Bear Down: BBW Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance Read online

But she really didn't need any of those things, except maybe the time off. What she needed was to be able to think things over without people hassling her constantly.

  Nathan would probably be up by now. She screwed up her courage and tried calling Polar Air.

  Busy. She waited a few minutes, then tried again. Still busy. After that, she managed to get the answering machine. She thought about leaving a message, but couldn't quite bring herself to do it. And then it was busy again.

  Great.

  A knock on the door turned out to be another reporter, this one having managed, somehow, to find her hotel room. Good grief. She shut the door in his face, then stuffed her meager possessions into her duffel bag. She peeked outside the door, saw the reporter at the end of the hall trying to get cell reception, and crept quickly down the back stairs. She had to laugh at herself; here she was, making a clandestine escape from her own hotel room!

  The nice lady at the front desk, who April was pretty sure was the owner of the hotel, was effusively apologetic that reporters were bothering her. "Some national news service came in on a chartered flight this morning. They've been all over town, I hear."

  Oh, wonderful. "That's not why I'm checking out," April reassured her. "I just need, well, some time to put my head back together, I guess."

  "I read about the accident," the woman said, tapping the newspaper on the desk that she'd been reading. April was horrified to see her face and Nathan's on the front page. "It must have been terrifying for you. No wonder you're ready to leave."

  Good God, the whole town must know. She'd gone from being a usefully-anonymous visitor to a local celebrity. "I wasn't really that scared. Nathan is a good pilot." The woman didn't look convinced.

  On the other hand, April thought, maybe it's better for everyone to think I'm having a freakout over being in a plane crash than to admit I'm struggling with the idea that I'm falling in love with a guy who turns into a polar bear.

  She wished she had Nathan's cell number—did he even have a cell phone?—but maybe it was for the best. As much as she hated to leave without at least talking to him, she could call him just as well from Ontario, couldn't she? And maybe by that time she would've been able to think it through and she wouldn't be in quite so much of a muddle-headed mess. Every time she thought about him, a flood of warm tingling rushed through her. It felt so good. But it just ... it wasn't ... it wasn't sensible! And there was no way she could think about it rationally while she was around Nathan.

  "There are flights out of town, aren't there?"

  "Oh, yes, dear; I think the daily flight to Ottawa is about to leave shortly. Would you like me to call you a cab?"

  "Yes," April said, before she could lose her nerve. "Please do that."

  10. Nathan

  On his short, bumpy drive into town, Nathan leaned out the window of the truck to watch one of the "big" jets thunder overhead, on its way to the larger airport on the west side of town. It was a twin-engine passenger plane, the kind that would have brought April here a couple of days ago. They got a few long-distance flights a day, mostly cargo flights serving the mining and oil companies, as well as the single regularly scheduled passenger flight to Ontario.

  Anyway. April. He didn't have her cell number, but at least he knew where she was. The hotel options in town were basically Mary Okpuk's place, a snug little hotel called the Arctic Tern, or the chain hotel across town that catered to oil workers. He called Mary.

  "Nathan dear! I read about the crash ..."

  After Nathan had managed to field her earnest inquiries after his health, he asked about April.

  "Oh, that nice little girl checked out this morning, dear. I believe she's going back to Ontario."

  "What?" Nathan said blankly, the shattered pieces of his future falling down around him.

  "Oh dear, it's not your fault! She was very kind about it. You know how these city people are, always busy and in a hurry to get somewhere ...."

  Nathan hung up on Mary without saying goodbye. Suddenly the jet he'd just watched land took on new and ominous implications. There was only one passenger flight a day. If she left on that plane, he wouldn't be able to follow her. She'd be gone, out of his life, when she'd only just come into it. His mate!

  His phone rang again. He glanced down, saw it was yet another of his cousins, and turned it off with a stab of his finger. Screw them. His entire future was getting away.

  He tore through town and onto the road to the larger airport. From here, across the flat tundra, he could see the distant silver gleam of the passenger jet. Its engines were warming up. It was taking off.

  No, he thought—no! He'd waited too long. He should have tried harder to talk to April yesterday, should have told her what she meant to him. He should have explained that she was his destined mate, that there would never be another for him. She wasn't a shifter; she didn't even know! And like a fool, he'd just let her walk away.

  He pushed the pedal down, but there was no way he could make it. The jet was already gathering speed for a takeoff.

  Nathan stopped the truck and helplessly watched as it coasted down the runway, caught the wind, and rose gleaming into the sky ... carrying his heart with it.

  Too slow, he berated himself. Too damned slow. He didn't even have her number, and the next flight wasn't leaving until tomorrow. She'd vanish into the anonymous crowds at the Ottawa airport, and he'd never find her again.

  But maybe he could find someone else going down that way. A private oil-company jet, for example. Maybe he could catch a ride with some of the reporters. With a renewed sense of purpose, he put the truck in gear.

  He passed the town's only two taxis leaving the airport, as well as a shuttle to the chain hotel. Already marshaling his arguments to use on anyone who might have a flight leaving for Ottawa in the next few hours, Nathan drove up to the front of the tiny one-room terminal. The small crowd of deplaning passengers had dispersed. There was no one there now except a single person leaning against the wall, studying their cell phone.

  Nathan very nearly drove by before he registered the familiar waves of dark hair. The way she stood, the tilt of her head—April!

  Standing in front of the terminal.

  Still here.

  11. April

  "You're kidding," April said to Nathan's partner over the phone, leaning on the terminal wall. "Why isn't he answering his cell?"

  "It's probably off," Lee said. "He tends to do that when people are bothering him. Kind of a loner, Nathan, and he's being hounded by crowds right now."

  "I just want to talk to him. If he calls, tell him I'm at the big airport, okay?"

  "Will do," Lee said. "And hey—April? For what it's worth, I like you. And Nathan really likes you. He's been alone for a long time. I think you're good for him."

  April couldn't help the smile that spread across her face. "Thanks, Lee. I just wish I could find him."

  She'd really meant to get onto that plane, but when it came right down to it, even as she was standing there in the terminal with her credit card in hand .... she couldn't. Not like this. Not without at least talking to Nathan, and trying to face what had happened, what he was, what the two of them were becoming.

  She hadn't tried to catch one of the taxis back to town. She could always call them later, she supposed. Right now she just wanted to get in touch with Nathan, But since she couldn't do that, leaning on the wall outside the terminal in the sunshine was a decent enough place to stand and think for awhile.

  At least until Nathan's truck pulled up.

  As soon as the truck door opened and she caught sight of Nathan unfolding his tall frame out of the driver's seat, all doubt evaporated. This was what she wanted. What she needed. She took one step forward, then another, and then she was running. Nathan got both feet on the ground just in time for April to fling herself into his arms.

  "I thought you'd gone," he whispered into her hair.

  "I was going to," she murmured back. This ... his arms around her ... i
t felt so right. How had she ever doubted it? "I wasn't sure. It was just so sudden. I wanted some time to think about it. Get my head together. But ..." She tilted her head back and looked up into his face. "I can't imagine anything I could possibly want more than this."

  Nathan laughed and kissed her; she chased his laughter in kisses.

  When she came up for air, April said, "Could we maybe ... get something to eat? And talk a bit? I don't know anything about you, except the, uh, big thing. I don't even know what you like to have for breakfast. Er. Lunch now, I guess."

  "I don't know anything about you either," he admitted. "I guess we'll have a lot of fun finding out. And ..." He cleared his throat. "Do you want to meet some other polar bears?"

  "Do I," April said, "want to meet more bears? Do bears you-know-what in the woods?"

  12. Nathan

  For a long time, Nathan's favorite restaurant in town—and not just because it was one of the only restaurants in town—had been The Happy Pancake, run by two of the other local bear shifters. Dave and Ellen, the owners, were the happiest couple Nathan had ever met. For a long time, he'd quietly envied them, always hoping that someday he'd be able to bring his mate here to meet them. Of course, he'd always imagined that his mate would be another shifter, not a regular human.

  When he got out of the truck in the small parking lot, he hurried to open April's door for her, and then took her hand. She smiled and wrapped her smaller fingers around his big ones. She'd come so close to going out of his life, perhaps forever. He wasn't about to take having her here for granted again.

  "I don't know what came over me," she said, hesitating on the porch of the restaurant. "I didn't mean to be jerking you around. I just feel like I'm caught up in something beyond my control, and I'm not quite sure how to handle it."

  "April," Nathan said. He stopped her and tipped her face up to look into his. "I'll never make you do anything you don't want to do. I hope you know that."

  "I know," she whispered, and stood on tiptoe for a slow, lingering kiss.

  "You shouldn't leave until you finish your bear survey, anyway," Nathan said, brushing his thumb across her full lips. He leaned close and whispered, "Here, I'll help you count two bears for your survey right now."

  April's eyes went wide.

  The restaurant was in that quiet time between the morning breakfast rush and the lunch customers. There was no one in sight except for Ellen, a strikingly tall woman with pale streaks in her long dark hair, briskly wiping down tables. "Nathan! Hi there!" she called in a booming voice as big as the rest of her. Then she caught sight of April, and a teasing sparkle came into her dark eyes. "Well, well! Who's this, now?"

  "This is April," Nathan said, squeezing April's hand reassuringly. "She's my, uh ..."

  "I can see what she is." Ellen caught up Nathan in a hug that made him stagger. "This is wonderful. Dave! Get out here! There's someone you need to meet."

  Big, burly Dave appeared from the back, wiping his hands on a towel. "Well, I'll be damned. Little Nathan's found a mate," he said, laughing.

  "Little Nathan?" April murmured.

  "Ellen and Dave have known me since I was this high," Nathan said. He staggered at Dave's friendly slap on the back.

  "And they're ..." April began, and hesitated.

  "April knows about us," Nathan said to the other two. "Yes, April, they're like me. There are a few others in town as well." Though none he got along with quite so well as Dave and Ellen.

  "Sit, sit." Ellen ushered April to a chair. "Whatever you two want, it's on the house today."

  April sat down, looking dazed. Nathan hoped she wasn't getting hit with too much, too soon. Her rapid changes of mind—deciding to leave, then just as suddenly deciding to stay—were, he knew, nothing but symptoms of the confusion she must be feeling at having her worldview upended.

  Still, she didn't seem to have been scared off yet, at least not permanently. So that was something.

  "What's good here?" April asked, picking up one of the folded paper menus.

  "They serve breakfast all day," Nathan said. "And Dave grills a mean burger."

  "I haven't had breakfast yet." April smiled up at the couple. "How about the sourdough pancakes with scrambled eggs on the side?"

  "Coming right up." Ellen playfully poked Nathan in the side. "And I'm guessing this one's going to have the triple-decker burger, like always."

  "What, I'm getting predictable?" Nathan complained jokingly.

  Dave snorted. "Is that why you crashed your airplane in the middle of nowhere, just trying to shake things up a bit?"

  Nathan winced. "I take it you saw the paper."

  "The only reason why we weren't beating down your door this morning was because it sounded like half our regular customers had already done it for us," Ellen said, laughing. "And I know how much you hate people to make a fuss. But, really, Nathan, I hope you're all right."

  "I'm fine." Nathan smiled softly at April. "Better than fine."

  "You crash-landed an airplane in the middle of the tundra with this girl and she still wants to hang around you." Dave laughed and shook his head. "Hoo-eee, Nathan my boy, you found a keeper."

  "Or maybe just someone crazy enough to want me," Nathan said softly. Under the table, his hand found April's and gave it a squeeze.

  Dave and Ellen took turns hanging out with them at the table, chatting with April and getting to know her. Underneath, Nathan got the impression that they were gently feeling her out on his behalf, vetting his new mate as thoroughly as any doting parents. And, for him, this was an even bigger thing than introducing her to his family. She needed to be able to get along with the local shifter community.

  Well, it amounted to the same thing, really. Dave and Ellen were family, too.

  He was relieved to find that she soon relaxed in Dave and Ellen's presence, laughing at their playful jibes and joking back at them. When Dave came back from the kitchen with two plates, April gratefully dug into her food.

  People were starting to trickle into the diner as the lunch crowd arrived. To Nathan's dismay, no one seemed to be able to pass up the opportunity to come over, congratulate him on his narrow escape, and introduce themselves to April. It was like being in a fishbowl, and he could see that April was getting increasingly uncomfortable with it, too.

  The straw that broke the camel's back was when reporters started showing up. Nathan knew at first glance that they were out-of-towners, and April's flinch confirmed it. "Those people were at my hotel earlier this morning," she murmured. "I don't really want to give interviews. I'd just like to leave."

  "If we go out the front, they'll follow us." Nathan glanced around, and then beckoned Dave. "Hey, buddy, do me a favor?" He tossed Dave his truck keys. "Can you pull 'er around to the back? We'll be going out that way in a minute or two."

  Dave laughed, but shouldered his way out past the reporters to do as requested.

  April stood up. When she did so, the reporters zeroed in on her location. Nathan took her hand and tugged her along with him, like he was just going over to talk to Ellen at the ordering counter. Dave reappeared behind Ellen, and winked at him. Nathan ducked past both of them into the kitchen, with April half-walking, half-jogging behind him. The reporters started to follow, but Dave moved casually to block their path. He was a mountain of a man; they wouldn't be getting past him easily. And Nathan and April made their getaway.

  13. April

  Laughing and holding hands, April and Nathan stumbled out into the alley behind the restaurant. True to his word, Dave had pulled the truck around; the keys were in it. April scrambled up into the passenger's seat.

  They couldn't even meet each other's eyes without breaking into laughter.

  "This is ridiculous," April gasped, wiping tears of laughter out of her eyes. "I can't believe we're doing all this cloak and dagger stuff just to sneak away from your friends! Please tell me small towns aren't like this all the time."

  "No, no," Nathan reassured her, laughin
g. "The next nine days' wonder will come along soon and they'll forget all about us. In the meantime, I suggest we find a place to lie low for the rest of the day, at least until the reporters go away."

  "Well, bear counting is out for the time being," April said. "Seeing how we don't have a plane right now. I'm taking a little time off, anyway."

  "You'd be willing to go up with me in a plane again?"

  The look on his face touched her heart. "Of course I would. It wasn't your fault, and I could see you did everything you could to keep us safe."

  Nathan broke into a relieved smile—the smile that still made her weak in the knees. "Well, how about a picnic?"

  "On the tundra?"

  He nodded. "If you want to. I've got a tent in the back of the truck. We don't have to come back until the vultures move on to their next target. Only if you want to, of course."

  Peace and quiet. Just the two of them. "I think it sounds wonderful."

  Nathan pulled into the parking lot of the town's little shopping center to pick up some picnic food. He planted a hand on her head and pushed her down across the seat. "Here, you better hide while I go get the stuff. If it's just me, I can get out pretty quickly, but if they see you? We'll never get away. I'll have to set fire to the building to provide a distraction this time."

  April, giggling, lay down across the seat. The door slammed and she heard Nathan's brisk steps crunching away across the gravel parking lot. She folded her hands on her stomach and lay on her back, looking up at the underside of the truck's roof.

  He was back in a few minutes with several shopping bags, which he dropped into the back of the truck. "Keep lying down," he informed her quietly as he slid inside. "Those reporters from Dave and Ellen's followed us here. They must've seen my truck."

  April giggled softly and shifted her position so she was stretched out across the seat with her head in his lap. "How about this?" she asked, smiling up at him.