Bearing the Late Thaw (Ice Bear Shifters Book 5) (5 page)

“Yes.”

“Prove it.”

Neal sighed, but reached down and rolled back the right sleeve of his flannel shirt. Holding his hand up for Christine to see clearly, he concentrated on slowly morphing just his hand, until his fingers were gone and replaced by long, sharp claws, and his hand had changed into a white, furry paw. Christine’s eyes widened in shock or horror, he couldn’t quite read her expression. Satisfied that she had seen enough and believed him, he let his hand morph back into its human form.

“Oh my god,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s not exactly something that’s easy to bring up in conversation,” Neal said. “You can’t just be like, ‘Hey nice to meet you. By the way I can turn myself into a bear. Fun party trick, don’t you think?’”

“But, you liked me. And I liked you. And you hid this from me. And then I got attacked because of you.”

“I’m sorry, Christine. It’s because I cared about you that I tried to stay away from you. I was trying to protect you from being attacked. I guess I didn’t do a good enough job of that, but I was only trying to help.”

Christine’s beautiful eyes darkened with anger. “I want to go home,” she said.

Neal felt his heart dropping. She hated him now. He should have found some other way to do this. He should have been man enough to show her he cared about her from the beginning. Maybe he could have built up her feelings and trust a little first before dropping this bombshell on her.

“Christine, please, give me a chance to show you how much I care about you.”

“No,” she said, starting to stand up. She winced when she put pressure on her legs, but she didn’t sit back down. “I want to go home, now.”

Neal sighed. “Can you at least wait until the morning? It’s late, and you’ve been through a lot. You should rest before heading back in to town.”

Christine shook her head no, and looked at Neal with cold eyes. “I don’t want to stay here anymore. You’re a monster.”

Her voice cracked when she said it, but her words still cut Neal to the core. Despite his strong alpha exterior, she had broken him with her rejection. He knew she was acting out from a place of fear and confusion. But it still hurt to look in her eyes and see the fear and anger there.

“Alright,” he said, standing up and heading to the coat rack to get his parka. “If that’s what you want, I’ll take you home.”

Christine didn’t say goodbye to Neal as she dismounted the snowmobile and walked to the front door of the small house the firm had rented out for her. In fact, she didn’t even look at him. She couldn’t handle the sorrow reflecting in his deep violet eyes—sorrow she knew she had caused with her harsh words. She told herself that she had every right to be angry, but it was hard to reconcile that attitude with the knowledge that he had only been protecting her by keeping his true nature from her.

Maybe her anger stemmed more from her disappointment with herself than from anything Neal had done wrong. Christine had always prided herself on championing the rights and value of those who were different from what society considered “normal.” It’s part of why she wanted to transition into a job where she could use her legal skills to help fight injustice. Too often, people who were different had no one to fight for them. Yet, here she was, storming out on Neal and calling him a monster because he was half bear. Because he was different.

Her cheeks turned pink with shame when she remembered saying those words to him. She regretted them more than anything else she had ever said. After all, he had done his best to watch out for her. He had even saved her life, at the risk of his own. And the only way she thanked him was by calling him a monster. Sure, it was because of him that her life had been endangered in the first place. But he had done his best to avoid that as well.

Christine went to the fridge and popped open a bottle of beer. She knew drinking alcohol when her body was so banged up probably wasn’t the smartest idea, but she deserved a drink after the day she’d had. She sat down on her couch and tried to figure out what to do next. The only course of action that made sense to her was to buckle down and throw herself completely into work. Hopefully, that would distract her from any thoughts of Neal. And the more she worked, the quicker this document review project would be finished. She sure as hell wasn’t going to go snowmobiling anymore. She was already trying to figure out how to explain to her insurance company what had happened to her wrecked snowmobile.

All she wanted to do at this point was get the hell out of Glacier Point. She knew that leaving would essentially be running away, but, at this point, it seemed like the best course of action.

Over the next few weeks, Christine stayed true to her plan. She barely slept, and spent every waking moment in the warehouse, sorting documents. She subsisted on microwave dinners, and avoided Northwinds Pub like the plague. She feared that any time she spent at the pub would put her at risk of running into Neal. Every time she thought about Neal she felt sad and ashamed, so she tried to push him out of her mind.

But as the calendar turned to April, and then to May, she couldn’t stop the image of his heartbroken violet eyes from haunting her. She worked harder than ever, trying to fly through the boxes of documents, desperate to leave this place behind. But without Jill there to help, progress had slowed considerably. Steve worked slowly, and because the court had extended the deadline for finishing the review, the firm wasn’t interested in trying to send more people to help. The only bright spot in all of this was that the documents Christine was reviewing had become more interesting. Boring, dry legal contracts had given way to informational documents outlining the history of the area, and maps of remote areas around Glacier Point. Even though amount of work to do was overwhelming, Christine almost started enjoying it.

Then, near the middle of May, Steve announced that he was resigning from the firm and would be leaving Alaska at the end of the week. Christine emailed her supervising attorney and told him that she desperately needed help if she was going to finish on time, even with the extended deadline. She received a vague response back, saying the firm would do its best to find more help, but they couldn’t promise anything.

Christine decided that enough was enough. She had been working like a maniac, and she needed a night off. She also needed to eat something that wasn’t a sodium-laden microwave dinner. She decided to take her chances at going to Northwinds Pub. It was a random Thursday night, after all. What were the odds that Neal would be there, too?

The odds, it seems, were actually pretty good. As soon as Christine walked into the pub, she saw him. His back was to her, and his head was tilted upwards as he watched the baseball game blaring from the bar’s small television. Christine started backing up slowly. She’d settle for a microwave dinner, after all. The idea of facing Neal tied her stomach up into knots.

Before she could get fully out of the room, though, the bartender spotted her.

“Christine!” he said. “Long time no see! I was beginning to think you had left Glacier Point for good.”

At the mention of her name, Neal, spun around. His eyes met hers, full of questions. There was no turning back now. Christine took off her coat, then took a deep breath and straightened her spine. She walked up to the bar, taking a seat right next to Neal. The least she could do was apologize to him. She should have done that long ago, but she had been too chicken to face him.

The bartender set a coaster down in front of her, oblivious to the strain in the air between Christine and Neal.

“What do you want, dear? First round’s on me. It’s just so good to see you,” the bartender said.

“Uh, I’ll take a White Moose Ale, thanks,” Christine said. “It’s good to see you, too. Sorry for disappearing like that. I’ve been busy with work.”

Neal sighed next to her, and when the bartender left to get her drink, Christine turned to face him. She forced herself to look him in the eyes, afraid of the anger she would probably see. But when she locked her dark brown eyes with his deep violet ones, it wasn’t anger she saw, but sadness. Around the edges, a faint glow of yellow appeared. Despite everything that had happened, and everything she had said, Christine felt an unexpected rush of affection when she looked at him. He looked tired, but his face remained as handsome as ever.

He broke their gaze first, turning abruptly to look at the television again as the bartender dropped off Christine’s beer. After Christine ordered the shepherd’s pie, the bartender left again, and Neal finally spoke.

“Are you sure you want to sit next to a monster?” he asked, his voice bitter.

Christine’s heart dropped. She couldn’t believe that she had said that to him. But all she could do now was apologize. Admitting that she was wrong wasn’t easy, but, as she sat there and looked at Neal’s profile, she realized she would never forgive herself if she left Glacier Point without at least attempting to make things right.

“Neal, I’m so sorry I said that. You’re not a monster. I was in shock, and confused, so I spoke without thinking about it. That doesn’t make my actions right, but it does mean that my feelings in that moment were just a stupid gut reaction that was very, very wrong. I don’t know if you can forgive me, but I hope you will at least believe me when I say that those words weren’t true. You’re not a monster. You’re a strong man, just trying to look out for his friends and family. You saved my life, even though you barely knew me.”

Neal still didn’t turn to look at Christine, but his voice softened as he spoke. “I think I’ve always known you.”

“What do you mean?” Christine asked. His statement didn’t make much sense.

Neal finally turned to look at her. The yellow in his eyes had intensified now, along with the sadness. “Don’t you get it, Christine? I loved you. I didn’t want to love you, but I did. I’ve been looking for a woman like you my whole life. A woman who is strong, friendly, and just a little bit stubborn. A woman who knows what she wants and is willing to work for it. You’re like that. You know that you want to do legal work that helps people. You were willing to work hard to come out here when no one else from your firm wanted to, so that you could speed up your student loan payoff and be free to pursue your true passion. You understand that sometimes getting to your dream means taking unpleasant detours along the way, and you just buckle down and do it. I admire that.”

“I told you all that?” Christine asked. “I don’t remember explaining all of that to you about the student loans.”

“I overheard you talking about it with your friend Jill in here all the time.”

“Wow, you’ve got good hearing.”

“Yeah,” Neal said wearily. “It’s a side effect of being part bear. But anyways, I fell hard for you. At first I didn’t even want to admit it to myself. But the more I saw you, the more I realized you were everything I had ever wanted. The only hiccup was that you weren’t a shifter. Trusting a full human with my secrets is dangerous. People often react with horror and disgust, just like you did. But I thought maybe, just maybe, you’d be different. That you would see through the craziness of the fact that I’m half bear and realize that I’m a good man, who only wants to love and protect the people who matter most to him. But in the end you were just like everyone else. Afraid of what you don’t understand.”

Neal stood and turned towards the entrance, leaving his half-drunk mug of beer behind. As he pushed in his barstool, he looked over at her one more time, with the saddest eyes Christine had ever seen.

“I took a chance on you, Christine. And you never even gave me one.” His voice rose as he said the words, and he slammed the bar top in anger. Christine jumped at the loud pop.

Then he was gone. Storming out the front door of the bar, and, presumably, out of her life. Christine let her face slump into her hands. She didn’t know why she felt so disappointed. What did she expect? That a simple apology would make him forget what she had said? That they could pick up exactly where they left off? Things weren’t going to work that way. Everything had changed.

And, yet, one thing hadn’t changed. The fact that his gorgeous face sent her heart racing. The fact that the sound of his voice gave her butterflies. The fact that, despite knowing he was a bear, she still wanted to be with him. She still admired the man that he was. Christine sat up straight, and realized what she had to do. He might reject her, but she had to try. She had to at least tell him how she really felt.

Christine hopped off of her barstool and ran out of the bar without bothering to put her heavy jacket back on. She didn’t have any time to waste if she was going to catch him before he drove away. As she exited the building, she saw him several dozen feet away, just climbing on to his snowmobile.

“Wait!” she cried out, her voice urgent as she started running toward him. He looked up at her, surprised, and she sprinted over to stand right next to him.

“I’m giving you a chance, now,” she said.

Neal raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

“I know it’s a little late, but it’s all I have left to offer, and I hope you’ll take it. I’m sorry for the way I acted. It was wrong, and I’ve spent every waking moment regretting the words I said. I should have found you and apologized much sooner, but I was a coward. I had gone through a big ordeal that day. I was confused and in pain, and I couldn’t think straight. I made a mistake. People make mistakes. But if you’re willing to take a chance on forgiving me and trying again, I’m willing to take a chance on being with a man who is a bear shifter.”

Neal stood there in the growing darkness, looking long and hard into Christine’s eyes, as if trying to decide whether she was sincere. The wind had picked up, and Christine started shivering. The temperatures in Glacier Point were no longer below zero, but they still hadn’t climbed above freezing. She really shouldn’t have been standing out there without a jacket and gloves.

“Okay,” Neal finally said.

“Okay? That’s all you’re going to say?”

Neal smiled. “Okay. Let’s try again. I think we both made some stupid mistakes the first time around, and we both should have done things a little differently. But I still care about you, and I’m still wildly attracted to you. Let’s start over,” he said, smiling and extending his hand to shake hers. “Hello, I’m Neal. Oh, by the way, I’m also a bear shifter.”

Christine giggled as she took his hand to shake it. “Hi, Neal. I’m Christine. Nice to meet you.”

“Your hands are freezing!” Neal exclaimed when their palms met.

“I know,” Christine said. “I left my jacket and gloves inside because I wanted to make sure I caught you before you left.”

“Come here, you,” Neal said. He unzipped his jacket and pulled her against his chest, wrapping the sides of the jacket around her as far as they would go. Christine’s heart beat faster as her body made contact with his. His broad chest gave off a substantial amount of heat, and he smelled like the forest. She snuggled closer against him and closed her eyes, wanting to hold on to this moment in her memory forever.

They’d had quite a rocky start, but she had never felt more at peace than she did right then, wrapped up in his arms.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go back inside and get your jacket. We can take your food to go, and then head back to your place. I’ll answer every last question you have about me. No secrets, no hiding anything anymore. Let’s do this right this time.”

Christine grinned up at him. “Sounds like a plan to me,” she said. They went back inside and got a takeout box for her food. Then she promised the bartender she’d be back again soon before she went back outside with Neal.

“Can I hitch a ride with you?” she asked. “I don’t have a snowmobile anymore. I never replaced it, since everything I do is about a five minute walk away from my apartment. And I’m too scared to go snowmobiling by myself anymore.”