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

Disengaging himself from John’s limbs, not an easy task without waking the sleeping man, Mitch sat up and rubbed at his face. Unable to help himself, he looked down at John, who looked totally at home inn Mitch’s clothes.


“I’m so screwed,” Mitch said under his breath.


The first thing to do, Mitch decided, tearing his gaze away, was to put some clothes on and get the hell out of there before John saw him.


Forgoing drawers, Mitch hurriedly put on the jeans he’d worn the previous night and slipped into a clean shirt. He looked around for his sneakers. The left one had been under his clothes, but the right one seemed to have disappeared. It was his own fault for being in such a hurry to shift the previous night.


Looking around, conscious that he needed to get away, Mitch wondered if he’d be able to lie low for the next few days, lock himself in at night so his bear couldn’t escape and do even more damage.


Chapter 47