8. Doreen
DOREEN
The rain started coming down in earnest just as Doreen got to her room, and poured all evening, along with intermittent wind. At least she was able to change into some of her own clothes before shamefacedly looking for Hester to explain that she needed to use the lodge’s laundry because she had fallen in a beaver pond.
“Oh, you found the ponds,” Hester said happily. “Yes, that’s no problem, I’ll throw it in right away. Did you—er—avoid the private property in the area?”
“I did trespass a little without meaning to,” Doreen admitted. “But that turned out all right. I had a nice, um, conversation with Wick.”
She hadn’t realized anything showed on her face, but something must have, because Hester was smiling.
“He talked to you! He must really like you.”
“We had lunch,” Doreen said, hoping her cheeks weren’t as pink as they felt. “And I invited him to breakfast at the lodge tomorrow. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, of course not. We’d be happy to have him.” Hester looked toward the window, where gray rain fell steadily. “I’m sorry you’re having such terrible weather for your stay. It is kind of par for the course in the fall, though.”
“I don’t mind at all,” Doreen said in perfect honesty. “After a day of hiking, I’m looking forward to soaking my blisters and reading a book this evening.”
Sinking once more into the huge jacuzzi tub, Doreen soaked luxuriously until she was a prune. She couldn’t help thinking, from time to time, that it would have been nice to have someone else in the tub with her. Since she had already seen Wick naked, she didn’t even have to wonder about things like how far down the dark curls peeking through the gap in his half-unbuttoned shirt went.
Mate ? she thought, rolling the word around in her mind.
It was something that she only half believed in. Her parents were obviously soulmates, and never had stopped embarrassing their children by talking about how it was instant love at first sight. Certainly she had felt something with Wick, an immediate and almost overwhelming attraction. She was fairly sure he felt something back, but he was so closed off that it was hard to tell.
Her badger was unhelpful. It had never spoken to her in words, like some people’s inner animal apparently did. All she got was feelings and impressions.
Mate , she thought, trailing her hand through the warm water above her bare thigh.
Mates were more than just attraction. It was instantly knowing that this was the person you were meant to be with for all time. And she wasn’t sure if she did feel that, to be perfectly honest with herself. It was like trying to imagine the color red, or sunshine, if you had never experienced it. What would it even feel like? Was this feeling—this intense curiosity about Wick, this urge to run her hands over his strong, muscular body—the thing that everyone talked about? Or was it something else?
Forever, or just a weekend fling?
“You know what?” she said out loud, hauling herself out of the tub with water sheeting off her skin. “I don’t care. Let’s say it’s just a weekend fling. If so, I’m sure it’ll be one I’ll look back on happily for many years.”
But she hoped it was more.
She lay on the big pink-and-white bed and read her book, but as rain lashed the windows, she had to keep putting her book down to think about Wick in his cabin, looking out at the same rain.
She wished she had stayed.
Morning didn’t bring the same glorious sunshine as the previous day, but at least it was no longer raining. The rain had stopped at some point in the night, and gloomy clouds hung over the lodge, with mist almost all the way down to the ground. The pines across the parking area looked soft and painterly.
Doreen had enjoyed lying on the bed and reading with rain sheeting down, but she was aching for some nice weather to go out in. And if the steep, muddy logging roads were too bad, there was a chance that Wick wouldn’t come at all.
But he did. The rumble of the log truck’s engine vibrated through Doreen’s chest as she sat in the lobby’s lounge area, enjoying a warm fire and drinking some of Hester’s excellent coffee. Doreen leaped to her feet and was there to receive Wick as he came in, wearing a loose rain jacket in military camo colors. His face lit on seeing her, green eyes bright.
“Did you have any trouble?” Doreen asked.
“Not really. Road’s kind of slippery, but it’s only a real problem when the rain’s coming down in buckets, or when it’s been raining so much that everything turns to sticky soup.”
“Well, I hope you’re hungry. Hester sounded delighted to have another guest for breakfast, and something smells great in there.” Doreen led the way, because otherwise she was going to give in to her urge to run her hand down Wick’s arm, or touch the soft skin between his collarbones. “I’ve been eating in the kitchen with Hester and Mauro, since I’m their only guest.”
Wick looked around curiously. She supposed he hadn’t been in the lodge kitchen before; there was no reason for him to be. It had all the usual industrial kitchen appliances, a huge freezer and stainless steel counters, but if you went through that part, there was a marble-topped kitchen island and a pleasant little area where Doreen supposed the lodge employees normally ate. It had been drenched in clear autumn sunshine on her first morning at the lodge. Today was gray and dim, with the lamps lit. But Hester bustled around happily, flipping bacon and sticking slices of toast into a large brushed-steel toaster.
“Hi, Wick,” Hester said cheerfully. “I’m glad you came. It’s probably high time we invited you to breakfast anyway. Just sit down wherever you like, both of you. Mauro’s out doing a bit of work with a clogged gutter, and then he’ll be in to join us. We’ve got orange juice, milk, or coffee, whatever you like.”
Wick accepted a cup of coffee and took a seat at the kitchen island, leaving Doreen with the dilemma of whether to sit across from him, which would make talking easier, or beside him with all the potential elbow-brushing that entailed. She opted for sitting across from him, since she wasn’t sure if they could have a comfortable conversation side by side. And there was still the potential for hands to brush as butter or toast was passed around.
Despite the gloom outside, it was a pleasant meal. Doreen found it very easy to relax around Hester and Mauro, as if she had known them for a lot longer than just a couple of days. Wick started out nervous, fiddling with his tableware and holding his coffee cup in his off hand as if to give him something to do with it. But he relaxed too, and by the end, he was smiling and telling them light stories about his tree-cutting work.
“Speaking of which,” Wick said to Doreen, “I was wondering if you could show me where you saw that downed tree across the trail. I have a chainsaw in the truck, and I’d like to get it cleared out before snow flies.”
“Sure, but is it likely to snow soon?”
Mauro smiled. “Just look at the tops of the mountains when the clouds lift. It’s closer than you think.”
The mist had cleared and some small blue patches were showing in the sky by the time they finished lingering over their after-breakfast coffee. Doreen helped Hester load the industrial sized dishwasher, and then Hester ran off to fetch Doreen a rain slicker from her own closet in case they hit another squall while they were out on the trails. Doreen’s jacket was still damp from the previous day’s soaking, as well as not especially waterproof. Doreen pulled on the slicker while Wick got the chainsaw from behind the truck seat.
Slinging it casually on his shoulder, he drawled, “Okay, let’s see if we can find your tree.”
“I hope you’re not going to be disappointed if we don’t. I was just wandering without a destination in mind, seeing the sights.”
Wick was wearing his easy smile again, and Doreen wondered if it was merely her imagination that he seemed to have gone from someone who almost never smiled, to smiling a lot around her. “No worries if we don’t. It’s a nice day.”
Doreen privately felt that this was something only a beaver shifter would say. Water was dripping off the foliage all around them, a subtle chorus of fine plinking sounds, and her shoes and the cuffs of her jeans were already wet.
But the day continued to grow nicer. The blue patches expanded, the clouds breaking up, and soon shafts of sunlight gleamed between the trees. As the clouds separated and lifted, Doreen saw what Mauro had been talking about. There was a lot more snow on the mountaintops, less of a dusting and more of a thorough sugar-powdering. It covered the rocky upper slopes and came low enough to have sprinkled the highest reaches of the pine and spruce forest.
“Wow. We really are going to have snow here soon.”
“It does come early in the mountains,” Wick agreed, switching the chainsaw to his other shoulder with an easy movement. “But we can also get stretches of warm weather going into November. You just never know. It’s looking like an early, cold winter this year, I’d say.”
In spite of Doreen’s concerns about not being able to find the fallen log again, they came upon it much sooner that she was expecting. Or perhaps it was a different log, but it was a good-sized one. Something had killed it before it fell, she could see; the branches were bare of needles, and the trunk had splintered at the base, as if completely dried out.
“Beetle kill,” Wick confirmed. “We won’t try to carry out the wood, but we can stack it so Mauro can pick it up with an ATV and trailer when he has a chance.”
He started up the chainsaw. It was loud, and Doreen, covering her ears with her hands, stood well back as he made short work of slicing the log into fat chunks. Then, working together, they stacked the wood beside the trail. It was pleasant work, with the smell of cut pine hanging fragrantly in the air.
After they finished, they both were quiet for a moment, enjoying the fresh morning and inhaling the crisp fall air. The weather was still waffling over whether clouds or sun would dominate; there was sunlight off in the colorful autumn woods, gleaming among the rust and gold leaves, but it was cloudy where they stood. Even as Doreen was thinking this, the clouds over them scudded on, driven by a fast wind, and sun lit up the glade around them.
“Oh, it’s gorgeous here,” she breathed out.
She could stay, if she wanted to. The heady awareness hit her again. She had no job to go back to, only a small apartment she wouldn’t miss. A trip down the mountain to collect her things, and?—
And then what? Talk Hester and Mauro into letting her stay all winter? Move into Wick’s cabin?
Her dreams collapsed under the weight of their impracticality, and she turned to Wick with a smile on her lips, meaning to tell him how silly she had been.
But just as easily her fantasies had collapsed like a pricked balloon, her mood of self-deprecating humor vanished when she saw the way Wick was looking at her.
It was warmth and heat and need, all at once.
He reached out a cautious hand and brushed her chin with his fingertips. She was about his height, maybe a couple of inches shorter, so there was little need to tip her head back, or for him to bend.
Their mouths met.
Heat pulsed through her. She was no stranger to kissing, though it had been a long while; not many men were secure enough to date a woman taller and stronger than they were, with a personal tool collection to rival some small garages. But she had never experienced anything like this.
Her nerve endings lit on fire, and the glorious color of the fall day went away, everything went away; the only thing real was the heat of Wick’s mouth, as if her entire being pivoted around him like a fulcrum.