Bear Trapped (Bear Creek Grizzlies #5)

6. Lauren

LAUREN

H er heart thundered against her ribs and she sweated absolutely everywhere as she raced down the trail, searching for a hollowed-out tree. She found it and started fishing the pack out when a muffled groan-yelp caused the birds to flee the trees once more. Lauren stared down the trail. Had something happened to Finn?

She couldn’t quite tell how she felt about everything that had happened so far. She must have hallucinated the bear, or maybe been dreaming about a bear, and saw him in a coat or covered with dirt and just imagined a bear. Obviously people didn’t turn into bears and back again. Obviously. She wasn’t crazy, regardless of what the oil company’s lawyers said.

Lauren slung his pack on her back and staggered under the weight, almost pitching over sideways as her balance shifted and she stepped into a divot in the trail. Good thing she hadn’t picked up the rifle, otherwise she probably would have tumbled ass over teakettle all the way down the slope and maybe shot herself in the process. She gritted her teeth and hiked up the straps and waist belt, and braced against the tree to scoop up the clothes, boots, and rifle hidden behind the bulky pack.

She didn’t have quite enough energy to jog down the trail, not with a ridiculously heavy pack on her back and carrying an armful of clothes and a big scary gun, but she moved as fast as her legs would carry her. Even though she dreaded seeing what happened to Finn. She wasn’t looking forward to having to touch the bear trap around his leg and seeing what the steel teeth had done to human flesh. Cold rushed through her when she found Finn in a different position, the stick broken in half in the bear trap, and blood everywhere.

Bright red had started flowing from his leg again, though dark red and black coated the trap. Which he’d escaped.

Lauren shook her head and swallowed the immediate urge to vomit when she saw his leg. She wanted to hit him. Stupid man. He probably did a crap-load of damage to his leg by doing it himself. And now he was completely unconscious and far too big for her to move on her own. It wasn’t like slinging him over her shoulders and carrying him back to the cabin was an option. The temperature kept dropping and she didn’t like the look of what she saw of the sky through the trees. A storm could move in so fast they’d be caught out and frozen solid before they knew it.

She patted his cheek to try and wake him, but Finn didn’t do more than make a face. Lauren looked around, suddenly nervous in the silence. What if whoever set the trap heard him yell and decided to investigate? She dropped his pack and fished around for the first aid kit. Sweat trickled down her back as she searched and her fingers didn’t work right and she couldn’t focus on anything. She couldn’t do anything right. If he was still conscious, Lauren had no doubt that they’d already be on their way to the cabin. Finn was the kind of guy who always had a solution.

The stray thought stopped her cold, and she stared down at the unconscious man. She had no idea who he was or where he’d come from. There was no way she could start thinking of him as someone to rely on. That gruff capability made him even more dangerous, since it hinted at a background in law enforcement. He’d said something about the military. Maybe he’d feel obligated to turn her in once he found out why she stayed in a cabin without food or real electricity or heat. Lauren swallowed the knot in her throat. It was bad enough he was dead sexy and completely naked and the kind of handsome that made her hands shake. He was muscles everywhere, not an ounce of fat on him.

She looked around for something to use as a sledge. She could probably drag him. The only other option was to run back to the cabin to get the half-broken wheelbarrow and then try to haul Finn’s dead weight into it. Lauren shook her head. He had to wake up. Right? Didn’t people wake up out of a faint if it was from pain? How the hell long could he sleep?

At least he had a tangle of compression straps and carabiners and rope stuffed or hooked on every free part of the pack. So something went her way for a change. Or he was just a prepared kind of guy.

Lauren muttered under her breath as she dragged a long and somewhat gnarly branch from out of the undergrowth, and hunted for one at least close to the same size. “You know, this is when it would be really nice to have some friends. Someone to actually rely on instead of just pointing out everything I did wrong. And bringing up every time I fucked up and should have done something differently. I’m sure you’d be able to tell me exactly how I’m doing the opposite of the smart thing. Because that’s probably what I’m doing. That never fails. Lauren the screw up.”

Her voice trailed off and she had to close her eyes as more tears threatened. She couldn’t stop shaking. “Except I’m doing my best. I promise. I’m trying to do everything right, as much as I can, and I don’t mean to be so much trouble. I just need a little help. A little tiny dab of understanding or encouragement or just…tolerance. If you could just tolerate me when you wake up, that would be great.”

It wasn’t really him she talked to, so maybe that was what made her brave enough to say it out loud. That and he was unconscious and didn’t actually hear her. Lauren dragged the other branch over and laid it next to the first, frowning. And now she had to figure out how the hell to construct it. Right under Finn seemed like the best option, so she could just pick him up.

She snorted. Like it would really be that easy. She was out of her damn mind.

First she wrapped his leg up in a sweatshirt she found in his pack, since the first aid kit didn’t have nearly enough bandages, and made sure it wasn’t broken. It turned her stomach but nothing felt weird or wobbly when she picked up his ankle. His whole face screwed up and he bared his teeth in warning, so Lauren left it alone. Message received.

“I’m trying to help, jerk,” she said under her breath.

She arranged the straps on the ground and shoved them as far under him as possible before putting him on his side and pulling the straps through. And she also got an eyeful of the absolute work of art that was his ass and the muscles in his back. Her mouth got all dry and cottony as she stared at him for far too long to be decent. Especially since he was unconscious and couldn’t object to her ogling his unbelievable body. He must have lived at the gym or do hard labor every minute of the day to get muscles like that.

Lauren shook herself out of the completely inappropriate thoughts and put him on his back. And she threw most of his clothes over top of him to keep him warm, and to free up the shoulder straps and belt on his pack to help drag his ass along. At least the path to the cabin was mostly even with just one small uphill stretch. She could do it.

She strapped the long branches to the backpack and threaded them through to hold the ends. She left her shotgun and his rifle on the sledge next to him, in case he woke up and wanted to shoot something, and made sure everything was as secure as she could make it. She glanced back after wiggling into the backpack’s frame and straps, and took a couple of deep breaths. “It’s not far from here. We don’t have to go far. Just—hold on. Don’t go crazy. I don’t think I can do this a second time.”

He didn’t answer, which was both good and bad. But Lauren decided to take it as good. She bent her knees and lifted the branches, settled them into the straps, and put her head down to drag his weight forward, one step at a time.