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However,
he’d thought that Lucy might feel more comfortable and at ease in the apartment
and not under his same roof.
    Liam
pulled into the driveway by his house.
    “It’s
adorable,” said Lucy.
    She
was being nice, very nice. He wasn’t much for gardening and the grass needed
cutting, and the window boxes left by the previous owner were now falling apart
and had never seen one flower in the soil. Now, sitting here looking at the
place with his new, nice self, he
realized the house screamed, miserable
bear with a bite just as bad as his roar lives here .
    “I’ll
take your suitcase in for you and as soon as you’re settled I’ll go open the
windows in the apartment and get some air circulating through it.”
    She
still had hold of the bag, guarding it like her life depended on it. Dead
parent’s ashes, maybe? She’d robbed a bank and was fleeing to Montana with the
loot?
    He
laughed, not realizing he’d done it loud enough for Lucy to hear. She glanced
over at him.
    “I
was just thinking about a joke my nephew told me the other day,” said Liam.
    Phew,
thank goodness she hadn’t asked him to share it with her because it had been a
lie. He was lousy at telling jokes, and at making them up, downright dreadful.
    “You
need any help?” he asked her when she got out of the truck.
    “Nope,
I’m fine … finally getting the hang of these crutches.”
    She
put the strap of the bag over her neck and followed him up to the front of the
house.
    “Good
news is my house is all on one level and so is the apartment, so you won’t need
me to carry you to bed.”
    Why
had he mentioned carrying her to bed? Bed, of all things. His cock twitched
just thinking about it and then, oh boy, it felt like he had a baseball bat
stuck in the front of his boxers. Human-caused erection? A first for him, and
it was a good one.
    Liam
went ahead of her, so he could open the door and also to hide the obvious bulge
in his jeans. He didn’t want her to think he was also going to rape her. He put
her suitcase down and held her arm as she hobbled over the threshold.
    “If
you’d like to sit on the couch, I’ll go open up the apartment and then get you
something to drink.”
    “You
don’t have to go to all this trouble.”
    “It’s
no problem … really, it isn’t.”
    Normally
it would be. Helping out a human, he’d rather run down the street with his head
on fire but there was something about Lucy that made him want to nurture her.
Bears usually only thought that about potential mates and a human definitely
wasn’t in line for that position.
    She
sat down, the bag on her lap, and looked around.
    Probably
thinking what does the apartment look like if his house looks this bad? Liam thought.
    “I’ll
be right back,” said Liam. He walked into the kitchen, opened the drawer by the
fridge and sorted through the piles of paper, local burger takeout menus, photos
of cars he’d cut out of magazines, rubber bands, pens, paper clips, and finally
found the key to the apartment.
    He
headed out the back door across the yard and up to the front door. He pushed
the key in the lock and then had to shoulder the door to get it to open. He
went inside and stopped in his tracks.
    Foolish bear.
    Liam
hadn’t thought about what it would be like to come back in here. Some of his
buddies had cleaned it out for him because he hadn’t been able to deal with
walking into this place knowing that Danny would never live here again. This
had been his home. At first he’d been reluctant to offer it to Lucy, but then
he’d realized it was now or never to get the place finally cleaned out. Since
his brother had died, he’d often stood at the kitchen sink, looked over to the
apartment and sworn that he’d seen him inside watching TV, or even outside on
the patio tinkering with his bike.
    Liam
tried to swallow the lump that had suddenly formed in his throat.
    He
had to get this place aired out because he’d promised it to Lucy and the place
smelled old and