North Country Man

The road curved just ahead. She thought this was approximately where she saw the deer, though it was difficult to tell when the landscape was unrelenting forest. The evergreen trees all looked the same, thick and black-green. The deciduous trees were sparse, not yet fully leafed.

Claire spun in a circle, batting away an annoying bug, then shrugged. There was no obvious sign of the accident. No skid marks. Even the place where she’d crashed into the woods looked relatively undisturbed, as if the dense vegetation had swallowed the car whole. How could she possibly find an injured deer?

Talking all the while, she walked slowly through the long weeds that choked the roadside, using a piece of deadwood to poke at the underbrush. A small animal scurried away, too quick and sneaky for her to catch a glimpse.

She shuddered, wanting to believe that the deer had escaped unharmed. Wanting even more to be able to return to the rental car and reverse it onto the road. And what the heck, while she was at it, why not turn around and drive back to the airport and pretend this was all a bad dream? Her health and optimism would return if she could simply go home to her family—never mind that her stress levels would be quadrupled by their clingy neediness.

Claire peered into the woods. A stand of slender gray poplars stood out against the conifers, striking a chord. This was where she’d seen the big mama bear, silhouetted for an instant against the pale trunks. She’d walked far enough. The deer must have bounded away, uninjured.

“Time to turn around,” she murmured.

A funny feeling tickled her spine, creeping upward to prickle the hair at her nape. Apprehension.

Her eyes searched the forest. Was that a path?

She stepped closer. It was a path. Crowded by saplings and fresh young ferns, nearly overgrown except for a narrow trail that led deeper into the woods. An animal trail, she supposed. Deer and rabbits followed trails. Did bear?

“If they do, I surely won’t.” Claire swung around to leave, only to realize that something large and hulking was approaching through the woods. How she knew, she wasn’t sure. Animal instinct, perhaps. The beast didn’t make a lot of noise. Barely a rustling of leaves. But it was there. And it was between her and the car.

The bear.

Icy fear gripped her, rooting her feet in terror. She didn’t dare break for the road, where she’d be openly visible. And she could not make herself plunge into the deep, dark woods. Instead she raised the stick she’d picked up, praying it was true that bears rarely attacked humans but ready to defend herself all the same.

The shadowy creature halted, obscured by a thicket of yellow sumac. The air crackled with their mutual awareness. Through the leafy screen, she detected a slight glint. Eyes. Watching eyes.

A sniffling sound, low to the ground, made every hair on Claire’s body stand upright. Claws scraped across stone. The cub!

In a flash, she remembered her research. Mother bears were notoriously protective of their cubs. But running might provoke an attack. She should slowly back away. If she could get her feet to move.

The brush began to part.

Don’t run, don’t run, don’t run.

A bloodcurdling yell might scare the bear away.

Claire opened her mouth. Out came a peep so pitiful it wouldn’t frighten a rabbit.

Terrified, she dropped her handbag with a soft thud and put both hands on her measly weapon. One foot slid backward, then the other.

The bear lifted its furry head. God, it was huge. Nearly seven feet.

It made a chuffing sound.

Suddenly the cub burst from the bush and charged toward Claire, cavorting like a puppy. Claire yelped and fell, landing on her rump in the tall grass. Momentum sent her somersaulting backward, but she managed to regain her feet. The cub rolled with her, as if this were a game.

“Get away!” Claire turned and stumbled along the path, flailing her weapon from side to side. The cub was on her heels, making eager grunts and groans. It still wanted to play!

The night air seemed to shift, and she could feel the adult bear right behind her, large and hot and hulking. Oh, please, Sweet Mary, mother of God—

The bear reached past her shoulder and tugged at the flailing branch. Claire started to tug back out of sheer stubbornness, then realized how foolish, how futile—

For one instant, her mind blanked out. Then it clicked on again.

Bears didn’t reach. They swiped. And they probably didn’t tug. They snatched.

“Hey, Babe Ruth, want to turn over the weapon before you hit one out of the ballpark?” said a deep, resonant, masculine voice. Without a doubt, a human voice.

Claire let go of the branch. She turned, stiff and slow, her wobbly knee joints locked into place. “You’re not a bear.”

“Nope.”

“I thought you were a bear.” Her voice rasped like an old rusty hinge.

“Didn’t mean to scare you, lady.”

Lady? She was shaking in her shoes, fearing for her life, and this unkempt beast was calling her lady?

Even though the man wasn’t a bear, he was an astonishing sight. Not seven feet, but close to six and a half, maybe. He was huge and muscular, bearded, with thick, shaggy hair that was dark underneath but golden brown on top. No wonder she’d mistaken him for a bear. The man had never made acquaintance with a razor in his life!

“Hello, Grizzly Adams,” she said under her breath, not realizing she’d spoken until he tossed his head and laughed.

She took a step back.

His straightforward gaze swept her face. “You’re not the first to say so.”

Claire offered him a tentative smile, though she was not altogether comforted. He was a stranger, one who looked quite capable of tearing her from limb to limb. At five-eight and one hundred sixty pounds, she was no flyweight herself, but this man was huge all over, from his teeth to his immense chest and the broad hands gripped around the length of wood, right down to his gunboat feet, shod in a pair of tough leather boots with rawhide laces and thick lug soles.

Every instinct told her there was something not quite civilized about him. Perhaps it was his scent—wild and woodsy and musky, utterly foreign to her. Or perhaps it was his barbaric aura—as if he could wrestle a cougar and crunch bones between his teeth.

Claire shivered. She prided herself on her self-sufficiency and adaptability, but this encounter was too much even for her. The man was overwhelming.

Not to mention his sidekick, the bear cub. The little beast stood on its hind legs and batted at her thigh, snagging her trousers. She cried out, backing away. DKNY separates weren’t made for bear cub abuse. The lightweight wool would not hold up to even a playful clawing.

“Stop it, Scrap,” said the man. He threw Claire’s impromptu baseball bat into the brush, and the cub scrambled after it to investigate, grunting with pleasure as it worried at the undergrowth, rolling back and forth like a giddy toddler.

Claire scrubbed a hand over her face in disbelief. Nope, he was still there. Solid as a tree trunk. And watching her, his eyes predatory beneath a pair of thick brown brows. “What are you doing in the woods at night with a bear cub?” she asked, sounding accusatory rather than merely curious. Her nerves were on edge, and it showed.

“Out for a walk.” Almost self-consciously, he touched a brown paper package that lay flat against his right side, tucked inside his belt.

Claire’s insides went hollow. She thought of the paper-wrapped bottles her father and his cronies passed around the back room of the family gas station. Then she thought of the liquor signs in the window of the Buck Stop and drew herself up haughtily in defense. “I see.” Her hands shook, so she tucked them into fists inside the cuffs of her sweater.

Between the night and the man’s beard, she couldn’t tell for sure, but she thought he smiled. Briefly. “Fact is, you’re the one who’s out of place,” he said, his deep voice seeming as mild as he could make it. He squatted to pet the cub, who’d emerged from the brush dragging the stick.

Claire blinked. He’d crouched purposely, she thought. To minimize his size.

He knew she was afraid of him.

“You ran your car off the road?” he asked.