Laid Bear 2: The Kodiak Clan (2 page)

He was an odd little man, older but he carried an air of youth. She’d met a handful of werebears and he was by far the smallest of them. His shock of red hair looked as if it hadn’t been combed in weeks and he wore horn-rimmed glasses that seemed off for some reason. It wasn’t until they were face-to-face that she realized why: they had no lenses.
 

According to the healer, everything with her pregnancy was moving along smoothly. He’d made this announcement almost immediately after meeting her.
 

“Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Pearce,” he said.

“It’s Ms. Mills,” she corrected. “We’re not married.”

“Yet,” Max added with a wink.

“Pleasure to meet you, Ms. Mills,” the healer said, taking her hand in both of his. The warmth that pulsed up her arm was disconcerting and she tried to pull her hand away but he held on firmly, his strange gray eyes peering deep into her soul.
 

Then it got even weirder. He leaned in close to her and took a big, long sniff. The shocked look on her face made Max double over with laughter.

“He’s not going to eat you, Bethany. Relax.”

Then Dr. Graves placed his hands on her belly. She shot another look at Max, but he just winked and nodded encouragement.

“Hmm, yup, yup,” the strange man mumbled as he got down on his knees and pressed an ear to her tummy.
What the…?
she thought.

Springing upright, he declared, “Done! You and the baby are perfectly healthy.”

“That’s it?” she asked, bewildered.

Dr. Graves looked confused. “What else would there be?”

“Um, I dunno, blood tests and stuff?” She’d never been pregnant before but she was pretty sure prenatal doctor visits included more than some sniffing and grunting.

He waved away her concerns. “Not necessary.”
 

She sat there in stunned silence.

“What about, you know, a
real
doctor?” she whispered to Max when the healer left the room.

Max’s face clouded over and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “Human doctors aren’t superior to clan healers, you know. Our healers are born, not trained. They know instinctively how to treat wounds and illnesses, if they can. Their sense of smell is so much stronger than an average werebear’s that they can actually smell when someone’s sick. Human doctors are usually clueless until they run a million tests, and even then they often get it wrong.”
 

His tone was defensive, clearly offended at her suggestion. She slid her hand into his.
 

“Oh, Max, I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just…I’m used to Western medicine. And I’m not going to lie, I’m a little worried.”

He sighed and gripped her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “I know, babe, but it’s going to be fine. I almost lost you once. I won’t risk that again. It would break me.”

A tear spilled down her cheek remembering how Chet had almost convinced her into breaking it off with Max. But he wasn’t talking about that. He was remembering how a jealous female werebear had nearly killed her for daring to get involved with Max.
 

Bethany looked up at him and got lost in his powerful gaze. He grazed his lips against hers, his hot breath heating her core to the melting point. Thank goodness he wrapped his arms around her because she felt faint from the love and desire that welled up within her.

“Oops! Should I come back later?” The clan healer was awkwardly backing his way out of the room.

Max’s laugh was honey-covered nougat to her ears. “No, I think we can control ourselves, Dr. Graves.”

What a name,
she thought. It appeared she was stuck with him so she would try to make the best of it, but that didn’t mean she had to settle for his mumbo jumbo.

“Can you perform…Western tests?” She’d almost said ‘normal’ but caught herself just in time.
 

“Of course, but why would I? They’re entirely unnecessary.” He was truly bewildered.

“I understand it’s a strange request, but it would ease my mind.”

The healer shrugged and pulled a needle from his bag. “I always carry a few Western medical items around with me. Mostly to show cubs what kind of torture human doctors would inflict on them if they weren’t werebears, but also in case I need to treat someone in front of humans. Props always make for a more believable performance.”

Props?!

“Wait…” Bethany was saying as he plunged the needle expertly into her arm. It wasn’t pleasant but he drew her blood more quickly and efficiently than any phlebotomist she’d ever seen. It was over almost before it had begun, then her other arm was wrapped in a blood pressure cuff.

The worst part was standing on the scale in their bathroom with the healer peering around her belly to read the humiliating number. He made a few notes on a chart and handed her the results.
 

“I’ll send the blood to a lab, if you insist, but I can tell you that all your levels are normal. You’re gaining an acceptable amount of weight since your initial weight loss and your blood pressure is perfectly normal. Feel better now?” He shot Max a glance and rolled his eyes a little.

Bethany felt a little silly but it did ease her mind. Chet’s warning about her and her baby’s health echoed through her brain every day, and she needed as much reassurance as she could get.

“I’ve never heard of a successful mating between a human female and a bear male,” Chet had told her. “You humans are too delicate to handle our babies.”
 

She shuddered and tried to shake away Chet’s prophesy, her hand instinctively moving to her tummy.

“Who’s it from?” Max’s words brought her back to the present with a jolt.

~ * ~ * ~

Max smelled Bethany’s anxiety before he saw the flash of fear cross her beautiful face. He knew his own concern was making it even worse for her, and he tried to hide it but when he was caught off-guard, his inner bear got nervous. There was no hiding a nervous bear.

“Who’s it from?” he asked, sauntering casually back into the bathroom to finish shaving. He hoped his light tone would ease her mind.
Damn Chet
, he thought, even as his heart tugged in sympathy for his uncle. Now more than ever he could relate to why his favorite uncle had turned so bitter.

Chet had been irate with a capital I when Bethany moved in with Max, but when they broke the baby news to him, he’d blanched. With tears in his eyes, he stumbled out of the house without a word.

"He'll be okay," Max insisted when Bethany suggested going after him, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders. "He just needs a little time.”

But Max wasn’t so sure. The death of his human wife and child had a profound effect on Chet, turning him into a grumpy human-hater.
No, that’s not right,
Max thought. He didn’t hate humans, precisely, but he was staunchly opposed to human-werebear crossbreeding, claiming it would dilute their breed.

Max couldn’t accept that Chet really believed that, but was instead using it as a form of self-protection. It was only natural that the news of their relationship and pregnancy would hit Chet hard, bring up long-buried emotions.
 

Max only hoped that his once-jovial uncle could work through it and be happy for them. As it was, they hadn’t seen or heard from him since that tense meeting months before. Since Max lost his parents as a teenager, Chet was all he had left of his family.

Except now he had Bethany and the baby.

“Babe? Who’s the email from? It’s not more hate mail, is it?”

Ever since Bethany started up their underground werebear-human matchmaking site,
UrsaLove.com
, they’d been getting threatening emails from
weres
all over the world. Some of them had even tracked down their phone number, making crank calls at all hours and doing everything they could to make their lives miserable.

“It's from a Veronica Muir. She heard about us and apparently is interested in a human male."

"Read it to me while I finish shaving.”

"Dear Max and Bethany," Bethany raised her voice so he could hear her. "You're probably very aware that the whole werebear world is in an uproar (haha!) over your relationship. You're rather famous, you know. I wish I could say this is a good thing, but I'm sure you've heard plenty from those who disapprove.
 

"Anyway, that's not why I'm writing. I've found myself in a situation and I can't ask anyone I know for advice. It dawned on me today that maybe you could offer some insight, if you don't mind.”

There was a pause before Bethany continued, her voice suddenly tight.

"Six years ago, my husband was accidentally shot by a hunter when he was in bear form. I was days away from giving birth to the twins at the time. My clan here in Kodiak, Alaska has been incredibly supportive through all of it and I'm finally back on my feet. Now that the boys are old enough, I'm interested in possibly finding a new mate.
 

“I decided to give online dating a try for a couple of reasons. First, it’s been so long since I’ve been on a date that I thought it would be an easy way to get my feet wet. But more importantly, I’m worried that another bear might not be able to accept my sons. They’re my priority and I won’t risk their safety and happiness for my romantic life.”

Bethany paused again. “What does she mean, Max? Why would dating another werebear be an issue for her kids?”

Max patted his face dry and padded into the bedroom. He’d told her about his keen sense of smell but he didn’t think she fully understood that he could read every emotion she had before she even knew she was having it. Like right now, he could smell her confusion mixed with a tinge of anxiety.
 

He snuggled up against her, leaning back on the headboard of the bed and pulling her back so she rested against his chest. She felt so good, so solid…like home.
 

“In the wild, male bears will often, um,
dispose
of cubs so they can mate with the mother.” At her gasp of shock, he quickly continued. “That doesn’t happen with werebears, really. But males can sometimes have a difficult time accepting another male’s offspring. And those who haven’t learned to fully control their inner bears…well, they’re punished by their clan in a pretty severe way.”

Bethany was silent, processing the information. Whenever they had one of these little lessons on bear culture, he anxiously waited for her to sit up and say ‘Enough! This is too much!’ But her inner strength, the part of her he loved the most, won out and she’d been nothing but accepting, even though there were some shocking differences between their communities.

She cleared her throat and continued reading. “The problem is, now I’ve fallen in love with a human. I wrote a big, long paragraph gushing about him just now, but zorched it. I sounded like a crushing schoolgirl! Anyway, as you can imagine, my clan up here in the wilds of Alaska is small and very conservative. Most are opposed to crossbreeding, and the Brotherhood is gaining a serious foothold here. If I tell them about Jess, my kids and I will be shunned, if not worse. I don’t know what to do. Any advice you can give me would be great. Veronica.”

They were quiet for a moment. Then Bethany gently pulled free from his arms, laid the laptop on the bed and walked into the bathroom without a word. The scent of her tears came to him quickly, tearing him up inside. He didn’t have to ask why she was crying, and it didn’t take any of his heightened senses to figure it out — except maybe common sense.
 

Besides the health of the baby, Bethany’s biggest concern was his status in the clan. “What if they shun you, or whatever it’s called?” she asked one day, her moist blue eyes gazing up at him in the most endearing way.

“They won’t. But even if they did, then we move in with one of your three overprotective brothers and I integrate into human society,” he replied as casually as possible. “It’s been done before. No biggie.”

But Bethany was too smart to believe it wouldn’t be a big-ass deal. Losing contact with everyone he’d ever known would be devastating for him. He couldn’t imagine never being able to see Chet, who’d become a second father to him after his dad was murdered. Not to mention all of his life-long friends.

The fact that she was determined to have their child be fully immersed in werebear culture would make the thought of this Veronica woman and her children being cast out of their clan unbearable. As sad as she was for this woman, she was also afraid for him and their cub.
 

More than anything, Max wanted to go wrap his arms around her, kiss away her tears and tell her everything would be okay. Only one thing was stopping him: He wouldn’t lie to her.

“S
o this is where my bitches be at.” Kimmy shuffled into Bethany’s kitchen through the sliding glass door, her hair a rat’s nest and her make-up smeared. She slumped down next to Paul at the table and picked up his coffee mug. “What’s this, coffee? No Bloody Marys?”

“Um, skank? Put down my elixir of life and go back to that rock you just crawled out from under. And brush your teeth while you’re there.” He waved his hand in front of his face and squinched his nose at her.
 

Bethany smiled at her friends’ banter. It would sound awful to an outsider but she knew it passed as affection for these two. She still wanted to pinch herself that Chet had agreed to let them both move into her half of the duplex after she moved in with Max, considering how badly he’d always wanted her to move out.
 

When they broke the news to him that they were moving in together, Max had suggested Bethany’s best friends as potential tenants. Chet was so upset that his plan to keep them apart had failed that he just threw up his hands and said, “Do whatever you want. You’re going to anyway.”

Since Max’s place was decorated so beautifully with an eclectic mix of items found during his travels all over the world, Bethany left most of her stuff for Paul and Kimmy to use. They’d both been living with multiple roommates — in Paul’s case, three — so the situation worked out perfectly. Bethany wouldn’t have to find new homes for all her furniture, and her friends had a nice, fully furnished apartment of their own right next door.