Page 9 of Bear to be Wild
“I’ll keep it to myself.” I tipped my chin up. “What can I do to help?”
“What?” She tilted her head in surprise.
“We need to work together, right?”
Together, my bear echoed.
“Umm,” she stammered. “Yes, I think so.” Her voice softened. “You won’t tell Tia about this?”
“No.”
“Well, uhh, thank you, umm, Roan. I appreciate it.”
Roan. Just hearing her say my name in her voice rumbled through me, leaving me content. “So now what?”
She glanced down the hall toward the spa. “We’ll have to figure out how to get through the day while I try to figure out how to undo the spell.”
“Got it.” I nodded. My busy schedule flickered in my mind. I glanced at the clock in the fitness studio. “I’m supposed to be training a client in the gym in fifteen minutes.”
Her face paled. “And I have a busy day with clients.” She glanced from the spa to the gym. “Oh no, it’s too far.” Her franticeyes locked on mine, and she gulped. “Looks like I’ve brewed my last potion on this ship.”
CHAPTER 5
MARIBELLE
Shame swarmed through me. I’d screwed up—badly. And now I was stuck with this bear shifter unless I could figure out a way to fix it.
So far, Roan had surprised me. He hadn’t been furious when I’d revealed what I’d done and the unfortunate repercussions with our temporary predicament. His reaction had thrown me off.
As well as the way he looked at me now. His amber-brown eyes held mine with a focused intensity that left me flustered. And his scent—it wasn’t eau de testosterone à la perspiration, but an alluring woodsy musk with a hint of honey. A flicker of heat burned through me.
I forced my chin up. “So now what do we do?” I placed a hand on my hip. “I have to treat clients in the spa, and you have to—” I motioned toward him—“do whatever you do with all that grunting.”
A young couple walked down the hall toward the gym.
“Let’s talk inside the fitness studio,” he said to me.
Good idea. We shouldn’t be discussing our predicament out here.
I stepped back into the room with gleaming pine floors, floor-to-ceiling windows, and the mirrored wall that separated our workspaces. Sunlight poured in through the tall windows, spilling across the polished wood. Outside, the endless expanse of blue-green ocean stretched out.
This was the same spot where I’d entered yesterday to chew him out for being loud, which had led to my ill-thought-out decision today. Perhaps I’d reacted a bit too hastily.
He glanced around the room and then toward the mirrored wall. “If I train my clients in here, will that give you enough space to work with your clients in the spa?”
My jaw twitched. Was he really adjusting his entire schedule to work around my mishap? To save my ass. “Yes, that should work. It’ll give us both room to work.”
“Okay, let’s start there. We can figure out the next step as we go.”
He glanced toward the other wall. “But I’m going to need to set some things up in here.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Walk with me to the gym.”
We entered the space I avoided. Cardio machines lined up like torture devices in front of vast windows facing out to the sea, as if a spectacular view would distract someone from excruciating physical activity. Countless more weight racks and fitness machines lined up to increase the unpleasantness of the space. So different from the calming ambiance of the spa. The air carried a faint tang of iron and rubber beneath all the perspiration. Who would willingly spend time in here?
Roan grabbed a barbell with weights on the ends. His biceps strained, muscles tensing as he lifted the weight. I never thoughtmuscular men were attractive—until now. My heart stuttered before I forced myself not to look at him. That lasted all of three seconds before my curiosity won out. His shoulders bunched beneath his snug shirt. He moved with an ease that made the barbell look like a prop. A faint woodsy scent drifted from him when he passed me—comforting, grounding, and annoyingly distracting.
