A Christmas Spectacle to Bear

by Jennifer Hilt

  It’d drive him wild if her ass was too sore for panties until she left town.

  Lea took a deep breath. She hoped no one would look too closely at her. Her body practically broadcasted “satisfied fuck.”

  She located her discarded clipboard and pen. The least she could do was appear to be working. She felt Caleb’s physical distance from her like a string stretched taut. She wished he didn’t have to leave, but Elvis needed to get home before the poor guy froze to death.

  As Lea slid back into the wings where she could see the stage, she saw Wanda stumble into the troll next to her. The troll gave Wanda an uncharitable shove back.

  Lea straightened. That was unlike Wanda.

  The chorus line turned right. Wanda swung left. She stumbled again, grabbing her throat before she collapsed.

  Trolls had never been known for their sensitivity. The crowd either assumed this was part of the act or didn’t care. The other showgirls continued dancing while Wanda lay on the stage.

  Lea pushed against the tide of trolls to reach Wanda and roll her over. Wanda’s eyes bulged and she scratched at her neck. Paddy cut the music and rushed onstage to help her. The trolls drifted off into the wings while security carried Wanda offstage.

  The fire department arrived within minutes and slapped an oxygen mask on Wanda. She couldn’t talk, but she was at least able to breathe.

  One of the firemen approached Lea and Paddy while Wanda was being loaded into the newly arrived ambulance. The fireman’s face was tanned, and grey flecks peppered his hair. His uniform was crisp and unwrinkled. Lea couldn’t help but wonder how long his shifts were. Did he work as many hours as Caleb?

  The fireman’s nostrils flared, and his eyes narrowed when he got closer to Lea. He nodded to her and Paddy. “Paramedics say she’s stable for now. They’re taking her right to the Icy Cap ER. Might be a good idea if you two head over there.”

  “I’ve got to settle a few things here first.” Paddy mopped at his brow. His ruddy face was lined with worry. “Would you mind giving my niece here a ride over? She’s the closest thing that girl has to family up here.”

  The fireman nodded again. He was stiff with formality. Lea had a whole pack of cousins working as firemen back home. They were hardworking, outgoing men. This reserved man seemed out of character. Though it was likely things were different here in that regard too.

  “Call me with any news.” Paddy gave her a quick hug before hurrying away.

  Lea’s brain felt foggy. Seeing Wanda gasping for breath like that had shocked her. She felt numb. She needed Caleb.

  “My vehicle is this way.” The fire captain swept his arm to the left. Even through her haze, Lea felt his caution.

  His nose twitched again.

  She followed him to his red four-wheel-drive truck with “Icy Cap Fire Captain” emblazoned on the side.

  He opened the door for her as she carefully climbed in wearing the stupidest clothes for outdoor Icy Cap imaginable. She hadn’t even thought of changing. She only wanted to see Wanda.

  After closing the door, he rounded the front to climb in on his side. He started the vehicle, blasting the heat. He opened his window a crack, sniffing the frigid fresh air.

  “Thank you for arriving so quickly, officer.”

  “Not an officer. I’m the fire captain, Derek Masterton.”

  “I’m Lea Riley.”

  “Caleb claimed you.” His handsome features scowled as he pulled away from the S&S.

  “How could you know that?”

  “Caleb’s scent is all over you.” He took another drag of the fresh air out his open window.

  “You’re an ice bear shifter too?”

  He nodded, keeping his eyes on the icy road before them.

  “Is it true there’s no way to break the claim?” She dreaded the truth, but she had to stop pretending.

  “Caleb told you that?” He squinted, but Lea knew it had nothing to do with his vision. He was trying to puzzle something out.

  “Vera.”

  Masterson puffed out a breath. “Her mate was my mentor.”

  “So is it true? There’s no way to break the bond, even in death?”

  “Basically.”

  Lea was seriously tired of the one-word answers and this guy acting as though she had body odor. “Have I done something to offend you? And I realize how crazy this sounds, since we just met.”

  “Caleb claimed you,” he repeated.

  “I know!” Lea’s voice rose. “I’m the one with his claim mark on my shoulder. What does that have to do with you acting like I’ve got some kind of plague?”

  The fire captain sighed. “Ice bear shifters are very territorial. They don’t like anyone, especially another ice bear, around their claim.”

  “You’re giving me a ride to the hospital. I’m pretty sure, seeing how Caleb is a doctor, he should be fine with that.”

  “I hope his ice bear brain realizes that before I have to kill him.”

  “You’re joking.” Lea went cold thinking about Caleb dying. It seemed impossible. Ridiculous.

  “No, ma’am. On the plus side, it’ll make a fair dent in reducing the power of that claim.”

  “Now I know you’re joking.”

  “I don’t want to kill Caleb. He’s as close to a friend as an ice bear shifter has, but if he attacks me, there’s not a lot I can do about it.”

  “He’s not going to attack you. We are all adults. This is a medical emergency. It’s hardly like we’re going to have sex on the way over.”

  Masterson sniffed out the window again.

  Fucking Christ. These guys were animals. How did they get anything accomplished when they spent most of their time thinking about sex?

  “Tell me he wouldn’t really think that was going to happen,” Lea said. The absurdity of this was insane. It was as if she had left the rational adult world and landed in some prehistoric caveman era.

  “I’m trying to keep away from you so he doesn’t smell my scent. Might be a good idea after you’ve checked on your friend to use one of the hospital showers.”

  So this was the downside to being claimed by an ice bear. Soul-searing sex was tempered with idiotic jealousy with no basis in reality. Ever since she and Caleb had started hitting every surface they could find, she’d not really taken the claim seriously. She assumed he’d fix it because he wanted to be unencumbered long term as much as she did.

  Now she was marveling at her own stupidity. She’d traded her common sense for some seriously good fucking.

  They pulled into the emergency department visitor lot. Masterson dropped her off at the doors. Entering the hospital, she could feel her pull to Caleb. For all her talk about independence, she could’ve been a pile of metal shavings drawn to a powerful magnet.

  She signed in at the visitor desk. Someone gave her a blanket and cup of coffee while she was directed back to the waiting area. Her fingers wrapped tightly around a Styrofoam cup, trying to draw some solace from the heat. Waiting sucked; she wasn’t a patient person. It was all she could do not to fling the murky coffee across the room. All that mattered was her best friend. Her mind looped back to Wanda dancing, then Wanda suddenly gasping for breath.

  Lea got up, pulling the blanket around her shoulders like a cape. Her feet ached in her heels. Suddenly the thought of those fuzzy blue hospital slippers was fairly attractive.

  This evening, the Icy Cap ER waiting room was empty except for a disheveled man slumped over in a plastic chair. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d visited an ER, but she had imagined they were full of people rushing about. The lack of activity here tonight made the waiting room feel desolate.

  Lea stalked over to the receptionist. “Any news on how my friend is doing?”

  Behind a pair of smudged cat-eye glasses, the woman blinked.

  No news was good news, right?

  Fifteen minutes later, Lea stared while the nurses settled Wanda in the intensive care unit. Monitors beeped and whirled, and all kin
ds of tubing were attached to her swollen friend. Lea knew Paddy and Vera were waiting for her call; they would be anxious for news. As it was, Lea had nothing to tell them yet.

  “Lea.” Caleb’s voice pulled her back to the present. He drew her out of her chair and outside the room. “She’s going to be all right. I talked to the doc treating her. He’s one of the best.”

  “What happened?” Lea’s voice cracked. She did not want to cry. The last thing Wanda needed was for her to become a blotchy, snotty mess. She needed to keep her shit together. She wiped her wet cheek with the back of her hand, not looking at Caleb.

  “It was a severe allergic reaction,” he explained. “Thank God she’s responding to IV Benadryl. She’s got welts all over her body, but they’re worse on her trunk. They’re trying to figure out what she’s allergic to. It could be anything, but it seems it was something that came in contact with her skin. It could be a new laundry detergent or perfume.”

  Lea stared back in the room at her friend. Wanda’s puffy body looked as though someone had inflated her like a bicycle tire. “Do you know where her stuff is?”

  “Let me check.”

  He returned minutes later with a plastic bag labeled with Wanda’s name and patient ID number. He handed it to Lea, who sorted through the jumble. She pulled out Wanda’s favorite leotard, a leopard print that Lea had intended as a gag gift, and examined the interior. Clinging to the spandex was a scattering of inch-long straight black hairs. She peered closer, finding something familiar about the length and texture. She’d plucked similar hair off her own leotards.

  “Elvis,” they said simultaneously.

  “He must’ve slept on Wanda’s costume when I brought it home to work on,” Lea said.

  Caleb frowned but said nothing.

  “You think this is my fault?” Lea’s voice rose. “You know what a Houdini he is. There isn’t a box he can’t find a way into.”

  Caleb rubbed his hand across his eyes. “You should go home. I’ve got an hour left before my shift starts. I’ll let you know if something changes with Wanda.” He leaned forward, kissing her on the forehead.

  Lea pulled back, but she wasn’t fast enough.

  Caleb’s fingers wrapped around her shoulders. He sniffed. He glared at her with dilated pupils. He sniffed.

  “For fuck’s sake, stop it.” Lea tried to pull out of his grasp, but his fingers didn’t budge.

  “Where is he?” he demanded.

  “How should I know?” Lea’s agitation rose. “My friend may be dead or dying. The fire captain gave me a ride here and you think we stopped to fuck along the way?”

  A muscle in Caleb’s jaw ticked.

  “Congratulations. It takes a lot to act like an idiot tonight, but you’ve succeeded. He and Vera verified there’s no way to break the claim. When were you planning on telling me? Or did you just think if you fucked me long enough I’d stay here forever with you? Fat chance. Even if you asked me.” She turned on her heel and stalked away.

  A few minutes later, Lea slid into the backseat of Lyle from Dallas’s shuttle bus. Her adrenaline receded, leaving her depleted. The fact that she could have hurt Wanda, even unintentionally, filled her with shame. She’d been careless, and it had nearly cost her friend her life. Lea clutched Wanda’s clothes to her chest. She’d taken them away wanting to remove any hint of Elvis and intending to bring her something more practical to wear home.

  Something in the bag of clothing pinched her. Feeling along the bag, Lea located a stiletto heel. She touched the tip as it pressed against the plastic bag. She continued to finger it, thinking. It was sharp. Like an ice pick.

  Only Lea and Wanda wore stilettos at the S&S. The trolls needed platform shoes to maintain their balance. Had someone borrowed a stiletto as a murder weapon? If so, it was kinda ingenious. And much more portable than an ice pick. When Wanda felt better Lea would ask her if she’d seen anything more odd than usual.

  She wanted to sleep and wake up with everything back to the way it had been earlier this evening, before she knew about the claim. It was time for her to return to New York City, claimed or not.

  Lea’s little pep talk didn’t work. The thought of leaving Icy Cap left her feeling hollow. But she didn’t want to stay here; her life was in New York City. Okay, so she’d gotten a bit fonder of Caleb than she’d expected. Back home, she’d make an effort to meet someone else—someone who was not an ER doc with a killer body and a wicked sense of humor.

  Twelve hours later, Lea was moving like a zombie. She’d been unable to locate Elvis, despite a thorough search of the trailer. Worries about Wanda kept her awake. Caleb had promised to call if there were any changes, but there’d not even been a single text from him.

  She stopped by the ICU early to find her friend sleeping off the high dose of Benadryl she’d been given to combat the hives. Wanda didn’t look a whole lot better, but she didn’t look worse, either. This was progress. The ICU physician said Wanda should recover, but it’d take a while after such a severe allergic reaction.

  Lea hurried back to the club to update Vera and Paddy on Wanda’s condition. She didn’t bother tracking Caleb down in the ER. They needed to get on with their lives and stop reinforcing the claim. Quitting each other cold turkey was the only way to go.

  At the S&S, Lea sat in her office—a repurposed broom closet—and cried. Her life was shot all to hell. Christmas was days away. Wanda was unable to perform. She wasn’t really cut out for PI work. The poor elf’s death would be meaningless because she was a lousy PI. Her self-pity piled up when she realized she’d probably never have sex again. She’d die alone with a legacy of worn-out vibrators.

  She got through the day, though. The horrible cliché “the show must go on” was never more true. Shortly before show time, someone rapped on the broom closet/office door. “Lea?”

  Her spirits lifted, then plummeted. Caleb. Damn him. She’d spent the day steeling herself to get over him. She’d known when he would arrive at the S&S, but she was trying hard to ignore the hum of his proximity in her bones.

  “Come in,” she said, half-turning on her portable folding stool. She blinked as a clump of mascara stuck to her false eyelash. Fuck.

  “There you are.” Caleb filled the open space. God, he was gorgeous, even with mascara sticking her eyelashes together. He wore a fitted black button-down shirt and narrow dress pants with leather boots. His shirt was open at the collar. Just the sight of the white skin at the top of his shirt made Lea swallow.

  His eyes darkened with desire when he saw her. Then he scanned her attire. “Absolutely not,” he said.

  She turned her back to him. “Of course I’m doing the act. I’m the only one who knows it besides Wanda.” She filled her upper lip with a scarlet matte lipstick.

  “You’re not stripping out there. Your family will kill you.”

  “It’s no one’s business but mine if I choose to perform an act I choreographed.”

  “Everyone in the audience will be dying for a look at your tits—and everything else,” Caleb pulled at his hair.

  “God, I hope so. That’ll mean the act works.” Lea stood up, giving him a full view of her thong. She ran the lipstick over her lips once more. She craved him, even now, with his hair askew. Frustrated Caleb was devastating as he scrambled for some way to stop her. It wouldn’t work, but his jealousy was a turn-on. Damn inconvenient time for her claim to start burning.

  “Please put some clothes on.”

  “Or what? You going to turn into an ice bear and haul me off to a snow cave?”

  She could see it on his face. That was exactly what was on his mind. His ice bear wasn’t a pet; she shouldn’t tease him. Her hurt tugged at an apology, but her brain calculated that something drastic was necessary to break this bond between them.

  Caleb didn’t say anything. He stalked away, slamming her broom closet door so hard the flimsy hinges rattled.

  She wiped furiously at her tears. Damn him. It was one thing to be a romantic
idiot; quite another matter to make her ruin her makeup.

  Lea dabbed at her eyes before leaving her dressing room. While she waited in the wings, a comedian finished his act. She had three minutes before she was on.

  Paddy waited with her backstage, fluffing her feather fans. He handed them to her one by one. She might not find the murderer, but she could keep the show going.

  Lea adjusted the fans and then faced him. “I look all right?”

  Paddy’s thumb wiped at his eyes. “I never thought I’d see such a classy act at my club again. Knock ’em dead.”

  All her thoughts about Caleb, and even Wanda, evaporated. In the pit of her stomach, fear tightened her gut. The stage went black. Unseen by the audience, Lea positioned her fans.

  The drums beat, bada bum, bada bum, bada bum. A trumpet and a keyboard chimed in. The spotlight hit her.

  And she soared.

  10

  Caleb

  Caleb stood in the back of the house thanks to the standing-room-only attendance. The room was too warm; Paddy was keeping it that way to sell more drinks.

  He should have gone to check on Wanda, though the hospital would notify him if anything changed.

  It should be one of those other trolls up there on stage. Anyone but her. Why the fuck did he care so much? That goddamned claim was ruining their lives.

  The music began, and a spotlight illuminated an enormous sheaf of feathers. The only visible parts of Lea were her shapely calves and sweet face. Her auburn curls were piled on her head, with a few cascading down her neck.

  She winked once.

  The audience clapped and whistled.

  Caleb swallowed. Great, she was getting catcalls already.

  He should leave.

  He wanted to leave.

  And yet he couldn’t move.

  Timed to the music, Lea flicked her wrists. Her movements flowed while she manipulated the giant fans. Caleb scanned the room. Both sexes of all races leaned forward, eager not to miss a thing. A glimpse of Lea’s knee drew cries of appreciation from the crowd. Slowly, she traced her spine, the fan passing lower and lower over her shapely back with each sweep. At a side table, Vera clasped her hands, watching her protégé. Even from where he stood, Caleb could see she was beaming.