Poppy wasn’t intimidated at all by his sharp tone. She shrugged. “It just means that I always thought you were the type of man who wouldn’t let his lifemate go once you found her. But I guess I was wrong.”
She cheerily refilled his coffee mug, which he’d drained again in a few big gulps. Joel felt his stomach clench with frustration, and he nervously looked around to make sure that no one else in the diner had heard what Poppy had said. Thankfully, everyone seemed wrapped up in their own conversations right now. Joel turned back to Poppy and glared at her.
“Why would you say that?” he couldn’t keep the exasperated tone out of his voice.
“I would say it’s because it’s true. I know you, Joel. You’ve been eating in this diner nearly every day for the last decade, at least. I’ve never seen you look at a woman the way you looked at Anna when you came in with her. And I’ve never seen you look as heartbroken and angry as you do right now. Clearly, you aren’t happy that she’s gone. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s going on. Your inner bear is angry, isn’t it? You let your lifemate get away, and it’s tearing you up inside.”
For a moment, Joel considered still trying to argue that Anna wasn’t his lifemate, but then he thought better of it. When Poppy made her mind up about something, it was nearly impossible to change her viewpoint. Joel could tell she’d made up her mind that Anna was his lifemate. There was no point in trying to change Poppy’s mind, especially when Poppy was right.
Joel looked around to make sure no one was listening, then lowered his voice a notch as he spoke to Poppy. “Yes, she’s my lifemate. But I’d appreciate it if you didn’t blast that fact all over town. It’s bad enough that I’m stuck here on this mountain knowing my lifemate is far away and never coming back. Do you have to rub it in and announce to the entire town that I’m going to be alone here on this mountain forever?”
Poppy chuckled, which made Joel angry. For a moment, he contemplated getting up and leaving right then and there. But he was hungry and wanted to finish his chili. Besides, if he left now, all he was doing was delaying this conversation. The next time he came in, Poppy would pick up right where she’d left off.
Poppy clucked at him. “I’m not going to have to blast it all over town. The way you’re moping around makes it obvious. I don’t understand. If you’re really so in love with her, why did you let her go? I thought you were one of the most alpha males on this mountain, but it looks like you’re not even man enough to claim what’s yours.”
“I did claim her. At least, I tried.” Joel looked around again to make sure no one was listening. “I slept with her, and I felt the lifemate bond forming. Believe me. My inner bear let me know that she was meant for me. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to convince a full human to live here on the mountain, but I was determined to show her how much she meant to me. I took her to the summit and showed her the view from up there. I told her I wanted her to stay with me here forever, and to make her home on this mountain with me. But she freaked out before I could even get to the part explaining to her that I’m a bear shifter. She told me it was time for her to get back to real life, and that was that. Nothing else I could say would change her mind.”
Poppy crossed her arms. “Then you didn’t say enough.”
Joel felt anger rising within him. “Did you not hear me? She wanted to leave. I did my best to convince her to stay, but she wasn’t having it. Her life is in California, and no matter how much she might have talked about wanting to make a change, it was all just words. I can’t really blame her. Life on the mountain is hard, even without the fact that she’d have to accept that I’m a bear shifter. I just have to come to terms with the fact that I’m destined for a lifemate I can never actually live with.”
Poppy looked completely unimpressed by this. “Life on the mountain is hard, but it’s worth it. And I’m sure that any girl tough enough to handle you is tough enough to handle the mountain. Or maybe not. Maybe you’re not as tough as I thought you were, since you let her go so easily.”
Joel slammed his fist on the counter, forgetting to care who might be listening. “Dammit, Poppy, did you not hear me? She insisted on going back to California. She’s probably there already. What am I supposed to do? Go to California and bring her back?”
Poppy shrugged. “That’s exactly what you’re supposed to do.”
Joel shook his head at her. “You’re out of your mind. If she wouldn’t stay when she was here on the mountain, looking out at the most beautiful landscape she’s ever seen, why would she agree to come back when she’s already back home in California. She’s comfortable in her safe, familiar life.”
“She would agree to come back because California is not her home. If she’s your lifemate, then deep down inside of her she knows that.”
Joel shook his head at Poppy. “Look, you might know more than anyone about how to make good chili, but what do you know about true mate love? Where’s your true mate? How can you be such an expert when you yourself haven’t even found a lifemate?”
For a moment, a shadow passed over Poppy’s face, and Joel regretted his words. Poppy had never spoken about wanting love. As far as Joel knew, she’d never even dated. He hadn’t realized that it might be a sore subject with her. He’d just assumed that she was the type happy being by herself and living life her own way. But the shadow passed quickly, and Poppy recovered her composure.
As she leaned over the counter and stuck her face right in his, Joel shrank back. No matter how much of an alpha he was, no one on this mountain could deny that it was a scary thing when Poppy got in your face. He swallowed hard as she began to speak.
“You listen here, and you listen good. I may not have a lifemate yet, but I sure as hell wouldn’t let my lifemate go if he came across my path. We all have to be patient while we wait for destiny to bring us the one. But when that one arrives, there is no excuse for us to let them go without a fight. And it looks to me like that’s exactly what you’re doing. I’ve seen a lot of relationships come and go through this diner over the years. I can see in a man’s eyes when it’s true mate love, and I saw that in your eyes when you brought Anna in here. If you aren’t willing to do whatever it takes to make her yours, then you aren’t the man I thought you were.”
Joel shivered at her words. He knew she was right, but things weren’t as simple as she seemed to think they were.
“And I’m supposed to just go to California and drag her back here?”
“If that’s what it takes, then that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do.”
Poppy pushed away from the counter and went to go help another customer. But her words kept ringing in Joel’s ears. She was right. He was an alpha bear, and he always fought for what he wanted. He’d fought to establish his business and make a living for himself, even when everyone laughed at him and told him it couldn’t be done. If he’d fought so hard for his business, shouldn’t he fight twice as hard for his lifemate?
Joel pushed away from the counter, leaving his chili uneaten. He was hungry, but food didn’t matter right now. He had to get his cell phone, which he’d left in his truck. He had a phone call to make, and a plane ticket to book.
He’d always wondered what California looked like in real life, and he was about to find out.
Chapter Thirteen
Anna breathed a sigh of relief as the last student left her classroom. This week had been difficult. Even though it had been a short week, since school had started back from winter break on a Wednesday, it had felt like the longest week in the world to Anna. Not only had it been difficult to make it through three days of teaching with a heart that was completely shattered, but the school’s principal, who had never liked Anna anyway, was threatening to fire her. He threatened this every so often, which was part of the reason Anna always fantasized about quitting. She felt like one of these days he was going to make good on that promise, and she would rather beat him to the punch and quit.
She had never wanted to leave her
students behind before, but she was starting to think that she was going to be forced to leave them behind one way or another. Even though her students liked her, her students’ parents never had. They thought she didn’t push the kids hard enough, saying that she gave them too much recess, and not enough work. More than one parent had told her that she had to accept that in the real world these kids would be forced to fight their way up a tough corporate ladder if they wanted to succeed, and that she wasn’t doing them any favors by coddling them.
Anna couldn’t stand it when parents talked to her like this. She wanted to scream at them that letting first-graders have half an hour of recess wasn’t coddling. She’d fought with the principal to keep that recess time, but it was a losing battle. She knew it was just a matter of time before he wouldn’t allow it anymore at all. Most likely, he would just fire her and find someone to replace her who was more in line with the local parents’ belief that letting kids be kids for half an hour a day was setting them up for failure in life.
Anna looked at the framed picture of Bear Mountain on her wall and let out another long sigh. More than once this week, she’d considered just taking the photograph down. It was a beautiful shot that she’d taken from the top of the mountain when Joel took her up there. Those pictures had all turned out better than she could’ve hoped, even with her limited experience as a photographer. She’d excitedly framed her favorite photo and hung it in her classroom where she could admire it when she sat at her desk.
But now, the picture almost seemed to mock her. It reminded her of what she could’ve had. It reminded her of what she had had for a brief moment in time. Joel had been the most amazing man she’d ever met. He’d made her come alive in a way she hadn’t thought possible. Not only that, but he’d wanted her to spend the rest of her life with him on Bear Mountain.
It had all seemed too good to be true, and so Anna had decided that it was. She’d decided that she’d been foolish to think she could actually leave California and make a life somewhere else.
Essentially, she’d panicked. Now, looking at that photograph only made her wonder what might have been if she’d taken a chance and followed her heart.
“I guess I’ll never know,” she whispered to the photograph.
Looking at that photograph made her feel like she was missing home, but how could that be? If Bear Mountain was her home, then why didn’t Joel fight harder for her? When she’d turned him down, he’d put up a small fight. But then he’d turned angry and quiet and let her go. He should’ve fought harder. He should’ve pushed her up against that truck, kissed her, and told her that he was never letting her go.
Don’t be a fool, she told herself.
Of course he didn’t do that. Why would he? He might have had a bit of fun with her in the cabin during the blizzard, but all of his words about wanting to spend the rest of his life with her were just that: words.
He liked the idea of having her around. He probably liked the idea of being able to sleep with her whenever he wanted. But that didn’t mean he was feeling true love. It didn’t mean he was feeling the same thing Anna was feeling right now. She was feeling like without him, and without them being together, her life was over. She felt like after Joel she could never be happy with anyone else ever again.
Anna stood abruptly and started gathering her things.
“I have to get out of here,” she told the empty room. She had some grading to do, but she would do it at home. If she stayed here one moment longer, staring at that picture, she was going to go crazy. She had to get outside where she could breathe. Even if the air out here wasn’t as fresh and pure as it was on Bear Mountain, it was at least better than the air inside the stuffy classroom—this classroom that was starting to feel like it was the last place she belonged.
What’s wrong with me? she asked herself. She had always prided herself on taking good care of her students, but lately it felt like a losing battle. Lately, the joy had gone out of her job completely.
Fighting back tears, Anna made her way to the exit. She told herself to just make it to her car before she started crying. She didn’t want to take a chance on running into another teacher or, god forbid the principal, and have them see her tearing up. She had never been the type to cry a lot, but since Bear Mountain, she felt like she was constantly on the verge of breaking down. Who could blame her, when she felt that her heart had been left back on that mountain?
As Anna rushed out the door of the school and toward her car, she barely glanced at the man standing by the school’s entrance. She didn’t even want to see whether it was someone she knew. She just wanted to get out of there.
But her heart almost stopped when a familiar voice called out her name.
“Anna.”
Anna stopped in her tracks, and slowly turned. It wasn’t possible, was it?
It was. There, standing in the rapidly fading sunlight, stood Joel. He looked almost comically out of place here, with his plaid flannel shirt and thick beard. But Anna didn’t care. She had never seen a more welcome sight in her life.
“Joel? What are you doing here?”
He stepped forward and held out a bouquet of wildflowers. “These are for you. I’m here for you.”
“M-me?” Anna stammered out.
“Yes, you. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since the moment you left. Maybe I didn’t make myself clear, but there will never be anyone else for me. You are the love of my life, and I’m not sure how I can survive another day without you.”
Anna took the flowers and stared down at them in shock. Then she looked back up at Joel.
“You came back for me,” she said in wonder.
“I’ll always come back for you,” Joel said. “In fact, I never should’ve let you go in the first place. But I won’t make that mistake again.”
And then, before Anna could say anything else, Joel stepped forward and kissed her. The moment his lips touched hers, Anna knew she’d been wrong. It wasn’t Bear Mountain that was home for her. It was Joel.
Chapter Fourteen
Joel knew the moment his lips met Anna’s that he’d made the right decision by coming to get her. Poppy had been right. She was always right, but this time she had been especially right: Joel had been a coward to ever let Anna go in the first place. And if there’s one thing Joel was determined not to be, it was a coward.
So he’d done everything he could in the last few days to fix his mistake. He’d taken the first available flight back to California, which hadn’t been as easy as it normally was. A snowstorm blew in at the nearest major airport to Pine Springs, and all flights were grounded for two days.
Joel had spent those two days in the airport. He’d been determined that as soon as a plane left for California again, he would be on it—and he was. He’d arrived this afternoon, exhausted but excited. He wasn’t sure the best way to tell Anna that he was here, but he figured that girls liked flowers, so that was a good place to start. He’d gone searching until he’d found some wildflowers near the city where she lived.
Finding the flowers had been harder than he’d thought, because Anna lived in a concrete jungle. There wasn’t a lot of wildlife or nature around. Finally, he’d found a beach that was some sort of state park. He picked an entire bouquet of wildflowers before he noticed the sign that said wildflower picking wasn’t allowed. At that point, he figured it was too late and he might as well make good use of the flowers he’d already picked.
He’d fashioned the flowers into a bouquet, and went to the school where Anna worked. He’d figured out which school it was by looking Anna up on the internet—you could find anyone online these days—and he’d waited outside at dismissal time. He’d watched while other teachers, staff and students left, but Anna didn’t show up. He was beginning to think that he’d missed her, or somehow had the wrong school entirely despite his careful internet search.
But then, he’d seen her. She’d come out that door and his inner bear had leapt within him. He’d ne
ver been as sure of anything as he was in that moment that Anna was his lifemate. He just had to make her see it.
When she saw him, she was clearly shocked. He wasn’t sure if that shock was a good or a bad thing, but he decided it didn’t matter. This time, he wasn’t letting her get away. He’d come too far now to let her go again. When he kissed her, he’d known he’d made the right choice. Even if it took the rest of his life, even if he had to move to California and leave Bear Mountain behind—whatever the cost, no price was too much to pay to spend the rest of his days with Anna.
Now, as he pulled back from the kiss and looked into her eyes, he felt hopeful. Anna opened her mouth, but Joel held up his fingers before she could say anything.
“Wait, let me. I’ve been waiting for days to be able to say this to you face-to-face. I never should have let you leave Bear Mountain. I know that the idea of moving there might be intimidating, but you’ll never have to feel afraid or alone as long as I’m nearby. I don’t care how hard life on the mountain might be, or how much the other villagers might give you a hard time for being an outsider. I’ll fight for you. Every day of my life, I’ll fight for you. If you let me, I’ll show you why Bear Mountain is the best place in the world to live. But make no mistake. I’m not leaving you again. If you won’t come with me, I’ll stay here. I’ll stay here until I can convince you to come back with me. And if I can’t convince you, then I’ll spend the rest of my life here.”
Anna looked shocked. “You would move here? But how would you ever leave the mountain? That place is your home. You’ve lived there your entire life, haven’t you?”
“I may have lived there my entire life, but it’s not my home anymore. Not unless you’re there. As much as it would kill me to leave the mountain behind, life without you would kill me more.”
Joel held his breath as Anna looked up at him. She was standing close enough that he could have tilted his head down and kissed her again. But he didn’t. Not for now. Now, he waited. He watched as the woman who held his future in her hands considered everything he’d just said. He could see that she wanted to agree with him, but he could also see that she was still scared. Her eyes looked wary, and he felt his heart tightening in his chest as she spoke.
Rescued on Bear Mountain Page 9