Bear Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire #2)(39)

“But shouldn’t it be up to your mates to decide whether they can handle this life?”

Dalton shrugged one shoulder up to his ear. “I don’t know. Before I bonded to my woman, I would’ve said yes, but looking back now, I should’ve stopped what was happening between us from the start.”

Lena’s heart sank at how jaded Dalton’s experiences had made him. And she didn’t blame him. Losing a child and then separating from a mate were life experiences so unimaginably painful, how could they not change a person’s outlook on life?

“I lost my first mate,” she said with a sympathetic look. “I totally understand how it changes you.”

Dalton looked up at the moon. “We make one hell of a pack out here,” he murmured. “All broken.”

But he was wrong. They weren’t broken. Broken was what happened when they went through something hard and stopped living. Broken was what happened when a person started running and never looked back. She’d done that. She’d been broken, and she saw nothing but strong men here. Their experiences made them tougher, and they were each still trying, even if they’d given up on mates.

This was the first moment in years that she didn’t feel broken.

And as soon as she got to the lodge, she was going to upload her pictures, send them off to Bucks and Backwoods before her deadline, then ask for Tobias to be her bush pilot out of here because it was unacceptable to break all over again.

She’d finally begun to find herself and Jenner had been pivotal in starting the changes in her. She understood his desire for her to live a better life than he thought he could provide, and she loved him even more for it. That was his sacrifice, but now it was her turn.

Lena wasn’t ready to give up on this, even if he was.

The beginnings of a plan were forming in her mind, but she needed a Silver brother to help carry it out. Tobias didn’t know it yet, but he was about to pay Jenner back for shredding him up all those years ago.

Tobias was about to save them both.

****

Jenner leaned against the kitchen island and stared suspiciously at Lena, who was sitting at the dining table, typing away on her laptop. Was she smiling? This was not how he’d imagined their last morning together. He’d prepared himself for more death-glares and tears, but from the looks of it, Lena was just going to ignore him completely until she left this place in an hour.

And he wasn’t the only one who noticed because Dalton and Chance both kept shooting Lena worried looks from the couch where they were talking with their new clients.

Sure, women were confusing as shit, but Jenner was being gutted every minute that drew them closer to goodbye, and Lena had just literally laughed out loud at something she read on her glowing computer screen.

She took another bite of the apology sandwich he’d made her and clicked away on her little laptop mouse. Out of sheer curiosity, he ambled around the other side of the dining table like he was going to join the others, but sat on the back of the couch and looked at what she was doing on her computer instead. She was attaching the pictures to an email from the looks of it.

“You aren’t sending pictures of me, are you?”

Lena cast him an angry glare over her shoulder. There it was. “Those are just for me.”

Jenner licked his bottom lip and gripped the edge of the leather couch he was resting against. “Do you want to talk in private? About anything? I mean, before you leave do you want to…I don’t know…yell at me?”

“Nope.”

The pain in his chest intensified, and he stifled a growl because the trio of mid-thirties men on a bachelor party adventure were close enough to hear. And he’d be damned if he outed his beastly nature to humans twice in one week.

Lena’s hair was pulled back in a long ponytail, and the lighter auburn ends curled under, showing off that long, pretty neck of hers, but also the top edge of the bandage that sat right under the neck of her shirt.

She was his. His, and he was about to let her go. Fuck, he hated this stupid urge to be a decent person. He hated feeling trapped. Wanting her to stay more than anything, but needing to push her to leave and find someone normal. A regular human guy who could be there for her always, not just during the warm season. Who would encourage her drive to be the best in her industry. Who could give her little babies, not cubs, who would grow up to go to college and marry normal women and give Lena normal grandchildren. And he could picture it all. Her hair streaked with silver, glasses on her nose, with a huge family gathered around her for holidays while he would still be here, sleeping through. But as much as he told himself he wanted that for her, he hated the thought of her making a family with anyone else. Of her spending the holidays with another family. And how f*cking selfish, right? He hadn’t been awake for a Christmas since he was fifteen, but he begrudged her having that with people she could actually celebrate with?

Pushing off the couch, he strode from the cabin and off the porch, then across the massive yard to the deck overlooking the river. He couldn’t be in there while she looked so unaffected by all this. He was burning inside, and she couldn’t look more relaxed to be leaving him. And yeah, this was his fault—his choice. She’d cried so hard when he’d told her she needed to go and that it wouldn’t work out between them, so by God, he thought it would’ve been harder for her to separate.

He’d been her first.