Page 73 of Handcuffed to the Bear

Maybe there was something broken in her, something that no amount of therapy could ever fix. Other people couldn’t connect to her because she wouldn’t,couldn’t, reach out to them.

She stared at herself in the mirror. Other people’s faces had smile lines. Hers didn’t. Her heavy brows made it look like she was frowning even when her face was neutral, like now.

When she a teenager, people used to say to her,Cheer up, Casey!andWhat’s wrong? Are you okay?

I’m fine,she’d say in response, baffled. She’d never been able to understand why other people went around smiling for no reason. She liked to smile, but only when she had something to smile about.

Maybe other people have things to smile about all the time.She thought of Dr. Lafitte’s warm and ready smile, of Cho’s friendly and inviting grin.

But Jack wasn’t like that. Jack didn’t smile all the time, either. His smilemeantsomething. When he’d smiled at her on the island, it had felt like she’d won a prize.

And then he’d just left, without saying goodbye ...

Stop it,she told her reflection firmly. The eyes looking back into her own had begun to glitter with the beginnings of tears. That would never do.

Stop pining like a lovelorn teenager. Jack’s gone back to his life, and you’re going back to yours ...

What life, though? She hesitated in dismay. She hadn’t even thought about that. What would happen to the company, with all its founders and major stockholders in prison? Probably it would be broken up and sold to its creditors. She was almost certainly unemployed.

The blows just kept coming.

You are a McClaren,Casey, she thought firmly. And, even more importantly, a Balam—the last name of her mother, that brave jaguar shifter who had crossed the Mexican border alone as a teenager, coming up from somewhere in central America. That side of Casey’s heritage was hidden, now, beneath her white father’s surname and a first name that her mother must have believed would help her fit in. She’d learned no more than a few words of either Spanish or her mother’s native Mayan tongue, at least very little that she remembered now, after being raised by her father’s mother in Portland.

But thinking of her undauntable mother and grandmother gave her the courage to tilt her chin up and march—well, okay, limp very carefully, hanging onto her crutches—back out into her empty hospital room.

.... which turned out not to be empty at all. Avery was in the chair by the bed, reading a newspaper, the cane leaning against his leg.

He was so impossibly quiet. It went beyond mere physical quiet and into a sort of psychic stillness, like he barely made ripples in the world around him. Jack had that kind of still quality about him too, she couldn’t help thinking. There was something about it that she found very peaceful to be around.

Stop thinking about Jack Ross, Casey. Right now.

Avery folded the paper with a snap, looked up and smiled at her.

He’s another one,she thought suddenly, a bit startled. She could tell, she wasn’t quite sure how, that Avery was not a person who smiled a lot, normally. But he seemed to smile at her quite a bit.

What does that mean?

“Ready to get out of here?” he asked her, and she realized she’d been too busy puzzling over it to remember to smile back at him. And now she was puzzled all over again.

“Why are you still here?” Mental backpedal. “Wait, I don’t mean to be rude. I’m just confused.”

“Understandable. I figured I’d drive you home. Thought you might prefer that to taking a taxi. We don’t have any reason to think you’re still in danger,” he added. “Your place has been checked out and there’s no sign anyone’s been around to bother you, and the Fallons are all in custody. Still, an SCB escort home from the hospital couldn’t hurt.”

She wished he hadn’t brought upthatthought. Would she always have to keep looking over her shoulder, fearing the worst?

One day at a time,she told herself.

She filled out the discharge and insurance paperwork, crossing her fingers against the hope that her insurance would endure past the loss of her job. Then she crutched out of the clinic to Avery’s car. It turned out to be a little gas-electric hybrid.

“Jack makes fun of me for this thing,” Avery remarked, putting his cane in the back. He held out his hand for her crutches and helped her stow them. “Which is hilarious coming from a man who drives something that’s basically a land boat, with gas mileage to match.”

“This seems very environmentally sensible,” she said.

“Thankyou! Finally, someone with a social conscience.”

As the small car pulled smoothly, and almost noiselessly, away from the curb, Casey looked up at the eggshell-blue sky and couldn’t hold onto her gloom. It was one of those strikingly beautiful sunny days that Seattle summers were locally famous for (our most closely guarded secret,Wendy used to say;don’t let them know or they’ll all want to live here).

And suddenly she wanted to do something to celebrate, even if it was only a little thing. Alcohol was off the table, contraindicated for the assorted painkillers and antibiotics that Dr. Lafitte, by way of the clinic’s tiny pharmacy, had loaded her up with. But this was, after all, Seattle ...

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