“H-how did y-you find m-me?” he asked through chattering teeth.
“Long story. I’ll tell you later,” Clara said. “It’s not important right now. What is important is getting you out of here. Do you think your legs are broken?”
“I-I think they’re o-okay,” he said. “I-I j-just can’t m-move.”
Clara nodded, and then noticed with alarm that Carter’s fingertips looked slightly blue under the light of the flashlight. She needed to get him somewhere warm and dry as soon as possible. She swept the light over the beam, and knew that trying to move it herself would prove impossible. But if she called someone right now, it would take them at least an hour to get here. And leaving Carter pinned here in the cold rain for another hour didn’t seem like a good idea. Clara knew there was only one way she could move this log herself: her bear could do it. She hadn’t planned to reveal herself to Carter so soon, if ever. But this situation left her with little choice. He was already in bad shape, and seemed to have lost a lot of blood. If she didn’t act quickly, there might not even be a Carter left to reveal herself to anymore.
“Carter, listen to me. I’m going to get this log off of you, but it’s going to require me to show you a side of me that might frighten you.”
Carter’s glassy eyes tried to focus on Clara. “I-I don’t t-think you can m-move this yourself. You n-need to c-call for help.”
Clara took a deep breath. She didn’t want to waste anymore time trying to explain this to Carter. She would get him out of here and somewhere warm and dry, and then enlighten Carter on the details of who she really was. “Carter, I know this is going to seem crazy to you, but I’m a bear shifter. I can turn into a polar bear at will, and my bear will be strong enough to move this beam.”
Carter didn’t say anything. He just looked at Clara like she had lost her mind. Or maybe he thought he had lost his mind and was imagining that all of this was happening. It didn’t matter. Clara gave him a reassuring pat on the forehead, and then stood behind him to take off all of her clothes so they wouldn’t be ruined from her shifting. She didn’t have any spare clothes in the car, so she had no choice to get naked before she shifted. Otherwise, she’d be driving naked all the way back to Red Valley.
Carter glanced backward at Clara, confusion etched into his face as he realized she was undressing. Clara sighed. This wasn’t exactly the way you wanted a guy you were interested in to see you naked for the first time, but it couldn’t be helped right now. She shivered as she peeled off her last articles of clothing, and then threw her head back and roared as she shifted. Her skin thickened and became covered with dense, white fur, and her face changed into the face of a bear, with a long, fuzzy muzzle and furry round ears. Her hands melted into giant paws, with large, sharp claws at the end. Clara huffed a few times as her transformation completed, rolling her neck back and forth to work out the kinks. A quick glance at Carter showed her that he was, predictably, shocked. She couldn’t worry about that right now, though. She needed to get that log off of him and get him somewhere warm.
She moved quickly to Carter’s side, and placed both of her giant front paws onto the beam. She let out a roar as she pushed. Even with the strength of a bear filling her, it took all of Clara’s energy to force the beam to budge. Carter grimaced and howled with pain as the heavy beam rolled away, and then he was free. He sat up, slowly, gingerly, and looked around. His eyes were wide and disbelieving, and he sat there just staring at Clara’s bear while shivering violently. He probably thought that he was hallucinating. Clara padded over to him on her giant paws and gave him a nudge with her muzzle, trying to see if he could stand. He didn’t look frightened, necessarily. Just shocked.
Clara realized that he wasn’t going to attempt to move to the car until she told him to snap out of it and stand up. She shifted back to human form so she could talk, sending of a whoosh of energy and light as her fur became skin once again, and her human face returned. She quickly put her clothes back on, and then reached out for Carter’s hand.
“Can you walk?” she asked. “Are your legs okay?”
His face had changed from an expression of shock to an expression of extreme pain. “I-I think I c-can walk,” he stuttered out. “It’s j-just that the f-feeling coming b-back into my legs is s-so painful. L-like pins and needles.”
Clara nodded. “The pain should pass in a minute or two,” she said, then pulled him up with her hand. “Come on, I need to get you somewhere warm.”
Clara managed to help Carter hobble over to her car, where she deposited him in the passenger seat and buckled the seatbelt around him. She got into the driver’s seat and turned the heater on full blast, then started the long drive back toward Red Valley. She glanced over at Carter, who seemed to be fading in and out of consciousness at this point. His breathing was slow and shallow, and he seemed to be staring off into space. The vacant expression in his eyes frightened Clara.
“Come on, Carter. Stay with me,” she said, reaching over to give his shoulder a little shake. He turned his head to look at her, but it seemed to take him some time to register what he was looking at.
Clara decided in that moment that she needed to get him help as soon as possible. She programmed the smokejumpers’ base into the GPS. Hopefully, Ian would understand her bringing a human to the base unannounced. Carter had already seen Clara shift, so he was unlikely to be accidentally exposed to any shifter secrets more startling than that, anyway. And the base was only about thirty minutes from here, as opposed to the hospital in Red Valley, which would likely be an hour-long drive, at least. Clara needed to get help and get Carter in dry clothes as soon as possible, so she decided to risk Ian’s anger and take Carter right into the middle of the shifter den.
Chapter Fourteen
Thirty minutes later, Clara pulled into the parking lot in front of the airplane hangar. The clock on her dashboard read 11:05, and Clara realized she had been involved in this search and rescue mission for several hours at this point. In the seat next to her, Carter still looked around with the same scary, vacant look. He had managed to remain conscious, though, which Clara felt was a good sign.
“All right, Carter, wait here for just a minute. Let me go see who can help us,” Clara said. She hopped out of her car and ran into the hangar, where she found everyone in the crew except Riley gathered around the Christmas tree, drinking hot chocolate while they talked and laughed. Their laughter faded off as they turned to look at Clara, who was a dirty, wet mess. Her hair hung in damp tangles around her face, and her clothes were covered in dirt, leaves, flour, and water.
“What the hell happened to you?” Ian asked, concern filling his voice. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Clara said, silently praying that Ian’s concern would not turn to anger when he discovered whom she had brought to base. “But Carter is not. I need help.”
“Carter?” Zach piped in, furrowing his brow. “Carter Shaw?”
“Yes, Carter Shaw. The guy who did the bunkhouse expansion. He got pinned under a log at a cabin he was working on, and he was out in the rain and cold for I don’t know how long. He looks like he might have hypothermia. I’m sorry for bringing a human here without warning, but he’s in bad shape. I was hoping to get help.”
Before Clara had even finished speaking, Mindy jumped up. “Where is he?” Mindy asked.
“In my car. I left him in there with the heater running, but he’s still wearing wet clothes and shivering.”
Mindy’s nurse training took over. “Luke, if I remember correctly, you’re closest in size to Zach. Go get him some dry clothes. River, go to the kitchen and boil some water to make herbal tea. Bring a mug of it over here as soon as it’s ready. Trevor and Hunter, go grab as many blankets as you can carry, and a pillow or two. Zach and Ian, come help me bring Carter in from the car. Bailey, you take care of Clara. Make sure she gets in some warm clothes herself, and gets a mug of hot tea, too.”
No one questioned Mindy’s instructions. Even Ian, the
alpha, nodded his approval.
“Alright everyone, you heard the woman,” Ian said. “Hop to it, now. You’ve all got a job to do.”
Clara allowed Bailey to lead her away to the bunkhouse. She methodically went through the motions of taking off her wet clothes and putting on the dry clothes that Bailey offered, then sat in a chair in front of a mirror while Bailey brushed and blow dried her hair.
“You poor thing,” Bailey said. “Sounds like you’ve had quite a traumatic night.”
“Yeah, well it might be about to get more traumatic,” Clara said.
Bailey raised an eyebrow at Clara in the mirror. “Oh?”
“I shifted in front of Carter,” Clara explained. “I had to in order to save him. But I’m not sure how Ian will react.”
Bailey smiled at Clara. “Don’t worry about that. Ian generally reacts to situations like this with a pretty levelheaded stance. He’ll want to make sure that Carter isn’t going to go broadcasting that you’re a shifter to the entire city of Red Valley. But Ian understands that these things happen.”
“I hope you’re right,” Clara said, trepidation filling her voice.
When Clara was finally warm and dry, with a mug of hot tea between her hands, she followed Bailey back to the hangar. The whole clan was in there. Even Riley had arrived home from work, and was listening with wide eyes as Mindy told her that Clara had rescued Carter from dying of hypothermia. When Clara entered the room, everyone turned their attention to her. Everyone wanted to hear her story. But Clara wasn’t interested in story time until she’d had a chance to make sure that Carter was alright.
“Where’s Carter?” she asked.
“He’s sleeping in a spare room in the bunkhouse,” Mindy said. “He’s going to be just fine. He had a mild case of hypothermia, but he recovered with dry clothes, blankets, and hot tea. He had several bruises and a big gash on his forehead, but I cleaned it off and it wasn’t deep enough to require stitches. He was exhausted, so we put him to bed, but I’m sure he’ll wake up good as new tomorrow.”
Clara nodded, relief flooding her. “That’s good to hear,” she said.
“So,” Ian said, raising his voice slightly to take control of the room. “Carter was babbling about a bear. Mind telling us if you know anything about that?”
Clara sighed, and then told the whole story to the room, starting with the bouquet deliveries from a secret admirer, and ending with her arrival on base with Carter.
“Do you think he’ll say anything to anyone, about shifting?” Zach asked.
Clara shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you, honestly. I don’t really think he will, but it was difficult to gauge his true reaction because he was so out of it.”
Ian stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I always thought Carter seemed like a reasonable person. But, of course, you never know how people will react to finding out that shifters exist. Let’s just keep an eye on how Carter reacts when he wakes up tomorrow. He doesn’t have a vehicle here, so he can’t run off on us very easily. And he didn’t have a cell phone on him, so he can’t call anyone to sound the alarm. If he does freak out, we should be able to intercept him easily and calm him down before he does something stupid like calling the police.”
Clara nodded, relieved at Ian’s calm reaction. “Thank you, Ian,” she said. “I’m sorry to expose my bear to a human like that, but I felt like I didn’t have a choice.”
“You did the right thing,” Ian said. “Now we just need to do the prudent thing and keep an eye on Carter to make sure he doesn’t overreact. I’m sure everything is going to turn out just fine. Now, it’s pretty late, so why don’t we all hit the sack. We can discuss this more tomorrow, if necessary.”
There were tired murmurs of agreement, and the clan members started heading for the bunkhouse.
Riley caught up with Clara as they were walking over. “I can’t believe Carter was your secret admirer,” she said. “And that you knew he needed help. This story is just so sweet and perfect.”
“Well,” Clara said, letting out a long sigh, “We’ll see how perfect it is when Carter wakes up and realizes he’s been rescued by a bear.”
Chapter Fifteen
Carter blinked a few times as his eyes adjusted to the gray light of dawn surrounding him. He was lying on his back in a strange bed, looking up at a strange ceiling. He looked around, confused for a few moments, until the events of the previous day came flooding back into his mind.
He had hardly believed it when he saw the headlights of a vehicle heading toward him at the cabin last night. He’d been even more surprised when he saw that Clara was the one who had shown up to rescue him. He still had no idea how she had known where he was, or that he had needed help. But of all the surprises Carter had had last night, the biggest one had been watching Clara turn into a bear. He closed his eyes as he remembered Clara, suddenly, inexplicably stripping naked in front of him, and then transforming into a polar bear.
Carter opened his eyes and stared up at the strange ceiling again. All of the details got a little fuzzy after that. He thought he remembered getting into Clara’s car, and then being carried into the hangar at the smokejumpers’ base. He remembered people rushing around him, covering him with blankets. And he remembered finally feeling warm. Carter sat up slowly, realizing that he was in a room in the bunkhouse. He had renovated this very room, and many similar to it. The smokejumpers had wanted to turn the bunkhouse into more of a traditional house rather than a dormitory style bunk room. When they had first arrived, they had all been bachelors, but now they were all parts of couples, with plans to have children. Zach’s kids had been especially excited to have their own room.
Carter stood, testing how his legs felt. He had multiple bruises on them, but otherwise they seemed okay. He put his hand to his forehead to feel the gash that had been there. It hurt a little when his finger touched it, but it felt dry, so at least it wasn’t bleeding anymore. He rubbed the side of his forehead that was gash-free, and tried to figure out what to do next.
He would have to talk to Clara, or at least to someone here before leaving. Since his truck was still up by the cabin, he couldn’t just sneak away unnoticed. And, honestly, he didn’t really want to sneak away unnoticed. He wanted to know what the heck had happened last night. Part of him thought that the whole bear thing had been a hallucination, just a product of his hypothermic mind. But a bigger part of him knew that the bear had been real. There was no way Clara could have moved that beam on her own, without some sort of supernatural strength. He had really seen the women he loved transforming into a polar bear right in front of him.
Carter stopped short as the phrase “woman he loved” ran through his mind again. It had been an unexpected, unplanned thought. But it was true. He loved Clara. He had been circling around telling her how he felt, but now he knew it was time. He had to find her and talk to her. He wanted to understand what he had seen happen at the cabin last night, and he wanted to make her understand that he was ready to lay it all on the line. The bear detail had surprised him, but it didn’t change the way he felt about her.
Carter looked down at his clothes. The black hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants looked unfamiliar to him, and he realized that someone must have changed him into dry clothes belonging to the other smokejumpers. Carter glanced around the room for his own clothes but he didn’t see them anywhere. He shrugged, and started for the door to his room. He would try to find Clara. Maybe she knew where his clothes were, but, regardless, he needed to talk to her.
Just before Carter could open the door, however, a knock rang out on it.
“Carter? You awake in there?”
It was Ian, the crew leader. Carter reached to open the door, and was surprised when he found not just Ian, but Ian and Clara both standing right in front of him. Clara was holding two mugs of steaming black liquid, and she held one out to him.
“Coffee?” she asked.
He nodded, and took the cup from her without a word. She looked tired
, and he wondered how much she’d slept last night, or what time it had even been when she rescued him. He had lost track of the hours that he’d spent pinned under that giant beam. Despite the bags under her eyes, though, she still looked beautiful. Her hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail, and she wore a navy sweatshirt over dark gray yoga pants. The outfit gave away just enough of her curves to make the blood pump faster throughout Carter’s body. He realized then that he was staring, and he tried to smooth over the awkward moment.
“Um, thanks. For the coffee. And for saving my life last night. I don’t even know how you knew I was there, but I can’t thank you enough.”
“You’re welcome,” Clara said. “I just did what anyone would have done, if they knew they had a friend in danger. It’s a long story, but there’ll be time for that later. Right now, we just wanted to come make sure you’re feeling okay.”
“I feel great, actually. Maybe just a little bit tired, still. But other than that I feel almost good as new, which is surprising considering the night I had.”
Clara nodded and smiled. “That’s good. Mindy—she’s a nurse, you know—looked at you and said you had a mild case of hypothermia, but that you should recover quickly.”
“I’ll have to thank her, too,” Carter said. “It would appear I owe a debt of gratitude to several people this morning.”
“We’re all happy we could help out,” Ian said, joining the conversation. “But we wanted to know if we could talk to you for just a moment. If you’re feeling up to talking at the moment, that is.”
“Of course. Come on in,” Carter agreed, although he found the ominous tone in Ian’s voice a bit unsettling.
Fire Bear Shifters: The Complete Series Page 57