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 liked Mitch’s sandwiches, so he made sure to make ones with different fillings. Although as the guy ate so little, Mitch knew he himself would end up eating most of them.


John had been with either Teddy or Mitch every night. The times he’d asked to be with Teddy, they’d walked down to the cave where Mitch had shifted. On the occasions John had wanted to sleep with Mitch, they’d spent the night in Mitch’s bed. They’d kissed, caressed, even jerked each other off, but John hadn’t gone down on Mitch, and hadn’t seemed that enthusiastic about Mitch sucking him off. That was another big frustration.


Yet another was where John disappeared to most mornings. He claimed he was going into St. Duncan’s to attend to his personal banking, his insurance policies, and goodness knew what else. While Mitch had no reason to doubt the man, he’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel excluded, as John had never asked him to come along.


Chapter 85