“I’ve got the bruises to prove it,” Dietrich admitted with a nod.
“And you said you’d been swimming,” Elise added.
Dietrich raised a dark brow quizzically.
“You noticed my fur was wet?” he asked.
“I noticed everything,” Elise answered, her voice suddenly breathy. “You know, when you get past the terror of the situation, nature’s really kinda amazing.”
“I guess you don’t see it much in LA,” Dietrich reasoned.
Elise shook her head.
“But…” Dietrich continued. “You like what you see here?”
The ghost of a grin appeared in the corner of his mouth. Elise grinned too, her eyes wandering to his smooth lips and his suntanned face.
“Very much,” she revealed.
Dietrich waited for her at the top of the stairs, and Elise spent a few moments in the bathroom pretending to use the facilities. Instead, she texted Jane to see if there were any updates on the press storm surrounding her, and to casually mention that a gorgeous new guy had just flirted with her. When Jane sent her only a winking smiley face in reply, Elise emerged from the restroom with a wide, contented smile.
“I was thinking,” Dietrich said as they descended the stairs, “maybe I could give you a tour of the park tomorrow? There’s a lot of places the public don’t usually see, but I know all the most beautiful spots.”
“I would absolutely love that,” Elise replied at once.
When they reached the dining room, Anina was shouting something at the other boys in German, and once again Dietrich’s not-so-subtle cough urged her into silence. Elise sat back down, unable to suppress her grin.
“I’ve never studied German,” she said brightly, “do you all speak it?”
Anina nodded proudly.
“The clan moved here when I was a young woman,” she explained. “The boys are all American, of course, but I try not to let them forget their roots. Sauerkraut every Sunday with dinner.”
Dietrich winced, and Elise stifled a giggle. She noticed Anina watching them both with that thoughtful sparkle back in her eyes.
“Dietrich’s offered to take me on a tour tomorrow morning,” Elise told her.
As expected, the old woman’s joy overflowed in her gaze, and her wrinkled smile was impossibly wide.
“So, your Grandma seems really keen to marry you all off,” Elise observed.
She and Dietrich were sitting on the edge of a fairly high ridge, looking down on a fantastic spring of crystal clear water. Dietrich fumbled with a twig, his hands bending and twisting the wood nervously. He looked out into the gorgeous view, a smile ghosting his lips.
“Tell me about it,” he replied. “We don’t meet a lot of girls our age out in the wilds of Fairhaven. She thinks we’ll all end up bitter old bachelors if we don’t start dating soon.”
“Hence Karina’s agency getting involved,” Elise filled in.
“Did she make you do an interview on the phone?” Dietrich asked.
Elise shook her head. “Worse. Mine was face to face. Her office is in West Hollywood.”
Dietrich gave a little shudder, his huge shoulders rocking with the motion.
“God, it was so embarrassing,” he revealed.
“Seriously?” Elise cut in. Dietrich looked at her in surprise. “What do you have to be embarrassed about? What girl wouldn’t want a date with a six-foot-six park ranger?”
He let loose a nervous grin, and the twig snapped between his fingers.
“Well, I’m not good at talking, in case you hadn’t noticed,” Dietrich replied. “When I’m not telling you about the clan or the park, I hardly know what to say. I’m not sure I have a lot in common with an LA model.”
It killed Elise’s buzz a little to hear that, because he was probably right. She liked him though, that kind of instant chemical like that you couldn’t ignore, and it made her keen to bridge the gap between their lifestyles. She raised a hand to the gorgeous scene ahead.
“Well, we have this,” she offered. “I love this place. My life has been so busy for so long, and now it’s crazier than ever. Fairhaven is calm and open and beautiful. I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be right now.”
“Me either,” Dietrich said softly. “I’m a private kind of guy. I usually only come to this spot on my own. I… uh. I didn’t realize how nice it’d be to share it with someone else.”
Elise turned, and Dietrich was closer to her than he’d been a moment before. That heat was back, coming off him in glorious waves. It tempted her nearer, her eyes falling to his lips. They were barely more than strangers, only a few days into getting to know one another. And he was a shifter, a being that Elise still knew very little about. But it felt good to be so close to him. It felt right.
On the very edge of their kiss, when their lips had almost met, a camera flashed in their faces.
“Miss Davenport, what do you have to say about Miss Picard’s backlash?”
“Elise, over here! Give us that smile, beautiful!”
“Who’s your new man, Miss Davenport? Any comment for the gossip column?”
A swarm of press had found them. Cameras continued to flash everywhere, and the sea of reporters held out their phones and Dictaphones to record every second of the action. Elise scrambled up from the ridge, flipping her hair into place at her shoulders. She didn’t know where to look, for she had never had so many cameras on her at once, even on the red carpet. Usually, people took photos of who she was with, never Elise herself. Now, at the eye of the storm, she wasn’t sure that she liked all the attention.
“No comment,” she shouted above the clamoring pack. “I am here with a good friend enjoying a pre-planned break in nature. I have no reply for Miss Picard.”
It was the wrong thing to say. It only made the media more determined to pursue their story. Dietrich had gotten to his feet during the flash-storm and when Elise looked to him, she was horrified to see how uncomfortable he was. He shielded his eyes and face from the harsh lights of the cameras, trying to ignore the yelps of the reporters who were beginning to target him specifically.
“Are you a ranger here, sir?”
“How long have you known Miss Davenport?”
“What’s your comment on Chantelle Picard? Do you agree with what Miss Davenport said about her?”
“I… I, uh…” Dietrich stammered.
He shook his head, his face flushing pink. Elise tried to reach for him, to offer him some comfort, but it was no use. Dietrich strode from the scene with strong steps, pushing his way through the press pack. Elise swore that she heard a low, mournful growl come from his lips as he did. He disappeared into the forest beyond the crowd, and Elise wanted nothing more than to follow him and apologize for the awful situation he’d been caught up in.
“Come on now, guys,” she called over the press. “I said no comment and I meant it. Let me out.”
The crowd did not move. Elise had had no experience of bad press before today, and she suddenly yearned for Jane to be there, to tell her how to handle it. The ridge was behind her, offering no means of escape, and the press formed a semi-circle that stretched right around her. Elise knew that it was her fault, for her stupid slip of the tongue at the Shine Awards, but it didn’t seem fair to be hunted down like this. Her heart began to hammer, panicked at the prospect of no way out.
And then, someone at the back of the crowd yelled: “Holy cow, it’s a bear!”
The word filled Elise with a gleeful hope. Sure enough, a huge grizzly bear with piercing golden eyes had emerged from the trees. With an almighty roar, the bear rose to its hind legs, towering over the terrified press pack. The reporters began to scatter, phones and cameras dropping everywhere as the frantic mass ran in all directions. Dietrich’s bear-form landed on all fours again with a hefty thump, and Elise wanted to thank him for all he had done.
But something was wrong. Just as he had been agitated in human form, Dietrich was jumpy and snarling as a bear. He
watched her for a moment, his golden eyes devoid of the calming presence they’d had the other night. They were brimming with fear now, and it stabbed at Elise’s heart to see such a powerful animal overcome with anxiety. She wanted to reach out and help him, but Dietrich seemed far too volatile to touch. Before she could think what to do, he turned and pelted into the forest. Elise looked down at the skids and slashes of his track-marks, so messy that they left no chance of following him.
He had abandoned her at the ridge, more lost and confused than ever.
For the next two days, Dietrich was mysteriously absent every time Elise tried to visit the lodge. Anina didn’t look happy about having to report his continued absence, and all she could offer was what he’d told her: that he was taking some time to patrol the deeper woods. To make matters worse, the media had settled themselves on the campsite at Fairhaven. In her journeys to the lodge, Elise had to take long-winded hiking tracks and high-mountain paths just to avoid them. She was feeling the strain in her legs from so much effort, but she knew that Dietrich was worth it.
She had to explain. She just had to let him know that all of this was her stupid fault, and that she really did enjoy the calm and quiet of nature much more than the limelight. Elise couldn’t bear the thought that Dietrich was out there avoiding her, without even knowing the real reasons why. When she wasn’t seeking him at the lodge, Elise was glued to her phone in her cabin, which mercifully the press had not yet discovered.
“Don’t tell me that you were stupid enough to check into that cabin under your own name,” Jane chided.
“Yup, I’m actually that dumb,” Elise replied with a hapless sigh. “I’ve been a nobody for so long that it’s never really mattered before.”
There was a pause on the line, and Elise actually looked at her screen to make sure they hadn’t been cut off.
“You’re still there, right?”
“Sorry, yes,” Jane replied. “It’s just… this kind of stuff was the end of the world for you a few days ago. Now, it sounds like a minor inconvenience. Something’s happened.”
Jane was right, of course. Elise’s mind was far from the hungry cameras of the press, wandering out into those deep, shadowy woods that she could see from her cabin windows. She needed to make things right with Dietrich, and it was more important than anything else that had happened.
“Well…” She began, unsure how to explain. “Dietrich got really upset by the media attention, and-”
“This is the sexy bear shifter man?” Jane clarified.
“Oh yes,” Elise answered, “he’s very that. But he’s more too, you know? He’s quiet and thoughtful. I feel so calm with him, so safe. But now he won’t talk to me. I think he’s afraid to come near me in case the press find us again.”
“Not everyone can handle the pressure, honey,” Jane said sadly. Elise felt a lump in her throat at the bitter truth. “But,” Jane added, “if he thinks what you’ve got is worth it, he’ll come back. He’ll make it work if things are meant to be.”
Elise got up from the kitchen counter, walking through the open-plan space towards the back porch. Here, there was a set of glass double-doors that she had not yet admired the view from. As she listened to Jane’s thoughtful reasoning on the line, Elise stared out of the window into the forest ahead.
“Jane, I’m going to have to call you back.”
There, some twenty feet away on the tree-line, was Dietrich. He was in grey sweats, not his usual ranger’s uniform, and he was jogging out of the forest and straight towards the cabins. Elise’s heart gave a leap as she watched his strong, broad form getting closer and closer, praying all the time that he wasn’t going to veer off in a different direction. Soon, she could see his face, gleaming with a light sweat, and the dark shadow where the beginnings of a beard had grown in over his jaw. When his golden eyes came into proper focus, he looked up, straight at her through the huge double doors.
Elise opened the porch doors, smiling her most apologetic smile, and Dietrich jogged his way up to them. He panted at first, worked up from his run, and Elise couldn’t tell if the pink flush to his cheeks was down to exhaustion or embarrassment. When she guided him into her kitchen-diner, he sat down on a wooden chair, looking at his hands. Silence fell between them, and Elise felt all of her hope slipping away again. She had to do something. She couldn’t lose the potential they had together.
“Have you heard of a model called Chantelle Picard?” Elise asked.
Dietrich looked at her, one dark brow quirked.
“What does that have to do with-?”
“Humor me,” Elise cut in. “Have you heard of her?”
“Sure, who hasn’t?” Dietrich replied. “She’s the one with the huge… uh… Well, the huge everything.”
“Surgery, surgery, surgery,” Elise confirmed with a nod. “We were both at the same awards ceremony a couple of nights ago, the Shine Awards. I was just a guest, there to do some networking and show my face to a few companies, but Chantelle was claiming a big award for beauty.”
Elise crossed the room, sitting down in a chair opposite Dietrich. She gave a little sigh.
“And me, not being used to being watched by the press, well I said something stupid. I said that Chantelle wasn’t natural. She’d had to be augmented for people to call her beautiful. And I don’t think that’s right. I think she was beautiful anyway, before all the surgery. She didn’t need it. But the press took it all the wrong way, and now I’m all over the internet.”
“So,” Dietrich began, and Elise could see the thoughts connecting through his eyes. “So you’re not… augmented?”
Elise’s eyes widened.
“Oh no! Not at all,” she answered. “That’s my gimmick, see? The natural girl. My gigs are all skincare, vitamins, stuff like that. I’m aiming at the woman who wants to celebrate what she is, not change it all.”
Dietrich smiled, and it was the greatest sight in the world for Elise.
“There should be more models like you,” he said.
Silence again. Elise felt a little better, having finally got her faux-pas off her chest, but she knew there was more to come. With Dietrich’s shoulders curled like that, Elise could almost see the bear within the man, the way that his dark features must expand and increase in power. He still looked tense. Elise reached out, one hand coming to rest on his forearm. His sleeves were pushed up, and she dared to toy with the soft, dark hairs on his arm, drawing small circles.
“You must think I’m such a coward for freaking out like that with the press,” Dietrich said quietly.
He shook his head with a rueful grin, and Elise gave his arm a squeeze.
“I don’t know what to think, yet,” she admitted, “but I never thought that.”
“Clan Best is a really private group,” Dietrich began to explain. “Most shifter clans try to keep to themselves nowadays, because previous generations were wiping each other out with their pointless turf wars. But not everyone is pro-peace, even now. We do have enemies, and I’m the eldest male bear in Fairhaven. It’s my duty to protect everyone else.”
“I didn’t realize it could be so dangerous,” Elise replied. “I’m sorry I put you in that position.”
“You couldn’t help it,” Dietrich said. “How can you control a huge mass of media people like that?”
“No-one can,” Elise answered with a sigh.
It all felt so hopeless. Dietrich couldn’t be in the public eye, and with the scandal afoot, Elise couldn’t stay out of it. She wanted desperately to find some way out of the situation.
Slade (BBW Bear Shifter Moonshiner Romance) (120 Proof Honey Book 5) Page 36
