Her Bear and a Baby: BBW Bear Shifter Baby Paranormal Romance (Who's the Daddy? Book 2) (5 page)

“Right. Let’s go pack, young man.” He put the bottle on the side and with Connor held easily in one of his big, strong arms, Beau made to leave the kitchen. “You can do the dishes.”

“My pleasure,” she said sweetly and finished her coffee, pleased that they were finally moving forward with the search, when she had spent so long going nowhere in the hunt for Gable.

An hour later, washed, dressed, with her wet hair combed through and left to dry naturally, she was ready to leave. Beau had taken Connor’s baby seat out of her car and strapped it into his truck. Then he had packed food, and water, and anything else they might need. Elise wondered if there was some kind of firearm in the back of the truck too, but she didn’t ask.

“Ready?” He looked at her, his eyes hard as he said, “Last chance to change your mind.”

“I’m going with you,” she said firmly.

“Then let’s hit the road. It’s an hour’s drive, and I’d like to get there before lunch. Sheriff sometimes patrols the mountains in the afternoon.”

“Is he a shifter too?” Elise asked, checking for the third time there was no way Connor could wriggle out of his seat.

“Yes. Not hard to guess what, when the town is called Bear Creek. It’s a good town.” He went back to the house, locked the front door, and then climbed into the truck. Connor was in between them, kicking his legs excitedly. The baby loved cars, and when Beau started the truck, he giggled at the loud rumble of the engine and the way it vibrated through him.

“That’s my boy,” Beau said with a grin. “There’s nothing wrong with a big engine. It’s how you get places.”

Elise rolled her eyes. Was this what she had to look forward to if Beau helped raise Connor? Then she shook her head. Rather that, than the alternative of him being like his real dad: if he was nothing more, he was a man who got a woman pregnant and then left her. Not the worst thing a man could do, but unless he had a damn good reason, it was certainly not the kind of man she would want Connor to grow up into.

Again she questioned what kind of shifter he was. Or was he even a shifter at all? Maybe he was a normal human pretending to be a shifter. Weirder things had happened.

“Ready?” Beau asked, breaking into her thoughts.

“Yes.” She nodded, hoping the trip to Bear Creek might shed enough light on Gable that she might be able to walk away from this whole thing. If it turned out he was just some sad little man with a notion he could pretend to be something he wasn’t, then she would take Connor home and keep him safe. Yes, it would deny him the chance of knowing his real father, but it was the right thing to do, rather than let a non-shifter raise him.

“We’ll have some answers soon,” Beau said, as if reading her thoughts.

“Will we?” she asked absently. “Sorry, I was just thinking things over.” She sat up straight as he pulled out of his driveway and headed down the track onto the road that would take them into town. From there they would go west until they reached Bear Creek. Elise had a rough idea where it was, but had never actually visited the town.

“I hope so, Elise,” he said and the look he gave her, which he quickly covered, made her wonder if he had uncovered more than just the information on Gable.

Of course. By giving him her real name, he would have been able to do a background check on her too. Damn it, she should have lied about that too. But surely he couldn’t already know that Connor wasn’t hers. Could he?

“I really don’t know what to expect. What kind of man tells a woman he is her mate if it’s a lie?”

“If that woman was a human, then she would never know. If she was a shifter, then she would know the truth, because she would feel it too. Wouldn’t she?” he asked, probing gently.

“I’ve asked myself the same question over and over again,” she said, glancing at him, then turning to look out of the window. It was all he was going to get for now. Her story was unraveling and maybe that was for the best. Before this went any further, she was going to lay everything out for him and tell him the whole truth.

His question really was the crux of her confusion towards the relationship between Gable and her sister. Whether Gable was a shifter or a con man, Elise didn’t know. What she did know was that her sister was a shifter, and she was convinced Gable was her mate. It was what had helped kill her in the end: she had no will to live. Struck down with a mystery virus that attacked her immune system, she had nothing in her to fight it.

Tears pricked her eyes, and she turned to stroke Connor’s head and then kissed him, drowning her senses in his baby smell. As she lifted her head, her eyes locked with Beau’s, and the truth passed between them then.

But this wasn’t the time to talk about it. That could wait until later, when they had spoken to Brad and they knew more. Until then, she let her guard down and allowed her feelings for him to run free, and the relief she felt was so immense, she wanted to cry out to the world.

He sensed a subtle shift in Elise, but he didn’t mention it. There was no way he was going to trigger the barriers that had been lowered between them. This was the first time since she had turned up on his doorstep yesterday evening that he felt as if he had taken a step closer to where he needed to be. Which was right next to her, in all things. It wasn’t just her body he wanted, it was her life story, her pain and her laughter, her sadness and her joy. All of it.

They had traveled for miles, a long silence stretching out between them interspersed by gurgles from Connor. Yet it no longer seemed strained. They both had secrets, they both had to find a way to share those secrets, that other part of themselves, with a stranger. That was the weird part. Knowing they were to spend the rest of their lives together, and yet not knowing the first thing about the other person.

Other than they were both connected by the loss of a sister. In Elise’s case, maybe even the loss of a twin.

“This is Bear Creek,” he said as he turned off the highway and onto a country road that wound along the side of a mountain. In front of them the valley cut away, and they began to pass houses, at first dotted around the lower slopes in no particular order, and then they became closer together, until they entered a small town, with old buildings that told of a time gone by.

“It’s been here a while,” she said, peering at the stores as they went by, noting where the diner was, her stomach rumbled in appreciation. “Should we eat first?”

He looked at his watch. “We should go and meet up with Brad within the next hour. If you want, I can drop you off at the diner and go on alone. He might open up to me a bit more.”

“If you don’t have a woman with you?” she asked tartly.

“I was thinking because he knows me. We go way back. Me, my brothers… and my sister used to come over here and visit a distant cousin in the summer when we were kids,” he said, as he circled back around towards the diner.

“Then you can drop me off at the diner up ahead.” She suddenly agreed, surprising him, because he thought he would have to put up a stiff argument about why it would be better if he spoke to his childhood friend alone.

“I’ll help you out.” He stopped his truck outside the diner, and went around to the trunk to get out the baby bag, and then waited while Elise pried Connor from his seat.

“Thank you. It will be easier for you to talk to Brad on your own, rather than with me and Connor. I can almost guarantee this little man will start crying and demanding his bottle if I come too.”

“I’ll meet you here. I’m sure they’ll warm a bottle for you.”

“I’m sure they will.” She stood a little awkwardly, with Connor pressed to her body. Then she did something spontaneous, something that gave the whole game away. She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, almost jumping back from him as if the touch of his skin had burned her. “Promise me you’ll tell me everything. Don’t leave anything out. I don’t need to be spared, I need the truth.”

“I promise,” he said, his voice thick with emotion, his skin inflamed, the touch of her lips forever seared into his memory. He put his hand on her arm, and touched her lightly, seeing the confusion on her face. Why she had lied, he could only guess, but now she had let him in; even if it was through the smallest of chinks in her defenses, he was going to make sure she never shut him out again. “We will figure this out. Whatever you need from me, just tell me.”

“Later.” She nodded once and then turned around and walked into the diner, not looking back, even though he stood there and waited until she was seated and the waitress came and asked for her order. She had put a spell on him, and he hated to walk away and leave her; the irrational fear that she might not be here when he came back was almost too much. But where would she go in a strange town like this?

Not wanting to waste any more time, he turned quickly and headed across town to Brad’s office, walking instead of taking the truck, giving himself some air, and some time to clear his head. This was going to be a difficult meeting, not because of Elise, but because Brad would offer his condolences, would want to talk about Beau’s sister, which would open the wound afresh.

However, he had no choice. He had to find out the information Elise needed.

He could almost picture himself and his siblings, walking down this road. He would have been about fourteen, his sister hanging on the shirt tails of her older brothers, when they would have her stay at home, because she was too young, not one of the boys. Yet even then, she could take care of herself. Maybe that was one of the reasons they didn’t like her coming with them. At some point during the day she was bound to be quicker, stronger, or just plain better at doing things than her brothers.

This would grate on them, particularly his older brother, Wayne, who always wanted to be the biggest, the fastest, and the one to keep them all safe. He was a driven alpha in the making, which was why losing
Louisa
… her name lingered in his head, along with memories of her body lying broken in the ditch.

That was what he hated. He could never picture her face without seeing her dead.

“Beau.” A voice came to him, and he turned to see another childhood friend, Hal, coming towards him. His throat constricted. If Hal didn’t know about Louisa’s death, he would have to form the words, tell him that his beautiful sister had been killed by a psychopath who had never been caught.

“Hal. How are you?” Beau said. “Last time I heard you were living on the mountain on your lonesome.”

“Things change.” Hal smiled, and Beau saw instantly that he knew about Louisa. It was why he had become a relative recluse back home. The look of overwhelming pity in other people’s eyes broke him every time. He knew that was why his other brothers had moved away. To escape. But the family house was what made Beau stay; it was the only tangible thing he had to connect to Louisa. He was scared if he left he would forget her completely. Surely it was better to imagine her lying dead than not imagine her at all.

“They certainly do,” Beau replied. “Are you heading over to the sheriff’s office?”

“Yes. Brad said you might be stopping by. I wanted to catch up with you. Offer my condolences.”

There it was. Beau felt his throat constrict and knew it was a mistake to come back here. “Thanks.”

Hal slapped him on the shoulder with his big hand and then said, “Come on. I think Will is there too.”

“Must be bad if you are out in force,” Beau joked, but really it was good to see the people he had spent so many happy hours with as a young bear, in the days when life was carefree.

“You know what it’s like, any excuse to get together with old friends. Now we all have mates, it doesn’t happen as often as we would like.”

“I can imagine.” They walked the last hundred yards to Brad’s office, and there was the sheriff and Will, shooting the breeze. Will had a business suit on, feet up on the desk, looking every inch the city slicker Beau had heard he had become.

“You’re here,” Brad said, getting up from his chair, knocking Will’s feet off his desk and coming over to shake Beau’s hand.

“Good to see you both,” Beau said, and they shook hands before Will pulled him into a big bear hug.

“It’s been too long,” Will said, his voice filled with emotion. “We wanted to come over and see you when we heard, but when Brad phoned, Wayne told him you all needed some space.”

“I didn’t know that,” Beau said. “Wayne never said.”

“Always was the quiet sort.” Brad and Hal exchanged glances. Thankfully no one else mentioned Louisa, but he knew they all pictured her, remembered her as a beautiful young woman, and that made it easier.

“So you have news on this Gable O’Donnell?”

“Typical Beau, straight to business. We were waiting to hear about this mate of yours,” Will said, studying his old friend.

“How do you know I have a mate?” Beau asked, and Brad kicked Will in the ankle.

“We figured that was the only thing that would bring you out of your self-imposed retirement,” Hal said. “What, we can’t pretend nothing happened,” he added defensively.

“Hal’s right, so let’s get it out of the way now. We were all distraught about Louisa,” Brad said.

“Thanks.” Beau managed to maintain eye contact with Brad, and not let the lump in his throat erupt into a sob. He was not about to let them see him cry.

“She was a good cop,” Brad said. “I wish I could have done more to help track down her killer.”

“I know.” Beau nodded, needing this part of the conversation to be over.

Brad cleared his throat. “Which brings us to why we are all here.”

Beau noticed the shift on his tone and he focused on the sheriff. “What do you mean?”

“This Gable O’Donnell. He is an interesting character, and I wondered if you could fill me in on what exactly you are after him for.”

“A woman turned up on my doorstep yesterday… With a baby.” Beau collected his thoughts. There was no point holding anything back from these men. They were his friends, and he wanted their help. “She said O’Donnell was the father of the child and she was tracking him down to let him know. Because he had told her he was her mate, and she believed him.”