Likely, she and Jenner would get along just fine.
Chapter Two
Chance and Dalton had relaxed around her almost immediately and were now sitting on the big couch of the great room with their feet on the table, beers in hand, as they watched sports re-runs while Lennard was cooking something delicious smelling over the stove in the kitchen.
“You sure you don’t want us to turn the channel to a reality show or something?” Dalton asked through a grin. “Billion dollar weddings or a cat show or something.”
Lena snorted at the tease and muttered, “Fuck you.”
Chance laughed and turned up the volume to better hear the sports announcer while Lena curled her feet under her on the dark leather reclining chair and went back to sketching ideal shots she wanted to take. It was silly since she knew as well as anyone that when she was in the moment, shooting pictures, a shot never went according to plan. And sometimes a money shot was one she would’ve never imagined. But this, sketching and planning, was tradition before a big shoot. It settled her mind and her nerves and allowed her to focus on the task at hand more easily.
Biting her bottom lip, she frowned as she erased the odd angled eyes of the grizzly she’d drawn. Satisfied after drawing them back, she twisted in her comfortable chair and asked for the fifth time, “Lennard, are you sure you don’t want any help in there. I really don’t mind.”
“Yeah, make me a sandwich,” Dalton said through a teasing grin.
She smiled and rolled her wrist, lifting her middle finger with a flourish before she went back to sketching. The little crap-starter was just trying to get under her skin, but if she’d learned anything hanging around mostly men in her profession, it was that when the teasing started, it was a sign of acceptance.
“No, you relax Lena,” Lennard called over his shoulder. “Usually I’m cooking for a lot more people, so this is an easy meal.”
Lena smiled to herself and pulled a blanket from the arm of the chair. She was already showered for the night and in a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and a long-sleeved shirt. It was July, but it was cold at night in this high-ceiling lodge. Thankfully, Lennard had sent her an extensive list of clothing she would need for a guided tour, so she’d come prepared.
The front door blasted open, and a mountain of a man ducked under the frame. When his striking blue eyes landed on her, Lena froze. His dark hair was cut short on the sides, but he wore it longer on top, and his jaw was hidden by a beard as black as pitch, making the vivid sky-color of his eyes even brighter. His nose was straight and his jawline strong, his cheekbones sharp. He looked like some wild animal, the way he straightened his spine slowly until he was at his full imposing height. Lifting his chin, he looked down at where she sat in the chair and dragged his gaze to the sketchpad in her lap, then back to her eyes.
Holy hell, they didn’t make them like this back home. Rugged, burly mountain man almost as tall as the bear skin rug under her chair, and oh Mylanta, the green sweater he wore was like a second skin, allowing her a peek at his defined chest and abs. He shrugged his arms until the open front of his jacket hid his body from her, and his eyes narrowed as if he didn’t appreciate her attention.
“Jenner, meet your new client,” Lennard said blandly from the kitchen.
Jenner jerked his gaze to Lennard and waited a few seconds too long with his response to be polite. “Where’s the rest of them?”
“The rest of who?” Lena asked, pushing the blanket to the side and standing up to her full, not-so-imposing height.
“Your team.”
She arched her eyebrows and shrugged. “No team.”
Jenner gritted his teeth. “The men you’ve come with.”
Dalton chuckled and sang low, “Here we go.”
Lena stifled a curse. “No men, Mr. Silver. Just me.”
“And what are you wanting to do? Please God tell me it’s a fishing excursion.”
“You can call it that. We’ll be going to the rivers at least, but I’m here for the bears.”
“Bears,” Jenner repeated softly, eyes going hard as ice.
“Brown bears to be exact.”
“They aren’t in season. Sorry.”
“Oh, I want to shoot them, but not with a gun. I’m a photographer.”
Jenner let off a huffed, humorless laugh and shook his head. “Uh-uh. Hell no. Lennard, I’m not doing it.”
“Now Jenner, she is an important client for us.”
Jenner approached her slow but spoke to Lennard. “I don’t care who the fuck she is. I’m not taking her out there. Not to photograph grizzlies. You want to go fishing, you let me know. Otherwise, pick Chance or Dalton for your death wish.”
“I was told you are the best.”
Jenner came to a halt right in front of her. Damn, he was tall. She had to arch her neck all the way back just to meet his glare.
“Flattery won’t get me to take you out there. This is my hard no.”
“Why? I have experience. I’ve been shooting black bears for the past year.”
“Black bears? Woman, those are fucking kittens compared to brown bears. Tell whoever sent you here that you’re sorry to disappoint them, but you want to live. Go back to wherever you come from, live a long happy life taking pictures of pygmy donkeys and armadillos or whatever it is you need to photograph to get by, and enjoy the rest of your days not in the stomach of a fucking grizzly.”
“Jenner,” Lennard said in a steely voice. “This is Lena Rhodes.”
“I still don’t care who she is, old man. She isn’t hunting grizzlies with a camera. I’m not doing it. I’m really not. Especially not when she’s…”
“Finish it. Especially not when I’m what? A novice? A woman?”
Jenner clenched his teeth so hard a muscle jumped in his jaw. “Yeah, the last one.” He turned on his heel and disappeared down the hallway.
She stood there, entirely stunned and completely infuriated at the ridiculous man. What was he complaining about? She wasn’t some inexperienced photographer. She’d been shooting wildlife her entire five-year career, slowly working her way up until she was ready for this opportunity. Pygmy donkeys and armadillos. She wanted to choke him and slap him and kick him in his family jewels all at once.
She stomped after him, hands clenched at her sides lest she get an even bigger and less controllable urge for violence.
“I wouldn’t,” Dalton warned.
But hang it all, the magazine had paid an astronomical amount of money to get her in this position for grizzly money shots, and the guide she’d chosen was out on the excuse that she was a woman? Hell no.
There were several bedrooms down this hallway, and one of them was hers, so she took a chance and shoved the door with the number two painted onto it.
She’d guessed right because Jenner stood near a sink on the other side of the room, completely shirtless and peeling off a crimson-soaked bandage that wrapped around his torso. He turned around so fast, she could’ve sworn he blurred, and now his eyes were blazing a strange blue-brown color she’d never seen before.
“What happened?” she asked in shock, stumbling forward a step.
“Nothing,” he rushed out, holding the loose end of the bandage he’d been removing.
She shut the door behind her, but he put a hand out. “No, don’t come in.”
“How long does it take to get a doctor out here?”
“A long ass time, but I don’t need a doctor. Stop coming closer woman. Just…stay over there.”
Ignoring him completely, she marched over to him and swatted his hand away from the loose wrapping. He sighed the most irritated sound she’d ever heard, but she gave exactly zero figs right now because he definitely looked like he was bleeding out. She unwrapped the stiff binding, mostly dried with his blood. Steeling herself on the last layer, she ghosted Jenner a glance. His chest was heaving as he looked down at her with some unfathomable expression. “You scared of blood, woman?” he asked in a deep, growly timbre.
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Too many times to count, she’d relived the memory of her co-worker, Jason, mauled by a black bear and out in the woods where she spent hours staunching his blood flow until help could arrive. “No.” She peeled off the last sticky layer that clung to his skin. He winced but didn’t make a sound. Four long claw marks wrapped from his front around to his back, and what looked like puncture wounds had pierced his skin right under his arm. She shook her head and sighed. “I’m not scared of blood because I’ve seen this before. How did you get away?”
Jenner’s lip lifted at one corner, and his eyes softened just before he looked away. No answer—fantastic. Still a dick then.
“This looks really bad. Why didn’t you get Lennard and the others to help with first aid?”
“Because this is none of their damned business and besides, I heal fast.”
“Stubborn and idiotic. Sa-weet.”
A soft humming sound rumbled in his chest, but when she looked up at him, the sound stopped and his eyes sparked, daring her to ask what the hell that was about. She glared at him and tossed the bloody bandages in the trashcan by the sink. “Would you like me to disinfect it, or are you too stubborn to ask for my help?”
“Can you keep your mouth shut about the injury?”
Lena rolled her eyes. “Sure. If you want to die of infection or sepsis, that’s your own choice.”
Jenner snorted. “This is nothing.”
On closer inspection of his skin, she believed him. Long healed silver scars covered most of his torso, so thin and light, she’d almost missed them. She wanted to ask him badly how he’d survived such injuries, but his eyes had closed down completely, and that ticking in his jaw was back. With a sigh, she yanked the first aid kit off the countertop and pulled it open, then picked and chose what she needed.
She bit a package of fresh bandages open with her teeth and grabbed a dark wash cloth from the bathroom. Carefully and wordlessly, she cleaned the half-dried gore from his body. It wasn’t until she’d cleaned his wounds completely that she noticed the actual body she was working on. Thick with muscle, defined indentations between his pecs, eight-pack abs and those sexy strips of muscle delving into the low slung canvas pants he wore. His stomach flexed with every breath as he watched her. As she picked up the bottle of hydrogen peroxide, Lena swallowed hard and tried to focus on steadying her now shaking hands.
Just before she poured it over his injury, her palm cupped with a washrag underneath to catch any spillage, Jenner grabbed her trembling hand. His nostrils flared. Softly, he said, “You don’t have to do this if you’re scared.”
“I’m not scared,” she lied.
His eyes narrowed slightly as if he didn’t believe her, but he let her hand go.
“This will hurt,” she whispered sympathetically.
Jenner nodded once and held his breath, waiting.
Lena winced right along with him and rushed to clean the wounds so he would hurt as little as possible. And only when he was dressed in fresh bandages did she make her way to the bed and sit heavily on the mattress. Jenner’s eyes followed her as he pulled a clean shirt carefully over his torso. “How did you learn to do that?”
“I told you. I have experience with black bears.”
“You been clawed?”
She shook her head. “One of my friends was when we were out in the field.”
“Did he live?”
She exhaled a shaky breath and swallowed down her nausea, then nodded. Barely, but she wasn’t up for talking about Jason with him.
Jenner stared at her for a long time, hands on his hips and head cocked. His churning eyes said his mind was in a war over something she didn’t understand, and at last, he muttered a curse. “What I said earlier about you being a woman. That’s not it. That’s not the reason I don’t want to take you out there.”
“Then what is it?”
Jenner looked entirely uncomfortable now, shifting his weight from side to side and looking anywhere but her. “You’re on your period.”
Lena felt slapped. Of all the millions of word combinations she could imagine coming from this confounding man’s mouth, she would’ve never guessed he would have just called out her cycle. “Excuse me?”
Another one of those growly sounds came from him. “I can smell you bleeding, woman. The bears and the wolves will be able to smell it, too. It’ll be like a fucking dinner bell. I’d planned on being out another week, but I don’t take risks like that with injuries,” he murmured, gesturing to his bandaged side. “Not with the bears we have out there. You think that black bear attack was bad? I’m telling you, your world is about to be rocked once you spend some time with the brown bears. I won’t take you out until you stop bleeding.”
Her heart was pounding against her ribcage so hard it ached. “You can smell me bleeding?”
“Don’t get grossed out. I’m not. It’s natural, but it’s a risk. And since it’ll just be us out in the bush with the monsters, I want to limit those risks. Do you understand?”
“Tomorrow,” she said on a mortified breath. “I should be done bleeding tomorrow.”
He nodded once and cleared his throat. “Then we’ll leave the next morning.”
“Okay.” This was her cue to go because her cheeks were on fire right now. Ducking her head to hide her blush, she stood and bolted for the door to escape.
“Lena?”
She paused with her hand on the knob but didn’t face him. “Yes?”
“This isn’t about you being a woman, okay? I have a sister-in-law, Elyse, and she’s as strong as any man I’ve ever met.” Jenner swallowed audibly. “Thanks for doctoring me.”
Lena nodded once, yanked the door open, and then closed it behind her with a firm click.
She let herself into her own room next door and locked the latch behind her. As she chugged shocked breath, she stared at the wall that stood between her and Jenner Silver.
What was this feeling pulsing through her? She’d never reacted to talking to a man like this. Dominant, growly hunting guide, all scarred and fearless and looking down at her with those vivid blue eyes in a way that made her blood burn for something she didn’t understand. Lena clenched her shaking hands at her side.
Jenner Silver had just become as terrifying as the bears.
Chapter Three
Jenner frowned sleepily in the mirror at the long, half-healed pink marks across his side. He couldn’t be so careless around Lena again. He’d seen the fire in her eyes last night when he’d been harsh with her and should’ve known a spitfire like her would follow him into his room. It was the first time he’d been busted with an injury, and if it happened again, she would figure out he was healing way too fast. The grizzly in his middle made it possible to survive some brutal battle wounds, but that was his secret to keep, and if he had to guess, Lena was too observant for her own damned good. Of course, when he really thought about it, he had no reason to make that assumption other than she was a photographer and saw the world differently. He didn’t know the woman, but his instincts were screaming to be careful around her.
With a growl, he pulled his shirt back down and threw away the bandages she’d dressed the claw marks with. He was done bleeding, and he didn’t get infections. Never had and never would. That was the upside to this grizzly shifter gig. Almost everything else sucked. Being hungry all the time, trying to control a monster inside of him, stifling growls constantly, and hiding his changing eye color. But that wasn’t the worst part. Hibernation was the bane of any bear shifter’s existence. Six months in the winter, from October to April, consisted of him hiding deep in a den and sleeping the entire snowy season, and then in the warm months, he worked as a guide. Eat, work, sleep, repeat, year after year, and he’d been perfectly happy with that routine until Lena had given him that sexy blush last night. Spitfire she might be, but she was sensitive in ways that pulled at his protective instincts. And suddenly eating, sleeping, and working felt hollower than it did the day before.
Fuck, he couldn’t do this. He couldn’t afford to lose his head over a woman over the damned pink color in her cheeks. Sure, she was a stunner—dark hair, honey-colored eyes, tan skin, and pouty lips he wanted to bite. Even her pajamas were fucking adorable, flannel with tiny hearts on them, clinging to her curves and making it real hard to stand still when she was so close to him last night. Lena what’s-her-face was the first woman he’d allowed into his room in…well…ever.
Jenner shoved his feet into his boots and sighed in irritation. Okay, he hadn’t allowed her into his room, per say. More like she’d barged in unannounced and ignored him completely when he told her to leave, but for some reason, her gumption made her more interesting.
And his bear’s interest in her wasn’t good for anyone involved. He needed to stay neutral with her, distant even, because growing feelings for her was not only dangerous to the woman, it was a recipe for disaster with his bear when she left. He just had to get through the tour, let her take pictures of a few of the less violent, two-year-old grizzlies, and bring her back here. Then send her on her way, no feelings, no strings.
Jenner shoved his pant legs over the tops of his tied boots and nodded. Plan made, he could do this. Lena was just another woman. When his bear growled his disagreement inside of him, he swallowed the snarl back down. Shut up, monster.
Outside in the great room, breakfast was on. Lennard had gone all out with bacon, biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, and waffles. Waffles?
“Morning,” he murmured to Lennard and the other guides. He forked a waffle and held it in the air. “You only bring out the waffle-maker on special occasions. What gives?”
Dalton and Chance were busy shoveling breakfast into their maws, but Lennard shoved a magazine across the wooden island countertop toward him. “I told you she was a big client, dumbass. You went off on one of the big-shot photographers for Bucks and Backwoods.” He jammed his finger at the tiny white lettering in the bottom corner of a full page photograph of a black bear sow in a forest. There was a small amount of gray on her muzzle, but her eyes were forward and interested, and in the background was a small cub following behind her.