Bears in mind, p.1
Bears in Mind, page 1
part #1 of Ursa Shifters Series
Bears in Mind
Bears in Mind © Sam Hall 2023
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except for in the case of brief quotations for the use in critical articles or reviews.
Edited by Steph Tashkoff
Cover art and design by Design by Definition
The characters and events depicted in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
BEARS IN MIND
SAM HALL
STALK ME!
Stalk me!
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AUTHOR NOTE
This book is written in Australian English, which is a weird lovechild of British and American English. We tend to spell things the way the Brits do (expect a lot more u’s), yet also use American slang and swear more than both combined.
While many people have gone over this book, trying to find all the typos and other mistakes, they just keep on popping up like bloody rabbits. If you spot one, don’t report it to Amazon, drop me an email at the below address so I can fix the issue.
samhall.author@gmail.com
CONTENTS
Stalk me!
Author Note
Trigger Warning
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
What’s next?
Acknowledgments
TRIGGER WARNING
Trigger and Content Warning
This book deals primarily with the breakdown of a marriage (FMC and the antagonist of the book) and her subsequent much happier relationship with a harem of bear shifters. As a result you will read about:
A marriage that was limping along for some time.
The husband/antagonist engaging in emotional abuse and cheating (though the FMC does not see this, just finds evidence of it afterwards).
The husband pretending to want an open or poly relationship and proceeding to completely misunderstand the realities of this relationship dynamic. THIS BOOK IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ANTI POLY OR OPEN MARRIAGE.
The husband’s attempts to maintain control over the FMC and his behaviour escalating into physical and financial abuse
PLEASE NOTE: The FMC does not engage in anything romantic or sexual with any of the bear shifters until AFTER the husband has said he wants an open relationship and the vast majority of it happens after she has separated from her husband. If this is cheating in your book and you don’t like it, you might want to avoid this book.
1
I can’t do this, I thought, as I stood on the steps to Garrett’s, the local pub. I wasn’t usually one for having mental conversations with myself, but I was having one right now. I can’t.
The crazy thing was that I had done this, plenty of times before. I knew this place well: the wooden door, the neon sign, the advertisements of the day’s specials blu-takked to the windows. I even knew the thud of the heavy bass line coming from the jukebox that was still churning out the same damn 80s pub rock it’d played since I’d first started sneaking in here, underage. I’d walked in that door more times than I could count and yet… here I stood on the steps, pulling my denim jacket tighter around me, delving into the pockets, searching for my keys. I’d get in the car, go home and…
The reality of what faced me if I did go home, that’s what stopped me. Instead, I shoved my keys deeper into my pocket and pulled my hands free.
There was nothing safe about going home. I couldn’t just sink into a hot bath with a good book, calling out to my husband to refill my glass of wine when I emptied it. I couldn’t smile up at him as he turned the hot water back on for me when the bath started to get cold. If I went home, it would be to a house both empty and full at the same time.
“Nat, I…” When my husband struggled to find words, that’s when I’d realised something was very, very wrong, and the comfortable world I’d existed in started to fracture. I’d forced myself to look at him then, really seeing him in that moment and feeling then that he really saw me. His lips had pursed and then it had all come out. “I’m not attracted to you anymore.”
He’d dropped that bomb one night after work, as we’d sat down to dinner. He’d prefaced his statement by telling me we needed to talk, and any appetite I might have felt for the Mongolian lamb and noodles I’d prepared well and truly disappeared. He’d watched my fork clatter on my plate, then nodded as if this was to be expected.
Which had made me think he’d had this on his mind for some time.
“You know I still love you.”
Did I? Did I really? He’d taken my hand and given it a squeeze, shooting me that same crooked smile that had drawn me to him in the first place, ten years ago; but I had barely been able to feel his hand on mine.
“I don’t want to split up, get a divorce or anything.”
He’d sounded so fucking reasonable, talking calmly. Yet my throat closed up, stopping any oxygen from getting in, any words from getting out.
“I want us to try…” He’d straightened up then, something hardening in the brown eyes I’d stared into so lovingly over the years. “I want us to try an open marriage.”
After that pronouncement, he’d looked at me expectantly, as if he’d just proposed we review who our home insurance was with or as if he was asking when we were booking the cars in to get a service. I hadn’t replied. I hadn’t been able to. My husband couldn’t have hurt me worse if he’d pulled out a gun and shot me point blank, and in some ways, that’s what it had felt like. I’d sucked in one breath, then another…
It was those memories, the ones that had been playing over and over in my mind all week, that had me moving up the steps and opening the door. I was hit by a wall of artificial heat, music, noise, people: a cacophony that might be able to fill me up, wash away that awful hollowness for a little bit. I walked up to the bar, smiling at a few people I knew by sight, and found a spot on my own. I wasn’t sitting there for long when Garrett moved down behind the bar toward me..
“Nat! Haven’t seen you here in a bit. Where’s Paul?”
Paul. My husband. The man currently out on a date with another woman with my ‘permission’. The man I’d thought I would spend the rest of my life with; just the two of us.
“Out,” I replied with a tight smile, something in my expression making Garrett’s eyes widen slightly, but he nodded without asking any more questions. He put down the tea towel he’d been using to polish some glasses and then walked over.
“So what can I get you?”
A therapist, I thought semi-hysterically. A lawyer. Someone to help me work out what the fuck to do. But I couldn’t ask for that.
“A glass of Sauvignon blanc, please,” I said, proud that my voice didn’t quaver. As he poured me a glass of the pale straw-coloured liquid, I looked at the rows of bottles behind the bar. When I was younger, I’d spent many a night here drinking with my girlfriends, trying to persuade Garrett not to cut us off ‘just yet’. The labels of our drinks of choice back then all seemed garish now, combinations of red, gold and silver. But one showing a stereotypical depiction of a Mexican man, complete with red sombrero, with a saguaro cactus in the background caught my eye, and I pointed at the bottle. “And a tequila shot.”
“You driving tonight?” he asked me, even as he set the wine on the counter and poured the shot.
I looked at the silvery liquid as Garrett put a slice of lime and a salt shaker in front of me. I’d need the car in the morning. It was Friday night, so Saturday I’d need to go and do the food shopping and pick up those books Holly had ordered in for me and…
“No,” I replied and then smiled a little more naturally than I’d been able to do earlier. “I’ll catch a cab home.”
Garrett nodded at that, taking my card and then going over to the EFTPOS machine, swiping it as I stared contemplatively at the two glasses in front of me.
I hadn’t drunk tequila since my early twenties. It tasted like fucking arse going down and was basically the surest way me and my friends had found to get drunk as fast as possible. Not very adult married woman of me. There was also something kinda masochistic about tequila, the chemical blast hitting you hard as it went down, exacerbated by the harsh lime and s alt. The wine, however, was meant to be sipped elegantly. So which was I going to drink first?
I smirked, not feeling any real joy, and picked up the lime, licking a stripe across my hand.
“Well, that looks good.”
I was reaching for the salt but at those words, I looked up slowly, and then had to look up some more because, damn, this guy was tall. When he had my attention, he leaned against the bar, though not too close, something I was aware that Garrett noted as he returned my card before he moved on to serving other customers. Yet the distance between me and the stranger didn’t feel like anything at all. He looked like he should have been in armour, toting a broadsword and ready to storm Mount Doom or something. Instead, he just wore jeans and an old but clean flannel shirt, the nap of the soft fabric so well-worn it was kind of fluffy. The skin around his eyes crinkled as he smiled, and there was something… warm about him. Maybe it was his light brown hair, the length in that nowhere place between long and short, or the neatly trimmed beard. Or maybe it was just because the guy had biceps as big as my head and a chest three times as broad.
“I’ll have the same,” the mystery man told Garrett and the barman set up the shot and lime, making it clear we’d need to share the salt shaker.
I shrugged, licking my hand again. The saliva had dried off and so had my mouth, but I sprinkled the salt on it and then handed it over to the stranger. He nodded and took it, his hands making the shaker look like it was made for a small child.
“Ready?”
I hadn’t intended to do the shot with a strange guy, and some instinctive part of me was preparing a polite but firm brushoff, but then my mind stuttered. Yes, I was a wife. Yes, I had a husband. But I’d left my wedding ring at home when I came out tonight, having taken it off for the first time in years. As the salt started to flake off my hand, I looked at the thin pale line on my ring finger then back at the stranger before nodding.
Lick, sip, suck. The movements all came back to me and we both moved as one, both of us wincing at the cheap shitty tequila, then laughing at each other’s response.
“I’m Ric, anyway,” he said, holding out a hand and although I just looked at it for a moment, I shook it and was struck by an odd sensation.
I didn’t live in some kind of protective bubble. I shook men’s hands when I needed to: for work, or when meeting them for the first time. But usually it was either in a professional setting or with Paul’s hand on the small of my back. In those scenarios it was always clear who I was and where I fitted. But here? A bolt of something hot and liquid seemed to burn all the way down at his touch.
And I had a realisation.
Paul had broken my fucking heart when he’d proposed opening our marriage up to others. I’d listened to him but it was as though I was a gunshot victim, numb with shock, as he’d made clear how things would work. He’d prompted me to respond, trying to get my input, but he was already ten steps ahead of me, and that made it so much worse. He’d been thinking about this for some time, researching and planning the whole thing out, while I…
Ric’s eyebrow jerked up, his smile widening because, while I’d been having a little walk down memory lane, I still held his hand.
“Shit, sorry. I’m Nat,” I said, then went to pull my hand away.
And then something even more odd happened. A small swipe of his thumb across the back of my hand, just one little gesture before he let me go, set my body on high alert.
Was this…? Did he…? And did I…?
The fact I couldn’t formulate complete thoughts probably indicated that I wasn’t ready to be out and about, but apparently what I was ready for didn’t matter, not going by my body’s reactions.
“Fuck, El Toro tastes like shit,” Ric said, eyeing the tequila bottle balefully, his expression softening when he spied a bottle of golden mezcal next to it. “That’s the good stuff. You want another shot, Nat? It tastes the way tequila is supposed to taste.”
Did I? I looked at the glass of wine and Garrett did the same, both of us catching the way the condensation was sliding down the sides of the glass. He had to know something was up. I didn’t ever come here on my own and I didn’t ever drink with total strangers, and yet here I was, two for two. I felt my face flush with a sense of shame. I should’ve been at home, nestled up with my husband on the couch, watching some stupid movie and cackling at the bad acting and plot holes like we normally did, but… Paul didn’t want that. He’d walked out the door dressed better than I’d seen him in years, smelling of a new cologne, the spicy scent still hanging around the house after he’d left. I rubbed the side of my nose, then looked up at Ric and nodded.
“Sure,” I said, staring into his strange honey-coloured eyes. “Show me what I’ve been missing out on.”
2
“Now this stuff…” Ric gestured while Garrett poured the two shots. “This doesn’t strictly need the lime and salt, but, for the purpose of comparison?” Ric pushed the salt towards me as we were handed another two slices of lime. “We’ll give it a go. Ready?”
I nodded to indicate I was and lifted my hand to my mouth. Ric paused, watching every move of my tongue as I licked my hand, and only followed suit well after I was finished. I looked away when he licked the back of his, that little movement somehow too personal. I focussed instead on spreading the salt really well across the base of my thumb before handing the shaker over. He did the same and then lip, sip, suck… I blinked, having braced myself for the same intense burn but discovering something else.
It was as if the sharp edges of the tequila had been worn off, leaving something smoky and… mellow. I felt my muscles soften in response. Ric grinned when I just sat there, trying to process the difference. The lime fused well with it, creating a sharp sweetness that paired with the salt, and I felt a slow burn all the way down into my stomach. And there it settled, creating a warmth that was more than welcome.
I’d barely eaten or drunk anything since Paul had dropped the news on me. I wasn’t going to drink my way through what was happening to my marriage. But surely I could be forgiven for letting my hair down for one night?
“What did you think?” Ric asked me, a slow smile spreading across his face.
“It was like chalk and cheese.”
He nodded. “Enjoying something good quality usually is.”
“So what’re you doing in Garrett’s?” I asked, then winced internally. Cross-examine the poor guy, why don’t you?. “Sorry, it’s just Langston is a smallish town. Too small…”
He smiled again. He seemed to do that a lot and I reached for the wine glass, mostly just to have something to fiddle with.
“Me and my team have come down here to do some restoration work—”
“At the old town hall?” I asked, breaking in over the top of him, because now he had my entire attention. He blinked at the interruption, but recovered quickly.
“Yeah, we’re restoring—”
“The clock tower roof!” I looked at him much more closely. Previously I’d thought he was just some rando coming up to me at the bar, now I realised where I’d seen him before.
He didn’t look totally the same. In the headshot on his company’s website, his currently unruly hair had been clipped closer and brushed back for the photo. But as I swept my gaze across him, and took in the breadth of his shoulders and the small scars on his hands, I knew exactly who he was.
