Page 19 of Claimed by Her Polar Bears

Chapter Seven

Jenni

Jenni barely understood what Ty was whispering to her so urgently. Something about a rescue. had to go. She should stay here, keep the fire burning and not go outside until they returned. It was still storming, and they hated to leave her alone.

He’d said something about working on the mountain, must be search and rescue. They had rushed out so quickly she hadn’t had a chance to ask for details, but when someone was in danger, chatting wasn’t a first priority.

Stretching, she stood and found one of their shirts. She had her luggage around here somewhere, but the white tee fit her like a nightshirt and smelled amazing, like deep-green forest meets sexy male. Their voices faded, and the door slammed behind them as she arrived in the great room. How long would they be gone? These things took days in the movies. She hoped whoever was in trouble could hang on until they got there.

She moved toward the kitchen, planning on the world’s hugest cup of coffee, but something outside the window caught her eye, and she scooted over there. A big white blur disappeared into the trees at the edge of the clearing. What was it? Some kind of animal, but what was big, bulky, and white around here? Ty stood nearby…naked! In the snow! What the heck? As she started to turn for the door, the most astonishing thing happened.

His edges blurred. And he seemed to shrink into himself, dropping to the snow-piled ground, becoming smaller then something big rose. And fluffy. And white. Another one of those monsters like the one that had disappeared into the trees…or maybe the same one. He’d hurt Ty! She raced out into the yard in only the T-shirt and with her feet bare, with no care for herself. The big thing—could it be a bear?—lumbered into the forest, picking up speed as it went while she raced toward the spot where Ty fell. Where was Clark?

Had it harmed them both? It looked like a polar bear, but had climate change driven them to California? No…they liked, cold so if it got warmer, wouldn’t they have retreated even farther to the north? They had to have escaped from somewhere.

She found the trampled snow and, glancing back toward the cabin, determined that it was about where she’d seen Ty fall, but there was nothing else. Nobody. Not a drop of blood or a hair from his head remained. Logic told her that even if the polar bear had taken him down, it, and even if it was into eating people, it didn’t have time to do that before heading out.

And it would have left a—she gulped—a mess.

What the hell was going on?

Panicked, and shivering, her feet burning from the cold, she retreated to the house and stood by the fire. Her mind raced in circles, unable to find anything to hold onto. They’d gone out to work for a while, to help in some sort of emergency. They should have taken the truck, right? Or maybe they had snowmobiles in the shed out there?

Heading for the bedroom, she bundled up in all of her clothes and some of theirs. With her reddened feet safe in UGGs, she stumbled outside again and worked her way to the shed she’d noticed at the edge of the clearing. The lack of footprints along the way made it very clear nobody had been over there, at least today, but she continued on, for lack of anything better to do. The door was unlocked, so she opened it and went inside.

Two big snow machines sat in the center of the barnwood building. In fact, from the stalls on the sides and some ancient rusted farm implements hanging on the walls, she thought it might have been a barn at one time. The stalls were filled with solar panels and other equipment, though, instead of livestock. But the snow machines took up most of the center of the floor, leaving no room for another, and she hadn’t seen any other buildings, except the open-sided carport where they’d left the truck. Which was also not missing. They were on foot.

So the problem must be near, right? Jenni decided to see if she could find them and trudged through the snow again to the spot where Ty had gone down. Her eyes flicked from the smashed-down snow to the forest and back. No footprints here, either. Well, no human footprints.

Great bear paw prints she saw in plenty. Jenni started in the direction they led, stepping where the bear or bears had, finding it easier than making her own openings in the thigh-high snow. But by the time she reached the first trees, she’d realized two things. One, she was completely unequipped for trudging off into the wild to perform search and rescue. Unless they needed plane reservations, she’d only be a liability. Lost and probably dead by dusk. And two, polar bears were dangerous. They certainly seemed so in wildlife documentaries. With no sign of blood or any body parts, she had no proof the men had been hurt in any way. And she couldn’t make herself one more victim they had to rescue. They were used to the wilderness.

She felt completely helpless.

Trudging back into the warm cabin, she tried to come up with a plan. The snow machines could be helpful, if she knew how to drive them, where to drive them, or…once again…how not to make herself a bigger problem than a help.

The truck she could drive but where to? The snow hadn’t let up enough to make that skinny, snaky, switchback road possible to navigate. They’d said something about a family member with a plow but he probably wouldn’t be by until the storm stopped. Would he?

Heck, what did she know about wilderness snowstorms? She’d been raised in one city, started her career in another, then moved to a third.Think, Jenny!

Then she shook her head. What did a person do in an emergency? In the city, they called 9-1-1. They would most likely do the same here, wouldn’t they? Someone was going to think she was nuts when she reported a polar bear or two, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was saving her men’s lives.

Her men?

Damn right, her men.

They’d have to throw her out on her ass to get rid of her after this. For just a second, she froze, thinking they might, but she’d deal with that later. Sure, Clark said stay forever. She’d have to see if he meant it.

After she saved them from polar bears.

Giving her arm a sharp pinch, she jumped. Okay, not a dream. Because the whole weekend so far had an air of unreality.

Call for help. Jenni stumbled on feet only now recovering sensation even in the lambskin-lined boots and found her purse on a table by the door. Fishing out her phone, she jerked back when it rang.

The caller ID showed the one person she’d want to talk to besides a 9-1-1 dispatcher. “Matilda, Oh my god. I have to call you back. The guys are out there in the wilderness and there are polar bears. I have to call emergency and get someone out here to save them before they are eaten alive. Matilda, I love them, and we had sex. I have to tell you all about it later. It was awesome. But now I have to hang up and—”

“Jenni?”

“I have to get help.” Her voice cracked, her hands trembled, and she ran over to peer out the window. “What if they killed them? I just found them! They can’t be dead.”

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