Chapter 14 Tolin
TOLIN
She’s gone back to her room, but I can still feel her presence in the kitchen. Still smell the faint trace of her scent—brown sugar and vanilla and that floral undertone that makes my bear want to roll around in it like a damn fool.
I stand at the sink, washing the breakfast dishes, replaying everything she told me.
Darnell.
Five years. Five years she gave that man. Helped him get his degree, his job, his car, his house. Built him up piece by piece while he was planning a future with someone else.
Married within a month.
I’m squeezing the plate so hard the ceramic groans. I force myself to loosen my grip before it shatters.
My bear wants blood. Wants to track this Darnell down and show him exactly what happens to men who treat women like stepping stones. I imagine the look on his face when a seven-foot bear shifter shows up at his door. Imagine the sound he’d make when I—
I set the plate down carefully and grip the edge of the sink.
That’s not productive. And honestly, as much as I want to murder him, there’s another feeling underneath the rage.
Gratitude.
That piece of shit broke her heart. He made her think she wasn’t enough. He sent her running from whatever city she came from, looking for a fresh start.
And she ended up here. Shadow Wolf Creek. My cabin. My life.
His loss brought her to me.
I don’t know whether to thank him or kill him. Maybe both.
I finish the dishes and dry my hands, staring out the window at the snow still falling. My mind keeps circling back to everything she said.
The green velvet chair. Four hundred and forty-nine dollars. She’s been counting every shift, every tip, every penny toward that one piece of furniture.
She wants a home. A real home. Something that’s completely hers.
My bear chuffs with contentment. Our mate wants a home? We’ll give her one. We’ll give her ten if she wants them. We’ll fill every room with whatever she desires, buy her a hundred green velvet chairs, make sure she never has to count pennies again.
She thinks she gave up on love. But I heard what she really wants, underneath all that armor she’s built.
She wants the home. The family. The man who chooses her.
She’s going to get all of it. From me.
The grumpy bear shifter who made her cry. The monster who crushed her phone and ripped off her car door.
I’m going to spend the rest of my life making that up to her. And she’s never going to feel like a stepping stone again.
Hours pass.
I chop wood until my arms ache. Stack it by the back door. Pace the cabin. Try to read a book and give up after the same paragraph three times.
I can’t stop thinking about her. Can’t stop listening for the sound of her door opening.
Is she regretting what she told me? Is she in there right now, building those walls back up? Did I push too hard, ask too much, scare her back into hiding?
The afternoon light is starting to fade when I finally hear it.
Footsteps in the hallway.
I straighten from where I’ve been pretending to adjust the logs, my heart beating faster than I want to admit. She appears in the living room doorway, and I search her face for signs of retreat.
She doesn’t look closed off. She looks... uncertain. Like she’s testing the waters.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey.”
“So.” She crosses her arms, but it’s not defensive. More like she doesn’t know what to do with her hands. “What’s for dinner?”
The question catches me off guard. I was expecting awkwardness, maybe another interrogation. Not something so... normal.
“I hadn’t thought about it yet.”
“You have a refrigerator full of food and you hadn’t thought about dinner?”
“I was busy.”
“Doing what?”
“Chopping wood.”
She raises an eyebrow. “For six hours?”
“The woodpile was low.”
“The woodpile was fine. I saw it yesterday.”
I don’t have a response to that. She’s right. I was just keeping my hands busy so I wouldn’t do something stupid like knock on her door and beg her to talk to me again.
“Well.” She pushes off from the doorway and walks toward the kitchen. “I’m hungry. And since you won’t let me clean, I might as well cook.”
“You don’t have to—“
“I know I don’t have to.” She’s already opening the refrigerator, peering inside. “But I’m not going to sit around doing nothing while you burn more eggs.”
“I only burned them once this morning.”
“Three times.” She glances at me over her shoulder. “I saw the trash can.”
Damn. I thought I’d hidden the evidence better than that.
“Fine,” I admit. “Three times. But I got it right eventually.”
“Eventually.” She pulls out vegetables, a pack of chicken, some herbs. “That’s very reassuring. ‘Eventually he’ll stop burning things.’ I’ll put that on your tombstone.”
My bear perks up at her teasing. He likes this. Likes her comfortable enough to give me shit.
“What are you making?” I ask, moving closer to the kitchen.
“Chicken stir-fry. Assuming you have a pan that isn’t permanently scorched.”
“There’s one in the cabinet by the stove.”
She finds it, inspects it, nods in approval. “Okay. You can help.”
“Help?”
“You do know how to chop vegetables, right? Or do bears just eat everything raw?”
“We can manage vegetables.”
“Prove it.” She sets a cutting board on the counter and hands me a knife. “Onions. Small pieces.”
I take the knife and the onion she offers, positioning myself at the counter beside her. The kitchen suddenly feels very small. Her shoulder is inches from my arm. I can feel the warmth radiating off her skin.
Focus. Chop the onion.
I slice it in half and start cutting.
“Smaller,” she says without looking up from the chicken she’s preparing.
“They’re fine.”
“They’re the size of my fist. Unless you want to choke on dinner, cut them smaller.”
“You’re very demanding for someone who’s supposed to be a guest.”
“You told me I couldn’t clean.” She flashes me a look. “You didn’t say anything about criticizing.”
I huff out something that’s almost a laugh and cut the onions smaller.
For a few minutes, we just work. It’s not uncomfortable. She moves around my kitchen like she belongs there, opening cabinets and finding what she needs without asking. I watch her from the corner of my eye, cataloging every detail.
The way she hums under her breath when she’s concentrating. The way she tucks a curl behind her ear when it falls in her face. The way her hips sway slightly as she reaches for the spice rack.
“You’re staring,” she says.
“I’m observing.”
“Same thing.”
“I’m making sure you don’t burn down my kitchen.”
She snorts. “That’s rich coming from the man who burned three batches of eggs.”
“I thought we moved past that.”
“We will never move past that. I’m going to bring it up at every opportunity.” She takes the cutting board from me and scrapes the onions into the hot pan. They sizzle on contact, filling the kitchen with a savory smell. “Okay, now the peppers. Same size. Small.”
“I know how to cut peppers.”
“Do you? Because those onions suggested otherwise.”
I grab a bell pepper and start slicing, making a point to cut the pieces smaller than necessary. She glances over, sees what I’m doing, and her lips twitch.
“Now you’re just being petty.”
“You said small.”
“I didn’t say microscopic.”
“Make up your mind, woman.”
The claim emerges. Woman. Like she’s mine. Like I have any right to call her that.
But she doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t correct me. Just shakes her head and turns back to the stove.
“How did you survive up here alone for years?” she asks.
“Rare meat doesn’t require much skill.”
“That explains the five jars of brown sugar. You just eat it straight from the container, don’t you?”
I don’t answer.
She turns to look at me, eyes widening. “Oh my God. You do.”
“It’s a perfectly acceptable source of energy.”
“It’s a baking ingredient!”
“Bears don’t bake.”
“Clearly.” She’s laughing now, a real laugh that lights up her whole face. The sound catches me off guard—warm and painful and terrifying all at once. “What else do you eat? Honey straight from the jar? Maple syrup for breakfast?”
“I don’t have to answer that.”
“You do. You absolutely do. I need to know what I’m working with here.”
“You’re working with a man who has survived perfectly well on his own for years.”
“Survived.” She takes the peppers from me and adds them to the pan. “That’s a low bar. I want to know if you’ve ever eaten an actual balanced meal.”
“I eat balanced meals.”
“Rare steak and plain potatoes is not balanced.”
“There’s protein and carbohydrates. That’s balance.”
She stares at me like I’ve just said the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard. Then she shakes her head and turns back to the stove.
“I have so much work to do.”
Those simple words do something to me. Work to do. Like she’s planning to stick around. Like she’s already thinking about feeding me properly, taking care of me, making sure I don’t die of scurvy on this mountain.
My bear practically purrs.
“What about you?” I ask, trying to keep my voice casual. “What do you eat when you’re not cooking for ungrateful bear shifters?”
“Whatever’s cheap and fills me up.” She stirs the vegetables, adding the chicken. “Soup, mostly. Rice and beans. I’m a good cook when I have the ingredients, but ingredients cost money.”
Money she was saving for that green velvet chair. For the home she wants to build.
“You won’t have to worry about that,” I say quietly.
She glances at me. “Worry about what?”
“Money. Ingredients. Any of it.”
Her expression shifts. Confusion, maybe. Or suspicion.
“That’s a strange thing to say to your cleaning lady.”
“You’re not my cleaning lady anymore.”
“Then what am I?”
The words die in my throat. I should tell her. Should explain about the mate bond, about fate, about the fact that she’s mine and I’m hers and nothing in this world will ever change that.
But I promised myself I would win her heart first. Make her choose me because she wants to, not because some cosmic force decided for her.
“You’re my guest,” I say finally. “And guests don’t have to worry about money.”