Broken River - Ruby Shae Page 0,3

lot of the visitors to the lake were short and thin, and while many of those women were beautiful, they just weren’t his type.

He liked curves, and Elle was shapely and soft everywhere. He glanced at her ample breasts and instantly wished he hadn’t. He was a large man, and he knew those globes would easily spill out of his hands.

God, just the thought of touching her made his dick swell, and the feeling jarred him. It had been a very long time since he’d had such a strong reaction to a woman, and even longer since he’d been intimate with anyone. After his stint in the military, he hadn’t wanted to get that close to another person, and that feeling had never abated. Not once.

Not until Elle.

He looked at her face again and questioned the duration of their proposed marriage. What in the hell had Gavin been thinking when he’d decided on two years for their contract? He wasn’t sure he could stay away from this woman for two days, let alone two years.

He would never admit it out loud, but he wanted her.

Her long, wavy, honey blond hair fell to the middle of her back, and a few strands were out of place from the light winds that filtered through the trees, but the errant strands in no way took away from her beauty. If anything, the natural look only reminded him of nature, and of his animal, and he found he liked her appearance way more than he should.

Her blue eyes stared back at him, filled with hope and something else he couldn’t name, and that’s when he remembered why he willingly chose to live alone. Hope wasn’t something he could afford to believe in anymore.

He would marry Elle to repay his debt to Gavin, but despite the attraction he felt toward the woman, the arrangement would be a business agreement and nothing more.

“We might as well go inside and read over that contract.”

“Thank you, Liam. That sounds great.”

Liam grunted as he turned away from her and started walking back toward the carport. He had been running in his bear form as she made her way up the steep hill toward his house, and he had only beaten her to his home by a few seconds.

Luckily, the forest surrounding his home was off-limits to the tourists visiting Bear Lake, and most of the time people obeyed the “No Trespassing” signs, so he was usually alone. That didn’t mean he could be negligent, though, so after a quick sniff and scan of the area, he had changed back into his human form and grabbed a shotgun he kept in a hidden compartment on the wall in the carport.

He didn’t like having weapons around, but sometimes they were necessary. More so because he lived alone in the middle of a forest, and he didn’t always have the luxury—or safety—to shift into his bear if trouble presented itself. Not that it happened often. Most of the animals on his family’s land were small game, and people rarely wandered onto his property by accident.

When they reached the carport, he unloaded the weapon and placed it back into the mount before closing the panel. Normally, he would never let a stranger see where he kept his weapons, but besides his family, only one other person knew where to find the shotgun, and that person had been Gavin.

He had no idea whether or not Elle knew how to fire a shotgun, but if she was going to live with him for the next two years, she might as well know where to find it.

“Do you know how to shoot one of these things?”

“No,” she shook her head, her eyes wide.

“I’ll show you,” he said. “It’s safe up here, so there’s no need to be afraid, but there’s no harm in learning how to protect yourself, either.”

“Okay.”

Her voice wavered, and he felt like a dick for scaring her, but he wouldn’t compromise on her safety. While they were married, he would protect her with his life, but he would also make sure she had the tools to protect herself in the event that trouble came when he wasn’t around. Hopefully, after she became comfortable with the weapon, she would understand his reasons for insisting she know how to use it.

They entered the cabin through a side door under the carport, and he gave her a small tour before they sat down at the two-person table to review the documents.

The proposal seemed pretty standard. They