She looked up into his face. “A little. And from what I read in your face, I can guess the rest.”
“And is that OK?” he asked, then added quickly. “Not that I plan on acting on it until you know who you are.”
“Even if I want you to?”
He opened and closed his mouth, not knowing how he was supposed to answer that. “I don’t know. I wasn’t going to tell you until you got your memory back. It didn’t seem right. I didn’t want to pressure you.”
“But I’ve guessed, so it’s all good.” She licked her lips: was that an invitation to kiss her?
“No. It’s not all good. You don’t know who you are. What if you have a …? I don’t know, a boyfriend … a husband.” He swallowed hard before he said his next words. “What if you have children?”
“Wouldn’t I be able to remember them? If I loved someone, wouldn’t I feel them? Here.” She placed her hand over her heart. “Like I feel you.”
It was as if he’d been hit by an invisible force all over again, and Bas took a step back. “I don’t know, Pepper. And that’s what scares me.”
She walked across the porch and stepped off into the snow, testing it, making sure she wasn’t going to sink. Satisfied, she began to walk away. “You’re a good man, Barnabas Manners. So let’s go and see if we can solve this mystery.”
He followed behind her, hitching the pack onto his back as he walked. “And what happens if you are unattached?” It wasn’t right to ask, he knew there may be a million and one reasons they shouldn’t be together, but he also knew there was one reason why they should. Fate didn’t make mistakes.
“We’ll see, won’t we?” she called over her shoulder.
Catching up with her, he said, “I’m not going to pressure you, either way.”
“I know.” She strode off confidently.
“You’re at home on the snow,” he observed.
“I am?” she asked, stopping and looking down at her feet. “Yes. I am. What does that mean?”
“It means you walk on the snow a lot. You could come from somewhere in these mountains. It would be the simplest of explanations.”
“Does that mean you retract what you saw?” she asked.
“No. But maybe what I saw wasn’t exactly what happened. My mind might have put together a version of events that weren’t exactly accurate.”
“So I didn’t fall out of the sky?”
He scratched his head, and looked up. “Maybe you fell from a parachute? You know, a sponsored skydive.”
“Was I wearing a parachute?” she asked.
“No, but you might have landed in a tree and pulled it off.” He stopped. “We could walk back to where I found you.”
“I thought you wanted to take me to a hospital?” She stopped, and the air coming out of her mouth made clouds of vapor, it was so cold. She was right: they should be leaving the mountain, not traipsing across it.
“There might be a clue there.” He looked up into the clear blue sky. “There’ll be no snow tonight. But that’s not to say we won’t get more snow before we get back up here.”
“And any clues will be covered up by the snow.” She nodded.
“How do you feel?” he asked. “If you feel unwell, we’ll continue down to the hospital.”
“Good. I feel good.” She looked down the steep slope before them. “I do not want to walk back up here any time soon. Let’s go and look now.”
Perhaps he was putting off the inevitable, using the threat of snow as an excuse, but he got the feeling Pepper didn’t mind. Anyway, walking in the mountains always helped him clear his head. Even if they didn’t find anything, he might at least get a burst of inspiration as to what had happened.
His idea of a parachute was beginning to make more sense, although he was ready to go on the defensive and sue whoever let her jump out of it on a night like last night. But that was for another day; right now, he intended to enjoy his time with Pepper in this winter wonderland.
Chapter Eight – Pepper
Bas took her hand and struck off across the mountain, adjusting their course so that they zigzagged as they climbed. Pepper wished he’d thought of this before they set off down the mountain, as her legs ached with the strain of the climb, and her body began to heat up as the weak wintery sun rose higher in the sky behind them. It wasn’t long before she could swear she must have bear blood in her veins too, she was so hot wrapped up in the clothes Bas had loaned her.
However, giving up was not an option; if she could find some clue as to whom she was up here, then it was a trip she was happy to make, even if it killed her.
“Are you OK?” he asked.
“Do I look that bad?” Pepper asked, stopping to catch her breath, then immediately regretting it, as she’d lost what little momentum she had, and her next step made her legs strain, and her muscles scream to stop.
“You look a little… hot.”
“And not in a good way?” she teased, through gasps of breath.
His mouth turned up at the corner, and she wondered what he would do if she kissed him right now. It would be a good ploy to stop him in his tracks. “I could carry you.”
“I like that idea,” she said.
“Really?” he asked.
“But I’m not sure how far we’d get.” She held out her hand. “You can pull me along instead.”
He reached out and took her hand, and pulled her effortlessly towards him. “I’m not sure how far we’d get either.” He wrapped his arms around her, and lowered his head to kiss her. She panicked and went to push him away, but too late, he’d already captured her, and any resistance quickly evaporated as his lips touched hers.
It was a sweet, beautiful kiss, in which he conveyed his longing, and his need. If there was a way to glimpse someone’s soul, this was it. Bas held her close, his lips moving softly, enquiring, testing, and she accepted him. He sighed, and deepened the kiss, his tongue sliding along her lower lip, making her shiver with anticipation. Opening her mouth, she sucked on his tongue, and felt him tremble in return. She was thrilled that he wanted her so much, but shocked when she felt the extent of his arousal pressed against her thigh.
This was not the place for sex, and she had no idea how strong his willpower was. They were fated, he’d told her that, and she got the feeling she was the thing he’d been searching for his whole life. She was a powerful drug he might not be able to resist, no matter what his words had been about not taking it any further until she had her memory back.
Bas must have had the same thoughts, because he pulled back so suddenly, he had to take a step or two away from her to regain his composure. “Sorry. I don’t know what happened.”
“It’s OK.” She out her fingers to her lips, expecting to feel small bursts of electricity from the tingle sensation that he’d left in the wake of his kiss. “Maybe better than OK.” She tried to brush it off as a joke, but he’d stirred something deep within her. If only he’d stirred her memories too. If she had a husband or a lover, wouldn’t Bas’s kiss feel wrong, foreign somehow? Instead, it felt right, so right she wanted to grab his hand and pull him back down the mountain to his cabin where she would like to make love to him in a more appropriate setting.
How he was able to resist doing that exact thing, she would never know, because the emotions playing across his face were enough to tell her how difficult it was for him to resist her. So, she did the next best thing to a cold shower, she picked up a handful of snow and threw it at his face.
“What was that for?” he gasped.
“That was to dampen your ardor.”
He burst out laughing, while wiping the melting snow from his face. “First, it is going to take more than one snowball to dampen my ardor. Second, who the hell uses that word anyway?”
She grinned. “People like me.” She bent to pick up more snow and threw it at him, hitting him on the shoulder where the snow burst into millions of dry flakes. “Whoever that is.”
“The first one was free, the second gets
payback.”
He bent down and scooped up some snow, and threw it at her, but she dodged, and bent to grab a handful of her own, half turning to throw it at him. Shot!
“Hey. I don’t know about who you are, but wherever you come from, I think snowballing must be an Olympic sport.”
She giggled and made it into the trees, where she hid from him. “Which way?” she asked, looking up above her at the blue sky through the bare branches.
“Another hundred yards that way,” he called, entering the trees to the right of her.
The hunt was on, she ran, weaving in and out of the trees, her legs pumping, no longer tired, as adrenaline filled her body, casting off her fatigue. She’d pay for it later, but right now she would use it to play with her mate.
Smiling at the sound of those words, she scooped up some snow, and balled it together to form a clump. Not the right kind of snow, she thought as she ran towards Bas and launched her assault. He was ready, and his arm was stronger, his snowball flying through the air, but his aim wasn’t true and it hit a tree trunk and blew up in a cloud of flakes.
“Missed,” she called and got closer, throwing her snowball and hitting the back of his head as he turned away.
“Yuck.” He shook his head as the snow dripped down his neck.
“I thought your bear blood stopped you from feeling the cold.”
He laughed. “You know I’m going to get you.”
“You can try,” she said, weaving her way back through the trees, before scooping up more ammunition.
Pepper ran on, her head turned to the right to watch him. He scooped up his own handful, no, two handfuls, he was going for a different tactic. Well, that wouldn’t help him. She giggled, all her worries forgotten; you didn’t need to know who you were to have fun. She didn’t need to know what her past was to enjoy this moment with her man.
Then, as she ran into a small clearing, suddenly her past did matter.
“Got you,” he said, as a snowball hit her square on the cheek. She barely flinched; all she could do was stare. You have one job. All her memories came flooding back, the face of her father, disapproving as she climbed into the sleigh. Santa’s sleigh.
“Pepper,” Bas ran up beside her and stopped, following her gaze. “What’s wrong?”
“I remember,” she said simply. “I remember it all.”
“What? Did the snowball jog your brain?” He stood in front of her, blocking her view. “Pepper, hey, look at me. What happened?”
“I crashed,” she said. “I had one job, that’s what my father said. He didn’t want me to do it, said I wasn’t ready. But Mrs. Claus insisted I was. But he was right, because I crashed the sleigh and now Krampus will go out and beat the children with his sticks.”
“OK, now you are scaring me,” he said.
“Why?” she asked, looking him in the face and seeing his worry.
“This was a bad idea, we should have gone straight down the mountain. Come on, we’ll go now, there’s nothing here,” he said, looking around.
“Yes. Yes, there is.” She looked past him. “How can you say there’s nothing here? Can’t you see it?”
“See what?” he asked, looking around the small clearing. “There’s nothing here but trees and snow.”
“The sleigh. You can’t see the sleigh?”
“Fuck,” he said under his breath. “I’m sorry, was the snowball that hard?”
“No. I see it. I know who I am and why I was on the mountain.”
“Listen, Pepper, we’ll get you help, the best help I can find.”
She shrugged him off. “Bas, don’t mess around.” She walked over to the upturned sleigh, needing to assess the damage. She’d have to call the reindeer, and hope they were still here.
Chapter Nine – Bas
“Pepper,” Bas said, putting his hand on her shoulder and gently pulling her back to him. “We need to go, perhaps the snowball fight was too much.” What had started out as harmless fun seemed to have tipped her over the edge.
Bas knew it was his duty to help her. That must be why they were fated mates, because he would be able to get her the best possible help. He had connections, and knew how the system worked. Given time, she was sure to make a complete recovery, and if she didn’t? Well, he’d deal with that when and if it happened.
“Bas, relax. I can remember everything. I know why I was here, I was crossing the mountains on my way to call on Krampus.”
“OK, listen to yourself. Krampus is the stuff of fairy tales; he does not exist. Neither does Santa, or Mrs. Claus, or reindeer and sleighs.” He walked forward, into the clearing. “There’s nothing here.”
“Don’t stand there, you’ll crush the birch branches I brought for him.”
“Birch branches.” Bas looked down by his feet; sure enough, there was a bundle of birch branches, half-buried in the snow. But still no sleigh. “These?”
“Yes,” she said, coming to him, bending down and beginning to dig the birch branches out of the snow. “I have to find everything and load it back on the sleigh. Then I need to call Dasher and Dancer, they won’t have gone far.”
What was he supposed to do? Did he play along, and see what happened when she tried to load everything into her make-believe sleigh? Or did he put her over his shoulder and carry her back down the mountain right now?
“Why do you have a bunch of twigs?” Bas asked.
“They are part of the agreement,” Pepper replied.
“Agreement?” he queried.
“Yes, to stop Krampus going out and beating children, or worse. Santa Claus sends him a sleigh full of gifts. If he gets it before Krampus Night, and is happy, then he agrees not to be… well, Krampus.”
Bas laughed. “You know, I would almost believe you. If I could see the sleigh.” He looked around the clearing, but all he could see was snow. It covered the ground, clung to the branches of the trees, and drifted up against a large boulder, or fallen tree, he couldn’t tell which it was.
It was this mound that Pepper led him to. “You can’t see it. Of course you can’t see it.”
“Why can’t I see it?” Bas asked, willing to play along for now and see what Pepper came up with by way of an excuse.
“Because it’s not supposed to be seen.” She put her hand out and appeared to rest it on something, her fingers gripping it.
“Why isn’t supposed to be seen?”
“Because the sleigh is only supposed to be seen on Christmas Eve. If anyone, particularly a child, saw it any other time, it would confuse them.”
“So, you are telling me there is an invisible magical sleigh, right here in front of me?” he asked. What would she do when he called her bluff?
“Yes. Here.” She took the hand she was holding and placed it next to hers… On cold, hard, invisible metal.
“What the hell!” Bas exclaimed and jumped back away from her, dragging his hand out of her grasp.
“Now do you believe me?” she asked.
Bas stood staring at her, and then at the mound of snow. Did he really believe that there was a sleigh under there? His logical brain started making the connections. If there truly was a sleigh, that meant the elf costume wasn't a costume. “You really are a Christmas Elf?”
“Yes.” She nodded, but a glimmer of sadness passed across her face. “I was entrusted to make the delivery this year. And I’ve failed.”
“Why have you failed?” he asked, not quite believing the next words to leave his mouth. “You’ve found the sleigh, you have your memory back, so why not carry on and go see this Krampus?”
“Because everything is ruined.” She walked around the sleigh, and then bent down and began to scrape the snow away, uncovering a bright red blanket. Pepper lifted it up and shook the snow from it, before placing it on the ground, and going back to rummage in the snow some more.
“Here, I’ll help. Will I be able to see what’s buried here?” he asked.
“Yes, because it’s out of the sleigh.” She scr
aped the snow, revealing a basket, which she picked up and placed on the blanket before returning to her task.
Bas began to methodically move the snow, finding a pair of slippers and some warm socks. He held them up. “You give Krampus socks?”
“Everyone gets socks and slippers for Christmas, it’s a tradition,” Pepper answered matter-of-factly. “Don't you?”
“I don’t get a lot for Christmas at all.”
“You don’t spend Christmas with your family?” she asked.
“No. I sometimes work over Christmas, and they live a plane ride away.”
“No friends?” Pepper asked, piling a tin of spiced biscuits onto the blanket.
“My friends are often working too. And others have family… I kind of feel awkward. They always feel sorry for me being single, and try to pair me up with an eligible woman.”
“I thought a man like you would enjoy that?” Pepper said, no hint of jealousy in her voice.
“It gets awkward. It used to be OK, but now I’m older, any single women my age have a biological clock which ticks away. It’s amplified at Christmas, especially surrounded by other people's kids. So, I feel like a liar when I say I don't want kids.”
“Don’t you want children?” Pepper asked, a smile of triumph as she pulled out a small pouch. She tipped it up and two small silver cups, almost like thimbles, only bigger, spilled onto her palm. “At least we have these.”
“And those are?” he asked.
“Krampus asked for them. They are specially made to fit the tips of his horns.”
“Of course they are,” Bas said.
“It’s not a joke.” She dropped them back into the pouch and began to dig in the snow once more. “So, children?”
“Of course, I want children, what self-respecting shifter doesn’t?” he asked. He caught the look she gave him. “Christmas Elves can have children, can’t they? I mean of course they can, or are you born of magic?”
She laughed softly. “No, we’re born. We have parents.”
“But you don’t want kids?” Bas asked.
“It’s complicated,” she said, her voice filled with a distant longing.
Sleighed: BBW Holiday Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (Christmas Bears Book 1) Page 4