by Abigail Owen
“I was a few feet away,” he called after her.
She ignored him and pushed through the snow to where her kill lay. It had been a clean shot, thank goodness. She was worried she’d have to use a knife to finish the job, and that thought turned her stomach. But a girl had to eat.
“I said you could have shot me.” A now furious Shane showed up beside her.
“I’m a very good shot, and I was watching for you.” With a deft twist, she pulled the bow around from her back where she’d strapped it, then stood and picked up the hare by the back feet.
“Oh really?” He still seemed at a bit of a loss.
She held up the hare for him to see. “Yup.”
Shane looked away, rage clenching his jaw tight. “Go inside,” he growled.
She narrowed her eyes, tempted to argue with him, but she could see the fury in his eyes. Having dealt with male cougars all her life, she recognized that he needed time to cool down.
Without a word, she turned around. She was back at her spot on the couch, reading her ancient copy of a Louis L’Amour book when he followed her in. Despite the fact that she was listening for him, she didn’t hear Shane’s approach. Cougars were silent creatures, and he was particularly stealthy.
“Want to explain all that?” he asked in a reasonable voice.
Huh. Apparently, he cooled down faster than most male cougars. Mr. Self-Control. She should’ve known. She raised her eyebrows. “I was shooting our dinner.”
“Where’d you get this?” He held up her weapon. She’d left it on the porch until he had time to cool down.
“In the weapons locker in the basement.”
“I told you to stay here.”
“I did. I used the porch as a hide.”
He looked down, lips tight, like he was holding back a rebuke. “Where’d you learn to shoot? I know you can’t walk through nature without scaring every living creature off, so you’re not a hunter.”
“Dad taught me in secret.” She glanced over and caught a confused frown on his face.
“Why?”
She sighed. “A couple reasons. Mostly, as Alpha, he needed to create a perception that he could protect me if it came down to it. But, from a logical standpoint, being able to defend myself is important. So…” She shrugged.
He stared at her for a long moment then walked around the couch to sit at the other end. She pulled her feet in to give him space.
“Only the crossbow?”
She blinked, thrown off by the question. She hadn’t expected him to be practical.
“I’m better with a rifle but didn’t see one down there.”
“But you’ve never hunted? Never killed anything?”
She shook her head.
He ran a hand over his face. “All right. No more shooting when I’m out there. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’m sorry I yelled.”
Tieryn’s lips twitched.
“What?”
“In all my life I never thought I’d hear those words out of your lips.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. Well…” He levered off the couch. “We still need to eat dinner.” He paused and gave her what she suspected was his version of a teasing smile. Hard to tell under the beard. “Ever skinned a rabbit?”
She shook her head and tried to look contrite and pleading at the same time.
He shot her an exasperated glance from under his brows but nodded. “All right.”
“Thank you,” she called after his retreating back.
Shane Callahan was a mystery—one moment rough and edgy, the next a logical and reasonable man, and the next teasing. One who even knew how to apologize, rare in the cougar community with their pride. She honestly didn’t know what to make of him.
****
The snow started falling again just before sundown. “Dammit,” Tieryn grumbled as she gazed out the window as the large white flakes falling, illuminated by the glow of their lamps inside.
“Can’t do anything about it,” Shane reasoned from behind her.
She turned, nose wrinkled in disdain, to find him leaning up against the kitchen counter beside the stovetop where he was frying up the meat in a skillet. “Why aren’t you more upset?” she wondered.
He glanced outside. “No use yelling at the weather. It’s not going to listen.”
“Since when did you become Mr. Glass-Is-Half-Full?” she grumbled.
He sent her a small smile but didn’t answer.
Tieryn swallowed and tried not to melt into a puddle of need at his feet. That smile was lethal. She was almost glad that he didn’t use it too often. Irritated with her own reactions, she moved away from the window to take a seat at the kitchen table—a rustic wooden thing, large enough for polar bear shifters, that spat out splinters if you brushed against it. “I got the impression, when we first met, that you had somewhere else you wanted to be. What changed?”
His easy pose wasn’t so easy any more. She couldn’t pinpoint why, but she knew he was tense. “I’m not sure what gave you that impression. I just wasn’t interested in babysitting you.”
Rather than take offense, she ignored the words and paid more attention to the tension now radiating from his strong body. “But technically you still are,” she pointed out. “Only now it’s indefinite.”
He turned his back on her to flip the meat. “And you tried to shoot me.”
She rolled her eyes. He was avoiding the discussion. “Too bad I missed.”
He stayed facing the stovetop, but she thought she heard a snort of amusement.
He wasn’t going to open up to her, so she dropped it. She moved to stand beside him. “I’ve never had rabbit. Smells good.”
“Just about anything does when you’re hungry,” he drawled.
“True.” Her stomach gurgled its agreement as he reached to flip the meat again. At the movement of his hand, her gaze fell on a tattoo she’d noticed before. “What’s that?”
He glanced at her from around the fall of his hair. “What?”
“This.” She reached for his hand and ran the tip of her finger over the small “B” tattoo located on the fleshy part of his hand between his thumb and finger.
He stilled under her touch. Instead of pulling away, he laid his other hand on top of hers, trapping her there.
Heat pooled in her belly and spread like wildfire through her veins at the simple touch. She didn’t dare lift her gaze, keeping it riveted on their hands.
“My wife’s name was Brenna,” he admitted.
Not expecting him to admit anything to her, she raised startled eyes to find him watching her with an intensity both disturbing and exhilarating. Her breathing trapped in her throat.
“Did you love her?” she whispered.
He nodded slowly, not taking his eyes from hers.
“What was it like?”
She didn’t think he was going to answer at first. Then his eyes softened with the memory. “It was…like coming home,” he murmured. “I’d known her since childhood. We were best friends.”
If anything, the glimpse of the softer man he must’ve been stoked the fire inside her more. “A grand passion then?” She wondered, for the first time in her life, what that might feel like.
He shook his head, a barely there move, but still. “No. More like warmth, understanding, and acceptance. Not something like—”
She couldn’t look away even if she wanted to. “Something like what?” she whispered.
Her heart might fly out of her chest when he released her hands to reach up and take her face in his. He ran the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip, and she whimpered at the sensations he stirred in her.
“Like this.” He groaned before he lowered his head and took her lips in a kiss that strummed through every nerve ending in her body.
His lips took over in a slow, drugging exchange as he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in close to the hard, hot length of his body. They couldn’t get close enough. Lips and tongues
tangled, and she lost herself completely to the sensations he stirred inside her. She’d never experienced such pleasure, such…need.
Her arms inched up around his neck, and she buried her fingers in his hair. Inadvertently she brushed the scar tissue on the side of his head with her hand, but she hardly noticed. He did, though. With a move both violent and gentle, he suddenly took her by the shoulders and set her back from him. They stared at each other, breathing hard, for a long moment. Tieryn lifted a shaking hand to her lips. She could still taste him, feel the rough scratch of his beard.
Rationality returned, penetrating the haze of desire. She glanced at the stove. “The rabbit’s going to burn,” she mumbled. Then she spun on her heel and made her way to the bathroom where she stared at herself in the mirror.
“What’re you doing?” she accused her reflection. She looked like…well, like a woman who’d just been kissed. Her lips were red and gleaming, her eyes drowsy with passion, her cheeks flushed. “You’re an engaged woman.”
But now she was rethinking that decision. Not because she’d leave Gage for Shane, but perhaps the marriage of convenience wasn’t as well planned as she’d thought. Maybe there was something to say for desire?
She splashed cold water on her face, grateful the water was painfully cold. The chill helped snap her out of the crazy moment of passion.
Chapter Thirteen
Shane moved the pan to a cool burner and turned off the hot one. Then he leaned his hands on the counter and hung his head as he struggled to get his body back under control. “What were you thinking, Callahan?”
He aimed the harsh question at himself because that kiss had been all him. The second she’d touched him so softly, his body had short-circuited his mind. Even now, he was uncomfortably hard. He couldn’t really blame her for what happened. Tieryn was a touchy-feely person, as evidenced by her interactions with various people at the Kuharte conference. Which made her engagement even more of an enigma. She rarely mentioned her fiancé. If anything, she seemed to forget about the guy. Still, she was taken. But the second she’d touched his hand in that feather-light way, good sense had deserted him.
He straightened when he heard the bathroom door open and busied himself getting out plates and serving the meat, boxed mashed potatoes, and canned green beans he’d cooked for their dinner.
He turned to the table to find her seated and utterly composed. He resisted the urge to adjust himself.
“Thanks,” she murmured when he put the plate down in front of her.
They ate in silence. The rabbit wasn’t anything to write home about, tasting much like chicken. No seasonings meant it was just fried up plain, but it was protein.
When she finished, Tieryn took her plate to the sink where she washed it and placed it on the drying rack on the counter. She then proceeded to clean the pots and pans as well. Shane watched her closely as he continued to eat his meal.
Finally, she turned around, leaning her hips against the counter. She crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive move that screamed stay away.
He remained in his chair.
“I think we should put my gift to the test,” she said after a moment.
Shane frowned. “Are you talking about healing my ear?”
She shook her head. “Of course I’ll do that for you if you’d like, but I’m talking about getting out of here.”
Shane spun her words through his mind, trying to find where she was going with them. Realization struck.
He slashed his arm through the air. “No.”
She held up a hand to stay his objection, and he closed his mouth with a snap.
“Think about it. If I’m in physical danger at any point, as a Survivor, my gift should kick in.”
He lifted a single eyebrow. “And what happens should you transport without me?”
“Don’t go too far away. I get a tingling sensation as a warning. As long as you stick close, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Do you know it’ll kick in if the danger is frostbite? Or starvation?”
She squirmed. “Not a hundred percent. No.”
“Why?”
She blinked her confusion.
“Why risk both our lives? Are you that eager to get back to the fiancé?” He cringed inwardly and hoped she didn’t catch on to the implications so soon after he’d kissed her. He wasn’t jealous. He just didn’t like the guy on principle.
Her glare reminded him of a kitten about to pounce. “No,” she ground through her teeth. “I’m worried about all the Kuharte.”
He flattened his lips. He’d considered that himself. “Is there anything you can do about it?”
“Help?”
“Was that a question or a statement?” He didn’t mean to be such a jerk, but she obviously hadn’t thought this through and, for some reason he had no intention of exploring too deeply, he didn’t like the idea of her in danger.
Her hands flew to her hips. “I can help.”
He sat back in his chair and ran his fingers over the beard on his chin which had grown longer. Razors were not one of the items stocked here. “They don’t need one more Kuharte in danger.”
“But they might need my healing skills,” she pointed out reasonably.
“You don’t heal injuries, do you?” Man, he sounded like a total ass. But his job was to protect her, and that’s what he was going to do. Even from herself.
“No,” she mumbled.
“So what? You’re going to cure their chronic knee pain so they can fight?”
That earned him a glare. If a gaze could light someone on fire, he’d be burning.
“I can help,” she insisted stubbornly. He opened his mouth, but she continued before he could add another argument onto the pile. “And I have people who will be worried.”
That slowed him down but only a little. “Let’s not give them a real reason to worry. This is one of the safest places we could be.”
Arms akimbo, she paced back and forth in front of him. “So what’s your plan, then? You obviously have this all figured out.”
“Wait for the thaw.”
“Wait…for…the…” Her pacing slowed and she swung around to face him. “You can’t be serious.”
He looked at her.
“You’re serious,” she said slowly. “What if it’s months? That could happen, you said.”
“Then it’s months.”
She resumed her pacing. “No. No, no, no, no, no.”
He levered up from his seat, an action that stopped her in her tracks.
She watched him with a wide-eyed wariness that hadn’t been there before he’d kissed her, he realized grimly. “I’m going to do a quick check of the area and our equipment.”
Her eyes narrowed in displeasure. “We’re not done talking about this.”
“Yes, we are, princess,” he said over his shoulder, as he walked to the front door and opened it. “You just don’t know it.”
He shut the door behind him and blew out a long breath. He hadn’t liked the disappointment in her eyes. Disappointment in him. As he made his way to the end of the porch, he pulled his shirt over his head.
The front door swung open and banged into the wall. Light poured into the darkness around the form of a pissed-off woman. “I’m not—”
She stuttered to a halt at the sight of his naked torso. With obvious effort, she dragged her gaze up to his eyes. “I wasn’t done,” she finished.
“I was.”
He toed off his boots then dropped his hand to undo his belt buckle. She stood there, mute as he unbuttoned and unzipped. He pulled his pants down a bit before glancing over. “I’m happy to give you a show, if you want to stick around and watch, darlin’.”
“So it’s your way or not at all. Is that it?”
“Sounds about right.”
She ground her teeth before she whirled around and left, slamming the door closed behind her. He winced at the cracking protest the doorframe made. Shaking his head, he peeled his jeans
the rest of the way off, shifted, then trotted out into the night.
Old habits died hard. After years of worrying both about attacks from other shifters, as well as about being discovered by Walter Carstairs or any of the dare he faked his death for, the need to patrol their borders, making sure they didn’t have someone watching, had become compulsion. And in weather like this, checking the generator was always a good idea. Luckily, he’d seen to the woodpile earlier.
Had it been two days since they’d been here? It felt much longer. And yet, part of his refusal to talk about Tieryn’s idea was a reluctance to leave this place. It was almost like a little oasis they’d discovered, just for the two of them. No reality necessary.
Shane didn’t go back inside until he was sure Tieryn would be asleep. Avoidance? Absolutely.
He was right. She’d left a single light on in the living room for him, but otherwise the cabin was dark and silent. Using skills he’d learned at the hands of some of the quietest hunters on the planet, polar bear shifters, he crept inside. He pulled on his boxers, leaving the rest of his clothes near the fire to warm up. Then he snuck into the dark bedroom. As he pulled back the covers, he inhaled the floral scent that surrounded her, as though spring went with her everywhere.
Contented in a way he didn’t examine closely, he fell asleep beside Tieryn, barely resisting the urge to pull her into his arms.
Chapter Fourteen
Tieryn tossed a glance at the gray clouds above and prayed they wouldn’t start dumping more of the powdery junk she currently waded through at a glacial pace. Seriously, no wonder glaciers moved so slowly. There was a reason for that expression. A hard shiver shook her from top to tail. Why had she thought the stuff was beautiful again?
Thank goodness, the snow stopped at some point during the night, because this would be a helluva lot harder were it still snowing. At least in her feline form she didn’t have to worry about the cold as much. Granted she was a Florida puma, unused to this weather, but her kind was built for all terrains, all habitats.
Last night, after Shane ran away from their discussion—not that she’d call their one-sided chat a discussion—she’d decided she’d test out her theory without him. So she’d found a backpack and loaded it with provisions like dried jerky meat and a bottle of water. She’d snuck out this morning, just before dawn, stuffed her clothes in her backpack and shifted, carrying the bag in her jaws. The thing tasted like sour plastic, and she’d probably have cottonmouth by the time she got where she was going. But she couldn’t very well show up there naked, now could she?