Rescued By Her Bear by Felicity Heaton
Chapter 8
Lowe kept his head down as he stepped out of Saint’s cabin, stared at his boots as he banked right at the bottom of the steps and headed for his own home across the compacted snow, troubled by the thought of Knox meeting Cameo, let alone the thought of Saint meeting her. His alpha wasn’t going to be happy about her presence at the Ridge, and he really wasn’t going to be happy when he learned that she had seen him in his bear form.
Although part of him felt sure Saint already knew about that.
It wasn’t as if the big bear had been unconscious when Lowe had approached him, and Cameo had been loud when she had called out to him, warning him away from Saint.
An electric shiver chased down his spine, heat rolling through his tired muscles in its wake, and he lifted his head and pinned his gaze on the slender, human female standing on his deck, one gloved hand gripping the railing that ran around it and the other clutching the can of bear spray.
He looked back over his shoulder in the direction of Saint’s cabin and then hurried to her, his heart picking up pace, and not because of the sight of her. Slim moonlight highlighted her face, making her look too pale, but even more beautiful at the same time. She wore her coat, but her hat was gone, revealing loose silky waves that had him thinking about how it would feel to sink his hand into them and grip them as he kissed her.
Lowe kicked that urge aside and focused on the problem he potentially had.
“How long have you been freezing your ass off on my deck?” He eyed her closely, trying to read the answer in her blue eyes.
Her dark eyebrows furrowed as she looked from him to Saint’s cabin and back again. “I was worried. It’s been hours. I was going to come and find you, but then I saw someone out here. I saw him go to that cabin.”
She pointed the bear spray at it.
Lowe scowled at the canister, his bear side pushing him to step aside, out of the line of fire. “It was my brother. I’m sorry I was gone so long.”
He glanced past her at his cabin. A cabin that now had a soft glow emanating from inside it and smoke curling from the metal chimney. Cameo had been busy since he had left her. Trying to fill the time and take her mind off the fact he had gone off to deal with a potentially deadly bear? He looked back at her, right into her eyes, and caught the worry in them, and the fatigue, and maybe a hint of relief too.
Lowe lifted his hand and went to run it around the back of his neck, grimaced as he smelled Saint’s blood on it and dropped it to his side. He mounted the steps to the deck, stopping one down from Cameo. Even then, she was shorter than him, barely reached his chin. The urge to tuck her to his chest and hold her was strong, but he resisted it and focused on dreaming up a reasonable explanation for his absence since she hadn’t seen anything.
“Saint got hurt running animals off the property and I had to take care of him.” Lowe wanted to growl at the thought of Saint having to fight the cougars alone, knew in his gut that it hadn’t been just one of them that had shown up to take the female back.
Saint would have faced all the brothers.
“Saint? Is that a dog or man? Please tell me it isn’t that bear, because I’ve seen how this sort of thing—”
“It’s a man.” Lowe cut her off before she could slip into another rant about how dangerous it was to befriend bears. “Runs this place. It’s his property.”
“Is he going to be all right?” She looked genuinely worried now, glanced at the blood on his hands as her brow furrowed.
Lowe nodded. “Knox is taking care of him, but I’ll probably have to lend a hand at some point. Come on, let’s get you back inside and warmed up.”
He stepped up onto the deck, thought about taking her arm and then swept his bloodstained hand out towards the door instead. He didn’t think she would appreciate him rubbing blood all over her jacket.
She hopped towards the door and eased it open, and he wanted to groan as warmth swept around him, ached to sink into that heat and sleep for a few days, maybe a couple of months.
“Like it tropical?” He grinned at her back.
She was probably burning through half his store of wood to keep the temperature in the cabin so high.
She grimaced as she glanced back at him. “I think I got carried away. I was a bit cold.”
“We’ll leave the door open a while.” The fierce heat might do him a favour and melt the snow around his cabin.
He raked his gaze down Cameo’s curves, his temperature soaring higher. Who needed a fire to keep warm when he had a female like Cameo near him? It wasn’t just her figure that inflamed him and drew him to her, it was her personality too. She was strong, and despite what she might think about herself at the moment, she was the most capable female he had ever known. Probably the most sensible female too.
He followed her inside, the log burner like a furnace to his left as he entered, and removed his jacket, hanging it on the peg just behind the door. Cameo removed hers too and held it, tossed another furtive glance at the door as she continued to grip the bear spray as if her life depended on it.
“What about the bear?” she whispered with a glance at him now.
Lowe stepped past the coat rack to the kitchen and looked out of the window as he washed his hands, using some of his store of water to rinse the blood off them. “Gone. Won’t be seeing that bear again. It must have spooked when we approached it.”
“It’s not dead?” The note of fear in her voice made him look at her and flooded him with an urge to hold her.
He dried his hands instead, trying to keep his cool. He didn’t like lying to her, but it wasn’t as if he could tell her the truth. Besides, he had the feeling he wasn’t the only one omitting the truth here and there.
“Probably dead by now. It was in bad shape. You saw it.” He tossed the towel onto the small patch of counter near the sink and held his hand out to Cameo.
When she didn’t pass her coat to him, just hugged it tighter, he crossed the short span of wooden floorboards between them and took it from her. He clutched it in his left hand and lifted his right one, couldn’t stop himself from brushing his fingers across her pale cheek and into the spun silk of her hair. The tips of it were gold, but it faded to honey and then brown at the roots.
“What?” She raised her hand and it brushed his as she reached for her hair, sending a thousand volts shooting up his arm.
“Just… not seen hair like yours before.” He felt like a bit of a dolt having to confess that, and for staring at it so intently.
“Oh.” She fidgeted with a thick strand of it. “I… I don’t normally… It’s usually just brown. I was in Vancouver a few months ago and did it on a whim.”
He smiled at the way she said that, as if doing something on a whim was a terrible thing, but then it was probably very unlike her. He had the feeling that normally a decision like getting her hair done would have involved numerous days of debating styles and colours and doing research.
Lowe hung her coat on a peg and helped her to the navy couch that stood at an angle in the middle of the living space, facing the log burner in the corner of the room. She sank onto it, her breath leaving her on a weary sigh, and leaned forwards, reaching for her boots. He eased to his knees before her and unlaced them, gently slipped them off her feet and stood.
“Better?” He carried the boots to the door and placed them on the mat to the right of it, near the log burner, and removed his own boots and set them next to hers.
Tried not to think about how good they looked together.
Or the fact he had never had female company in his cabin before.
“Much.” That single word held a lot of pain.
Lowe looked over his shoulder at her, turned and frowned when he caught her trying to unzip the leg of her black salopettes. He strode back to her and sank to his knees on the fur rug again.
“Here, let me.” Because just the sound of her in pain was enough to drive him wild with a need to take care of her, to ease her and stop her from hurting.
Something about this female had bewitched him. Maybe she wasn’t human. Witches smelled human. Although, he doubted a witch would be a park ranger. Not glamourous enough for them. Light witches loved nature, but probably not enough to work in the parks, taking care of the land. All the witches he had met had preferred living on their own patch of land and making money off spells and elixirs made from the flowers, herbs and plants they grew.
There was a witch near Golden who had been slowly expanding her property with the income she made from selling love potions and other tonics and now owned acres in the valley, including a large area of forest.
Going to see her hadn’t been Lowe’s finest hour but he had managed to stop himself from buying a potion that would make the object of his affection at the time love him back.
He focused back on the female who was with him now, bringing himself back to the present as he unzipped the leg of Cameo’s pants and eased the material up. He grimaced as he saw her ankle was swollen now.
“That’s not a good look.” She peered at her leg. “Oh my God. It’s twice the size of my other leg!”
“It’ll be fine. Just needs to be elevated.” He gripped her shoulders and eased her onto her back, froze as he found himself leaning over her and her eyes locked with his. The urge to kiss her hit him again, and this time it was harder to deny it.
Because she looked as if she wanted to kiss him too.
He sucked down a breath and forced his eyes away from her, did his best to be a gentleman and not the sort of wild, uncivilised man she probably thought he was because he lived in the middle of nowhere in a basic cabin, with only other men like him in the vicinity. He grabbed the cushions from the worn grey armchair that stood at a ninety-degree angle to the couch near the wall and placed them under her left leg, elevating it until it was above her head. He was probably being harsh on himself, and on her. Maybe it was fear talking—fear that she would take one look at his home, with no running water and only solar power, and think he was a male who wasn’t worth anything.
He wasn’t sure when he had started wanting her to think he was worth something. He amended that thought. It wasn’t being worth something that mattered to him. It was being worthy of something, and he was treading a dangerous path, heading for heartbreak again if he thought she was going to view him as worthy of her heart.
She was human. Nothing could happen between them. Relationships with humans never worked out. Humans were fragile, their lifespan a mere blip compared with his, and they aged fast because of it. He didn’t age quickly at all. He was going to look this way, or close to it, for another few hundred years at least. In a matter of years, she would know something was different about him and then what?
He knew the answer to that question.
She would leave. She would realise he was different to her and she would leave, and she would probably take his heart with her and he would spend the next few hundred years feeling like a hollow shell of a male.
Even if he somehow kept his true nature hidden from her, he would have to leave Black Ridge. He would have to leave his brother behind. He would have to leave his pride. He would be a bear alone in a human world.
Just the thought of that made him restless, agitated the more animal part of him, and had him wanting to see his brother, needing to see him and know that they wouldn’t be parted.
“Lowe?” Cameo whispered, her soft voice black magic, trying to tempt him to her side. “Is something wrong?”
He shook his head and swallowed hard, avoided her gaze as he checked her ankle. “Nothing. Just tired.”
He stood, a little too sharply judging by how Cameo tensed. He issued her an apologetic look and then went to the dresser at the far end of the room, below the window. He opened the cupboard, grabbed the med kit he kept there, and pulled himself together as he checked it had everything he needed. He was being foolish. Hoping for something impossible. As soon as Cameo was able to move, he needed to get her out of his life.
His bear side suddenly growled and snarled, clawed at the cage of his human form. He braced himself against the dresser, gripping the wooden top so hard he feared he would snap it in two as he fought with his other side. That part of him was often grouchy, but he couldn’t remember the last time it had been this mad. Fur rippled over his hands and he glared at them, breathed deep and fought the change, unsure why it was coming over him.
It hit him like a thunderbolt.
Both sides of him didn’t want Cameo to leave.
Just the thought of never seeing her again was enough to rouse a feral need to roar and lash out at anything that stood between them, filled him with an urge to stake a claim on her, to keep her here in his cabin forever and never let her go.
Lowe stared at the top of the dresser as he let that sink in, as a strange feeling swept through him, one that had him secretly scenting the air, savouring the soft fragrance of Cameo that laced it.
He needed to talk to Knox.
He turned to storm out the door and find his brother, but his gaze caught on Cameo and the need to stay with her easily overpowered the need to speak with Knox. She stared at him, her blue eyes soft and laced with concern, worry not for herself but for him.
Lowe grabbed the med kit and pinned his gaze on the floor, resisted looking at her as he crossed the room to her and set the bag down beside her feet. “I’ll bandage it properly this time and then you should probably get some rest. You can take my bed.”
He unravelled the makeshift bandage and stared at the dark bruise on her leg.
“In the morning, if the weather is still clear, we can probably call in an air ambulance.” He slid a glance at her and she didn’t look at him.
She just stared at her leg, a distant look in her eyes, one that made him want to ask what she was thinking. A bubble of suspicion rose up and popped in his mind. She didn’t want to leave, and he had the feeling it wasn’t because he was amazing company and she just couldn’t bring herself to part from him.
Any normal female would want an air ambulance to pick her up and take her away from a group of men in the wilderness. Wouldn’t they?
He tore open a pack of crepe bandages and carefully wrapped her leg, glancing at her from time to time, noticing the worry blooming in her eyes. Something was wrong, something that was keeping her silent and putting a war in her eyes.
He pinned the end of the bandage and sat back, stared at her until she finally looked at him. “What is it, Cameo? What are you not telling me? You can tell me.”
She swallowed hard, her fine eyebrows furrowing as she looked from him to her leg and then back again. She drew down a deep breath, looked as if she might say something, and then sucked down another.
Lowe sensed the rising tension inside her and the fear, and placed his hand on her knee. “You can tell me. I know you’re in trouble, Cameo. I just don’t know how deep that trouble runs. I can’t protect you from something I don’t know about.”
A light entered her blue eyes, a flare of hope that quickly died, and she looked away from him and sighed.
“The man that I—” She swallowed hard. “He isn’t the only one up here in the valley. There’s another. I got him with the bear spray, but what if he was the one who shot the bear? Maybe he wandered into the settlement looking for me?”
That thought clearly shook her.
Lowe was more shaken by her attachment to her bear spray, and the fact his lie about how Saint was responsible for what had happened to the bear she had seen apparently hadn’t been convincing enough for her.
“The man didn’t shoot that bear, Cameo.” He drove that home, all softness leaving his voice now. He needed her to believe the bear had run off and Saint had been the one to do it, giving his alpha a reasonable excuse for his injuries. “But if there’s another man up here in the valley, I’ll find him… and I’ll deal with him. I won’t let him near you… but I need to know why they’re after you.”
Her face crumpled and she shook her head.
Lowe shifted his hand to hers where they rested on her stomach, shuffled closer to her on his knees and stared deep into her eyes. “I need to know, Cameo.”
Her brow furrowed again and she leaned her head back, stared at the ceiling for so long he was sure she was ignoring him and wasn’t going to answer.
But then her throat worked on another hard swallow and her left hand slipped from beneath his. She unzipped the pocket of her black weatherproof trousers and fished out a phone, unlocked the screen and held it out to him.
“Messages. One from my brother. Nate.” She squeezed her eyes shut.
Lowe found the messages and scrolled through them, didn’t miss the fact she had sent a heart to her father’s number while he had been occupied with Saint or that a lot of unknown numbers had contacted her in the last few months. He clicked on a few of them, cursing himself for snooping, but his gut said the message from her brother wasn’t the only disturbing one on her phone.
All of the messages were threats. Demands for money. Threats about killing her parents. Threats about how close they were to finding her.
He bit back a growl as his mood took a dark turn, as a need to head out into the darkness and find the other human in the valley blasted through him. When he found the bastard, he was going to rip him to pieces.
Lowe found the message from her brother and opened it.
Froze.
His blood caught fire, boiled in his veins as he stared at the photo.
He clenched his free hand and set his jaw, stared at the image of someone he presumed was her brother, but the male had been beaten so badly that it was hard to make out his face through all the blood, swelling and cuts.
Lowe went to set the phone down, but Cameo reached for it, hurt and fear in her eyes. He handed it to her and she clutched it to her chest, holding it in both hands, as if it was precious. It probably was. It looked like it was her lifeline—her only way of knowing her parents were safe. He guessed the heart messages they were exchanging were a way of communicating with each other that they were fine.
Still alive.
Unlike her brother.
“Who did that?” He growled those words, on the warpath now, determined to uncover how many people were after her and track every single one of them down.
They would regret coming after her.
They would regret hunting her parents too.
“A man named Karl. I knew him back east. We both did. He got my brother involved in drugs… not taking them.” Her voice hitched and she pulled down an unsteady breath. “Nate was dealing them… or handing them out to dealers… or whatever it is people do in that damned business. I didn’t know about it until he moved to Vancouver. I thought he was on the straight and narrow. I should’ve known better.”
She looked down at her phone and sighed, a wealth of hurt in it as tears lined her lashes and one slipped down her temple, cutting into her hair.
“They wanted me to help them get drugs over the border and I refused.” She sucked down another shuddering breath and exhaled hard, her voice tight as she said, “Nate did something foolish. Apparently, being a drug dealer or whatever he was hadn’t been lucrative enough for him… or he made an honest mistake. He… money went missing.”
The money the males were now demanding from her.
Lowe frowned at her phone. “Nate got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and figured he could get out of being killed by saying you had the cash.”
She nodded. “I don’t know what he was thinking.”
Lowe did. The male had probably been thinking Karl would let him go and would either target her instead, or make Nate take him to her, and he would have a chance to escape and get the money and flee.
Instead, he had gotten himself killed and painted a target on his sister’s back.
He placed his left hand over hers and held them, looked at her fingers as they trembled beneath his as she fought tears.
“I won’t let them near you, Cameo,” he growled, those words a vow he intended to keep. “What they did to your brother… it won’t happen to you. I swear it. You’re safe with me.”
She looked at him. “I know, but I’m scared. He’s out there.”
He gently squeezed her hand. “He doesn’t know you’re here, and if he comes knocking, he’ll have more than just me to deal with. I’ll warn my brother.”
Knox was going to be angry with him when he learned about Cameo’s trouble, but his brother would do the right thing.
“You look like you could use some real food, and maybe a shot of whiskey.” He reluctantly released her hand and stood, lingered a moment as he gazed down at her and she looked up into his eyes, her blue ones holding a hint of gratitude, and hope.
“I think I just want to sleep,” she murmured.
Lowe stooped and lifted her into his arms, gently cradled her to his chest and carried her upstairs to the bed. He set her down on it and she lay back, resting her head on the pillows. He lit the oil lamp on the bedside table for her, kept it low so it didn’t keep her awake, and lingered again.
“I’ll be just downstairs. Going to fix you some soup in case it turns out you’re hungry after all and grab myself that shot of whiskey.” He smiled at her and she nodded, the barest dip of her head, and the sight of her hurting had him wanting to stay, needing to be near her and aching with a need to reach down and brush her hair from her face. “It’ll be okay, Cameo.”
She nodded again and when he went to leave, she grabbed his hand and looked awkward as she held it. “Would you—never mind. Just… thanks.”
He knew what she was thinking, what she was feeling. She wasn’t a burden, and wanting him to stay close while she fell asleep didn’t make her weak. He eased onto his backside on the bed, twisted at the waist and reached over her. He grabbed the blanket and pulled it over her, covering her as best he could.
Her eyes slipped shut and he watched her, monitoring her with his senses, making sure she was calm. How long had it been since she had felt safe enough to sleep without fear? He did growl when he thought about the fact she was running for her life, had been forced to fight a man in order to survive, and there were more still after her and her family. It came out low and deep, a long rumbling sound that he felt sure would make her open her eyes, but they remained closed.
Her breathing levelled out and fell into a slow and steady rhythm, telling him that she was sleeping.
Lowe took the phone from her, switched it off, and set it on the bedside table. He stared at it. Whoever had done that to her brother would pay for it. He would see to that. He would make sure she was safe and free, able to go about her life again.
He lifted his left hand and brushed his fingers across her cheek, lingered with the tips of them against her soft skin, and cursed himself. He was getting in deep again, over his head, and this time he knew things wouldn’t end well for him.
He couldn’t fall for her.
No matter how badly he wanted to, and no matter how badly he wanted this thing between them to work out.
He had to do the right thing.
He had to let her go.
