Chapter 17 So Many Thank Yous
so many thank yous
BELL
After I made my official choice, Ravik gave my little A-frame cottage a once-over, displeasure clearly written across his face. Without another word, he strode past me, sliding open the back window door to walk out of the house.
He was obviously not happy with me. My ears heated, remembering how, in the early days of our marriage, Dennis used to walk out of rooms and sulk, giving me the silent treatment whenever I went against him—sometimes for days. Before he escalated to just belittling or hitting me into submission.
“C’mon, we’ll get your stuff,” Boone said in the wake of him leaving.
It didn’t take me long to repack the suitcase I’d barely opened. Though, I struggled with how to handle the Ravik situation as I rolled it out of the room.
Dennis had trained me to be hyperaware of his displeasure at all times. Or else.
But what was I supposed to do? Apologize for honestly making the choice they’d given me?
Other than a somber “thank you” for carrying my suitcase, I was mostly quiet on the way back to the widow’s cottage.
I wasn’t sure how I’d handle it if Ravik argued with me about moving into the little house I’d claimed as my temporary own.
Or worse, gave me another command like he did this morning, when I tried to run away from the conversation with Boone.
My stomach roiled. I don’t know what scared me most: the thought of having to give in or getting into an argument with a man who could snap his fingers and turn into a bear.
But to my surprise, when we returned to the widow’s cottage, we found it warm and cozy, thanks to a fire burning steadily in the wood stove.
Wow. Boone hadn’t lied about it being way easier to keep a smaller space heated. The tension I’d been carrying in my shoulders loosened.
I squinted at the fire, which seemed to have been made with a mix of old newspaper and sticks. Was that what Ravik had been doing while I packed? Making a fire so I wouldn’t have to spend the night in a freezing-cold house?
Guilt twisted in my chest like a knife. Another gift it wouldn’t have even occurred to me to ask for.
“Vik set up the boiler, too,” Boone told me after setting my suitcase down next to the set of dresser drawers. “So you can take a shower whenever you want. Vik said to let me know if the water’s not hot enough—hold on…”
He held up one large finger, his eyes going to the side like he was receiving some kind of mental message—which I suppose he was.
I highly doubted I’d ever get used to them communicating like that.
“Be right back,” Boone said, suddenly jogging out.
Less than twenty minutes later, he came back through the door with three Barrington totes. Two were full of groceries, and the other was stuffed with cleaning supplies.
“Vik wanted me to give these to you, so you wouldn’t have to worry about asking.”
“Tell him, thank you?”
My voice lifted into question territory. I didn’t know what to make of this Ravik guy. He supposedly was on board with this wild polycule idea. But he’d barely said two words to me that wasn’t an order or a bear culture explanation delivered between gritted teeth.
Actually, there was that one thing this morning….
Not just good. Amazing. Compatible. With all three of us. Like if you put what we smelled like on a table together, we’d all want to eat.
I mean, it was a weird, verging on creepy thing to say, but technically a compliment, I guess.
In any case, I was grateful for his continued thoughtfulness.
“I’ll pay you three back for all of this,” I promised Boone as he set the bags down on the teeny square of counter next to the kitchenette’s sink. A desperate feeling scraped inside my chest.
I had to pay them back. I couldn’t bear the thought of only taking and never giving anything in return. “Definitely before my daughters’ weddings. I’ll figure it out.”
“Yeah, you will.” Boone turned to regard me with a crooked smile. “I bet you’ll figure all sorts of things out before July. Until then, I promise you…”
Boone took a step closer, hovering. “We’ll wait.”
Technically, he was agreeing with me, but the way his eyes filled with heat made my chest vibrate with… something. He towered over me, shoulders hunched to erase the near foot of height between us. I could feel the heat radiating off his skin.
And for a moment, I thought… feared… (was maybe the tiniest bit curious?) about whether he would kiss me.
But then he straightened back to his full height and said, “Well, I’ll leave you to it.”
Then Boone did exactly what I’d been asking him to do from the start. Left me alone.
Which was… great?
Yes, yes, definitely great, I told myself.
I spent the rest of the day sweeping, dusting, and getting down on my hands and knees to scrub every surface of the house with that Canadian version of PBS keeping me company in the background.
As the moon rose over the lake outside the back windows, I gratefully fell into bed, promising myself I’d tackle the decades worth of moss that was growing on the house the next day.
Though, I might have to go back down around the bend to ask the guys for a ladder to get the green stuff higher on the roof.
The thought of seeing them again so soon after I’d gotten my own temporary place didn’t upset me, I noted. Like, at all.
I’d have to watch that, I warned myself as I fell into another deep, black sleep.
I once again woke up fully rested—this time due to the morning sun pouring light into the little house, not muffled voices in the outer front room.
As bright as it was, the cabin was freezing. Ravik’s wood stove fire that I’d kept burning last night with sticks I’d found off the back deck had gone out.
I’d have to find a way to get it started again, though I had no idea how.
I’d grown up in Gemidgee, a small university town surrounded by farms and forest. But I’d never been a camper.
I was not a fan of mosquitoes, or critters, or any animal larger than the dogs my niece, Merry, and Skye, the woman who’d turned out not to be her life partner, like we’d all assumed, had kept at their Paws & Claws Pet Adoption Cafe.
Which I guess made it even more ironic that I’d somehow ended up stuck in a middle-of-nowhere mountain town. With three men. Who could shift into bears in a blink of an eye.
Okay, you know what, I definitely needed coffee to face down this new day.
Instead of instant, I found some random coffee bag things that you had to pour hot water over, like it was tea.
It felt distinctly unAmerican. But beggars couldn’t be choosers, and lucky for me, I’d found a clay mug, along with other dishware and cutlery, in the Barrington grocery totes Boone had brought over for me.
Again, I couldn’t get over Ravik’s thoughtfulness. Or stop feeling guilty that he kept on doing stuff for me.
With a sigh, I took the coffee out to sit on the back deck, which was just a small raised plank of wood with a single metal chair standing on top.
But it wasn’t rusty, and it was currently warmer out there with the sun shining down than it was in the A-frame cabin.
I didn’t expect to see a polar bear suddenly surface from the lake when I sat down.
He floated for a moment, then jerked upright, like something I couldn’t see had tapped him on the shoulder.
And that was when I got to feel the decidedly singular sensation of having a polar bear look straight at me. And grin.
He waved a paw side to side before wading to shore.
I’d only been aware of the existence of polar bear shifters for a day now, but when the creature started vibrating in a strange way, I sensed it was time to avert my eyes yet again.
“Hey, sugar, how’d you sleep?”
A few moments later, Boone came striding up the gravelly beach toward me. In nothing but a pair of black sweatpants. Droplets of water still rolling down his stone-cut chest and rock-hard abs.
“Good,” I choked out. I had to swallow because my throat was suddenly dry. “Great.”
Awkward silence.
Boone’s nose flared in that weird way it sometimes did. Then he asked, “Is the wood stove still going? Can I come in and restart it?”
“S-sure,” I squeaked out.
Then I stopped, reminded myself that I was a fifty-six year-old woman, and leveled my voice to answer, “That would be appreciated. Thank you. I was hoping to get a lesson on how to use it anyway.”
Boone followed me back into the house through the open sliding door, but to my surprise, he walked through the house to the front porch and came back with his arms full of logs.
“Don’t worry, there’s more waiting on the porch,” he said, as if I’d been expecting a log delivery this morning and could possibly be disappointed. “Figured I’d show you how to use the stove first before bringing another pile in.”
“Th-thank you.” I was back to stuttering.
The wood stove seemed intuitive and easy to use, though I could barely pay attention as Boone walked me through how to start the fire, feed logs into it, then turn the dial to adjust the airflow and control the heat.
“Be right back,” he said again after he was done explaining.
But instead of wood, he had another Barrington tote when he returned through the front door.
It turned out to be full of mostly black clothes: knit tops, a couple pairs of leggings, and some joggers. There was also a green button-up shirt and a soft hoodie with RCMP written across it in cracked golden block letters. The last two items were way too big for me.
And when I looked up from the bag, I found Boone once again rubbing the back of his neck.
“Vik and Z wanted you to have options other than my work flannels. Let me know if any of the other clothes don’t fit, tho.
Vik guessed small, but you know it’s hard for us bears to guess the proportions on human women.
One of us can drive you down there if you want. ”
I didn’t want. I’d washed Boone’s blue-and-white flannel in the sink and let it dry on the line before showering yesterday, then done the same with the red-and-black one.