Don't Judge a Bear by His Cover (5 page)

Hrald is there. Standing in exactly the same clothing as yesterday, alcohol reeking from every pore and looking hung over and ornery. He's taking gulps from the largest black coffee I've ever seen, and when his blood-red eyes focus on me, I have to fight every instinct to turn and run.

"Morning," I say, stopping shy of the porch.

"He agree to leave?" His voice is a rough rasp.

"Well," I begin, "we met and..."

"I don't give a shit." Hrald checks his watch. "It's eight o'clock. We agreed you'd bring him here or I'd make my call. Where the fuck is he?"

It is possible for Hrald to be even more unpleasant than before. I sigh. "We had dinner. And I told him what the situation was. And, well." I still don't know what to say. How to spin it. Could I buy more time? Hrald looks as venomous as a rattlesnake. I open my mouth to spin a lie, and nothing comes out. It's as if I've reached the end of my reservoir, and no longer have any half-truths to offer.

"I'm here," says a deep rumble to my left, and I spin in shock to see Torben approaching, a backpack slung over his shoulder. He's freshly showered, his brown leather jacket is zipped up the front, and resignation and defiance war on his handsome face.

"Torben," I say, and I can do nothing to keep the dismay from my voice.

"Good," grunts Hrald, mollified. "This mean you're coming with?"

Torben stops next to me and looks up at Hrald. I'm reminded all over again how big he is. Like a wall of muscle. He doesn't respond right away, simply staring at the other werebear till Hrald can't take it any longer and breaks his gaze, looking away with a scowl.

"Yeah, I'm coming." Torben's voice is a shadow of its former self. He turns to me, and I can't meet his gaze either. I could have coached him on how to defy Hrald. Worked with him to improve his situation. Instead I've pulled the noose tight, and now he's going to abandon his life here.

It's what I wanted, isn't it? If so, why do I feel so hollow?

"You're actually going," I whisper.

"Yeah. I can't deny my past. Keep pretending it's not there. I need to confront it." His voice is almost kind. "You showed me that."

"I did?" I'm shocked all over again.

"You're a mirror to my own denial. In your eyes I saw myself."

"Oh." What that says about me, I don't want to know.

"And I'm willing to sell the Book Cave to your company." He says this so smoothly I have to blink and do a double take before I realize he's being earnest.

"You are?"

"Sure. On one condition."

"Anything." Freedom. Whatever he wants, I'll make sure my dad accommodates it, and then I can put all of this, these terrible memories, these bad years - behind me forever. Begin working on forgiving myself. Working on forgetting the men and women I forced to sell out. Work on forgetting Torben and his deep brown eyes.

"You come north with me."

"What?" I blink, and then laugh. "Right."

"I'm serious." Torben doesn't even smile. "You want me to sell my shop, you come north with me for a month."

"But - why?" I look up at Hrald, who looks equal parts bemused, equal parts indifferent.

"I'm not completely sure." For the first time Torben smiles, a small, broken smile. "Maybe I think I can help you. Maybe I think you can help me. But fundamentally that part of me I always listen to is telling me to keep you close a little longer. We're not done, yet, you and I."

A month. In Canada. With Torben. I take a deep breath. "And if I say no?"

He shrugs. "I'll hand the store over to Soren. He's got enough money to keep it open indefinitely without selling a single book."

I run my hands through my hair and stride to one side.

"Enough of this," growls Hrald. "Let's get going."

"You tell me what to do one more time," says Torben, voice so laden with menace that the hairs on the back of my neck stand, "and I'll give you such a beating you won't see straight for a month."

I see Hrald pale and step back, throat bobbing as he swallows, and then he nods his head quickly. "Sure, sure, I was just suggesting, is all, not really - uh - never mind."

Torben stares at the other shifter for a beat and then dismisses him to look at me. A month. Do I have a choice? Sure I do. Tell Torben no, and tell my dad I failed. Or tell him yes, wait another month, and then be free of it all.

A curious thing happens to me: I realize that maybe I wouldn't mind a month with Torben all that much. I get a sense of rising excitement, like a trickle of smoke rising from a small fire. He stands there, so confident and strong, waiting for me, a stranger who provokes and allures me. A man. A gentle man who ran from a violent life to open a bookstore. A shifter. A werebear, but first and foremost a man who wants to keep me close for reasons he doesn't quite understand himself. Most regular guys would laugh their instincts aside and be rational. But he isn't a regular man. He's part animal, and his nature is telling him that we aren't done.

And as I look upon him, strange and handsome and frightening, I realize that he's right: we really aren't done yet. There's more to discover. To learn. Where this path will lead I have no idea. But I'll see it through. I'll do what it takes to earn my freedom, and if doing so means disappearing into the wild north with a handsome stranger for a month, then so be it.

"All right," I say, heart in my throat. "I'll come."

Torben smiles. A slight expression, but it's the light that glimmers into life in his eyes that really warms me. That makes my pulse race and my core heat. Oh lord. What have I got into?

Chapter 7

Half an hour later I'm sitting in Torben's pickup truck, my bags in the flatbed and my car parked behind the Book Cave. I've got a cup of coffee in my hand, steaming up deliciously in the morning air, and the sun's just peaked over the eastern horizon, casting its long golden rays across the forest and town. I feel like a kid about to head out on a camping trip, a girl going on a first date with the quarterback. To be honest, I'm all kinds of confused, not knowing how to act or hold myself. Cold and reserved, holding on to that professional image I've been so desperately trying to project? Warm and friendly, making the best of what's to come?

I lift the coffee to my lips but don't drink, instead inhaling the wisps of steam and watching Torben over the brim. He's locking up the Cave, sorting through keys to find the right one for the front door. I almost get the impression he doesn't normally lock up. Is this town that safe? He's wearing a worn ball cap that's frayed around the bill and pulled down low over his face. He looks powerful and yet all alone. Why did he change his mind? He was resolute as all-get-out last night, not to mention when he stared down Hrald with Soren by his side.

Speaking of which. A man is walking down the sidewalk toward him - Soren. The other werebear. Torben turns to him, and gives his friend a nod. They stand close, talking softly, and I watch, fascinated. Shouldn't Soren be disappointed? Instead, the man seems respectful, and when they part they hug tightly. Something's going on here.

Torben gets into the pickup, the car sagging under his weight, and pulls the door closed with a slam. "All right. Let's get the hell out of here."

Hrald is sitting up ahead on his bike, arms draped across the handlebars and a perpetual scowl on his face. When Torben guns the pickup's engine, Hrald nods as if saying finally, and his bike pulls out into the road and leads the way out of town.

"What's going on here?" I ask.

"Hmm?" Torben turns the wheel, pulls out and eases down the road. Looking all innocent.

"Why did you change your mind?" I sip my coffee. Damn, they make a good brew out here.

"Isn't it obvious? You gave me a good reason last night."

"No, I don't think so." I study his profile. The red morning light picks out the fine wrinkles that radiate out from the corners of his eyes. As if he's spent most of his life out in the wild, eyes narrowed as he gazes beyond the horizon. "It's too smooth an about-face."

"Yeah, well, maybe I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to spend a month with you." He looks sidelong at me. "Maybe I got hooked on those quarterlies and statistics you were spouting last night and saw this as my one opportunity to hear it all again."

"You want more?" I cough as if clearing my throat. "Well, you asked for it. According the Nielsen Report, the last quarter of 2014 saw a dramatic drop in hardback sales, dramatic even when compared to the devastating plunge of the first two quarters, which reflects -"

"OK, stop, stop!"

"-the precipitous sea change brought about by the move to digital, which, for your information, also soared in the last quarter of 2014, driven in large part by the move of traditionally published authors to self-publishing, as exemplified by such household names as -"

"You win!" He's grinning and my heart leaps at the sight, as easy as that. Seeing that natural smile and the flash of his white teeth sends my pulse racing. "You win, I submit. Please." We stop at a red light. "Please don't talk about quarterlies."

"Not even a little?" I can't help it. I've never felt so torn and comfortable around a stranger before. He's like an old friend I haven't seen in years, both of us slipping into a comfortable relationship we never really forgot, except in this case, it's one we never even had. "Don't you want to hear about the -"

"Saira." His voice goes mock serious. "I swear on my clan that I don't want to hear about whatever it is you were going to say. Honest."

"You sure? Fine." I pull my safety belt down across my chest and take another sip. "Then how about you tell me some things."

"Sure," he says, accelerating smoothly as the light turns green. "What do you want to know?"

"Well..." Where to start? "Everything."

"Everything? That's a lot." Again that subtle, gentle mockery in his voice. "Where to start? The Big Bang? The formation of the earth?"

I snort. "Oh god. I'm trapped in a pickup truck with a wiseass. I'm doomed."

"I think you'll survive." He gives me that sidelong smile again as the road leaves the last of Honeycomb's houses behind and we plunge into the woods, following Hrald's bike as it roars on ahead of us.

"I don't know. A month's a long time to put up with sass."

"Fine. I'll give you five minutes of no sass. What you want to know?"

Hmm. I study his face as he drives, one hand on the wheel, relaxed and competent and ridiculously hot. If I could take a photograph right now and post it online I'd probably be able to kick off a career as a model finder. "Tell me about the Book Cave. Why did you come down here and open it up?"

"The Book Cave." He rumbles deep in his chest. "I like books."

"You said no sass."

"Fine, fine. Where to start." He considers the road, and then gives a rolling shrug. "Growing up, things were pretty... chaotic. You know about my family's involvement with the Claws. My dad was the alpha of the clan. My brother was primed from day one to take over someday. My mother was long gone. My earliest memory is of gunshots waking me up where they'd put me to sleep in a motorcycle sidecar. I must have been around three. And things didn't get any quieter as I got older."

I listen, fascinated. His rich voice is quiet and smooth like a master storyteller's, a river of dark chocolate that sweeps me away. I want to huddle my knees under my chest and just listen. I can imagine him, a little guy waking up in a sidecar, a baby blanket - no, an old Mexican blanket - pushed aside as he sat up, eyes wide, the dark shattered by gunfire. Yells. His clan returning fire. I shiver. Hell of a first memory.

"And I never liked the kind of stuff we did. The smuggling and extortion. The raids and the drinking. So I read. In secret, of course." He snorts to himself. "Few times they found me with a book, they tore it up and beat the crap out of me. So I learned to read in quiet places. Out of the way corners. And each time I'd get into a good book, things felt a little better." A glance at me. "You like reading?"

"I love it," I say, though I haven't read a book in three years. I've felt like a traitor to my one favorite pastime, felt like I had my library card cancelled when I started working for Universal Bookstores. "Or I used to."

"Used to?"

"Hey, don't try and get out of telling me your story."

He laughs. "All right, calm down. So for a while there, I thought I could roll with my clan. My teenage years, my early twenties. I did some things. Earned some respect from the others. But deep down, it never felt right. Felt like I was playing a role. But the more I did it, the easier it got. It started to feel like..." He trails off, looking for the right words. "Like I was a spike of iron. The iron was my true self. But the more I pretended to be this violent asshole, the more the exterior got rusted. And as time passed, the rust ate deeper into the iron. I got to feeling that one day there'd be no iron left. Just a spike of rust. A bitter shadow of the man I could have been. Should have been."

My heart is thudding painfully in my chest. That's exactly how I feel. What these past three years have done to me. All I can do is nod.

"Anyways." Torben's tone changes, as if he's pulling out of that intense place he allowed himself to stray into. "One night I went too far, did something I thought I'd never do. And the worst part was, it didn't really bother me all that much. Not deep down. But part of me knew that I'd crossed a line. I'd gone too far. So without thinking, I pulled up stakes and drove off. Just quit. Headed south. I thought the clan would catch up with me, drag me back, but they never did. Not till now."

The more he tells me, the more questions I have. I bite down on my tongue though and wait. He stares out at the road before us, lips pursed, and then sighs. "I ran into a shifter in Vermont who told me about this place. So I came down and kicked around town at loose ends for a few days before I found the Book Cave. It was run by an old shifter. Jorgen." A fond smile appears as he says the name. "Half blind, crotchety as hell, but the best man I've ever met. He gave me a job stacking the shelves. I worked there five years, slowly earning Jorgen's trust till he passed last spring. I thought I'd have to move on, but the old man left me the store."