by Lynne, Rosie
He smiled, though it wasn’t as big and bold as normal. Leaning in, he kissed her, a soft press of his mouth against hers.
“Willis--”
***
“Just trust me,” Willis told her, and started pulling off his heavy coat and gloves. “I need you to put this on. You’re going to need it.”
Charlie tried to push him off as he put the gloves on her. “But you’ll need them too!”
“Trust me.”
He yanked off his hat and pulled it tight down on her head. They worked together to get her zipped up in the Willis-sized coat: it was so big on her, she nearly disappeared inside it. Willis tied the hood tightly under her chin after they tucked all her strawberry blonde hair into his bright orange cap.
“Okay. We’re going to do this. We’ll walk back down the road to the main gate, then we can cut through the field to the cabin. It’s got a fireplace, and I’ve got a couple of gas heaters inside. We’ll be fine until morning when we can figure all this out with the cars. Okay?”
Charlie was frowning at him, but she nodded all the same. He adored her in that moment. She was angry at him for endangering himself, but she trusted him. Even though she probably wanted to smack him. He stole another quick kiss, because this was the hard part. She would probably be more than pissed about this.
“This might… no. This is going to be weird. I’m going to do something, and you’re not going to believe me. But you have to trust me. Just know: I would never do anything to let you get hurt, Charlie.”
“Al--” she swallowed. “All right,” she agreed, in all seriousness.
“Get your keys.”
Charlie turned off the car, then tucked the keys inside a zippered pocket so she couldn’t lose them. She nodded at Willis.
“All right. Let’s do this!”
Willis jumped out of the car before he could think about this anymore. He was terrified. Terrified he had messed up in getting them into this position in the first place. Terrified he was going to get Charlie hurt, or worse. Terrified that after he showed her the truth, and his plan to get them back to the farm, that she would never speak to him again after this. Or, worse, be too scared to follow him.
The wind smacked him hard in the face. It was biting cold out, and in the back of his head he worried about some of the planting prep the farm had started last week. Mind on the important things here, he reminded himself.
He fought his way around the front of the car to get to Charlie. She had her hands on the door and was trying to slam it shut, but the wind kept pulling it from her grasp. They both struggled together to get her door closed.
“Stay right here!” he shouted. Snow got into his mouth. He rubbed at it frantically as he struggled through the snow and up onto the road. “Trust me!” he shouted again. He hoped Charlie actually heard him.
He took a breath, and then began to shift.
***
One moment, Willis leaned her against the car and told her to stay. She didn’t understand -- weren’t they going to walk back to the farm together? But he had asked her to trust him, so she stayed. She thought it was a stupid idea, but she did it. That way, when they had to think up a new plan, she could say honestly, hey, we gave yours a fair shot.
One moment, she was leaning against the car, already cold, with her jeans soaking wet from the ice and snow, watching Willis struggle onto the road. The next, it wasn’t Willis. The snow was heavy and Charlie thought that it must have been a trick of the light-- because the next moment, instead of big, burly, brown eyed Willis, it was a big, burly brown bear standing in the middle of the road. Right where Willis had been.
It was a huge bear, standing on its hind legs. It fell down to all fours and let out a whine as it carefully found its footing on slick asphalt. It sniffed the air, then turned its giant head toward Charlie. It bellowed at her.
“Shit!” she screamed.
She tried to yank open the door to get in the car, but she couldn’t get a good grip. Giving up, she scrambled onto the hood of the car. She wasn’t sure what her plan was -- maybe to get across to the passenger door, maybe to get on the roof. What actually happened was that she slipped on the icy car and almost fell into the ditch. Willis caught her around the waist before she could fall and hurt herself.
“Bear!” she screamed at him. She tried to climb up on his shoulders.
“I know!” he shouted back. “I’m the bear!”
“Bear!” she shrieked again in incomprehension.
“Yes, bear! Me!” He managed to get ahold of her and yank her back down to her feet. “Bear. I’m the bear, Charlie. It’s me, baby, I’m the bear.”
The snow and ice smacked at her cheeks. He was watching her with his big, brown, honest eyes. Brown like that big brown bear. His hands were warm, even bare, as if he was a massive furnace. Like a bear in winter, right? They ran really warm.
“Bear!” she shouted again and smacked at his chest.
“Yes!”
“How are you a bear?!”
“It’s complicated!” he shouted through the wind. “But we--”
“How is that complicated?! How are you a bear?!”
“Charlie, we have got to go.” He gave her shoulders a shake to make sure she understood. “I know it's a lot to take in, but I’m a bear sometimes. And I can get us back to safety. But we have have got to go, and go now.”
“You’re a bear!” she shouted again. This was an important fact to get across. “And we were supposed to go on a date. A bear date!”
“I’m really proud of how well you are taking this right now, but can you yell at me later?”
The snow was sticking in his hair and his eyelashes. When Charlie took stock of herself, she realized how cold her feet already were, and they had only been out in the snow for a few minutes at most. This guy she kind of wanted to date was a bear, but if they didn’t move, they were going to freeze to death.
“I am going to yell at you so much latter!” she agreed. Then she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. His lips were cold and already chapped. So were hers. But he was being a big bear to help her right now, so she was going to try and see her way through this. She could have a breakdown about it later.
“That sounds great!” He took her arms from around his neck and set her down in the snow. “I’m going to change again. I want you to get on my back. And hang on!”
She wanted to shriek at him again -- what did he mean, hang on? – but he was already stepping away. He struggled back onto the road, and the same thing happened again. He seemed to blend back into the snow, and then suddenly Willis was a big brown bear. It was like her mind skittered across whatever change happened and refused to see it.
The bear whined at her. On shaky legs, Charlie pulled herself out of the ditch and onto the main road. The bear snuffled at her once she got herself on her feet, then knelt down. It took several tries before she could finally make herself reach out and grab a hold of a big tuft of bear fur. The bear (should she call him Willis? No, that was too much just yet) bent his front paw, and she used it to climb onto his back. She managed to throw her leg over the other side so she was straddling the area just behind the bear’s shoulders.
Grabbing on tight to the thick fur around his neck, she told the bear, “I’m on!”
The bear turned his head to look at her, and, with a great huff, he took off down the road. Charlie couldn’t help but shriek. The bear was running at breakneck speed, bounding down the road and jumping over slick ice patches.
“Holy shit!” she screamed. Then she laughed. She was riding a bear that was a guy she was kind of making out with a lot in the middle of snow storm that could kill them both. Laughing seemed like a good idea as she hung on for dear life.
They reached the main gate of the farm in almost no time. She could see the truck where Willis had abandoned it, the snow coming up to almost the top of the tires from all the wind blowing it about. The gate was wide open, and the bear slowed down to sniff about. He wh
ined, then started a more careful trot through the fields instead of walking up the dirt road to Christmas Tree Town.
Charlie could see a light not far in the distance, flickering due to the blowing snow. That had to be the cabin. She could hardly feel her face from all the ice and cold. She ducked her head and pressed her face against the bear’s neck. She could hear his heavy breathing and pounding heart beat against her neck. It was warmer there.
She looked up again in time to watch as the bear climbed over the fence from the field into the main part of the farm and start to bound again at full speed. They were headed towards a small, wood frame, single level house.
“Almost there,” she muttered to herself.
They skidded to a stop. The bear whined at her again. With shaky hands, Charlie let go of the bits of bear fluff she'd been holding in a death grip. She fell, more than climbed, down from the bear’s back, and landed on her ass in the snow. Her hands were so cold, but she could still feel them a little. Her feet were like blocks of ice. She struggled to stand up.
The air pressure changed, which she realized had happened when Willis had changed before, and suddenly she had two warm arms wrapped around her waist.
“Come on, almost there,” Willis whispered into her ear.
He helped her up, and the two of them leaned on each other as they struggled the rest of the way into the cabin. It took them both to pull the door open, and they all but fell inside. The wind howled behind them, snow and ice blowing across the floor. Willis crawled back and shoved the main door closed behind them. It was suddenly quiet.
“Holy shit,” Charlie whispered. “Let’s not do that again. Like, ever.”
“Sounds great,” Willis panted.
They were both flat on their backs on the hardwood floor. Charlie could hear a heater working somewhere nearby. She was very cold, very wet, and very tired, but they needed to get out of their wet clothes and get warm.
“We’ve got to get out of our clothes,” she struggled to say to Willis.
He groaned. “I thought we were doing a rain check on the date thing.”
“No,” she moaned and kicked at him. Tried to, anyway. Her feet were so numb, she thought she only smacked her boot heel against the floor.
“I know what you mean.” He groaned again, then struggled to sit up.
They both fought together to get out of their sopping wet clothes. Charlie struggled with the big coat Willis had put on her, then her own jacket and cardigan underneath it. Her jeans were a real problem after she managed to kick off her boots. She had to lie on the floor shoving at her jeans from the top while Willis stood over her and yanked hard on each pant leg. They eventually slid off of her, along with what Charlie was sure was at least two layers of skin. She had to do the same for Willis to get off his tight wranglers. He held onto his boxers while she pulled on each pant leg.
They left their wet clothes and boots in a pile by the door to deal with in the morning. They stood together in their underwear. Charlie was grateful she had taken the time to pick out a matching bra and panty set “just in case”. At least she looked cute while freezing in a cold cabin in the middle of nowhere.
Willis was as incredible to look at as she had imagined. His shoulders were broad, with biceps chiseled from years of hard farm work. His abs were delicious; it was the best word she had for them. In the back of her mind, she knew that in another situation she would want to wrap her hands around his hips and lick a path from his abs to his mouth.
“We’ve got to get you warm,” Willis told her.
“I’m fine,” Charlie told him – or at least, she tried to. Her teeth were chattering together so much, she had no idea if he understood her. She hadn’t realized she was doing it. She looked down at her hand and realized it was shaking. She was shivering all over.
Willis took her by the shoulders.
“Shit, you're burning up!” she cried out.
“No, that’s because you’re so cold, baby.” He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. His lips were on fire too.
Willis let her go to grab a blanket from the couch. He wrapped her up in it, then picked her up as if she weighed nothing.
“Hey,” she muttered.
“Seemed easier.” He flashed her a cheeky grin.
He set her down gently in the bathroom. “Sit here,” he told her.
Charlie gracelessly plopped on the toilet while Willis started up the bath. He leaned down and kissed her again before padding out of the bathroom. She watched his muscled backside with a detached enjoyment. She was so cold, she felt warm. It was such a strange feeling, and it was sucking up all her energy to think. Which was a bad thing.
Willis came back. She was so tired, Charlie had no idea if he had been gone seconds or moments.
“Clothes,” he explained and dropped a pair of sweatpants, a sweatshirt, and giant wooly socks by the sink. “All right. Bath’s ready. Can I dig you out of that blanket?”
She nodded and tried to help as best she could. Willis carefully helped her up and held onto her arms as she started to put one foot in the bath. “Fuck, that’s hot!” she cried.
“I know it feels that way, but it's barely bathwater warm.” He kissed her cheeks as tears sprung up in Charlie’s eyes. “Come on, in you go. It’ll make it better, I promise.”
Willis slowly lowered her into the warm bath, wet underwear and all. It was too warm, at first. It felt like needles stabbing into her toes and her legs, then her fingertips once she got herself fully under the water. She knew she was crying. Willis made soothing noises as he rinsed her face with a wash cloth.
“There, looking better already,” he told her, after several long minutes of soaking. “You scared me there. Your lips were starting to turn blue.”
“I felt like an icicle,” Charlie admitted. “Here, I’m gonna--” She dunked her head under the water. The shock of warmth on her face helped revive some of her brain cells. She sat up again and shook out her hair. “Man. That feels better.”
Willis only smiled and tried to push her hair out of her face. He kept touching her: her hair, her face, her knee, her toes. Never anything inappropriate, considering she was almost naked in a bath with him, but little touches all the same. She watched him, watched his muscles flex and relax under his skin as he rinsed out the washcloth, then came back to sit at the edge of the tub.
“How come you’re okay?” she asked eventually.
Willis averted his eyes. “It’s… well, it’s the--” He stopped.
“The bear thing?” she supplied.
“Yes.” He looked at her then. “Yes, it’s because of the bear thing.”
Charlie nodded to herself. “I really didn’t imagine it, then? You turning--”
“Turning into a nine foot tall brown bear?” Willis asked. He offered her a self-deprecating smile. “It was real.”
Charlie looked down into the tub. She stretched her fingers under the warm water. He had taken care of her when she had gotten stuck out there in the ice, then made sure she didn’t develop hyperthermia just now.
“Have you always been, ah.” She struggled for a moment. “A bear?”
“We’re called shifters,” Willis offered. “And, yeah, I’ve always been a bear. My dad was, too.”
Charlie struggled around that idea for a moment. “Is Jolie…?”
“Nope.” Willis chuckled. “My parents used to tell stories that my dad knew my mom was the one after she almost shot him with a shotgun one night when he was running across the fields.”
Charlie chuckled too. “That’s crazy.”
Willis shrugged. “Shifters like us… we just know these things.” He moved on quickly. “My nephew, Elvis, is a bear shifter as well. It runs in families. My cousin Marta isn’t, but she married another shifter. A llama.”
“A llama?” she repeated.
“A llama. They’re waiting to see what their two kids will be.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, then tugged at his ear, like he did when he was nervous. C
harlie smiled to realize she already knew this man’s tells. “I’m still the same guy. I’m still Willis, sexy farm man, like I was this morning when we were texting. Like I was before you left the farm. You, ah. Happen to know some more things than I planned to tell you just yet. I was going to wait until at least date number three to throw this out at you,” he added quickly.
Charlie patted the water and watched it ripple. “You probably saved my life, you know.”
Willis flushed. “I wasn’t going to leave you out there.”
She reached out of the water and squeezed his hand where it rested on the rim of the tub. He looked up at her with startled eyes – still the big, brown, honest ones that kept drawing her in.
