Bear's Fake Bride (Shifter Marriage Service 2)

“Maggie was here?” Bradley asked, completely ignoring the reference to Tabitha.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. Not long after I arrived.”

“What did she say?” he asked.

Kay looked at him, his brows knitted tightly together as he waited for an answer.

“Honestly, I don’t remember exactly. She referenced a sister, someone you were apparently close to. She seemed surprised that you had married.”

Bradley sighed and sat up in the bed, taking his arms from around her and sitting up with them clasped tightly together. He looked more distraught than she had ever seen him. Whoever Maggie was, the fact that she had turned up bothered him greatly.

“I was engaged to Maggie’s sister, Constance.”

“Engaged? I didn’t think you were the marrying kind?”

“I wasn’t, but it was because of her.”

“I see,” Kay replied, her voice trailing off.

“It was a long time ago, Kay. It has nothing to do with us.”

“It does if I’m competing with the memory of a ghost. Maggie said she died.”

“Yes. She did. I couldn’t save her.”

Kay studied his face. She had assumed natural causes. The girl would have most likely been young and that usually meant cancer or something akin to it-perhaps an accident. What had happened to her?

“We were out running, in bear form. You know, just getting our exercise in.”

“Yes,” Kay replied.

She was well aware how necessary it was to let your bear run wild from time to time, even if you weren’t in a position to shift often. In fact, if she did stay here, it was something she would do more often than she had, thus far.

“At the time, there was a rival clan. She got ahead of me and they cornered her. I tried to get to her, but I was jumped by a member of their clan and by the time I managed to free myself, the damage was done.”

“What damage?”

“They killed her,” he said, his voice almost a whisper.

“Oh, God. I’m so sorry, Bradley.”

“Like I said, it was a long time ago and I didn’t think I’d ever find anyone who could fill the hole she left behind. Maggie never forgave me for it. It was because of me that they targeted Constance.”

“Because of you, why?”

“They knew that I was Walter’s next in line. Without any kin of his own, I was the one he had chosen to take his place. They tried to kill me, and they took out Constance in the process. I was devastated. I decided that I would never put anyone in that kind of danger again.”

“And you loved her too much to move on.”

“Yes. For a long time.”

Kay could see it was a painful memory for him and was already wishing she hadn’t brought it up, but she’d have just continued to worry about it if she hadn’t. Wasn’t it better to get this kind of thing out in the open if you were going to have any chance of a relationship?

“Listen, Kay. I didn’t intend for this between us to be anything more than just the agreement we signed off on.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“What? No. Do you really mean that? This is so much more than just some agreement, Kay. I mean, I know what we signed up for, but it’s gone beyond that, hasn’t it? It has for me.”

“I just don’t know if I know enough about you,” she said.

“I’m an open book, Kay. Anything you want to know, just ask.”

Kay took a deep breath and continued.

“What about Tabitha?”

“Yes. Tabitha is a woman that I dated several years after I lost Constance. I tried to be a good man to her, but my heart was never really there, and I’m afraid that I hurt her badly.”

“Why would she come here?”

“I don’t know.” Kay looked at him, unsure of whether she believed this, but he persisted. “I don’t know, Kay. You saw her. She ran past me in the doorway.”

“All right,” Kay replied, moving on to her next question. “What about this ranch?”

“The ranch?”

“Yeah. I still don’t understand why you were willing to go so far to gain control of it. I mean, you were willing to pay a stranger a lot of money to help you make sure you inherited it. Why not just talk to Walter?”

“Because I don’t want it falling into the wrong hands. There are people out there who would take this place from the hard-working clan that build it. Walter had a good heart, but he was very much old school. Putting the ranch in the hands of an unattached male, for him, would have seemed reckless. I couldn’t let them get the upper hand.”

“The people who killed Constance?”

“No. That clan no longer exists.”

“What happened to them?”

“I made sure that they would never come back here again.”

His words sent a chill through her.

“Kay, they were a violent clan. They had to be put down.”

“And you did that?”