Page 24 of Bear’s True Mate

My fingers hovered over the little keyboard, trembling, and suddenly all I could see was his face—his sharp jaw, flat eyes, and his smile that could go from warm to cruel so fast it gave me whiplash.

He didn’t know where I was. He couldn’t. I’d been careful. My mother was the only person who knew where I was, and I didn’t think he’d reach out to her. He’d never truly liked her. Heck, I’d even paid for this rental with my business credit card he didn’t have access to. He shouldn’t be able to find me.

I knew he was looking, though.

That was enough to scare me because Evan didn’t give up. It was the one thing about him that people who’d never been on the receiving end of his attention didn’t understand. He was patient. He was methodical. He would keep looking until he found what he wanted, and what he wanted was me.

I deleted the text. Then I deleted the entire conversation thread, as if erasing the words from my phone could erase the feeling of them in my chest.

My duplex was quiet, but through the shared space between us, I could hear Nolan moving around his place and the low sounds of a TV. Normal sounds. Safe sounds. Not too long ago, those sounds would have annoyed me. Tonight, they were the only thing keeping me from falling apart.

I thought about going to the porch, hoping he’d come outside. There was a desire to tell him everything, to let the whole ugly story pour out, because some part of me believed that if I told Nolan Bridges someone who hurt me was looking for me, he’d do something about it.

I didn’t do any of that, though.

Instead, I stayed where I was because telling Nolan meant trusting Nolan, and trusting a man was the thing that had broken me in the first place.

I checked that the front door was locked.

Then I turned on every light in the unit and climbed into bed fully dressed with my phone face-down on the nightstand, and the covers pulled up to my chin.

10

NOLAN

Something was wrong with Rose.

Not the kind of wrong I could point to and name, though. We hadn’t argued. There was no tipping point to reference either.

I didn’t know what the hell had happened.

One day we were eating burgers on the porch and standing too close, and the next she was gone.

Not physically.

Her car was still in the driveway, and I could hear her moving around Alister’s place from time to time. The version of her I’d been getting to know, the one who laughed at my bad jokes, kicked my chair, and let me see behind her walls—that Rose had vanished, though.

Maybe I was reading into things too deeply. Maybe she’d gone full-on hermit crab because she’d found some flow with words for her book.

My bear grumbled. He didn’t believe that. Honestly, neither did I.

Something was wrong.

My bear grew even more agitated. It had been building for days, and I’d tried to ignore it, but it was becoming nearly impossible. It had nothing to do with the mate pull either. This was different. Sharper. More serious. He wasn’t worked up because she was pulling away. He was worked up because he could feel something had shifted in her, and whatever it was had nothing to do with me.

Did it?

Maybe she was pulling away because of me. Maybe she could feel the connection we had too, and it scared her.

Why would it, though?

She was a romance writer. Shouldn’t she live for this type of shit? Unexpected romance at the beach? I mean, come on, it was writerly romance gold.

Wasn’t it?

I heard her front door open, and my gaze immediately went to the clock on my wall. 9:47.

Where was she headed so late?