Chapter Two – Spencer
His mate was finally here.
After watching four of his brothers find their mates, Spencer had started to think fate had simply passed him by.
Then he had sensed her. Meryl.
He’d been running the mountain trails in his bear form, trying to shake off the restless tension that had been building in him for weeks.
But that was the past. Now his future was standing right in front of him.
It had started as a prickling sensation beneath his skin, an awareness he hadn’t been able to settle. Then it had sharpened into something he could not ignore, pulling him toward the old abandoned cottage with a certainty that made no sense until it suddenly made all the sense in the world.
Because the moment he had seen Meryl standing on Hilda’s broken porch, with that stubborn set to her shoulders and a section of railing in her hand, his bear had surged forward with absolute conviction.
Mate.
No more longing. No more dread that he was destined to live his life alone, Spencer thought now as he followed Meryl into Pine Cottage. No more watching his brothers build their new lives with their mates and pretending it didn’t leave a hollow place inside him.
Not anymore, his bear said, still sounding half wild with joy. But this house...
Spencer needed no further explanation. The building did nothing to settle the fierce, primal urge rising inside him.
Every soft board, every damp smell, every creak of old timber sharpened it.
His whole body was tuned to one thing now, protecting his mate.
His hands wanted to tear out every rotting plank, brace every sagging beam, rebuild the place from the ground up before she spent a single night under this roof.
If this place falls down around her, we can’t protect her, his bear growled.
It’s not falling down, Spencer said, more to steady himself than to reassure the bear. Not tonight.
But the urge to catch hold of Meryl and pull her straight back outside hit him hard.
He pushed it down. She was already guarded enough; he’d seen that in the set of her jaw the moment he had caught her on the porch.
The last thing she needed was some stranger acting like he had any right to tell her what to do.
So he kept his hands to himself and his voice even.
“Let’s take it slowly,” he said. “Test before you step.”
Meryl glanced back at him over her shoulder, notebook still tucked against her chest like a shield. “I wasn’t planning to run through the place with wild abandon.”
I like her, his bear perked up immediately.
So do I, Spencer admitted, hiding a smile.
The hallway was narrow and dim, the air inside cooler than it should have been for late summer. Dust lay over the floorboards in an undisturbed film, and the silence felt different in here. Heavier. More contained.
It feels as if it’s been waiting for this moment for a long, long time, his bear whispered.
As long as it hasn’t been waiting to fall down, Spencer grumbled.
But as he took a closer look, he was relieved that the damage inside didn’t look as bad as the outside had suggested.
He stepped past her carefully and pressed his weight onto the next board. Solid. The one nearer the wall had a little give, but not enough to worry him yet.
“This section’s all right,” he said. “A few boards near the door will need replacing, but the subfloor underneath feels sound.”
Meryl was already writing.
As if making notes made things manageable.
She likes lists, his bear observed.
I can see that.
We should help with her lists.
It’s going to be a long one, Spencer said as he carefully made his way to the staircase.
He wrapped a hand around the newel post and gave it a firm shake.
Nothing. No wobble. No shift. Good joinery, the kind that came from someone who understood wood and what it could hold.
He put his weight onto the first tread, then the next.
Solid.
A flicker of relief went through him, sharper than it should have been for someone else’s staircase.
Because it’s our mate’s staircase, his bear reminded him, as if he needed it.
“The stairs are good,” Spencer said, looking back at her. “That’s in your favor.”
“It’s about the only thing that is,” she said, and a brief look of panic swept over her face before she smoothed it away again.
“It’s good. Honestly. It means the house was built properly to begin with.” He stepped back down and ran his palm along the banister rail, smooth under the dust, the grain still tight. “It’s easy enough to fix paint and varnish. But if the structure’s rotten, then you’re in trouble.”
She studied the staircase as if trying to see what he saw. Then she wrote that down, too.
Good, his bear said. She listens.
The hallway opened into the front room on the left, and Spencer crossed to it first. He pushed the door wider where it had swollen against the frame, the wood groaning softly in protest, then stood aside to let Meryl in.
The room was dusty, but better than he’d feared.
Two tall front windows let in the last of the afternoon light, cutting amber shafts through the still air.
The fireplace sat square on the far wall, the mantel thick with dust but still straight, the hearthstones dark and worn smooth by decades of use.
The ceiling beams were dark with age but sound at a glance, no sagging, no staining, no sign that the roof above this room had let them down.
Meryl turned slowly, taking it in.
And Spencer watched her take it in.
Not because he meant to. Because he couldn’t seem to stop.
How was he meant to look away now that she was here?
If you look away, she’s not going to vanish, his bear said, sounding amused.
I don’t think I’ll ever find the strength to look away, Spencer replied.
Then she caught him staring, and he ducked his head, crossing to the front window and crouching near the wall beneath it.
Water damage, yes. But localized, a dark stain was spreading across the boards where the seal around the frame had failed.
The leak had gotten into the wood, not the stone. Fixable. He had seen far worse.
Then he saw it beneath the window. The remains of a built-in seat, half hidden under dust and broken trim.
The top was warped beyond saving, split along the grain where moisture had worked its way in over the harsh mountain winter, but the framing on either side was still there. Solid wood, pegged at the joints.
A window seat.
His bear went still in a different way this time. Not alert. Not watchful. Something closer to recognition.
That was made for her, he said. Can’t you imagine her sitting here in the evening with the window open and the breeze drifting down from the mountain, filled with the scent of summer?
I never knew you were an old romantic, Spencer said.
I am now that our mate is here, his bear replied.
Spencer swallowed and kept his voice steady. “This used to be a window seat.”
Meryl came closer. “A what?”
He touched the damaged wood lightly. “Built into the wall under the window. The top’s gone, but the footprint’s still here. See? The framing’s pegged, not nailed. Someone took their time with this.”
She crouched beside him then, and the sudden nearness of her hit him harder than it should have. Lavender, dust, mountain air, woman. His mate, close enough that if he shifted his arm an inch, he’d brush her sleeve. Close enough that he could hear the quiet rhythm of her breathing.
His bear rumbled low in his chest, wanting to meet her, wanting to feel her fingers in his fur.
Easy, Spencer warned.
Meryl traced the ruined edge with her fingertips, following the curve of the wood as if she could feel the shape it had once held. “Hilda used to mention a window seat in her letters.”
Spencer looked at her.
“She said it was her favorite place to read,” Meryl added more quietly. Something in her expression eased, just for a second.
He glanced out through the dirty glass to the tangle of garden beyond, the overgrown beds fading into shadow in the late light. “I can see why.”
For a moment, neither of them said anything. The quiet between them felt different from the silence in the rest of the house. Less empty.
Then Meryl straightened and flipped open her notebook again. “Window seat,” she murmured. “Damaged. Not rebuildable.”
Not rebuildable, his bear echoed with disdain. Of course it’s rebuildable.
Spencer stood, too. “Possibly rebuildable.”
She looked up at that, and something small passed between them, quick, unspoken, gone before either of them could name it, and then she dropped her gaze back to the page.
Good, his bear said. She should know that we can rebuild anything.
That’s not true, Spencer said. But thanks for the vote of confidence.
They moved on. The kitchen needed work.
The ceiling bore the brown tide mark of an old leak, a pale stain spreading outward from the corner like a map of damage.
A couple of the cabinets had warped on their hinges, their doors hanging open at wrong angles.
The back corner of the tiled floor had lifted, the grout cracked and dark with mildew.
Meryl stopped dead on the threshold.
“All right,” she said after a moment, in a tone that was a little too brisk, a little too controlled. “That’s... not ideal.”
Spencer almost smiled. Almost.
“No,” he agreed. “Not ideal.”
He crossed to the sink and turned the tap.
The pipes shuddered in protest somewhere deep in the walls, a clanking rattle that traveled through the house like a cough.
Then the tap spat out a thin stream of rusty water, brown, then amber, then gradually clearing, before settling into a steady, if unimpressive, flow.
Meryl looked at the running tap as if it had personally handed her a lifeline.
“There’s water,” she said.
“There’s water,” Spencer agreed. He let it run, watching the color clear.
“The kitchen needs work, but I can probably rebuild the cabinets that are damaged, and the rest just need stripping back to the bare wood and then a good couple of coats of varnish. It’ll be a long job.
..” He paused, realizing he’d been rambling.
“But the plumbing’s still live. That matters more. ”
She nodded and wrote quickly, but he caught the way her shoulders eased at that small mercy. One less disaster. One more thing the house had held onto.
Yes, his bear said. Good.
By the time they headed upstairs, the light had shifted softer and dimmer through the dusty windows, the afternoon slipping toward evening.
Spencer went first, testing each tread again out of habit, though he already trusted the staircase more than the porch or the kitchen floor.
The banister was steady under his hand. The risers didn’t creak.
The upstairs surprised even him.
The roofline was good. No obvious fresh leaks, no water stains on the ceilings, no soft patches underfoot.
The larger bedroom was dusty but dry, its floorboards pale with age but still tight in their joints.
The smaller room still smelled faintly of old linen and cedar, a dry, clean scent that spoke of careful storage and good ventilation.
Even the bathroom, shabby as it was, with its cracked tiles and tarnished fixtures, gave them cold water when he tried the tap.
Meryl stood in the larger bedroom, looking from the mountains outside the window, dark shapes now against a sky going soft at the edges, back to the iron bedframe still standing against the wall. The frame was old, heavy, and built to last. Someone had made it by hand.
“So?” she asked eventually. “How bad is it?”
Spencer leaned one shoulder against the doorframe and gave her the truth. He owed her that much, even if the truth was complicated.
“Most of the porch needs replacing. The kitchen needs a lot of work to get it back to its former glory, but it’s time more than materials.
Those cabinets were built to last. There’ll be repairs throughout the ground floor, water damage, and rot.
I’m guessing there’s water seeping in from somewhere at the front of the house, so that needs finding and fixing as a priority.
Although the weather is settled for a while, so it’s not an immediate concern.
” He looked around the room once more, at the clean lines of the ceiling and the good light from the window, then back at her.
“But the house isn’t lost, Meryl. The structure’s good where it matters.
The stairs are solid. The roof’s holding, although I’d like to take a closer look just to make sure.
Upstairs is better than it has any right to be.
Once the place has had a good clean, it’ll look much better. ”
She didn’t answer straight away.
Instead, she walked to the window, pushed one finger through the dust on the sill, and looked out at the trees darkening beyond the garden. The fading light caught her reflection in the glass, and even from where he stood, he could see how tired she looked.
When she finally spoke, her voice was quieter.
“So you think it can be saved.”
Spencer did not hesitate. “Yes.”
His bear lifted its head inside him, certain as ever. Certain about the house. Certain about the woman. Certain about everything Spencer was trying so hard to take one careful step at a time.
Meryl let out a breath, a long, slow exhale that carried the tension of the whole afternoon with it, and gave one small nod, more to herself than to him. “Okay then.”
“Okay then.” He put a hand in his jacket pocket, pulled out a card, and handed it to her. “Here’s the number of the contractor.”
She took the card and read it before lifting her gaze to his. “Spencer Thornberg, carpenter.”
“That’s me.” He held out his hands, suddenly feeling a little stupid.
“You’re going to help me rebuild the house?”
“If you’ll have me,” Spencer replied.
She frowned as she looked down at the card once more. “I’ll have you.”
How he wished those words were said for a different reason. But he could wait.
No, we can’t, his bear said.
But Meryl, like the house, was worth time and patience. Because the reward would be everything.