenner’s eyes were on her, sad but understanding.

“I guess I’m still in the tailspin, huh?”

“My brother was the one that made these,” he murmured, gesturing to the long silver slashes across his chest. “I understand tailspins.”

Shocked, Lena stared in horror at his scarred up torso. “Your brother did that how?”

Jenner shook his head. “He didn’t mean to. My other brother Ian saved me, but barely.”

“You have two brothers?”

A smile stuttered across his face. “We’re triplets. Multiples are common in my lineage.”

“You’re a triplet?” Her voice had jacked up an octave. “I don’t even think I’ve met a twin before. Can you read each other’s minds?”

He laughed. “No. I’ve only seen them a handful of times in the last few years, and most of that has been recently.”

“Why?”

“We don’t get along so well. We try, but there is just a part of us that is too competitive to spend any actual quality time together. One of my brother’s, Ian, he regrets the broken relationship. He’s always tried to reach out, and I’ve swatted him down. Tobias is even worse than I am.”

“Wait, so which brother did that?” she asked, flicking her fingers toward his silver scars.

“Tobias.”

“What? I flew in a plane with him! Is he dangerous?”

“Yes, but not to you. And this was an accident. It happened when we were sixteen.”

“You said Ian saved you. Where were your parents?”

“Uh.” He sat up straighter and wiped his hands, clearly uncomfortable with where the discussion had ended up. “Mom wasn’t in the picture. She couldn’t handle multiples, and Dad was more of a hands-off kind of parent. He wanted us to figure everything out on our own. Ian, Tobias, and I were kicked out of the nest at sixteen, and the accident happened right after that.”

“Oh, Jenner. Do you think that is part of the reason for the rift? Maybe Tobias feels badly.”

“Tobias doesn’t feel anything.”

The food sat in a lump in her stomach, so she pushed the plate away and drew her knees up to her chest to ward off the chill that was suddenly rippling gooseflesh over her arms. “I’m sorry.”

He watched her quietly, head canted as if he couldn’t figure her out. “You’re different from other people. Different to me. You don’t mind things about me that make others uncomfortable.”