The Island Of Bears: A BBW Paranormal Romance Read online

  Though, still, I had to know if what I’d thought I’d seen was really what I had seen. So, I lifted the binoculars to my eyes once again and brought the two figures on the beach back into focus. Now that they had passed a copse of palms bordering the beach, I could see them with crystal-clear clarity, and, because of the binoculars, I could see them as closely as if they were standing only a half-dozen feet away from me. Almost instantly, a little lump rose in my throat, and my voice came out in a near-whisper.

  “They are holding hands. They’re actually... they’re actually holding hands, Cora. Hannah’s holding the hand of my—” I paused to try to swallow the lump in my throat down, but without much success. “My son of a freak.”

  “Look... maybe you should put the binoculars down. Maybe it wasn’t the brightest idea for me to give them to you. I think this is too hard on you, and—”

  I gave my head a little shake, still holding the binoculars to my face. “I can’t, though. I just can’t look away.”

  For some strange reason, I really couldn’t, even though I knew I was just torturing myself. It was as if my arms just wouldn’t work to lower the binoculars. It was as if some unseen force was making me hold them up.

  It had only been about three weeks since Holden had broken up with me, and I’d never dreamed he’d move on so quickly. I’d been thinking and hoping that we’d get back together in time, despite the fact that he refused to speak to me since our breakup happened.

  I just figured that he needed time to think things over before agreeing to give me a chance to prove to him that I could trust him and behave with a little more thought and maturity. I hadn’t envisioned him taking up with Hannah, seeming to forget all about me.

  “Just look away, Haley.”

  In response to Cora, I just shook my head again. “I can’t.”

  Within a moment, I was glad I didn’t. Holden and Hannah’s hands separated, and it looked like he had done the pulling away. I looked up at their faces and saw that Holden’s bore an expression of what seemed to be discomfort. Hannah was frowning, and seemed possibly hurt.

  Still not lowering the binoculars, I heaved a sigh of relief. “Oh, good. They’re not holding hands anymore. It seemed like Holden was the one to pull away.”

  I continued watching them amble along the beach for a few seconds until they disappeared from view.

  Only then did I lower the binoculars. I looked at Cora, daring to allow a little hope to rise in my heart. “Okay, well, altogether, they only held hands for about five seconds. Holden didn’t seem to like it for some reason. So, I’ve still got a chance, don’t I?”

  Cora gave me a little smile, her expression unmistakably sympathetic. “Of course you do. As I’ve been saying for weeks now, I think you and Holden will get back together eventually, and I still believe that. But in the meantime—”

  “In the meantime, I’ve just gotta keep Hannah the hell away from him, I know. Or keep him away from her, whichever. I’ve just gotta keep them both apart.”

  Cora frowned, drawing her dark brows together. “Well, no, that’s actually not at all what I was going to say.”

  “Then, what?”

  “I was going to say that in the meantime, you’ve just got to be patient. You have to give Holden time. You have to prove to him that you are committed to being a new you; a new you who trusts him, thinks things through more, and is more mature. Because after all, isn’t that what you told me that you told him, the night that you blew up the lake? That you were willing to change? That you were willing to show him that?”

  It was true. I had told him all that. But that had been before Hannah and her sister Ashley had come to Sun Cove. That had been before I’d learned that Hannah and Holden used to have a “thing” together, as Cora had told me, and before I’d seen that she was almost impossibly drop-dead gorgeous, with sparkling jewel-green eyes, waist-length auburn hair, and a figure like a lingerie model’s. I told Holden all the things that I had when I’d thought we’d have more time to work things out, just the two of us. I hadn’t counted on the added complication of Hannah.

  At first, she and Holden seemed to keep their distance, which obviously made me happy, but then, after maybe a week or two, I’d seen them around the village a few times, talking. Then, not a half-hour earlier, Amy called me, reporting that Holden and Hannah were taking a walk along the beach together. She sounded like she didn’t want to tell me, but felt compelled to do so. And that’s when I called Cora and asked her to lend me her binoculars.

  Looking at Cora, I nodded. “Yes, I did tell Holden I was going to change, and I meant that, and I still do. My intent has been to just give him some time... To show him that I trust him around Hannah, and that he can trust me to be mature and not fly off the handle and do something crazy without fully thinking things through.

  But now....” I sighed, slumping against the window, my gaze going to the glittering, sunlit ocean a ways beyond. “Now it’s obvious that Hannah wants more from Holden that just a few chats in the village every now and then. Now she wants walks, and she wants to hold his hand. And just because it looked like he quickly pulled his hand away from her just now, it doesn’t mean that’s not what he wants, too.

  He could have just been a little taken aback. He could have just been... Well, I don’t know. Maybe he realized that they were passing my cabin, and just on the off-chance that I was looking out the window, he didn’t want to be rude. But, no matter why he pulled his hand away, I’m nervous now. Way too nervous to just sit back and be passive.

  I just can’t sit back while they spend more and more time together, and while they become even closer. There’s too big a risk of them re-igniting whatever spark they once had.”

  “Well, what are you going to do? I don’t mean to sound defeatist or anything, but it doesn’t seem like there’s much you can do,” said Cora. Thinking, I slowly pulled my gaze from the ocean and looked at Cora again. “Well, I can talk to Holden. I can tell him that as far as my deep feelings for him, nothing is changed since the night I blew up the lake. I can tell him I still love him, and that I’m still committed to changing some of my ways, still committed to trusting him, and earning his trust in return.”

  With her chocolate-brown eyes troubled, Cora took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “If he’ll talk to you, though. Because the past couple of times you’ve tried....”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  A warm, salt-scented breeze blew in the living room windows, rustling the sheer white curtains, and I looked out the window at the gently waving palms. It was another perfect, sunny, gorgeous day on the island. Or, it had been, until I’d seen Holden and Hannah.

  Having a sudden thought, I turned back to Cora. “Hey. Did you or Amy ever find out just how long Hannah and Ashley are planning to stay in Sun Cove? Why exactly they decided to show up all of a sudden, and how they did? Because I know it really wasn’t to visit their dear cousin Conner, or their dear cousin-in-law, Cora.”

  They’d barely even said hello to Conner or Cora since their arrival.

  Cora shook her head, making her dark brown hair ripple. “I really haven’t found out anything, and Amy hasn’t, either. Hannah and Ashley are still sticking to their story about simply wanting to visit family indefinitely, which, like you, I just know is complete bull.

  I’ve even invited them over for dinner a few times, but they’ve begged off each time, despite the fact that I know that they don’t have a stove or oven in the cabin they’re sharing, so you’d think they’d jump at an offer of a hot dinner. But, nope, they just politely begged off, preferring to hang out by themselves, I guess. It’s like they don’t want to talk to Conner and me, or they have something to hide.”

  “Well, what do you think it is?”

  “No clue. Here is something I think is funny, though. They’ve been living with the wolves in Clearwater for the past several years, but when I asked how things have been there, Ashley just shrugged and said they hadn’t been there in a coup
le of months.

  But then Hannah quickly talked over her and said something about how Ashley had meant to say that they hadn’t been there in ‘a couple of days,’ because they’d walked slowly from Clearwater, just taking their time. But, needless to say, I don’t buy this. For one thing, with Clearwater being only a few miles away, they had to have been almost literally inching along at a snail’s pace in order for it to take them that long.

  And for another thing, up until the evening they arrived here, the Forms were still a danger. No way would they have decided to set out on a hike from village to village with that still being the case. So, obviously, Ashley was telling the truth. I think she just slipped. She’s always definitely been the airhead of the two sisters, to say the least, and Hannah has always been more the leader and the thinker.”

  “Well, if Ashley was telling the truth, that they haven’t been to Clearwater in months, where have they been, then? With the dragons?”

  Cora lifted her slender shoulders in a shrug. “Hard to tell, but I don’t think so. If they were, it seems like they’d have no reason to hide it. More likely, I think maybe something happened to make them leave Clearwater... Either because they just wanted to, or because they were kicked out. Even with the Forms around, it’s possible they’ve just been kind of camping out somewhere on the island the past couple of months, just figuring out their next move.

  The more I think about it, the more likely this scenario seems. Hannah has a hot, destructive kind of temper, which is part of the reason she and Holden broke up, and when the dust cleared, Holden told her it would be best if she found another village. At this point, I don’t think Holden liked her very much, and she’d been in so many fights with different people around here that no one else really liked her much, either.

  So, it just stands to reason that someone with a temper hot enough to be asked to leave a village once... Well, who knows? Maybe it happened again. And maybe Hannah’s just too embarrassed to tell Holden that. I’m just guessing she’s told him she ‘just wanted to visit with family’ line, too.”

  I scoffed, glancing out at the now-empty stretch of beach where Holden and Hannah had been walking. “When it’s perfectly clear Hannah’s real reason for coming here. She obviously just wants Holden back.”

  Cora shrugged again. “It’s definitely beginning to seem that way... I don’t blame you at all for wanting to talk to Holden. But, please, just take my advice, and just tell him only what you just said a bit ago, that you love him, and that you’re still committed to changing, and trusting him, and earning his trust in return.

  I’d just completely leave Hannah out of this. I wouldn’t even mention her name. I just think that if you do, Holden might get the impression that you don’t trust him, or you might come off as immature or spiteful. Because honestly, I can tell it’s hard for you to even talk about Hannah without being resentful, and understandably so, but you probably don’t want that to come through when you talk to Holden.”

  I nodded, loosely folding my arms across my chest. “You’re right. I just want to show him the new me. The new, more trusting, more mature Haley.”

  Cora smiled, crinkling the edges of her eyes. “You’ve got this. Soon you and Holden will be back together. Hannah will let her hot temper get the better of her once again, and she’ll be swearing and making violent threats and throwing any item she can get her hands on. That will make Holden ask her to leave the village again; and then she’ll sulk off to wherever she and Ashley came from. You’ll see. This will all work out.”

  I smiled back, praying she was right. The alternative, which was Holden never taking me back, was so upsetting, I could hardly stand to think about it.

  ***

  I was beyond eager to talk to Holden, but I didn’t get the chance that day. For weeks, he and his men had been busy filling in the empty crater of the lake bed so that there would be no way it could ever fill up with murky, mysterious water again, and they were still at it, with at least another week of work left to do. Late in the evening, I strolled through the darkened village to Holden’s cabin, where I waited for him on his front porch for at least an hour, but when he still hadn’t returned by midnight, I trudged off back home.

  The next day, after only a few hours of sleep, I awoke before dawn and once again made my way through the village to his cabin. This time, he was home, sitting on the porch steps with a mug of coffee. As I approached, walking across a wide stretch of sandy, rocky terrain that led to his cabin, a slight change in his expression let me know that he’d seen me, at least out of the corner of his eye. However, he didn’t really look at me. He just kept staring out at the ocean in the distance, and the grayish lavender predawn sky above it.

  When I reached him, I was struck by two things. The first was just how devastatingly attractive he was, not that I’d forgotten. Reclining slightly, with his back against the top step, he was shirtless, wearing nothing but battered jeans, and even in the dim light, I could see every chiseled ridge of his chest and abs. His thick, dark hair was rakishly tousled, as if he’d just gotten out of bed, which he probably had. In profile, his strong, square jaw was displayed to its best advantage. He was the kind of handsome that could take a woman’s breath away, even if she was used to it.

  The second thing that struck me when I stood before Holden was just how very much I’d missed him. I missed every single thing about him, from his deep voice to his woodsy, masculine scent, to the feeling of being wrapped in the strength of his powerful, well-muscled arms. I especially missed our lovemaking, and the profound sense of complete comfort and relaxation afterward.

  More than anything, I’d missed the way Holden made me feel, which was special, and cherished, and cared-for. I wasn’t sure any other man could ever make me feel quite the same, and in fact, I highly, highly doubted it.

  Holden continued looking out at the gently rolling ocean, still not looking at me, and a long moment or two passed before I spoke.

  “Will you talk to me? Please?”

  He hesitated in responding, only setting his coffee mug down and finally looking at me after another long moment or two had passed. His words seemed to come out through gritted teeth.

  “Yes, I’ll talk to you, but briefly. I have just one thing to say.”

  *

  The way Holden had spoken with his jaw clenched filled me with dread. I should have been glad that he’d agreed to talk to me, but I wasn’t, because I was afraid that the “one thing” he had to say to me was that he never wanted to speak to me again.

  Wanting to test the waters before he said whatever he had to say, I spoke in a near-squeak. “Can I sit down next to you?”

  Jaw still clenched, he studied me for a second, frowning, before dumping the dregs of his coffee over the railing, away from us.

  He then set the mug on a step, got up, and stood facing me, his large, long-fingered hands on his slim hips. “I don’t think we should sit close to each other.”

  “Why not?”

  He scoffed, though his stern expression appeared to soften just slightly. “Isn’t it obvious? I don’t want to get too close to you... physically. It’s too dangerous. If we sat next to each other, a simple touch, a brush against your skin... It could make me want to just...”

  Trailing off with a sigh, he raked a hand through his hair. “It’s just best if we don’t tempt ourselves. No need to make things harder than they already are.”

  The tiniest little bubble of hope rose in my heart. “So, you still care about me, then? And you’re still attracted to me?”

  Holden scoffed for the second time. “Of course. On both counts.” Drawing his dark brows together, he looked deeply into my eyes for a moment. “But I just don’t know if I can ever be with you again, Haley. I have some thinking to do.”

  “But how can you think with Hannah hanging all over you all the time?”

  I hadn’t meant to say what I had. I’d been intending to stick to the plan that Cora and I had discussed, particularly th
e part of the plan to not mention Hannah. I cringed inwardly, cursing my big mouth. I was sure that what had just happened was yet another example of me not pausing to think things through well enough, which I knew was, of course, part of the reservations Holden had about continuing a relationship with me.

  However, what was done was done, and what had been said had been said, I told myself. All I could do now was try to salvage things. So, to that end, I opened my mouth to tell Holden to never mind that last comment, and that I didn’t mean to say it. Before I could even get the words out, he beat me to it and spoke in a low, almost apologetic-sounding voice.

  “Hannah and I are friends, yes. We have a romantic history together; as I’m sure you’re aware. But that’s done now. Completely over.”

  “But I saw the two of you holding hands yesterday.”

  I just hadn’t been able to resist the comment. And now that the genie was out of the bottle, now that he was talking about Hannah, maybe there was no reason for me to have resisted anyway.

  Holden sighed, his gaze going to the ocean and the slowly lightening sky briefly before settling back on my face. “If you saw Hannah and me holding hands yesterday, then maybe you also saw me pull my hand from hers within seconds. I did that, Haley, because I was uncomfortable, because I didn’t want to hold her hand. I don’t want any kind of physical contact with her, because I’m not interested in her on a romantic level anymore.”

  “But what does she want?”

  “Well, it doesn’t even matter what she wants, because I have no intention of giving her anything more than my casual friendship.”

  “But what if she’s not satisfied with that? What if—”

  “Look. I’m telling you that regardless of what Hannah wants, I have no intention of rekindling our romantic relationship. Ever. That’s all in the past, because years ago, I realized that she’s not the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with, for various reasons. All I intend to do now is to be a friend to her, because I can sense that she needs one. She doesn’t seem to want to tell me all the details, but I can tell something painful might have happened to her in Clearwater, because she doesn’t have any interest in returning there. Maybe it was a breakup; I don’t know. At any rate, I’m glad to be a friend to her, because to be perfectly honest, I seem to need a friend myself these days. A purely platonic friend, that is.”