Holly’s Grizzly (Monster Relations Bureau #4)

2

Irving

Holly goes quiet and still in my arms, and alarm bells immediately start ringing.

Did she pass out?

She seemed… well, fine isn’t exactly the word I would use, but at least somewhat coherent when I picked her up. Drenched through, and absolutely at risk of exposure if she stayed out here much longer, but not in imminent danger.

“Holly,” I say, jostling her slightly. “Still with me?”

Instead of answering, she lets out a soft, disgruntled grunt, and it’s enough to loosen my tense muscles a bit as she settles herself back against my chest.

My naked chest.

Because if that isn’t just the bizarre cherry on top of this shit sundae of a situation—somehow, some way, ending up bare-ass naked out in the woods, saving a woman who by the looks of things crawled her way out of the river not long before I reached her.

But maybe it’s also a stroke of luck.

I run warmer than humans do, much warmer, and grizzly shifters even give most paranormals a run for their money in the internal temperature department. Holly’s still bundled in her soaking wet clothing—which we’ll have to take care of as soon as we get back to my cabin—but like this, she can at least partly take advantage of my body heat.

In my arms, a violent shiver wracks her frame.

I pull her closer and rub my hand up and down her bicep, like that would do anything to help at this point since she’s nearly soaked to the bone.

What the hell she’s doing out here so far from the trailhead, all alone, with no pack, and how in the world she ended up in the river is a complete mystery, but none of it really matters right now. All that matters is getting her somewhere safe, warm, out of the cold and out of these soaking clothes.

With that imperative pounding through me, I keep my attention on holding Holly steady and moving as quickly as I can through the woods, which are quickly filling up with snow.

We’re not far from my cabin, and that’s a damn good thing.

If it was any further, I might have been too far away to hear her scream. Grizzly shifters don’t have as sharp a sense of hearing as some other paranormals, but her cry of fear was unmistakable.

It hit me just as I was settling in to ride out the storm, and I was out the door and shifting before I fully thought it through. Someone was in trouble, I could help, and going to investigate in my grizzly form seemed at the time like a better idea than walking into whatever was happening in my much-less-durable human form.

We round a bend in the path, and my cabin comes into view. The lights shining from the windows must catch Holly’s attention, too, because she turns to look and lets out a little squeak of something I really, really hope is relief.

The last thing I want to do is scare her when she’s already in such tough shape, but I can’t imagine seeing a bear come stalking out of the woods toward her, and then having that bear turn into a large, unfamiliar man, could have been very comforting in her situation.

But there was no way in hell I was going to do anything but get her to safety, and now I just hope I wasn’t too late to prevent any serious hypothermia from setting in.

Pushing the door open, a wave of warmth from the furnace and the fire burning in the living room fireplace washes over us. I carry Holly to the middle of the room and set her on her feet, but her knees buckle immediately.

“Easy,” I say, keeping my voice low so I don’t startle her and bracing my hands under her elbows to haul her upright. “I’ve got you. Can you stand?”

She mumbles something that isn’t quite a response. Another shiver wracks her frame, and I think her legs are going to give out again, but she draws in a shaking breath and grasps my forearms, her grip surprisingly strong.

Briefly, I war with myself over whether I should go find my phone and call for help, try to get a helicopter up here or something to evacuate her. The roads are already covered in ice and snow, and we’re at least twenty miles away from the nearest ambulance service, so at this point that would probably be the only option.

But… is it even an option? Can helicopters fly through blizzards?

I have no fucking idea, and when I glance down and see the growing puddle on the floor from all the water and melting ice in Holly’s clothes, a more immediate need presents itself, so I momentarily push the question aside.

“We have to get these wet clothes off of you,” I mutter, not knowing how to put it any less bluntly.

Holly nods, and shivers again as I reach for the zipper at the front of her jacket.

Shivering is good, right?

Shit, I really hope it is.

I help her out of her outer layer, tossing the jacket and the thermal pants aside. When I pause, Holly reaches for the hem of her shirt to tug it off.

That’s good, too, right? That she’s helping, that she’s coherent enough to help.

It’s going to have to be as she strips off the rest of her clothes until she’s down to her bra and underwear.

I avert my eyes and grab a blanket from the sofa. “Here.”

Holding it out to her, it only takes her a moment to understand what I mean. She takes it from me and wraps herself up, sinking down onto the sofa and shimmying out of her underwear and bra before fishing them out and dropping them into a pile with the rest of her clothes.

Closing her eyes and slumping back into the couch, she pulls the blanket tighter around her.

I turn to the fire, adding a few more logs and stoking it higher. But even with the blazing warmth, my heart sinks when I turn back to Holly.

She’s still shivering.

Running a rough hand through my hair, I’m about to go find my phone and finally, finally call for help.

I should have done it sooner, shouldn't I? I fucked all of this up. I put Holly at risk. I didn’t do the right —

“Can I…” Holly says, her voice a rough rasp. “Can you… you’re warm.”

She reaches a hand toward me, and I immediately understand the unspoken request.

There are a few more blankets in a trunk at the side of the room, and I grab two before I join Holly on the sofa. I drape one over myself in an attempt to cover my own naked body at least a little. After pulling Holly into my lap, I settle the other over us both, tucking it in around her.

She lets out a little sigh and burrows into me.

“How are you feeling?”

It’s a stupid question.

I know it’s a stupid question, but I can’t think of anything else to say in the lingering haze of panic and worry that I’ve made some kind of catastrophic mistake here, that I should let her rest while I call someone for more help. Or just, I don’t know, Google it, maybe. Try to do something other than freeze with indecision.

What the hell do I know about how to keep a human alive in the cold?

I’ve never had to worry much about winter survival, and Holly’s small, slender frame seems so impossibly fragile in my arms.

“I’ve been better,” she murmurs. “But I’m… alright. I can feel all my fingers. And my toes. I don’t think I’m going to lose any.”

She falls silent for a moment, wiggling a little like she’s double checking the accuracy of that statement, and a few more of my ragged nerves calm. Once she’s satisfied, she continues.

“I wasn’t in the river very long, and climbed out just before you got there. I lost… I lost my pack… and I didn’t know what I was going to… I would have… I would have died if you didn’t…”

Holly’s breathing speeds up, and an edge of anxious tears trembles at the corners of her words.

“It’s alright,” I tell her. “You’re alright. Don’t worry about it now. You’re here, and you’re safe. We’ll figure the rest of it out later.”

I’m rambling a bit, saying whatever I can think of to assure her that everything’s going to be okay.

I don’t know Holly. I don’t know what she was doing out in the woods during a storm. I can’t imagine how frightening it was to have fallen into that ice-cold water, to have come so close to freezing to death all alone.

All of that considered, I only hope I can give her some comfort and reassurance now.

“Thank you,” she says, barely above a whisper.

“You don’t have to thank me, Holly.”

Her body curls up even more tightly, and it brings her feet in unfortunately close proximity to my side. When they brush against me, I can’t help the way my entire body locks up or my sharp gasp of surprise, and I regret both immediately.

“Sorry,” Holly says, shifting on me like she’s about to crawl out of my lap.

“No harm done.” I band my arm more firmly around her, keeping her right where she is.

Fishing a hand down between the blankets, I find that icicle foot of hers and start rubbing it slowly.

“Is this okay?” I ask, watching her face intently for any signs I’ve crossed a line.

“It’s…” Her voice trails off, and when my thumb presses into her arch, she lets out a soft, breathless moan. “It’s good.”

Fuck, I don’t want to let that moan do anything to me.

It’s completely, utterly, wildly inappropriate for that moan to do anything to me. I’m just warming her up, making sure nothing needs to be amputated later from frostbite. I’m helping her, and letting my mind wander down any other path would make me a first-class creep.

So I shut those thoughts down and focus on rubbing some warmth back into her feet, her calves, keeping a sharp eye on her face for any signs of discomfort or fear.

I find none.

In fact, the longer I hold her, the more she relaxes. Her breathing grows deep and even, and her color gets better with each passing moment. From deathly pale when I found her, to a deep flush after we got inside, to something softer and more natural—a light blush over her cheeks and the rest of her skin back to a much less concerning shade of pale peachy cream.

After a few more minutes, she’s fallen into a doze, and I can almost convince myself she’s out of the woods for any serious lasting effects of exposure.

Gently, watching her face for any signs I’m disturbing her sleep, I brush some of her golden blond hair back and away from where it’s scrunched up against the blankets between us. It falls free, catching the firelight and hopefully drying in a way that won’t be such a nightmare for her to untangle later.

Holly’s eyelids flutter and she stirs slightly in her sleep, but nestles closer and lets out a soft sigh, the only sound in the cabin other than the crackle of the fire and the occasional gust of wind outside.

All of that peace and quiet makes room for the absolute unreality of the situation to come creeping back in.

Was it just a half-hour ago I was sprawled out on this same sofa, watching the snow fall and getting ready to spend another holiday alone?

It seems impossible to believe it was, and as the minutes tick by, more and more questions pile up.

Where did Holly come from? Was she alone, or will there be anyone looking for her?

And, maybe most importantly, how am I going to help her get wherever it is she was going? Either back to her car or somewhere else on the mountain, she must have had a destination in mind.

A sharp gust of wind interrupts that thought, and my eyes cut to the world outside the wide windows at the front of my cabin.

The blizzard doesn’t seem to be abating. In fact, it only seems to be getting worse.

It puts a stab of dread in my gut, knowing that if I hadn’t been around to hear her scream, she might still be out in this nightmare. And with the way the weather’s fixing to shape up over the next few days, it might have been a long, long time before anyone else found her.

I swallow that dread and all my questions. They’ll have to wait until Holly wakes, and nothing matters right now except that she’s safe. She’s here, she’s alive, and we can figure out what happens next when she’s had some time to rest.

Glancing back down at her, I find her expression even more relaxed, breathing steady and deep. Seeing her like that makes me relax a bit more, too, enough to find a small thread of absurd humor in this whole mess.

Gods, but it’s strange to have another living being in this space.

It’s a solitary life up here, so far from the nearest town. Peaceful, too, but lonely at times, especially when the winter snow blows down from the peaks and the world settles in to wait for spring.

Aside from some neighbors who also live in cabins dotted up and down the mountainside, I don’t get a lot of company. And that’s mostly by design. Most folk who choose a life like this do it willingly, with full knowledge of the challenges that come along with it.

It’s probably made me a bit strange, keeping my solitude up here. Spending long hours in my woodshop and puttering around my garden in the summer like I’m some kind of hermit.

Or maybe I was always that way.

Maybe anyone who chooses a life like this has to be a little off-kilter.

Which is just one more thing to worry about when Holly wakes up—how the hell she’s going to react to being here, alone, with a man she doesn’t know. A grizzly she doesn’t know.

For now, Holly rests peacefully in my arms, eyelids shut and long, dark lashes fanned out over her cheeks. Her wavy blond hair is still a little damp, but quickly drying in the cabin's warmth. The light of the crackling fire catches those soft waves, gilding them and illuminating the upturned slope of her nose and the graceful arc of her high cheekbones.

Outside, the snow falls thick and unrelenting. Big, heavy flakes stick to every branch and pile up on the ground in fast-growing drifts. On top of the freezing rain that came down all afternoon, it’s created a big damn mess. Temps won’t get back above freezing for a couple of days, and the last time I checked the forecast, the brunt of the storm was going to pass right over this part of the mountain.

It doesn’t bode well for helping Holly get out of here.

The roads up to my cabin are rough to traverse even in good conditions, and by now they’re probably impassable. With snowshoes, and if the snow eases some, it might be possible for Holly to make it wherever she was headed, but she doesn’t have a pack of supplies for that kind of journey and I don’t have the right type of gear to lend her.

Glancing out the window again, realization settles over me.

I don’t think Holly is going anywhere anytime soon.