by Dixon, Ruby
Something tells me that the guy back in town wouldn’t say something like that to me. The way he looked me over made me feel like he appreciated the way I look. I need a guy like him, I decide. Maybe if I see him again, I’ll shore up my courage and ask him out.
Oh, who am I kidding? I’ve never asked out a man in my life. And I showed up with Bill. He’s going to think I’m an idiot with terrible taste in men…and he wouldn’t be wrong about the latter part. I unfurl one of the tent rods, and peer at the directions. Looks simple enough.
Twenty minutes later, I have all the pieces of the tent spread out on the grass, and I snake the poles through the built-in loops of the dome tent. I manage to get the thing popped up and staked into the ground before I realize that I have the entire thing put together wrong. The door of the tent is on the bottom, for starters. I put my hands on my hips and drum my fingers, thinking.
As I do, I hear a rustling in the bushes.
I turn, half-afraid of what’s going to come out. A bear, maybe? Or Bill, raring for a fight?
A few moments later, a tall, familiar form emerges from the brush. It’s the ridiculously hot guy from the sporting goods store. Oh, jeez. My face heats up automatically. It’s like he heard my thoughts from up here.
“Knock knock,” he says, pretending to knock on a nearby tree. He’s smiling at me, and God, he looks good. The tight shirt he’s wearing emphasizes the broadness of his shoulders, and I can practically see every muscle outlined under that thin cotton. The jeans he’s wearing are tight fitting and seem a bit awkward, but he wears them like a pro. I think the man could dress in burlap and still be sex walking.
I bite my lip and resist the urge to fan my heated face. I try to think of something fun and flirty to say. Remember when you said you’d hit on that, Caro, if you ever saw him again? Fate heard you. Time to act.
Unfortunately, what comes out is, “What are you doing here?”
His brows go down and for a moment he looks angry. “Your boyfriend showed up in town without you. I was worried he’d left you behind.”
Oh. “He did.” I carefully fold the tent instructions to give my hands something to do, and hope he doesn’t notice that I’ve put the thing together all wrong. “I…might have picked a fight with him to make him go away.”
The slow smile spreads over his face again. “Did you now?”
My entire body feels flushed with heat. “This was supposed to, um, be a reunion tour of sorts. Except it felt like a mistake right away.” I cross my arms over my chest, and prod a rock with my toe. Gosh, it’s hard to make eye contact when he’s so gorgeous and smiling at me. “I do appreciate you coming to look for me though. That was…sweet.”
“Can’t let someone as pretty as you get eaten by bears,” he teases.
Oh, God, flirting. I’m so terrible at flirting. I should laugh, right? Okay. Laugh, Caro! He’s making a joke! Laugh!
A braying laugh escapes me, and I’m horrified at the sound. I clap a hand over my mouth and stare at him.
He clears his throat and thumbs a gesture back to the woods. “You want an escort back to town?”
“Nope,” I say brightly, and tuck a lock of hair behind my ear. I whip out the instructions again. “I’m setting up my camp. I wanted a nice weekend away from things, and it just got a lot nicer now that Bill left.”
He laughs. “You want some help with that? You’ll need a fire, and it’ll be getting dark soon. I could get you some wood. Or…” he gestures at my sad tent, “fix that.”
My cheeks heat. “That would be lovely, thank you. How much do I owe you?”
“No charge. Just being friendly.” He moves toward my tent and immediately begins to slide the poles out of the incorrect holes that I jammed them through. “I’m Leo.”
“Hi, Leo,” I breathe. “I’m Caro, um, Caroline, really, but my friends call me Caro.”
“Yup.” He looks back at me. “I remember.”
He remembered my name? A girlish flutter of excitement curls in my belly.
3
LEO
I pull up the stakes and spread the tent liner on the ground.
“Oh, is that what that sheet of plastic was for? I thought maybe it was like a carpet.”
“Nope. Ground gets wet during the night and morning, so a liner helps keep you warm.”
“The instructions aren’t very helpful,” she notes, nibbling on the side of her mouth. Her beautiful, succulent, pouty mouth, which I’d like to have pressed against me in a hundred different ways. In her late afternoon, post-tent struggle camping gear, Caroline should look worn out. But instead, happiness glows on her face, and even the light sweat she worked up in putting the tent together makes her look good enough to eat. Granted, she put the tent together wrong and didn’t have the first clue on how to build a fire, but it was the effort that counted.
“We get that a lot back at the store,” I reassure her.
“Are you just saying that to make me feel better?”
I shake my head. “We actually have lessons in the back for the newer campers so that the first time they are putting it together isn’t out here at the site with no one around them.” When her sunny face starts to cloud over, I tell her, “I’d have offered it to you but I figured you were in a hurry to get on the road.”
She fiddles with the pile of logs and sticks that I’m guessing is the start of her campfire. “You’re right. Bill wouldn’t have wanted to wait.”
“What brings you to Pine Falls?” I ask, because it obviously isn’t the camping experience. By the looks of the tent, it doesn’t appear she’s ever seen one before. I give her credit for figuring out how to loop the poles in though, even if she did it wrong. I pull down the tent as she talks.
“My friend Susan told me about it. Her pictures made the entire place look amazing and, well, she said it saved her marriage. And I thought…I thought it’d help repair my relationship with Bill. We’ve never had a good one, and I guess I should have let him go, but I’m getting older and I wanted a family.” She looks down again. “That’s not a very modern thing for me to say, is it?”
“Nothing wrong with wanting a family. I’d like one.” It takes only a few swift motions to get the tent put back together. I set it on the tarp and start staking it.
“Is that right? Bill said that—”
“How about we just forget about Bill for now?” I interrupt. I want to move on from Bill. If she’s still hung up on him, that would suck.
“Good idea. So you run the rental shop? The one where I got all the stuff?” Without asking, she goes to the opposite corner and pulls a corner of the tent tight while I pound the stake in.
“Nah, just watching it for a friend of mine. He's off with a girlfriend probably making babies. So what kind of family do you want? A big one, little one?”
“Oh, I want a big one. I want four or five kids. I want a big house full of noise and mess and hugs and kisses.”
And she wanted all that with Bill? He came off so selfish that I’d be surprised if he was able to keep a goldfish alive. I pound the last stake in and pull out my lighter. Time to get the fire going.
“What about you? What kind of family do you want?” she asks, following me from the tent to the little pit in the ground.
I crouch down and start taking out the bigger logs. “A big one, like you.”
“Yeah?” She smiles at me.
“Yeah.” I grin back. “I like everything about kids, particularly the making of them.”
She blushes, and I beat back my desire to take her to the hard ground right now. I’m here to help her, not fuck her. I show her what kind of firewood we need, and she searches for it while I toss the sleeping bags on the ground. I don’t find any air mattresses or pads. It’s going to be a tough night if I have to sleep in human form. My bear body is better suited to sleeping out in the forest, but my human clay enjoys soft things like feather beds and clean sheets.
The thought of my big bed back in my cabin has me con
juring up other images. Like Caroline spread out on the white sheets, her brown hair all mussed up from my hands, and her skin dewy with sweat. I have no doubt she’d taste salty and sweet at the same time—my favorite combination of flavors.
The fire is raging by the time she returns with a couple of good birch logs. I readjust my dick as covertly as possible before I scare her away. The last thing she needs now is some strange bear dogging her every step. I’m here to make sure she has a good time and doesn’t get roughed up by the forest. Lots of ladies like to flirt and not take it anywhere, I remind myself. And there’s no harm in that at all. A pretty lady, some mutual exchange of admiration, a warm fire, and a honey beer? That’s a good night in any bear’s book.
“I brought some brats and beer if you’re interested,” I tell her when she takes a seat on the log next to mine.
“Sure. That sounds better than the meal I had planned.” She rummages in a knapsack and pulls out two smushed sandwiches, which smell like peanut butter and jelly. Yum.
“I’ll take those as an appetizer. They smell great.”
“Really? I thought I was the only one over thirty who liked peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Bill hates them. I don’t know why I made them for this trip.” She looks at the plastic-wrapped sandwich with confusion. Because you were already planning on breaking up with the asshole, I think.
I pull out two sticks and jab the brats on the end of each one, and then set them in the little holders I’ve made so we don’t burn our faces off trying to cook the meat. “Nah. PBJ is the good shit. I like ’em even better with honey instead of jam. Although your raspberry jam smells good.”
“How do you know it’s raspberry?” She hands over one.
“Good snout.” I tap the side of my nose.
“Really good.” She lifts the package to her own nose and sniffs delicately.
And good hearing. About a mile off, I hear crashing in the forest. Some stupid bear is getting too close to my campsite. The hair on the back of my neck rises up in indignation. Hopefully, he’ll smell my tracks and veer off in another direction without a word from me.
I turn my attention back to Caroline. “What do you do for a living in the city?”
“I’m a medical transcriptionist. I’m not with a big agency or anything. I work for myself, and most of my jobs are delivered online. The Internet makes it so easy for us these days. I have clients all over the country. It’s really slick.”
“Sounds like you could work anywhere if you wanted to.”
“Definitely. Someday I’d like to live in a cabin in the woods in a place like this. It’s so beautiful.” She stretches her arms, and I can’t help but watch her move. She’s as beautiful as the birds gliding over the clear blue waters, and my breath catches in my throat.
I start to lean forward toward her to tell her how gorgeous she is, and that sleeping in the same tent tonight and not being able to touch her is going to kill me. I’d do it, but it’ll be painful torture. The words die on my tongue when the bear lumbering in the woods decides to join us.
I don’t even bother to turn around. I know this bear by scent. It’s Malcolm Standard, a loner who sells wood sculptures to fancy galleries out west. He was featured in some national art magazine after one of the editors found a piece of his work at the Trading Store several years back. Apparently, his pieces sell for a fortune, but he lives like a hermit.
“Leo Prufuchs, mind if I join your fire?”
Yeah, actually, I mind a hell of a lot. Caro starts in surprise. “Is someone there?”
Fuck. I push to my feet and confront Mal. “What are you doing out of your den?”
“Smelled something good,” he grunts. When he comes close enough to be illuminated by the firelight, I see that he’s wearing clothes from one of the caches we bears hide in the woods. We all take turns resupplying them for just this purpose—running around in bear form and coming upon humans. But as I look closely, it appears he’s wearing…fuck, those are my clothes that he’s wearing, and that’s my woman he’s taking a seat next to.
Wait. My woman?
I sniff the air again, and the scent of strange male testosterone is invading the perfect harmony we were just enjoying. My heart starts thudding, and the urge to break out my claws itches the back of my hands. A low growl rumbles in my throat.
“There’s nothing for you here,” I snarl at Mal.
Across the fire pit, he smirks at me and extends his long legs so that they’re lying way too close to Caro’s.
“Um, it’s okay. I have some more food in the…” Caro’s voice trails off when I stalk forward and kick that asshole’s boot away from the fire.
“I repeat. There’s nothing for you here.” The animalistic desire to defend my territory is overwhelming everything else. I can hardly believe what is happening to me. I’m the original good-time guy. Ladies all over the Boundary Waters know that if they need a companion, I’m a phone call away, but here I am, ready to rip a friend limb from limb for having the audacity to sit within five feet of my mate. If Malcolm doesn’t move his ass, Caroline is going to get an eyeful of fur and fighting.
“So you found her? You lucky bastard.” Malcolm sighs and gets to his feet. “I didn’t smell the mate bond so I figured it was just another tourist.”
“Mate bond? What’s going on?” Caro interjects, but both Malcolm and I ignore her. I can’t take my eyes off another predator when my mate is near, particularly because Malcolm is right. There’s no bond between us yet. Her scent is completely undiluted by mine. A true mate would be smothered in my seed and my scent.
“We just met,” I answer stiffly.
“Like I said, you’re a lucky bastard.” He shoves his hands into his borrowed jeans, and with a nod toward Caroline, starts walking down the same dark path he came from. His dejected look has me trailing after him.
“I didn’t know you wanted a mate.”
“Always have. Just because I live alone doesn’t mean that’s how I want it for the rest of my life.” He stops and turns back to the fire where Caro stands, hands on hips, looking confused. “You going to miss your bachelorhood?”
I look at him like he’s nuts. “Are you kidding? I’ve been looking for her my whole life—that’s why I’ve been mucking around all over the place.”
“And she just falls into your lap? Shit, Leo, everything comes easy for you.”
“Easy?” I object. “I’ve spent years in all the wrong beds. I’m sorry that I didn’t wait until she came around. I kept thinking, maybe this girl will be the one, but she never was. Fuck, I didn’t even realize Caro was the one until you showed up. I almost fucked it up.”
He gives me an impatient glare. “You only get one mate. Don’t screw up.”
With those not-very-comforting words, he disappears. I walk back to the fire where Caro has gone from confused to a mite angry. She probably wants an explanation, and I’m not sure what to say that won’t have her running into the woods. Oh, by the way, I’m a shapeshifting bear and you’re my mate. Hope you don’t mind.
4
CAROLINE
“So…who was that?” I frown at Leo as he returns to the fire, without our new visitor.
This is all so strange. I went from camping in a remote spot with my ex Bill, to no Bill and two hot guys dropping by my campsite. I’m starting to feel like the locals are messing with me, and the fact that both men are wearing clothes that don’t seem to fit them properly isn’t helping.
But Leo’s gorgeous, and his smile is friendly as he returns to sit across from me at the campfire. He flops down on the grass and crosses his legs like he camps with strangers every day, and begins to spit the brats on one of the sticks we’ve prepared. “That’s just Mal.”
“Did he want to stay for dinner?”
“Nope. He just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
I soften a bit at that. This town seems to be full of friendly people. “That was nice of him. You sure he had to go? I thought he said s
omething about a mate.”
“Date,” Leo corrects quickly, and hands me a spitted sausage to turn over the flames. “He said he had a date tonight.”
“I’m pretty sure I heard ‘mate’—”
“Date,” Leo affirms. “You have mustard?”
My brows draw together. Is he trying to change the subject? “I don’t think so.”
He grunts and twirls his brat in the flames, crisping the exterior. “Guess I’ll have to bring some next time.”
Next time? This is all feeling very strange to me. I brush a lock of hair back from my face and scoot closer to the fire, since it’s getting later and the biting bugs are coming out. “Look, Leo, I really appreciate you coming up here to help me, but I’m fine now. I think I can handle things if you’re ready to go home. I’m sure this is annoying for you to have to spend your day fixing up my campsite for me.”
He snorts and turns his stick with a twist of his wrist. “Not bored in the slightest. I like the company.”
“You…do?”
“Yeah.”
I try to remember what-all we’ve talked about. Families, future children, and tents. Those aren’t exactly hot conversations for sexy single men. Actually, the ‘future children’ conversation should have made him run for the hills like his buddy Mal. “Really?”
“Why is that so hard to believe?” He grins at me, and I immediately feel all flushed and bothered. It’s just strange to think of this gorgeous man enjoying hanging out with me.
“Because we don’t know each other all that well.”
“That’s an easy fix.” He moves over to my side of the fire and takes my stick from my hand. “Here, let me do that. You’re holding it too far out of the fire to cook it.”
“Oh. Sorry.” I’m not really paying attention to my dinner at all. I’m paying more attention to Leo. There’s something about the way he moves—all easy grace despite his big form. It’s fascinating. If Bill moved his body like that…well, I wouldn’t have had to fake orgasms. Then I blush for even thinking about that.