Saved By Her Bear by Felicity Heaton

Chapter 13

It was pitch black by the time Knox finally slowed and began to walk up a rise in the woods where the trees were thin enough that she could see through the canopy in places. She wasn’t sure how he could see where they were going. She could barely make out the trunks of the trees they passed and only those that were closest to them, within a few feet. Either he had really good night vision or he really did know this valley like the back of his hand as he had claimed.

Snow swirled around them again, growing heavier as they entered an area where the trees were even sparser.

She huddled against Knox’s back, unashamedly stealing his heat. She had given up covering their tracks when the branch had felt as heavy as a lead weight in her hand, and the snow had been falling so thick and fast that it was covering their tracks for them. She had discarded the branch and opted to cuddle into Knox’s broad back instead. He had responded by shifting his hands higher up her thighs and drawing her closer still, and had told her to keep her head down.

Skye had rested it against his spine, close to his nape, shielding herself from the snow and wind.

Snow and wind that had his fleece shirt soaked through. She was freezing, every muscle in her body stiff and her mind sluggish, and she was wearing a weatherproof coat designed for the frigid climate. She could only imagine how cold Knox was in only his shirt.

“We’re here.” Those words roused her from the sleep that beckoned her and she took hold of his shoulders and pulled herself up.

Her eyes widened.

The lodge wasn’t small as she had expected.

It was a sprawling, single-storey log building that had a porch that ran around two sides of it—the front and an area to the right. Along that side, firewood had been stacked against a wall that capped it off at the far end, half-covered in a tarp. The middle of the lodge, where the door was, had a gable window above the sloping roof of the porch. Snow covered the entire roof and had built up in places around the raised deck.

Knox carried her up the steps to that deck and paused.

She realised he was waiting for her to get down. “I think I’m too stiff to move.”

He chuckled warmly, heating her through. “You’re fine just where you are. Hang on.”

He reached up to the top of the doorframe, grabbed a key, and opened the door. The inside was even darker than it was outside, but Knox unerringly carried her to a couch, turned her back to it and eased down.

She dropped onto it and was thankful when Knox kept his back to her, giving her a moment to convince her legs to move. She slowly lowered them and moved them together, slumped on the couch in the darkness.

“I’ll light a fire.” Knox went to move.

She lunged upright and grabbed him, locking her hand tight around his wrist. “No. The men. They’ll see the smoke.”

Knox turned towards her and gently placed his hand over hers, and she wished she could see his face. His voice was soft, tender, a comfort to her as he said, “They’ll see nothing in this storm, Skye, and I’m not about to let you freeze to death.”

His hand brushed hers, fingers grazing her knuckles, working black magic on her that had her relaxing, the momentary burst of panic releasing her from its grip. She covered his hand with hers and held it a moment, not wanting him to let go and fearing that he might.

Two years she had been waiting to see him again and she still couldn’t. She peered up into the darkness, wanting it gone so she could look into his eyes and see that everything was going to be all right.

So she could see in those same eyes that the moment they had shared had affected him as deeply as it had affected her.

She was dreaming now.

She released his hand and took her other one back, tucked both against her damp jacket as the warmth that had been slowly filling her fell away, leaving her frozen to her soul. Two years. Two long years and not once had he tried to contact her. If the moment they had shared had affected him as deeply as it had her, he wouldn’t have walked out in the dead of night and never contacted her.

Knox lingered a moment and then he sighed and moved away from her. She busied herself with removing her boots, trying to shut him out and ignore what he was doing as he moved around only a few feet from her. A bright golden light flared and her head darted up, her eyes adjusting to the sudden burst of light. It chased over Knox’s profile as he stared at the long match and then lowered it towards the grate of the fireplace. It didn’t take long for the fire to catch and spread, brightening the room and revealing Knox to her.

His dark blond hair was slicked back, the wet strands shining in the firelight, and the handsome planes of his face had settled in a hard expression as he stared at the fire, shifting a log with the iron to allow the flames to spread beneath it.

A distance had grown between them since she had taken her hand back, one she knew was her fault. One she wasn’t sure how to narrow down again. She hadn’t meant to push him away, didn’t want to be cold and bitter towards him, but she couldn’t help it. Seeing him again after two years, having him act as if nothing had changed between them, as if those two years hadn’t existed for him, was difficult for her. He had hurt her, and as much as she didn’t want to be petty and punish him, part of her wanted him to hurt too. She wanted him to know the pain he had caused her.

“I’ll… uh… I’ll get the generator going.” He stood and pivoted away from the fire, disappeared into a room off to her right, at the rear of the lodge, before she could say a word or stop him.

Skye unzipped her coat and looked at the L-shaped black couch, realised she couldn’t dump the wet item on it and forced herself to stand. Her legs were still stiff as she walked to the front door and closed it. She lingered there, clutching her jacket in front of her as she stared out into the swirling storm. It was a whiteout. That gave her comfort, eased the part of her that feared Karl was going to appear at any moment.

Knox was right and the men wouldn’t find the lodge in this storm in the dark. It would be a miracle if they found the lodge at all. They must have crossed the valley and covered a vast distance to reach this place. As far as she remembered, the glacier was a long way up the valley, almost twice the distance than the small hunter’s cabin had been from the trailhead.

The lodge had to be further from the glacier than Knox had made it sound, because there was no way he could have covered that much ground in the middle of a snowstorm and in the dark too. He had been moving swiftly though, and now she was thinking about it, he hadn’t needed a flashlight to illuminate the way for him. A hundred questions filled her mind.

They fled as a light flickered on, making her tense and her fingers tighten against her jacket. Something to her left beeped and she looked there. The light was one of three in the large modern kitchen area, suspended from a wooden crossbeam in the open vaulted ceiling. The other two in the black metal dome-shaped shades were out.

Skye hung her coat up near the door and checked her dark green sweater. It was damp at the hem where it had come loose from her black trousers, but she could live with that.

She hadn’t expected such a well-appointed kitchen up here in the remote wilderness. There was a large stove in front of the window that overlooked the front porch and a double sink set into the wooden cabinets. Another window above it revealed the side porch she had seen. The worktop looked like solid black granite, which couldn’t be right. It would weigh far too much for men to haul up here, even if they had a small four-by-four vehicle that could somehow traverse the forest to reach it. She didn’t know of any road beyond the forestry track.

Maybe they had flown it in with a helicopter. Some of the bigger lodges in the valleys used local pilots to deliver building materials to them. It made a lot more sense to her than men carrying it all the way from the trailhead.

There was no way a group of men would be strong enough to haul it all that way, not even if there were half a dozen of them.

She moved to the wooden post at the start of the long row of cabinets that acted as an island and separated the kitchen from the living room and touched the counter. It was cold enough to be real stone.

A door beyond the L-shaped couch opened and she tensed, relaxed again as she spotted Knox dusting snow off his soaked fleece shirt.

“You’ll catch your death in that.” She regretted it the moment she said it, the second he looked at his shirt and then at her.

A wicked glint in his blue eyes.

He undid the top two buttons, reached over his back and pulled the shirt off in one fluid move, revealing his bare torso to her.

Oh God.

Her mouth dried out and she tried to avert her gaze, but it was glued to his body as he lowered his wet shirt to his side and stood there facing her, letting her stare. Tempting her. She swallowed hard, wanted to be angry with him for playing such a trump card, for trying to sway her and get her to lower her defences. Impossible. It was impossible to be angry while she was staring at perfection. There wasn’t a man in this world who had a body like Knox’s. It was cut from stone, honed by the finest sculptors, made to tempt women and set their biological clocks screaming at them.

Strong male. Competent male. Perfect breeding material.

He looked every bit a hunter, or perhaps a warrior, as he stood there staring at her, the broad slabs of his pectorals shifting with each breath.

She frowned.

Each increasingly unsteady breath.

Her gaze flicked up to his.

He looked away from her and strode to his right, disappearing beyond another door.

Had her staring rattled him? She had thought he would lap it up, that he would enjoy having her eyes on him, but she had the damnedest feeling that she had shaken him and made him nervous.

Which would be a first.

He had never been nervous around her before.

Was he waiting for her to give him hell?

If she did, he would deserve it, but right now she was too tired to get into a fight with him.

Skye moved to the fire and stood before it, staring at the flames, trying to enjoy the way they warmed her numbed toes and trying not to think about Knox warming her in a different way. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. The Knox she had known would have soaked up her attention, would have smiled in that cocksure way that had always made her roll her eyes. Something about him had changed.

An answer flickered through her mind and even though she tried not to, she latched onto it.

Did he have someone else?

Oh God. Was that why he hadn’t contacted her? Was he married? Had he cheated on his wife with her? Her mind ran at a million miles per hour, racking up the questions, spiralling into a deep, dark rabbit hole of hurt.

“You okay?” Knox’s voice coming from right beside her startled her and she whipped to face him, tripped on her foot and almost fell, but he snagged her wrist and kept her upright. His blue gaze leaped to his hand on her wrist and he was quick to release her. “Something on your mind?”

“No. Yes. What makes you say that?” She grimaced.

He frowned and eased closer, and God he smelled good. The black long-sleeved T-shirt he had pulled on did nothing to hide his muscles from her, seemed to emphasise every damned one.

“You look… I’m not sure. Maybe like you were chewing on a wasp. Or a bee.” He glanced away from her, his face hardening, and grumbled under his breath, “Fucking bees.”

She got the impression he really hated bees. “You allergic to them or something?”

He glanced at her and frowned, and then his brow relaxed. “No. Just hate how they stop me from getting their honey. Got a few bad experiences with bees under my belt.”

“It’s easier just to buy honey. I mean… who tries to take honey from a hive? Unless you keep bees?”

“Keep bees,” he murmured thoughtfully, his eyes lighting up, as if that thought had never crossed his mind before but he liked the idea of it. “Honey tastes better fresh from the source.”

They were getting off track. She tried to think of a way to get their conversation back on topic and then decided she didn’t want to go back to thinking about the fact he might be married.

Her mouth had other ideas.

“Are you married?” she blurted and grimaced.

Smooth move.

He jerked backwards as if she had slapped him and frowned at her. “Married? Hell, no. I’m not married. Why are you asking me that—oh.”

His eyebrows rose.

He swallowed hard.

“Skye…”

She shook her head and turned away from him, not wanting him to see that she was relieved to hear that he wasn’t married. That relief was quick to dissipate when she considered he might have been married.

She pushed the words out. “When we… were you married then… or maybe you cheated on someone?”

“Where’s all this coming from?” He reached for her and she moved a step forwards, stopping him from touching her.

He sighed and walked past her, ran a hand through his hair, tousling it as he went to the kitchen. He stopped near the island and pivoted to face her.

“I didn’t cheat on anyone with you. Skye…” He huffed and frowned, drummed his fingers on the black stone counter, and then abruptly turned away from her again. “I’ll get you a warm drink.”

“I’ll take a cold one.” She held his gaze when he paused and looked back at her, surprise in his blue eyes. “I need something a little stiffer than coffee… and I’m also a little afraid you’ll try to give me what you think passes for coffee. I’m not sure I can stomach another dose of whatever that was you gave me back at that cabin.”

He half-smiled.

“I warned you it was awful.” He shrugged and looked off to his left, out of the front window above the stove. “Lowe got all the cooking genes. He could have made even that out-of-date crap taste good.”

This wasn’t the first time she had heard him talk about his brother as if he was superior. It struck her that he measured himself against his twin and that deep inside, beyond all the armour he wore around his heart, he felt he was lacking. She was sure there were things he could do that Lowe couldn’t. She walked over to him, drawn to him, needing to be close to him because despite his armour, she could see he was hurting and she wanted to know why.

She stopped close to him and angled her head up, her gaze colliding with his again. “About that drink.”

He smiled easily this time.

“I have just the thing.”