Page 58 of Coveted By the Bear

Sam Burns? He was a lawyer who could get me in touch with people. Maybe he could get me into some program where they would give me a secret identity and I could hide in some foreign country for the rest of my life. I thought about my timeline and clenched my teeth together. Sam Burns didn’t know anything about my case, and I didn’t have time to catch him up. I had succeeded in convincing exactly zero people to believe me about my stepfather when he’d killed my mom. I doubted heavily that Sam Burns would be my first.

My truck blew through town before I even fully registered where I intended to go. In quiet desperation, I sought the only safety I’d ever known.

****

Caleb

One week. I had one more week before I’d be working on the big rig and out of this tired little town. I liked my home, but being so close to Mira was suffocating me. I didn’t have it in me to watch her move on.

“Ho!” Brian yelled over the clanking machinery below.

I dragged my thoughts back to the present and set my clipboard down. Sparing a testy glare for my brother, I yelled, “What?”

Brian jerked his head toward the parking lot. “Visitor,” he clipped out before he turned to help haul up another length of pipe.

I had received a visitor exactly one time at work, and that had been the day my mother passed.

I squinted down the stairs but couldn’t see past the gleaming metal of the machinery that ran the rig.

“No personal shit at work, McCreedy,” Mr. Wilson warned around a toothpick that hung precariously out of the corner of his downturned mouth.

“Yep. Two minutes.” I handed him the clipboard and ducked down the stairs that led to the parking lot.

I spotted her green truck first, and my pulse picked up. I was mad at her but couldn’t seem to tell that to my heart. It stuttered at the prospect of seeing her. She fidgeted at the bottom of the stairs, her eyes dashing around with all of the paranoia of a frightened animal.

“Why are you here?” I asked before she had even seen me.

Mira jumped, every muscle in her body seeming to spasm with the start. “Caleb,” she breathed.

I didn’t answer. She’d gutted me, ripped me in two, and now she was here to what? Finish me off? I crossed my arms and waited.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay, I know I’m the last person you want to see right now but I need help, and I don’t know who else to ask.” The words tumbled from her lips like a boulder gaining momentum down the side of a towering mountain.

I grabbed her arm and pulled her toward her truck, away from the noise of the rig. Something had frightened Mira, and a lump settled in my gut. She wouldn’t admit to needing my help if it wasn’t something urgent. Her fear stirred up a really bad feeling and kicked up my animal. I hadn’t changed in a week, trying to avoid the urge to hunt for her like I always did, but this was about to send me over the edge. “What happened?”

She took a deep, steadying breath, but a sob broke out of her. “He’s out. I got home and found a letter from the lawyers in my mailbox, and now he’s going to come get me. He’s going to kill me!”

Nothing she said made sense. “Who’s going to kill you?”

“My stepdad. Angus French.”

I opened my mouth to speak but an ear-splitting whistle interrupted me. It was Evan, waving with annoyed gestures for me to get back to work. I sighed heavily. “Look, I can’t do this right now. I have three more hours until my shift is done.”

“You don’t believe me,” she said, with the most hurt expression I’d ever seen on another human being. She whirled around and jerked open the door of her truck to escape me.

I caught the door before it opened halfway and gripped the frame until my knuckles hurt from the strain. “Didn’t say I don’t believe you, Mira. Just that I can’t deal with this until after I get off. Somebody could get hurt up there if we’re shorthanded. Pull your truck up closer to the rig. Lock the doors and wait for me. You see so much as a horned toad move, you flag someone down.”

Her face was so open. I could see every emotion in her eyes and, dammit, I wanted to hug her tight and reassure her I’d die before I let anything happen to her.

“We’ll talk about this when I’m done.” I turned to leave but the flash of fear in her eyes tore at everything in me and made me stop. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

Mira let out a long, shaky breath and the corner of her mouth turned up in the barest ghost of a smile. “I know.”

How was I supposed to work after that? Any effort to stay in the here and now was thwarted by thoughts of Mira. Of the way her lips looked when she admitted she needed me. Of the way the wind lifted her hair as it brushed across her back, the dusty southern sky a backdrop to her silhouette.

And then there were the three thousand questions running through my mind about the utterly disturbing information she had given me that threatened to shut down all of my mental facilities. Every instinct in my body screamed to protect her. Even the short physical distance away from her felt like a canyon.

Three hours stretched on forever.