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

“Wow, you’re so clever. Can’t wait to see it,” John had enthused.


Mitch didn’t totally share John’s confidence in his abilities, but John’s obvious belief in him did much to buoy Mitch’s spirits whenever he felt overwhelmed by the task he’d set himself.


Then there was the problem of how much to charge. Mitch had never made such a piece before so had no frame of reference. He’d just as soon have given the chair to John, but Morwenna told him John would find such an arrangement unacceptable. “He has his pride, just like you do. You’re already giving him the crib. You don’t want him to think you pity him or you want to buy his affections.”


“And a craftsman deserves to be paid appropriately for his labour.”


She was right of course, so the two of them agreed on a price that both reflected the amount of time Mitch would need to take to make the piece and his desire not to overcharge.


Chapter 37