River Wolf(59)

“Thank you,” she said, then shocked him when she leaned over and pressed her lips to his cheek. The contact soothed his wolf further, and he squeezed her hand rather than claim her for a more thorough kiss. Story first. Kiss next. Plan decided upon, he raised his eyebrows but stayed silent lest he derail her again. “I dropped the bag on the ground and wrenched the top open and reached for the bag and there’s a bear staring at the bag, then at me. I swear my heart stopped. Everything stopped. It was like I could hear his breathing and feel my blood chugging through my veins…I wanted to scream, but I didn’t.”

The masterful way she punched emotion into her tale and the adrenaline fueling her voice left him and his wolf captivated. Tension flowed through him. Scanning the yard around them automatically, he cataloged and identified everything in the area from the wolves moving closer to Hatcher’s place to the bees hovering over the roses near the trellis. Nothing that large or dangerous was getting near her again.

“Screaming wouldn’t help and it was a huge bear, and yes, it was dark and probably skewed what I could see, but I don’t care. That close, all I could make out were teeth and claws. It’s dark and the porch light is far away, but I swear the world got brighter for a few seconds and I could really see the bear.” Licking her lips, she took on a faraway expression as though she were back in the moment. Perhaps she was reliving it, as only a visceral memory could be experienced.

If only he could have been there when the bear appeared…the day brightened? Separating his emotional response from the impossibility of a human developing night sight, he studied her eyes. They remained pure amber in color, but the pupil constricted and narrowed.

“I knew it was me or the bear, and I was no match for his claws or his teeth, but if I ran…I didn’t think I would be fast enough to make it inside and even if I did. One swipe of his claws could sever an artery, and I’d be dead before I hit the door.” Blowing out another breath, she said, “So I glared at him. I refused to run. I dug in my heels, and I stopped being afraid. I told him to get out of there. He met my gaze, and I think he understood me, because he backed away a pace, then another and another and finally turned and lumbered off.”

Pride flooded him. She’d faced down a bear.

“I stared him down. After he left, I stood there, shaking and the world got a little darker and suddenly I remembered the trash. By the time I got in the house I was soaked in sweat, and I couldn’t calm down. I paced for hours, but I did it and I survived.”

No shit. Her scent changed and for a split second he caught a note of sunshine and musk, then it was gone again. Pack. Not pack. Wolf. Not wolf. Leaning closer to her, he rubbed his nose lightly against hers in part to offer comfort and in part to test what he’d just scented.

“You believe me.” Her breath whispered over his lips.

“Absolutely.” The answer flowed from him without hesitation. He tasted the truth in her words. Nothing in her tale had been manufactured.

Abandoning her coffee cup, she hugged him and he gathered her into his arms, satisfying his earlier urge to pull her into his lap. Nestled close, he breathed in deep the delicious fragrance that was wholly hers.

“No one ever believes.” She chuckled, the sound almost self-deprecating. “They laugh, make jokes and pretend, but they always tell me I’m making it up. Either it wasn’t a big bear or it wasn’t there or…you know, I’m exaggerating.”

“You aren’t. You stared down a bear. You’re very lucky to be alive.” Lucky and strong. She’d met and held his gaze any number of times. Fought to hold it when others would have long since given up the battle. “Thank you.”

“For what?” She drew away enough to let their gazes meet, but not so far that he couldn’t still feel her breath against his skin.

“For surviving. For being you.” God help him. “For taking care of Luc and bringing him here so I could meet you.”

“You may not thank me in a minute.” The soft bubble around them seemed to burst with the declaration.

“Why is that?”

“Because I saw something else almost as unbelievable and yet—I know what I saw and I’ve been wrestling with how to ask you for three days.” So, her reticence had been borne of something else.

Searching her sober expression, he found no clues to what worried her. “Ask.”

“When I brought Luc here, five days ago, he had a broken arm and two broken legs among other issues. When I saw him thirty some odd hours later, his casts were off and he was using both arms like nothing ever happened to them.”