Baby, It's Cold Outside (6 page)

She had a moment’s panic when her fingers touched the dead bolt. It wasn’t quite that simple, being willing to go outside, face the bear again. So she gave her heart three seconds to quit its stupid slamming, pushed the dead bolt loose and opened the door. Immediately the bear smell assaulted her nostrils—it was so distinctively rank and feral. Accelerating adrenaline far more was the immediate rush of sounds—the growls and roars of the
bear, the sounds of wood being heaved. The snowy yard between the shed and house was almost completely littered with debris now.

“Rick?”

There was no response—except from the bear, whose head showed up in the shed doorway. He’d been in there. With Rick.

“Just tell me—are you hurt?”

It was a stupid question, she knew. Whether he answered or not didn’t alter what she had to do—which was get rid of the bear. Whatever it took. There was no other option, no other choice, nothing to think about. The only way she could get to Rick was by getting rid of the damned bear.

The critter appeared no happier than when he’d last spotted her. He heaved up on two feet, rolled his head and growled, loud enough to shake her inside and out. She could see blood coming from his shoulder—not a lot—but enough to guess Rick had managed to cut him with the axe, not enough to maim the bear, not enough to stop him. Apparently just deep enough to infuriate him.

Even more worrisome, Emilie realized, was that Rick might no longer have the axe. If he’d thrown it at the bear, it was his only weapon—and she couldn’t imagine him using the axe unless it was absolutely his only option.

She flicked off the safety and hefted the repeater rifle to her shoulder—the monster weighed a
ton
. The bear had just plopped on all fours and was coming toward her, fast. Who could imagine how fast the huge animal could be? So she just shot.

And shot.

And shot.

Tears blistered her eyes. It hurt. Every pull of the trigger sent a bruising kickback to her shoulder. She vaguely remembered her dad instructing her on how to hold the gun, but it just wasn’t a moment when she could access those old lessons. This was about doing it. Getting it done. Whatever it took to get to Rick.

When her vision cleared—could it only have been seconds?—the rifle was empty. The strong smell of cordite choked the air.
“Rick.”

She couldn’t see the bear. Didn’t know if she’d hit it, hurt it or scared it—and didn’t care. Her first impulse was to run to the shed, to Rick, but the more rational decision was to run back in the house and get more ammunition, until she knew exactly what had happened.

But then she heard him. “Is anything on the continent still alive out there, Doc?”

He probably thought he was being funny. Not. She galloped into the shed, leaping and tripping over logs all over the Sam Hill place. Rick was on the ground, half-buried in a makeshift shelter of logs, covered with wood chips and bark and debris.

“You’re hurt.” She didn’t see specific blood or injury, but she saw his eyes.

“Not bad.”

“Hurt from the bear? Or from a fall? Exactly what kind of—”

“Emilie. I’m fine. I admit, I might need a little help getting to my feet. But first things first—where’s the bear?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is he lying in the yard?”

“He should be. It was one of those repeater guns. I shot the whole load right at him.”

“I think you should go back in the house until we know where he is….”

Yeah, right. If the dimwit thought she was leaving him out there, in the cold and hurt, after that kind of battering, he needed his head examined.

Actually she intended to do just that—examine his head—among other body parts. But somehow, once she heaved off all the firewood and finally got to him, she wrapped her arms around him tight and couldn’t seem to let go. Not for that second. Not for that minute.

“Hey,” he murmured. “I’m okay.”

Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn’t. But she was shaking like a leaf in a tornado, and her head was thick with tears and fear. “Let’s not ever do this again. The bear thing. Talk about
not
fun.”

“Okay. But, Em…we’re not sure where he is right now.”

“I know.”

“We need to get up. To get in the house. To figure out where he is and what’s going on.”

“I know. I know.”

Still she couldn’t seem to move. She just wasn’t ready to stop shaking quite yet. She’d been afraid of a ton of things in her life. Wasn’t everyone? But not like this. Not like a wild animal, face-to-face.

When she still didn’t let him go, Rick said casually, “I’m hurt. Not seriously, but he did get one good swipe at me. Claws went through my—”

That fast, the shaking stopped. The word
hurt
galvanized her like nothing else could have. She shut down the residual panic, twisted around, took a fast look at his eyes and face color. “We’re getting you inside. Right now,” she said briskly.

“Think that’d be a good idea. I’m pretty weak.”

He didn’t look weak, but a serious assessment of his injuries couldn’t be done until she got him inside. “Come on. I’ll get you up….”

She hooked his arm over her shoulder, already thinking ahead. He’d been exposed to the cold for too long, had to be pretty bruised up, but the worst and most immediate problem, of course, was if the bear’s claws had broken skin. She was thinking antibiotics, not guns, when halfway to the house, Rick said, “You want to bring in the rifle.”

“It’s out of ammunition.” How irrelevant could a stupid gun be, anyway?

“Doc. Trust me. There’s more ammo. And other bears. You know what a pretty repeater like that costs?”

“Do you see anyone in the near vicinity who cares?” Twice more en route to the door, she glanced around frantically—worried the bear had come back.

Rick apparently had the wherewithal not just to pick up the gun but to glance around a couple times, too, because at the door, he noted, “You did an amazing job of tearing up the roof on the woodshed.”

“Huh?”

“I was afraid we were going to have to track down an injured bear. But I don’t see any sign of blood, and it’s pretty obvious you were aiming at the sky. I see a branch
off the top of that pine, and that has to be eighty feet up. Not counting what you did to the roof—”

“That’s more conversation than I need right now. In you go…”

She got him in, locked the door, made him put down the stupid rifle and herded him into the kitchen. The fire was low. She didn’t care. She had him stripped down and sitting on a stool in the kitchen before he could even try giving her excuses.

“Hey. I thought you were an anesthesiologist.”

“I am. But there’s a wee bit more training involved than just how to put people to sleep—”

“Yeah. That’s the part I was interested in. The drugs. Couldn’t we skip all this poking and prodding and go straight to some painkillers?”

She didn’t answer. She was too busy. The burn on his shoulder was still big, still sore-looking, but in spite of the day’s acrobatics, it didn’t look worse, just needed fresh attention. He had blood and scrapes on his hands, needed cleaning, sliver removing. Bruises—my God. They were forming all over his arms and body.

And he hadn’t lied about the “bear swipe.” The huge claw had broken through the parka fabric, through his flannel shirt, through his tech shirt. Thankfully those multiple layers had protected him from any worse injury, but the claws were big and sharp, and had left him with some scratches, and some puncture wounds. “The thing is,” she muttered, “it’s not that bad. But it’d be better if it were in a location where I could soak it. And better yet if I had some tetracycline around…”

“How about morphine? Jack Daniel’s?”

“The thing is, tetracycline’s a lot better than penicillin for problems like animal bites. They’re just different germ and bacteria threats altogether….”

“You’re not listening to me.”

“All right,” she said briskly. “This is going to sting a little—”

“Wait—”

“Hey, big guy. Almost done. Then you can take your wasted body in by the fire and I’ll bring you something to eat and you can tell me all about it.”

“I’m suffering
now
.”

“Uh-huh. Just stay real still for the count of twenty…”

“
Yeoch
. You’re killing me. Give me back to the bear. He was nicer.”

She rolled her eyes. “You know, when I first met you…”

“The morning when you fell over me?”

“I wasn’t thinking about that specific moment. I was just reflecting that originally I thought you were the toughest, most macho, truly
male
guy I’d ever met. You put shivers down my spine. And now, what a letdown, to find out after all this time that you’re really a wimp.”

“Does that mean I don’t still put shivers down your spine?”

She cut the last strip of tape, sealed it over the sanitized cut and carted the supplies to the sink—which meant he was finally free to get up. Only he didn’t move. He still sat on that stool, looking at her, clearly determined to wait for an answer.

“A
LL RIGHT, ALL RIGHT
, I admit it, you still put shivers down my spine.” Her voice sounded testy for good reason. She
was
testy. They’d been attacked by a bear, for Pete’s sake. She had every right to be riled, every right to go into a coma of panic if she wanted to. She put her hands on her hips to illustrate that opinion.

He eased off the stool, as if he hadn’t been remotely hurting all this time—in spite of his complaining—and looped his arms around her waist. “Good. Because you put shivers down my spine. Thanks for cleaning me up, Doc.”

“You scared me half to death.”

“You think you were scared? You should have been out in the shed. I’ve been trying to think through what incited that bear….”

“What?” He’d leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers. Every thought in her head turned smooshy. If there’d been music, they’d be dancing…slow dancing, the kind where you just swayed a little, touched, teased, hearing music only the two of them heard within the circle of each other’s arms.

“Yeah. I think he woke up before the blizzard, hungry,
getting hungrier when he couldn’t get out. And then he smelled our smoke—you know how much we’ve been cooking on the fire. Nothing as good as raw fish to him. But still, the hungrier he got, the crankier. And then when he found me, saw me, he probably thought my throwing wood around was an aggressive move. So the poor guy was just being who he is.”

“A bear.”

“Yup. Three things I have to tell you, Em.”

“Okay.” She thought, this was really an insane time to be dancing. They should be doing practical things, like feeding the fire, getting something to eat. Both of them needed to unwind after that incredible ordeal. Her heart had been pounding panic for ages now…although at this specific moment, with his lips brushing her cheek, possibly her heart was pounding for an entirely different reason.

“The first thing is—remind me to be in the next county when you decide to aim a gun again.”

“That’s okay. I don’t intend aiming a gun again. I really hate them.”

“I kind of noticed that. And that was the second thing. Because you hate guns, it means all the more that you came out to save me. I’d have had to shoot myself if something had happened to you. But all the same. Thanks.”

She could feel a smile forming, a silly, soft smile. Funny, how all that stress was just disappearing, like fog on a soft morning. “So what’s the third thing?”

“Okay. I don’t know what you’re going to end up doing for a living, Em. Whatever you want. But I’m telling you straight, you’re a doctor. You’re a natural. You may not want to stand up for life-and-death stuff, but
you do. It’s who you are. It’s how you think. You can do something else, but that doctor thing is always going to be there under the surface.”

Her smile faded like wind. “There went the shiver down the spine.”

“Annoyed with me, are you?” Something in his expression made her think he was studying her, waiting or watching…for something.

“I just think that we’ve both been through a seriously traumatic time together. And I don’t need another stressor at this very second.”

Still, he didn’t move. “But that’s just the thing, Em,” he said quietly. “We’re running out of seconds. If you flew up here to make up your mind about what really matters to you…your time for thinking’s almost over. Have you made a decision about what you’re going to do?”

What she was going to do, she decided, was make herself a sandwich, curl up on the couch in a nest of blankets and read in absolute silence for a while. She didn’t have to speak to her temporary roommate. She could be ticked at him if she wanted to be.

He seemed to opt for exactly the same program. He fed the fire, made himself a sandwich, and then fell into a crash-nap on the other couch. As a doctor, she knew the best thing for him was rest. But as a woman, she was all churned up. He just didn’t seem remotely upset by the blizzard or the bear…or the idea of her leaving. He slept like the dead no matter what.

Or so she thought.

Out of the blue, she heard a voice from the other couch. “Are we talking again yet?”

Her face was hidden behind a book. “Not unless you’re willing to consider the possibility that you’ve lived up here like a hermit long enough.”

“Hmm. I think we both take advice really well, don’t you?”

She smiled behind the book, because darn it, she couldn’t help it. They really were equally awful at hearing advice. “Maybe…
maybe
…I appreciate your perspective. When I get an opinion from family, it’s always slanted toward what they want me to be, what they want me to do. At least when you offer advice, at least you’re looking at…well…me.”

“Well, that’s easy. Looking at you has been the best part of the past few days.”

Damn him. Now he was giving her a warm-fuzzy. And he wasn’t a warm-fuzzy kind of guy. For that matter, she’d never been a warm-fuzzy kind of woman…at least until she met him.

“Rick?”

“What?”

“What’s your next move?”

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand the question. “When the weather clears enough for a copter to pick you up, I’ll hitch a ride, if you don’t mind. I can’t shut down my place for long, Doc. The place needs repairs and things done. But I can start setting things in motion from Anchorage. I don’t know how long those projects and problems will take to resolve. If the weather stays decent, I can get back here, and get the cabin repaired to the point where I can leave it.”

“And then?”

“And then, if I can get my ducks in a row, I might consider looking for work back in the lower forty-eight.”

“Like…back in Denver?” she asked casually.

Silence. When he didn’t answer, she turned a page in her book. She hadn’t read a word since lying down and still didn’t have a clue what the book was about.

Abruptly, he broke the silence. “I think we’ve done enough talking, don’t you?”

“Darned right,” she murmured, heaved off all the warm covers and stalked toward him.

He lifted his blankets. She climbed in. A snuggle was all she wanted. He was bruised and hurt, his body traumatized. Her heart was just as traumatized. Never mind if he was aggravating and frustrating. She just wanted the closeness of his body, of him. He folded her into the tuck of his body, covered them both. It was a big couch, but even so, two grown-up bodies were cramped for space. Or would have been, if they’d been taking up the space for two.

“You need rest,” she said. “You were really beaten up, have to feel both physically and emotionally exhausted. You need some recoup time.”

“Right,” he said.

“So,” she murmured, “can you try another nap?”

“Not in this life,” he said, scooping her around so they were face-to-face. The kiss began on her brow, moved to her cheek, then homed in on her mouth, on her senses…on her heart.

All these years, she kept thinking, she’d never lost it. Now and then she’d lost her mind, her common sense, her keys. But she’d never lost her heart.

Not like this.

She’d never imagined love like this. A man like this. Not for her.

But just like her, Rick had been pushed and prodded into recovering from a heart-shaking problem before he was ready. No one could force someone else to feel. Or to
want
to feel.

She was going to have to leave him. And it already hurt.

E
MILIE WALKED INTO THE LAST
room in the pediatrics ward. Outside, it was pouring rain, an April shower with lightning and thunder, unfortunately making the late afternoon gloomy and dark. She strode in with a smile, but the boy in the far bed tugged fast and fierce on her heart.

Billy was eight, according to his chart. She’d read all the medical and physical facts about him, but the surprise was seeing the Irish-white skin, the shock of cowlicks, the lover-blue eyes.

He wasn’t the boy from her old, sad nightmares, but he pushed all her loving buttons exactly the same way.

“Go away,” he said, fear in his voice and his eyes rapidly filling up. “I want my mom.”

“I’ll bet your mom just stepped out to use the restroom, Billy. I know she’s close by. My name is Dr. Emilie.”

“I don’t want any more needles. I want to go home. I want my mom.”

“Well, that’s amazing,” Emilie said gently, and perched closer. “Because I want exactly those things. I want your mom here for you. I want you to go home as fast as possible. And I want you not to need any more needles for a long, long time.”

The tears stopped falling, but he gave a long shuddering breath, still looked at her suspiciously. “My leg hurts.”

“I know it does. But we’re going to fix that.”

“My dad said I can have anything I want when it’s all fixed. You know what I told him?”

“What?”

“I told him I wanted to go to Alaska. He was su’prised. He thought I’d say Disney World. But Alaska has bears and whales.”

If there was a child in the universe made to give her more heart pangs, this one took the cake. “I’ve been to Alaska,” she told him. “And you’re darned right. Alaska is full of bears and whales. And eagles. And all kinds of other wonderful things.”

“You went there?”

“Yup.”

“Did you see a bear?”

“I saw a great big giant brown bear. Way bigger than me.” Now that he wasn’t so fearful, she checked his pulse, the readings over his head, did her own cursory examination of his general state of health.

“Were you scared?” Billy wanted to know.

“I was petrified. I shot a gun at it.”

“Wow. A big gun?”

“Yup. A kind of rifle called a repeater.”

“Did you kill the bear?”

“No. To be honest, I never wanted to kill him, but I thought I might have to because he was a very mean bear, and he was close enough to really hurt me. So I shot. But because I’m a terrible, terrible shot, he just ran off. So nobody got hurt and everybody ended up happy.”

“Tell me again how big he was.”

Emilie suspected he’d try to distract her by retelling that story forever, but there was an operating room being prepared. “I will in just a minute. But as soon as your mom gets here, I’m going to take you for a ride. We’re both going to stay with you until you go to sleep.”

“No. Wait.” Worry pinched his face again. “Are you my doctor now?”

“I’m one of your doctors, Billy. But I have a really lucky doctor job.”

“’Cause why? Why do you have a lucky job?”

“Because it’s my job to make sure you don’t hurt. How could there possibly be a luckier job than that?” She’d already hooked the sedative into the IV. Billy’s mom showed up in the doorway, looking—naturally—exhausted. A nurse showed up to wheel him into the prep room with her, but Emilie motioned them back for a moment. “Are you looking at me, Mr. B?”

“Yeah.”

“So look in my eyes, and you’ll know I’m telling you the truth. We’re going for a ride. Then we’re going into a room with a lot of lights. The doctor will be there who’s going to fix your leg. But I’m going to be there, too. I’m going to give you some medicine so you’ll go to sleep, and I’ll stay with you the whole time you’re sleeping. And I can’t promise this, but I think there’s a good chance you might dream about whales and bears if you concentrate.”

“I’m not going to sleep.” The IV was starting to kick in. His eyelids were starting to droop, his speech starting to slur.

“Okay.”

“I’m too old to take naps.”

“Of course you are.”

“And I want to hear about the bear again.”

“The great big fuzzy brown bear?”

“Yeah, that one…”

Emilie winked at the tired mom, as they wheeled the youngster out of the room. She kept up with the story for as long as he stayed awake, although she changed some details to accommodate the circumstances. The bear turned out to be a good bear with soft fur and soft eyes, who was lost and scared. But then the bear’s mom showed up…

She changed a few other parts of the story, too, to protect the innocent. She never mentioned the pirate of a man who’d stolen her heart—the way he felt, the way he’d made her feel. The way she’d cleaved to a stranger the way she’d never cleaved to anyone.

She put Rick out of her mind, though. She had to. She went in, and did her job, and since Billy was her last patient for the day, she waited until he was out of surgery, and then sat with him and his mom in the recovery room.

“You’re sure he’s all right?” Billy’s mom kept asking, even though the surgeon had reassured her right after the surgery.

“He’s going to be just fine. He won’t be jumping out of trees for a while, but I’m sure he’ll think up other mischief to keep you busy.” When she glanced at that child again, his eyelids were starting to flutter open.

“Hey,” he said groggily.

“Hey right back.”

“I’ve been dreaming. About the bear.”

“Was it a good dream?”

“It was a
great
dream. We were running in circles, around and around, until I got silly dizzy.” He added, “I’m still dizzy. But my leg doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“We gave you some strong medicine, short stuff. You won’t be dizzy once it wears off. And your leg won’t be perfect for a while, but it won’t ever hurt like it did before. And you’ll be going home pretty soon.”

Ten minutes later, Emilie left them, yawning as she pulled off her cap and shook out her hair. It’d been a long day. A good one, but still, she’d been on her feet since before seven that morning. It was time to throw off her scrubs, climb into street clothes and curl up with a good book. Maybe pick up Chinese on the way to her apartment.

As she walked down the corridor, she pulled out her cell phone. Naturally, it couldn’t be used in the hospital, but as expected, she found messages from her dad and oldest brother. There was a birthday coming up this weekend. Because she was the lone female in the family, she was expected to bring the cake—which, of course, she would.

For the past few months, there hadn’t been a single day without voice mail from family. They were still unsure what they had with her. She’d come back to her work—which was what her family all wanted. But they still didn’t understand why she’d left at Christmas, or what was different about her since she’d returned.