Husband Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire Book 1) (9 page)

Elyse pulled a hiking backpack from the floorboard and unzipped the biggest pocket. Ian seemed to need to eat constantly because he was built so muscular, so she’d packed him extra food for today. She pulled out an apple and handed it to him. “Here.”

With a grin, he took it and bit a piece off, then handed her the apple, and she crunched off a bite. With a giggle, she gave it back and wiped the juice from her mouth with the sleeve of her thin sweater. Ian ghosted a hungry glance at her lips that turned her middle to churning hot metal.

“I didn’t sleep that well last night,” she said carefully.

“Why not?”

She gulped the sweet fruit down and stared out the window, too chicken to look at him when she said, “I was thinking about you.”

Ian took another bite, and the crunching of the apple was the only sound in the truck for a while. “Thinking about me how?”

Elyse licked her lips. “Thinking about you, like I wished you would come into my room and sleep with me. Beside me. Sleep beside me.”

“Did you…?” Ian canted his head and left the unfinished question hanging in the air between them.

“Did I what?”

“Never mind.” He made his lips into a thin line and shook his head. “Nope. Not appropriate for a first date.”

“I thought you didn’t know anything about first dates, and besides, we’re engaged, remember? Ask me.”

“Did you touch yourself?”

Heat blazed up her neck and landed in her cheeks. “God, Silver.” She definitely couldn’t meet his gaze right now, so she kept her focus on the evergreens that blurred by.

“You don’t have to answer.”

“Yes,” she answered on a rushed breath.

He inhaled sharply, and she huffed a laugh, shocked that she’d just admitted that out loud.

“Did you think about me?” he asked in a low gravelly voice that brushed chills over her skin.

Elyse covered her burning face when she whispered, “Yes.”

“Shit, woman,” Ian said, adjusting his dick and then gripping the steering wheel in a choking grasp. He was smiling so big right now. “Next time you feel like a slumber party, you let me know and I’ll be in your room in a second flat. I was trying to give you space.”

“In case I cried again?”

Ian nodded. “I listened for it last night. I had trouble sleeping, too.”

Finding her bravery, she asked, “Did you touch yourself?”

“No, and now I’m going to fucking explode. I’ve thought about you a lot.”

“A lot?”

“Yeah,” he murmured, leveling her an honest glance before he pulled his attention back to the road. “An embarrassing amount a lot. It’s hard to focus on the things I need to get done.”

“I feel close to you,” she whispered, terrified he would reject her sentiment.

Ian squeezed her leg again, this time higher up her thigh. “Me, too. I’m trying to take things slow with you, though.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to do this right. Cole is still kind of fresh for you, and I don’t want to be a rebound fuck.”

Elyse laughed in shocked surprise. “Ian Silver, you are nobody’s rebound. No one else compares to you.”

“Not even Cole?”

“Especially not Cole. When I think about him now after spending time with you, I’m even more disappointed I stayed in that relationship as long as I did. I’m not crying over that man anymore.” She took the apple from his hand on her thigh and chomped another bite.

Ian looked over at her several times, but whatever he was searching for on her face, she hadn’t a clue. At last, he murmured, “Good,” and took a sharp left onto an old dirt road right before they got to the Galena welcome sign.

“The river is that way,” she said, jamming her thumb behind them.

“I told you, woman. We’re going to bear country.”

Elyse’s mouth dropped open as she stared at the trio of small bush planes in front of them. “Did you hire a pilot? Ian, that’s expensive.”

Ian chuckled mysteriously and pulled the truck to a stop in a clearing near the landing strip. With a wicked grin, he opened his door and said, “Come on.”

She helped him carry the nets and the basket of food he’d packed, as well as her hiking pack, but the closer they walked toward the planes, the more confused she became. If they were flying, there was no pilot here. Perhaps he was running late.

But Ian pulled a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked one of the planes—a red and white four-seater, and everything started to make sense. “You fly?”

“I do.”

“And is this your plane?” Her voice jacked up another octave.

“It is.”

“You’re a bush pilot?” Any higher, and her voice was going to crack.

If his beaming grin was anything to go by, Ian was utterly amused. “I’m going to take you to my favorite fishing spot. The salmon have already run this year, but we can still get some fish in the freezer. And when hunting season starts in a few days, I’ll go out and get you some red meat. Caribou and deer. Maybe even a moose. Along with the beef we butcher and the vegetables from the garden, you should be good all winter. And if things get tight at the end, you can take a few chickens. You won’t go hungry if I get lucky on my hunts.”

“And what about you?”

Ian’s face went serious, and he busied himself with loading the back of the plane with their equipment. “I meant
we
will be good all winter.”

Elyse narrowed her eyes at the back of his head. Mmm hmm. He’d been slipping up like that a lot. She opened her mouth to call him out on it, but he turned abruptly and kissed her into silence. As he eased away, he whispered, “I’m sorry. It told you I don’t always say the right things.”

Fidgeting with the gold ring on her finger, she nodded her forgiveness, but her hackles were still up. She hated the thought of spending the winter without him. Really, she hated the thought of spending any amount of time without him. Now that was an unsettling feeling, being so attached to someone this quickly.

“Have you ever ridden in one of these things?” he asked as he helped buckle her in.

“Yes.” Most Alaskans had since bush planes were the main mode of transportation between towns and cities.

“Good, so no fear of heights?”

“I didn’t say that.” Her nerves had her heart pounding double-time.

“Don’t worry. I haven’t had a crash landing yet.”

“How long have you been a pilot?”

“Nine years. I bought my first plane when I was twenty-one and took over the business my dad had left behind when he retired to Anchorage. Well, me and my brother, Tobias, took it over. He flies deliveries, too.”

Ian closed her door and busied himself checking the plane. And when it seemed up to snuff, he got in and started flipping switches like his fingers knew exactly what to do. Seeing him so capable put her at ease a little.

The take-off was borderline terrifying, but smooth, and once they were up in the air, Ian seemed to lose whatever had kept him closed off about his life outside of Galena. “My other brother, Jenner, is a hunting guide. He’s one of the best and gets clients from all over the world.”

“What does he specialize in?” Elyse was trying her best to keep her eyes off the ground that was shrinking under them.

“Big game. Moose and caribou. Occasionally bears.” The way he’d said
bears
sounded as though the word was bitter on his tongue, but when she glanced over at him, his face was wiped clean of any emotion.

“Does your mom live in Anchorage, too?”

“I don’t know where she lives. My brothers and I were raised by my dad.”

“Oh.” Elyse reached over the space between their seats and rested her hand on his leg. “I’m sorry. That must’ve been hard.”

“Nah, it was fine. She wasn’t fit, and we were better off in Dad’s care. Kind of.”

“My dad wasn’t in the picture when I was growing up, so I get it. My mom was kind of overwhelmed with raising me and Josiah on her own, so she sent us to the homestead whenever she could.”

“In bush planes?”

She nodded and dared a glance at the green landscape below. “It’s been a while since I’ve been up in one of these.

“Well, you’re doing good, and we’ll be there soon. You’re a tough woman.”

A smile commandeered her face at his unexpected compliment. “Really?”

“Really. Why did you kick Cole out of your cabin?”

“Lots of reasons.”

“Tell me the last reason. The big one. The one that ended it.”

Elyse winced. “He split my lip.”

Ian’s bright blue gaze drifted to the thin scar down her bottom lip, and he didn’t look surprised at all. Perhaps he’d already guessed she was mishandled. “You kicked him out immediately?”

“Yes.” Stupid shaking voice. She wanted to be strong when she admitted this. “I loaded a shotgun and pulled it on him when he wouldn’t leave. Told him I’d blow a hole through him. He told me he didn’t mean to, that it was an accident, but that’s what they all say, you know? I don’t want to be one of those women who sticks around for that shit.”

“Like I said. You’re a tough woman. A survivor.”

“A tougher woman would’ve let him go a lot sooner. I knew he was using me, but I was scared of being alone.”

“Why?”

“Because life out there isn’t easy, Ian. Every day I run into something that could kill me, and being alone means I’d die alone. Josiah hardly ever comes my way unless we’re driving the cattle either to the good pastures or back to my place for the winter. It could be weeks, maybe months, before anyone found me. Being with Cole was hard, but it took me a while to realize I’d rather die alone than be with someone who breaks me. Lesson learned the hard way.”

“Is that why your advertisement said
Romantics need not apply
?”

“Yeah. I didn’t expect this.” She gave him a pointed look. “I thought it would be more like legally bound friends running the homestead. I was just so desperate for help that I did what my Uncle Jim did and put an ad out. He’d only wanted a helpmate, and Marta could’ve walked away any time, but I didn’t want that. I wanted someone I could depend on. I got lucky and got you.”

“Lucky,” he repeated low, sounding unconvinced. She understood his reaction. She had trouble accepting compliments, too.

Ian spotted a place to land, and the panic set in, so Elyse did the only sensible thing and closed her eyes tightly until the bumping plane came to a complete stop. When she opened them again, they were surrounded on two sides by towering pine forest and wild grasses that swayed in the wind like ocean waves. Wild flowers dotted the landscape, and she was rendered breathless by the mountains that towered in the distance. This place was what calendars were made of. It was what mainlanders traveled hundreds of miles to see, and it was just a short bush plane ride away from her home.

“Do you like it?” Ian asked softly, as if her answer truly mattered.

“It’s incredible.”

Ian pulled off his headset, turned off the plane, and ran around the front to help her out. While she shouldered her backpack, he loaded himself down with most of their equipment like it weighed nothing, then he strode off toward the forest. She was stunned by how strong he was. Sure, she’d known by the way his muscles pushed against his clothes that he was powerful, but his easy gait and long strides up the side of a sloping hill were completely effortless.

Shaking her head, she hurried after him, resembling a tranquilized rhino next to his smooth strides. The hike through the woods lasted a good half hour at their fast clip, and Elyse gasped as they came out of the trees onto the bank of a stream. A small waterfall easy enough for salmon to jump in the right season flowed into the churning waters of the river. Ian kissed her forehead and then unloaded everything. He hopped over a set of rocks like a nimble mountain goat to the other side of the stream. If she tried that, she was going in the water, no doubt.

“We’ll see if we can’t get some lingering silvers with the net, and if not, we’ll use the poles. Stand over there,” he said, pointing right across from him.

“Oh!” she yelped as soon as the water splashed above her boots. “Good golly, that’s cold!”

Ian frowned as he lowered himself easily into the water. “I didn’t think about how the water would affect you. I should’ve brought waders.”

Elyse stared in disbelief at him as he stood up to his waist on a rock below the churning water’s surface. “You aren’t cold?”

“I don’t get cold easily.” A troubled expression passed over his face as he dragged the net down through the deep water beside his standing rock. The giant net with the silver handle looked heavy to lift, but Ian did the practiced movement as though the weight didn’t bother him at all.

It took half an hour to land their first fish, but he explained to her they were either here or they weren’t. And he was right—once he caught the first one, the next ones followed quickly. They found a rhythm eventually. He caught the giant fish and pushed the net toward her where she pulled them out as best as she could manage and cut the gills with a knife he’d packed.