Too Much to Bear (BBW Shifter Ménage)

  Too Much to Bear

  Jackie Sexton

  All Rights Reserved ©2014 Jackie Sexton. First Printing: 2014.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Too Much to Bear

  Jackie Sexton

  Chapter One

  Madison Bates closed her eyes before stepping out onto the familiar driveway. She had seen it so many times as a child, with wide eyes and a smile plastered across her chubby, rosy face.

  But now she was older, and though her face was similarly round and she had the same propensity to flush as red as a tomato, her big blue eyes were no longer filled with the hope of a childhood summer. Papa Seth wasn’t going to be there, waiting in his big stuffed chair by the fire, and Nana Grace wouldn’t have homemade fudge waiting for her in the kitchen, her frilly plaid apron tied around her wide waist.

  Madison opened her eyes and took in the sight of the old cabin, pulling in a deep breath and reminding herself why she was really here.

  She had accepted the death of her grandfather, just as she had accepted the death of her grandmother five years earlier. What she hadn’t accepted was that she felt like she had wasted her life.

  On Dustin, on Pickford, on bartending at The Winder.

  But that’s why I’m here, she reminded herself as she shut off the ignition and stepped out onto the driveway. This was her fresh start—a little cabin tucked away in a small mountain town out in the heart of Montana.

  Madison walked up the dirt driveway, taking in the fresh mountain air and the sight of the lovely lodge poles as their branches rippled in the wind, waving their deep green leaves in a friendly salute and calming her heavy heart.

  This is my fresh start, she reminded herself, turning around to take in the sight below her. Titusville was a sorry excuse for a town, but what it lacked in civilization it made up with its natural beauty. The sparse cluster of buildings sat comfortably between trees and dirt roads, along the winding stream that led to a beautiful lake to the east. And to the west, a winding mountain road led to a state park entrance several miles up ahead. A steep drop right beside it gave Madison and every inhabitant of the small town a glorious view of a long stretch of mountains reaching for the sky.

  Madison reached for the key in her purse and fiddled with it, opening the door to find her grandparent’s old cabin exactly as she had remembered, with a strong smell of pine and tobacco permeating every inch of it.

  After Nana Grace died, Madison and her mother took Papa Seth down to live with them, donating any extra clutter and sending other more sentimental objects back home to be locked up in the attic. What remained were the furniture and a few taxidermy heads up on the wall, from her Papa’s younger hunting days.

  She stepped into the living room and dropped her two bags by the quaint mauve couch, running her finger along the wooden side table and grimacing at the dust. She knew she’d have a lot of cleaning to do.

  But before she could even get her supplies to start dusting, she heard a hard knock at the door. Grumbling to herself, she realized for the first time that her little reprieve to the mountains wouldn’t be as quiet as she had hoped—of course this small town wouldn’t be too much different than the one she had tried to escape. It was still filled with gossipy busy bodies that needed to know every last detail about Seth Brown’s granddaughter and her mysterious return to Titusville.

  She pulled her dirty blonde hair into a ponytail, hoping to make herself look half decent, and she opened the door with a false smile plastered across her face. But to her surprise, it wasn’t some elderly woman with a basket of fruit from her backyard. She had to catch her breath at the sight that greeted her instead: a dark-haired hunk with dazzling hazel eyes, flecked with a deep, basil green. If it weren’t for his exquisitely masculine face, she would have never survived the depth of his magnetic gaze; he had a strong, aquiline nose and a perfect jaw that looked like it was sculpted from granite. Even the etch of his wry grin, made up of a pair of lips that were surprisingly full, nearly caused Madison to faint.

  But she was quick to notice the khaki shirt and olive green trousers over an impressively built figure, and she knew immediately that the county police was somehow already on her ass.

  “Can I help you, officer?” she said sweetly, folding her arms over her chest so that he didn’t already assume he had the upper hand, even though her heart was pounding wildly in her chest. She hadn’t done anything wrong, but she always felt on the defensive ever since she took up bartending when she was eighteen.

  “Perhaps you can, ma’am,” the police officer said, taking a step forward so that he was a little too close for comfort. She got a whiff of an intoxicating, musky smell, mixed with a rich coffee aroma.

  “Don’t mean to cause any alarm,” he said, a devilish smile crossing his lips that made him look like pure trouble. Madison forced a lump down her throat, urging herself not to be taken by the tall, dark stranger.

  “I just came by to see if you were Mr. Brown’s granddaughter,” he said, “but from the looks of it I can see that you just couldn’t be her. Did you buy this place then?”

  “I’m his granddaughter,” she said, trying to place his face. But he must have been a new officer—he looked to be about her age, and the town sheriff she remembered was older. Not quite as old as her Papa, but certainly old enough to retire.

  “You’re little Maddie?” the smirk on his face grew. “Well, I’ll be. You grew up to be a looker.”

  Madison blushed and cursed herself internally as she felt the hot crimson spiral out across her chest and cheeks.

  “Thank you...um, who are you?” she said, trying to place his face.

  “I’m Caleb Fowler. Don’t you remember me? We used to play down by the lake with Will Hunterson when we were kids.”

  Suddenly Madison remembered that wicked grin. Her eyes went wide as she took in Caleb Fowler twenty years later, with a broad chest and gleaming white teeth, where before there had been a wide gap and a scraggly, adolescent frame.

  He was her merciless teaser, while Will had constantly protected her from Caleb’s slingshot and cruel words.

  “Oh my God…”

  “People don’t take kindly to using the Lord’s name in vain around these parts,” he said, leaning his strong arm against her doorframe. The short sleeve of his shirt revealed a flexing bicep, bulging through surprisingly tan skin. Madison could feel her heart fluttering pathetically in her chest; he was so close to her that she feared he might hear her heart beating.

  She took a small step back, clearing her throat and creating some space between them. “Well, I hardly recognized you either. Since when did you become um, the town’s sheriff? Last I remember it was that nice old man…”

  “Officer Fowler,” he said with a slight nod, “that was my father. Passed two years ago.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Madison said, feeling stupid and awkward for having brought it up. Of course now she remembered that it was Caleb’s father.

  “Not like you killed him,” he said, his voice still light, almost teasing her. “He lived a good life. A lot of dangers round these parts though. A mountain lion got him. So make sure you don’t go wandering around these parts alone. Especially not at night.”

  Madison did her best not to gape. Mountain lions were so rare, and she had never heard of anyone dying from an attack before. A bear was much more likely, and she was already fearful of them. Her grandfather kept a
hunting rifle beneath his bed as he slept, because, as he put it, “There are so many damn bears around these parts it’d be stupid not to.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, suddenly feeling uncomfortable as a silence fell between the two of them. “Did you want a cup of coffee?”

  It was strange that she even offered. Madison didn’t consider herself a nice, accommodating person when it came to handsome men. She had been screwed over too many times in the past for that. But she felt a strong urge to please Caleb, to give him something.

  It was a feeling that was oddly compelling, something she suddenly realized she had to fight.

  Don’t go falling for men so quickly. Remember what that got you last time?

  “As much as I’d like to take you up on that offer, I did promise Mr. Bentley I’d help him move some timber into his truck. As you can imagine, I have it rough around these parts.”

  His disarming smile melted Madison inside out. But, she reminded herself, people in small towns didn’t change much. He was probably still the cruel guy he was as a kid, just with a badge and a gun. It also wasn’t lost on her that she was one of a dozen women her age—most of which had families of their own already.

  Don’t be easy, she reminded herself. She could see what kind of guy he was. The small town’s resident smooth-talker.

  “Well then, it was nice seeing you again,” she said, turning her smile into a terse line.

  “Not so fast.” He held the door back as she reached for the handle to close it. Her face was uncomfortably close to his for a moment, his hot breath falling down onto her skin, his hazel eyes boring down into her light blue ones. She could feel her knees going weak, her own breath becoming shallow.

  She straightened up, pulling herself away from him, trying to act as if the moment never passed. His smirk grew, as if he’d won something.

  “I thought you might like to get a drink tonight. Catch up and see how life’s been treating you. I mean it’s not often people in Titusville get contact with the outside world,” he joked.

  “There’s a place to drink around here?” Madison’s eyes went wide. She would have never guessed in a million years a town of a hundred and fifty people could even support a bar.

  “Requisite of every back country town,” he joked. “Yep, Bill Michaels has a bar next to the gas station, only open until ten though. Why don’t you meet me there at around seven?”

  As much as she wanted to say no, to tell him she was actually quite busy— she couldn’t. Something was drawing her to him, some kind of seductive magnetic force that existed between them. It was a hot sensation, pulling from her belly.

  What drove her craziest was that she felt like he knew it too. He knew she couldn’t just walk away from him.

  “That’d be fine,” she said haughtily, as if she were just saying yes to get him out of her way. But the thought of seeing him again thrilled her. It was a moment in the near future, pregnant with promise, bloated with secret hopes.

  The worst part too was that she knew he knew she was putting him on. He nodded, searching her face one last time. Then his gaze dropped suspiciously low, down to where her flannel shirt closed at the top, just a small peak of her cleavage that fabric couldn’t contain…

  “Well, I’ll see you tonight then,” he said, turning to leave and waving his hand behind him. Madison’s face was a deep cerise, she was absolutely sure of it.

  And while she wanted to hate him, wanted to think he was a disgusting pervert for staring at her so blatantly like a piece of meat, she wanted him.

  Every look he gave her was thrilling.

  “Not again,” she groaned, watching his police car pull out of her driveway onto the beaten dirt road.

  Because Madison was supposed to be done with that type of man. The type that strung her along because she was regular sex and hardworking. She thought of Dustin, how easily he charmed her with his gorgeous brown eyes and how good he looked on a motorcycle.

  Then she thought about how ugly he looked to her when she caught him panting like an animal in their living room, his body suspended over that skinny stripper his brother ran around with.

  Madison shook her head and turned back into the house.

  I’m here for a reason, she reminded herself. No more men. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

  Chapter Two

  Madison looked herself over in the mirror one last time, smoothing the front of her purple blouse. She wanted to look the perfect combination of casual and sexy. She knew it was slightly pathetic that she wanted Caleb to want her, especially if she didn’t want to do anything about it, but it made her feel like she would have the upper hand in a battle that would play out in the subtext of their conversation. If she looked too good, her efforts would become apparent, and she would automatically lose.

  Plus, who wants to be the only woman dressed to the nines in a backwoods bar? Given her last job as a bartender for a popular trucker stop, she knew what kind of attention that garnered and it was anything but pleasant.

  She nodded in approval at the casual flair her jeans provided, and looked her rear over one last time, marveling at how perfect her butt looked in them. It wasn’t easy for her to find a pair of flattering jeans with her curvaceous figure, and she had bought them on a whim without even trying them on: a cardinal sin under any other circumstance. But she was fleeing Pickford, and while she had more than enough clothes at her old apartment, she had packed her bags in a flurry of tears and running mascara, screaming as she alternated between chucking things at Dustin and stuffing them in a bag.

  “Stop thinking about him,” she told herself as she ran chapstick over her lips, tossing it into her purse and heading out the front door. Stepping into the brisk air, she looked out at the beautiful magenta sky, the sun dipping beneath the tops of the tall trees. She realized running away from everything was turning out to be harder than she anticipated. She still carried her troubles in her heart like a heavy, beating shackle she didn’t have the key to.

  The change in scenery hadn’t been enough. She had spent the whole rest of her day cleaning and thinking about him.

  Just like she did when they lived together.

  Madison sighed and stepped out onto the driveway, decided to take a quick detour towards the lake since she was a little early anyway. She needed to find something bigger than herself, some awesome beauty to marvel at, and she remembered how much she loved Eagle Lake as a little girl.

  She walked past a few more quaint cabins, all American cars sitting out on their driveways, one beaten down truck without wheels in someone’s backyard. A man sitting on his porch waved at her and she waved back, wondering if perhaps she had met him in her childhood.

  Then she came across the bank to just where the road ended abruptly, having nowhere else to go. She smiled to herself as she marveled at the fading sunlight, glimmering on the surface of the deep blue water that looked like it went out forever. She stepped out onto the steep bank, placing her hand on a nearby tree to steady herself as she made her descent.

  “Oh shit!” she yelped, feeling something sticky beneath her fingers that caused her to pull her hand away, losing her balancing and tripping so that she fell down onto to her knees. But before she could tumble down the hill towards the bank of the lake, where unpleasant rocks and a possible sprained ankle awaited, she felt something strong tug on her arm, pulling her back away from her potentially disastrous fall.

  She turned to see a handsome man with sandy blonde hair and dark blue eyes chiseled into a perfectly proportioned, masculine face only inches away from her own. His extended arm pulled her up, his other hand resting lightly on the sticky tree.

  “Will?” she gasped, in shock as he helped her stand up.

  “I’m surprised you remember me,” he said, his voice deep yet melodic. It was so smooth and gentle that she wondered how it was even real.

  “And you remember me?” she nearly laughed, checking out her arms for any scratches. There was only some dir
t on the front of her jeans that dusted off pretty easily.

  “Of course. You always had a face that was hard to forget,” he said. “Though I must admit, I’m surprised you came back.”

  Madison found it hard to look him in the eyes as she fought back another inevitable blush. What was it with these seductive mountain men? “I guess news travels quickly around here, huh?”

  “You’d be amazed.” He laughed lightly. “Are you okay? Didn’t bruise anything did you?”

  The genuine look of concern in his cerulean eyes was killing her inside, making her heart skip a beat.

  “No, I’m fine. Thanks to you. I didn’t even see you there, it’s like you came out of nowhere,” she marveled.

  “I was just right here,” he insisted, indicating the empty space beside him. “Enjoying the view. You’d better be careful if your eyesight isn’t too good.”

  “That’s strange,” she muttered, sure that she hadn’t seen him at all. “I guess I should have my vision checked next time I’m in civilization. Not that this place isn’t great,” she said, quickly covering her tracks. While she would have intentionally tried to spite someone like Caleb, Will just seemed so sweet-tempered that he didn’t deserve it. He was always protecting her when they were little, to the point where she had developed a small summertime crush on him.

  Will just laughed again, the buoyant quality of his voice intoxicating her. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not in any sort of denial about where I live.”

  Madison smiled sheepishly, looking down to the ground momentarily, amazed at how his gaze still made her feel bashful all these years later. “Yeah, well, I obviously came here for a reason. It’s really beautiful out here.”

  “I sure think so. Is that why you came down to the lake?”

  “Yeah,” she admitted, turning her head back to look at the beautiful water sparkling in the sunset. “I know it looks really nice around this time of day, and I wanted to take a quick look at it before I...Oh crap! I’m late!”