Reeling

by Ev Bishop

  Mia slipped her hand out from under the covers and was shocked by the sharp and instant chill. Her teeth rattled with another shiver, and she patted the foam mattress. “Come on. If you catch hypothermia too, we’ll both be in trouble.”

  “I hung our clothes by the fire to dry,” he said gruffly. “I’m naked.”

  “Me too.” She kept her voice casual, but anxiety raged through her. He wouldn’t think she was inviting—

  “But I guess it would be better,” he said, interrupting the thoughts she hardly let herself articulate. “If it’s really all right with you.”

  “I said so, didn’t I?”

  There was another long, weighty silence. Then movement in the shadows. The blankets drew back. Mia gasped as the frigid air stabbed at her finally-starting-to-warm flesh.

  And then Gray’s muscular legs slid behind hers and the rock-hard expanse of his chest grazed her back. Cold radiated off him in waves and she felt him shivering too. Good thing she’d thought to tell the ninny to crawl into bed with her!

  The quarters weren’t as close as she’d been expecting, however. He wasn’t actually touching her, which seemed strange because if the homemade bunk was even as big as a modern twin sized bed, she’d be a monkey’s uncle—and neither she nor Gray were small people.

  Suddenly, she realized what he was doing.

  “You can’t hold yourself up on your arms all night. You need rest.”

  “We’ll touch.”

  And here she’d always thought she was the most contact-averse person she knew. “I don’t mind.” To give her words clout, she rolled slightly, reaching her arm behind her and feeling around. She touched his hip—and bit her lip, grateful it was just a hip—and found his flank, then tugged at him. He capitulated to her non-verbal command and relaxed his weight onto the mattress. Mia was very aware of the fit of her butt against his pelvis, the sensation of his quads pressing into her hamstrings, and the firmness of his furry pecs against her shoulder blades. His skin was still too cold for the contact to be pleasurable, but it occurred to her that if things between them were different, and she didn’t still have so much fear, this could be very erotic indeed.

  There was a problem though. Her one arm was pinched beneath her body and threatening to fall asleep if she didn’t move it. She wiggled her hips, trying to rest her arm under her head instead of her torso. Doing so, she unintentionally grinded closer to Gray. His skin already seemed warmer, but that wasn’t the only change. He had an erection, and now it was pressed into the curve of her buttocks. She was shocked by how natural and non-threatening it felt—was happily surprised by a flooding heat deep inside her. So she didn’t just find Gray attractive when there was no chance he’d come near her . . . It was an interesting and enticing revelation—as was the fact that he clearly wasn’t as disinterested in her as he continually insisted.

  “Sorry about that,” he said dryly.

  Despite the darkness and having her back to him, Mia knew exactly what expression he wore. If she rolled over quickly enough and managed to trace his mouth with a finger, she’d find the curve of his wry grin instead of the all too frequent glower.

  “It’s okay,” she said, shocked yet again to realize it was totally true. She was feeling a lot of things, but panic and anxiety weren’t on the list.

  “I won’t act on it or anything. Don’t worry.”

  She wasn’t worried. Not even close. But she was awash with some emotion. Not disappointment, surely? Except that’s exactly what it was, tempered with relief, yes, but still . . . disappointment. Very interesting.

  Gray’s forearm folded over her ribcage and his hand rested securely beneath her ribs. His erection was still a . . . presence. Then he let out a soft rumbling snore that she felt against her back more than heard.

  Something tight and knotted up within Mia loosened and unfurled. She was suddenly filled with a sense of rightness, a crazy release, a sweeping away of the final dregs of pain she hadn’t even realized were still affecting her. It was like she’d had a vertebra out in her back for so long she’d gotten used to it, had even worked out ways to live and thrive despite it, then, unexpectedly, it had clicked back in. Her relief was more like joy. She really wasn’t going to be disabled or suffer chronic pain forever.

  Gray was a good man. A safe man. Such men really did exist, like she’d known all along, just hadn’t been able to remember clearly because of the things that had been pushed out of place in her. But now . . .

  She sighed and let herself sink into the delicious dreamy place you occupy just before sleep. She would not have wild sex with Gray, sadly, because he didn’t like her enough—or maybe the actual problem was that he did. Either way, he didn’t want a relationship because of the things that had been pushed out of place, damaged, in him. It was an extra loss because she finally trusted her ability to read people again and knew she couldn’t do better than choosing someone like Gray. Honorable. Kind. Valiant. And oh . . . the feeling of that body of his pressed up against hers.

  Chapter 28

  Gray didn’t sleep—or not in the bordering on unconscious way he would’ve benefited from anyway. The satin-sleek heat of Mia’s curves against his increasingly warm and resurrected flesh prevented it.

  She felt perfect in his arms, and the sleeping weight of her pressed against him made every part of him ache. He inhaled the fragrance that he’d come to associate as her—oranges and sandalwood, still lightly discernible despite the musty, cedar-smoked air. It was the scent of laughter, new memories, potential, and wall shaking sex. . . . It was excruciating.

  He rubbed his eyes and felt wetness. Agony roiled through him, like he was spilling blood not tears.

  Mia did not remind him of Celine. The source of his torture was not that this mermaid woman made him long afresh for what he and his much-loved wife had enjoyed. No. It was that Mia made him want new things. Different things. A future with someone that wasn’t Celine—the very idea of which he had found unbearable for so long.

  Getting to know Mia forced Gray to confront a fact he had always despised and felt traitorous and guilty for. No matter how often he’d wished for it, he hadn’t died when Celine and Simon did—or not all of him had. And nowadays, painful shoots of life, of wanting to live, sprouted with greater and greater frequency.

  At first, whole hours had passed without Gray tangibly mourning Celine, then days, even weeks, once he’d started traipsing around with Mia. He had held the truth about his terrible betrayal at bay, willfully choosing denial, but he couldn’t keep up the farce any longer, even with himself. He wanted Mia and, worse, he wanted to want her. He’d tried to resist. He’d even shut himself away all winter without her—but it hadn’t helped. His thoughts were consumed by her and now here she was, snuggled up against him.

  What am I supposed to do, Celine? he raged in his head. But Celine was silent, not even deigning to visit him in a dream. She was gone. And Mia. Mia was here. In flesh and in spirit, pressed up close, her heart beating in time with his.

  When the earliest gloom of morning approached, transforming the darkest of the cabin’s shadows to hazy apparitions, Gray did what felt like the most difficult thing he’d had to do since he buried his family. He disentangled himself from Mia’s soft body and left her.

  The razor sting of the air was welcome and deserved, bringing with it a cutting clarity. He lifted the melted lump of gold he wore chained around his neck—the remnant of Celine’s wedding rings—and pressed his lips against it.

  The woodstove’s weak fire had failed to dry his clothing. He forced his aching limbs into his damp shirt and pants, pulled on his icy wool socks, and jammed his feet into his boots.

  In equal silence, Wolf roused himself from sleep and followed his master out into the struggling daylight.

  Chapter 29

  It was strange how the cold could be both a curse and a blessing, Gray thought. Yesterday, it was a predator, threatening their health, even Mia’s life. Today it was his salvation,
keeping the snow crisp and frozen, which made for easier, safer traveling than trudging through melting slop. Even with that small mercy, however, his leg was punishing him and didn’t appreciate the added weight of the well-stocked pack. Getting up to his place and down again had taken longer than he’d hoped. Mia would probably be awake and panicking. He should’ve woken her and told her he was going, or left a note at least, so she’d know where he was, but it was too late for should haves now.

  When he finally arrived back at the trapper’s cabin, Gray felt nervous—and that made him even more nervous. He was used to a pummel of conflicting emotions, but nervousness wasn’t generally one of them. He reached for the door, only to have it slam open, practically knocking him in the face.

  He stepped back quickly and Mia gasped, “Oh, it’s you!”

  “Yeah,” he said, then added, “What the heck are you wearing?”

  It probably wasn’t the smoothest segue into what he needed to say, but it was a fair question.

  She was wrapped in wool blankets which she had belted with a sheet. What appeared to be pillows, again bound tightly with strips of sheets, adorned her feet. She glared at him. “I have no dry clothes and the ones you forgot are still wet. I was left here to walk out on my own by the man who . . . ” She trailed off, as if suddenly aware that whatever she wanted to accuse him of probably wasn’t fair because “the man who” was back. Her shoulders slumped.

  “Hey,” he said gently. She wouldn’t meet his eyes and it made him feel terrible. “I’m sorry. I didn’t wake you because you needed as much rest as you could get.” He shook his head. “It didn’t even occur to me that you might think I’d left you to fend for yourself, naked and alone in the woods, until I was already on my way back.”

  He shrugged out of his pack and rested it at her feet as evidence of why he’d had to go.

  Mia’s face showed a flicker of her usual humor and she motioned at her woolen robes. “Alone, maybe, but as you can see, I’m hardly naked.”

  “Yeah, I do see that—and it’s a damn shame.”

  She started at his openly flirtatious tone and words, and Gray didn’t blame her. He’d been giving her nothing but mixed signals for too long. He had to explain.

  “There’s something you need to know, Mia.” He took a deep breath. “I am yours.”

  Chapter 30

  Mia gawked at Gray, who seemed unfazed by her confusion.

  Then, like he hadn’t just said the most nonsensical, unclear thing in the world, he moved past her and into the cabin, which by daylight was more of an eyesore and much less the haven it had seemed the night before.

  “I’m sorry. Come again?” she said, then was distracted by the things Gray pulled out of his backpack. Warm soft looking clothes—men’s, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. A package of crackers. A large stainless-steel thermos. Her stomach growled audibly. Gray turned, smiling. “Stew. Want some?” She did, she so did—but first she wanted, needed, him to clarify.

  She shook her head, then nodded, then shook her head again.

  Now he looked confused too.

  “I do want stew, I’m starving, thank you,” she exploded. “But first I need . . . you have to explain what you just said. About you being . . . ” She couldn’t finish her sentence. It was too embarrassing. She must’ve misheard or misunderstood.

  He nodded like she’d actually completed the thought, then set down the thermos he’d been about to open. “I should’ve known better, but I didn’t. I should’ve told you—but I couldn’t.”

  “What?” Mia recognized—of all things!—the lyrics to her own song, but couldn’t figure out their relevance or how he’d even come across them.

  “We should eat first. Then talk. Sit down.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Okay, talk first. Fine.”

  Mia arched an eyebrow. Gray shook his head and appeared to blush behind his big beard, which was the craziest and fullest she’d ever seen it—a detail that had eluded her in the freezing daze of the past night. “Sorry, I haven’t talked in a few months. I always blab too much, on and on, babbling almost incoherently, or talk too sparely to try and compensate. I’m always extra weird at first.”

  “And extra shaggy.”

  He rubbed his invisible chin and smiled. “Yeah, I guess. I don’t groom it when I’m alone. No point—and it’s warmer.”

  She didn’t want to talk about Gray’s beard or his being alone and she wished she hadn’t accidentally changed the subject. He seemed to sense it and scratched his forehead as if searching for words.

  “Okay, the thing is,” he finally said, “that’s the only way I can think to put it. I am yours. Two months plus, alone in a one room cabin, pretty much snowed in, gives a man a lot of thinking time—too much thinking time, maybe. And what I thought about, pretty much exclusively, is you.”

  Mia’s sinuses burned and she blinked.

  “I want to be with you in whatever way or however it works for you, but I get it if I’ve lost my chance, and I don’t blame you if I have. Then I’ll just be like Wolf. Always yours, but you won’t have to see me a lot if you don’t want to.”

  This had to be an example of his “babbling almost incoherently”—but Mia wouldn’t have changed his words for anything. She sank onto one of the cabin’s rough benches. “I think we might have to revisit this conversation when you’re not half-bushed.”

  “Deal.” Gray eased himself down beside her, favoring his bad leg more than usual. After a minute, he added, “But can you give me a hint about how you’re leaning? Do I have a snowball’s chance in hell?”

  Surprise danced through her and escaped in a laugh. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think I’d have to explain. There’s no chance at all.”

  Gray looked utterly crestfallen. Mia pressed her hand to his weather-roughened, scarred and bearded cheek, then rushed to explain. “That is to say—no chance at all that I wouldn’t take you up on . . . being my Wolf.”

  The disappointment creasing Gray’s face was instantly replaced by warm affection, but he also looked embarrassed. “Uh, yeah, okay, not my smoothest line there.”

  “Do you ever have ‘smooth lines’?”

  Gray put his hand over his heart in a parody of wounding, then grinned an unquestionably wolfish grin. “No, but I have other talents.”

  His meaning was abundantly clear and Mia’s insides knotted with desire, not anxiety. Was he going to kiss her? And would kissing him possibly be as good as she’d blown it up to be in her imagination? She looked at her hands, clenched in her lap. Okay, so perhaps there was some anxiety, but memories of the previous night and the sensations she’d felt reassured her that when the time came, her own inner animal would take over just fine.

  All joking left Gray’s face. “I love you, Mia.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Like in a friendly, companionable way, you mean.”

  Laugh lines creased Gray’s eyes, but his voice was serious. “Definitely as a friend and companion, but also in every other way a man can love—or want to love—a woman.” He took her hands, unclenched them, and didn’t let them go.

  Mia’s heart and throat were momentarily too full to speak, but finally she managed. “I—I might’ve daydreamed about this, but now . . . well, I don’t think I ever really expected it to happen. You’re probably going to have to repeat yourself a few times.”

  Gray smiled down at her and his eyes held an age-old question. Mia’s insides surged as she nodded and lifted her face to his. When he bent in slowly and pressed his mouth to hers, Mia tasted coffee and peppermint gum and it hit her: this was real, not a feverish dream or a near death reverie. Gray was kissing her. She was kissing him. And it was perfectly natural. And wonderful. And terrifying. And safe.

  “Not fair,” she said when they broke apart.

  Gray’s eyebrow quirked.

  “You’ve already had coffee this morning!”

  He laughed. “Not quite the res
ponse I was hoping to elicit.”

  The bubbling joy Mia felt made her a little shy, which was silly. “Oh, don’t worry. That wasn’t the only response. Not even close.”

  “Mmm, good to hear,” Gray growled, “and something we’ll have to explore further.” His self-satisfied, flirting tone changed abruptly, however. “But yeah about the coffee. Guilty as charged. I had to eat something at my place or I wouldn’t have made it back.” His expression darkened. “On that note. There’s something else I need to tell you, something I should’ve said before I started any of this today, but I was selfish.”

  Apprehension quaked through Mia. “What?”

  “It’s about your fall in the river.”

  “My—” Suddenly Mia understood all too well, and she couldn’t fault him. He’d lost his wife and son in a monstrous event; her cavalier stupidity about the dangers of nature must seem unforgivable. Her head drooped. “I know. I was beyond foolish. I’m sorry.”

  He stared at her. “What? No, I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.”

  “What?” she echoed, confused.

  “Why are you apologizing?” he queried.

  They each cracked tentative smiles. “You first,” said Mia. If he wasn’t angry with her, what could possibly be wrong?

  “About the bridge,” he began. “It’s my fault you fell in. I knew one of the supports had weakened, but I thought it had time, that I had time.” A vein was visible at his temple and his hands were balled fists. “You could’ve died.”

  She stared at him. Yes, she could’ve—but even if she had used the old bridge and somehow fallen off, it wouldn’t have been his fault. Did he really think the safety of the whole world was his responsibility? That it was his failing if something failed? “I didn’t use, or fall from, the bridge.” Humiliation revved her heartbeat and made her hands tremble. She’d been so careless. So stupid. “I was out walking and it was difficult moving through the snow. Then there was this scrubby brush part, and just beyond it the way looked clearer, easier—” She trailed off, trying to read what Gray thought about her now. Would he take back all the tender things he’d said? She wouldn’t blame him.