Bear Necessities (Bad Boy Alphas): A Post-Apocalyptic Bear Shifter Romance (35 page)

Caleb had looked up at her, surprised, and Ivy had flushed all the way to her toes as she’d stammered an explanation. He had just given her a strange, crooked smile, shaking his head as she hurried off to the bathroom.

Ivy reached under her mattress, finding the small pen light she kept there for night time trips to the toilet. The bunker was impossibly dark at night and feeling your way through the living and kitchen area to get to the bathroom felt like a very long trip. They both kept a small flashlight under their mattress now, after Ivy had nearly sprained her other ankle hobbling to the bathroom on their first night.

“Ivy?” Caleb stirred when she turned on the little flashlight.

“Just going to take a shower,” she half-whispered, as if there was anyone else there to awaken. “Go back to sleep.”

“Time’s it?” he murmured.

“Six-thirty,” she informed him, shining the light through the living area and squinting at the analog clock hanging on the kitchen wall.

He snorted and rolled over toward the wall onto his side and was still again. Ivy looked at the broad expanse of his back, feeling something taking flight in her belly. It was like butterflies—something fluttering and full of excitement. She told herself it was just the remnants of her dream, and she just needed a shower to wash away the residue.

Her father really had spared no expense when it came to making the house and even his bug-out bunker completely efficient. The masonry heater—which used surprisingly little wood—created enough heat to warm the water in the on-demand heater that ran to the shower. It was the same technology he’d employed in their log cabin home, and it was very effective.

Ivy stood under the hot water for a long time trying to wash away her dream.

But it wasn’t the image of the house on fire, or her father’s photos burning, that stayed with her. It was the sight of Caleb’s broad, strong back, the sheet tangled around his waist, riding down the edge of his hip, that wouldn’t go away.

Strange, because Caleb had been a perfect gentleman. He turned away when she got in and out of bed—she’d started wearing just a t-shirt, to save on laundry. Even when her ankle had been worse and he had to help her to the bathroom, he’d been careful to give her as much privacy as possible.

Standing on it now, her ankle still hurt, but it was nothing like it had been. It looked more like a sunrise now—fading orange and yellow—than a pink and purple sunset. She was taking Tylenol instead of Vicodin, which had just made her sleepy and out of it. She could walk on it, with just a little limp. In another week, she’d probably be walking without any pain at all.

I can walk home.

She desperately wanted to. But she knew Caleb was right about the men who had found her property—if they were like the man who had chased the rabbit through her yard, they were dangerous. Caution made sense—but she didn’t want to be stuck down here forever. She wanted her house back, her life back.

Such as it was.

Funny, she’d been perfectly happy with Nikon and her garden and her books and her routine existence away from everything. But Nikon was gone, now. And she knew her other animals probably were, too, thanks to the intruders. But it wasn’t just mourning that loss that was getting to her.

For some reason, the thought of going back to her life before wasn’t as appealing as it had been at first. She missed home—she missed the outside—but the more time she spent in the bunker with Caleb, the less she wanted to return to a solitary existence. She hadn’t realized just how much she missed having someone to talk to.

And they’d talked a lot—there wasn’t much else to do down here, after all. Her father had the forethought to bring down several decks of cards, some board games, a chess set—which made her smile, because she’d never learned, even though he’d always promised to teach her—and a dozen paperbacks or so. But all of those quickly lost their luster.

Besides, talking to Caleb was fascinating. Or, more to the point, getting him to talk. He wasn’t the most forthcoming conversationalist, that was for sure. But she’d gotten him to open up a little bit. In the past week, she’d told him about her time homeschooling with her father on the homestead through eighth grade—and then going to a private girls’ boarding school for high school. That was hard at first—being separated from her father—but she’d made friends and it had been an eye-opening experience, being out in the “real” world after the isolation of home.

Her grades were good—she was actually far ahead of most of her classmates, academically—and she’d applied and been accepted to the University of Michigan. It meant more time away from home, but her father encouraged her desire to be a journalist, even in an era when any sort of real “news” was declining. It had been a fast four years, getting her degree.

And getting her job at the New York Times—“job” was more like “internship” but her father agreed to pay for her apartment and give her a monthly stipend until she could get something that actually paid her money—had been quite an accomplishment right out of school. Her father had been incredibly proud of her, and she’d been lucky to have a parent who had invested wisely and well, who had the money to send her to the best schools and give her such amazing opportunities.

Ivy loved New York, she loved her job. She never in a million years saw herself living back home, taking care of her ill father while the rest of the world fell apart. He’d been so sure
something
was going to happen. He talked about all the ways the world could end—an economic collapse, a giant earthquake, floods, the demise of the honeybees, an electromagnetic pulse that would take down the grid, a nuclear disaster… the list seemed endless.

When she was a kid, everything he’d done, from the garden to having solar panels and the masonry heater installed to get off the grid, just seemed normal to her. But the more time she spent out in the world, the stranger his behavior appeared. She still loved him dearly—but she began to worry about his preoccupation with preparing for inevitable disaster. And when his headaches started, and he had refused to go to a doctor, she’d finally stepped in and forced his hand.

Turned out it was all too late—the brain tumor had already spread to his liver, his lungs, his pancreas. They offered him a myriad of options, none of which he was willing to do.

Funny, in spite of his paranoia and the brain tumor that had clearly been effecting his thought process—he’d turned out to be right. The world had ended, just as he’d predicted. Well, not exactly in any of the ways he’d predicted. She used to joke with him about the pending “zombie apocalypse,” and his preparation plans for it. That was their pat phrase that encompassed all of those possible real-life scenarios that might change the world forever.

In the end, it had been closer to a real zombie apocalypse than anyone ever would have thought. And her father hadn’t even lived to see it.

“Ivy?” A knock on the door startled her and she turned off the water.

“Sorry!” She grabbed her towel off the rack as she pushed the shower curtain aside, wrapping it around herself. “Coming!”

She opened the door, steam rising around her, to see Caleb standing there in his boxers.

“Gotta pee.” He gave a rueful shrug, stepping aside so she could walk by him.

“I’ll make breakfast,” she offered, shivering a little as the cool air hit her wet skin. “What do you want?”

“Eggs, bacon, a big, juicy steak…” His gaze swept over her as he talked. The towel wasn’t very big—it barely closed. Her father had thought of everything. There were even toothbrushes and toothpaste. Couldn’t neglect your oral hygiene during the apocalypse, right? Wouldn’t want to end up like Tom Hanks in
Castaway,
doing your own tooth extraction with an ice skate blade.

“Ha.” She gave him a little smile as she slipped by him. That was one thing about the bunker—it wasn’t big on protein, unless it came in the form of dried beans and powdered milk. “Oatmeal it is.”

“I’ll just take a shower while you… uh… get dressed,” he called after her. “Maybe we can look for some bigger towels?”

“I couldn’t find any.” She glanced over her shoulder at him and shrugged. It was true, though—the towel hardly covered her, and it covered even less on him. “But I’ll look again in the back closet.”

Her father had loaded the storage closet with all sorts of things—from snow shoes and extra coats to cross-country skis, animal traps and survival knives. They still hadn’t been through everything. She knew there was a list of inventory somewhere—her father had told her about it before he died—but it was back at the house.

Ivy quickly got dressed, towel-drying her hair the best she could—that was one thing she really missed. Of course, her father with his buzz-cut wouldn’t think to supply a hair dryer for the apocalypse.

By the time the oatmeal was ready—she made it with powdered milk and water for a little extra protein—Caleb was out of the shower, that little towel wrapped around his waist. She made a conscious attempt to keep her eyes averted as he padded past her through the kitchen, but it was an effort.

“Hungry?” she called.

Caleb was getting dressed in the bunk room, and she kept her back turned—or she would have been able to see him bare-assed, pulling on his boxers and cargo pants. The man loved pants with pockets. She was surprised by the things he kept hidden in there, from utility knives to rubber bands. She teased him that he was like a walking junk drawer.

“When am I not hungry?” He snorted and she laughed, stirring one small packet of sugar into her oatmeal. They’re run through the pre-packaged oatmeal—the kind with the sugar built-in—within the first two days. Ivy’s fault. But processed sugar at all was quite a treat—she’d run out of it at home over six months ago and had to resort to more natural sweeteners. Stevia was easy to grow, though. Another of her father’s forethoughts.

“Rough night?” he asked as he turned one of the kitchen chairs around and straddled it. He remained barefoot and shirtless. The temperature in the bunker was under control now, and the floors stayed at a constant—her father had radiant floor heating installed between the concrete foundation and the laminate wood-like flooring he’d had installed over it.

“Do I look tired?” Ivy cocked an eyebrow at him, sliding his bowl of oatmeal to him—it was twice the size of hers—as she sat down across from him.

He shrugged, digging in. “I heard you calling out in your sleep again.”

“You did?” She looked at him, surprised.

“Same dream?”

She nodded, then sighed. “I wish I could just go home…”

“I know.” He sighed, too. “I’m sorry, Ivy.”

“But… when can we?” She saw the way his jaw tightened at that question. It always did. “It’s been a week. Maybe they’ve moved on?”

He gave a slow shake of his head, already scraping the bottom of his bowl. Ivy hadn’t eaten half of hers yet.

“How do you know?” she asked, frowning. “It’s not like you’ve gone back to check. You just stick your head out of the bunker and look around, like Punxsutawney Phil, and say six more weeks or whatever.”

“I just know.” That muscle in his jaw was working under his beard. “Trust me.”

“Trust me,” she whispered under her breath, rolling her eyes. “You don’t ask much, do you?”

Caleb sat back, his hands gripping the back of the chair as he straddled it, just looking at her. That look was maddening. He was always so damned calm. Ivy sighed, grabbing his bowl and hers, limping them over to the sink. She stood there, quickly finishing her oatmeal, before starting to wash up.

“How’s your ankle?” he asked softly.

“Oh, what do you care?” Ivy snapped, putting their bowls in the dish rack to air dry, not turning to look at him.

“Hey, want me to teach you how to play chess today?” Caleb offered, standing and turning his chair around to push it under the table.

“No.” She knew she was being petulant, but she just felt so cooped up in here, she didn’t think she could stand it for another minute.

And then there was her dream. She knew it wasn’t real—she didn’t believe in premonitions, exactly. But the thought of strangers in her house, going through her things, bothered her more than she could say.

“I didn’t sleep well. I’m going back to bed.” She turned and left the kitchen, walking right past him like he wasn’t there—although she was, in fact, very well-aware of him. She felt his presence, even after she’d crawled back into bed and closed her eyes, trying to pretend he wasn’t there.