Bear Unbound: A BBW Bear-Shifter Romance (Shift Your Fate Book 1) (2 page)

“You, my friend, are going in there.” She pointed at a small building across the street.

Amber turned to look out the window.

“Shift Your Fate. What is that?”

“You’ll see. One of my friends, Kassandra works there. Just go inside and tell her I sent you. She’ll know what to do.”

“Is this a joke?”

Amber studied the shop for another minute. It looked like it was specialized in books, scented candles, weird-looking crystals and Feng Shui trinkets.

Becca touched Amber’s arm to draw her attention. “Trust me. I can’t even begin to imagine what you’re going through right now.” She would have said more, but Ava was watching them with wide eyes. “Go talk to Kassandra and listen to what she has to say. The advice this woman gave me changed my life. If it hadn’t been for her, I would have never met Emil. Maybe I would’ve never met you either.”

Amber nodded slowly.

“You know the address, right? Just call a cab when you’re done. Ava promised to help me cook dinner, so it should be ready by the time you get home.”

Amber stepped out of the car, crossed the street, and entered the shop before she had time to change her mind. She found Kassandra behind the counter, and the old woman invited her in the other room. She didn’t have to tell her about Becca. Kassandra already knew. Amber didn’t give it much thought, thinking that her friend had probably called before. When they both had a cup of hot tea in front of them, Kassandra started asking the strangest, most uncomfortable questions.

“Why didn’t you put an end to your marriage sooner?”

“Excuse me?” Amber almost chocked on her tea. “I see… Rebecca told you everything…” Strangely enough, she wasn’t as angry as she thought she should have been.

Kassandra smiled and placed a warm hand on her arm.

“No, she didn’t tell me anything. I knew the second you set foot in my shop. Amber, you’re hurting, and I can feel it. Your pain makes my stomach tighten and my chest ache. I feel it as if it were mine.”

Amber looked at the old woman dumbfounded.

“I’m an empath, my dear. That’s how I know. Rebecca sent you to me because she knew I would understand. Now, breathe in and out a couple of times, drink your tea, and let’s talk about how you feel. Let’s talk about the choices you’ve made so far and what you need to be happy and offer your daughter the family she deserves.”

It was all too surreal. Amber’s hands trembled as she lifted the cup to her lips. She took her time to assess what was happening and decide whether the old woman was a nutjob or was, indeed, telling the truth. Rebecca had told her Kassandra had helped her meet Emil. She could trust her friend, right?

“Let’s try again,” said Kassandra in a low, gentle voice. Amber was so fragile and vulnerable that a simple misplaced word could have made her break down in tears. “Why do you think you couldn’t put an end to your marriage sooner?”

“I… Well… I didn’t know he was cheating on me. I’ve only found out recently.”

“Are you sure, Amber?”

She looked at the dark liquid in her cup and thought for a while. Who was she kidding? She had been suspecting him for years, but she had been too much of a coward to confront him or look for evidence. She had been too afraid to find out the truth.

“Ava needs her father. Even now, I’m not sure I made the right decision. I left because I was so angry at him, but if I think of it… What am I going to do? I have no money, no job, and Ava will start school in a couple of weeks.” A tear ran down her cheek and she hurried to wipe it off. “I’m so stupid.” She ran a hand through her freshly dyed hair. Yes, the color was amazing, but it couldn’t last. The moment she’d go back to Stephan, he’d tell her to change it back to black. “There’s no way I can make it without him, there’s no way I can give Ava a better life. A decent life, for that matter. My little girl is used to having everything. A big, comfortable house, designer clothes, rich friends… Now, she thinks we’re on vacation and that’s why she’s okay with living at Rebecca’s and sharing a bedroom with me. I can’t tell her that the life she has always known is gone, that we can’t go back to it. I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair.”

Kassandra brought a box of tissues, then waited for Amber to calm down.

“You’re second guessing yourself.”

Amber huffed.

“Why?”

“What do you mean why? Because no matter what I want, this is the truth. The reality is plain and clear: ten years ago, I married Stephan and made the decision to go in head first. I gave up my job and dedicated all my time to learning how to be a proper Castell wife. I didn’t think of the consequences, never even considered that our marriage wouldn’t work. We were so in love… I was so in love.”

“So, what you’re saying is that you believe this is all your fault.” It was a statement, not a question. Kassandra knew exactly how Amber felt. Hurt, disappointed, insecure. “Amber, your husband made you change for him. He made you believe that you weren’t good enough, that your life and your job weren’t good enough, and he convinced you his way was better. You think you can’t make it on your own, but you’re wrong. The first thing you need to do is detach yourself from him, stop wondering what he might think of your decisions, stop thinking of how he’d judge you if he were here. He’s not here. Let’s forget about him for a second. Now, answer me this: what do you think you need to start a new life?”

Amber breathed in and out slowly. She focused on Kassandra’s question. The old woman was right. This was about her, not Stephan. This was about her happiness and her daughter’s well-being. Yes, Stephan was a great provider, but he was an awful father.

“I need a job,” she finally said. “I need a good job.”

“And what don’t you need?”

“I don’t need…” She thought of saying she didn’t need Stephan, but then she remembered she was supposed to take him out of the equation completely. “I don’t need a man. Yes, that’s what I don’t need. No men. At least for a while, until I get back on my feet.”

Kassandra smiled indulgently. “That’s true, Amber.”

“Oh, and I don’t need to think about the past! Every time I go back, I have second thoughts and I get this… this dreadful feeling that whatever I’m doing now is useless, that I don’t have a future.”

The old woman cleared her throat. “You see, that’s where you’re wrong. You shouldn’t live in the past, but you shouldn’t ignore it either. There might be something there, someone actually, who can help you get through this.”

“Someone?”

Kassandra smiled knowingly, but Amber was at a complete loss.

“Don’t you remember? Rebecca isn’t the only friend you have in New York. There’s someone else, someone special. You haven’t talked to him in a long time.”

Amber’s eyes grew wide with realization. “Oh my God, how did you know?” She stood up and started pacing the small room. “I don’t know how you do it. I mean, I’ve read some things about empaths, but this is ridiculous. You’re right, I haven’t talked to Tyler Atwood in ages. We used to be good friends, would chat online for hours, call each other sometimes, but that was before Stephan. Way before Stephan. God, how long has it been? Twelve years? Thirteen? A lifetime!”

Kassandra clapped her hands in excitement. Finally, they were making progress. It was true that Amber needed a job and didn’t need a man to make her happy. It was also true that she had to detach herself from her past, but only from her past with Stephan. The key was to find the person she was before she met her husband, future ex-husband, actually. And Tyler Atwood could help her do that.

“I wonder what has become of him,” Amber whispered. “He could be married; he could have children of his own… I can’t believe we lost contact. We were such good friends!”

“Why don’t you give him a call? You still have his number, right?”

“Yeah…” She took out her phone to check. “He’s probably changed it, though.”

“He hasn’t.”

Kassandra’s words sounded so matter-of-factly that they made Amber’s heart jump. What was the old woman implying?

“Oh, no… you’re not thinking… I’ve just told you I intend to steer clear of men for a while.”

“No, you didn’t say that. You said you don’t need a man, and I didn’t contradict you. But why should you steer clear of them? Don’t you have your own needs?”

Amber took in a sharp breath. Needs. Of course she had her own needs. Stephan had been too busy with his mistresses to take care of them.

“No, that’s insane.”

“There was something between you and Tyler…”

“No, there wasn’t. We never even met. I only know him from the pictures he sent me.”

“There could have been.”

“Not really. I was in Chicago, he was in New York. I had my life there, and he had his life here.”

“But things have changed, haven’t they?”

Amber fixed Kassandra with cold, blue eyes. Yes, there had always been a strong attraction between her and Tyler, but they had never been open about it. In fact, she remembered quite clearly she had never told him how she felt because she was afraid he didn’t feel the same, or worse, he would’ve thought she was pathetic for falling in love with someone she only knew online.

Kassandra knew she was losing her. Their conversation had been great until Tyler’s name was mentioned. Amber still had unresolved insecurities in what her old friend was concerned, and she needed time to work through them.

“Look, just promise me you’ll get in touch with him. You have nothing to lose.”

“I can’t promise you anything.”

***

The cab had been caught in traffic for a while now, and Amber got bored of staring out the window. She took her phone out to check the time, but it proved to be a bad idea. It reminded her of the number she still had. Tyler’s number. What if she tapped “call”? Would he answer? Would he remember her? Did he still have her phone number, as she had his? She sighed and slipped the sleek piece of technology back into her bag. She had more than enough time to make it for dinner. The cab started moving, but Amber couldn’t focus on the city flashing by anymore.

Where had she met Tyler Atwood? Probably on one of those forums for book nerds she used to waste time on when she was in college. She couldn’t tell which one, but she knew they had immediately bonded over books, then movies and music. They had so much in common. For at least a year, they had spent hours, if not nights, chatting about everything and anything. College, friends, lovers, politics, concerts, hobbies… No matter how much time they had spent online, they had never gotten bored. They had exchanged pictures and started talking about more personal things. Then Amber met a guy and was in a relationship for around eight months. This was still way before Stephan Castell. She felt so comfortable with Tyler, that she told him everything. Romantic dates, arguments, disappointments, new discoveries, sex… There was nothing she had kept from him, and she knew there was nothing he had kept from her. They would call each other on their birthdays and on Christmas. Once, Amber had been so angry with her boyfriend that she had called Tyler to calm her down.

The cab was getting close to Rebecca’s place, so Amber snapped out of her thoughts for a moment and started looking for her wallet.
“Thirteen years ago,”
she thought.
“Good times.”
She found her wallet, but the cab stopped at another red light.
“Why did we drift apart, anyway?”
She couldn’t remember exactly when it happened, but she was pretty sure it had been somewhere around the time she met Stephan. It might have been her fault. She was so in love with Stephan that she spent most of her time with him, or simply fantasizing about him. She and Tyler still chatted, but not as often. Then, she got married and their friendship grew even colder. It hadn’t been intentional, she knew that even now. For two years or so, Tyler had still called on her birthday and asked how she was doing. Then Ava was born, and Amber lost contact with everything and everyone from her life before Stephan. The baby ate up most of her time, and when she was old enough that her mother could focus a bit on herself, Amber had already forgotten about Tyler Atwood. And Tyler Atwood about her.

The driver pulled in the parking lot and Amber paid. She got out of the cab and started walking towards the entrance. Her mind was still lost somewhere in the past. She tried to remember what he looked like. Shoulder-length black hair, brown eyes, sharp, noble features, full lips and a strong jaw covered in just a bit of scruff. Amber smiled to herself.
“Yeah, I always had a thing for him…”

Her heart jumped when her smartphone started ringing. Hands shaking from the shock, she struggled to get her phone out of her huge bag. The name on the bright display made her groan. It was her husband. It was the first time he was calling after she had left, but the last thing she needed was to hear his voice. He would probably yell at her, anyway, demand that she came back.
“No, not today,”
she whispered before rejecting the call. He’d probably call again, so she figured she might as well switch her phone off.

That was when Amber made the decision. She was standing in front of Rebecca’s building, having just decided she didn’t want to talk to her husband. Instead of turning her phone off, however, she looked for Tyler Atwood’s number and typed a short message.