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

John was still talking. Mitch knew he’d missed hearing some of the poem. “‘…But thy eternal summer shall not fade, nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st.’”


What did that mean? Could summer last forever? Mitch wished with everything he had that it could. Then John wouldn’t have to leave, he could stay here where Mitch and Teddy would take care of him, love him…


“‘So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this and this gives life to thee.’” John bowed his head over Mitch’s hand and kissed it once again.


“Thank you,” Mitch said quietly. Not wanting to show his ignorance, he didn’t say more.


“You know, it’s widely accepted that Shakespeare wrote that for a man.”


“What Shakespeare is saying is that the subject of the sonnet is more beautiful than the summer and will last longer than the summer. In fact, people will remember the man’s beauty for as long as the poem survives.”


Chapter 58