Return To The Bear by T.S. Joyce Page B

her toes. She laughed into the wind and leaned her head back against the headrest.
    If Brody couldn’t love her , at least she could find solace in this place. He watched her with an unreadable expression. Amusement, maybe, or curiosity. She didn’t know but he could watch her all he wanted. Brody was it for her. The marks across her chest said it was so, and she would make the best of it. She couldn’t force him to love her, but he was a good man. Her instincts screamed that he was honorable. He’d be her friend and right now, after everything she’d been through, it was enough. If she couldn’t find love, at least she’d ended up somewhere she wasn’t scared. And that had to mean something. If not the measure of love, at least safety had to be worth close to that. She could be happy. Maybe not as happy as she’d imagined, but much more than she had really believed she would ever have. Her time with the Long Claws seemed to fade farther away with each mile of gravel under the tires.
    “Tell me what you’re thinking,” Brody said, his voice quiet like he didn’t want to disturb the woods outside her open window.
    Startled by the sound of his voice, she hesitated.
    “Right now, ” he said. “Just tell me what is running through your mind.”
    “Okay. I was thinking I feel safe here and that maybe I could forget the Long Claws if I let the magic of this place in.” Heat flooded up her neck and landed in her cheeks. “Sounds silly.”
    Brody rested his hand on her thigh and leaned closer. “ You are safe now, Jo.” He squeezed her leg gently and she thought he’d pull away, but he didn’t. And just in case he got the urge from here to his house, she settled her hand over his to keep him in place. He splayed his fingers invitingly, and she intertwined them. Had she ever held hands with a man before? She couldn’t recall, but a shuddering sensation filled her stomach as the corner of Brody’s mouth turned up like he was pleased.
    The truck rocked and jounced as Brody pu lled off onto a path that looked like it wasn’t used often. Ferns had started to take the road back and tall grass grew up in the middle strip between the tires. After about a mile, he pulled into a gravel parking lot next to a pair of jeeps and cut the engine.
    “Stay there,” he said in a gruff voice.
    He walked around the front of the truck and opened her door, then grabbed the brown bag she held in her lap and offered her a hand down. Gingerly, she escaped the cab and moved to the side as he closed the door. The keys sat in the front seat and she tilted her chin so she could see his face when she asked, “Do you always leave the keys in your truck?”
    “Yeah. Not everyone has a car here, and if they need to go into town, they’re free to use mine. Most of us with rides leave the keys.”
    “But what if you needed your truck to go somewhere and it wasn’t here?”
    He shrugged and led her to the top of a set of old railroad tie stairs. “Then I’d take one of the jeeps.”
    Huh. She held onto the rusty metal railing as she descended to the trail below. She still felt a little woozy from whatever pain meds Brody had given her on the trip, but at least her skin wasn’t on fire at the moment. Thanks to her healing abilities, she wouldn’t even need pain killers by tomorrow and she sent a silent thanks to the powers that be that she’d been born a bear shifter. She’d survived a lot thanks to the black bear that slept inside of her.
    The trail the y walked was a good hike over hills and through a meadow. She adored the clean summer smell of the place. “Are all the houses so spread out?”
    “No. I’ll take you around today an d show you everything, but up at the main drag of the community is a stretch of houses. Hannah and Riker live there in the big house. When he made me one of his council members, Riker offered me one of the bigger houses near him, but I wanted something farther out. My bear likes solitude.”
    He