On his first night renting a cottage on the Cornish coast, widower John Tennant comes face to face with, of all things, a grizzly bear. Fearing for his life, John tries to convince the animal he isn't worth eating, and is relieved when the bear ambles away. Maintenance man Mitch Benjamin is two hundred years old but doesn’t look a day over forty. As a werebear, he needs to stay under the radar. The new renter is making that difficult. Not only is John attractive, but his vulnerability triggers all of Mitch’s protective instincts. If that wasn’t trouble enough, Mitch is struggling with his inner bear’s desire to befriend John. He knows what his bear is up to, but Mitch doesn’t want another mate. His last one was murdered ninety years ago, and he’s still grieving. John is confused by Mitch’s mixed signals. Physically, Mitch -- with his bulging muscles and hulking frame -- is a gay man’s wet dream come true. But emotionally, he keeps closing down. John discovers more comfort with the magnificent grizzly bear he occasionally meets on his evening walks along the beach. In an effort to help, Morwenna, the owner of the cottages, uses her psychic gifts to give John a message from his dead lover, George. Far from helping, it adds another layer of strangeness to what’s already turning out to be the strangest summer John can remember. Can a well-meaning medium and a determined grizzly bring John and Mitch together? Will Mitch come clean about his werebear nature? If he does, can John accept that a man and bear exist in the same body?

Summer's Lease

Maybe a walk, listening to the steady and hypnotic sound of the waves hitting the beach, might settle him down and allow him an hour or two more in bed free of disturbing dreams.


Tying the laces of his walking boots, John stepped outside and took in a deep breath of fresh air. It wasn’t as cold outside as he’d thought, and the moon, though close to the horizon, still cast enough light to see by.


Deciding to live dangerously—when in the country do as the country folk do—he left his backdoor unlocked and walked down the garden path. If he spared a few seconds to look over at Mitch’s dark cottage, he convinced himself he was just being neighbourly, checking to see that everything was all right. “After all, you do that in the country, too.”


Pausing halfway down the cliff steps, John took a few seconds to take in the view out to sea at the white-capped waves catching the moonlight. It was beautiful and peaceful. He’d been right to spend the summer here.


Chapter 27