A Bear of a Reputation Read online

  I stood up straighter. “I hate to break it to you, Lukas, but your brother was a visible and vocal member of the political community. His death is big news, and it is part of my job to report about what it means and how it impacts everyone. People want to know what’s happening, and so far you have refused to comment on it. So you’re the one who is making this a bigger issue than it is. Just rescind your claim already so you can get the hell out of here. We all know that’s what you really want to do, so just do it already.”

  “How do you know that’s what I want?” Lukas asked. His tone had gone icy. “Why is it that everyone is assuming that I’m just going to waltz into town and give the nod to good ol’ Buddy Monroe?”

  I blinked. Then my mouth fell open. “Are you saying that you plan on taking Markus’s place?”

  Lukas sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know yet. I just don’t like the seemingly forgone conclusion that I wouldn’t.”

  There was a long pause that seemed to stretch out for days between us. He stared at me, and it felt as if he was looking into my soul. I couldn’t believe it. We were right back where we had started. Lukas didn’t know what to do, and he had come to me for all the answers, as if I had them. The idea almost made me laugh.

  “If you think that’s what you want, then you have to get your butt back to that funeral,” I said finally.

  “I can’t stand them all looking at me the way they are,” Lukas said. “They think they know who I am, and they don’t know me at all. They never did.”

  “No one did,” I agreed. Silently, I thought that included me as well.

  Lukas moved across the room, and it was as if all time stood still as I found myself looking up into his eyes again. “That’s not true. You always knew me, sometimes better than I knew myself, truthfully.”

  I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to kiss him and hit him at the same time. In the end, the latter urge won out. I pushed against his chest hard. Because Lukas had more than a hundred pounds on me that appeared to be entirely made up of muscle, he barely moved. I pushed at his chest again, demanding that he leave my space.

  “You don’t get to come in here and do this, Lukas,” I said. Unable to move him any farther, I backed away in retreat. “You are the one who left, and you left without saying anything! Nothing! Just one day you were here, and things were fine, and the next day…” I couldn’t even finish my sentence. How do you ask someone who was supposed to be your closest friend how they could sleep with you and then leave without even saying good-bye?

  “Maren, I know we have a lot to talk about,” he said. “I know that I hurt you.”

  I crossed my arms and shook my head. “That’s ancient history.”

  “You seem pretty mad at me if it’s that ancient,” he said. There was a small upturn in the corner of his mouth that made me want to lick it. God, I hated when he’d look at me like that: like he could wrap me around his pinky finger and make me dance to his tune. Ten years ago, I had done it willingly. Screw that.

  “I just don’t think that my boyfriend would approve of you being here and getting all up in my space like we’re still friends,” I said.

  “Boyfriend?” I saw the look of astonishment on his face, and that made me want to smack him again. Why did that tidbit of information seem like such a surprise to him?

  “Are you really going to stand here and question me about my love life when you have a funeral to go to?”

  “I want you to go with me,” he said.

  “No way.” I shook my head again. “I’m on deadline.”

  “I saw your dad at the church,” Lukas said.

  “I promised to have this story done before he got back,” I lied. “You’re a big boy, Lukas. You don’t need me to hold your hand.” I saw the flash of anger in his eyes. That was good. Lukas never liked to be reminded that he needed anyone. Even though he had been my best friend, I knew that there were things he always kept from me. It was that part of him that I had always wanted to conquer—the part of him I thought would mean that he’d finally cave and tell me that he loved me the way that I loved him. And even though I knew from the rumors around school that Lukas had had more than a few conquests in the bedroom, I had saved myself for him. It had been what I thought was the most precious gift—something that told him exactly how I felt about him.

  He took it, and then he broke my heart. Some best friend.

  “I guess I’ll see you around, then,” he said stiffly. He spun on his heel and strode out the door. I couldn’t help but hear the sound of the glass in the door rattling at the abruptness of his exit. That was always Lukas’s style—the grand exit.

  I felt numb as I made my way back into my office and sat in the chair. I couldn’t help but glance out my window. I saw Lukas hunched over against the arctic wind outside as he made his way down the street toward the church. It was only three blocks away, and with his long legs he’d be there in no time. I glanced at the clock on my computer. He would still make it on time. The service started in ten minutes. I breathed a sigh of relief and then gave myself a stern talking to.

  I didn’t care what Lukas did. Stay or go, it didn’t factor into my life at all. I groaned and put my elbows on the desk. I let my head fall into my hands as I realized that I was probably going to have to back up my claims of a boyfriend if Lukas stayed in town. Luckily, more than a few people had noted the recent spate of activity between me and Deputy Miller. It really wasn’t enough to constitute calling him my boyfriend, but given the numerous calls and emails I had gotten from him since our last date a week ago, I had a feeling he wouldn’t be that offended by the label. He’d probably even take it as a sure sign that he was going to get laid.

  I leaned back in my chair and looked up at the ceiling. Twenty-eight years old, and I had no idea what I was doing with my life. But I had to be strong. My heart was too fragile when it came to Lukas Kasper. He couldn’t be part of it, no matter how hard he tried to weasel his way back into my life.

  I saw the most recent edition of the paper on the corner of my desk. Ironically, Lukas’s face stared back at me. I pulled the paper toward me. Although the byline was my dad’s, I had done the research for the story. The photo of Lukas was from our high school yearbook. He wasn’t smiling, and there was a hint of an edge about him that was definitely what drew women to him like moths to a flame.

  Things changed between us after his first experience phasing. Markus pulled him out of school for a month, saying that he needed to learn how to control his emotions. That was all Lukas would tell me about what he did during that time. As always, there was a high degree of secrecy around a boy’s maturation process in the clan and how that was handled. I always thought it was ironic how the shifter community promoted awareness and transparency to combat fear of them but were so close mouthed when it came to the actual details of how things worked inside the clan.

  When Lukas returned to school later, I wasn’t the only one to take notice of his new physique. Lukas had turned from a slightly gangly, awkward teenage boy into a full-blooded, well-toned man. Whereas we had walked the halls in relative anonymity before, after that, Lukas was frequently stopped by someone, usually a girl. He was suddenly the most popular guy in school, but I knew that it wasn’t really Lukas they were interested in. It was the idea of what Lukas represented. He could have been captain of the varsity football team, complete with a cheerleader on either arm, and a pack of adoring teenagers hanging on his every word. Instead, he chose the path of a high school delinquent.

  That didn’t stop me from being his friend, but it did make it difficult for us to hang out once my father caught wind of the petty theft and vandalism charges. I had my theories on why Lukas decided to act out like that, but they had never been validated.

  I shoved the paper away from me and forced Lukas out of my mind. I had wasted enough time thinking about him. I put my fingers back on the keyboard and started to type.

  CHAPTER FOUR

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nbsp; I surveyed myself in the mirror and sighed. The fitted black dress and kitten heels had been a splurge purchase right after I graduated from college. When I came back to Greyelf, I stuck them in the back of my closet and figured I’d never wear them again. There weren’t that many places to go that required a cocktail dress in Greyelf.

  After my run-in with Lukas, I sent Deputy Miller a text and told him that I was available Friday night after all. Shortly after the funeral’s end, I got a text back from him, telling me that he’d pick me up at six-thirty and that he was planning to take me to Rolling Rock restaurant. Rolling Rock was the only fine dining option in Greyelf. It was thirty miles away, on a golf course that was popular among politicians who wanted to get away from it all. There was a swanky resort there with grand villas that mixed just the right amount of the “roughing it” feel with luxurious elegance. Dad took me there when I graduated from high school. I remember thinking at the time that I was so excited to have my whole future spread out ahead of me, and daydreaming about how I’d come back to Greyelf every other weekend just to hang out with Lukas. The joke was on me.

  I heard the doorbell ring and frowned as I looked at my watch. Billy was early by almost thirty minutes.

  I quickly poked my earrings into my earlobes as I crossed my small house and made my way to the door. I forced a wide smile onto my face as I pulled the door open. The smile fell a second later when I saw that it was Lukas standing on my doorstep instead of my date.

  I saw his eyes travel up and down my body in an instant. “That is not the kind of get-up I remember you wearing back in high school,” he said with a low whistle of appreciation.

  “What are you doing here, Lukas?” I felt like I was continually asking him this question these days. “Aren’t you supposed to be off in some secret clan meeting or something?” I crossed my arms. I knew that I should close the door in his face. God knows that he deserved it.

  He held up his arm, and I saw he held the neck of a bottle of wine in his fist. “It’s a peace offering. I don’t feel like we’ve gotten off on the right foot in getting reacquainted, Maren. I want to make it up to you.”

  I almost choked on the words that flew up my throat. What managed to come out was something along the lines of “Are you effing kidding me?” I didn’t like cursing, but it seemed as if Lukas brought that out in me.

  He frowned at the bottle’s label. “It’s a 2008 Bordeaux. Ms. Parsons assured me this is what you buy all the time.” Ms. Parsons was the owner of Greyelf’s only liquor store.

  I wanted to stamp my foot. I hated how much people in this town knew about me and freely chose to divulge to others. “I am getting ready to go out for the evening, so I need you to go.”

  Lukas stepped closer to the door frame and leaned his forearm on the doorjamb, causing me to take a step back. He was invading my space again, and I hated that there was a part of me that wanted more than anything to lean into him. He smelled of warm musk and the clean breeze of a fresh spring day. I didn’t need the wine to feel slightly intoxicated. He smiled at me as if he could read my mind.

  “Going out with your boyfriend tonight?” The way he said ‘boyfriend’ told me he still didn’t believe I had one at all.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am,” I said, raising my chin to meet his eyes. “So I’d like you to leave before he gets here.”

  “Afraid of making him jealous?” Lukas’s eyes traveled down my body again, and the heat in his gaze made my knees weak. “We’re just a couple of old friends catching up.”

  “We have nothing to catch up on,” I said firmly. I had no idea why he was deliberately tormenting me like this. Wasn’t it enough that he had slept with me and left me? What else did he want from me?

  “Cancel,” he said. He leaned closer to me. Now he was halfway across the threshold into my house. “Say you got sick or something. Let’s have a drink or two or twelve. We need to talk. You know that, and I know that.”

  I almost said yes. The way my heart beat in my chest, I wanted nothing more than to grab the front of his shirt, twist the fabric in my fist, and drag him inside. Then I’d find out if he was an even better kisser with a bit of age on his lips.

  “Come on, Maren. You know you never could say no to me.” His green eyes twinkled like this was some kind of inside joke between us.

  And just like that, reality slammed sharply back into focus. He was right. I had been a lovesick girl tagging along after a boy who never once looked at me the way that I wanted him to. I gave him my virginity with barely any protest. Time and again, I had gone over what happened that night in my head, and it always came back to the same thing. Whenever Lukas wanted to feel better about himself, he wound up on my doorstep. I let him in, no matter what he had done and no matter how he treated me the next day. I opened my body and soul to him, and, in the end, it hadn’t been enough. Was I going to let him waltz all over me again?

  “I’m not your consolation prize, Lukas,” I said. I pushed against his chest just like I had done two days beforehand. “I know you must be hurting about your brother and what happened, but it’s not my job to make you feel better. Figure it out. Whatever you think we used to have between us ended the minute you snuck out my bedroom window after sleeping with me and leaving town without saying goodbye. Believe me when I tell you this most sincerely, Lukas. You can go fuck yourself.”

  Then I finally did slam the door in his face, and even though it felt good, it didn’t feel nearly as good as I wanted it to.

  Sixty minutes later, I found myself seated at a candlelit table with Billy Miller. He was handsome in a wholesome Norwegian way that was common in this part of the country. Pale skin, blond hair, blue eyes. He was tall and a bit on the thin side, but I knew that he kept in shape logging hours upon hours at the high school gym. That was where all the cops in town went to work out. Greyelf wasn’t quite big enough to have one of the big fancy gyms come into town yet, so we made do.

  Billy was one of the more sought-after bachelors in town. Greyelf didn’t lack for potential male suitors, despite its size, but there were some that were definitely more attractive than others. Honestly, I had hardly bothered with dating since I moved back to town three years ago. I dated a bit through my college years, but I hadn’t found anyone that I shared the same chemistry with that seemed such a huge part of my formative years. Simply put, none of those guys were Lukas.

  Remembering his aggressive overture made me frown at the glass of Bordeaux that I had been looking forward to all day.

  Billy reached across the table and touched my hand. “Earth to Maren. Where did you go? Everything okay?”

  I felt like a jerk. Billy was sweet and more than attentive. Why he was interested in me at all was a complete mystery. Before Lukas’s reappearance in my life, I had been giving myself the appropriate pep talk that I needed to let things with Billy progress to the next level. I was attracted to him, but after several make-out rounds so far, I didn’t feel that passion or heat that I knew my body longed for.

  Damn Lukas Kasper.

  “I’m fine,” I lied. “It’s just a busy week at the office.”

  “Tell me about it,” Billy said, relaxing into his chair. “You have no idea how happy I was to hear that your plans changed so that we could do this tonight. It’s been crazy at the department. All this hubbub with what happened with Markus Kasper, and then the sheriff is calling for extra shifts starting tomorrow night until after the Summit.”

  I felt bad that it didn’t even register with me until just this minute that it was Billy who had found Markus in the first place. “I can imagine,” I said as I took a sip of my wine.

  “Plus, the sheriff is hot under the collar about Markus’s brother showing up out of the blue,” Billy continued.

  Why did it seem like everything in my life these days revolved around Lukas?

  “I’m sure he’ll be gone again before we know it,” I said. I took a deep swallow of the wine and tried to forget the look on Lukas’s face whe
n he looked at me through the frame of my doorway. I’d had ten years to get the experience that would have served me so much better during our first encounter. Lukas had looked at me the way that a man looks at a woman, no doubt about it. I just didn’t understand why after all this time. But I wasn’t about to play that game again.

  “You went to school with him, didn’t you?”

  I cringed inwardly. I had to remember that there were long memories in this town. “I did,” I said. “We were close in middle school. My dad lives a few doors down from his aunt Bea.”

  “That’s right,” Billy nodded. He noticed that my glass of wine was empty and refilled it for me. Billy was always the gentleman. “Everybody keeps saying that he had quite the bad-boy reputation back then. Kept both Markus and the sheriff busy. ’Course, it was Sheriff Nelson back then.”

  I tried to muster up a smile and a nod. There were long memories in Greyelf for sure. Billy had moved to Greyelf to take the position in the police department several years back, so he didn’t have the benefit of growing up here to witness all the things that happened with Lukas back then. And for every biddy who thought she knew what she was talking about, there was another one who contradicted the story. But nonetheless, at the end of the day, Lukas had been far from a saint.

  I shrugged. “Teenage antics. We’ve all been there, right? I’m sure you had your fair share of pranks and practical jokes when you were a kid.” I wanted to avert the topic from Lukas as quickly as possible. The last thing I wanted to do after slamming my door in his face was spend the rest of the evening talking about him.

  Billy chuckled. “Oh, no, not me. I was a good kid and kept my nose clean. I’ve known that I wanted to be a cop since I was five years old. My granddaddy was the sheriff of my hometown for as long as I could remember, and two of my uncles went into the FBI. I was born to be in law enforcement. So I got good grades, stayed out of trouble, and have been working hard to keep it that way ever since.”