Page 48 of Handcuffed to the Bear

But none of that mattered unless they got out alive.

Let the future take care of itself, Jack. It’s not like making plans makes any difference in the long run anyway.

Casey leaned into him and rested her head wearily against his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her and held on tight, as if he could hold her here, could hold them both in this moment, forever.

Outside the cave, the rain was slackening. They would have to move soon. He didn’t want to. He wanted to stay here, resting against Casey, forever. As if he could hold off the ending that he knew had to come.

He was finally almost warm.

“Wish I had the energy to do more than kiss you right now,” Casey murmured against his shoulder.

“Me too. Rain check?”

“Rain check,” she whispered, and brushed over his tattoo with her lips.

And even as he smiled against her hair, he wondered what the odds were that she’d actually come back to claim it.

You’ll see when we get back to the city, Casey. You’ll put this behind you, get whatever therapy you need to deal with all of it, and find a new job in an office somewhere. You don’t fit in my world of violence and guns, hard choices and harder men.

You’ll see.

He looked up to discover that the sun had broken from behind the clouds. Rain still fell lightly, each drop glimmering like a jewel backlit by the sun, but the storm was breaking up.

“We gotta move,” he said, sitting up.

Casey reluctantly disentangled herself, brushing moss out of her hair. Jack sat up stiffly. Everything hurt, but the physical pain, he could deal with.

Not all of it was physical.

The important thing is getting out of here,he told himself.What comes after that will come. Nothing you can do about it.

CHAPTER14

Casey waitedwhile Jack peered out of the cave. Then he nodded to her. “It’s clear. C’mon.”

They stepped out into a world washed clean. The sun winked at them through towering cliffs of clouds, and all around them, the entire mountainside glittered. All the little gullies and ravines were full of water; puddles gleamed atop every rock and on every spot of flat ground. From every tuft of moss, on each leaf of every small alpine plant, a bead of water hung like a little diamond. The air smelled fresh and wet.

“We shouldn’t have waited so long. The rain was the biggest advantage we had.” Jack sounded angry, but at himself, Casey hoped, not at her.

“We had to rest. We couldn’t have gone on like we were.”

In his human form, the extent of his injuries was shockingly visible. He’d been torn up on both arms, across his chest, down his sides. There were deep bite marks on one of his legs.

He still moved with the supple grace that was one of the first things she’d noticed about him, though. When he turned to look down the mountain, her eyes were drawn to the smooth play of the muscles on his back.

And, as tired as she was, her body responded to him. She could still feel the lingering heat of his lips on hers. God, in the cave, how she’dwanted—But, no. He was too badly hurt. They were in too much danger to let go and stop paying attention to their surroundings.

Yet.

Rain check,she thought, and ran the tip of her tongue over her lips, tasting him.

Most of the island was gone below them, lost in a wall of clouds that made her feel like she was standing on a much higher mountain. They were both already shivering in the clinging chill of the mist. Elsewhere on the mountain chain, dark walls of rain still obscured Casey’s view—localized now, though, to isolated downpours. The bulk of the storm had passed over, and blue sky was visible in the oceanward direction.

Looking up the mountainside, Casey was surprised to realize they were almost at the top. “Should we see what’s on the other side of the mountain?”

“We’d better.”

The rocks were slippery, the wind wet and cold, so they both shifted by unspoken consent. Casey breathed deeply with relief at slipping back into her warm lynx fur, leaving the shivering human body behind.

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