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

“I never learned. To read or write I mean.” Mitch eventually said, believing he needed to offer some kind of explanation.


“Uh huh?” John said, Mitch knowing there was no condemnation in the remark.


“Didn’t get much of a chance to go to school where I lived.” There were no schools in his part of the Oregon territory back in the 1820s and 1830s.


John squeezed Mitch’s hand in silent support.


“And as I got older…it got harder to ask for help and…” How could he tell the man that in order to go to school he’d need to show them some form of identification, and he didn’t have any. He was born in an era before birth certificates and social security numbers. Although his body aged, it did so much more slowly than ordinary humans. So although he looked to be in his early forties, he had no way of showing it. He grew frustrated with the situation, with himself. Letting out a long breath, he said, “Guess I’m too dumb to try to learn.”


Chapter 42