Bear Trapped (Bear Creek Grizzlies #5)

25. Finn

FINN

H is instincts told him something was off even though Lauren eventually relaxed and fell asleep in his arms. The uncertainty in her voice, in the way she searched for excuses on why he wouldn’t want her around, made him nervous. Between the bear and the man, there were no doubts that they were meant to be together. Lauren was his, and he was hers, and that was how things were going to be.

He’d expected to need to convince her, but not as much as he apparently would have to. He’d go as slow as necessary to build her confidence in him, even if it drove him crazy that she questioned his intentions and searched for reasons why things wouldn’t work out. She definitely searched for the worst-case scenario. He couldn’t blame her, not really, based on what he’d heard about her past.

Finn told her about a beach he dreamed about from one of the few quiet times he’d experienced in the Horn of Africa, spearfishing with a few buddies while they waited for a new contract to come through and a helicopter to pick them up. Simon had been there, too, and a couple of other bears. Granted, the bear was fucking miserable in the heat, but Finn could have basked in the sun all day if it wouldn’t have burned him to a crisp.

But once she’d fallen asleep, finally quiet and still except for a few mutters and twitches, sleep eluded him. Finn wouldn’t ever let her know, but he wasn’t entirely confident that all things would be handled as easily as he’d said. Sure, he could afford the best attorneys in the area, and would levy whatever defense needed to keep her from spending a second in jail. But the so-called justice system chewed people up and spit them out, and sometimes the innocent got caught up in it just as much as the guilty. He could do everything right and it still not work out the way he wanted.

Which meant he needed to stack the deck. He’d bend the rules and break the laws to ensure Lauren didn’t pay the price for what those fucking activists did to her, throwing her under the bus. He shoved that fury down deep as his arms tightened around her and she murmured in her sleep. He would deal with those assholes later, after he was sure Lauren was off the hook and everything would be fine.

He rubbed his chin against her shoulder, the bear wanting to scent mark her a little yet again, and worked the problem over in his mind. Simon and Noah were better at this kind of shit. Finn’s solution was to grab Lauren and disappear somewhere wild where the bounty hunters and cops wouldn’t bother to search for her. Maybe they’d fake her death so they wouldn’t come after her at all. Buy her a new identity and leave the country, go on an adventure together through all the wild places he’d been before but hadn’t really enjoyed. He’d show Lauren all the finer things, and the less fine things since she didn’t seem like the kind of girl who wanted hoity-toity Parisian restaurants. She could rough it in a hut on the beach or a hammock in the jungle or even an igloo in the Arctic.

It didn’t sound like she had any family that would have searched for her or bothered to help her out, otherwise she wouldn’t have been staying in a dilapidated pile of sticks in the middle of the forest. Maybe her friend, the one whose parents wouldn’t help Lauren. He tried to understand where they were coming from, but obviously they’d never met her, because it would have been damn impossible to meet Lauren and not want to help her.

He closed his eyes and tried the falling-asleep trick that Ethan taught him, listening to waves in his mind in the hopes the white noise would relax him and get rid of the troubling thoughts running around in his head. He had the same problem Lauren did, apparently.

It didn’t help that the bear wanted to stalk through the woods around the cabin to search for hints of any intruders or Shotgun’s guys. Finn had sent the coordinates and the cop could have sent a team in to search out the drug runners at any time. Finn assumed he wouldn’t do it in the middle of a blizzard, but the old man had done crazier shit in much worse conditions. He didn’t have any reason to search for the cabin or assume that Finn or the smugglers were inside it. Finn hoped that was enough to keep them out of the line of fire until he had a chance to shore up some defensive positions and figure out what the fuck to do.

He needed to call Simon so the bears could meet him and Lauren in the town much closer to the cabin than the way he’d originally trekked in. He could sneak Lauren out without her being seen if Simon brought the trucks right to the cabin, and with all the bears there, he’d have enough firepower to ensure Shotgun didn’t get jumpy or sloppy when it came to calling in his dogs. Once they were back at the Lodge and Lauren was for sure safe, he would figure the rest of the shit out.

It wasn’t his problem if Shotgun caught the smugglers or not. They wouldn’t figure out he killed the missing men, when obviously they’d been torn apart by a bear’s claws. Sure, stuffing them in a crevice and hiding them with rocks was a little outside of the typical ursine behavioral patterns, but what the fuck ever. They had it coming. If anyone searched for the drug runners, so be it. He’d deal with the consequences later. There weren’t witnesses and there sure as hell wasn’t evidence that tied Finn to the deaths. Lauren wasn’t about to volunteer information to the police about what happened on the trail. They wouldn’t believe her even if she did go tearing off to announce a man turned into a bear and clawed apart a couple of guys who threatened her with guns, and the bear carried her back to a cabin and turned back into a man. He shook his head to himself, not wanting to think about the circumstances where poor Lauren might have had to talk about him changing forms.

Finn didn’t sleep much as he turned the problem over and over in his head. Despite what he told Lauren about leaving it for another day, he couldn’t get past the immediate issue of getting out of the forest without getting shot by cowboys with badges or drug smugglers. That was the real problem. He didn’t want to highlight that to Lauren, otherwise he’d have to toss her over his shoulder to haul out of the cabin and into the open.

Not that he minded the idea of carrying her around.

She slept hard enough she didn’t even stir when he untangled himself and eased out from under the layers of sleeping bags and blankets. He made sure to tuck everything in around her so none of the chilly air drifting in from the holes in the walls disturbed her. He fed a few sticks to the coals and relit it to make sure it caught, then made a lap of the perimeter to ensure they were still safe.

The blizzard had dumped a good three feet of snow outside, though it drifted up against the cabin almost over his head in places. Finn didn’t bother opening the front door, since he didn’t want to leave an obvious sign to anyone passing by that someone recently entered or exited the building. Plus opening the door would have woken Lauren for sure.

So he opened one of the windows in the back of the cabin, leaning out to sniff the crisp air outside. He inhaled until his whole chest expanded and the air nearly froze his lungs. Nothing but pine and typical forest animals and snow. No metallic scents or humans or drugs or ammunition. None of the smells he would have expected if trouble were about to drop on top of them. The forest was silent in the early dawn.

Too silent.

His nerves prickled and his bear side wanted to prowl through the snow to make sure the rest of the forest knew an apex predator was walking through the trees. It wouldn’t make anything better, really, even though it would have placated the bear. And it might end up scaring the shit out of Lauren, if she woke up and found him missing and then in bear form. Just because she’d kind of accepted it the night before, coming out of a serious shock, didn’t mean the cold morning light would show her the same thing.

Which left him with only a few options. Finn closed the window and shook off the snow that had fallen on his head, brushing off his shoulders before returning to the front of the cabin. Lauren still slept, curled up in a little ball with her face buried in his sleeping bag, and he paused to study her, smiling despite himself. He didn’t know how it was possible for her to have worked her way into his heart so quickly, but there they were.

He sorted quietly through the supplies scattered on the floor from his pack, taking stock of what kind of food remained and how long it would last them. At least water wouldn’t be a problem with all the snow outside. Bathing could take forever or be really fucking cold, and he didn’t have that many baby wipes left. His leg still ached and the scars, despite being pink and healed over, remained thin and sensitive. He couldn’t stress the wounds too much or he’d end up with another open cut and more gnarly markings. Not that it mattered; he would just get another tattoo to cover it all up. Or he’d live with it, because it reminded him of the best day of his life: when he met Lauren.

Finn rolled his eyes at his own ridiculousness. If Simon or Ethan said anything so fucking sappy, Finn wouldn’t have let them live it down, ever. Ever . He could not have imagined feeling that way about anyone or anything. Even if Franny gave him a run for the money. Still, it wasn’t even a question of whether his life meant more after meeting Lauren. It just did. Everything before her, before that awful moment being trapped in metal jaws and hearing her whisper not to eat her, felt dull and gray and silent. Lacking any life or passion, any emotion. It was his past and his history, and he’d remember it for the lessons it taught him and the things he’d survived, but what mattered most was what stood in front of him: his future with Lauren. That was important. Everything else…was just bullshit.

He checked the sat phone and scrolled through a couple of messages from Simon and Shotgun. The rest of the world waited to make trouble for him and Lauren both, and it was just a matter of time until the real world intruded on the cabin. The only question was what disturbed them first. Simon and the bears, Shotgun and his cowboys, or a bunch of gun-happy drug smugglers. Maybe even a bounty hunter or two thrown in, if Lauren was right that the bail bondsman might be looking for her. He shook his head and looked around for a way to put together breakfast. They’d eat, then plan. Then they could get on with life together.