Beneath a Spring Moon (15 page)

Manon was popping a mouthwash melt strip into her mouth when he came back. After he zipped the flap, she offered him the container. He took two and sucked in a harsh breath as the powerful antiseptic coated his tongue.

“You wouldn’t have a brush or anything, would you?” He ran his hand over his dripping hair.

Manon dove for her purse. She pulled out a wide-mouth comb.

Bear jammed it into his scalp and almost groaned at how good it felt. It was a very human thing, and he’d missed it. But the teeth didn’t move through the tangles. He gave it a jerk but it was no good. “Crap.”

“Do you want me to try?” Manon held her hand out for the comb. He hesitated before he handed it back to her. She studied him for a moment before she said, “Turn around.”

She scooted up to his back, her thighs on either side of his hips. Despite the heat he was throwing off, he could feel her warmth radiating along his spine. She slipped a finger under the fringe of hair at the back of his neck and held it in a scissor lock with her other fingers.

Bear couldn’t speak. It took everything he had to keep from moaning aloud at her touch. His lips were pressed together so tightly it hurt, but not because she was causing pain when she tugged on the snags. Her touch ran through him like an electric current and he wanted to know what it would feel like to feel her, skin to skin, along the length of him. Spending the night next to her would be an exercise in restraint. As a man, it would be near impossible to resist the woman behind him. He didn’t know if his new wild side would be able to.

“Turn around,” she ordered softly.

Bear shifted to face her. She leaned in to reach for his bangs but froze when he grasped her knees. He pulled her in close, sliding her jeans along the nylon sleeping bag until her thighs were up against his and her ass was resting on his knees. He slid his hands up her jeans until his palms rested at her waist.

He trailed his fingers down to her hips, completely aware of how perfectly she fit into his hands. He straightened up a bit to stretch out his back and his chest brushed her breast. The soft contact nearly caused his heart to pound out of his chest.

Manon’s breath hitched at his touch but she didn’t stop her rhythmic work. When she was done, she ran the comb front to back, trailing the teeth the length of his scalp until all his hair was pushed back off his face. She needed to get closer to him in order to reach that far. Her breath on his neck at the end of her brushstrokes had him swallowing a deep groan.

“Finished,” she whispered.

She tried to lean back, but he held her still. He needed her close. The still of the night invaded the tent. The silence chilled him. A month of it had driven the man in him into the lost. Even as a bear he hated it. When Manon was practically in his lap, he could hear her heartbeat, her breathing. He wasn’t alone in the dark anymore.

“I’ve been thinking about the heater,” she said. “We could set it on low and let it run through the night. I have another gas canister for tomorrow. But if I can’t get the phone to work or my guys don’t get here by dark, we’ll be screwed tomorrow night. Our other option is to double up under the sleeping bag and see if we can generate enough heat to make it till morning.”

Bear knew what his preference was. Holding onto her on the snowmobile had felt right, and the ride ended much too soon. He needed another reason to do it again. “I know how long it can take for someone to find this road. I think we should try to save it.”

She nodded in agreement, and he finally allowed her to pull away. They each unzipped a sleeping bag and then placed them liner to liner and turned them into a double. Manon rechecked the heater to confirm everything was turned off. “I guess it’s time for bed.”

They left their boots at the end of the pallet and slid under the top sleeping bag fully dressed. It wasn’t possible for them to be any further apart and still be covered.

Bear felt tension pouring off the figure beside him in waves. “It’s okay, I don’t bite,” he joked. He wanted to but he wouldn’t.

He saw Manon’s head turn to him in the green glow of the chemical tube she’d hung from the dome of the tent. “I’m calling bullshit on that one,” she said.

For a moment he thought the serious look on her face meant he’d made things worse. That she knew what he wanted. Then she snickered and went silent for a moment. “Seriously, what the hell happened out here, Bear?”

Chapter 4

“You know I consult with a cable satellite company?” Bear started.

Manon nodded.

“I’m working on minimizing atmospheric interference. I also have a minor in astronomy. I was doing some research and saw what I thought was an incoming meteor shower. I called some friends, a guy at NOAA and a buddy at NASA. They didn’t see it but I
had
. I ran the numbers and this seemed to be the best area to see them. I set up camp on this road.”

Manon nodded again. She rolled onto her side, leaning a little more toward him and less toward the door. Bear was glad this part of the story was so normal. When he got a little farther into his tale, she was probably going to run screaming and try to make her escape on her snowmobile, blizzard be damned.

“I must have missed something, because the meteor shower or whatever I saw wasn’t coming—it was here. I barely had the telescope up when something crashed into the clearing. The impact knocked me out. When I woke up, there was a big-ass grizzly staring down at me.”

Her eyes got big at that. “What?” he asked.

“I got called out here on a grizzly report. Then we met. I figured it had always been you.”

Bear shook his head. “There was definitely another grizzly. It looked at me like I was on a platter, but then there was some activity from the crater, which was much, much smaller than it should have been, by the way. I could sense some kind of vibrations coming off it but I couldn’t hear anything, so all I could figure was the bear was attracted to the meteorite’s harmonics. I figured I’d take off and come back when the bear was gone.”

He paused. Here was the part that would frighten her into the storm.

“Bear?”

“It wasn’t a meteorite. Not one like I’ve ever seen. When the grizzly got close, the damn thing shot straight up in the air. It just floated there. There was a flash. The bear vanished. But I was still there, only I was the bear!”

The silence grew. Even Manon’s breathing was barely audible.

“I’m not insane,” he growled.

She reached across the sleeping bag and grabbed his hand. He latched on to it with clenched fingers. “I saw a grizzly turn into a human. I know you’re not crazy.”

His fierce grip eased when her thumb brushed his palm. He thought she’d try to pull away from him. “You should be running.”

“Are you going to bite?” Her voice had the same edge of humor as when she’d sprung her ‘bullshit’ comment.

“No.” And with that, he beat the silence back.

“Then what?” She rolled onto her back again and stared at the roof as she listened.

“It took me a while to switch back, and when I did, I was naked. I got back to my camp, got a change of clothes and tried to get back to the car but it wouldn’t start. Neither would my phone. At the time, I thought maybe the light caused an EMP, but your snowmobile is fine. But your truck is dead, and your phone, so…”

“Bear, we can worry about that tomorrow. You couldn’t leave. Then what?”

“I ran out of propane, and it got cold. I tried to walk to the main highway, but I didn’t make it. I woke up as a bear again. I came back for more clothes but my camp was gone.”

“Gone?”

“The area reeked of meth. My tent was gone. All my supplies. Everything but the car, and it wasn’t moving. Then a storm hit. It was bear or nothing.”

“How did you survive?”

“Apparently the meth heads are also into poaching. They left skinned deer and wolf carcasses everywhere. A couple coyotes. They froze fast in the snow. The bear didn’t mind fresh kill. I lost track until you came.”

“Can you control the change?”

“Sometimes. I can do it when I want. I think the bear has a stronger survival instinct, though. If I’m in trouble, it comes out.”

“Maybe we should leave the heater on, then, if the cold calls the grizzly.”

“No, I’m warm. I have clothes. I have a sleeping bag. It’s warm out. I’ll be fine.” She didn’t argue with him. He liked that she trusted his judgment, but he didn’t understand why she would. “Why aren’t you running?”

“Because you haven’t lied to me. You were right about there being a meteor shower. You were a little off on the timing though. The big ones started a couple weeks ago. They’re still happening. NASA is going nuts. Airlines too. It’s world-wide and unpredictable. The news is saying it mostly happens at night.”

“This is happening all over the world?” No wonder she wasn’t freaking out on him.

“
This
? No. Nothing about people changing into animals. That would have made the news. The meteorite strikes. There have been a few stories about quarantined areas and some samples being sent off to government labs but those are only on fringe news websites.”

Bear allowed himself to be distracted for a moment. “Why do you follow fringe news websites?”

“I’m a park ranger. I try to keep up to date on Bigfoot sightings.”

“Really?”

“No. I ran a web search on the meteor showers since your file indicated you had an interest in astronomy. They popped up.”

He wanted to ask more, but Manon’s sigh said she wasn’t finished.

“When it first started, I wished on a falling star I’d find you, and not as a body in the spring melt. And it turns out a falling star was the source of your problems. Irony. What a bitch. Don’t worry, Bear, we’ll get you worked out,” she told him.

Her words were matter of fact. Cain didn’t know if he’d be able to smell a lie with his recent upgrades, but he didn’t feel one. He’d been completely attuned to Manon during their conversation. The sour scent of burnt adrenaline had faded and a faint wash of soap wafted from her hair whenever she moved her head. Her heartbeat sped up a couple times, but not to the panic levels she’d suffered in the clearing during the attack. Everything about her was calming. He was slipping into it when he realized she was speaking again.

“You’ve adapted pretty well to your situation. There’s no way I’d pick ‘Bear’ as a nickname a few weeks after what you’ve gone through.”

He laughed. “It’s always been my nickname. Bartholomew is a mouthful. I’m a big guy. And I am not a Bart.”

Manon’s shoulders heaved in the near dark. “I’m imagining you with spiky blond hair. It’s not working,” she giggled.

“Do you imagine me a lot?” Like with her. He could imagine himself with her. If they got out of here, he’d be doing it quite a bit.

“I don’t have to imagine. I’ve already seen you naked.”

“And?” He didn’t have a mirror but he could feel definition in his abs and arms that hadn’t been there before his enforced month-long paleo diet. He hoped she liked the cut look because he was rocking it something fierce these days.

“I didn’t kick you out of the tent, did I?”

Well, damn. That was good to know. Bear leaned back and stared at the glow stick. The explanation of his situation went better than he expected, and Manon was much more than he hoped for. She didn’t think he was crazy, hadn’t left him behind, and she was laughing with him. Maybe there was a way out of his nightmare. She could be the one to show it to him.

“Are you okay for the night?” she asked.

“Fine.”

“I’ll see you in the morning.”

Chapter 5

God, she was roasting. Manon tried to kick the cover off but her legs were tangled and trapped. She was attempting another half-hearted kick to let some cool air under the sleeping bag when the arm around her waist tightened and pulled her tighter against the steel side of the furnace that was heating her up.

“Bear, let go,” she whispered, hoping he would hear her in his sleep.

He either didn’t hear, or he wasn’t listening. He patted her stomach but held fast. “Keeping you warm.”

“Bear, let go!”

A few long seconds later, he did. She could feel the reluctance in his movements and the tension in his arm as he uncurled from her body and rolled away. Manon sighed as she unzipped the bag and flipped the cover off.

The chemical glow had faded, but her night vision was perfect. Manon panted in relief as the cool air soothed her burning skin. She unzipped her ski jacket and pulled her toque free from where it had hooked on her ponytail and dropped both beside the pallet. The chill was so immediate she closed her eyes and tried to fall back to sleep.

It was only minutes before Bear flipped the sleeping bag back onto her and leaned over to zip it up. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“You don’t realize how cold it is out there.”

“Trust me, I know. I was enjoying it,” she insisted. Manon wanted to say more but her jaw snapped shut as she was wracked with a full body shiver. In an instant, Bear hauled her against his chest. This time she snuggled into him and wrapped her arms around him tightly. “Holy crap, what happened?”

“Cold front moved in. Temps dropped about twenty degrees.”

Manon buried her nose in his neck in an unthinking attempt to shake off the chill. Then she realized the intimacy of the act and tried to rear back. He wouldn’t let her go.

“Just let me hang on for a minute,” he whispered into her ear. “The cold isn’t forcing the change. I can handle it, but it’s easier to remember when you’re close.” Bear tugged her pony tail loose from the elastic and carded her hair with his fingers.

“Okay.” She dropped her forehead to rest on his neck. “You smell like pine.” It wasn’t much, as far as first steps went, but it went as far as she dared. Manon was dying to go further with the man she’d spent weeks searching for, with the man who now held her in his arms. But after all of his recent trauma, she didn’t want to push him into a loss of control.

Bear dropped his mouth to her neck. He nipped at her pulse point and then swiped the spot with his tongue. Manon tilted her head to give him better access and leaned more of her weight into his chest. He did it again. Apparently his control wasn’t going to be a problem.