Don't Judge a Bear by His Cover (11 page)

A thrill runs through me, and I jog over to his side, and feel his warm, callused hand close over mine. Not speaking, the urgency in the moment only building, we hurry to the pickup and get in. The engine is still idling. We slam the doors, Torben puts the car in gear, and we drive around the knot of shifters and make a beeline for the highway.

I'm stunned. I honestly thought I might die there. Thought Torben might die. I can't believe we're actually driving away. When we reach the highway, Torben stops the car and turns to me.

"You are the craziest, most -"

But I don't give him a chance to speak. I grab his face in both hands and kiss him, hard, passionately, letting all the anguish and fear melt away as I sink into his arms. I feel him grin, and when I pull back I swat him on the shoulder. "Don't you ever pull a trick like that again." Torben winces, and I realize I've just hit him on his open gash. "Oh god! I'm sorry!"

He laughs, wincing, and shakes his head. "How did you find me?"

So I tell him. About Soren. About the gas station. The werewolves. "But what were they doing down here?"

"They must have followed the clan, like Cassius said. Hoping we were quitting, or intent on making sure we never came back."

"I'm sorry I interrupted," I say, and then change my mind. "Actually, I'm not. I wouldn't have you here with me if I hadn't."

Torben slides the car onto the highway and points us south. "I'm the one who's glad. I'd already fought three others by the time Krassok finally stepped up to face me." His weariness comes through. "He was aiming to kill me. If you hadn't shown up, I'd be still there, trying to kill him instead."

His sober voice sends a chill through me. "Won't they come after you again? To finish what they started?"

Torben considers, then shakes his head. "No, I don't think so. They wouldn't accept my stepping down during a time of peace, but after what I did in the face of the enemy? Krassok has the alpha position. And he's welcome to it." Torben frowns and reaches up to wipe some blood from his cheek. "I owe you my life, Saira. If you hadn't brought those wolves, I'd still be fighting. I miscalculated. They were going to keep challenging me until one of them killed me. There was no way out. Even if I beat Krassok, and the one after him, and the one after that."

I feel a chill pass through me, and study Torben's face, reading each line of pain and weariness. "But you're done now, right? That world? It's behind you?"

"Yes," says Torben. Then, as if he's surprised by the fact, he says it again, voice lighter, happier. "Yes, I am. My past is behind me." His eyebrows go up, as if he's only now realizing it. "I'm free." He grins. "Free to be with you." A moment of hesitation, and then he looks at me in a way that's half shy, half nervous, and totally adorable and gorgeous. "If you want to be with me?"

I laugh and lean my head on his shoulder. "Let me think about it."

Chapter 14

I want to stop at a nicer hotel, but Torben insists on another parking-lot style motel due to his condition. No Sheraton would allow him to walk bleeding through the lobby. I go into the little ground floor office to rent a room, and a moment later I unlock our door and step inside, Torben limping behind me. Already his wounds are healing, scabbing over as they close. It's amazing to behold. His shifter metabolism is causing him to radiate heat like a furnace as his body heals.

The room is small, dominated by the queen-sized bed and mustard-colored walls. The comforter on the bed gleams like plastic, and the carpet is an indistinct chocolate mousse color, scarred and burned. I pull the yellow curtains closed, and then turn to Torben, who's locking the door.

"What can I do?" I step close, hesitant.

He doesn't answer. Instead, he splays his fingers and claws emerge from their tips, powerful talons that he uses to cut away his already torn shirt. I peel the bloodied garment from his body and toss it in the small trash can. Up close, his wounds are awful. Any one of them would have sent me to the ER. I don't know how he's standing there as if they're nothing. I feel powerless to do anything meaningful.

"Do you need hydrogen peroxide?"

Torben laughs and then winces again. "No. Just a little time. I've had much worse, believe me."

I look at him with mock-wide eyes. "Is Honeycomb Falls that dangerous?"

Torben laughs again, and winces again. "Stop. No. Don't make me laugh."

I grin and step in close. "I had no idea running a bookstore was so rough."

"Ah," he gasps again as he laughs. "No, mercy."

I place both hands on his chest. His muscles are as hot as sunbaked stones. "Only if you promise me one thing."

Hands on the buckle of his belt, about to shuck his pants, he pauses. His golden eyes gleam as he looks down at me. "Anything."

My breath catches in my throat. He means it. We stand there, and I lower my hands down over rippled abs to his hands. "Promise me there will be no more violence. No more fighting."

He turns his hands around so that our fingers interlace. "You know I can't promise that," he says, almost sorrowful. "But I can promise you this: I won't seek it out."

I feel a knot in my throat. "But if it comes after you?"

"After us?" His smile is sad. "Then I'll do whatever I have to keep you safe."

"Us safe," I correct, and his smile just about melts my heart. "We're 'us' now, right?"

Torben lifts his hands to my face, cupping my chin gently. "Yes." His voice is almost a whisper. "We have been since last night."

I feel a flush of heat across my face at the memory. "Us." It feels so good to say that. How many years has it been just me? Alone in café diners, in motel rooms, driving lonely roads and shunning all friendships, all company that could lead to false hopes and broken promises? Our eyes are locked. The future, always a mystery, a blank space I had no idea how to fill, suddenly has a center, a core, around which everything can be built: us.

Slowly, a smile turning up the corners of his lips, Torben leans down and kisses me. I feel like I'm floating, his fingers on my chin the only contact to the world, his tongue gliding across my lower lip, into my mouth. I lift my face to his, close my eyes, and allow that sensation to become my world.

Even as I find myself sinking into bliss, a thought hits me. "Wait," I say, pulling back.

"What's wrong?"

"The Bear's Book Cave." I suddenly feel distraught.

"What of it?"

"We're selling it to my dad. To Universal Books. What will you do?"

"What will we do," he amends firmly. "And - your dad?"

"I - yes." I hate it. How my past reaches up like sucking quicksand to pull me back down. To sully the purity of the moment, to remind me that I can't wish away my history. It's there, waiting for me, faithful and patient and never, ever going away.

"So Universal Books is a family business?"

I can't quite read his tone. Wry, perhaps even teasing, but beneath that a layer of tension.

"No," I say, vehement. "I work for him, but I told you, it's against my will." I cross my arms and hug myself, stepping to the window. I hate this. I hate how I'm not free. How my past sins are coming back to ruin this moment, to claim Torben's store, to prevent us from riding into the sunset like a perfectly happy couple.

"Saira," says Torben, stepping up behind me. "I love you."

The words send a shiver through me, hitting me like a blow, and I want to protest. No, you don't, I want to say. You don't know me. You don't know the first thing about me. My favorite movie, my favorite Indian dish, what my high school was like, my favorite flavor of ice cream. But I stop. I don't say any of that. Because even though we're just starting to get to know each other, even though there's so much to learn, I believe him.

I turn to him. "I love you too." I see the same reflexive doubt in his eyes, and I can't help but smile. "I never thought I would say those words so easily. So quickly. But then, they didn't come easy." I trace his healing wounds with my eyes, seeing how they've improved even during the time we were talking. "You've shown me what kind of man you are. Loving. Honorable. Good-hearted. Generous beyond measure." My voice drops to almost a whisper, and I can't meet his eyes. "When you said you'd give me the Book Cave to free me, and told me I could go, that I was free, I knew then and there everything I needed to know about you. And what I felt when I saw you, standing there against Cassius, calm and confident and totally yourself despite all the pressure and conflict."

I look up at him, and damn it, there are tears in my eyes. I smile through them. "I love you. And I think as I get to know you better - as we get to know each other better - I'll love you even more."

"Saira," he says, voice raw.

"And!" My smile turns into a grin. "It doesn't hurt that this animal attraction thing we've got going makes me want to attack you every single time I see you."

His grin widens, and he pulls me close. "What's holding you back?"

"Very little," I say, lips inches from his. "Mostly the fact that you've just recently been attacked for real."

He snorts in amusement. "I told you I love you for a reason."

I quirk an eyebrow. "Because you do love me?"

"No, silly. Because whatever has happened to you in the past, it's in the past. The woman I'm holding is real, and I love her. You. Today. Now. Don't let your past control you."

Immediately I want to push him away. I want to change the subject. But I can't. Not with him holding me like this, being so open, so honest. I force myself to swallow. I feel shaky. "It's hard," I say at last. "It's controlled me for so many years."

"We'll give your father the Book Cave. That was his condition for your freedom, right?"

I nod slowly, reluctantly. "Yes. But I don't want to. I don't want to take that from you. I want -" Even now, after all we've been through, I'm shy about speaking so openly. "I want to run the Book Cave with you. Make amends for all the bookstores I've helped sell."

Torben shakes his head, smiling kindly. "It's just a bookstore. It's not irreplaceable. We'll give the store to your father. He can install his kiosks and upgrade the software and whatever else he wants to do, and then he'll have to close it in six months."

"He will? Why?"

"Why do you think my store is doing so well?"

"I honestly have no idea. It's been the biggest mystery to me."

"My clients aren't on the internet. Most of them don't even own a phone."

"Your clients... are you selling books to retirement homes?"

Torben laughs again, eyes flashing. "No. My people. There's a large and important Cairn near Honeycomb Falls. That's a place of mystical energy. Shifters from all over come to commune there with Mother Nature. Just recently there was a change in leadership. The old Cairn Elder was replaced by his son, a werelion called Alexander. He's been doing amazing work. A bunch of people have been coming through, as a result, staying at Honeycomb Hall and visiting the Cairn."

"And buying your books?"

Torben nods. "You'd be surprised. Werelions and werebears and werewolves like nothing so much as just lying out on a large rock basking in the sun. When we're not hunting or mating, we're pretty damn lazy. And a good book comes in very handy during those times."

"Hunting, mating, and reading. Is that what life is going to be like with you?"

Torben smiles. "Does that sound so bad?"

I shake my head. "Oh, no. That sounds just about perfect."

"So when your dad buys the Book Cave, we'll open a new place of our own. I can get some seed money from Alexander, maybe even from a few other shifters in town, like Soren. Nobody will go to the Book Cave, and after a while your dad will have to close. We'll be fine. I promise you that."

I can't quite believe it. Open a bookstore with Torben? Pick the name, the layout, stock the shelves, create a kids' corner - all of it? I can barely breathe.

Suddenly, I have to tell him. I can't keep it back any longer. The words spill out, all in a rush. "When I was twenty-two, I killed a woman. I was drunk, driving back home from a club, and I ran a red light. I hit her car, and she died in the hospital." I'm clutching his arms with a claw-like grip. "Her name was Marybeth Howards. She had two children and a husband. She was thirty-four, a nurse." The tears are coming, dark wet wings of panic are opening in my throat. I can't stop, the words pouring forth. "She was on her way to the hospital. She worked in the damn pediatric cancer section. She must have been wonderful. I mean, she worked with kids with cancer, and I killed her because I was drunk, I was stupid. Like that, I ruined everything, her life, her family -"

I stop as suddenly as I began, trembling like a leaf, all the self-loathing and disgust welling up inside me like tar. Torben's eyes are wide. Will he hate me now? Feel as disgusted by me as I am by myself?

"My father used his connections to reduce my sentence to six months house arrest and community service. It was ridiculous. I killed a good woman, and my punishment was to stay home crying in bed. Then my dad forced me to work for him. He said - he said if I didn't, he'd go to the judge and make sure I got the full sentence."

Torben's eyes darken, and I feel a growl rumble deep in his chest. "You're kidding me."

I hang my head. "That's why I've been doing this for the past three years. He made me swear I'd work for seven more. That's why I came to Honeycomb Falls, why I agreed to come north with you. I wanted my freedom, but..." I trail off. I rest my forehead on his chest, closing my eyes. I'm so tired, all of a sudden. Drained completely of energy. "I never knew what I was going to do once I was free. Travel? Disappear? Go somewhere far away and do penance, maybe."

Torben puts his arms around me and pulls me close. I feel numb. Hollow. "I'm no good," I whisper. "I don't deserve to be happy."

"Shh," says Torben, stroking my hair. "Yes, you do."

I pull back, suddenly angry. "What, you're going to tell me it's OK to do what I did?"

"Of course not." His handsome face is impassive. "Never. But forgiveness is possible. Self-forgiveness is possible. Necessary."