Page 34 of Coveted By the Bear

“Enough,” Mr. McCreedy ordered. “Mira is our guest. If you can’t treat her with respect, you can leave.”

Evan threw his hands in the air in apparent surrender. “Hey, I respect her. Who’d have thought under all of that hair there was a stone cold fox, huh, little brother?”

I could feel Caleb’s tension beside me, and I rested the palm of my hand on his leg under the table. I’d never liked Evan, but he was Caleb’s brother, and I hated to be the one to cause strain in a family. Plus, I was convinced he hadn’t announced his bear status to his family, and he was getting dangerously close to his eyes glowing. He relaxed under my touch and squeezed my hand lightly in his own. Sadey passed me a bowl of light broth that she had spooned over her fish, and I pulled my hand regretfully away from Caleb’s to take it.

Evan slouched down in my peripheral vision, and when his booted foot rubbed up the inside of my slightly parted legs, I jumped so hard I spilled the broth across my dress and part of Sadey’s. In panic, I scooted the chair back, trying to escape Evan’s wandering foot, and it made a screeching sound as wood scraped against wood. I gasped and looked down at my ruined dress in grief.

“Why did you do that?” Mr. McCreedy demanded, taking the half-spilled bowl away from my hands.

“I—” One look at Evan’s sneering face had me frozen in place. Caleb was frantically trying to soak the broth off the front of my dress with his napkin when Sadey grabbed my hand and pulled me up.

“We’ll be back,” she said in a furious tone.

“Excuse me,” I whispered to the chaos behind me. Evan’s laughter trailed behind us as Sadey led me down the hallway and into a bathroom. I groaned in exasperation. This was even worse than my awful imaginings.

“Evan?” Sadey asked.

I nodded and looked miserably at the butter stain across my lap. Sadey disappeared and returned with a bottle of soda water and some cream-colored washcloths. She ran hot water and went to work to remove the stains. In an impressively short amount of time, only a wet spot remained, and Sadey turned her attentions to her own dress.

“Don’t worry about him,” Sadey said over the scrubbing sound. “He and Caleb have always fought. I think it is a jealousy thing for Evan. He’s just trying to get to Caleb by messing with you.”

“Well, he couldn’t be more wrong. Caleb doesn’t like me like that.”

Sadey smiled to herself but didn’t answer. When we left the bathroom, lowered voices could be heard from the dining room. Sadey stopped me out of view to listen.

“I think,” Evan drawled, “what our old man is trying to say is that you have a reputation to uphold, and you are gallivanting all over creation with the biggest liability in town. And it’s not just us who have noticed you are changing, Caleb. Ever since you met that girl, you’ve been a totally different person.”

“I’d like to know what you are doing with her, Caleb,” Mr. McCreedy admitted quietly.

“Nothing,” Caleb said. “She saved my life. She needs help so I’m repaying the debt.”

“Please,” Evan sneered. “Don’t insult us with that bullshit. You have never brought a girl around the family, and now you bring Crazy Mira? There is no way she’s just a charity case for you.”

“You don’t have to worry about my reputation, Dad,” Caleb said in a low, resigned voice, just loud enough for us to hear. “She doesn’t mean anything to me.”

The words stung like a slap to the face. We’d connected in the truck, and now I meant nothing? I’d completely misjudged Caleb’s interest in me. I don’t know why he had given into being physical with me if he had no feelings other than charity. Perhaps it was the bear inside of him that hurt his control. Or maybe that’s just how men were—only interested in messing around. Maybe they didn’t have to have feelings for a person to be intimate. I’d made a mistake giving anything to him.

The air caught in my throat, and Sadey looked at me with such sadness. I’d drawn my hand in front of my mouth at the shock of it all, but she pulled it down and squeezed it gently. She led me around the corner where Caleb sat with his head lowered, completely uninterested in his dinner. I couldn’t quite take my eyes off the angry scars that curled out of the neck of his shirt. The men looked up at us with wide-eyed glances like they knew they had been caught.

Sadey grabbed her purse. “Come on, Mira. I’ll take you home.”

I nodded miserably. “Thanks for dinner, Mr. McCreedy. It was nice to meet you,” I said softly, then followed Sadey out the front door without a spare word for the McCreedy brothers.

Hang them and their charity case. I didn’t need anyone. Never had, never would.

I’d show them and make my own way.

Chapter Twelve

Mira

The next morning I woke early and put on my best outfit. Not the green shirt Caleb had bought me. That, I tossed into the back corner of my closet on principle. I had to find a job, and there was no way I was using any kind of letter of recommendation or help from any member of the McCreedy family. I didn’t need anyone. It had been that way since I was a zygote. I was a natural born survivor, made to withstand trials that would bring others to their knees. I was a willow, fragile looking in its branches, but I could bend a hundred times over and not break. Or so I told myself.

I was shocked and blocked by a familiar truck on my winding, one-lane dirt road that would lead me to the front gate. Caleb looked just as shaken as me. He opened his door as if he wanted to talk but I pulled around him through the trees. I wouldn’t stop him from paying whatever debt he thought he owed me, but I didn’t have to make nice with a man who gave insults as easily as compliments either. I had shit to do.

I slammed my door after pulling into a parking spot on Main Street. I had thoroughly worked myself up on what I could have and should have said to Caleb after his flippant comments last night. My defensiveness wouldn’t have solved anything, but the conversation in my head made me feel better somehow.

I hopped up on the curb and glared at Jake’s Quickstop with determination.