The Hawk and Her LumBEARjack: BBW Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance (4 page)

Hunter woke when the morning sunshine came through the cabin window. He stirred and stretched, eyes still closed. Felicity was no longer in the bed, though her side—and how had it happened so quickly that one side of the bed had become
her
side?—was still slightly warm. She must have gotten up to make breakfast. Yesterday, he'd been careful to rise first so he could bring her breakfast in bed. It was only eggs and bacon and toast, nothing special, but he saw all over again her look of delight when he did it. She'd told him it was the best breakfast she'd ever had.

But he didn't smell anything cooking, and she must not have stirred up the fire, because the cabin was still chilly.

And he didn't smell her anywhere ...

Hunter's eyes snapped open and he sat up. The cabin was, indeed, empty.

"Felicity?"

He scrambled out of bed, telling himself as he did so that maybe she'd just stepped outside to go for a short flight. Bird shifters were like that, he'd heard; they were happiest when they could fly a lot. He'd kept her inside all weekend, not meaning to, but the weather had been terrible and inside the cabin had been ... well ... it wasn't like they'd had any trouble keeping busy. But maybe she had needed to go for a flight.

Then he saw the note on the table, neatly folded, weighed with a book.

Hunter approached the note as if it was a live explosive. His heart sank straight down to his feet, all his happiness from this wonderful weekend gone in an instant. This was exactly how it had happened with Christine, except without even a note. She'd never told him what he was doing wrong. She just held onto her unhappiness, grew angrier and more miserable for reasons he couldn't understand, and then left him without a word.

Felicity's not like that!

Except ... she was gone, and the cabin was cold, and apparently Felicity
was
like that.

A great, tearing misery and anger rose in him. Hunter turned on his heel and flung the cabin door open. He stomped out into the yard, not even caring that he was naked. It wasn't like there was anyone around to see him. He tipped his head back to the sky and roared out all of his pain and rage and hurt.

When he'd gotten it out of his system, the bear within him once again lying quiescent in its misery, he became aware that he was shivering in the morning breeze and went back into the cabin. He dressed by rote muscle-memory, not caring what he put on, and then stirred up the fire and put on the leftovers of last night's coffee to reheat. This drew his attention to the fact that there were two coffee cups instead of just one. Everything, it seemed, was going to be a reminder of Felicity for a little while.

Couldn't she just fall on someone else's roof? Why me?

Feeling a little better with a cup of coffee in hand, he sat down at the table and lifted the book off her note. He was going to have to read it sooner or later. May as well find out what she had to say for herself.

He read it once, quickly, then again, more slowly. His coffee cooled on the table while he read it over, very carefully, a third and fourth time.

This didn't sound like goodbye.

He'd forgotten completely that she had a business in Minneapolis she had to take care of. Although he still wasn't too happy about the way she'd just flown off without saying goodbye. But of course she had to get back to her business. And after that ...

After that, he wasn't sure. This weekend he'd managed to successfully avoid thinking about ... well, anything, really, except for Felicity and her luscious charms. But she had a life back in Minneapolis. For his own part, he couldn't imagine living there.

First things first,
he told himself.
Since the woman you love just went off to a city miles and miles away, you need to get a phone.

There was only one place around here to do that, so after a fast breakfast Hunter jolted down the rutted road in his truck, headed for Falls Creek.

The storm had blown through, blowing the last of winter out with it. The air was warm and mild, fragrant with the scent of a thousand kinds of green growing things. Hunter left the truck windows rolled down to enjoy it.

This place had put him back together, after the breakup with Christine. The solitude of the cabin and the friendship of his welcoming but undemanding neighbors had begun to heal the hole in his heart. He had no bad memories here. This was his safe place.

But now ...

If Felicity asked you to follow her to Minneapolis, would you do it?

Hunter shook his head. He didn't know.

The narrow road wound past several neighbors' driveways, becoming eventually smoother and straighter, until it met the gravel road that ran into town. He hadn't encountered a single car on the dirt road from the cabin, but now he passed a few. Each and every one of them was driven by someone he knew. Hunter lifted a hand off the steering wheel in acknowledgment; they gave little waves in return.

Near the edge of town, he passed Mrs. Muntz walking her dogs. She raised Great Danes, and had three of them on leashes. He slowed the truck to a crawl as he went by her, so as not to spray her with gravel and leave her in the cloud of dust he was raising on the road. She waved to him and called out a cheerful hello. He smiled and gave her a wave back.

He couldn't possibly leave here ... could he?

Falls Creek was the sort of place that someone like Felicity, who hailed from the city, probably wouldn't even have called a town. There were a handful of businesses clustered along the road where it crossed the state highway, just before a bridge across the creek that gave the town its name. Hunter drove past one of the two churches in town—there was one on each end of town, the Lutherans on one side and the Baptists on the other. Anyone else had to go to the next town over.

The Falls Creek Pub was still closed, but the Creekside Diner seemed to be doing a brisk business. Just past the diner was his destination, Murray Bartos's hardware and electronics store.

It was always a bit of a crapshoot whether Murray would be open or not, or whether he'd actually be in the store even if the open sign was hung out. Today, though, the store was both officially open and Murray was restocking shelves. He was also chatting with Jake Hanshaw, owner of the Falls Creek Pub and also one of the other bear shifters in town. Hunter almost walked out right then—Jake was a friend, which made it unlikely that Hunter could manage to get through this conversation without having to answer awkward questions. Unfortunately he'd already been seen. The tinkling bell over the door made a stealthy entrance or exit impossible.

"Mornin', Hunter," Jake said. Like most bear shifters, he was a big guy; he filled one aisle as he lounged on the customer side of the counter.

Murray glanced up from refilling a display of screwdrivers. Long-haired and a lot more tech-savvy than most people in town, he'd drifted in a few years ago to work construction, and never quite drifted out again. Since the old man who owned the hardware store was retiring, Murray had ended up taking it over, and in the process had updated its wares considerably.

He gave Hunter a little wave. "Hey, dude. Don't usually see you in town this early, unless you blaze through at six in the morning on the way to a job site."

"Had some business to get done," Hunter said. "I want to buy a cell phone."

Jake snorted. "You finally get over your allergy of 'em? What happened?"

"Can't a man buy a phone without being given the third degree?"

"Sure," Murray said, "if the man doesn't have a history of telling everybody he hates those damned noisy contraptions and wouldn't have a phone if you paid him."

Jake slapped Hunter on the shoulder. "Aww, don't take it hard, buddy. Nice to see you've decided to join the rest of us in the twenty-first century."

"And it's lucky for you they just built that new cell tower over on Eagle Mountain," Murray said, "or you'd never get reception out at your place. Here, let Uncle Murray set you up." He bustled around behind the counter. "Let me guess, you want a basic flip phone, nothing fancy, nothing special."

"Actually," Hunter said, thinking of Felicity's note and her email address, "I'd like to get one of the kind you can email people with. You can do that with a phone, right?"

Jake burst into laughter. "This is gonna be one for the boys down at the pub. Hunter Holt, not just buying a phone, but a
smartphone
. You sure it's not April first, Murray?"

Murray turned from the cheap rack of flip phones to the more expensive ones. "Don't cost me a sale here. Hunter, just take a look at these babies, and tell me which one floats your boat."

Murray continued to grill him all through the process of picking out a phone and setting him up with a monthly plan; Hunter continued to dodge any questions of a personal nature. Jake had gone quiet, rather than continuing with the expected teasing. He browsed through the power tools, clearly listening with one ear while Hunter suffered through the process of getting his calling plan set up.

"It's a woman, ain't it," Murray said. "No, to back out of that screen you tap
that
button. Haven't you ever used a smartphone at all? Or a computer? Or
anything
?"

"I've used a cell phone before," Hunter muttered. The slender smartphone felt tiny in his big hands. "Just not one quite like this."

"Hey, I offered you a simple phone, dude. You're the one who wanted all the bells and whistles. Which brings me back around to wondering if you finally got over that chick who dumped you and got back on the dating scene."

"I don't need bells and whistles," Hunter retorted, skipping past the reference to Christine as best he could. The problem with a small town was that everyone was always in everyone else's business. "I just want to be able to do email, and stuff."

"And stuff?" Murray asked, waggling his brows.

Hunter dug in his feet. "I just want a phone, that's all. Living alone, a man can't be too careful, all right?"

"You weren't worried about being 'too careful' a year ago, or five years ago. Now, unless you had some kind of near-death experience in that storm we just had—you didn't, did you?"

"You were telling me about phone plans," Hunter reminded him.

He was finally able to escape with his new phone—which he was
fairly
sure he could use—stuffed in his pocket along with a warranty, the new email address that Murray had helped him sign up for, and a bunch of information he'd have to read at home. Jake had already left the store, but was waiting for him outside.

"I'm laying down my bets right now!" Murray called after him. "Next time you come in here, you're gonna have some big-city looker on your arm! Jake, you're my witness."

"Murray has a bit of a mouth on him, but he's right, isn't he?" Jake said quietly as they strolled back to Hunter's truck. "You did meet someone."

"Maybe," Hunter admitted. "Things are a little uncertain right now. It's not something I want to discuss with the whole town."

Jake made a crossing-his-heart gesture. "You'll get no problems from me. But just between you, me, and the wall—" He tapped the truck lightly with a fist. "—I'm glad to see you getting over that Christine gal. It's hard to pick up and move on when you got your heart broken. But ... you look happy, man. Really happy. Whoever this new girl is, I think she's good for you."

"Like I said, it's not a done deal yet."

But Jake was right, he realized as he got back into the truck. He'd been really happy this weekend, and there was a part of him that felt complete, in a way he never had—not just since Christine, but in his entire life. He'd found his mate. She slotted into place and completed him. And he was pretty sure she felt the same way.

Now he just had to convince her of it.

Felicity found herself having a much harder time than she expected settling back into her everyday life.

She'd made it back to Minneapolis without a problem, though she still showed up several hours after the workday started, even pausing only for a fast shower and change of clothes at her apartment. This prompted a not-exactly-unexpected round of teasing from Melinda and the handful of designers who worked under her. Melinda called her "Hot Stuff" for the rest of the day.

It would have been easier to dispel the rumors if she'd been able to stop spacing out all day long. Every time she'd let her mind wander, instead of coming up with new clothing designs as she normally did, her thoughts would drift straight to Hunter. His eyes, his lips, his chest, his many
other
charms ...

"Oh, come on, Mel," Felicity said after the others had left. Melinda was gathering up her things; Felicity planned to stay late, making up for lost time. "I was hiking. I told you that."

"Uh-huh," Melinda laughed. "Because hiking is
totally
why you came back with that rosy glow in your face."

"I do
not
have a rosy glow," Felicity protested. From the way her cheeks were heating up, though, she felt like she'd practically glow in the dark now.

Melinda winked at her. "Maybe
I
should take up hiking, then. Looks like it sure does wonders for your complexion."

"Weren't you leaving?"

Melinda gave her a cheerful wave. "Say hi to your 'hiking' buddy for me!" she called on her way out the door.

"Too nosy by half," Felicity muttered. She turned back to her computer and discovered that a new message had appeared in her inbox from an address she didn't recognize.

Dear Felicity,

How are you? Sorry we didn't say goodbye. Write back?

Hunter

Felicity's heart jumped. For a few minutes she just stared at the screen, with her emotions a turbulent mix of delight and alarm. She hadn't realized until that moment that she'd compartmentalized her weekend with Hunter as something very separate from her ordinary city life, and now it felt very odd to have the two colliding.

It wasn't a bad feeling. Just strange.

She started to reply, then hesitated.
Should
she? If she wanted to cut things off with Hunter, now would be the time to do it. A clean break, with no awkward emotional entanglements. She would always remember their weekend at the cabin as the perfect thing it was, with no opportunity to sour and go bad, tainting those good memories. And the thing was, it would just never
work
between them. He had a life out there, and she had a life here, and she couldn't see how they could possibly reconcile the two, at least not without someone being unhappy and resentful.

But the idea of never seeing Hunter again, never feeling his strong arms around her, never again hearing the way he whispered her name when he came ...

"I need to think about this," she said aloud. Getting a grip on herself, she minimized the email window and brought up a work-related one. They really needed to get the new fall line into production, and she had some ideas for color schemes. She'd deal with the Hunter situation later.

She managed to successfully not think about Hunter all evening, until late at night, when she was back home and eating takeout in her too-big, too-empty apartment. Then her thoughts began to drift to Hunter. What was he doing? Where was he? Would he be awake? Maybe he was even outside, roaming the nighttime forest as a bear. Maybe he was sitting inside, thinking of her, as she was thinking of him ...

Felicity sighed and reached for her phone. It couldn't hurt to send him a little message in return. Just something to let him know she wasn't completely ignoring him.

When she opened up her email, she found that she had another message from the same address as the first one.

Dear Felicity,

Sorry. Forgot to give you this. 555-9969. Don't feel like you have to call. But I hope you will.

Hunter

Felicity stared at the message for a long while, fighting a battle of willpower with herself.
It's too late to call. He's asleep. You don't want to wake him up.

But her fingers seemed to know her mind better than she herself did, because her fingers ended up dialing it for her.

The phone only rang once before Hunter's deep voice said, "Hello?"

She was completely unprepared for the powerful effect his voice would have on her, even through the phone. A rush of desire rolled through her, from his voice in her ear, straight to the warm heat between her legs.

"Uh," she managed to say at last, "it's me. Felicity."

"I know," Hunter said, and there was warmth and humor in his voice. "It says so on the screen."

"I didn't know you had a phone," she said.

"I didn't. Bought it today."

"Oh," she said, and it was a good thing Melinda wasn't there, because she really might be glowing now. "Because of me?"

Hunter sounded a little embarrassed. "Well, I gotta stay in touch somehow, right?"

"Yes," Felicity said. "Yes, that's true." She was sitting on the floor beside her coffee table, and she arranged herself into a more comfortable position, pulling down a pillow from the couch. "So, uh, I hope you had a good day? I'm sorry I left so suddenly."

"It's okay, you had to get back to the city. I understand."

Resolve firmed up in her. "No, I mean, I'm glad you understand, but it was wrong of me to say goodbye in a note. I just wasn't sure what to say, and I was in a hurry, but I promise I won't do that again."

There was a silence on his end of the line, long enough that she was afraid she'd upset him. But then he said in a quiet voice filled with conviction, "I know. I believe you."

Felicity lay back on the pillow. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine that the miles between them had gone away, and he was here beside her. "So tell me about your day. I'd love to hear about it."

"There isn't much to tell. Mostly I went into town and bought a phone, and then stuck around the cabin the rest of the day. Chopping wood and that kind of thing. Two robins on the feeder this afternoon. Mated pair, I think. Pretty sure they have a nest around here somewhere."

"That's lovely," Felicity said. "You'll have to take pictures and send them to me."

"I haven't got a camera," he admitted.

"Your phone," she reminded him. "If it can do email, then surely it has a camera."

Hunter laughed, a warm rich sound. "It's an amazing world we live in."

"An amazing, wonderful world," she agreed. His voice was having a definite effect on her—a very stirring effect. Maybe it was just a Pavlovian response after that weekend of great sex, but lying here with her eyes closed, trying to imagine him near her, she could feel herself growing wet. "What are you doing right now?"

"I'm next to the fire," he said, his voice a quiet growl. "Lying on the furs."

A flutter of want trembled in her belly. She could picture him so clearly, all spread out on the furs, golden in the firelight. "I'm in my living room, on the floor. Lying down. Um, what are you wearing?"

This got another of his warm laughs. "Is this phone sex?"

"Only if you cooperate," Felicity told him archly. She placed a hand on top of her skirt, over her mound. She could feel the heat and wetness even through her skirt. "I'm still wearing my work clothes, a blouse and a dark navy skirt. I'm barefoot." She curled her toes into the carpet.

"I've only got jeans on. I don't wear much around the cabin, usually."

Oh, how well she could picture
that
. "And what are you wearing under your jeans?" she asked.

"Nothing at all," he said in a deep, sensuous growl, and another flood of heat and wetness dampened the insides of her thighs. "And now I'm taking them off. You've got panties under your skirt, right? What do they look like?"

"They're red," she said breathlessly. "Red with a little lace around the edge."

"If I was there, I'd be taking them off. You'll have to take them off for me."

She hooked a finger under the elastic and stripped them down, peeling them off and flicking them off the end of her toe. "They're off," she said, her voice catching in the middle. Now that she was bare under her skirt, the fabric brushing her clit gave her a sharp little static charge of pleasure.

"I'm touching myself now," he growled into the phone. "Imagining it's your hand holding me. Your hand stroking me. You?"

"I am. Yes." She slid her hand under her skirt and dipped a finger between her folds. She was very hot, wet, and slick. She caressed her own smoothness and imagined his bigger, rougher fingers sliding along the folds, rubbing over the sensitive nub of her clit. It was like, and yet unlike, masturbating in the privacy of her bathroom. She knew just how to touch herself, and yet, there was an extra frisson of delighted pleasure in knowing that he was listening to her tiny gasps and moans as she stroked herself.

"I'm close," he murmured in a throaty growl.

"Me too," she gasped back. Her whole hand was wet and slippery. She kept her eyes closed, picturing his hard body leaning over her, his hands and tongue and body pleasuring her.

There was a sudden, stuttering jolt in his breathing, and that did it for her. She thrust a finger inside, and came with a white-hot flare, shuddering through an intense orgasm.

As she came down slowly, she could still hear his breathing on the other end of the phone—slowing now, too. Felicity kept her hand resting on herself, enjoying the light pressure. She was still fluttering gently in the aftermath.

"Good?" he asked quietly.

"Not as good as having you here."
Or me being there.

"Same," he said softly.

"But good," she added.

"Yeah. Same."

They lay in companionable silence for a little while, not saying anything. It was enough just to know he was there. She could hear his soft breathing, and the fire crackling in the background. At last, just to make sure he hadn't fallen asleep, she said, "Congratulations, Hunter."

"Huh?" he asked, as if she'd roused him from drowsing thoughts.

"You're no longer a phone sex virgin."

This got another of his deep, warm laughs again.

"Good night, Hunter," Felicity said softly.

"Night," came his quiet reply.

Even after he disconnected on the other end, it took her a long time to hang up.

***

The rest of the week flew by. Felicity hardly had time to miss Hunter during the day. She was much too busy, dealing with dozens of clients and trying to get her own designs ready for fall production.

It was only at night that she missed him, and then he was there on the phone. Her former habit was to have takeout while watching TV, sitting on the living room floor with her pizza or carry-out boxes spread out on the coffee table. Now, instead of the TV, there was Hunter on the other end of the phone. She sat on the floor, barefoot and barelegged, and they chatted while she ate. She told him about her arguments with clients and the conflicts she'd resolved among the designers on her staff. And he told her about the birds at his bird feeders, the animal tracks he'd seen in the woods, the new flowers blooming along the road. He'd figured out how to use his phone's camera, and he sent her pictures of a bright red tanager on the bird feeder, and a blurry shot of a mother and baby deer he'd seen by the woodshed.

"Oh, it's so adorable," she enthused, holding the phone far enough from her face to see the picture. The fawn, in its dappled baby coat, was so tiny and delicate that it looked like a toy deer. "You should post this on Twitter. Oh, wait, you don't have Twitter, do you?"

He chuckled. "One thing at a time, now. A week ago, I didn't even have email."

"You're certainly taking to it like a ... a bear to honey." He'd been emailing her multiple times a day.

"The only kind of honey I want is the one I'm talking to right now."

"This weekend," she promised.

Rather than staying late at the office as was her usual habit, on Friday she caught herself watching the clock all afternoon. Finally, after having to remind her of appointments and correct mistakes in her emails, and stopping her at one point from spilling a cup of coffee on her expensive Cintiq tablet, Melinda gave up. "Felicity, just get out of here. Go meet your guy. That's what's got your panties in a knot, isn't it?"

"My panties are
not
in a knot, a twist, or any other kind of wardrobe malfunction, and I still have to finish going over the final details of the advertising campaign for our fall line."

"It can wait until Monday. They aren't even expecting to get our corrections back until the middle of next week." Melinda folded her arms and leaned a hip on Felicity's desk—a risky maneuver in her tight pencil skirt. "Hon, you're a workaholic. An over-achiever. And that's great; that's how you built this company into what it is today. But it's not going to fall apart if you think about yourself rather than the business for a change."