by Michelle Fox
He waited with keen ears trained toward the couch. She muttered something under her breath, and he knew she wasn’t sleeping any more than he was. Oh, well, it was for her own good—their own good. He already thought of them as a couple and wanted their first time and the decisive claim bite to be delivered in a sober state of mind with Andi’s full consent. Not something sneaky that lurked below the surface. Even though the current situation tortured him, he knew she’d be worth the wait.
With a string of restless motions, she made a lot of noise. She tossed and turned and punched the pillow.
A twinge of guilt needled him. He’d done this to her. The bite had heated her blood and made her receptive to all the fiery temptations he longed to share with her. He knew exactly what she wanted, but this wasn’t the time. “Andi?”
“Yes.” Her voice floated over the partition. “Am I making too much noise?”
He sat. “Do you want to talk?”
“I’m keeping you awake, aren’t I?” She sounded defeated. “You’ve been so kind, and I’ve been a weirdo. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’m sorry.”
Drawing his knees to his chest, he rocked. “Tonight opened my eyes.”
“Uh oh.” She sounded wary.
“In a good way. I’ve enjoyed your company. Do you… Would you consider visiting me again, maybe next month?”
“Are you sure you’d want me to?” Her voice rose with surprise.
“Very sure.”
“You’re a long day’s drive out of my zip code.”
“I know.” He sensed it would be best if Andi had a solid reason to return in a month’s time. Things would feel more natural. “What could I say that would convince you to drive a treacherous mountain road?”
“Say the word ‘pasta.’”
“I can speak to the owners of the Bluebell and make sure they’re primed to sell. As soon as the road is cleared, I’ll pay them a visit and grease those wheels.”
“That’s right. I have to come back and meet with them.”
“So is that a yes? You’ll visit again?” If she wouldn’t come to him, he’d have to contrive an excuse to drop in on her in West Los Angeles, though the bear in him wanted their courtship to proceed in the mountains.
“Mac?”
“Yes.”
“May I ask you an awkward question?”
He braced. “Go ahead.”
“You’re asking if I’d make a six-hour drive to visit you.” Her halting words were drenched in uncertainty. “Unless I’m wildly misreading the signals, I sense there’s chemistry between us.”
“There is.” Her understatement took his breath. “I think you’re amazing.”
“Right now, I’m not a day’s drive from you. I’m only a few yards away on your couch.” A touch of doubt crept into her voice. “Why haven’t you even tried to kiss me?”
His eyes closed as his heart leaped against his ribs. The bear inside snarled and berated him as a fool for being so cautious. But the man in him knew—the wrong word, a misstep, could send his dream woman fleeing. “This is stupid!”
“What?” She sounded shocked.
He flung the covers aside and jumped out of bed. In a flash, he strode around the partition, crossed the floor, and stopped in front of the couch, well aware that even in jeans the bulge in pants was obvious.
She stared at him, wide-eyed.
“Get up.” The words were as subtle as a fistful of gravel striking glass.
Andi froze.
He yanked the blanket aside and bent down to scoop her into his arms.
She squealed as he picked her up and lifted her to his chest. “What are you doing? Put me down!”
A moment of frenzy ran riot inside. He’d never felt this out of control with a woman. Andi whipped him up like a brush fire.
“Mac!” She squirmed in his arms.
He had not meant to scare her and was now afraid he had. He set her down next to the wall. The moment her feet reached the area rug, he pressed himself against her. Her lush curves and warm flesh made him harder. Taking hold of her wrists, he brought her arms above her head and pinned them there. With labored breath, he brushed his chest against her, feeling her soft breasts through the flannel and wishing his hands were free to rip the buttons away. Parting her thighs with his knee, he pressed against her. His cock rose so high, he thought the snaps on his fly might explode. “Does this feel like a man who doesn’t want to kiss you?”
Tilting her head, she gazed at him with languid eyes. “Do it.”
A burst of radio static broke the spell, followed by the sound of spinning helicopter blades thundering on the horizon. Whop, whop, whop, whop.
Turning his head, he glanced out the window. The first golden ribbon of dawn had arrived and so had the Search and Rescue helicopter that looked like an acid yellow locust skimming the ridgeline.
The radio crackled. “Mac, pick up.” Warren’s voice boomed into the cabin. “I should have called a few minutes ago and given you some warning. We are having one hell of a morning. Lots of storm damage. Chopper-4 is on the way.”
Mac released his grip on Andi and reluctantly drew away. Parting from her was as difficult as separating two thick strips of Velcro. He walked toward the radio console and clicked the speaker on. “Sierra Portal station. We’re here.”
“Good, you’re awake. This is one of those gotta be in two places at once sort of days. Have Miss Brunell ready to go. We’re going to fly her straight to Sierra Memorial for evaluation, and head right back out to look for motorists stranded by mudslides.”
Andi’s dark eyes turned liquid. A complicated mix of emotions shone on her face. She reached for her boots, set near the iron stove.
“I’ll get your clothes from the dryer.” Mac walked into the mudroom and retrieved her things. He returned and handed her the jumbled bundle of fabric.
“I’d better get dressed.” With a somber expression, she entered the bathroom and shut the door.
With a deafening hum, the chopper landed on the concrete helipad uphill from the cabin, kicking a cyclone of debris into the air.
An EMT wearing a helmet and bright yellow vest leaped out of the chopper. Hunched low, he crossed the parking area behind the cabin, holding a collapsible cart.
Mac recognized the EMT as a guy named Sam. They’d crossed paths a few times during fire season.
When Sam reached the cabin, Mac opened the door for him. “You’re flying early today.”
A look of concern tugged at the edges of Sam’s gray eyes. He unfurled the cart. “I wish we could have flown last night. Where’s our guest of honor?” he shouted, above the drone of the idling engine. “How severe are her injuries?”
Andi exited the bathroom, dressed, with her hair finger combed away from her face. She walked to Mac’s side. “Not severe at all. A few bruises and an animal bite. I’m ready to go.”
Sam’s cool gaze snapped into focus. “What sort of animal?”
“A bear carried me from the wreckage of my SUV.”
“The SUV in the ravine?” Sam gave Mac a brief but potent glance that said, Dude, is she drunk? He collapsed the cart and offered Andi his hand. “Be sure to tell your doctor about that. We have several missions to fly this morning, so let’s get you to the hospital fast.”
Andi hovered at Mac’s side. Her lips parted, and for a heart-shattering moment, he thought she might lean close and kiss him good-bye. He both craved and dreaded his reaction to her touch.
Her lips nearly brushed his. “Thanks for everything,” she whispered.
Sam took hold of her arm and drew her away. “Gotta go.”
She clung to Sam’s hand as he crouched low and led her to the chopper. Mac watched Sam shout directions to her, but could not hear what was said. Andi’s golden-brown hair whipped around her face. With his hand on the small of her back, Sam helped her inside and buckled her into a seat. A minute later, the high-pitched whine of the engine roared and the helicopter lifted into the air, banke
d in a sharp arc, and flew west. He kept staring long after the big yellow grasshopper disappeared over the ridgeline.
Chapter Five
Ten Days Later
Bathed in spring sunlight, the Sierra Portal highway looked lovely. Andi had been driving the luxurious rental sedan for over a week, but still didn’t like it. She missed the outdoorsy feel of the SUV. The hardy truck had come to represent a whole new way of life.
It might have been triggered by her mother’s passing or the accident, but in recent days, she had changed so dramatically, she no longer recognized herself. In some indefinable way, Mac and the encounter with the bear had cut the tether on everything familiar, so much so it had been painful to return to work and face an existence that had lost its luster.
She craved time outdoors. The new sense of adventure had become wildly incompatible with her job, which required endless hours at a desk with a headset strapped on. Even stranger, for the first time in her life, she actually wanted to do push-ups and had no problem pumping them out in brisk sets of twenty. With her old life suddenly gone stale, something had to change.
First, she needed to find out where things stood with Mac. She’d left multiple messages with the county dispatch office in several failed attempts to communicate with him. He never answered. She even hunted down his buddy, Warren, in Search and Rescue and begged him for an e-mail or PO Box address. None were forthcoming. Worst of all, she feared she was on the border of being a stalker or a pest and worried that the special something she’d sensed between them had been the wishful residue of a scotch-addled mind.
Mac had been an angel. The morning she’d left, he’d repelled into the ravine and salvaged her gear and even her mother’s ashes from the overturned SUV then made sure they safely reached her. He had them shipped to West L.A. In a single terse note, he made it clear he wanted her to visit in one month’s time, but how the hell could she last an entire month without some sort of meaningful contact? The suspense was killing her. So, with feverish preparation, she played hooky from work, filled a backpack, then got in the car and drove. Most of all, she needed to look into Mac eyes and see for herself what was going on.
The road wound higher. The sign came into view: SIERRA PORTAL RANGER STATION. TURNOUT. ONE MILE.
Glancing toward the scarred hillside covered in sandbags, she realized she’d arrived at the exact spot where the bear had rolled in front of her SUV and she’d gone skidding over the side. Silently, she promised herself that later she would climb down the grade and see the place where the bear had fished her from the river. Every time she thought of the bear, her heart swelled with gratitude. Her furry savior had taken on almost mystical proportions.
The turnout loomed ahead, along with the steep road that lead to the ranger station. She made a left and started up the bumpy grade. In a car with such low clearance, the ride was a gas-tank scraper. At that moment, she vowed that as soon as her insurance company settled, she would replace the plush upholstered luxury sedan with a vehicle fit to take on the elements.
When she reached the station, quiet reigned. The blinds were shut and Mac’s truck was nowhere in sight. She turned off the engine, opened the door, and got out. “Mac!” she called, not expecting an answer.
She peered inside the tiny greenhouse. Rows of newly potted plants with fresh shoots lined the shelves. Strolling along the deck, she came to the front entrance of the cabin and knocked. No answer.
A yellow note tagged to the mail slot caught her attention. The note read: Warren, I’m working the east slope, regrading the fire roads. Back on Thursday. Mac.
Damn, it was Wednesday. She’d planned badly. Looking out at the eastern ridgeline, she was stunned by the panoramic view. The trip didn’t have to be a complete washout. For a moment, she considered driving down the mountain to speak with the owners of the Bluebell, but the soaring vista of green trees leading up to the portal trail called louder.
“Yep, I’m gonna do it,” she mumbled. “Today’s the day.” With quick steps, she returned to her car and unlocked the trunk, which was jammed full of groceries she’d intended to leave for Mac and a stuffed backpack. She unloaded a cardboard box of groceries first and set it inside the greenhouse. None of the food needed refrigeration. The cache included a special bottle of aged scotch, several varieties of gourmet olive oils and pastas, a tin of pastel-colored macaroons, and other assorted luxuries to stock his pantry. She’d even tucked a bottle of white wine in the box for herself.
Digging through the glove compartment, she located a pen and notepad with the rental agency’s information printed on the top.
She scrawled a brief note: Mac, I hid a box of treats for you in the greenhouse. I hope the raccoons don’t break in and steal the linguini. I’m going to attempt Sierra Portal’s north face. I hope to see you when I return. She almost wrote love Andi, but thought better of it and simply signed Andi.
Returning to the front of the cabin, she secured the note to the lip of the mail slot with a clothespin. She knelt to retie the laces on her hiking boots and retrieved her backpack from the trunk. After locking her car, she glanced toward the portal trail. The clouds parted and like a divine compass needle, a beam of sunlight lit the summit. She started walking with the plan to follow the river to the trailhead. It would be a little out of the way, but she had something important to do first.
The stroll downhill went fast. Soon she found herself at the highway and gazing over the side of the ravine at the spot where her SUV had landed on the muddy bank. Everything looked different today. The river ran clear and calm, and was half the width she remembered. She glimpsed no sign of her SUV. Warren had told her it had been lifted by crane from the ravine and hauled away.
Below the road, she spotted a boulder and walked toward it. She stopped and removed her pack, choosing this as a good place to set up a thank-you shrine to the bear. Opening the backpack, she rummaged through it.
Mac wasn’t the only one who deserved a treat. The bear had become an obsession as well. She’d always liked bears, but now she loved them. The bear had become her living good-luck charm, and a symbol of a new way of life. The creature even worked its way into her dreams, arriving nightly as a big protective presence that dominated her heart.
Cautious to not appear crazy, she’d told no one about it. Even more unsettling, she’d started writing what amounted to love poems addressed to the bear. A therapist might call her behavior shock induced, or a coping mechanism. Whatever name it went by, she knew the intense fixation needed to end and hoped today’s offering would quell her preoccupation.
Removing a small parcel from the bottom of the pack, she opened it. A wooden box filled with golden honeycomb was set on the ground. The creamy beeswax had a delicate, sweet scent. Next, she grabbed a package of jerked buffalo and set the dried meat beside the honey. In her first real attempt at baking, she’d fashioned a dozen hunched gingerbread bears and arranged them like a circle of guardians surrounding the rock. She stepped back to view the effect. A stack of poems she’d written for the bear were added last.
For a moment, she worried what others would think if they happened to notice any of this and almost snatched the poems back. Then the reassuring thought occurred that the shrine’s impermanence made discovery unlikely. The boulder was not visible from the road. In no time, the bear or ants would come and help themselves to the food and the sun would quickly bleach and crumble the rice paper she’d used to write the poems. The wind and rain would wash the final bits away. Nothing aside from the balsa box would outlast the summer.
Holding the image of the bear firmly in her mind, she whispered, “Thank you.” What confused her was the moment she thought “bear,” the image of Mac’s face intruded into her thoughts as well. The sparkle in his brown eyes loomed vividly in her imagination. In daydreams, his gravelly voice replayed caring words again and again. She feared she couldn’t trust her memory and might be exaggerating her experience. Mac had been on her mind so much it had become a real wor
ry. Where he was concerned, her emotions were amplified and zoomed out of control. The feelings were uncomfortable, even disturbing to someone like her, who’d always kept a cool head and put her career first.
Another reason why a challenging hike might do her some good. She’d fallen in lust with a man who lived his life the complete opposite of her. Could she make such a profound change in her lifestyle? She couldn’t wait to see him again and find out if they actually made sense as a couple, or if this was just an overheated fantasy swirling around in her head. For now, she’d take her newfound desire to be an outdoors type of gal for a test drive and see if she could tackle the portal trail by herself.
Hoisting the backpack onto her shoulders, she walked toward an obscure brown sign with white lettering marked: Trailhead 0.4 Miles.
Mac finished grading a steep section of road. It had been a tough job lifting and emptying so many bags of pumice and filling the worst potholes and deepest ruts. He’d been glad to do it early in spring before the sun baked the dirt to hardened clay. With fervor, he performed two days of work in one. All the material had been used. He might as well go back. It made no sense to spend the night on the eastern ridge. Now he’d have to look for the next exhausting task to throw himself into to avoid thinking about Andi.
They were only ten days into the danger zone. Andi was still at the mercy of his bear pheromones. In their situation, peril was a two-way street. He felt tortured. She haunted his days and dominated his nights. Eating, sleeping, and living in general had become complicated. Worry came and went with regularity. What if she didn’t like him once the initial bite wore off? It could happen, and what then?
