Read Too Much To Bear: BBW Shifter Romance (Shifters of Spellholm Forest - The Bears) for Free Online Page A

happy?"
    Jenny looked down at her hands, she should tell Paris now. Share her fears and her doubts, along with her hopes and her dreams. Instead, she said, "I don't really think about him."
    Paris's eyes narrowed and Jenny thought she’d been rumbled. For a moment, Paris contemplated something, and then she smiled, "That's it. We can ask him, he's sure to know where the old woman is, he's probably been there before."
    "No. I'll think of someone else."
    "But there's no particular reason you don't want Beck to take us?"
    "No." Jenny could have blamed it on her past experience with Beck, but somehow she hated to run him down. Her loyalty must have already shifted towards protecting him, as he would protect her. Doomed. No way of fighting changes that happened so subtly you never even saw them coming.
    ***
    "Paris tells me you want to go and see Mother Hart."
    Wes appeared behind her, his words making her jump. In the last two days she’d hardly set eyes on him, Jenny figured he was avoiding her, letting things settle down for a while. This was a good tactic, if that's what it was, because she found herself constantly using her senses to try to locate where he was on the farm.
    If she closed her eyes and concentrated, she could almost feel his presence. At least that's what she thought, half the time it didn't work, and now she began to consider that part of the true mate rules to be fake. Or maybe they had to have actually mated first for it to work. She dragged her mind away from those thoughts, telling herself she would be better to ask Paris if it worked for her instead.
    "Mother Hart, that’s what they call her. I couldn't remember. People don't talk about her much any more."
    "That's what she used to be known as. Of course I've been away for a while; she might be dead for all I know."
    “I didn’t want to ask you to take us.” There was nothing like being blunt.
    “If you’re going, I’m coming too. That is not open to argument,” he said firmly.
    “You don’t own me Beck. I could easily go when you’re working.” The way he insisted on her needing his protection irritated her.
    Beck came closer, standing so close she could feel the heat of his body. Whenever he was this near, she felt pulled into his orbit, as a planet is trapped around its sun. He must know the effect it had on her, and he was not above using it to his own ends. “No, I don’t own your body, but I do own part of your soul, just as you own part of mine.”
    His words inflamed her senses, and she found it annoyingly impossible to argue with him. Trying to accept defeat gracefully she asked, "Do you know where she lives?"
    "I can find her."
    "So sure of yourself." Damn, she wanted to kiss his self assured lips.
    "I've been there before. I can find it again if she's still there." He pulled back, his body language defensive, and she wondered what he was keeping to himself. It intrigued her, and made the decision to allow him to come easier. She wanted to know his secrets.
    Jenny thought it through for a moment. She could ask someone else, and she should mention this to her parents. They didn't always approve of things outside of the mundane farm life they led, ironic when their true nature was considered. Suddenly she needed his reassurance. "Do you think it's a good idea to go and see her?"
    "That would depend on why you want to see her." His mood broke and he grinned. "If you think she can give you a way out of being my mate, I think you're wasting your time."
    "No, that's not it at all...it's...I can't really say." She didn't know if she would have the courage to ask Mother Hart her own question. She only wanted to help Paris, and her secret was not Jenny's to share. Paris might want to keep it from Wes, but if she did then she shouldn't have mentioned it to Beck.
    "I've got an idea what it's all about. Don't worry, Wes is my brother, not my keeper," Beck said.
    "So you won't mention it to him?"
    "If that's what you want. Although I think she