Page 30 of Handcuffed to the Bear

“And the downside?”

“It’ll be cold. In the sunshine, as long as we keep moving around, we can avoid hypothermia. Rain and wind could be a lethal combination.”

“Ray of sunshine,” she muttered, but her heart wasn’t in it. She liked that he was willing to be honest with her about their situation.

“Hey. Careful.” Jack pulled her to one side. She wasn’t sure what the danger was—the ground looked comparatively clear—until he pointed up into the tree she’d been about to walk under.

“What am I looking for?”

“Yellowjackets. Big wasps. I can hear ‘em. See a nest up there anywhere?”

She leaned forward. Now that he mentioned it, the whole tree was humming faintly. “What does it look like?”

“Gray. Round.”

She glimpsed it finally, a globe halfway up the tree, and pointed it out to Jack. “Are they vicious?”

“Not if you don’t bother them. Leave them alone, they’ll leave you alone. But you really don’t want to go messing with them. Especially naked,” he added.

“Too bad we can’t drop it on the Fallons.”

“Hmmm.” Jack looked interested. “The tricky thing would be luring them in.”

“I’d rather not get that close to a lion ever again.” She gave him an assessing look. Although scratched and dirty, he didn’t seem quite as pale as he had been. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m all right,” Jack said. “Shifter healing, you know.”

She did know, but she also suspected her accelerated healing was the reason why she was suddenly so hungry, as her body worked at double-speed to repair its damage. Jack must be starving.

Still, he didn’t say anything about it, so neither did she. They kept moving.

They were high enough now that, through gaps in the trees, she could see the beaver lakes in the other valley strung out like beads on a necklace. Jack was right—the little valleys with their attendant streams radiated down from the hills. Or mountains, really, not a match for the higher Cascades, but still pretty respectable in size.

“How rich do you have to be, to buy an island this big?” she marveled.

“And then use it for hunting folks,” Jack remarked dryly.

“Seriously! You could build a resort and make a bucketload off tourists, or?—”

A tawny flash in a clearing below them made her freeze in a moment’s panic, clutching Jack’s hand tighter. But then the animal emerged all the way and she could see it was only a deer. Head upraised, it scented the wind and then began delicately nibbling at a bush.

“Something?” Jack asked quietly.

“Deer. That’s all.” She sighed. “I wish we could catch it somehow. I’m hungry enough it looks tasty.”

“If we weren’t cuffed together, you’d be able to hunt.”

“So would you,” she pointed out. “Maybe getting the handcuffs off should be a bigger priority.”

“I meant to look for something to pick them,” Jack said. “A twig isn’t going to cut it, though. This is where finding an old hunter’s cabin or something would come in real handy.” He frowned. “Come to think of it, there must be some kind of accommodations somewhere on the island.”

“Why?”

“Well, think about it. The Fallons come up here regularly. My guess would be it’s not just for this kind of thing, but also to hunt deer and other animals. You’re a predator shifter too; you understand that sometimes your prey instincts need to be let out to play.”

She nodded. “But if they come here to hang out as lions, what makes you think they’d have anything to accommodate their human bodies?”

“Don’t you think so? For one thing, they have to get here somehow. So at the very least, there’s a helipad or a dock somewhere around. And sure, they could go back to civilization stinking and filthy and covered with blood, but that’s not terribly likely for a bunch of rich guys, don’t you think?”

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