Keane shrugged his broad shoulders and grinned. “What can I say? I’m good like that.”
“Yeah, because you’re known for being such a nice guy.” Grizzly shifters didn’t have a reputation for being soft and cuddly. More like being antisocial dickheads who had short tempers. But all joking aside, Keane had done me a solid when he’d offered me a place to stay when I needed to get away from home for a while. As thrilled as I was that my brother had found his fated mate, it wasn’t easy being surrounded by happy couples. Not when I felt deep down in my soul that I’d spend the rest of my days alone. The males in my family hadn’t had much luck finding their fated mates over the years. There were only a few rare exceptions—none of which had happened twice in the same generation. Damon mating Trinity meant I wasn’t going to be the lucky one for ours.
My wolf felt the lack of a mate, too. He’d been difficult to control over the past couple of months, and it had only gotten worse the further along my sister-in-law had gotten in her pregnancy. As her belly grew with the babies that would always hold a special piece of my heart, I struggled with the knowledge that I’d never have pups of my own. I’d needed space to come to terms with my future, and that hadn’t been possible in Timber Ridge. When one of my former packmates, Booker, had come back to visit his parents, he’d seen how much I was struggling and suggested that I come to stay with his pack for a little while. I’d leaped at the chance to get away from it all so I could try to get my head on straight and left for the wilderness with him a few days later.
“You want to throw on a jacket and take a walk with me?”
The question pulled me out of my thoughts. Heading into the woods with a grizzly usually wasn’t a smart call, but I didn’t need to worry about Keane mauling me and leaving my body to be scavenged by wild animals. Or at least I hoped not since I said, “Sure.”
He grabbed the last few logs that I’d chopped and carried them with us after I grabbed my jacket. As we walked past his cabin, he tossed them near the small pile haphazardly stacked near the front door. When I chuckled, he tilted his head slightly to the side. “Like I said, if you want to stock me up before you head back to Timber Ridge for the restaurant opening, I’ll take as many logs as you want to give me.”
“Feel free to grab as many as you want.” The offer wasn’t really necessary since the cabin I’d been staying in belonged to his pack. “It’s not as though I’m going to need them when I’m back home.”
Keane grunted and glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
My brows drew together as I asked, “Me leaving?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed with a nod. “Are you sure you want to go?”
I considered my answer, thinking about how content my wolf had been in the time that I’d been here. “A big part of me doesn’t want to leave, but I’m not sure if staying in the wilderness is the right call for me. Besides, the bottom line is that what I want doesn’t really matter since I told Damon I’d come back for the opening of Trinity’s restaurant.”
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t keep your promise to your brother.” Keane paused to look at the scratch marks my wolf had left on the trunk of one of the trees lining the path we were taking into the woods. “But nothing is stopping you from using this trip back to Timber Ridge as an opportunity to pack up your stuff and bring it back here.”
I would never have guessed he’d wanted to talk to me about moving here permanently. “Are you offering me a place in your pack?”
“Yup.” He gestured toward the clawed bark. “And I think you should seriously consider joining us since your wolf already feels as though this is his territory.”
Fur brushed the inside of my skin, but my wolf wasn’t pushing for control. He was just signaling his excitement over the possibility of returning to the wilderness. “I have to admit, I’m surprised by the offer. From what Booker told me, it’s unusual for you to accept new members into your pack.”
“It’s not as though I have a ton of shifters coming up here.” He circled his hand in the air. “Our lifestyle is more primitive than a lot of people can handle, no matter how happy our animals are to have a fuck ton of land to roam.”
“Primitive?” I snorted and shook my head. “I’m not living in a tent up here or anything. My cabin might only be one room plus the bathroom, but it’s damn comfortable. I wouldn’t call what I’ve bee
n doing roughing it.”
“See? You fit in with our little group better than I expected.” He flashed me a rare grin.
I shook my head and chuckled. “I never thought my wolf would get along so well with bears.”
“Maybe he’s comfortable because with you here, the wolves outnumber us bears,” he suggested.
Keane’s group had six members, all of them single males. Two bears, two wolves, a cougar, and a fucking dragon. I’d only met four of them, though. The cougar had been gone the entire time I’d been here, and I’d been told that the dragon hadn’t left the cave he’d been holed up in for the past couple of months. I’d mostly hung out with Booker, but Leyton and Rome had been fairly welcoming to me for guys who preferred to live off the grid. Leyton was Keane’s younger brother and beta to his small pack, and Rome was a wolf who’d spent a decade on his own before joining Keane’s group. I was pretty sure that hanging out with Rome was a big part of what had helped settle my wolf.
Knowing he’d found a home here after roaming as a lone wolf for so long gave me hope for my brother. I’d been struggling with so much anger after Aaron had been rejected by the human female who was his fated mate. It killed something inside me that my brother no longer felt at home in our pack. That being around his family hurt him. But maybe someday the time would come when he no longer wanted to be alone. When he didn’t feel the need to run from the blow that had been dealt to his soul by the woman who should have been the one to protect his heart for the rest of their very long lives together. Even if we were never part of the same pack again, I wanted that so fucking badly for him.
“My wolf knows better.” I chuckled and lifted my hand in the air above my head. “It would take a shit ton more than three wolves to take you and Leyton down when you’re in your bear forms. Your grizzlies are fucking huge.”
Weighing in at about six hundred pounds, Keane’s animal was about three times the size of mine even though our lengths were only off by a few inches. His lips curved up in a smug grin. “It isn’t just my bear that’s huge.”
A startled burst of laughter bubbled up my chest. “A dick joke? You’re just full of surprises today.”
“Hey, I have a sense of humor,” he insisted as he elbowed me in the side.
If I thought that was true, I might have added onto his joke with something about how he must be a show-er because he couldn’t know if he was a grow-er since he’d didn’t have a mate yet and had never had a hard-on before. Instead, I chuckled again, holding my hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Sure you do.”
“Join our pack, and you’ll eventually see how funny I can be.”
I never thought the day would come that I’d want to leave my family behind, but I found myself wondering if I should take Keane up on his offer.