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

“Mitch.” John put a hand on Mitch’s bare arm, the contact sending a zing of arousal straight to John’s dick.


“Sorry.” Mitch looked down at John’s hand.


Feeling awkward, John dropped his hand.


“Thank you for being here. It means more than you know.”


John nodded and waited until Mitch got into bed before risking another glance at him. “I’ll go get you a glass of water so you can take these.”


John situated himself in a chair near Mitch, who lay somewhat restlessly in the bed.


They talked about this and that. John was curious about Mitch’s incredibly long life, but determined not to ask anything that might upset the guy. After all, the aim was to relax him enough so he could fall asleep.


“It’s amazing that you lived through times before television, the cinema, cars, heck, even steam trains would have still been in their infancy when you were growing up.”


“Didn’t seem odd to us at the time.”


Chapter 80