All around him, tourists stopped and stared at the tall, muscular man barreling through their midst. He would have stood out enough just by his size alone, but his clothing gave him away as well. He wasn’t dressed in trendy tourist clothing. He was dressed in jeans and a simple t-shirt—practically the summer uniform for anyone who lived on Bear Mountain.
He didn’t know exactly where in the mall Caroline’s booth was, but he was sure he would find it if he just kept walking. As he walked, he felt his bear growing more and more restless within him, and he knew she was close.
Scott clenched and unclenched his fists as he walked, trying to contain the excitement within him. His mate was here, and he was going to be very clear this time about his feelings for her.
He saw Caroline before she saw him, but not by much. A few seconds after he spotted her, she turned her head as though somehow she had sensed he was coming. When her eyes met his, she held his gaze for a moment before quickly looking away.
There was an open book in front of her. None of the tourists were currently shopping at her booth, and the mall itself didn’t look that busy at the moment. Scott had known that the receptionist had lied about things, but seeing in person just how not busy the mall was made him angry.
“I thought it was busy in here,” he said sarcastically as he approached the booth.
Caroline looked up at him guiltily. “The receptionist thought it was better if I wasn’t distracted from my work.”
Scott raised an eyebrow. “She thought it was better that you weren’t distracted from your work, or she thought it was better that you didn’t hang out with someone from Bear Mountain?”
Scott had tried not to sound too bitter, but it was hard to hide the way he felt. He had finally found his lifemate, and she was writing him off before even giving him a chance thanks to all of the judgmental people in Pine Springs.
“She asked me how I met you, and I told her that you’d helped me out on the kayak yesterday. But when I mentioned you were from Bear Mountain, she said maybe you weren’t the best match for me.” Caroline gave him a helpless shrug, as if she had no choice in the matter.
“And you agree with her?” Scott’s voice was equal parts angry and wounded.
Caroline winced, and for a moment he thought she was about to say something to defend herself. But then, she just shook her head sadly. “I think you should go.”
“That’s all you’re going to say? You think I should go? You’re just going to write me off like everyone else in Pine Springs does? I thought you were better than that.”
Caroline gave him a pained look, and for a second Scott thought maybe he was getting through to her. She took a deep breath, but then let it out in a long sigh without saying anything else. After another moment’s pause, she shrugged and simply repeated, “I think you should go.”
Scott felt a deep, primal rage rising within him. He wasn’t necessarily angry at Caroline. He was angry at the people of Pine Springs who thought they knew him without ever even setting foot on his mountain. They were scared of him and everyone else on Bear Mountain because they didn’t understand them. If they’d had just a bit more of an open mind, they would have seen that he and the other bear shifters were good people. They were fierce, loyal, and kind. They weren’t dangerous, unless you crossed their loved ones. And what better reason was there to be dangerous than to protect your family?
But the people in Pine Springs would never open their minds.
Somehow, Scott had to make Caroline see that they were wrong about him. He took another step toward her, and leaned in close. She looked away, refusing to meet his eyes, but he continued talking anyway.
“Listen to me. I know that people have probably put all sorts of scary ideas in your head about Bear Mountain. But it’s a good place, and we’re good people. Give me a chance to show you. One trip to the mountain and you’ll see.”
“I’m not going to the mountain.” Caroline wouldn’t raise her eyes to meet his.
“Why not? It’s a beautiful place, and I promise there’s nothing to be scared of. Do you think I would rescue you twice if I was a bad person?”
“I think you should go now,” Caroline said, not directly answering his question.
Scott ground his teeth together and started to protest again, but just then one of the shopping center’s security guards walked by. The guard seemed to sense the tense situation between Scott and Caroline, and he paused to walk over.
“Is this guy bothering you, ma’am?” the guard asked.
Caroline kept looking down at her feet. “No,” she said quietly. “But I think he should go.”
The guard gave Scott a sharp look. “You heard the lady. Time for you to go.”
For a moment, Scott thought about protesting again. But then he thought better of it. He didn’t want to make a scene here. That wouldn’t do Caroline’s business any good, and it would probably only make her more suspicious of him.
Instead, he looked at her beautiful face one more time, trying to memorize every last inch of it. She was wearing makeup again, and too much of it if you asked him. Her face was so naturally beautiful that he didn’t understand why she was trying to hide it. She’d been wearing makeup on the kayak as well, but most of it had melted off, and he’d gotten a glimpse of her natural beauty. He wanted desperately to tell her that she didn’t need to hide who she truly was. Who she was, was enough. Who she was, was beautiful and perfect. Who she was, was his.
She just didn’t know it yet.
“I don’t want to cause any trouble with your business, so I’ll leave now,” Scott said. “But this isn’t the end of this. I promise you, I’m going to make you see that you have nothing to fear from me.”
Caroline didn’t look up or comment. She only twisted her fingers together nervously and made no comment about his promise. The security guard cleared his throat, indicating that it was time for Scott to leave. Scott sighed and clenched his teeth together as he turned to go. Maybe Caroline didn’t take the promise he’d just made seriously, but he sure as hell did. He would make her see that no one would ever love her or protect her the way he would. She’d just met her future, even though she didn’t know it yet. He was going to win her heart no matter how long it took.
Bears didn’t make promises they didn’t intend to keep, and Scott was a bear through and through.
Chapter Five
The rest of the day felt like pure agony to Caroline. She did her best to smile and act cheery for the few customers that came by, but her heart wasn’t in it today. All she could think about was the tone of Scott’s voice when he spoke to her. He had sounded so hurt and angry at the same time. Was he angry at her?
She wasn’t sure, but if he was, then she deserved it.
She’d never considered herself a shallow person, but she was starting to feel like maybe she’d been wrong about herself.
For one thing, she was too nervous to go out in public without having on the perfect outfit and having her hair and makeup perfectly done. She always told herself that she was just putting her best foot forward, but the truth was that she was afraid to let people see her flaws.
But one of her flaws was glaringly obvious, and no makeup could cover it. She had judged Scott unfairly. There was no way to deny that she had written him off without truly knowing him just because others had said he was weird.
What had he done, other than show her that he was a good person? He’d rescued her twice, he’d laughed and talked with her on the boat, and he’d shared his food and beer. He’d even come all the way out here to see her in person. And she’d shrugged him off.
But shrugging him off mentally was proving to be much harder than shrugging him off physically. He might be out of sight, but she couldn’t get him out of her mind. She couldn’t stop thinking about him, and it was more than just his good looks she was thinking about. True, he was handsome. But she felt something deeper than just a physical attraction to him. It was as though somehow, strangely, some pa
rt of his soul had touched a part of her soul.
But what did it matter what she felt? For the last several weeks her jewelry sales had been steadily slowing, which meant she likely wasn’t going to meet her financial goal for the summer. That meant that she’d be leaving Pine Springs soon. It didn’t make sense to try to fix things with Scott when she’d be far away from him in a matter of weeks.
At least, that’s what she tried to tell herself. But as she left her jewelry booth and started to walk home, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she owed Scott an apology, even if she wasn’t sticking around. What was she supposed to do, though? Drive up to Bear Mountain to say sorry and prove that she didn’t judge him?
This seemed like the most productive plan, but thinking about it proved to Caroline that she was shallower than she wanted to admit. Every time she thought about driving up to Bear Mountain, the warnings of the Pine Springs locals echoed in her mind. Nobody went to the mountain, according to them. Was it really safe up there?
Caroline hated herself for thinking this way. Scott had given her no reason not to trust him, and even though Caroline had been in Pine Springs all summer and had undoubtedly come across other Bear Mountain residents without even realizing it, she’d come to no harm. Was Bear Mountain really as strange and dangerous as everyone wanted her to believe? Caroline was starting to think that the worries about the mountain must be horribly overblown.
By this time, Caroline was only a few minutes’ walk from the small apartment she’d rented for the summer. There was still plenty of daylight out, and there was nothing stopping her from heading up to Bear Mountain tonight. She could climb in her car—which she never took to work because the shopping center was within walking distance and parking was horrendous—and she could be at Scott’s place in less than an hour. Of course, she had no idea where on Bear Mountain his place was. But she figured someone up there would know, and maybe if she asked nicely they would tell her. She was embarrassed to admit that she’d acted so poorly, but she should have thought about that before acting that way.
That’s it, she thought. I’ll just freshen up my makeup and change clothes, and then head up there.
True, freshening up her makeup might not have been in keeping with her determination that she wanted to care less about things that might be deemed as shallow. But could anyone blame her for wanting to look good when she was going to talk to a man as handsome as Scott?
Caroline found herself grinning at the thought of seeing him, and that’s when she knew she was making the right decision.
But that smile on Caroline’s face didn’t last long. A moment later she came to an abrupt stop when a dark shadow stepped onto the path in front of her. She looked up in horror to see that it was the man who had been bothering her at the club a few nights ago. His face was still bruised and heavily bandaged from his fight with Scott, but she had no trouble seeing that it was him.
She realized in that moment that the path she was on was relatively secluded. It was a shortcut through a woodsy area that got her home about five minutes faster than walking on the road, but right now Caroline was thinking that she would have been better off walking the extra five minutes and avoiding running into this guy back here. She wasn’t sure how he’d known she would be here, but she was sure that he was up to no good. She glanced around, wondering if there was a way to run, or whether anyone might be close enough on the path to hear her if she screamed.
The man must have seen the fear in her eyes, because he threw back his head and let out a maniacal laugh.
“What’s the matter?” he asked with a sneer. “No fancy security guard out here to save you this time?”
He took a step closer to Caroline, and she resisted the urge to scream. She didn’t want to let him see her panic. But when he took another step forward and reached out to try to grab her arm, she couldn’t help it.
She panicked.
With a long, loud scream, she dropped her bag that held her jewelry and cash, and started to run. Behind her, she heard the man laugh and start running as well. He sounded like a wild boar as he crashed down the path after her.
“What’s the matter?” he yelled “Afraid you can’t outrun me? You should be afraid, because you can’t. I may be big, but I can move fast.”
Caroline made the mistake of looking over her shoulder to see whether this was true. She wanted to know how much he was gaining on her, and whether she could make it out of this woodsy area before he caught up with her. She just had to get to where people were, and she’d be safe.
But when she looked over her shoulder, her foot caught on a stray tree root in the middle of the uneven path. With a yelp, she went flying forward and landed on the ground so hard that she felt the wind being knocked out of her. She tried to scramble back to her feet, but it was too late.
The man had reached her, and he promptly kicked her over onto her back. She saw to her horror that he was standing above her with a giant wooden stick in his hands. How he’d managed to pick up a stick and then run with it was beyond her, but realizing that he had the dexterity to do that only made her more afraid.
“Leave me alone!” she shrieked.
He laughed. “Why would I leave you alone when you’re the one responsible for the fact that my nose got broken and I got kicked out of the club? I’m not leaving you alone. You’re going to pay me for that.”
“Okay, fine! I’ll pay you. How much do you want?”
Caroline didn’t have much money, but she figured she wasn’t going to make enough to get her through the winter, anyway. It was probably a good use of her money to spend it on getting rid of this guy.
But the man only laughed. “Oh, no. It’s not money I want. It’s you. You can start your payments with a kiss.”
He started to lean toward her, and Caroline scrambled backwards like an awkward crab across the dirt path.
The man laughed and shook his stick. “Don’t you dare try to run. If you try to get up off the ground, then I’m gonna knock you across the head with this stick.”
He took a menacing step forward and raised the stick above his head. Caroline wasn’t sure whether he intended to make good on his promise to hit her if she ran, but she decided that she liked her odds of running. She started to turn from her back to her hands and knees so that she could launch herself forward away from him, ignoring the way the stick started coming down toward her in her peripheral vision. She shrieked as she scrambled, expecting that at any moment that stick would make contact with her back.
But then, a funny thing happened. She heard a loud thump, but she didn’t feel any pain. Instead, she heard a shriek of pain coming from the man behind her. Then, she heard a roar.
Despite the fact that every instinct in her was telling her to run, she had always been far too curious for her own good. This moment was no exception. She desperately wanted to know what had just happened, and she turned to look.
What had just happened, apparently, was that Scott had somehow arrived on the scene. Caroline had no idea where he’d come from or how he’d known that she would be here. But there he was, once again tumbling on the ground with this man. She slowly stood and clasped her hand over her mouth in shock. The other man tried to fight, but it was no use. Scott was stronger than him, and Scott was also enraged. Scott launched punches at the man’s face, screaming that he was going to kill the man for messing with Caroline.
Caroline saw genuine fear in the man’s eyes, and she didn’t blame him. She’d never seen anyone quite as angry as Scott was right now. But as flattered as she was that Scott was apparently willing to kill for her sake, she didn’t want him to actually do that. She was safe with him here now, and she had a feeling that if he did actually kill the guy, then he’d have a whole lot of legal trouble to deal with—even though he was acting in defense of her.
“Let him go,” she yelled. “I don’t want to watch someone getting killed. Please, let him go.”
Scott stopped punching for a moment and held the
man down on the ground by his neck. Scott looked up at Caroline, his eyes on fire with an emotion Caroline couldn’t quite place. For a moment, she thought he was going to ignore her and choke the man off anyways. But then, he nodded slowly and turned back toward the man.
“You listen to me,” Scott growled. “I’ll let you live this time, but only because you’re lucky enough that I’m going to respect the lady’s wishes not to kill you in front of her. But if I ever catch sight of you in Pine Springs again, I’ll finish this job. I’ll tear your limbs and your head from your body without a second thought. Do I make myself clear?”
The man whimpered and nodded, wisely deciding that it was best not to argue with Scott anymore. Scott let out a snort of disgust, then let the man go. As Scott stood, the man scrambled to his feet and started running away down the path without another word.
Caroline stood there in shock as she watched the man run away. Scott’s voice eventually brought her back to the present moment, asking her if she was okay. She turned to face him with tears running down her cheeks.
“That’s three,” she said. “That’s three times you’ve saved me already.”
She’d been about to say that she’d been a fool to judge him, and that she’d actually been thinking about driving up to Bear Mountain when she got home. But before she could say anything else, she caught sight of Scott’s face and gasped.
“You’re covered in blood! It’s everywhere! We need to get you to a doctor. You might need stitches.”
Scott waved her away. “I’m fine. It’s just a couple scratches.”
“That’s more than a couple scratches. There’s blood everywhere!”
But again, Scott shrugged. “I’ll be fine. I always heal up quickly. I’m more concerned with you.”
Caroline looked down at herself. Her clothes were dusty, and she’d torn a hole in the knee of her jeans. But otherwise, she was okay.
“I’m fine. I’ll probably have a few bruises tomorrow, but that’s no big deal, considering what might have happened. How did you know I needed help?”
Claimed on Bear Mountain Page 4