“Who the heck is that?” she muttered as the bell sounded from downstairs.
Geez, hold your horses, she thought as the person pressed down on the buzzer insistently. It was after ten o’clock at night, and Maya was not fit for company. She pulled the blanket around her shoulders and moved to the intercom.
“Hello?”
“Maya? Buzz me in.”
Oh no! She knew that voice. Would recognize it anywhere. It was him. Why was he there at this time of night?
Crap! She thought frantically and tried to catch her breath. Tonic Nanouk was at her unheated, messy as hell, apartment in the middle of the night.
Bzzzzzzzzzzz.
“Maya!” he growled.
What on earth? She pressed the button to let him in as realization suddenly dawned and her heart stopped. What if Nita was hurt or in trouble?
Her best friend and Tonic’s sister-in-law was halfway through her pregnancy, but Shifters had a notoriously difficult time with such things. She buzzed him in immediately and dropped her blanket looking for her snow boots.
The sounds of his own booted feet clomping up the stairs was loud, and as he got closer, her stomach clenched and pulse raced. She couldn’t help it. It was always her initial reaction to him, but months of being tossed in his presence she’d learned how to hide her reactions.
When she heard him push the door open, she stopped with one boot in her hand to face him looking for signs of the bad news he’d undoubtedly come to give her. This day really did suck, she thought and waited.
“Is it Nita? Is she okay?” she asked and bent back down to stop herself from staring at his stark masculine beauty.
That was the only word that would do. With his mismatched eyes, one blue and one green, thick black hair, and full, sensuous lips, Tonic Nanouk was as devastating as they came.
“What? No, Nita is fine. What the hell is going on here? Why is it so cold?” he asked and stalked over to her thermostat.
“Hey. That is none of your business, Tonic! No, leave it alone,” she rushed over and pulled on his shirt to stop him.
But the man was already proceeding in his desired direction and all Maya did was come along for the ride. In other words, she slid behind him on the tiled floor as he continued to walk. Towing her along like some big truck and a broken down junker.
He turned his head slightly with one arched eyebrow while he fiddled with the thermostat. Maya narrowed her eyes and released his shirt taking a large step back as she watched him with growing irritation.
“It won’t go up,” he grumbled.
“Yes, Tonic, that’s right,” she said and gave him her best scathing glare.
“Why won’t it go up?” he asked, ignoring her dirty look.
“Fine, you want to know why? Because I couldn’t pay the bill this month. I am sure you found out by now that Peter Crawford took out a loan under our business’ name and emptied our accounts,” she grumbled and lowered her gaze but not before she caught the hard, angry look in his steely eyes.
Humiliation and despair rose up inside of her. She hated that he had to see her like this, but even more she hated that it was even happening. What kind of lowlife did something like that? Panic made her pulse race and Maya suddenly felt dizzy.
“Here, sit,” Tonic took her arm and led her to one of the chairs in her kitchen nook.
“What am I going to do?” she asked in a low voice that betrayed her trepidation.
Oh, this was so not good. She knew better than to betray emotions to an enemy, especially when that emotion was fear and her enemy also happened to be an apex predator.
“Pack a bag,” Tonic growled with his hard mismatched eyes burning down at her, “you’re not staying here.”
“Like hell, I’m not!” she raged back at him.
Her whole life was upside down. She had no control over this or anything. Oh god, what was she going to do? Panic made her gasp aloud and she bit back the rising sob inside of her throat.
“Maya, you can pack a bag or you can wear that for the rest of the winter until we get this thing settled.”
“You are so bossy!”
He hoisted her to her feet and gave her a gentle nudge, but when she refused to move, he simply went around her.
On second thought, she followed behind the large male while he stalked through her apartment and grabbed a small duffel bag from inside her closet. Tonic turned around and handed the bag to her, nodding at her chest of drawers.
“You have five minutes, Maya, or I pick you up and carry you out of here with no bag at all,” he said and crossed his arms.
She had no doubt he meant it. Well, fine, If he wanted to waste money on a hotel for the night, he could do just that, she thought and started putting a day’s worth of clothes in her bag.
“That’s all you need?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Fine,” he said and took the bag, walking ahead of her and leaving her to follow in his wake.
Of course it would be him, she thought to herself. Tonic wasn’t the easy going, gentle giant his brother Locke, Nita’s husband, was. Oh no, this Nanouk brother was all hard edges and growls. She knew he was brilliant with computers, but she didn’t know much else about the man.
In her humble opinion, Tonic Nanouk was sharp as a tack and about as gentle. But still, he made her yearn in ways she’d never experienced with anyone else. Much to her own shock and embarrassment. Just thinking about him made heat pool between her thighs, but she quelled the thought. He was a Shifter and that meant he would be able to pick up the scent of her arousal.
He was all man. Fiercely masculine, strong and proud, and he made her foolish female heart run away with her every time he was near. She just had to remember to keep her cool.
Better forget any chance of being with him, she told herself and tried to hide her growing embarrassment. She was lusting after a man who wanted nothing to do with her.
Humiliation was just the word of the day, wasn’t it? She shook her head.
How else should she feel when he so obviously hated her? Just another bigoted Bear who disliked her for being different, she thought sadly.
Maya knew better than to let her fantasies influence her behavior. That way led to heartache. She simply had to play the part of the sassy angry woman to stop him from reading her feelings.
Rejection was all fine and good in regular things, but if this man openly rejected her, Maya would surely die from a broken heart. Which was the reason why she would never tell him how she felt. Not now, not ever.
Mine, whispered that far away part of herself, and Maya closed her eyes to keep her tears from falling.
If only she was Bear enough for a man like him.
Two
“Dudes, you both need to learn some technique,” Locke scratched his head and watched his two brothers try to wrangle the enormous pine tree that had fallen during the last snowstorm onto the flatbed to be towed away from their cabin.
“Fuck you,” grunted Bolder as he wrapped the long, tough work belt around the four foot wide trunk.
The fucking tree was a monster. Big enough to grace Rockefeller center, if it hadn’t broken in half under the weight of the last slush storm. It was a near miss, and for that Tonic was eternally grateful.
Last thing he needed was for a tree to crash through the roof of the cabin the brothers had bought from the Devlin’s when they’d first settled in Barvale. Tonic didn’t like the idea of owing anyone for a place to land and even though he and Bolder were technically only probationary members of the Clan, he had high hopes for them both.