Page 34 of Bearing North
Everyone in the office froze, including the guards who had come in from the back at the sound of the commotion.
Even if they didn’t get the office security tape, now they had witnesses.
Sandra realized it at the same time Orson and Alex did, and she gave a cry and dove for a desk drawer. A gun flashed in her hand, but Orson was over the counter before the guards could even move, knocking it away from her and wrestling her down.
“Don’t hurt her,” Alex commanded dispassionately.
Orson let the guards restrain Sandra as Alex called the police, taking professional charge of the situation with respectable calm.
It wasn’t until the police had taken their full statements, downloaded the camera footage, marched Sandra away for processing, and they were completely alone in Orson’s office that Alex let herself relax. Orson took her into his arms and felt her sag against him.
“I didn’t want it to be true,” she confessed into his chest.
“Who would? You thought she was your friend, and she was betraying you at every turn. I’m so sorry, Alex. I’m so sorry.”
Orson rocked her comfortingly, and she held him tight.
She was his strong, gorgeous, capable mate, and he treasured the rare moments that she turned to him for support beyond any dragon’s hoard.
“We still haven’t decided what my job here will be,” Orson reminded her. “I’m available for…hm…special services, and I noticed that this office door has a lock.”
To his delight, she laughed and let him go. “Well,” she reminded me, “I have an opening for a secretary now.”
EPILOGUE
ALEX
“There’s no such thing asnothaving a white Christmas here, is there?”
Alex had never seen anyone who loved snow as much as Orson. He was still as enthused about it in December as he’d been in September when the first flakes started falling. He stood at their front bay window, looking out over the snow-muffled trees. Usually the view extended to the distant ocean, but between the late morning twilight and the blowing snow, they were isolated in a cloud of muted blue.
“Wasn’t there snow in Colorado?”
“It wasn’tAlaskansnow,” Orson protested. “Alaska does everything better.”
Alex wryly wondered if the glamor would wear out by February or March, when winter seemed to drag on forever and summer was a distant, impossible dream. She couldn’t wait to see him experience an Anchorage spring, with everything bursting into green; she was sure that he would be as exuberant about that as he was about everything else.
If someone had told her six months earlier that she would be here, this happy, engaged to a man who could turn into a bear, she would have laughed at them.
Now she laughed all the time, not the fake little laugh that Sandra had encouraged, but a sound from deep in her belly.
She put her hand over her belly in wonder.
If someone had told her six months ago that an unplanned pregnancy would fill her with anything but existential dread, she would have punched them.
“Can we do presents yet?” Orson begged, turning away from the window as Alex quickly moved her hand. “You haven’t let me into the garage in two days and it’s killing me.”
“Your gift was a little too big to wrap,” she said, smiling at him.
“Is it a car?” Orson guessed.
“It’s not a car,” she teased. “You already have a perfectly good car.”
“Is it sex on top of my car? Because that sounds super fun to unwrap!” Orson swept her up in his big arms and kissed her, which always made it hard to think clearly.
She chuckled. “It’s…related to sex. Sort of. Not really. I mean, technically…”
“Aaaaah!” Orson wailed. “I’m dying to know.”
