Baby, It's Cold Outside

by Jennifer Greene, Merline Lovelace

  Because that really was nuts, she parked on a crabby frown before opening the back door.

  And immediately froze.

  So did the bear.

  She took in the nightmare scene in a snapshot. Logs and pieces of wood were scattered everywhere in the snow. The bear was on all fours, at the door of the woodshed, but the moment he heard her, he whipped around and stood up on two feet. Crouched down, he looked huge. Standing up, he looked menacing and terrifying.

  “Rick!” Rick had to be trapped in there. Maybe hurt. Maybe worse.

  “I’m here.”

  “Are you—?” She couldn’t get a question out before the bear bared his teeth and lumbered straight for her. She heard Rick shout something about locking herself in, staying inside, but it wasn’t as if she had a choice at that instant. She slammed the door, shaking so hard she could hardly manage the dead bolts—and immediately felt a thunderous pound as the bear pushed at the door. The critter scratched to get in, making long, angry scratching sounds, then tried another pounding ram.

  She’d have hurled if she had time.

  She yanked off her hat, spun around, headed for the stairs. She couldn’t guess how long Rick had been trapped in the shed, but the logs strewn all over the yard told the story. The bear was trying to get to Rick. The bear was winning. Rick wasn’t.

  She charged upstairs, feeling the unwieldy weight of outdoor clothes slowing her down, not willing to stop. She jogged through the dark hall, fumbled with the closed door to the master bedroom—her dad’s room, when he stayed here.

  Naturally, she immediately crashed her knee into the bed board—the master bed was practically big enough to sleep five—ignored the shot of pain, whisked into her dad’s closet and scrabbled for the push-button battery light. She spotted the gun cabinet at the same instant she remembered that—of course—it was locked.

  She backtracked into the bathroom, yanked open the medicine chest. Her dad kept the cabinet key in an empty bottle of Midol—which he called theft protection. Her dad’s brand of humor. She shook out the key, dropped the open vial in the sink, ran back to the cabinet.

  Inside were two rifle-type guns, both long, and to her, both ugly. Her dad had forced her to learn how to shoot, always saying that you couldn’t visit a place like this without being able to protect yourself. She got it, always had, just couldn’t scare up a liking for guns. Now, though, she chafed at how long it’d been since her dad had made her exercise the how-to of putting in ammo and shooting them. Years, for sure.

  The first try, she put the wrong ammo in the wrong gun, swore at herself in a scream, got it right the second time. She hurled back downstairs, thinking Rick had to be all right. He had to be.

  She had a moment’s panic when her fingers touched the dead bolt. It wasn’t quite that simple, being willing to go outside, face the bear again. So she gave her heart three seconds to quit its stupid slamming, pushed the dead bolt loose and opened the door. Immediately the bear smell assaulted her nostrils—it was so distinctively rank and feral. Accelerating adrenaline far more was the immediate rush of sounds—the growls and roars of the bear, the sounds of wood being heaved. The snowy yard between the shed and house was almost completely littered with debris now.

  “Rick?”

  There was no response—except from the bear, whose head showed up in the shed doorway. He’d been in there. With Rick.

  “Just tell me—are you hurt?”

  It was a stupid question, she knew. Whether he answered or not didn’t alter what she had to do—which was get rid of the bear. Whatever it took. There was no other option, no other choice, nothing to think about. The only way she could get to Rick was by getting rid of the damned bear.

  The critter appeared no happier than when he’d last spotted her. He heaved up on two feet, rolled his head and growled, loud enough to shake her inside and out. She could see blood coming from his shoulder—not a lot—but enough to guess Rick had managed to cut him with the axe, not enough to maim the bear, not enough to stop him. Apparently just deep enough to infuriate him.

  Even more worrisome, Emilie realized, was that Rick might no longer have the axe. If he’d thrown it at the bear, it was his only weapon—and she couldn’t imagine him using the axe unless it was absolutely his only option.

  She flicked off the safety and hefted the repeater rifle to her shoulder—the monster weighed a ton. The bear had just plopped on all fours and was coming toward her, fast. Who could imagine how fast the huge animal could be? So she just shot.

  And shot.

  And shot.

  Tears blistered her eyes. It hurt. Every pull of the trigger sent a bruising kickback to her shoulder. She vaguely remembered her dad instructing her on how to hold the gun, but it just wasn’t a moment when she could access those old lessons. This was about doing it. Getting it done. Whatever it took to get to Rick.

  When her vision cleared—could it only have been seconds?—the rifle was empty. The strong smell of cordite choked the air. “Rick.”

  She couldn’t see the bear. Didn’t know if she’d hit it, hurt it or scared it—and didn’t care. Her first impulse was to run to the shed, to Rick, but the more rational decision was to run back in the house and get more ammunition, until she knew exactly what had happened.

  But then she heard him. “Is anything on the continent still alive out there, Doc?”

  He probably thought he was being funny. Not. She galloped into the shed, leaping and tripping over logs all over the Sam Hill place. Rick was on the ground, half-buried in a makeshift shelter of logs, covered with wood chips and bark and debris.

  “You’re hurt.” She didn’t see specific blood or injury, but she saw his eyes.

  “Not bad.”

  “Hurt from the bear? Or from a fall? Exactly what kind of—”

  “Emilie. I’m fine. I admit, I might need a little help getting to my feet. But first things first—where’s the bear?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is he lying in the yard?”

  “He should be. It was one of those repeater guns. I shot the whole load right at him.”

  “I think you should go back in the house until we know where he is….”

  Yeah, right. If the dimwit thought she was leaving him out there, in the cold and hurt, after that kind of battering, he needed his head examined.

  Actually she intended to do just that—examine his head—among other body parts. But somehow, once she heaved off all the firewood and finally got to him, she wrapped her arms around him tight and couldn’t seem to let go. Not for that second. Not for that minute.

  “Hey,” he murmured. “I’m okay.”

  Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn’t. But she was shaking like a leaf in a tornado, and her head was thick with tears and fear. “Let’s not ever do this again. The bear thing. Talk about not fun.”

  “Okay. But, Em…we’re not sure where he is right now.”

  “I know.”

  “We need to get up. To get in the house. To figure out where he is and what’s going on.”

  “I know. I know.”

  Still she couldn’t seem to move. She just wasn’t ready to stop shaking quite yet. She’d been afraid of a ton of things in her life. Wasn’t everyone? But not like this. Not like a wild animal, face-to-face.

  When she still didn’t let him go, Rick said casually, “I’m hurt. Not seriously, but he did get one good swipe at me. Claws went through my—”

  That fast, the shaking stopped. The word hurt galvanized her like nothing else could have. She shut down the residual panic, twisted around, took a fast look at his eyes and face color. “We’re getting you inside. Right now,” she said briskly.

  “Think that’d be a good idea. I’m pretty weak.”

  He didn’t look weak, but a serious assessment of his injuries couldn’t be done until she got him inside. “Come on. I’ll get you up….”

  She hooked his arm over her shoulder, already thinking ahead. He’d been exposed to the col
d for too long, had to be pretty bruised up, but the worst and most immediate problem, of course, was if the bear’s claws had broken skin. She was thinking antibiotics, not guns, when halfway to the house, Rick said, “You want to bring in the rifle.”

  “It’s out of ammunition.” How irrelevant could a stupid gun be, anyway?

  “Doc. Trust me. There’s more ammo. And other bears. You know what a pretty repeater like that costs?”

  “Do you see anyone in the near vicinity who cares?” Twice more en route to the door, she glanced around frantically—worried the bear had come back.

  Rick apparently had the wherewithal not just to pick up the gun but to glance around a couple times, too, because at the door, he noted, “You did an amazing job of tearing up the roof on the woodshed.”

  “Huh?”

  “I was afraid we were going to have to track down an injured bear. But I don’t see any sign of blood, and it’s pretty obvious you were aiming at the sky. I see a branch off the top of that pine, and that has to be eighty feet up. Not counting what you did to the roof—”

  “That’s more conversation than I need right now. In you go…”

  She got him in, locked the door, made him put down the stupid rifle and herded him into the kitchen. The fire was low. She didn’t care. She had him stripped down and sitting on a stool in the kitchen before he could even try giving her excuses.

  “Hey. I thought you were an anesthesiologist.”

  “I am. But there’s a wee bit more training involved than just how to put people to sleep—”

  “Yeah. That’s the part I was interested in. The drugs. Couldn’t we skip all this poking and prodding and go straight to some painkillers?”

  She didn’t answer. She was too busy. The burn on his shoulder was still big, still sore-looking, but in spite of the day’s acrobatics, it didn’t look worse, just needed fresh attention. He had blood and scrapes on his hands, needed cleaning, sliver removing. Bruises—my God. They were forming all over his arms and body.

  And he hadn’t lied about the “bear swipe.” The huge claw had broken through the parka fabric, through his flannel shirt, through his tech shirt. Thankfully those multiple layers had protected him from any worse injury, but the claws were big and sharp, and had left him with some scratches, and some puncture wounds. “The thing is,” she muttered, “it’s not that bad. But it’d be better if it were in a location where I could soak it. And better yet if I had some tetracycline around…”

  “How about morphine? Jack Daniel’s?”

  “The thing is, tetracycline’s a lot better than penicillin for problems like animal bites. They’re just different germ and bacteria threats altogether….”

  “You’re not listening to me.”

  “All right,” she said briskly. “This is going to sting a little—”

  “Wait—”

  “Hey, big guy. Almost done. Then you can take your wasted body in by the fire and I’ll bring you something to eat and you can tell me all about it.”

  “I’m suffering now.”

  “Uh-huh. Just stay real still for the count of twenty…”

  “Yeoch. You’re killing me. Give me back to the bear. He was nicer.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You know, when I first met you…”

  “The morning when you fell over me?”

  “I wasn’t thinking about that specific moment. I was just reflecting that originally I thought you were the toughest, most macho, truly male guy I’d ever met. You put shivers down my spine. And now, what a letdown, to find out after all this time that you’re really a wimp.”

  “Does that mean I don’t still put shivers down your spine?”

  She cut the last strip of tape, sealed it over the sanitized cut and carted the supplies to the sink—which meant he was finally free to get up. Only he didn’t move. He still sat on that stool, looking at her, clearly determined to wait for an answer.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “ALL RIGHT, ALL RIGHT, I admit it, you still put shivers down my spine.” Her voice sounded testy for good reason. She was testy. They’d been attacked by a bear, for Pete’s sake. She had every right to be riled, every right to go into a coma of panic if she wanted to. She put her hands on her hips to illustrate that opinion.

  He eased off the stool, as if he hadn’t been remotely hurting all this time—in spite of his complaining—and looped his arms around her waist. “Good. Because you put shivers down my spine. Thanks for cleaning me up, Doc.”

  “You scared me half to death.”

  “You think you were scared? You should have been out in the shed. I’ve been trying to think through what incited that bear….”

  “What?” He’d leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers. Every thought in her head turned smooshy. If there’d been music, they’d be dancing…slow dancing, the kind where you just swayed a little, touched, teased, hearing music only the two of them heard within the circle of each other’s arms.

  “Yeah. I think he woke up before the blizzard, hungry, getting hungrier when he couldn’t get out. And then he smelled our smoke—you know how much we’ve been cooking on the fire. Nothing as good as raw fish to him. But still, the hungrier he got, the crankier. And then when he found me, saw me, he probably thought my throwing wood around was an aggressive move. So the poor guy was just being who he is.”

  “A bear.”

  “Yup. Three things I have to tell you, Em.”

  “Okay.” She thought, this was really an insane time to be dancing. They should be doing practical things, like feeding the fire, getting something to eat. Both of them needed to unwind after that incredible ordeal. Her heart had been pounding panic for ages now…although at this specific moment, with his lips brushing her cheek, possibly her heart was pounding for an entirely different reason.

  “The first thing is—remind me to be in the next county when you decide to aim a gun again.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t intend aiming a gun again. I really hate them.”

  “I kind of noticed that. And that was the second thing. Because you hate guns, it means all the more that you came out to save me. I’d have had to shoot myself if something had happened to you. But all the same. Thanks.”

  She could feel a smile forming, a silly, soft smile. Funny, how all that stress was just disappearing, like fog on a soft morning. “So what’s the third thing?”

  “Okay. I don’t know what you’re going to end up doing for a living, Em. Whatever you want. But I’m telling you straight, you’re a doctor. You’re a natural. You may not want to stand up for life-and-death stuff, but you do. It’s who you are. It’s how you think. You can do something else, but that doctor thing is always going to be there under the surface.”

  Her smile faded like wind. “There went the shiver down the spine.”

  “Annoyed with me, are you?” Something in his expression made her think he was studying her, waiting or watching…for something.

  “I just think that we’ve both been through a seriously traumatic time together. And I don’t need another stressor at this very second.”

  Still, he didn’t move. “But that’s just the thing, Em,” he said quietly. “We’re running out of seconds. If you flew up here to make up your mind about what really matters to you…your time for thinking’s almost over. Have you made a decision about what you’re going to do?”

  What she was going to do, she decided, was make herself a sandwich, curl up on the couch in a nest of blankets and read in absolute silence for a while. She didn’t have to speak to her temporary roommate. She could be ticked at him if she wanted to be.

  He seemed to opt for exactly the same program. He fed the fire, made himself a sandwich, and then fell into a crash-nap on the other couch. As a doctor, she knew the best thing for him was rest. But as a woman, she was all churned up. He just didn’t seem remotely upset by the blizzard or the bear…or the idea of her leaving. He slept like the dead no matter what.

  Or so she thought. />
  Out of the blue, she heard a voice from the other couch. “Are we talking again yet?”

  Her face was hidden behind a book. “Not unless you’re willing to consider the possibility that you’ve lived up here like a hermit long enough.”

  “Hmm. I think we both take advice really well, don’t you?”

  She smiled behind the book, because darn it, she couldn’t help it. They really were equally awful at hearing advice. “Maybe…maybe…I appreciate your perspective. When I get an opinion from family, it’s always slanted toward what they want me to be, what they want me to do. At least when you offer advice, at least you’re looking at…well…me.”

  “Well, that’s easy. Looking at you has been the best part of the past few days.”

  Damn him. Now he was giving her a warm-fuzzy. And he wasn’t a warm-fuzzy kind of guy. For that matter, she’d never been a warm-fuzzy kind of woman…at least until she met him.

  “Rick?”

  “What?”

  “What’s your next move?”

  He didn’t pretend to misunderstand the question. “When the weather clears enough for a copter to pick you up, I’ll hitch a ride, if you don’t mind. I can’t shut down my place for long, Doc. The place needs repairs and things done. But I can start setting things in motion from Anchorage. I don’t know how long those projects and problems will take to resolve. If the weather stays decent, I can get back here, and get the cabin repaired to the point where I can leave it.”

  “And then?”

  “And then, if I can get my ducks in a row, I might consider looking for work back in the lower forty-eight.”

  “Like…back in Denver?” she asked casually.

  Silence. When he didn’t answer, she turned a page in her book. She hadn’t read a word since lying down and still didn’t have a clue what the book was about.

  Abruptly, he broke the silence. “I think we’ve done enough talking, don’t you?”

  “Darned right,” she murmured, heaved off all the warm covers and stalked toward him.

  He lifted his blankets. She climbed in. A snuggle was all she wanted. He was bruised and hurt, his body traumatized. Her heart was just as traumatized. Never mind if he was aggravating and frustrating. She just wanted the closeness of his body, of him. He folded her into the tuck of his body, covered them both. It was a big couch, but even so, two grown-up bodies were cramped for space. Or would have been, if they’d been taking up the space for two.