Page 49 of Arctic Panda's Secret Mate
Part of it, she realized, was that she wanted to prove that shecouldkeep up with shifters. If she was going to move to a magical island where she was one of the only humans, she’d have to work twice as hard to prove her worth. She wasn’t willing to be apityhire. Whatever she was willing to give up to be with Tristan, her pride wasn’t negotiable.
She’d earn her keep.
No matter what.
43
TRISTAN
After a hearty lunch of hot soup and grilled English muffins, half the crew girded up to go out again. Lydia conceded that an afternoon nap would be more her speed, and Breck declared that he and Darla also needed anap, with many unsubtle winks so that no one had any doubts about his real intentions.
Magnolia much more discreetly convinced Chef to stay behind instead of going out, and the two of them also disappeared up the stairs.
“I’m having fun with the chainsaw,” Alice admitted, pulling her boots on. “We’ve done our part, but I don’t mind hiking down the road to see if there’s more that needs cleared.”
Haisley winced, but gamely donned her snowsuit. “Aren’t you coming?” she asked, when Tristan didn’t get dressed immediately.
“My snowsuit is still pretty wet,” he pointed out. “I was thinking about going out in fur.”
Haisley’s mouth twitched. “Didn’t we learn our lesson with that?”
“Don’t try to change whileoutin the snow,” Tristan said. “Or maybe don’t benakedin the snow. But if I go out as a bear and come back as a bear, it shouldn’t be bad. I’d like to try again.” He also thought it might keep Haisley from overworking herself if he could distract her as a bear. In the short time he’d known her, he had quickly realized that she would throw herself into anything and do it with her whole self, no matter what the consequences were. “This might be my last chance with snow, depending on when they clear the roads.”
A flash of dismay crossed Haisley’s face, like she hadn’t remembered until then that Tristan would be leaving. She smiled bravely. “Well, yeah! Definitely get it in while you can, then!”
Tristan self-consciously undressed. Graham and Bastian were already gone with their mates and Gizelle was puzzling over the ties of her boots, not paying the slightest attention to him, but it was still awkward pulling off his shirt and pants. He folded them over the back of a couch, put his glasses on top, and let himself fall onto four paws.
Haisley cooed. “I can’t get over how cute you are that way,” she said. She was blurry, but Tristan thought he would know her in a lineup anywhere. It wasn’t her smell, exactly, just a feel of her. There was this happy contentment in her mere presence.
Mate,his bear said happily.
Haisley pulled on fresh mittens and went to open the door. It was even colder than before, by the swirl of opaque air that came in, but it didn’t bother Tristan in the slightest as he ambled out.
Haisley lifted the second chainsaw off the porch and groaned in pain.
Before Tristan could nose in to stop her or shift to talkher out of it, Conall stepped forward. “I watched you do this earlier and believe I can handle it.”
Gizelle clung to him as Haisley gratefully went through the safety lecture, then backed cautiously away when Conall started the machine and tested the trigger.
“I guess you won’t need ear protection,” Haisley said awkwardly, holding it out anyway, but Conall had already shut off the chainsaw and turned away to march down the driveway, Gizelle trotting beside him.
Tristan caught Haisley before she could find more work to do and nudged her out into a field of unbroken snow, diving in beside her to roll on his back and nose around. There was a layer of ice below the snowy topping, but it was thin and shattered under his weight almost musically.
Snow is amazing!his panda sang, pawing at the shards and snuffling around. It still wasn’tsnowballsnow, but it was wetter than the first snow. How many kinds of snowwerethere? Tristan wanted to try themall.
The sun was low on the horizon, but brilliant. Tristan was used to the short, frantic sunrises and sunsets of the tropics, and even in Florida they had been brief. But here, sunrise ran slowly into sunset without pausing, making hours of unbroken colors in the sky. Above was striking blue, but at the edge of the world, it was pale pink that deepened with the afternoon.
He and Haisley played for a while, then meandered down the driveway, picking up a few forgotten sticks that were coated in ice like glass and tossing them aside.
The road had been cleared—sort of. It was a single rough lane, choppy and ill-defined, and it looked like two or three cars had gone past. Tristan wasn’t convinced that their rental van would make it without getting stuck.
Far down the road, out of sight around a corner, hecould hear the chainsaws and a few shouts. He sat down and looked the other direction, cocking his head.
“There’s just a few houses that direction,” Haisley volunteered, as if she guessed what he was wondering. “Dry cabins, mostly; they don’t have plumbing. Someone out that way probably has a personal plow truck that did this. Once the trees are cleared to the main road, we can get one of the big plows in and then the power company can get out here to fix the lines.”
They meandered down the road towards the work party and Tristan didn’t think to worry about being spotted until he heard a car floundering up behind them. He froze. Shifting into a naked man would be, if anything, more incriminating than being a panda bear, besides being deeply uncomfortable on a number of levels. He had to get out of sight, sooner than later.
He dove into the nearest snowbank, burrowing in the best he could. His butt was white, at least, so if he could hide the distinctive black parts of his coat, he should be unremarkable from the snow.
