Husband Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire #1)(36)

“It’s not,” he said quietly.

“Then why did you answer that ad, Ian?”

“Because I wanted you.” He let those words linger between them for a long time as they slowly bounced over the rough dirt road. “From the first time I saw you, I knew you were mine. And it didn’t matter how much I fought it or how selfish I knew I was being, you were it for me. I want to protect you and provide for you.” His voice cracked, and he slammed his head back against the rest. “Down to my bones, you feel like mine, and I hated what Cole did to you, and I wanted to do it better. I want to make you happy.”

“But only half of the year.”

“Do you think I want this? Do you? I’ve lived alone my whole life trying not to taint someone else’s with my bear shit, and I was happy to do it until you came along. And then there you were, so perfect and brave and so goddamn beautiful, and you were asking me to stay, and I couldn’t say no. There. There it is, Elyse. I’m weak, and I gave in to the idea that I could keep you. This right here is why I didn’t want to marry you until you saw what life with me would be like. I wanted you to know the real me before you went all in. I know it’s not fair what I’m asking. Six months of providing for you in the warm season, six months away. It’s not what I want for us. It’s not what I imagine a woman would be willing to put up with, but this is all I have to offer. Everything I have is yours. And I know it’s not enough. I know it. But I guess I was hoping if you came to care for me enough, you’d at least consider me.”

Tears were streaming her face now in uncontrolled rivers.

She’d almost had everything.

She’d been this close.

The silence was no longer easy, and neither one of them moved to turn on the radio. Instead, she allowed the weight between them fill the cab of his truck, and when Ian pulled to a stop in front of the cabin, Elyse couldn’t escape fast enough. Her leg hurt, but that didn’t stop her from hobbling into the house and into her room. She cried as she absorbed the thought of spending every winter alone. At the thought of losing him completely.

And tonight, just like the first night, Ian sat quietly in her bedroom doorway and waited for her tears to run out.





Chapter Fourteen


The new rooster was going at the morning sun with all he had, squawking and crowing the ugliest sound Elyse had ever heard. That wasn’t what had woken her up, though. It was the smell of bacon and the soft sounds of Ian moving around the house that had dragged her from sleep. The rooster was too late. Elyse was already sitting up in bed glaring at the sunny sunshine that was filtering through the bedroom window. If the sun had a dick, she would kick it.

After hobbling into the bathroom, she washed the horrors of yesterday’s misadventures from her skin, careful to avoid the bandage. She was still too chicken shit to look under it, but when Ian strode wordlessly into her bathroom as she was towel drying her damp hair, it was abundantly clear he didn’t suffer from the same cowardice.

“Sit,” he grunted, jerking his chin toward the edge of the bathtub.

He looked in as foul a mood as she was, and she wasn’t up for a row this morning, so she waited an extra two seconds just to let him know he wasn’t the boss of her, then sat daintily on the edge of the plastic ledge of the tub.

Ian knelt on the floor and lifted her foot onto his thigh, then removed the bandage from her leg as if he’d done so a million times. Gentle and efficient were his hands until, at last, the damage was exposed. Huh. She leaned forward and squinted. It wasn’t that bad. Sure, it would probably leave four thin scars that would silver over time, but even the worst one was sewed tightly closed, and there wasn’t even any redness or swelling around it.

“I thought it would be much worse,” she admitted.

Ian didn’t answer as he poured some kind of cleaning solution over her cuts and, mother fluffer, it felt like he’d poured boiling water onto her injuries. She gritted her teeth, refusing to make a noise. Quick as a whip, he had fresh bandages firmly in place and strode out of the room.

“Are you going to give me the silent treatment forever?” she called.

“Nope.”

His boot prints echoed through the house as he made his way to and out the front door.

She narrowed her eyes at where he’d disappeared, then stood and dressed herself. The echo of the ax blasting into wood on the chopping block was loud. Much louder than the noise she made when she was chopping wood, but one look out the window explained why. It took her several strokes to get through a log. For Ian, it took one.

An overkill breakfast was on the counter in the kitchen, piled high on a plate and covered with a cloth napkin. It was cold, but good, and she ate every bite of it before washing her dish.

At the pump outside, she began to fill the bucket for the chickens’ water dispensers, but Ian, with a saddle slung over his shoulder, jammed a finger at her and said, “I already did it. You’re supposed to stay off your feet.”

“What are you doing with my saddle?”

“Cleaning it. You have a fine saddle with horse shit splattered on it.”

“Oh.”

Grumpily, she sat on the rocking chair on the porch and watched him work with her arms crossed over her chest. She wasn’t used to sitting around.

The man was a sight to behold, though. He’d chopped nearly a cord of wood while she’d readied for the day and ate breakfast, and the woodpile was looking much healthier, plus he had several logs lined up to chop later. He must’ve hauled them up with the four-wheeler this morning. He watered and fed the horses, milked the goat, and washed off a dark-stained table he’d apparently used to clean their fish sometime in the night if the dried scales were anything to go by. Out of curiosity, she hobbled around the house to the freezer and, sure enough, the bottom was covered in two layers of fish filets, neatly labeled and individually wrapped. Damn, it was good to see some meat in there.