The Bear's Fake Bride (Bears With Money Book 1) Read online

  *

  To be frank, it was one of the best nights of sleep Charlie had managed to have in weeks. Possibly even months. She woke up slowly when sunlight spilled across her face, to find herself alone in bed. She was slightly sore, but it was a pleasant sort of soreness. The type of soreness that mostly just reminded her of what she had been up to the night before.

  (Not that there was any sort of risk of her forgetting. ‘Marathon sex’ wasn’t exactly what she had been expecting when she met him in the parking lot yesterday, but she certainly wasn’t going to complain about the outcome.)

  A sheet had been drawn over her to make up for the lack of her living space heater, and it fell down to pool around her lap as she slowly sat up. She blinked sleep out of her eyes and dragged a hand through her hair, and wondered where her hair tie had gotten lost. She supposed it wasn’t important, though. She had a hundred of them.

  She tossed the sheet aside and swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, stretching her arms up over her head and arching her back like an archer’s bow until she heard it crack. Rolling her shoulders, she straightened up and let her arms fall back to her sides.

  There was a door off to the side, hanging open a crack, and she could see the gleaming appliances of a bathroom through it. Stepping over discarded clothing on the floor, she made her way into the bathroom and she nearly squealed in delight when she actually saw the tub. She wasn’t going to say it was big enough to hold a dozen people or to have a pool party, but it could probably comfortably fit four people. Possibly even four Zeke-sized people.

  She clapped her hands together once, rubbed them together vigorously, and darted towards the temperature controls. Once the water was running at the right temperature, she plugged the drain and let the tub fill, and soon enough she was reclining in bubbling water up to her neck.

  It was incredible. She didn’t have a tub in her duplex; she just had a little shower stall. If she was lucky, she could get enough hot water that the water wasn’t freezing by the time she finished washing her hair. She certainly couldn’t get enough hot water to simply sit and soak in it.

  Folding a washcloth on the side of the tub, she leaned her head back against it as she soaked. She closed her eyes, just to relax for a little while. If she dozed off for a few minutes and woke up when she got soap bubbles in her mouth, well, that was a secret for her to keep to herself.

  She couldn’t stay in the tub all morning, though. True enough, she didn’t have work that day, but common courtesy meant that when she was in someone else’s home, it was polite to actually put in an appearance. So her soak, as relaxing as it was, ended relatively soon before she pulled the plug, turned on the showerhead just long enough to rinse off before turning it off again, and stepped out of the tub. She made her way back into the bedroom, looking down at the clothing strewn in various directions.

  She was going to have to wear yesterday’s clothes when she left—she hadn’t brought any extras, and she wasn’t exactly going to go parading around in her work uniform if she didn’t have to—but that was for later. For the time being, though?

  She picked up her panties off of the bedroom floor, stepped into them, and shimmied them back up her legs, and then she picked up Zeke’s discarded button-down shirt from the night before. She shrugged it on, pushed the sleeves up to her elbows, and began to button it up. The end of the shirt fell a good way down her thighs, offering something like modesty, though that sense of modesty would flee very quickly if she decided she had to bend over for any reason. It wasn’t helping that her hair was still soaked and dripping and the shirt was white.

  (Well, from a certain perspective, that probably helped a great deal.)

  She was still buttoning it as she strolled out of the bedroom and into the main room. Zeke was at the stove, and he glanced over his shoulder at her as she wandered closer, and then did a double take once he noticed what she was wearing.

  “You look comfortable,” he observed after a moment, giving her a rather complimentary once over before he turned back towards the stove.

  Charlie grinned and shrugged beatifically, palms raised to face the ceiling. “I had to test out the bathtub,” she returned. “I am going to be living here eventually,” she reasoned. “I had to make sure it was up to snuff.”

  The was a plate of bacon on the counter already, and Charlie stole a strip of it once she had moseyed her way over.

  “And did it pass your no doubt rigorous testing?” Zeke wondered dryly as he pulled the pan off of the burner. He set it down on an unused burner and turned to pull a couple plates down from a cupboard.

  Leaning her elbows on the counter, she leaned forward to rest her chin in both hands, the front of the shirt dipping loosely forwards as she did. “It will do,” she decided, with a sigh that implied she was compromising on so much just then.

  Zeke brought a hand to his chest, his tone turning earnest as he replied, “I’m glad it met your standards of mediocrity.”

  Charlie snorted and stole another strip of bacon, before leaning to one side to peer around him. “What’s for breakfast?”

  He didn’t answer immediately, instead cutting whatever was in the pan in half with the end of a spatula. He lifted one half onto one plate, the other half onto the second plate, and picked both plates up. Turning, he offered a plate to her. “A frittata,” he answered at last, “with cheese, peppers, and spinach.”

  Charlie was pretty sure she had never had a frittata before, but it sort of looked like an omelet, so she was only slightly dubious as she took a bite. It more or less tasted like an omelet, too, so after that first, experimental bite she finished off her plate quickly. She hadn’t eaten since the fair the night before, and after the previous night’s activities, she was starving. Zeke seemed to be eating just as quickly as she was, though, so she figured he understood where she was coming from. It was remarkably easy not to feel self-conscious around him.

  “Is there coffee?” she asked once her plate was empty and she set it and her fork down on the counter. She stole another strip of bacon.

  Leaning over to grab a strip of bacon while it was still there, since Charlie fully intended on eating as much of it as she could, Zeke replied, “There can be coffee, if you give me a moment.”

  “I can always wait for coffee,” Charlie assured him.

  And indeed, seven minutes later, she was cradling a mug of very expensive coffee. After the first sip, she simply stared at it in wonder for a few moments until Zeke heaved a sigh and handed her a small bag of ground beans.

  “A stash of your very own, for your kitchen,” he informed her wryly.

  She stood up on her toes to kiss him before she turned her attention back to the miracle currently filling her mug.

  All in all, it was a pretty good morning. One of the best mornings Charlie had in a while, in fact. Once she was dressed and stepping into the elevator to leave, it was nearing noon, and she was actually a bit sad to go.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Charlie had a realization several hours after she got back to her duplex, as she scrolled idly through social media feeds on her laptop.

  There was a full moon the next night.

  She was engaged to a were-bear. (Strange, how she managed to forget that detail now and then.)

  If books and movies had taught her anything, it was that a were-anything changed into an animal during a full moon.

  Then again, Zeke hadn’t mentioned anything while she was at his penthouse, and she had seen him change twice without a full moon; once was even in the middle of the day. So maybe the full moon thing was just something that had been made up to make the concept of turning into an animal more exciting. Having seen it happen in person, she wasn’t sure why it would need to be more exciting, but she supposed that wasn’t for her to decide.

  She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to do anything with that detail, though. Should she ask Zeke about it? But, again, he hadn’t mentioned it. So either it was nothing, and Charlie wo
uld look like an idiot who figured fantasy and reality were the same thing, or it was true and Zeke just hadn’t mentioned it, presumably because he didn’t want her involved.

  Did she even want to be involved? Or did she just not want to feel left out of something? But she supposed if full moons were actually important then she was going to be involved in one way or another eventually anyway. They were going to be married.

  Unless he was just going to try to hide it from her after the wedding, but that seemed pretty unrealistic.

  She chased those thoughts in circles for a few moments longer before she slammed her hands down on her kitchen table with enough force that her laptop screen wobbled, and she decided she was overthinking it. She would just call him and ask him about it. After all, until a few days ago, she had been positive that any sort of were-anything was fictional, so if she asked about the full moon, she doubted he would actually think she looked stupid; she was just verifying some of the limited information at her disposal as best she could. And if he didn’t want her involved, then he could just tell her that. They were both grown adults. Charlie wasn’t going to resort to trying to use telepathy because she was nervous about looking stupid.

  She reached across the table for her cell phone, only to pause. Slowly, she cut a glance to the side, looking at the digital display on the microwave. It was almost midnight.

  She set her phone back down. She could call him tomorrow to ask him about it. That would probably have a better result than calling him when he was probably asleep and waking him up.

  Eventually, she went to bed. It took her too long to fall asleep, as she stared out the window at the moon, bloated and silver in the sky but not quite full just yet.

  *

  As Charlie did her makeup before she left for work that day, she called Zeke’s cell phone. It rang three times before he answered with, “Hello?” He sounded slightly distracted.

  “Am I interrupting something?”

  “Nothing important. What’s going on?”

  Charlie paused and took a breath. “Alright, so, this might sound sort of stupid, but I’ve got a question.” She paused, and when all she got in reply was an inquisitive hum, she plowed onwards. “Tonight’s a full moon. Does that… mean anything? As a were-bear?”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line, and a snort of startled laughter. Charlie was expecting him to laugh it off and say no, of course not, that was ridiculous. Instead, he replied, “Actually, yes. I was just packing to drive out of the city later this afternoon.”

  “So, you do transform on a full moon,” Charlie confirmed slowly. “But I’ve already seen you transform twice,” she pointed out. “It wasn’t a full moon either of those times.”

  She couldn’t see him, of course, but just going by his tone as he said, “I can transform basically whenever I want to,” she could guess that he was shrugging. “It’s just that on a full moon I don’t have a choice about it; I’m going to transform whether I want to or not.”

  “Do you, like… go crazy or anything?” Charlie wondered, before she could talk herself out of asking. Part of her insisted that, as his eventual wife it was just information she was eventually going to need to know, but another part of her was fully aware that she was just curious. She comforted herself with the knowledge that anyone would be curious about it.

  “I don’t go crazy, no,” Zeke returned dryly. Charlie heard something rustling: presumably whatever he was packing. “Feral might be a better word,” he conceded after a moment. “I’m still more or less in control of myself, but instinct has more of a hold. If I was younger and less… adept at controlling myself, I imagine I might be a threat to someone, but as it stands, I don’t imagine it will be particularly different from any other time I transform, other than the lack of an option.”

  Charlie paused once again, chewing on the inside of her lip. After a second of waffling back and forth, she forced out before she could rethink it, “Could I go with you tonight, then? I mean, you didn’t want to eat me the last couple times you were a bear and you just said it shouldn’t really be noticeably different from those times. So, I should be perfectly safe with you.”

  “You don’t need to turn into a lawyer to talk me into it,” Zeke remarked, sounding mildly bemused. “If you’re that set on coming along, then I’ll meet you at the restaurant when your shift ends.”

  Charlie let out a breath that she hadn’t even been aware she was holding—she wasn’t even sure why she was holding it—and offered, “Great. Thanks. I’ll see you then.” The phone call ended shortly after that; Charlie had to finish getting ready for work and Zeke had to finish packing (whatever packing for a full moon entailed).

  The more she thought about it, Charlie wasn’t even sure why it mattered so much to her. She hadn’t been particularly outdoorsy before. She still didn’t feel particularly outdoorsy. But at the same time, just ignoring the whole matter, even if she was aware of it, felt… not wrong, per se, but like she was trying to distance herself from a rather large aspect of his life.

  She wasn’t going to say she wanted to go with him every time there was a full moon. That sounded a lot like getting ahead of herself. For all she knew, she wasn’t going to want to go with him again after that night. But that was the important part: going with him at least once, just to see what it was like. Just to get to know that part of him and that part of his life.

  But she supposed it was a thought for another time. Sam was honking her car’s horn from the road, and if Charlie didn’t hurry up, she had no doubts that Sam would do something drastic to get her out the door in a timely manner. If she knew Sam at all, and she did, then there was a safe bet that it was going to be embarrassing for all parties involved. No one wanted to see that, least of all Charlie.

  She grabbed her bag and ran out the door, shouting, “I’m coming, you crazy, impatient bitch!” as she ran. Sam cackled like a cheap cartoon villain and kept honking the horn until Charlie was throwing herself into the passenger seat.

  “By the way, you don’t need to pick me up today,” she explained hastily a few minutes later, as she flung herself out of the car once it pulled to a halt in the restaurant’s parking lot. “Zeke’s picking me up.”

  “Oooh,” Sam crooned, her eyebrows waggling ridiculously. “Sounds exciting. You’ll have to give me all the details.”

  Charlie seriously doubted that was going to happen, but she didn’t say that as she rolled her eyes and waved Sam on her way.

  It was a pretty average day at work, all things considered, though whenever the customer traffic slowed down for a little while and Charlie had time to let her thoughts wander, it seemed to slow to a crawl.

  *

  Just as promised, Charlie strolled through the restaurant’s doors into the parking lot that afternoon, and Zeke’s convertible was waiting there, with Zeke scrolling through some sort of social media feed on his phone as he waited. He jumped in surprise when Charlie tossed her purse into the back seat and hopped over the car door to land in the passenger seat. She was still wearing her work clothes, minus her apron, since she was pretty sure that stomping around in the woods with a literal animal didn’t really require a specific dress code.

  She drummed her hands on the dashboard and asked, “So, where are we off to?” as Zeke started the car and pulled out of the parking lot.

  “There’s a nature reserve not that far outside the city,” Zeke replied, shrugging one shoulder. “I’ve been going there on full moons for years.”

  “Your special place?” Charlie wondered, finally leaning back properly in her seat and buckling her seatbelt.

  Zeke’s brow furrowed thoughtfully for a second. “Somewhat,” he decided on. “It started as simply the most convenient option, but I’ve become fond of it. Through exposure, if nothing else.”

  “An acquired taste?” Charlie guessed, reaching down to prod at both sides of her seat until she found a lever. With a yank, she dropped her seat back.

  “I’ve a
lways associated that phrase with something unpleasant that you get accustomed to,” Zeke returned. “There’s nothing unpleasant about it. I just had no personal attachment to it.”

  Charlie shrugged, letting the topic drop for now. “Well, wake me up when we get there.”

  It had been a long day at work, after all. If she was going to be running around the woods for most of the night, she was going to need a nap.

  If Zeke had any objections, he kept them to himself. Charlie squirmed her shoulders back and forth, getting as comfortable as she could in the seat, before she folded her arms over her chest and closed her eyes. She had always been good at falling asleep in cars. She was out like a light in moments.

  *

  When Charlie woke up again, blinking sleep from her eyes and generally feeling as if she wasn’t even sure what year it was, the sun was gradually sinking beneath the western horizon. The car had been turned off and the engine wasn’t even popping anymore, so presumably it had been off for a little while. She sat up and looked around and found the car parked in a small, rough parking lot surrounded by trees on all sides, save for the gravel driveway that led from the road to the parking lot. Zeke was pacing back and forth just beside the car. He glanced over at her as she shoved the car door open and climbed out, stretching her arms over her head as she did.