“Oh,” Fiona breathed in awe, on spotting him. She zoomed in and snapped several shots. The fox lifted his head and she took another photo with the animal staring straight at her.
After five minutes, Arve kissed her neck. “Are you ready to go?”
“Do we have time for a quick selfie?” She rearranged her camera screen and focused the camera on their faces. “Perfect,” she said, after pushing the shutter.
“Will you email me a copy, Fiona, mine?”
“I’ll download the photos tonight,” she promised.
They watched a pair of Arctic hares, almost invisible in the snow, plus white birds that reminded Fiona of plump partridges. She’d been hoping to see another owl, but spotting the polar bear with her two playful cubs made her day. They stopped the vehicle, and Leif said they could inch a little closer.
The mother lifted her nose and stared straight at them when they reached the perfect viewing spot, according to Leif. The two cubs—much whiter than their mother—stared at them too, full of curiosity. One stood on his hind legs to get a better viewpoint. After a while, the mother relaxed and the two cubs returned to their playful wrestling.
Fiona took photo after photo, thankful for the clear weather and digital cameras. “This is amazing,” she whispered, excitement zipping through her. Not even the cold dampened her enthusiasm. “They’re so cute I want to cuddle them.”
“You’ll have to make do with us,” Josef quipped. “The wild bears can be dangerous and unpredictable. At this time of the year, they’re hungry and their energy stores are low. Once the ice freezes, they’ll go out to feast on the seal pups.”
“I thought your mother and the rest of your people were already out on the ice,” she said.
“They’ve gone to the winter camp, which is farther round the coast. The instant the ice is strong enough, they’ll go out and feast on seals too.”
“Glad I’m not a seal,” Fiona quipped. “What does seal taste like?”
“Fishy,” Arve said and smacked his lips. “My favorite treat.”
She pulled a face and the brothers chuckled.
Kirk lifted his head, and his nostrils flared. “There’s a male heading in this direction.”
Fiona took a final photo of the cubs and noted that the mother was alert, sniffing the air too. She grumbled at her cubs, and they ceased their playing, coming to attention. She moved off, setting a rapid pace. Her cubs scampered after her.
“Is a male bear dangerous?” she asked as they wandered back to the vehicle.
“They will kill the cubs if they can. It’s food for them,” Josef explained.
Fiona nodded, understanding. It was nature but it still seemed barbaric to her. “Does that happen to shifters too?”
Kirk snorted out a laugh. “A hundred years ago, perhaps. These days we’re a lot more civilized. We have to be to survive in the human world.”
She frowned. “But the males leave the females once they’ve mated?”
“They did with Ma. She turned out too bossy for them to put up with,” Leif said. “It’s why we all have different fathers, but Ma is an exception. Most pairs stay together as humans do.”
Fiona nodded. “Do we have time to take a group photo first?”
“As long as you’ll let us take a photo of you with each of us too,” Leif said. “We want a picture like Arve.”
After much laughter and joking, Fiona and the brothers managed to get the photos taken, plus a few spares in different combinations of her and the men.
“It’s getting late,” Leif said. “We should go. Whose turn is it to cook dinner?”
“I have an idea,” Fiona said. “Why don’t we go to Gypsy’s for dinner? Or one of the other places, if you’d prefer.”
Silence fell—a quiet so absolute that Fiona scanned the area to see if someone or a bear had appeared behind her.
“We’ve never been to dinner before,” Stig said.
“Why not?”
“Because we make the humans nervous,” Josef said in disgust.
“So you always eat at home?”
Arve nodded, solemn. “Yes, Fiona, mine.”
“Well, that’s about to change. You’re helping the town people by opening the ice road. The least they can do is serve us dinner. I would like to buy our meal because I’ve had such a great day. Will you let me? Please?” She scrutinized each of their faces and noted the longing yet the acceptance of the locals’ behavior. “Right. That is settled. It’s good to give custom in return, don’t you think? The owner of Gypsy’s purchased a lot from us today.”
“Deal,” Leif said with a decisive nod. “That would be a quicker way of getting dinner. Shall we head there now?”
“Yes, please,” Fiona said. “I’m starving. Will they have steak?”
Tourists packed the café along with several people she’d met during the morning in the shop. The locals broke off their conversations to stare as Fiona directed her men to an empty table by the window.
“We order at the counter,” Stig said. “You’re in luck with steak. It’s one of the specials tonight.”
“Who else wants steak?” Fiona asked.
“Me,” Arve said.
The others agreed.
“Sit down. I’ll order,” she said.
Josef winked at her. “You’re bossy tonight, babe.”
“Yep,” Fiona said cheerfully. “You shouldn’t stand between a hungry woman and her food.” She wandered up to the counter and waited her turn. “Six steaks, please. Oh, we’ll start with the French onion soup, so six of those too. Do you have dessert?”
“We made apple crumble with the apples we purchased from you this morning,” the elderly woman said.
“Yum. Should I order that now? Will it run out before we finish our steaks?”
“I’ll keep some back for you,” the woman said. “It’s delicious with ice cream.”
“Sounds good,” Fiona said. “How much will that be? Do you take credit cards?”
“Pay once you’re done,” she said. “That way we can add on dessert if you’re still hungry. We have fresh lemonade, made with the lemons we purchased from you too. Would you like a jug of that?”
Fiona gave a decisive nod. “Enough for six please.” Happy with her order, she wandered back to the table.
At a lone table in the corner, the strange dark-haired man she’d noticed in the shop sat alone with his meal. He was staring at her, and she flashed him a friendly smile. After a curt nod, he shifted his attention to his meal. His phone buzzed, and he set his knife and fork down to answer the call. Fiona dropped onto the spare seat between Arve and Josef and sent the man another quick glance. He spoke into his phone, no longer staring at her.
She smiled at the brothers. “Order done. I hope you’re hungry because I ordered soup to start and they have apple crumble for dessert. My favorite.”
“Fiona, mine, I’d prefer you for dessert.”
She beamed at Arve. “What if you could have both?”
It was a fun meal, full of teasing and laughter. They also discussed the plan for the upcoming days.
“I guess it would be easier to fly back to Winnipeg and catch a connecting flight to get home to Fort Lauderdale,” she said.
“You could always stay,” Stig suggested.
His brothers agreed with emphatic nods.
“Didn’t you say you’d decided to work from home?” Leif asked. “Is there any reason you couldn’t stay with us and work from here?”
“You want me to stay?” Her heart beat a little faster, her gaze taking in their earnest faces. Surely this was an interlude for all of them, a brief time out of reality to enjoy the experiences she’d never had because she’d cared for her mother and then she’d hooked up with Robert.
Arve reached for her hand. “Live with us. Be our mate, Fiona, mine.”
“All of you?” she asked in a faint voice. She glanced around the café and lowered her voice. “I thought you wanted a short-term fling.”
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The brothers shared a glance before turning their focus on her.
“It’s not a fling for us.” Leif reached for her hands. “I love you, Fiona. I can’t speak for my brothers, but I suspect they feel the same as me. We want you to stay and be our mate.”
“What about the gossip?” she asked. Because the locals would speculate about their living arrangements.
Kirk shrugged. “They gossip about us now. Nothing would change for us apart from the fact we’d have your delightful company.”
She frowned. “I’d need to think about it.”
“That’s all we ask,” Josef said, serious for once. “We’d never want to force you into something against your wishes, but a relationship with you would work well for us. We’ve been happier and less argumentative with you around. Your skills complement ours. Sometimes we’ll be away, but you’d always have one or two of us, at least, to warm your cold feet.”
“Children?” she asked in a faint voice.
“We’re brothers,” Stig answered. “Any child we had would be loved and valued. It wouldn’t matter who the biological father was, the child or children would belong to all of us. Right, Leif?”
Leif swallowed hard, his eyes darker than normal.
“Leif?” Arve prompted.
“I, yes,” Leif said with a harsh expel of air. “A long time ago I fell for a local woman. She became pregnant, and I—we—were so happy. The birth—there were difficulties.”
“You didn’t want to hear, Leif, because you were heartbroken at losing Mia and the child, but it was plain bad luck. These days, we have more medical help available. We have a hospital. You shouldn’t worry or let that stop you from moving forward. Besides, Fiona will decide on the issue of children. She will have the last say,” Stig said.
“You are smart, young brother.” Arve turned to Leif. “Runt is the wise one among us. He suggested the ice road and setting up a business.”
“He saw Fiona first,” Kirk added. “Okay, he saw her seconds after me.”
“My point,” Arve said. “Runt brings us luck and good fortune. We would be mad to ignore his suggestions.”
“Well,” Fiona said as she consumed her last bite of apple crumble. She set her spoon down with a happy sigh. “I guess that means I’ll think about it a little harder.”
“I’ll give you hard,” Josef said with a suggestive wink.
“Really?” Leif growled. “In public. You want the locals to overhear? Their ears are flapping hard enough now.”
Fiona scanned the occupants of the café. “We should go. There are customers waiting for a table.” As she spoke, the dark-haired man stood and left, a cell phone plastered to his ear.
“Are we ready to go?” Kirk asked.
Fiona rose. “I’ll pay the check.”
“We can pay,” Leif grumbled.
“No, I want to do this. It’s my treat.” Fiona marched over to the counter before any of the brothers could argue further. “Thanks for the great meal,” she told the lady behind the counter. “I adored the crumble. I’ll be sure to visit you again before I leave.”
Some of her feel-good mood dispersed. The truth—she had to leave to finalize the divorce. A sense of sadness overwhelmed her, and that’s when she came to a decision. She’d leave as planned, take care of everything in Florida and return. If her men wanted her to stay with them. They were right about her graphic design business. She could run it from here. During her marriage, she’d stopped taking jobs because Robert had wanted her attention on him.
She’d be starting from scratch no matter where she decided to live.
It was worth taking the chance to see if she could stay in Churchill.
She passed over her credit card and jumped when a hand landed on her shoulder.
Fiona turned with a smile. “Stig.”
“The others have gone to the vehicle. I said I’d wait and escort you out. Sometimes the wild bears wander into town, so you should always keep your wits about you.”
“You’ve told me this before.”
“The bears have killed humans in the past. Some survive the attacks and have to wear the scars for the rest of their lives.”
Stig slung his arm around her shoulders. “Thank you,” he said to the woman behind the counter. “We enjoyed our meals.”
Fiona took in her startled expression and hid her amusement. Maybe there was hope for humans after all.
Stig pushed open the door for her, his attention on their surroundings. Wow, he took checking for wild polar bears seriously. Although, how he could see much in this dark? She’d have to ask about their eyesight.
Snow crunched under her boots. The wind had come up, and it tugged at her hair and scarf.
“It’s a clear night,” Stig said. “We might get the northern lights tonight.”
“Really?” She’d heard about the lights in hues of green, pink, violet and blue that swirled through the night sky. “That would be so cool.”
With her attention on the sky, Fiona didn’t see the patch of ice. She skidded and would have landed on her butt if Stig hadn’t held her upright.
Something whistled past her ear. Stig jerked, let out a pithy curse. The next second he scooped her off her feet and sprinted toward the waiting vehicle. He thrust her in the back with Arve and Kirk and jumped in after her.
“Drive,” he barked out. “Someone is shooting at us.”
Leif accelerated before Stig shut the door.
“Who’s bleeding?” Kirk demanded. “Fiona?”
“It’s me,” Stig said. “The bullet pierced my sleeve and grazed my arm.”
“You’re shot? Let me see. Does this sort of thing happen a lot?” Fiona fired questions, trying to outrun her panic. The whistling sound had been a bullet. It had almost hit her.
It had hit Stig.
She shook him. “How bad is it?”
The RCMP Versus the Polar Bears
Leif sped home, driving with fast competence along the graded roads.
Someone had shot at Fiona.
He’d go back later and check for tracks and the scent trail, but right now they should get Fiona to safety and check on Runt’s wound.
Someone fired at Fiona.
Disbelief rattled through his mind, bringing every protective bear instinct roaring to life.
His blood pumped through his veins faster than normal, and his bear grumbled in alarm and anger. Someone had threatened their mate. His baby brother.
No one fired shots around the town. It was illegal, and he intended to file a report. “Kirk, do you have your phone? Ring the RCMP and report the shooting.”
“But the humans—”
“The shooter fired at Fiona. She is a human. At the very least, the shooting will be on record, even if they refuse to do anything to find the idiot who shot at Fiona and Runt,” Leif snapped.
By the time Kirk made the call, they’d arrived at their warehouse. Leif jumped from the vehicle and used his bear instincts to scan for danger. Nothing struck him as out of place.
“Let’s move,” he ordered.
“The officers are on their way to interview us,” Kirk said, ending his call. “Two of them are coming, and they made a point of telling me they expected cooperation and calm.”
“Idiots,” Fiona snapped. “Help Stig inside. I’ll get my camera. We’ll photograph his coat and injury.”
A siren sounded in the distance, rapidly speeding closer.
“That was quick,” Josef said. “I’ll wait for them.”
“Call me if they need reassurance,” Fiona commanded, punctuating this with a hard stare. “We need to work together and alleviate their suspicions.”
“That will not stop me from checking the scent trail,” Leif replied, his bear chuffing with approval of their mate’s calm head.
“I’d expect nothing less from my men,” Fiona said with a decisive nod. “Right, Stig. Upstairs. Let’s see the damage.”
As promised, Fiona photographed the rip in Runt’s
jacket plus the angry red furrow on his biceps. Thanks to his bear genes, the bleeding had stopped.
The siren ceased outside their warehouse as the RCMP Ford parked. Leif heard Josef’s low murmur.
“Up here, officers,” Fiona called. “We’re checking and photographing Stig’s injury.”
The two humans climbed the stairs, eyes darting left and right, assessing the situation for danger. One—Corporal Jager and head of the detachment—was big and grizzled in his blue uniform jacket, his face lined from years spent outdoors in the elements. A muskrat fur hat covered his head. The other—Officer Robinson—was tall and thin and twitchy enough to make his Gore-Tex patrol jacket rustle. His fingers flexed often as if he wanted to reach for his weapon.
Leif sent his brothers a warning glance, and they each took a step back. They didn’t need a trigger-happy officer to add to the excitement.
“Thank you from coming so quickly,” Fiona said. “This is what the bullet did. The shooter might have killed us.”
“Which direction did the shot come from?” the corporal asked.
“We came out of Gypsy’s,” Stig answered. “We’d parked our vehicle right outside. The shot came from our right. At least I think it did. The report echoed. I saw no one.”
“I didn’t either,” Fiona said. “It happened so fast.”
“Do you have any enemies, Mr. Swenson?”
Arve grunted and Leif didn’t blame him.
“Most of the humans who live here suspect us of every crime that occurs in Churchill,” Stig said with remarkable calmness. “We’ve done nothing to aggravate the situation. We’re trying to pull our weight as part of the community. Churchill is our home and we want the town and the residents to prosper.”
The RCMP studied each of them and nodded. He shut his notebook and frowned at Stig’s rapidly healing wound. “Miss, is it possible to send us a copy of your photos?”
“Fiona McDonald,” she said, holding out her hand. “Yes, I’ll download them right now.”
The corporal handed over a business card. “Email them to us. I’d like one of you to show us where you were when the shots were fired.”
“Arve and I will follow you,” Leif said. “Is that all right?”
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