Tom took a slow step forward. “Well, can you really blame her, Nick? She’s only ever seen the worse of us,” he said. “If what you’re saying is true, she probably doesn’t even know it yet. The mate pairing concept isn’t one known to humans. I’m sure she just needs more time.”
“What if there isn’t any more time?” Nick shouted, voice ragged. “She told me to leave and I walked away to the smell of her tears in the back of my throat. How can you possibly think I have more time?”
A pained look crossed Tom’s face, flinching at Nick’s words. “I’m sorry. I-I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Nick sighed mournfully. “How could you possibly understand?”
Nick wanted to believe him, that Jo would think things over in solitude and realize he was worth all the extra baggage, but even the bear within shifted uneasily at the odds. You don’t reinforce doors to keep out someone you love.
The sound of a car approached in the distance, and something urged Nick to check outside. Fallowing his bear’s instinct, he left out the front door, listening intently as the sound of the car as it grew closer. Suddenly, his heart listed in hope as the sight of Jo’s car drove down the road toward the shop… then rocketing past him towards town limits.
“No!” Nick shouted, sprinting after her. “Jo! Please!” His bear roared in distress, demanding a change so that he could travel on foot faster. Our mate is leaving! Running as fast as he could, Nick waved frantically, the panic igniting in full force when Jo responded by revving the engine harder and speeding out of reach. There was no hope of catching her, even as his bear. He cried out a painful roar. His heart shattering as he watched his one true love flee for her life in fear of him.
***
Jo drove the full day’s trip to San Francisco in one go, checking into a nice hotel for the remaining two nights until her meeting.
“Would you like to schedule meals to be delivered directly to your room?” the nice receptionist asked as she processed Jo’s Liberty Art company card.
“Oh, that sounds lovely,” she agreed, listing her preferred times for breakfast and dinner. She was done with ratty motels. If Brian was going to force her to drive to all her meetings, she was going to lodge in style to make up for it. Thanking the receptionist, she grabbed her keycard and headed up to her room.
Jo flopped lazily onto the plush bed with an exhausted sigh. She wanted to curl into a ball of sadness and cry, but she’d expended all of her tears and more during the trip. A memory flashed in the forefront of her mind, Nick’s pained expression in her rearview mirror as he screamed and chased after her. Her stomach churned as she remembered pressing the accelerator to leave him behind, and she almost thought she might get sick.
Now that he’d had time to stew, the pain and panic had long since died away. The second half of the car ride was numbing, where she’d felt almost nothing at all. As she’d entered San Francisco city limits, she remembered joking with him about living in a fancy mansion here, one day, and slowly, her feeling and emotions had started trickling back.
She wished they wouldn’t.
Where she had once felt fear, she now felt ridiculous and weak, regret and embarrassment, and worst of all, she felt like she’d made the biggest mistake of her life. Nick provided her with the exciting possibility of something new and spontaneous, and, true to her boring, do-only-enough-to-get-by self, she panicked at the thought of the unknown and ran. Like a coward.
Something sharp twisted in her stomach, and she doubled over with a groan, allowing the grief to take her. As she lay curled in bed, her cell phone rang.
Springing up, her heart jumped in her chest. Was it Nick? Had he called?
It was not Nick. Sighing, she answered. “What do you want, Brian?” She didn’t have the energy for false pleasantries.
“I’ve just taken a look at your recent transaction history,” she heard him say through gritted teeth. “This establishment is not made of money, Jo”
She shrugged, not caring that he couldn’t see it. “And?”
There was a beat of silence as Brian processed her response. “I beg your pardon?” he asked, voice rising and octane higher in pitch. “Need I remind you that we are on a budget?” he exclaimed.
“And that’s not my concern,” she replied, voice devoid of emotion. “I’m your employee, not your beaten down pack mule. If you want me to do the work you sent me out here to do, I’m going to make sure I’m of sound body and health to make sure I can get it done right.” She sighed, already tired of this conversation. “The drive was long and I’m exhausted. So yeah, if I want to stay in a slightly nicer hotel to make sure I get a good night’s rest without gun shots and police sirens wailing, then so be it.”
“The cost is ridiculous!” he spluttered.
“Shame. If I’d have flown in, I wouldn’t be so beat,” she chastised. Her stomach grumbled uneasily, knowing she was pressing major buttons. “You’d also be making more money because you would’ve had your A-list artist in your back pocket two days ago. So there’s a thought for the future.”
Brian stammered over the line for a moment, and Jo could hear his building fury at her noncompliance. Would he fire her? Did she care?
“Fine,” he finally spat. “But since you’re available a day early, I’ll phone the client and have them meet with you tomorrow. So change that reservation to one night, ASAP, Barrowman.” She heard him scribbling something down. “I’ll text you the details.” The line went dead.
Jo stared down at the phone in her hand, and slowly, a smile spread across her lips. All this time, all she needed was a little assertion. Now she got to keep her job, and the fancy hotel. “You were right all along, Nick,” she murmured, her smile wilting almost immediately.
She placed a palm on her forehead. “What have I done?” she groaned softly. She’d spent her entire life being afraid of doing well for herself, always taking a step back when things were too good to be true. Nick was so much more than too good. He was everything she needed and wanted, what she’d hoped and desired to become one day. A man like him told her that he was falling for her.
And she ran away.
With a sigh, she rolled out of the bed to prep the coffeemaker. She’d had him, right there in the palm of her hand, and she let him go. She hadn’t wanted to listen, to admit that despite her fears, she had felt the same way. But as memories of him holding her while she was crying and passionate nights tangled in bed sheets together wafted to the surface of her mind, she couldn’t deny it anymore. She didn’t know when, but in the short time she’d known him, Jo Barrowman had definitely fallen for him.
“And then he turned into a bear,” she muttered, surprised as a bubble of laughter spilled over her lips. It sounded ridiculous when said out loud, tickling her to no end. She was soon doubled over in laughter, unable to control her reaction to the hilarity that was her life. Tears dotted the corners of her eyes as she clenched her sides. It felt therapeutic and definitely better than the crying.
Finally, with a breathless sigh, she peered down at her phone screen. “Maybe when I’m done here, I can pay him a visit on the way home.” She told herself – even if it was only for closure, and maybe more than a little curiosity, but even dog tired and slightly depressed she couldn’t ignore the warm excited thrill that pooled in her belly at the thought of him.
Sure, he was a bear, and as surreal as that sounded, it explained a lot of his mannerisms that had confused her before. His resilience to the cold, the way his lips curled when he was angry, the way he could handle her firmly, but gently all at the same time, as if he was afraid she’d break. No, she hadn’t had too good of a track record with bears in Rawlins, but her time with Nick had outshined that, ten-fold. She felt she knew him better now, and there was peace in that fact.
Settling down with her mug of coffee, she pulled the book she’d been reading at the cabin out of her luggage case, opening to where she’d left off.
Chapter Seventeen
“It’s time to wake up sweetheart,” a warm voice purred in her ear as she gasped his name.
“Nick!” Jo cried, rocketing upright in bed. She stared blearily out into the blackness of the hotel room, confused for a moment when the familiar décor of the cabin hadn’t greeted her as expected.
A light glinted off to the side of her vision, her bright phone screen shining harshly against the pre-dawn darkness. She picked it up with blurry vision, scrubbing the sleep out of her eyes to check the time. 4:40 AM. Her phone then chirped a soft notification noise, alerting her that she’d received a third text message to add to the other two that were already there.
“Fucking Brian,” she muttered softly. He was just the type to send messages at horrible hours in the morning to people he was angry at, so she wasn’t surprised. Annoyed, she flipped open the messages, reading about the ins and outs of the meeting set a little over five hours from now.
She fell back into the sheets with a groan of frustration. Five hours. Not enough time to fall back to sleep, but too much time to wander around doing nothing. “Fucking Brian!” she said with a little more feeling this time.
Flipping angrily out of bed, she set up the coffeemaker to brew a fresh pot, thinking of using her unwanted free time to maybe hit up one of those trendy street-side cafes to eat an overpriced bagel on Liberty Art’s dime.
The coffee wasn’t great, but it brewed fast, for which Jo was grateful. Waking up was slow going on half a night’s sleep, even a bed as nice as the one this room had. Taking the first hot sip, Jo flung open the curtains, hoping she could maybe watch the sun rise as she nursed her coffee. Aside from the scattered streetlights, the sky was completely dark, no sign of the sun on the horizon. Despite her efforts, her heart fell all the same. It seemed that her life was slowly beginning to slip back into the routine of doing, being, and expecting nothing more than ‘just enough’. It wasn’t a terrible way to live, she admitted, but she couldn’t help but remember the opportunistic spontaneity that Rawlins had given her, albeit for only two short days. Would the girl she’d allowed herself to explore there be able to function in the life she’d succumbed to outside of the cabin?
She chuckled, sad and lost. “What the hell am I doing?”
The question echoed around the room. The walls were fancy, the furniture ornate, but the smile that played on her lips as she recalled her small victory last night… wasn’t enough. She shouldn’t have to speak that way to her boss to be treated like a decent human being. She shouldn’t have to fight tooth and nail to only get just enough. The life she’d lived before Rawlins wasn’t one she wanted to be a part of anymore.
Standing with a new sense of purpose, she snatched up her phone, quick dialing Brian’s cell. Her heart raced as the dial tone buzzed, a million fireflies partying in her belly.
“Barrowman, what the hell do you think—” Brian began, voice slurred with sleep but still managing to sound indignant.
“I quit,” she spoke calmly into the phone.
“Quit?!” he parroted incredulously. “Like hell, you’re qui—”
“I quit,” she repeated, louder and firmer this time, leaving no room for further argument. “I’ll get you this client guaranteed. Then I’ll email you my resignation.” Without so much as a goodbye, she ended the call.
She stared out into the quiet of her dim hotel room and had the overwhelming urge to jump up and own in total elation. She’d done it. She’d finally done it. She was no longer tied down by her personal hell. She quit her job, quit the stress, quit Brian—and now she felt free,
“Nick would be so proud of me,” she whispered, a sad smile crossing her face. That settled it. She’d go see Nick on her way back home, at the very least to thank him for helping her become the woman she was able to be in the pre-dawn morning of a hotel room she’d fought for her right to have.
***
“How are you feeling?”
Nick rolled his eyes at his brother. “What do you think?”
Tom held up an apologetic hand. “Okay, okay. I get it.”
Nick rose with a grunt from where he was sitting to check on the jobs they had that day. There weren’t many.
“Have you tried calling her?” Tom asked.
Nick shook his head. “You didn’t see her, Tom,” Nick grumbled, solemnly. “She had terror in her eyes as she zoomed past the shop.” The memory that played in his head broke his heart all over again, and his bear mourned with him once more. “Calling her out of the blue like that would only make her think she can’t escape. Why would I subject her to that torture?”
Tom walked over to the task list, eyeing it with his brother. “I can get on with things here,” he said, quietly. “So you don’t have to stick around.” He patted Nick on the shoulder. “Why don’t you go start on the cabin repairs? Her scent’s all over that place, it should calm your bear, for a while anyway.”
Nick shook his head, not really to decline, but rather because his mind was whirring non-stop and he needed to clear it in order for it to function like a normal member of society. “I don’t know. I haven’t been back there since…” He shuddered. “I’m just afraid of going back and having it all hit me at once.”
Tom gave Nick a rueful smile. “You got this, bro. If you need me to help out, I can put things here on the backburner, but as you are now, you aren’t much help at all. Running hasn’t helped, neither has hunting. The cabin’s the only option you have left. Her scent is the closest you can get to her right now, so go take care of yourself.”
Nick finally nodded, too many times as his mind began to overwork again. “Yeah, maybe. Thanks,” he said, deciding to leave at once. He stepped out into the cool weather without bothering to grab a jacket. Turning in the direction of the cabin, he strode into the wind, letting it bite at his skin. He remembered how the wind had blown like this the night he’d first brought her to the cabin, making her shiver down into her heavy coat. He’d give anything to be back there right now. She could always return, he allowed himself to think desperately. She was his mate after all. Sure, she was human, but she had to feel something, right? She had to feel as restless and unraveled as he did as he fought the coarse ice breeze to clean away the remnants of her essence that he never wanted to be without.
He could smell her scent lightly on the air as he approached the cabin, evidence of her recent stay. Tom was right; Nick’s bear relaxed almost immediately as he drew closer. It was short lived, his bear jumping to attention with a snarl as Nick caught another scent… then another… and another. The Northern Wind Pack. He sprinted the rest of the way to the cabin, his every sense on alert.
His heart fell as he took in the sad sight before him. The cabin had been aggressively vandalized by Lucas’s bears. There was no sign of them at the moment, but he could tell that they hadn’t been gone too long, perhaps attacking sometime during the night.
The cabin door had been torn from its frame once again, hanging crazily on its hinges. The temporary paint job he’d done had been scraped away, the wood underneath dented and beaten down by large paws. The windows that had survived the first cabin attack had not fared too well this time, all in various stages of destruction. The peep windows’ plastic covers had been shredded to smithereens. They’d dug up the yard, marked the stone foundation with their scent, and tore up the dark wooden planks on the porch.
He shoved the door aside with a growl, his anger allowing him to easily tear it the rest of the way off its broken hinges. With a touch of surprise, he noticed that the inside was virtually unscathed. Sure, he could trace their scents through the house as they’d apparently took some time to give themselves a tour, but they’d left most everything untouched. He closed his eyes, breathing in a chest full of oxygen, bot
h he and his bear sighed in relief when he picked up on the unmistakable scent of the woman he loved. At the very least, they hadn’t taken that away from him. Not yet.
He nodded, centering his mind and getting back to the task at hand. A scent caught his attention, his heart sped slightly as he tracked it to the kitchen, and his bear rattled a growl in warning. His mood darkened as he passed the dining table, noticing a piece of paper that lay upon it. He thought hopefully that it might be from Jo, but upon picking it up, he knew it wasn’t. The script was sloppy as if the person who’d wrote it wasn’t all that accustomed to humanoid hands. It was scrawled on the back of a torn romance novel cover.
WATCH YOUR STEP ALPHA
With a sickening realization, the scent that has drawn Nick to the kitchen became disgustingly obvious as he took in several puddles of urine they’d used to mark their territory.
The note crushed in his hand on reflex, Nick’s nose flaring in rage. They’d dare challenge his territory like this…
The bear roared loudly within him, its strength rippling through his body. It wanted to be let free, wanted to find the entire Northern Wind Pack and tear them limb from limb for what they’d done. “Not yet,” Nick growled, forcefully calming himself. First and foremost, he’d tidy the place, getting as much done before darkness fell. Broken glass would be swept, foreign fluids would be cleaned, windows would be boarded, and the door would be reset on its hinges for the second time.
Then, he promised his bear…they’d go hunting.
Chapter Eighteen
Jo smiled dutifully as the client’s manager—a kind youngish man—spoke on and on about how wonderful a painter the potential client was.
She nodded her umpteenth agreement, glancing inconspicuously at the clock that hung on the meeting room’s wall. Nearly an hour since the meeting began, and they hadn’t even gotten to negotiations. “Yes, yes,” she murmured when the manager dared to take a breath. “I agree wholeheartedly with your praise. Your painter showcases amazing talent that we could not be more honored to display at Liberty Art.” The man nodded emphatically, diving back into his spiel that she was sure he probably practiced over and over in the shower that morning. As he prattled on about various artworks that had won various award, Jo’s mind began to wander.
The Panther's Rival Page 54