Bear With Me: Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (7 page)

BOOK: Bear With Me: Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance
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“We don’t want any more dangerous injuries, right?”

A strange emotion flickered over Mark’s face, and was gone. Jamie blinked. Had it been—guilt?

She shook her head. She was being silly. He was probably just embarrassed that she’d made such a big deal over such a tiny scrape yesterday, marching him back to camp and then…

Well, she hoped he wasn’t embarrassed about
that
part.

Jamie stepped into her harness and deftly tied a length of rope to form a makeshift harness for Mark. She would have offered him hers, but it wouldn’t have even fitted around one of his thighs. To fill the silence while they got set up, she explained what had brought her out here.

It was a lecture she had probably recited a thousand times—to parents, friends, dates, and everyone else who wondered why the hell she wanted a job that sent her plodding through mud and muck in the mountains for half the year, and stuck sweeping up animal crap the other half.

But somehow, telling it to Mark was … Different. And it wasn’t just that she was telling it to him in the middle of the forest, instead of at some stuffy café or diner. She wanted Mark to know not just
what
she was doing here, but
why
as well. What it meant to her.

Besides, she thought as she helped Mark secure the climbing rope that connected his harness to her own, maybe if she kept her hands and mouth busy, they wouldn’t find themselves roaming all over his body again.

Jamie had studied animal behavior and environmental studies at college, and started working at the conservation center soon after graduating. Condors wouldn’t have been her first pick for lovable endangered creatures back then—they were a hell of a lot uglier than pandas, that was for sure—but what with one thing and another she’d stuck around. Coco and Louis, the mated pair they were going to see, had only recently been hatched when she started work. And if she’d thought the adult condors were ugly…

“I mean, all baby birds are pretty ugly, right? But these guys were the
worst
. Their heads are so weird, like someone grabbed a head from another creature and glued it on. Or something from a Jim Henson movie, like
Labyrinth
or something.”

Mark laughed. “So, you spent six years looking after the birds, insulting them daily for looking so gross…?”

Jamie swatted playfully at Mark’s shoulder, then quickly turned back to the tree.

“It’s not like
The Ugly Duckling
, okay? These birds are born weird-looking, and they grow up even weirder. So, before we start, safety briefing…”

She quickly went over the rules for buddy climbing. Mark, since he was so much heavier than she was, would climb up first, with Jamie behind. Mark would use the carabiners at his waist to clip on to the anchors she had knocked into the tree when she set up the crow’s-nest, and they would hold him up if he slipped. Jamie was attached to Mark by the climbing rope, so he’d hold her up if she slipped.

She didn’t mention that she’d hardly bothered to use the anchors until today. Oh, she’d set them up properly when she arrived, taking every precaution in the book. But that constant, restless itch that had been her constant companion since the wedding had made her too impatient to use them day-to-day.

Jamie stepped back as Mark began to climb.

“Where were we … Right. Ugly little birds, and I was their ugly mommy! It was amazing. I had only been there for two weeks, and my boss started training me to feed them. We used this puppet condor head, so that the chicks wouldn’t know it was humans looking after them and not a real Mommy Condor.”

“Wait.” Mark was frowning, as though he was trying to dig up something from deep in his memory. “Don’t birds feed their chicks by, uh, vomiting on them?”

“I wish!” Jamie cackled. “I would
love
to see how Chris—she made the puppets—how she would have put that together. No, condors eat carrion, so we just used the puppet to pick up bits of chopped meat and guts and feed it to the birdies.”

“That … Sounds exactly as gross as the vomiting thing. Sorry.”

Jamie snorted. “See, this is why I don’t tell guys this stuff. You are just so
dainty
.”

She looked across at Mark. He had stopped climbing. Had she offended him? He was anything
but
dainty, even though he was climbing the tree with the grace and ease of a far less heavyset man.

Mark cleared his throat. “Uh, do you often talk about feeding chopped guts to baby birds when you go on dates?”

Jamie’s mind cleared.
Oh
. She hadn’t offended him—he was just … Jealous?

The idea of Mark—tall, broad-shouldered, face-like-a-movie-star Mark—being jealous of any of her previous boyfriends almost made Jamie laugh. Then it sent a warm glow all through her body. She decided to put his mind at ease.

“Sure. If I ever went on any dates. It’s been just me and the condors for a few years now. Do you think I could have followed Coco and Louie out here if I was busy on the dating scene?”

“Anyone who was worth your time would have come with you.” Mark’s voice was dead serious.

A thrill of desire cut through Jamie like a knife. Mark had just said out loud what she had been telling herself for years—and had begun to think was a foolish dream.

Jamie’s previous boyfriends, through college and those first few awkward years of her working life, had been fine with her passion for conservation—but that was all. They hadn’t understood it, hadn’t supported it, hadn’t made the barest effort to know how important Jamie’s work was to her. Her dating experiences had made it clear to Jamie that a steady boyfriend would mean spending less time at the conservation center and less time in the field.

“Thank you,” she said softly. She wasn’t sure Mark had even heard her until he reached out one hand and gently touched her shoulder. She bit her lip.

Remember that you are hanging onto a tree twenty feet above the ground
, she told herself sternly.
Any attempt to jump his bones right now will end up in both of you going SPLAT.

“Come on,” she said quickly, her voice just slightly rough. “If we get up to that branch there, we’ll have a great view down the river to the condor nest.”

Jamie double-checked her harness as Mark climbed ahead of her.

Calm down, girl. You’re still not going to risk throwing yourself at him, no matter HOW secure those anchors are.

She clambered up to the crow’s-nest branch, carefully making sure she always had at least three touch points on the tree. Mark moved out of the way to let her sit on the solid branch.

“You don’t want to sit, too?”

Jamie twisted to look at him. She didn’t want him to tire himself out literally holding on to the tree with no support while they watched the birds. But he had found a secure perch, both feet firmly on a lower branch, with her own branch the perfect height for him to rest his arms against.

Right. One of the advantages of being tall—I couldn’t even reach this branch from where he’s standing!

She pulled out her pocket binoculars and held them out to him, and set up her camera as he focused on the distant cliff. Her zoom lens was as good as the binoculars, and this way, they could both look at the nest at once.

“Here. You see that cliff? About a fourth of the way up there’s a crack in the rock.”

“I see it. And the bird. Geez, you were right about it being ugly.”

“That’s our native wildlife for you. Some states get bald eagles, we get the
actually
bald bird.”

“Is that its nest? It looks more like a pile of twigs. Not even a pile. I count three twigs.”

Jamie giggled. “Don’t you know it’s rude to insult other people’s houses?”

“Three twigs and a handful of shed feathers counts as a house? No wonder these things are so endangered.”

“Condors don’t actually build nests like other birds. Those twigs must have just dropped down from the top of the cliff. It’s not like the egg is going to up and roll away,” Jamie joked. Then a horrible thought struck her. She hadn’t checked the nest herself before giving Mark the binoculars, after all. What if…?

She finished attaching the zoom lens and quickly raised the camera to her eyes. She waved the lens back and forth, trying to find the nest.

“No, I see it,” Mark said quickly, as though he had felt her sudden rush of fear. “Nice and safe under Mommy—or Daddy?”

“Could be either,” Jamie explained, and sighed with relief as she zeroed in on the nest. One bird, one egg. Phew. “They take turns keeping the egg warm, and male and female condors are pretty difficult to tell apart. Both adult birds have ring tags on their legs for ID, though, so if we can see … There! That’s Louie on the nest. Coco must be out hunting.”

She jotted down a few notes in a battered notebook. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Mark looking up at her.

“You really love this, don’t you?” he said at last. “Not just the condors, but … The whole thing.”

“I do,” she admitted. “This part of it, especially. I mean, I love working back at the center, helping rehabilitate injured animals, raising the chicks, teaching schoolkids about conservation … But being out here in the mountains is something else.” She could feel a proud smile creeping over her face. “If that egg hatches, and the chick survives, then Coco and Louie will be the first California condors to successfully breed in these mountains in over fifty years. And I was part of the team that made it happen.”

She looked down at Mark. The man who had come out of nowhere and turned her life upside down. A wilderness-lover, like her.

And he seemed genuinely interested in her work. He actually cared.

Maybe that was why she had been so attracted to him, right from the start. Maybe something inside her had recognized that here was a kindred spirit, someone who could understand her. Someone who was as comfortable with the lack of creature comforts out here in the woods as she was.

Unfortunately, that was all pointless if they spent so much time in each other’s arms that she didn’t actually get any of her work done. They’d already proved how likely that was to happen.

She made up her mind.

“Mark,” she said quietly. “You said earlier that we need to talk. And we seriously do.”

“Up here?” Mark looked incredulous.

“Yes, up here. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but whenever we try to talk when we’re on the ground, we end up, well, not doing much talking.” She sighed. “I’m counting on my sense of self-preservation to keep me from trying to jump your bones while we’re up here, but frankly, I’m not even sure how long that’ll work.”

Mark grimaced. “That’s fair enough. I feel as though being apart from you the last week has, I don’t know, concentrated things a bit. I’m sure it isn’t usually this intense.”

“Tell me about it. No offense, Mark, but you are the worst crush I’ve
ever
had.”

Mark opened his mouth, then closed it. Then opened it again.

“About that…”

God, his voice was so sexy. Jamie found herself starting to babble, just to block it out.

“That’s—that’s why I need you to leave, after this. I’m not used to having anyone around, let alone someone as … distracting as you.” She grimaced. “I mean, today has been fantastic, but it’s all very … strange. Nice-strange, but still…”

“Still strange,” Mark completed. “I understand.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Really, I do. And I should tell you—”

Jamie took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “I’m not saying this to be mean, but if we could have this conversation
without
the compassionate touching, that would be appreciated.”

Mark pulled his hand back. “Understood,” he said, hurt clear in his voice.

Jamie cringed. But if she was going to hurt him either way, she might as well be completely up-front with him.

“To be honest, I’ve spent every day since the wedding trying to—well, trying to ignore what happened. But now that I’ve met you again, and you actually, you know, seem like a nice guy, I would like to spend more time with you. Just not
here
.” She spread her arms. “Not when we have to literally perch in a tree to keep from macking on each other. Not in the one place in the world where I have literally one thing to do, and it’s
not
you.”

Mark rested his chin on his hands. He didn’t say anything for a few minutes, and Jamie felt her stomach tighten, certain she’d offended him.

“I understand,” he said at last. “And … I don’t think there’s anything I can say that would make your decision any easier.”

Jamie twisted on the branch and looked town into his eyes. There were no hidden flickers of secrecy now—just honesty, and a deep compassion.

Remember that you are hanging onto a tree twenty feet above the ground
, she told herself sternly.
No make-outs allowed. Make-outs = SPLAT.

Then Mark blinked, and the sad compassion in his eyes was replaced by the familiar adventurous sparkle. He tipped his face up to hers.

BOOK: Bear With Me: Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance
13Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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