by K. D. Jones
“Oh, she’s here. Hi, Andy, dear! We’re in the dining room. Come and grab you something to eat before you go back to the cabin.” Mrs. Fielding waved for her to come to the dining room.
Cosmo looked up and his eyes locked with Andy’s and it was like he was hit in the head with a frying pan. Mate! My mate! Andy was his mate. His bear was at full attention and so was his cock. “Hi.”
She nodded at him and walked past to get a plate. What the hell just happened?
Chapter 9
Andy was shaking as she scooped the scrambled eggs onto her plate. Cosmo was here. Why was he here? Maybe he had come to see Rhonda, start up what they had evidently done last night. It sure looked like it with Rhonda rubbing herself all over him. It hurt to know that after he left her, when she had been feeling like there was some kind of attraction between the two of them, he would go have sex with someone else. For it to have been Rhonda made her even more hurt and angry.
She stomped her way over to the large dining table as far away from Cosmo and Rhonda as she could get. She didn’t look up when Denny moved to sit next to her.
“How is the cabin? I would have offered to take your place, but I needed to stay where there is Internet connection so that I can use my computer,” Denny told her.
She swallowed her eggs and looked at him with a smile. “The cabin has Internet. It’s actually quite luxurious. It has a chef’s dream kitchen, and a large bathroom with a jetted bathtub. The front porch overlooks a beautiful frozen lake. I’m looking forward to relaxing with a bath and some wine tonight.”
“Wow. Sounds nice. Maybe I can come by and enjoy it all with you.” Denny winked at her.
A rumbling from across the table had Andy looking over at Cosmo. His eyes were pure black and he looked furious. What was his problem?
“What do you think, Andy?” Denny asked, bringing her attention back to him.
“What do I think about what?”
“Me coming over to the cabin tonight and spending time with you.”
She leaned forward and whispered, “That’s not a good idea. We are working together and need to remain professional.”
Denny reached out and stroked Andy’s shoulder. “Come on. It’ll be like old times. Us working together didn’t stop us from dating in the past.”
Dating? They’d had one fucking date, and that was it. “The answer is no.”
Denny lowered his hand and turned from trying to seduce her to cold and harsh. “Since you’re so interested in work, I left notes for you to research for me on the front desk. I need it by tomorrow.”
“I don’t work for you, Denny.”
“I’m the lead researcher here, so in a way, you do.” Denny stood up without throwing out his trash and placing his dishes in the dirty dishes bin. She sighed, taking hers and his to the bin.
“You’re not leaving so soon, are you?” Mrs. Fielding asked walking up to her, handing her the key to the car in the garage.
“I am. I left the groceries outside since it was cold enough nothing would go bad. Unfortunately, I have a lot of work I need to get started on.” She walked to the front room and picked up the stack of notes that Denny left for her. She went out the front and realized she was going to have to make a second trip for her groceries because the stack of notes was huge.
“Let me help you.”
Andy turned to find Cosmo standing right behind her. She wasn’t ready to talk to him yet, but she did need help. “Thank you.” She walked around the side of the two-story Victorian house and went to the detached garage. The keychain had a button for the automatic door to the garage. It opened, and the only car inside was a small red Toyota Corolla. It wasn’t the typical car a man would drive. Cosmo seemed to know what she was thinking.
“This is actually Mrs. Fielding’s car. When her husband passed away a few years ago, she started driving his truck.”
“Oh.” That was sad and sweet at the same time. She opened the car’s trunk so Cosmo could place the groceries inside.
“How did you get all these bags to Mrs. Fielding’s?”
“One of the stock boys, Jason, helped me carry them. He was really sweet.” She was startled when he slammed the trunk lid down so hard the whole car shook.
“Did he flirt with you?”
“No, of course not. He’s only fifteen years old.” She opened the door to the backseat to put the stack of folders on the floorboard. She then went to get into the driver’s seat, but Cosmo was blocking the door by leaning against it.
“I’ll come by later to show you how to use the snowmobile.”
“No need. Ivan will help me.” She motioned for him to move out of her way, then opened the door and drove away. She could see him lift his cell phone up to his ear. No doubt he was calling Ivan to thank him for getting her off his hands. Well, good riddance! She wasn’t here for Cosmo or his brother. She came her to do a job and she was determined to do it.
*****
“What the hell did you do?” Cosmo yelled over the phone.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ivan answered.
“Andy barely looked at me, and she said you were teaching her how to use the snowmobile.”
“That’s what you asked me to do. Take over helping her with groceries and I offered with the snowmobile. Why do you care? You dumped her on me without a second glance.”
“I wasn’t dumping her on you.” Damn, he was lying. He had dumped Andy on his brother. “I don’t understand why she was so...different. She looked hurt and angry.”
“I guess she was still a little upset over the misunderstanding.”
“What misunderstanding?”
“I didn’t introduce myself when I showed up this morning and she thought I was you.”
“She thought you were me?”
“Yeah. She didn’t find out the truth until a little bit ago when we ran into Mrs. Fielding at the grocery store. She was pretty upset at first, but I apologized and she seemed okay when I left. I told her I would come by this afternoon to help her learn how to drive the snowmobile. I’ll apologize to her again and try to make it up to her. She seems to be a sweet woman. I like her.”
This had gone beyond what he had intended. Cosmo only wanted to distance himself from Andy to get control of his feelings. He never intended for Andy to get hurt. What the hell does Ivan mean that he likes her? He doesn’t like anyone but family.
“No, I’ll teach her how to drive the snowmobile and apologize for both of us. Stay away from her.” He hung up the phone and stuffed it in his back pocket. His bear wanted to go after their mate right at that moment, but he wanted to give her some time to calm down from her anger. He also had some things to do at work to clear his schedule for the rest of the day.
He also needed to talk to his mother about this human mate thing. It wasn’t unheard of for shifters to mate with humans, but not polar bear shifters. His people always kept to their clans; they rarely mingle with inter-species. Protecting their shifter secrets from humans was their top priority. If a shifter mated with a human, that human would have knowledge of things no other human had. That might cause some issues with his people, especially since he was Alpha.
Chapter 10
“Asshole!” Andy grumbled more than once. How dare Cosmo shove her off on his brother, then come around acting weird like he was...jealous. The thought that he might actually be jealous and want her for himself had her hopeful for a moment. That was ridiculous. Someone as perfect as he was, wanting someone plain and simple like her just didn’t happen.
She knew she was cute in a librarian kind of way. She got asked out occasionally, but her inquisitive nature always seemed to turn men off. It was hard to find a man that could connect with her intellectually and also attract her physically. She had thought Cosmo was different. The other night they had shared a lovely dinner and had a good conversation. She’d felt excited to be around him. Obviously it was a one way thing, though. She learned a long time ago that she couldn’t
force something that wasn’t meant to be, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t disappointed.
What she needed to do now was to concentrate on her job. She wanted to eventually branch out from the company she worked for and start her own research and exploration company. In order to do that, she would have to have field experience and make a discovery. She had the location she would start with first, which was the frozen lake across from her cabin, and she had the means of transportation: the snowmobile. She just needed to figure out how to run the damn thing.
She put her big coat on with gloves and her toboggan. She had filled her backpack with a blanket, camera, her cell phone, a notebook and pen, protein bars, and two bottles of water. She wanted to make sure she had something in case she got stranded. She was thinking maybe she overloaded her backpack as she struggled to mount the snowmobile with her backpack on. It should be like getting on a motorcycle with skis, right? She lifted her right foot to try to straddle the seat and lost her balance. She fell backward onto the soft snow.
“Ugh!”
“That’s one way to not get on a snowmobile.” Cosmo chuckled from the porch.
Damn. She hadn’t heard him pull up. “What are you doing here?” She tried to get up, but her layers and coat made her too bulky and she fell back again.
Cosmo walked toward her, and the snow crunched under his heavy boots. She looked up at him as he bent and offered her his hand. “Let me help you.”
She thought about turning him down, but it would only make her feel more foolish. Her father had told her once to never turn down an offer of help because you never know when you’d have the offer again. She put her gloved hand in his. “Thanks.”
He pulled her up easily. “You’re too heavy.”
“Are you calling me fat?” She was furious and breathing hard.
“No, honey. You have too much stuff on and it’s weighing you down. You are the perfect curvy woman.”
She tried to act like his compliment didn’t mean anything, but it did go a long way toward easing her hurt feelings. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to wear other than this to keep from freezing to death.”
He pointed to the bag he had laid down on the porch steps. “I raided my sister’s closet and brought you some gear to wear. The goal is to wear layers but still be able to move around. Let me take your backpack while you go change.” He helped her remove the backpack.
“I need that stuff,” she said, looking at him suspiciously.
“There’s a cargo storage bin back here. I think the whole backpack will fit inside it. Go on. I’ll get the motor going for us.” He waved her toward the cabin.
She really didn’t have a choice but to grab the back and go change. About five minutes later she reappeared, wearing much thinner looking clothes and coat. She felt much warmer than she had before with the insulated and waterproof gear.
“Tell your sister that I appreciate the clothes.”
“Do you know where you want to go, or do you want me to drive you around the areas that have been covered by your fellow researchers?”
“I want to go over to Miracle Lake.”
He looked at her, surprised. “Why?”
She carefully lifted her leg and got on the back of the snowmobile behind him. She leaned around to watch him start the snowmobile.
“I thought I saw something out over the lake a few times. I wanted to check it out.”
“What did you see?” he asked loud enough to hear over the motor.
“A polar bear!” she yelled.
Chapter 11
Oh, shit! She had seen him when he had come to check on her. This was not good. Yes, she was definitely his mate and he would eventually have to tell her the truth about him and his clan, but he wasn’t sure she was ready for that yet.
“You must have been mistaken. Polar bears haven’t been seen in this region in quite a while. They normally stick to the northern parts because there are better food sources.”
He drove over the lake, trying to keep away from where his tracks might be seen. He stopped by an outcropping of rocks. “There’s a cave over here. Would you like to look at it?”
She frowned at him, looking in the opposite direction. “Cosmo, I want to go over there.”
“Let’s see what’s here first.”
She didn’t look happy about it, but she got off the snowmobile and opened the cargo bin. She pulled out her camera, notepad, and pen. She approached the cave entrance he was standing next to. It was small, and Cosmo would have to bend quite a bit to fit inside there.
“Do you think there’s any wild animals inside?’
“I thought you wanted to be a great explorer, like Indiana Jones.”
“I’m a researcher. This is my first time in the field, and I am definitely not like Indiana Jones. Is that the type of movies you like to watch?”
“I like anything that gives me some action.” His double meaning made her pulse speed up. “What kind of movies do you like to watch? Let me guess. Kingdom of animals or planet discovery type channels.”
“I do watch those sometimes, but I like romantic comedies.”
*****
She was kneeling and peering into the small cave. Nothing had been there for a while. There was nothing showing that any kind of animal was using it as shelter. She stood up and found herself between the cave wall and Cosmo. He towered over her. She looked up into his nearly black eyes and felt her body tingle. What was he doing to her?
“Cosmo?” Her voice was a whisper.
“I can’t seem to control myself,” he confessed as he leaned down and placed his warm lips against hers.
It was like touching an electrical spark. It traveled through her whole body, lighting her up. She knew what he meant now, about how he couldn’t control himself, because she was feeling out of control herself. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body into his. He was so warm; his heat seeped in through their layers of clothes. She opened her mouth, allowing him inside and it was pure bliss.
His tongue teased and caressed her, devouring her, and she welcomed it. She met his thrust and moaned with pleasure. She had never been kissed like this before. She wanted more—she wanted to be naked in his arms and have him inside her. Yes, she needed him to be inside her more than anything.
“Cosmo…” She was interrupted by a loud roar. A bear’s roar. “What was that?” She pulled away from him and looked around. Could it be the polar bear?
“Andy, do you think you can handle the snowmobile?”
She looked at him questioningly. “What do you mean?”
“You watched me control the snowmobile. Do you think you can take it on your own back to the cabin?”
“Yeah. I’ve driven a motorcycle before, so I think I can handle it. Why?”
“I want you to take the snowmobile back to the cabin.”
“Without you?”
“Yes. I need you to go to my truck and pull out my shotgun and keep it with you inside the cabin.”
“No, Cosmo. Come with me. I can’t leave you out here by yourself against who knows what that was.”
“Honey, it will take you about ten minutes to get to the cabin. I have a handgun. I will be fine. I want to make sure whatever that was doesn’t make its way to town.”
She was shaking her head. “Not without you.”
“There’s a farm nearby; a family lives there. I will make my way over there and have them bring me back to the cabin.”
This was the stupidest thing she had ever heard of. “You can’t hunt this thing with a handgun.”
“I’m pretty good with it. Trust me.”
“Should I call the Tour and Guide or the sheriff’s office and have them come help you?”
“Only if I don’t come back in an hour. I need you safe now.” He pushed her toward the snowmobile.
She turned to leave but stopped. “Cosmo, come back to me safe.” She pulled him down to her and kissed him hard. She let him go and rushed over to the snowmo
bile, then turned it on. She gave him one more look before moving forward on the snow.
*****
He watched until he couldn’t see her in the distance and then began to undress quickly. Cosmo was furious. He shifted within seconds to his polar bear form. He lumbered toward the crop of trees he knew the roaring came from. The moment he was near the other polar bear came out.
Cosmo didn’t wait. He launched himself at the other bear, taking him down to the snow. They rolled around. Cosmo swiped his claws at the bear’s side, making him roar. They both shifted into human form.
“Ivan, what the hell are you doing stalking my mate?”
Chapter 12
“I’m not stalking. I’m checking up on her to make sure she’s okay. Mate? Did I hear that right?”
“She’s mine. Keep your distance.”
Ivan held up his hands. “I understand. I like her, but I get it. She’s yours. Have you claimed her yet?”
“No. You interrupted us.”
Ivan snorted. “I was doing you a favor. You were so caught up in kissing the daylights out of her that you would have clawed each other’s clothes off if I hadn’t roared and distracted you.”
“How is you stopping us a favor?”
“Because it’s freezing out here and your mate is fully human. She wouldn’t be able to take the cold.”
Damn. He was right. He grunted and nodded. “I would have realized that at some point.”
“Sure, whatever. I’ll head back to town, then. It looks like you’re going to be busy for a while. Congrats man. She’s amazing.”
Cosmo smiled. “I know.”
*****
It tore her up inside to leave Cosmo out there by himself. She would have to call his office and let them know. At least his brothers could come out and help him. She felt totally helpless.
Andy could see the cabin in the distance, so knew she was getting close. She stopped for a moment when something in the snow caught her attention. She got off the snowmobile and walked over to the edge of the frozen lake. This was where she thought she saw the polar bear the first night. Her fingers caressed an imprint in the snow. She went to the storage bin and removed her cell phone, and took a few pictures. Then she stuffed it in her back pocket and hopped back on the snowmobile. She would use her impression identifier program to determine whether it was indeed a bear of some sort.