“No, of course not.”
“You’re sure? I know it’s fast and we said we wanted to take things slow, but—”
“It feels like exactly the right time,” she said.
“Yes. It does to me, too.”
“Then that’s all that matters.”
Reinicke
Bear Dating Agency V
by
Becca Fanning
Prologue
The most irritating thing in the world was a ‘happily ever after’. As the director of an incredibly popular dating agency, Karina Vasquez was responsible for such miracles occurring every damn day. She was inundated with calls from those who she’d set up, wanting to thank her for making their dreams come true. And, when grateful past clients weren’t clogging up her phone line, new ones with dreams of their own were battering down her door. In simple terms, she had become far too good at her job. Demand was outweighing what she could supply, and there was only one solution to the problem, as far as Karina could see.
The sign on her office door read: “Out to lunch. Permanently.”
She had driven to the place where happy childhood memories called, memories of a time when there were no demands or pressures placed on her. It was the place where her mother, Rose, had taught her to swim, and where her father, Javier, had cooked ribs on a rickety old barbeque. As she arrived in Fairhaven Park, the sun was shining with a glorious brilliance, and all at once she was no longer a twenty-five year old business sensation in the world of romance. Karina was as free as the birds that soared above her.
Best of all, work could not follow her here. Not long ago she’d had four clients in this very park, all of them brothers with the surname Best. But now they were paired off, a domino effect of happily ever afters that had been part of the boom which sent Karina off the deep end. That meant there were no eligible men seeking love here, only a park full of quiet, silent places where she could forget that the rest of the world existed. It was going to be heaven.
And then there was a crash, and Karina rocked in the seat of her car.
“Watch where you’re damn going!” said a voice that was almost a growl.
Karina threw her head out of her car window, watching as a man in the Land Rover opposite her did the same. He had tawny brown hair cut straight and sensible, and his face was the most serious one Karina had ever seen. He had a strong jaw pulled into a grumpy sneer and shining eyes that appeared gold by the light of the brilliant sun. For a moment, Karina just looked at him, mesmerized. Before she remembered what he’d said, and done.
“You bumped my car!” she decreed, outraged.
“You were daydreaming!” the man insisted. “You came straight at me.”
“Come on!” Karina retaliated at once. “It’s a wide road. You could have gone around! You’re just one of those assholes who likes to make trouble.”
“Sure I am,” the man replied, “but I’m also responsible for other people’s safety here. Can’t let a menace like you go unchecked.”
It was then that Karina spotted the badge glinting on his lapel. He was in some kind of uniform, and further inspection of his car revealed a huge logo for Fairhaven on the side, along with the words: Park Ranger Service.
“Shit,” Karina said quietly.
“Indeed,” the man said sharply. “My name’s Reinicke, by the way. I suggest you avoid me for the duration of your stay.”
He drove off, snaking around her car before she could bite back with the insult that was bursting on her tongue. Reinicke. It was such a peculiar name. It was one that Karina knew would stick in her head and come back to haunt her. She clutched her steering wheel tightly.
“Jawohl, mein herr,” she grumbled as she too drove away.
The plan was simple. Stay one night at the Old Spring Inn, prepare herself, and then let the adventure begin. Karina stood at the mirror the next morning, taking stock of her situation and kind of wondering if she hadn’t overreacted a little to the stress of her job. After a good night’s sleep in a comfortable bed and an ample room service breakfast, she was beginning to feel relaxed already. Perhaps she didn’t have to go the whole hog and trek completely off the grid.
She was dressed in shorts and a shirt, with a vest underneath and a waterproof tucked into a baggie that hung from her backpack. Her dark locks hung around her face, and Karina studied herself as she pulled them back into an austere pony tail, no single hair escaping from her grip. Her face was still pretty, when it wasn’t contorted by stress, with glimmering dark eyes and full lips. Somewhere in that reflection, there was a carefree girl whose only wish had been to make other people happy by finding their true love. If she could just find that girl again, things would be all right.
Karina had bought all the gear for camping out in the wild. She intended to trek to the northern section of the park, reserved for serious hikers and those who wanted to disappear for several days and be one with nature. She wasn’t a serious hiker by any means, and the store tags still attached to half her stuff would attest to that, but how hard could it be? She did cardio and hot yoga every day back in LA. She was in shape. There was no reason to think that she couldn’t handle a few days alone in the wilderness.
Yet, there was that worry again. Her office, though busy and unbearably loud, was her kingdom. She was comfortable there, in her ergonomic chair, drinking imported coffee. Life was hectic, but it had order to it. She knew what to do in LA. Out here, there were lots of things she’d need to learn, and learn them quickly to stay safe. She moved from the mirror to her backpack, fishing down among the layers of equipment to find her phone.
It had been switched off from the moment she put that impetuous sign up on her office door. Yet she had packed it to take on her trek, like an extra limb that she couldn’t quite part from. Tentatively, Karina held down the button to bring the phone back to life. She dropped it onto the bed at once as it roared with a cacophony of beeps, clicks and buzzes. Messages were coming in from every available outlet, lighting up the screen like a fireworks display. Karina felt her heart grow tight at the prospect of answering them all, and she settled for sending only one reply.
A single tweet from her official account:
Hiking in the woods to get some me time. #offgrid
She turned the phone off and buried it deep within her bag once more.
***
By the time Karina reached the little visitor’s hut that marked the start of the northern section of Fairhaven, she was more determined than ever to leave life behind for a few days. Inside the visitor’s hut there were only three people besides herself, and the emptiness of the charming little place made her feel calm at once. She stepped across to a display unit filled with pamphlets, observing the different maps and walking trails that were available in this part of the park. She began picking up different leaflets, looking at their covers. They seemed to be color-coded, ranging from easy treks that only lasted an afternoon, up to full circuits of the highest peaks and lowest valleys that California had to offer. She wanted to be gone for a few days at least to clear her head, so she loaded up on mid-level maps.
“Yeah, you’re going to need crampons if you’re taking Route 9B.” A voice drifted towards her from the other people assembled. “I wouldn’t do it at this time of day personally. That trail is south-facing and the sun’ll be on your back for the whole climb up. If you want my advice, take Route 13 round the lake for the daytime and connect to 9B at about six tonight. You’ll be on the peak as the day cools off, and at the top for sunset.”
It was quite a romantic idea, but the voice delivering the instructions was arrogant and brisk. Karina knew that voice already, and she wished that she didn’t. He should have been so easy to forget, just another jerk picking on women drivers, but as she heard the couple thanking him for his advice, she had to look over.
He was looking her way. They both turned their heads back to their business at that, one spark in the connection of their eyes. He still had golden eyes, even in the poor fluore
scent light inside the hut. Karina felt like they’d shone straight into her own dark gaze and lit it up for a moment. She hated that feeling, the twist of her gut when she met someone who got to her. It didn’t happen very often, and it certainly shouldn’t have been happening with him of all people. The guy with the funny name that she hadn’t managed to make herself forget.
“Can I help you with something, Ma’am?” he asked, starting to approach her. “Directions to driver’s ed, perhaps?”
Karina bit the inside of her cheek, choosing to smile away the insult as she turned to face Reinicke again. He was considerably taller than her, nearly a whole head and shoulders, and almost twice as broad. She found herself looking at his muscular chest, where a smattering of brown hair was peeking out through the gap in an undone button.
“Sloppy,” she said, pointing at it at once.
That got his goat, and Reinicke adjusted his shirt at once. His clothes seemed just slightly too small for him, his muscles bulging everywhere. Karina did her best not to give him a deliberate once-over, despite his impressive frame. She looked at his face, which was flushed with a hacked off look, and she smiled at him again. Reinicke set his jaw tightly, and his eyes washed over Karina’s body. She felt that twist in her gut again as she watched him, watching her.
“You’re camping out north?” he asked dryly. “Really?”
Perhaps it did look odd for a short half-Latina girl to be carrying a backpack that was almost her own size. But Karina hiked the bag up proudly and stood as tall as she could manage. Who was this guy to tell her what she could and couldn’t do?
“Obviously,” she answered.
“Have you ever hiked before?” he added.
The second phrase was less insulting, and he had less of the bite in his tone. It was a genuine question, and one that Karina had asked herself that very morning.
“Sure I have,” she lied at once. “Tons of times.”
“But not here?” Reinicke said, and it almost wasn’t a question. “Somehow, I think I’d remember seeing you if you had.”
She heard what he was driving at in the way his tone went flat at the end of the sentence. If he’d been talking to someone else that way, Karina might have found that wry humor amusing. Reinicke spoke his mind, at least. There was no falseness to him. Yet every time he opened his mouth, Karina felt her temper shoot up like a rocket. He was bad for her stress levels, and she needed to get away from him as soon as possible.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get started before the hottest part of the day sinks in,” she said briskly.
It was total bullshit, derived from what she’d overheard him warn the others about, and to her surprise he seemed to buy it. Karina began to stride through the visitor’s hut, towards the open door at the other end where the wilds of nature awaited. She was nervous, quaking inside and a little off-kilter from her second run-in with Reinicke, but she knew she had to do this. It was a test of herself, to see if she could live without the lifestyle she’d been buried in for so long.
“Hey, just one second!”
She heard Reinicke’s footsteps thump up to her before she turned. Some of the sternness had fallen from his face, making him look his true, youthful age. Before she could protest, he shoved something into her hand. Karina looked down to find it was a small, blocky radio, stamped with the seal of the Fairhaven Rangers.
“It’s a courtesy,” Reinicke said simply, “for people who aren’t familiar with the territory.”
“And this calls who, exactly?” Karina challenged.
“Me,” Reinicke replied. “I’m here in the day and at the mountain outpost all night.”
“I really don’t think I’ll need it,” she began to say, but Reinicke shook his head.
“I’m afraid I have to insist. It’s the rules.”
He was so proper, so stiff and unmovable. Karina tucked the radio into her pocket with a reluctant sigh.
“Don’t hang by the phone for my call or anything,” she teased.
Reinicke gave a little scoff.
“Believe me, I have better things to do,” he shot back.
And on that note, Karina Vasquez left the visitor’s hut to begin the adventure she’d always wanted to have.
Hiking was hard. Karina had known it would be a challenge for her, but as the hours went by, she realized that she was definitely out of her depth. She had been following a yellow route marked on the map, one of the Level 2 difficulties, to have something easy to start with. But somewhere along the way, she’d taken a right instead of a left, and now she was pretty sure she was halfway up a Level 4 hillside. And it was the hottest part of the day. The sun beat down on her head, making her hair feel like it was on fire, and she decided that she had to stop and find a hat and some water.
Although her bag seemed to be getting heavier by the minute, she was grateful for all the supplies she’d packed. The spotty teen adviser in the Great Outdoors store back home had been very, very helpful. She’d suspected he was all too keen to help a pretty young woman for a change, instead of the grizzled forty-something men he usually had to advise. Karina glugged some water down from one of several bottles she had with her, then she threw on a ridiculous-looking hat with a floppy brim all the way around it. The look was hideous, but the relief from the sun was heavenly.
According to her map, she just had to get over the other side of the hill, then there’d be another crossing of the paths. There, she’d make a left, then she could get back onto her original route and find a nice grassy place to pitch up and get some much-needed rest. Karina looked up at the peak ahead, craning her neck to try and see where it ended. She heaved out a heavy sigh, put her pack back on, and trudged forward again in the heat.
As the minutes went by, she began to make out a shape on the horizon. At the very top of the hill there was a thin-looking person with similar camping gear, sitting on a mossy rock. He was about Karina’s age with very dark skin, and he sat looking out on the view with a morose sort of expression. When Karina eventually arrived at the top of the peak, the young man was still there, and he noticed her as she set her bag down beside him.
“If you came for the view, I’d say it’s worth it,” he remarked.
Karina turned as he pointed beyond him, and what she saw took her breath away. The peak overlooked a low valley to its north, shaded from the midday sun and glowing with a million different hues of green. There was a glorious lake that snaked off into a river where it met the trees, and patches of those same trees popped up all around the valley to pepper it with darkness. Between these patches, lush fields of low grass and bushes sprang out. It all looked so cool and peaceful, and Karina couldn’t wait to get down there and enjoy its shade and calm.
“Wow,” she breathed. “I actually did it. I climbed a freaking mountain.”
Her fellow hiker gave her a grin.
“Your first time here too?” he asked. “I’ve never done Fairhaven before. It’s a heck of a challenge. I’ve been sitting here nearly an hour trying to get my breath back. I seriously thought I was dying on the way up.”
Karina chuckled. She approached the man and held out her hand to him.
“Karina,” she said.
“Bud,” he answered.
“You know,” she continued, “if you were seriously struggling, you could have just called the ranger on that radio thingy.”
Bud’s brows crossed in confusion.
“Radio thingy?” he repeated.
Karina got the little black block out of her pocket and showed it to him.
“Sure,” she began, “it’s for first time hikers. You didn’t get one?”
Bud shook his head, staring at the box.
“Oh, well maybe you didn’t meet the ranger down at the hut,” Karina reasoned.
Joel (BBW Bear Shifter Wedding Romance) (Grizzly Groomsmen Book 5) Page 45