Page 58 of Warlander Grizzly

She checked her phone for the twentieth time, both hopeful and fearful that a text from Landon would be sitting there waiting for her response.

There was a trio of cars passing on the main road to town and she couldn’t pull out yet, so she took the time to text Gunner.

I’ve never asked you for anything. It’s just me. Where are you? Send.

She set the phone down and prepared to pull out at a break in the cars, but her phone lit up. It wasn’t a wordy response, but instead was just a pinned location. She poked it and her maps function opened.

Awww, Gunner. He was deep in the woods.

She followed the directions for half an hour, up winding roads that didn’t even look like they were roads at all, but more like tire tracks in the dirt.

She parked behind a boulder, where his phone sat glistening in the saturated sunlight.

Gunner was a different kind of beast, and she wouldn’t have done this if she didn’t have access to her bear, but now she could defend herself.

She cut the engine and got out, rested her hand over her eyes to shield them, but she didn’t see him anywhere. She scented the air and smelled fur, but she didn’t feel watched in these deep woods.

She made her way past the boulder and up a worn deer trail, and the scent of Gunner got stronger.

She found him sitting on an old wooden bench that overlooked a steep ledge. He had his back to her, but he knew she was there. She wasn’t stepping lightly. Startling a half-crazy bruin like Gunner would’ve been a death sentence.

Without a word, she came to sit beside him and studied his profile.

“Sometimes I just want quiet,” he said, but there was no human in his voice. It was too growly, too low, too inhuman.

“Then we can just sit.” Lucia criss-crossed her legs, settled her back against the bench, and looked out over the jobsite he’d been kicked off of. There were still hundreds of felled trees to drag up the mountain and to the landing to load onto logging trucks.

“Landon cares.”

It had been a half an hour of silence, so she was surprised by those two words.

She studied his profile, but he was just staring. “Landon will ruin my life.”

“Isn’t that what love is?” he asked, dragging his bi-colored blue and silver eyes to her.

“No. God, I hope not,” she murmured.

“He cares,” he repeated. “I watched him with you last night. I was at the table against that back wall, and it was good to see it.”

“Good how?”

“You smiled.” He let off an exhale and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “If Lucia Novak can smile, then maybe I could too.”

“What is it, Gunner?” she asked.

He shook his head, denying her the answer, so she mirrored him, leaned forward and asked again, “What is it that has ruined your animal?”

He shook his head and uttered, “Stubbornness,” which made no sense.

“Why were you so angry last night?”

“Lucas has control over me, and it makes things harder. I thought I could do this, but maybe I can’t.”

“Are you going to leave?”

He shrugged and stared off into the distance. “I think I left a long time ago.”

Lucia looked at him for a full minute before she bumped his shoulder, but when she did, something awful happened.

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