13. Rose
ROSE
My heart kickstarted inside my chest, and I nearly dropped my mug of tea.
Did he just say what I thought he had? Had I heard him right?
“What? How do you know?” I asked, my voice sounding as shaky as I felt.
Nolan ran a hand through his hair and dropped his gaze to the floor. “Delilah from the cafe told me there was a man asking around this morning about you. He had a picture of you on his phone he was showing everyone.”
Evan.
It had to be him.
My stomach bottomed out, and I had to set my tea down. I placed it on the coffee table and then shifted to sit on the couch, my legs not feeling strong enough to hold me up anymore.
“There’s more,” Nolan said, and dread powered through me. “Delilah saw him talking with a guy named Darren. They made a deal.”
“A deal about what?”
“Evan paid Darren some cash for the address of where you were staying.”
The room tilted.
“How did he know where I was staying?” I asked, even though I thought I already knew the answer.
“It’s a small town. People talk.”
“Right.”
He was here.
Evan was in Driftwood Cove. He’d found the town, found someone willing to point him in the right direction of me, and now he knew exactly where I was.
Nolan crouched in front of me, his face level with mine.
“Nothing’s going to happen to you. He’s not going to touch you again,” he said, his gaze never wavering from mine. “You hear me?”
I nodded, but the nod was automatic. My body was doing the things it was supposed to do while my brain screamed that Evan could show up any moment.
“I can stay,” Nolan said. “Blow off the last few jobs I have today. Be right here.”
The word yes was right there. Every terrified part of me wanted to say it, but I didn’t.
“I’ll be okay,” I heard myself say instead.
He didn’t believe me. I could see it in the way his jaw tensed and the way his eyes moved across my face like he was checking for any indication I hadn’t said what I meant to.
“Lock the door behind me,” he said, standing. “And if he reaches out again or shows up, you come get me. I mean it. Come get me.”
“I will.”
“Promise me, Rose.”
“I promise.”
He looked at me for another long second. Then he went to the door, opening it. Before he stepped outside, he turned back to look at me again, and the expression on his face was so protective and filled with worry that it made my chest ache.
The door closed. I walked over and locked it. The duplex felt different now. The same walls, the same ocean view, the same desk by the window—but the air had changed. It was like someone had taken the safe little world I’d been building here and cracked it down the middle.
Evan was in Driftwood Cove.
He was walking the same streets I walked. Eating at the same places I ate.
My stomach turned.
I paced the living room for a while, checking the windows, pulling the blinds shut. My phone sat face down on the kitchen counter where I’d left it. I didn’t want to touch it. Scared there might be another text from him.
Through the wall, I could hear Nolan moving around his unit. He was close. He was right there.
That helped calm me more than it should have.
Eventually, I made myself sit at the desk again and focus on my story. Not because I thought I could write, but because staring at the walls and pacing was making my fear louder, and I needed something to do with my hands.
The manuscript was where I’d left it—the end of Chapter Sixteen, the scene where my heroine finally tells the hero she’s in love with him. The words blurred on the screen as I read the last thing I’d typed. I typed a sentence. Deleted it. Typed another. Deleted that too.
A car door slammed outside, and I flinched. I held my breath and listened, thinking maybe Nolan had gone to his truck for something he’d forgotten.
A knock sounded at my front door.
Fear pumped through me. It had to be Nolan, though. Right? Maybe he had something else to say? Evan didn’t even know which side of the duplex was mine. Did he?
I crossed the room and peeked out the window to see who it was.
Evan stood on my steps.
Tall, thin, and clean-cut. That jaw, sharp cheekbones, and those flat gray eyes that looked warm from a distance but were empty when you got close enough to see.
He wore a button-down shirt and khakis, like he’d come from a business lunch, like this was casual, like showing up at someone’s door after tracking them across the state was a reasonable thing to do.
He smiled. The same smile that had fooled me too many times before.
“Found you,” he said.
I tried to close the door. My hand shoved against it, and I put my whole weight behind the push, but he was already moving. His palm caught the edge, and he stepped inside, smooth and practiced, like he’d done this before.
He had.
Too many times to count.
“Rose.” His voice was calm. Measured. The tone he used when he wanted me to know he was being patient with me. “Come on. You can’t just leave town like that.”
“Get out.”
“We need to talk.”
“There’s nothing to say. You shouldn’t be here. Get out of my house.”
“It’s not your house. It’s a rental.” He said it with a half-smile, like he was correcting a child. “You ran away to a rental in a town nobody’s ever heard of. Do you know how that looks?”
He was moving as he talked—slow, casual, putting himself between me and the door the way he always did without me noticing. He cut off the exit without looking like he was doing it.
“I’m not doing this with you, Evan.”
“Doing what? Talking? We’re just talking.”
His hand closed around my wrist when I tried to take another step away from him.
The grip was familiar. Not to the point of pain—not yet—but tight enough to remind me who was in control.
“Let go,” I said.
“When you calm down.”
“Let go of me.”
“Rose—”
The front door blew open.
Nolan filled the frame. He must have heard us through the wall—my voice, or Evan’s, or maybe he’d just spotted the car in the driveway.
He stood there with his chest heaving, and his eyes locked on Evan’s hand wrapped around my wrist. His face changed.
The easygoing, loud, beer-on-the-porch Nolan I’d gotten to know was gone.
What stood in the doorway was someone I hadn’t met yet.
“Get your hands off her.” His voice was low, rough, and I swore it sounded barely human.
Evan didn’t let go. He turned to look at Nolan—a slow, measured look, the kind Evan gave everyone. Sizing him up. Cataloguing. Deciding how much of a threat he was.
“This doesn’t concern you,” Evan said. “This is between me and my girlfriend.”
“I’m not your girlfriend,” I said, but my voice cracked on it.
Nolan stepped farther inside. “I said let her go.”
Evan’s grip tightened on my wrist. Not enough to make me cry out in pain, but enough to bruise. “Or what?”
A smirk twisted at Nolan’s lips. “You don’t want to find out.”
Evan laughed. It was short and dismissive. The laugh of a man who’d never been physically challenged and didn’t believe it was possible. He looked at Nolan like he was an inconvenience. A nuisance. Something to be dealt with later. He was so wrong.
Even I could see that much.
Suddenly, the air changed. It happened so fast I almost couldn’t track it.
One second Nolan was standing there—tall, broad, furious—and the next, an energy unlike anything I’d ever felt before filled the room.
It was thick and electric, pressing against my skin, and making the hair on my arms stand on end.
And then Nolan’s body twisted.
His bones cracked and the sound echoed through the space.
His muscles stretched and expanded beneath his skin as he doubled in size.
His clothes tore and fell away in shreds as brown fur erupted across his skin.
The coffee table flipped sideways as his massive frame filled the space.
A lamp crashed to the floor. The couch skidded back against the wall, and so did I.
An enormous bear stood where Nolan once had.
It was impossible, but true.
Nolan had turned into a bear.
His fur was dark brown, thick across his shoulders and neck, and his paws were the size of dinner plates. He stood on all fours, his head dipped low so he didn’t bust it on the ceiling, and a roar tore out of him so deep and loud that my chest vibrated.
Evan let go of me then.
I hadn’t even realized he was still holding on to me.
His hand flew open like he’d been burned, and he stumbled backward until his back hit the wall.
He slid down it, his legs giving out, and I glanced at him, noticing his face had gone white.
A dark stain spread across the front of his khakis, and the smell of it hit the room a second later.
He’d wet himself.
Nolan’s bear stepped forward, hovering over Evan.
I’d never seen Evan so scared, and even though I shouldn’t be focused on him, he was all I could look at.
Nolan’s bear released another low growl, and my attention snapped back to him.
Evan said something, but I couldn’t make out what.
He was shaking too badly. Then as Nolan’s bear stepped even closer to him—close enough for his breath to move Evan’s hair—he drew his knees close to his chest and lifted his hands in the air.
Evan wasn’t going anywhere.
I wasn’t sure why, but an idea came to me then. I grabbed my phone and dialed 911. My voice shook when I gave the address, but the next words were firm.
“There was a break-in. My abusive ex found me and he trashed my rental,” I said.
The dispatcher said units were on the way.
I hung up and lowered the phone, realizing Nolan’s bear was staring at me now. His eyes were warm and steady. There was a hint of Nolan in them somehow. I couldn’t explain it, but he was there still.
He was a bear.
Nolan was a bear.
I still couldn’t wrap my head around it.
The man I’d been falling for had transformed into a literal bear and put himself between me and the worst thing in my life without a second of hesitation.
Nolan’s bear continued to stare at me, like the only thing that mattered to him in this moment was whether I was afraid of him.
I wasn’t.