Page 12 of Handcuffed to the Bear

He glanced frequently at their backtrail, but could only see blurry trees. Anyway, he believed Casey when she said she hadn’t smelled lion. He knew how sharp a shifter’s senses were in their animal body. The lions weren’t close ... yet.

But they would be coming.

It was, unfortunately, also much harder to ignore their mutual nudity by daylight. Not that he was trying to look. He was, in fact, tryingnotto look. But Casey was an ample young woman, and her breasts in particular jiggled distractingly with every step she took. This made him unusually self-conscious about his own exposed state.

On the bright side, they were both getting better at pacing themselves to each other. The problem wasn’t that Casey was slow. In fact, he was impressed at how well she was keeping up. But it was awkward trying to move as a unit. And, worse, her presence kept him from being able to move freely without needing to keep the length of the handcuff chain in mind. Just having her there was a constant distraction, nagging at his mind, keeping him from being able to engage the single-minded focus that he normally used in a survival and evasion situation.

Like climbing the tree. It would have worked fine if he’d been on his own. But it had been stupid even to suggest it. He’d only made Casey feel bad about not being able to do it herself.

Avery’s exasperated voice echoed in his head:We all know you’re the ultimate badass, but you have to take your team’s limitations into account as well as your own, Jack.

The incident that had prompted Avery’s reminder, that time, was nothing more serious than a department paintball game. Jack had been deep in his own survival-evasion headspace, took out every one of his opponents, and then discovered that most of his team had been hit while he was off being a paintball commando.

The mood at the usual post-game drinking session was jubilant, with teammates buying him drinks all evening. But between rounds, Avery had taken him aside at the bar.

“If this was a real op, most of us would be dead, Jack.”

“It’s a game, man.” Jack slapped his friend on the back.

“Yeah, but you know we play this kind of game to practice for the real thing, right?”

Some of Jack’s cheerful mood drained away. “Avery, I’ve got your back. All of you. You know that.”

“I know you want to.” Avery looked down, idly making rings on the bar top with the wet bottom of his beer. “You’re a damn good agent, Jack. You’ve helped a lot of people. I’m not trying to downplay that. But there’s times to run off and cowboy through the opposition, and there’s times to hang back and take care of your team.”

It wasn’t the only time Avery had said something like that to him. Jack wasn’t a team player. He knew it. They both knew it. His strength lay in solo ops, in undercover work and anything else that allowed him to operate on his own, far from backup or help.

He glanced back at Casey, doggedly following him with her cuffed arm held forward at an awkward angle so the cuffs didn’t rake both their wrists at every step. Her dark hair was a tangled mess around her heart-shaped face, her lips compressed into a thin line as she concentrated on keeping up and not missing her footing.

You can’t forget your teammate now, can you, Jack?His inner voice still sounded like Avery, a little.At every step, you have to think of her. Every plan you make has to take her into account. Youcan’tleave her behind because she’s physically attached to you.

By daylight he could see that her legs were scratched and bruised. One of her toenails was clotted with dried blood. She hadn’t said anything.

Her courage made him suddenly ashamed.

Casey raised her head from careful consideration of where to place her feet. Her dark brows drew together. “What?”

“Nothing. We’re almost to the top, that’s all.”

* * *

They emerged from the trees after what seemed like an eternity of climbing. Up here on the ridge, the vegetation dwindled to shrubs and small, wind-stunted conifers. Their low, gnarled forms suggested high winds were a possibility, but right now, the air was calm. The early morning sun warmed their chilled bodies.

Casey whistled. “Look, it’s the ocean! We really are on an island.”

Frustratingly, all Jack could see was a green mass below them, blurring indistinguishably into blue in the distance. “Can you describe it to me?”

“Huh?” she said.

“This is a little awkward, but I’m going to need you to tell me what you see.”

“Why?” she asked, giving him a worried look. “You’re not blind, are you? If so, I hope you don’t mind me saying, but you’re really good at faking.”

Well, it wasn’t like he’d been trying to keep it a secret. “I’m nearsighted. Bear vision isn’t nearly as bad as popular myth would have it, but a lot of us still have some vision problems in both forms. It’s especially noticeable as a human because we use our eyes so much. Normally I wear glasses.”

Her mouth shaped a silentoh. “That’s not good,” she said after a brief pause. “You can see more than just blurs, right?”

“Yeah, at close range I can see fine. It’s distances where I have trouble.”

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