Mate Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire #3)(28)

Tobias eased back, then kissed her in soft, sexy smacks before resting his forehead against hers and exhaling a shaky breath. “Damn, Vera, I missed you.”

Pushing up on her tiptoes, Vera hugged his neck as tight as she could and blinked rapidly at the colorful horizon. She wouldn’t cry like a wimp right now—not when Tobias had been so patient with her time as a fox. She had to be strong for him, like he was for her, because he deserved a strong mate. “I’m sorry I was gone for so long.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he whispered, shifting his weight from side to side with her. “It was always going to be hard to find a balance with your animal. You did good.”

“How long was I gone?”

“Vera,” Tobias warned, hugging her tighter as he rasped his two-day scruff against her cheek.

She frowned, then pulled back to look him in the eyes. “How long, Tobias?”

A muscle twitched in his jaw as he clenched his teeth, and all the humor died from his emerald green eyes. “Two weeks.”

The blood drained from her face, leaving her cheeks cold and clammy. “Two weeks?” she whispered. How had she lost so much time? “What is today?”

“August thirteenth.”

“But you could hibernate as early as next month!”

“Shhh,” he crooned, cupping her cheeks. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not. You don’t understand. It will take me time to make the medicine.”

“I thought you already knew how.”

“Yeah, but I have to make a specific serum for each type of shifter. I need your blood to start it, and some of the steps take a long time.”

Trouble washed through the mossy color of his eyes, and her chest ached for him. She wasn’t keeping up her end of the bargain. “Okay, one month. That’s enough time. I can do this.” She lifted his palm to her mouth and kissed it. “Everything will be fine. Where’s the package we brought back from Perl?”

“It’s in the shed, still all taped up.”

“And my suitcase with my lab equipment?”

“Sitting right beside it, just waiting for you to come back.”

“I need space.”

“You can use my cabin,” Link offered. “I have work in town, and I’ll be trapping most nights. Will it be big enough?”

“It’ll have to be. Thank you.”

“Yep. I’ll get it cleaned out for you,” he murmured as he hooked his thumb behind the strap of the rifle he carried on his shoulder and turned for the porch.

“Oh, and Link?”

“Yeah?” he asked, pausing with one leg locked, one leg bent, as if he would bolt at any moment.

“I’m sorry about…you know…biting you.”

“You remember?”

“A little. It’s nice to finally meet you.” She scrunched up her face at the awkwardness of this moment. Two strangers, bare-ass naked, officially meeting for the first time. “Oh! And thank you for having our backs with Clayton.”

“Clayton’s a douchebag, and I’ve been aching for a good fight,” Link said with a wink. As he walked away, a long growl emanated from him until he disappeared into the house.

When the door to the cabin closed, Vera whispered, “I can’t do anything for him.”

Tobias’s chest rose with a deep inhalation as he stared at the door to the log home. “He knows.”





Chapter Twelve


Link’s house was one long room with a kitchen along the back wall and a bed near the stone hearth. Before he’d left for town, he’d mumbled something about how the cabin was still a work in progress. He’d just moved out of a cabin on Elyse’s property and into this one recently, but from what Vera could tell, Link had an eye for decorating.

The home was clean and swept, the dishes stacked neatly into cupboards. It was easy to see he’d been fixing the place up. Near the bed was a small stack of lumber with bent nails sticking out here and there and a box of tools beside that. And over the bed was a massive window that gave a stunning view of the evergreen woods beyond the cabin. It looked new and smelled like sawdust and window cleaner.

Vera snuggled into her pajamas as she stared out the picture window. It felt strange to be clothed and in a house again after living as an animal for so long. “What does Link do for work?”

“He fixes things. He rehabbed an outbuilding into a fine cabin on Elyse’s homestead, but moved out here to be closer to work in Galena. He does construction and handyman jobs, and he cuts firewood and sells it to anyone who is going into winter short on dry lumber to burn.”

Vera twisted toward the kitchen where Tobias was cooking venison steaks he’d marinated in lime and soy sauce. It smelled so good her stomach was constantly rumbling. “And what did you do while I was gone?”

“You were never really gone, Vera. The faster you accept that you were present, the faster you’ll fix the bridge between you and your animal.”

She padded across the cool wood floors and slid her arms around his waist from behind, then rested her cheek on his strong back. “I only remember pieces.”

“And next time it’ll be different because you know what you need to work on.”

“Next time? God, I don’t even want to think about next time.”