Page 22 of Falling for the Bear Dad

“Absolutely.”

I held him on my hip while we made our trip down memory lane through the hallway. He pointed out the people in the pictures and talked about his mama. He had limited memories, since he was so little when she passed, but I’d heard firsthand how Grey talked to him about her. Telling him that she loved him and was so sad to go.

Grey missed her too. He didn’t say much about it but his eyes told the whole story.

“Lunch now?” I asked after we’d gone through the photo album Grey kept on a low shelf for Benji to access anytime he wanted.

“Lunch and toys.”

“What a great plan. After that, I think it might be pool time.”

That suggestion earned me a butt-wiggling dance and fists in the air. I hoped he never outgrew his whimsy.

Benji loved the bear family set, and I left him upstairs to play while I put my thrifted clothes into the dryer.

That was when I heard the crash. I’d never run so fast. I was up the stairs in a flash and in the doorway. Toys and books were everywhere and then on the bed was…a bear cub. A live brown bear cub.

“Benji!” I screamed, looking for him everywhere while avoiding the animal on the bed.

My first insane thought was that I’d somehow bought an enchanted toy and one of the bear family had come to life. I needed to stop watching paranormal movies.

“Benji, where are you?” I sprinted through the house, but as I did, some things came together. How in the world did a bear come in? And get upstairs? The window was intact. And where in the hell was Benji? Did the bear eat him? Bears didn’t eat people. Did they? Oh my goddess, I’m the nanny and I let a bear eat my charge.

I went back to the room to see the bear cub bouncing all over the room and pawing toys, tearing up the comforter and pillows and roaring like it was his full-time job.

“I’m so fired. There’s a bear in the house, and I can’t find the kid.”

In the middle of coming unglued, the bear came over and I froze in place. It wrapped itself around my leg in the exact way Benji had the first time he saw me. I looked down and in the bear’s eyes, I saw Benji.

“No. Mya, this isn’t possible. It can’t be…”

Except it was. Call it intuition. Call it insanity. Call it delusion of the third kind. I crouched down slowly as the bear cub lay at my feet. My chest warmed, and a scent wafted toward me. The scent of Benji. Butter cookies and peanut butter and honey. How he had always smelled to me. “Benji? Is that you? Oh my goddess, are you?”

“Mya?” Greyson’s form filled the door at the exact moment I picked up the bear cub and held him. How was this possible?

“Grey?” I said on the verge of tears. “It’s Benji.”

Chapter Nineteen

Greyson

“Oh, Benji.” I took the cub from Mya and cuddled him close. Two seconds later, he shifted again, becoming a squirming, naked little boy. “How could you have your first shift without me?”

“I was a bear! Like you!”

“Yes, you were. What a clever boy you are. So young for the first time.” I looked at Mya who stood in the same place shaking her head. “Most bear shifters don’t manage a change until adolescence.”

“Which is why you chose not to tell me that I was nanny to a little boy who might suddenly become a little beast?” She tempered her words by tapping Benji’s foot. “But a very handsome beast. And your daddy is also a bear?”

“A big, big bear.” He held his arms out wide. “I will be a big bear too when I grow up.”

“You certainly will, Son. The biggest.” He was still wriggling, so I let him down. “Now, you need to get dressed so we can have dinner. There is dinner, right?”

“Eventually. It’s just midafternoon. Are you hungry?”

“Not particularly. I’m just not used to being home this early, and I was thrown by my barely past toddler-age son shifting. Nobody does it this early. At least no one I’ve ever heard of. Any idea what might have triggered him? Did you go somewhere or do something?”

“I went shopping while he was at school, then I picked him up and brought him home. I got him a cute toy set with bears in a tree. Do you think that could have been what caused him to turn into one? Because he has other bear toys and never changed before, right?”