PolarBearS-express

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

All of her life, Kaitlin is drawn to wounded animals that need her help. Yet, when she follows an injured turtledove, and its mate, into the woods near her remote cabin in Alaska, she finds out the bird really
doesn’t
need her help. The only question she has now is why did the two birds lead her away from her home to a place where a polar bear waited to attack her. The thing that bothers her the most is, why is she so drawn to the two Scotsmen who rescued her from it?

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Polar Bear S-express

Copyright © 2012 Tianna Xander

ISBN: 978-1-77111-400-4

Cover art by Martine Jardin

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by eXtasy Books

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Polar Bear S-express

By

Tianna Xander

Chapter One

Kaitlin walked through the woods, her arms full. She’d been looking for kindling. Stopping, she took a moment to smell the clean air and take in the beauty of the forest. Utter silence surrounded her, with the exception of the sound of her footsteps and the occasional snow-covered branch dumping its burden onto the ground with a low thud.

Nature had its own beauty. Unlike humans, it created beauty without destroying something else. Kaitlin loved that about being outside—smelling the clean air, taking in the natural beauty that surrounded her.

A cold breeze wafted over her as she turned and headed back to the cabin where she’d come to spend the holidays. She was alone. That was nothing new. Kaitlin was always alone on the holidays.

With her husband gone, she hated attending family functions. It was as though she was the family charity case. Everyone invited her over, but she didn’t accept. She always felt like a fifth wheel. Not to mention the fact that she didn’t want their charity, no matter how freely it was given.

The easiest thing for everyone was for her to take her vacation during the holiday months. This year, she had chosen Alaska. It didn’t matter that it got just as cold here as it did in Michigan. All that mattered was that she would be away from her well-meaning family. Next year, if she was still alone, she would go somewhere else. It had been the same every year since Ray passed.

Every year, Kaitlin would hole up in some out of the way place and spend the holidays alone. That way she didn’t have to wonder just who was talking about her, saying things like,
poor Kaitlin, so young and already alone.
The worst was when she walked in on the conversations. It embarrassed everyone, but mostly, it embarrassed her.

The best way to avoid the discomfort that caused everyone was to avoid the family gatherings, which was why she had decided to start spending the holidays alone. When one of her friends offered the use of her family’s vacation property, she jumped at the chance.

At least this year her accommodations didn’t cost her much more than what it cost for her groceries and fuel for the heater and generator. Though things
were
more expensive here than back home. Still, saving money was always good. Everyone in her family thought her husband had left her well off. She didn’t want to ruin that illusion for them. It would make them feel guilty for not insisting that she spend more time with them. Kaitlin didn’t want that.

Since she had all of the kindling she could carry, Kat turned back toward the cabin. With luck, she wouldn’t have to do this again for a while. While the heater did the job of keeping the small cabin warm, she wanted to supplement the furnace with a fire. With the fire, the cabin was warmer
and
it didn’t take as much fuel. Unlike gas for the generator and fuel oil for the heater, the wood was free.

It was a win-win situation as far as she was concerned. Kara had told her she could use as much of the firewood and deadwood as she could find to keep her costs down. She had found a lot. Just as she reached for the door, a strange sound caught her attention.

Kurr, kurr, kurr.

“What was that?” Looking around, Kaitlin didn’t see anything. Turning the knob, she opened the door and took a step inside.

Kurr, kurr, kurr.

Again, she looked around, but saw nothing.

Kurr, kurr, kurr.

For some reason, the sound seemed to grow more insistent. It was as though the creature that made it was getting impatient.

Setting her armload of wood down just inside the door, Kaitlin walked back outside, closing the cabin door behind her. Kaitlin stood on the porch listening for the sound. She thought perhaps it had come from the eaves of the cabin. Taking a few steps out into the front yard, Kaitlin looked up at the roof.

Kurr, kurr, kurr.

Her eyes widened when she finally saw what made the noise. On the roof, nestled in the gutter, were two snow-white birds. They looked down at her quizzically, as though they knew something she didn’t.

They repeated their now familiar call. The sound was more insistent yet. One of them seemed to glare at her as though she didn’t have much in the brains department. Maybe she didn’t. After all, she stood out here in the cold, looking up at two birds that appeared to be nesting in the eaves, instead of going inside where it was warm.

“What do you want? Are you hungry?” She started to go back inside to get them a slice of bread. She didn’t have much that she thought birds could eat, but she
had
made a loaf of bread just yesterday.

The birds stopped her with an anxious sounding noise. Looking up, she put her hands on her hips. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you want.” She cocked her head to the side and smiled. “Unless you’re just trying to keep me out of the cabin while your friends make off with my bread, I have no idea what you’re doing here.”

One of the birds, she thought it was the male of the two, looked down at her, made a noise and took off. The other followed him, but acted as though it couldn’t fly well. Its wing was injured.

“Great.” Kaitlin sighed. “You want me to follow you, don’t you? What in the heck are you two doing out here in the middle of nowhere anyway?”

Checking her pockets, Kaitlin made sure she still had the pistol Kara had made her promise to carry everywhere with her and the air horn to scare off potential predators, and trudged after the birds. She couldn’t, in good conscience, leave the wounded one out here to fend for itself. It was cold out here and bound to get colder. Just because it was unseasonably warm now, didn’t mean the weather couldn’t make a change for the worst any minute.

Besides, Kaitlin had always been a sucker for animals and birds—especially the wounded kind. Trudging after the two small birds wouldn’t have been her first choice. However, she knew she would never be able to live with herself if she didn’t follow them and later found one of them frozen to death.

Since she was a little girl, Kaitlin had had an affinity for animals. Big or small, they always seemed to know they could come to her if they were wounded. She wasn’t sure why. It was almost as though there was some animal grapevine that said she would nurse them back to health if they were sick or injured.

For some reason she was drawn to animals, especially those that needed some kind of special care. There were times when she woke up in the middle of the night with the inexplicable need to go outside. Once she left the confines of her home, she would find an animal of some kind that needed care. Something drew her to them.

Deeper and deeper, she followed the two birds into the woods. It was a good thing that there wasn’t any snow in the forecast for the day—otherwise, she could have gotten lost. At least she could follow her tracks back to the cabin.

After an hour or so, she saw the birds light on the branch of a tree close to the far edge of the forest. Beyond the woods was the vast tundra leading to what she thought was the ocean, or perhaps it was the Bering Straits. She had no idea. Just as she reached the tree, the wounded bird flew up to the uppermost branch of the tree, showing off the fact that there wasn’t anything wrong with it, after all.

“What the heck?” Kat said with a frown. The only reason she’d followed the stinking birds out here was that one had flown the entire way dipping and fluttering around as though it was wounded. Was there a nest all the way up there? If that was the case, she wasn’t about to climb up there and get it. It had to be at least ninety feet up. If she fell from that height, she would break something and never make it back to the cabin.

The animals in the forest grew quiet as the sound of crunching snow reverberated through the woods. Someone was coming and whoever it was wasn’t even trying to be quiet. Rounding the tree to look out over the tundra, Kaitin gasped when she saw a huge polar bear headed her way, and he wasn’t taking his time.

Looking around, she found a tree with low branches and scrambled up until she was relatively certain she was too high for the bear to reach.
Great.
Now, not only was she at least twenty minutes from the cabin, but she was also treed. Kaitlin closed her eyes.

“What else can go wrong?” she whispered to herself.

Kaitlin immediately got the answer to her question. The bear looked up, saw her perched on the branch and growled low. With a strange chuffing noise, the bear rubbed itself up against the tree, rocking it as though he wanted to shake her out of it.

Pulling the air horn from her pocket, Kaitlin aimed down toward the bear and squeezed. The bear looked up and growled. It must be hungry if the loud noise didn’t do a thing to deter it. If anything, it caused the bear to shake the tree even harder. It was almost as though the thing liked the sound of the horn.

Reaching into her other pocket, Kaitlin pulled out the gun. Aiming into the air, she squeezed the trigger. Still nothing. The huge bear looked up at her and growled just before it rammed its shoulder into the tree.

Standing on its hind legs, it reached toward her, swatting at the lower branches with its paw. If Kat had been even one branch lower, the bear would have clawed her feet. With that thought in mind, she noticed that the bear wasn’t reaching quite as high as it could. If it stretched to its full height, it just might catch her foot with those deadly-looking claws.

She set the safety, jammed the gun back into her pocket and grasped the next branch up. Standing carefully, she climbed up to the next branch. She realized she’d made a mistake just before her foot slipped on the ice-covered branch and she fell on top of the bear.

Stunned for a moment, the large animal just shook its head and stared at her for a minute. Kaitlin screamed and scrambled back, hoping she would have enough time to make it to another tree. It didn’t take long for the polar bear to regain its senses. With another low chuff, it lowered its head and charged.

Chapter Two

Liam looked to his best friend.
Did ye hear that?
he asked through their mind link as they rushed toward the screams. Shifting into their bear form forced them to communicate using telepathy.

Aye,
Angus said, looking toward the tree line.
It was a female’s scream. Do ye think another wild male is trying tae mount one of our females again?

I doubt it. One of our females wouldn’t hae changed tae human form when faced with a horny male. She would turn and fight. Besides, I haven’t seen one of our females here since we arrived.

True,
Angus agreed.

They rushed toward the tree where they could see a large, what appeared to be an adolescent male standing on its hind legs. It was ready to attack.

Shit, Liam! That’s a human. We can’t let that young boar harm her.

Liam shuddered at Angus’s use of the word boar. He hated that male polar bears were reduced to the same name as a male pig.