Chapter 20
TWENTY
JOSIE
Oh my fucking God.
I’m only one minute past having the most cathartic, rejuvenating, soul-opening experience where I shed my past with my dad and opened up my heart, and now, this. Right here, out in the woods, God knows how far away from Colby’s home, definitely within charging distance, is a bear.
And it’s absolutely beautiful.
A magnificent, gorgeous, majestic creature, with its huge broad chest, and dark, glossy black fur, and a deep, pointed snout, and my breath hitches.
Not only is it beautiful, it’s terrifying.
Every survival instinct screams at me. Fight, flee, freeze.
I’m currently in the middle of all of them, and my limbs don’t know if they should follow my brain.
Yes, I work in a vet hospital, but we don’t treat bears.
I’ve never seen one up close except for when I was a kid and went to the zoo.
My mouth goes dry. In my head, I hear my dad’s voice, talking about the importance of bear spray, and how if you ever encounter one, to not play dead unless they attack, and for God’s sake, never, ever run.
Okay, okay, I won’t play dead. And thank God my feet are cemented into the snow, preventing my body from doing what it wants and sprinting as fast as I can back to the safety of Colby’s house.
But I definitely don’t have any bear spray, and I might be fast, but I’m pretty sure I can’t outrun a bear.
I pat my pockets and swallow the boulder lodged in my throat. Yep. I left my cell phone again, charging on the nightstand. Shit, shit, shit. Beads of sweat prickle on my neck. Do I move? Stay here? I’m frozen. Rendered completely useless.
It’s okay, it’s okay, it hasn’t seen me.
The bear’s going to turn the other way and find its mom, or maybe this is the mom…
it’s so huge I can’t tell… and then I’ll calmly walk back to the house, and later I’ll have a good story to tell Colby.
Yep, I’m good—shit. Oh my God, it sees me.
My chest is so tight I don’t think it’s getting in air.
Stay calm, avoid eye contact. This is what I do at the clinic when working with animals with higher levels of aggression.
I assume I can apply this to the bear, right?
Oh God, oh God. The knot in my stomach is so fierce that I really can’t breathe.
I turn my head to not make eye contact but keep the outline of its body in my peripherals.
He’s curious. That’s all. He doesn’t want to eat me.
He doesn’t want to attack. Everything I know about bears doesn’t calm me the way it should.
Because it’s a fucking bear! Jesus Christ, is this how I go out?
Honestly, that would just be my luck. I’ve made the mental breakthrough that I’ve needed since I was twelve, finally feel like I just dipped my toes into the well of becoming a whole, complete, better person, and then I get mauled to death?
Okay, okay, think. I’m supposed to open my jacket, make myself big, and walk away backwards.
But that seems super counterintuitive. The very last thing I want to do is wave my hands above my head like I’m waving them over for a meet and greet.
Did any of the people who gave this advice ever actually encounter a bear?
Or encounter one in snow higher than most children?
And aren’t bears supposed to be freaking hibernating right now? Sure, it’s April and this storm is a true freak of nature, but still…
Beads of sweat prickle at my forehead, at the base of my neck, and I’d whip off my scarf and hat right now, but who knows what the hell would trigger this animal. God, it’s so gorgeous, but… nope. I never need to see another one in person for the rest of my life.
A faint zipping sound echoes through the valley. A snowmobiler? Do I wave them down? Will the sound freak the animal out? Should I try to warn them?
My body starts to tremble, but I breathe through the shakes.
The bear is still watching me, probably sizing me up, definitely wondering if I’d make a good post-hibernation snack.
I grip my walking stick in my hand, praying to God I don’t have to use it against this incredible creature, and move backwards.
One step. I stab the walking stick into the snow. Two steps. Stab again. Three steps.
The zipping sounds of what is definitely a snowmobile get closer and my breath locks. I cock my head toward the sound, but in this vast, open field, it’s nearly impossible to know where it’s originating from. Is it Colby? Someone else?
Like so many things in my life that seem to be at extremes, this is both the most terrifying and one of the most beautiful moments I’ve ever experienced. Yes, I’m scared. I’ve never been so incredibly scared in all my life.
But also… I believe in myself that I can handle this situation. I keep my gaze not directly on the bear, but to the side where I can monitor. Stab into the ground, step again. The bear stays where it’s at, thank God. It’s not charging, or moving, or growling. Yet.
I’m still absolutely terrified. If the bear roars, I’m going to pass out.
Stab, step. Stab, step. The snowmobile is getting closer, and when I shift my gaze from the bear to up the hill, my heart certifiably leaps from my chest. Colby, in a haze of snow whipping from the blades on her snowmobile, clad in her sweatshirt and boots, tears through the woods like a thirty-something-year-old Katniss Everdeen, a shotgun attached on her back instead of a bow.
And everything, literally everything in me crumbles.
She pulls a sharp, controlled turn with snow spraying like a firehouse; her face is so serious, so heated, so determined, and so fucking hot. “Get on! Watch the gun.”
I throw myself on the back and hold on to her with everything in me, while also leaning away from the gun, which is almost as terrifying as the bear.
Let’s pray to God it takes a hefty trigger pull to release the bullet.
As Colby tears up the hill, I turn back only once to see the bear running in the opposite direction.
My breath doesn’t fully return until we reach the shed. Colby kills the engine, and I know I need to slide off first, but my shaking limbs can barely peel themselves from the sled. When I finally stand, the adrenaline hits me and I start shaking like I was just pulled from a frozen lake.
Colby doesn’t ask. She just pulls me into her arms and squeezes. She squeezes so hard that I lose my breath again, and it’s the best feeling in the world.
I don’t have any tears left in me from earlier, but if I did, I’m sure they’d fall. Instead, I let my legs wobble, my head fall, and my chest collapse. She rubs my head, strokes my arms, whispers that I’m safe, that I’m okay, that she’s got me.
When I pull back, she searches my eyes. “Let’s go inside, okay? I’ll make some tea.”
My lips are trembling too hard to form any words. I nod instead and am grateful when she holds my hand the entire way, like she knows that right now, I don’t have the strength to carry myself on my own.
After I take all my gear off at the entry, Colby wordlessly wraps me in a blanket, tosses another log on the fire, and pats the couch for me to sit.
A bear. A fucking bear. I cannot believe that happened.
Did that actually just happen? Did I make it up in my head?
I swear it’s like I watched a movie of it happening to someone else, although my shakes confirm that it did, in fact, happen to me.
Over the sound of cabinets opening, and water filling a tea kettle, my pulse slowly stops thundering in my veins. Yep, that really all just happened. My walk, the beginning of me letting go of the pain from my father, the bear, and Colby.
My God, Colby. The image of the way she looked racing in to rescue me will never leave me. I hope. God, she’s beautiful. Her typically kind, gentle face flushed with determination, her eyes fiercely narrowed, the gun strapped to her like some action hero, ready to defend, ready to save.
I’ve never thought of myself as a damsel who needs saving.
Never once. But holy shit, I dare anyone in the world to be in a situation like that, have a phenomenally hot woman slide in like some professional snowmobile NASCAR driver, pull you away from danger, and not have all sorts of tantalizing thoughts rush through you.
A few minutes later, footsteps sound behind me, and I glance over my shoulder.
“Here.” Colby hands me a mug and slides onto the couch. “You doing a little better?”
I’m doing both the best and worst of my life right now, and my brain is exhausted.
Not that I was facing death, not really anyway, but right now, I’m filled with so much gratitude and I don’t know where to channel the energy.
“Yes, thank you.” And just when I thought they were done, a few surprising tears trickle down.
I swipe the annoying liquid from my face, irritated the adrenaline letdown is coming out through my eyes. “God, this is so embarrassing.”
“What, crying?”
“Yes, no, I don’t know.” I blow into the mug and take a tentative sip. “Crying. Having you rescue me, yet again. I swear you must think I’m totally helpless.”
“No, I actually don’t.” Colby dunks her tea bag in the mug and sips. “Can we talk about who’s rescuing who here? You saved my ass at the clinic, you saved me out here with Kona…”
This gives me more relief than I probably deserve. I give her a soft smile and focus on the flickering flames. The chill has finally left my body, and my limbs have stopped trembling, but I replay the moment on a loop. “Were you going to shoot the bear?”
Colby shakes her head. “No. I mean, that wasn’t the plan. I should have brought my bear spray, I just kind of panicked in the moment. I was going to do a warning shot and hope it ran away.”
An exhale releases. “Good.” Sure, I didn’t want to be bear food, but technically, the animal was in its home, and I was the intruder. It didn’t deserve to die. “My God, that bear was beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It really was,” Colby says with a grin. “And big.”
“Holy shit, so freaking big.” The tea is finally cool enough for me to wrap my palms around the mug. I take another sip of the warm cinnamon, and the heat trails down my throat. “How did you know I was in trouble?”
Colby reaches down and pets Kona’s fur. “Actually, Kona started barking like crazy. I don’t even know how she knew, but I swear she’s the most intuitive dog on the planet. So, I checked the security camera, and well, there it was.”
“Has that ever happened to you before?”
Colby shakes her head. “I mean, I’ve seen them on the camera feed, only maybe once or twice over the years. It’s pretty rare. I’m sure it was terrifying for you. It was for me, and I was just a bystander. But my God, kind of incredible, right? Such majestic creatures.”
I nod and look back at the fire. Yes, it really was.
But you know what else is incredible? This.
Sitting here, with this beautiful woman, my heart open, my body alive.
Colby presses her pretty mouth onto the mug again as she stares into the fireplace.
The flame flickers in her eyes, highlighting that beautiful amber, and Christ, I want to kiss her so bad.
Yes, rescue syndrome a little bit, sure.
But for so many more reasons than that. It doesn’t feel like a pattern that I’m falling into this time.
It’s because she’s a good person. It’s because she thinks of others first, and not herself, and I’m going to say it…
it’s also because she’s hot as hell. Seriously.
I shift in my seat and push away all of the heat that’s seeping into my bones and settling on my center.
After the tea is finished, Colby rises and grabs the mugs. “Do you need anything?”
Is there seriously a more selfless person in existence?
“You know…” I say, lifting my brow, trying to push away the tingles that are threatening to totally invade me. “I’d really love to try out the hot tub now.”
A long moment passes. So long that I am not sure if I said something wrong. I glance at Colby and study her face. And absolutely cannot decode the look she gives me back.