Polar Bared (3 page)

It growled.

She fainted.

Nothing like napping in the sun.

Much like a lazy pussy, Gene basked in the warm rays that would last only a few hours this early in spring.

A part of Gene knew he should move or maybe at least take a sniff around and make sure where he’d passed out the night before was safe. And he meant passed out, as in snookered-out-of-his-mind wasted. Last thing he recalled was collapsing flat on his belly with no real thought other than, ‘Hey, this piece of ice is comfy’.

Now, you might wonder, how did a big ol’ fucking polar bear get his paws on some booze somewhere in the Arctic Circle far from annoying reminders of his past? Simple. This time of the year saw plenty of explorers pitching a tent in the hopes of bragging rights.

He gave them something to brag about, although, he doubted many included the part where they pissed their pants when he sliced open the side of their tent, stuck his head in, and roared. While they scurried off screaming, he nosed around, not really interested in their food—icky freeze-dried rations—but they often had the one thing he did want. Pepper.

While he did so love a yummy fresh seal, he preferred it with a dash of the peppery stuff. Too lazy to head to his hidey-hole and his stash of goods, in case he had some company he preferred to avoid, he currently found it easier to raid campers for supplies. The bottle of booze he’d scored, a full gallon of ridiculously potent moonshine, was a bonus, one that didn’t last the night.

While his kind might metabolize alcohol faster than humans, drink enough of it in a short time frame and they could get as smashed as the next guy. And Gene needed to get smashed. Zonkered. Anything to forget the fucking assholes back in Kodiak Point.

Well over a month, or was it two, since his match with the moose and he still hadn’t formed a proper plan. Still hadn’t mustered enough rage to go after the others he hated so much. Still didn’t know what he wanted to do. Other than eat, sleep, and terrify the occasional idiot in a tent.

Oh and avoid his shack because of concerns it was compromised. He had no real reason to think so other than a gut instinct, one that said don’t get complacent in one spot or he might just end up as a rug.

Something that might happen anyway given he found himself sunning who the fuck knew where and was too lazy to figure it out. He made a tempting target for hunters, but given this area wasn’t known for illegal poaching, it being a research hot spot for every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a camera and a web cam, he felt pretty safe.

Until something plowed into him.

What the fuck?

It better not be those pesky snow geese again. Feathers or not, I will eat them if they’re doing it on purpose to piss me off.
Bird-brained little idiots.

Rousing his shaggy head, he craned to peer at the—sniff—human female who’d skidded into his side.
Where the hell did she come from?

She raised her head timidly and blinked at him through skewed and misted glasses. Then she face planted.

Lily-livered women! Whether he encountered them as a beast or a man, they just couldn’t handle the sight of him.

He snorted as he stretched his muscles, her surprise arrival putting an end to his siesta. Where there was one human, there were usually more. Usually. Oddly enough though, he didn’t hear or scent any.
Don’t tell me this idiot is roaming alone?

On four paws, he rose, a hefty ton and a bit of predator with white fur, sharp claws, and a rumbling belly.

Smells good.
That remark came from his bear. But Gene agreed. Whoever she was, she did and not just in a red-meat kind of way. He let himself nose the hair peeking from underneath her wooly hat. Honey-scented shampoo.
Yum.
It wasn’t just brown and black bears who liked sweet things. Gene possessed a sweet tooth too. And this woman smelled
good
.

Good enough to eat, and he didn’t mean as food. While his polar dick didn’t rise for the girl, mentally, his human side couldn’t deny a certain ardent interest.

Attraction? Fuck, how long since that emotion had plagued him? Even odder, it was for a human woman he’d only gotten a glimpse of, a second really, where he got only an impression of big brown eyes and a pink mouth rounded in an O of surprise. A mouth perfectly shaped for—

He shook his head.
Keep your mind on the situation, soldier.
He could practically hear his old sergeant’s bark.
Who is she, and what is she doing out here?

Or the better question, why was she alone? Surely by now someone would have come running to the edge of the slope or called out to see if she was all right?

Other than the lap of water against ice, nothing echoed, either near or far.

Strange. But not as strange as her arrival. Who was she? Curiosity made him want to see the woman who’d more or less landed in his lap.

With a paw, he carefully flipped her over onto her back, sparing her face from the frostbite she’d surely get if she remained plastered to the cold surface he’d chosen to nap on.

Tan skin, rounded cheeks, pert nose, and dark hair wisping out from the edges of her cap. Latina or Italian descent he’d wager. Dark-rimmed glasses sat crookedly on her face, and he could have tsked the fact she’d forgotten to wear protective goggles.

Amateur.

He eyed the rest of her, pegging her at about five foot and a few inches, chubby perhaps or really well layered in winter clothing. Given the name brands she wore, he doubted it. That kind of quality didn’t rely on bulk to keep its wearer warm.

Around her neck she wore a camera, while a few yards away sat a backpack. Great. Another bloody gawker.

What was it with people who felt a need to travel to the Great White North and take pictures? If you wanted to see what a polar bear looked like, do an Internet search or, better yet, visit a local zoo.

Just leave him, his misery, and his sea ice the fuck alone.

Wake up on the wrong side of the ice pack? Damned straight he did and had for the last several years.

She stirred with a soft sigh, and he backed away. Just because she looked harmless didn’t mean she didn’t have a gun stashed in a pocket or a tranquilizer hidden in her glove. Jan, foxy secretary to the asshole Reid, was a prime example of don’t trust outward appearances. The vixen looked so prim and proper on the outside, but Jan could shoot to kill and not bat a lash.

Gene could almost envy Boris his luck in snaring Jan as his mate. Almost. If it didn’t mean having to tolerate another person at his side for the rest of his life.

No way. Gene wasn’t interested in getting hitched. Damned women with their weeping and wailing and drama. He preferred the single life. It was quieter. Less cluttered. Besides, it wasn’t as if any woman would ever want him.

Scarred soldiers suffering from PTSD who went furry and liked hurting things weren’t considered prime husband material.

Hell, with his perpetual scowl, sometimes even getting laid was a chore.

But that didn’t always used to be the case.

He slammed that door to his past shut before it could creep open.

No point in looking in there. The boy he used to be had died a long time ago. There was no going back for him. Not after all he’d suffered and done.

With one last look at the woman—a look with more longing than he expected—he turned his back and lumbered off, the refreshing sea calling his name. He ignored his conscience, which said he should stick around and ensure her safety. He ignored the little voice that said he should at least find out her name. Why bother?

Bad guys don’t get the girl.

Bright sunlight burned against her eyelids, and yet a deep cold radiated at Vicky’s back.

Where am I?
Last thing she remembered—

Bear!

Nothing like extreme fear to get the blood pumping. Vicky scrambled to her feet and spun around in a circle looking for the massive polar bear she’d used as a cushion for her landing. It was gone, and yay for her, she was still here with all her body parts intact.

I’m alive!

Finally luck was shining on her, although, she would have preferred her luck to include a few pictures of the bear. Studying the wildlife was what she’d come out here for. Wouldn’t it figure that her first really awesome find and she fainted, an annoying habit of hers when her stress levels got too high? It used to drive her father, and then Rick, nuts.

Yell at her too much or raise a heavy fist, and boom, she hit the ground. Her body’s self-defense mechanism. Finding the courage to go on an adventure hadn’t wiped out her knack. Good thing because her ignoble face plant probably saved her from becoming lunch.

Peeking around, she couldn’t spot either the polar bear or the seal she’d originally set out to investigate. Double bummer. With the fright wearing off, she really wished she could have snapped some pics so she could have something to show for her excursion.

A slight blur of motion caught her eye. Squinting in the glare from the sun hitting ice and snow, she studied the bobbing ice floe a few yards from shore, where she thought she’d spotted something. There it was again. A twitch of something moving. Grabbing her camera, she zoomed in on the spot and was rewarded.

It’s my polar bear.
The one that stopped her mad slide, the one that didn’t eat her, the one that stared right back at her. Gulp.

Eyeing him with her zoom lens, she held her breath, waiting to see if he’d dive in the cold waves and return for a visit. When he didn’t seem inclined to leave his cold island and maul her for a meal, she took advantage, snapping pictures of him.

He was a big fellow, and a survivor. One just had to see the jagged scar bisecting his face to know he’d fought to stay alive. It made her wonder what he’d encountered that was tough enough to hurt him so bad. Something almost as tough as a polar bear?

Eep. I wouldn’t want to run into that.
Her deep shudder acted as a reminder she should head back to base camp. Spring might mean longer daylight hours, but she didn’t want to get caught out here once darkness fell. Not only was she not equipped for it, having left her tent and sleeping bag behind in favor of traveling light, but she’d seen enough horror movies to know that roaming around after dark, in the arctic, was a sure way to get eaten by ancient ice monsters who craved warm-blooded meat.

Shiver.

Shoving her glasses to force them back onto the bridge of her nose, she sighed. They slanted drunkenly.

Bent. Again. She yanked the lenses off and studied them. Nose piece or arm? Having worn glasses for as long as she could remember—contact lenses proving annoying to someone who couldn’t aim a finger at her eyeball without clamping it shut—she had plenty of experience righting crooked parts.

And snapping them.

The needed straightening of the left arm on her frames resulted in them separating. Not unexpected given how many times she’d fixed them at this point, but certainly inconvenient given her spare pairs were back in her tent. While she could see through the glasses if she held her head at a certain angle, they certainly wouldn’t survive the climbing it appeared she’d have to do.

Better save them for when I need them.
Before she tucked them into her pocket, she took stock of her situation and location. She currently found herself on a rather flat shelf at the bottom of the icy slope she’d tobogganed down. A steep slope, she might add. The shelf itself extended probably a hundred yards or so along the sea’s edge, and the sharply angled hill followed it. Which was bad. Real bad.

She walked the length of the icy beach, looking for a part of it where the incline wasn’t so steep. In some spots it was almost perfectly vertical. In others, it sloped, like the spot she’d careened down. Problem was getting back up it.

When she realized she wouldn’t find an easy path off the ledge or, even better, a set of stairs, she resigned herself to the fact she’d have to climb.

Sigh. She hated climbing. Chubby girls weren’t meant to yank their body weight up inclines where gravity seemed determined to work against them. But she tried.

Glasses stowed away safely in a pocket—what was left of them—and backpack firmly attached to her, she took a deep breath in front of the spot with the best angle of ascent.

I can do this.

Leaning her weight forward and using her hands and feet, she tried to clamber up the icy surface.

She made it about a third of the way up—okay, so it was more like a quarter—before she lost her footing and went sliding backwards.

“Eeek!” She couldn’t help the scream as she skidded, fearful of a polar plunge. Luckily, her momentum didn’t bring her to the edge, but it did scare the hell out of her.

On her next attempt, she didn’t make it as far. The one after that even less. With each try she got more tired, more frustrated and by the fourth failure, she couldn’t help the tears in her eyes, which partially had to do with the fact she’d whacked her face against the ice pack when she slipped.

This isn’t working.

Morose at her lack of agility, and wishing she’d thought to pack some ice picks, she plopped herself in a seated position at the bottom and glared at the hill that mocked her. She took more sips of her sludge-like coffee, hoping for a caffeine boost but, instead, feeling more and more tired. Her spirits dragged her down.

Much as it galled her, she’d have to admit defeat and call for help. All adventurers were given the excursion leader’s contact number. When she’d programmed it into her phone, she’d never expected to have to use it.
I can just imagine how the camp will mock me. Geek girl goes on simple walk and requires saving.
Talk about handing people fodder to ridicule her.

But she could handle the teasing and name-calling. It wouldn’t be the first time in her life she had to put up with it. Even Rick, rest his soul, had subjected her to snide remarks.
Hey, honey, are you sure you should stay out in the sun so long? I think I smell bacon cooking.
Sometimes he could be a bit of an insensitive jerk. However, now was not the time to think ill of the dead.