The front door opens, and Cole's heavy footsteps cross the living room. "Ruby?"
"In here," I call, saving my work.
He appears in the doorway, and I'm struck again by his sheer physical presence. There's something different about him now, a kind of restless energy simmering beneath his exterior.
"Everything okay?" he asks, eyes scanning my face.
"Fine," I say, then reconsider. "Actually, something strange happened while you were gone. I saw a bear, a huge black bear, at the edge of the clearing."
Cole goes completely still. "A bear?"
"Yes, right at the tree line. It was... looking at the cabin." I shiver at the memory. "Is that normal around here? Should we be concerned?"
He relaxes slightly, though his eyes remain vigilant. "Not unusual in these mountains. They generally avoid humans."
"This one didn't seem afraid at all."
"It didn't approach the cabin, did it?"
"No, it just stood there, then went back into the forest." I study his face, noting the tension around his eyes. "Are you okay? You seem... I don't know, wound up."
Cole runs a hand through his hair, which looks damp, as if he's recently showered. "Long day. Site issues. Nothing to worry about."
Something doesn't quite add up, but I can't put my finger on what. Before I can pursue it, Cole changes the subject.
"Have you eaten dinner? I can make something."
My stomach answers with a growl that makes me laugh. "I guess that's a no. I lost track of time again."
"Come on." He gestures toward the kitchen. "I'll cook while you tell me how much progress we've made."
I follow him, watching as he moves through the kitchen, pulling ingredients from the refrigerator. There's a scratch on his forearm that wasn't there earlier. Fresh, with a thin line of dried blood.
"What happened to your arm?"
He glances down, as if surprised to see the injury. "Branch. The trail was overgrown where I parked."
I accept the explanation, though it joins the growing list of small inconsistencies I've noticed about Cole Blackwood. The way he sometimes seems to hear things I can't. How he knew I was standing in the doorway this morning without turning around. The peculiar intensity in his gaze when he looks at me.
None of it makes logical sense, yet somehow it all feels connected to the strange pull I feel toward him. A pull that defies the rational, numbers-based approach I've built my life around.
As I watch him prepare our meal, I realize I'm balancing two contradictory truths: I barely know this man, yet being with him feels strangely familiar. Like coming home to a place I've never been before.
The thought should frighten me. Instead, it wraps around me like the comfort of his cabin in the storm. Unexpected, but precisely what I needed.
Chapter 5 - Cole
I move around the kitchen with a false calm to mask the turmoil beneath my skin. She saw me. Not me as the man, but me as the bear. The recognition in her eyes when she mentioned it sent ice through my veins.
"Pasta okay?" I ask, focusing on the mundane to anchor myself. My bear is still too close to the surface after the unplanned shift—a desperate measure when the pressure became too much.
"Perfect." Ruby sits at the island, her laptop open beside her. "I've sorted about sixty percent of your records now. We might actually pull this off."
I nod, grateful for the change in subject. "Never doubted it."
That's a lie. I've doubted everything since she arrived. My control, my judgment, my ability to keep my secret. Two years ago, a tourist spotted me in bear form and the resulting hunt forced me to disappear for weeks. I can't risk exposure again, especially not with the IRS breathing down my neck.
But today, the need to shift overwhelmed me. Two days before the full moon, with my mate in my territory… My bear couldn't be contained. I'd barely made it to the tree line behind the construction site before the change took me, my bones cracking and reshaping while I bit back howls of pain.
