Taming the Beast

“Please, Logan,” she said, kissing his cheek. “Try it for me.”

He finally raised his eyes after thinking about it for a minute. “Where is this general store?”

“You’re alive?” the old man behind the counter said, lifting up his trucker hat and scratching his thin hair. “I thought the wolves would have eaten you by now.”

Bella frowned at him. She was back in Dark Creek Swamp at the general store with all of the slimy worms, moldy cookies, and not to mention, the old pervy men.

“And I thought you would have been closed by the FDA for uncleanliness issues,” she said, cringing as a mouse ran across the floor.

The two old men were still hanging out in the back of the shop, still staring at her ass.

“The monster didn’t swallow you up?” one of them asked. He was wearing a Mariah Carey t-shirt and a Coors Light trucker hat with his ugly mullet hanging out of the back.

“What monster?” Logan asked, walking in through the door. He was so large that he had to duck under the low frame.

Bella smiled from ear to ear as she watched the three men’s eyes widen to the point of pain. Let’s see what happens when they stare at my ass now.

The man at the cash register gulped as he looked Logan up and down. “I heard stories about you,” he whispered as he stared at him in shock.

Logan grinned, looking like he was going to have some fun with them. “They’re all true.”

“Nah,” the Mariah Carey fan said from the back. “You’re not him. The real beast is nine feet tall.”

“And he has sharp claws and jagged teeth,” his friend added.

“And he eats city girls for dinner,” the other one said. “This is not him. She would never have survived out there with the real beast.”

“Maybe he is out there,” Logan said with a grin. “Or maybe I’m a beast in human’s clothing.”

“No, you’re not,” Bella said, hooking her arm around him and pulling him toward the door. “You’re the sweetest guy I’ve ever met.”

“You didn’t buy anything,” the man said with a frown. “Do you need any worms?”

“Yes,” Bella smiled, pulling Logan to a stop. “We’ll take them all.”

They were on their way back to civilization and Bella was planning on releasing them back into the forest on her way out.

She was taking one of the forest’s creatures with her forever so she thought she could offer Mother Nature a trade. A bunch of worms for Logan and his bear. It seemed like a fair trade.

“Why did you buy those?” he asked as they walked back to her car. Her trunk and back seat were packed with their stuff.

“I don’t know,” she said, lifting up the bag and looking at the worms slithering through the damp soil. “I wanted to return them to their real homes.”

Logan wrapped a muscular arm around her shoulder and kissed the top of her head. “Thank you,” he said, squeezing her tight. “Thank you for bringing me home too.”

“Thank you for coming with me,” she said. “It wouldn’t feel like home without you.”

Bella climbed into the car and slapped the bag of worms onto Logan’s lap when he was seated beside her. “How did it go in there?” she asked. “How did Cliff react to those guys?”

That was the real worry. Would Logan’s bear get that bloodthirsty reaction again when he was around people, wanting to kill everything in sight? Or would he return to the kind gentle bear that he was before the military got to him?

“He was more interested in the dusty boxes of cookies,” Logan said with a look of relief on his face. “The men didn’t bother him at all.”

Bella squealed in delight and reached over the console to hug him with the stick shift digging into her ribs. “I’m so happy,” she said, her cheeks burning from smiling so wide. “Ready to go home?”

Logan swallowed her hand in his huge palm. “Home is wherever I’m with you,” he said with a sexy smile.

He finally looked ready. Ready to leave the lonely forest. Ready to move on.