Slade (BBW Bear Shifter Moonshiner Romance) (120 Proof Honey Book 5) (42 page)

It was the wrong thing to say. It only made the media more determined to pursue their story. Dietrich had gotten to his feet during the flash-storm and when Elise looked to him, she was horrified to see how uncomfortable he was. He shielded his eyes and face from the harsh lights of the cameras, trying to ignore the yelps of the reporters who were beginning to target him specifically.

“Are you a ranger here, sir?”

“How long have you known Miss Davenport?”

“What’s your comment on Chantelle Picard? Do you agree with what Miss Davenport said about her?”

“I… I, uh…” Dietrich stammered.

He shook his head, his face flushing pink. Elise tried to reach for him, to offer him some comfort, but it was no use. Dietrich strode from the scene with strong steps, pushing his way through the press pack. Elise swore that she heard a low, mournful growl come from his lips as he did. He disappeared into the forest beyond the crowd, and Elise wanted nothing more than to follow him and apologize for the awful situation he’d been caught up in.

“Come on now, guys,” she called over the press. “I said no comment and I meant it. Let me out.”

The crowd did not move. Elise had had no experience of bad press before today, and she suddenly yearned for Jane to be there, to tell her how to handle it. The ridge was behind her, offering no means of escape, and the press formed a semi-circle that stretched right around her. Elise knew that it was her fault, for her stupid slip of the tongue at the Shine Awards, but it didn’t seem fair to be hunted down like this. Her heart began to hammer, panicked at the prospect of no way out.

And then, someone at the back of the crowd yelled: “Holy cow, it’s a bear!”

The word filled Elise with a gleeful hope. Sure enough, a huge grizzly bear with piercing golden eyes had emerged from the trees. With an almighty roar, the bear rose to its hind legs, towering over the terrified press pack. The reporters began to scatter, phones and cameras dropping everywhere as the frantic mass ran in all directions. Dietrich’s bear-form landed on all fours again with a hefty thump, and Elise wanted to thank him for all he had done.

But something was wrong. Just as he had been agitated in human form, Dietrich was jumpy and snarling as a bear. He watched her for a moment, his golden eyes devoid of the calming presence they’d had the other night. They were brimming with fear now, and it stabbed at Elise’s heart to see such a powerful animal overcome with anxiety. She wanted to reach out and help him, but Dietrich seemed far too volatile to touch. Before she could think what to do, he turned and pelted into the forest. Elise looked down at the skids and slashes of his track-marks, so messy that they left no chance of following him.

He had abandoned her at the ridge, more lost and confused than ever.

For the next two days, Dietrich was mysteriously absent every time Elise tried to visit the lodge. Anina didn’t look happy about having to report his continued absence, and all she could offer was what he’d told her: that he was taking some time to patrol the deeper woods. To make matters worse, the media had settled themselves on the campsite at Fairhaven. In her journeys to the lodge, Elise had to take long-winded hiking tracks and high-mountain paths just to avoid them. She was feeling the strain in her legs from so much effort, but she knew that Dietrich was worth it.

She had to explain. She just had to let him know that all of this was her stupid fault, and that she really did enjoy the calm and quiet of nature much more than the limelight. Elise couldn’t bear the thought that Dietrich was out there avoiding her, without even knowing the real reasons why. When she wasn’t seeking him at the lodge, Elise was glued to her phone in her cabin, which mercifully the press had not yet discovered.

“Don’t tell me that you were stupid enough to check into that cabin under your own name,” Jane chided.

“Yup, I’m actually that dumb,” Elise replied with a hapless sigh. “I’ve been a nobody for so long that it’s never really mattered before.”

There was a pause on the line, and Elise actually looked at her screen to make sure they hadn’t been cut off.

“You’re still there, right?”

“Sorry, yes,” Jane replied. “It’s just… this kind of stuff was the end of the world for you a few days ago. Now, it sounds like a minor inconvenience. Something’s happened.”

Jane was right, of course. Elise’s mind was far from the hungry cameras of the press, wandering out into those deep, shadowy woods that she could see from her cabin windows. She needed to make things right with Dietrich, and it was more important than anything else that had happened.

“Well…” She began, unsure how to explain. “Dietrich got really upset by the media attention, and-”

“This is the sexy bear shifter man?” Jane clarified.

“Oh yes,” Elise answered, “he’s very that. But he’s more too, you know? He’s quiet and thoughtful. I feel so calm with him, so safe. But now he won’t talk to me. I think he’s afraid to come near me in case the press find us again.”

“Not everyone can handle the pressure, honey,” Jane said sadly. Elise felt a lump in her throat at the bitter truth. “But,” Jane added, “if he thinks what you’ve got is worth it, he’ll come back. He’ll make it work if things are meant to be.”

Elise got up from the kitchen counter, walking through the open-plan space towards the back porch. Here, there was a set of glass double-doors that she had not yet admired the view from. As she listened to Jane’s thoughtful reasoning on the line, Elise stared out of the window into the forest ahead.

“Jane, I’m going to have to call you back.”

There, some twenty feet away on the tree-line, was Dietrich. He was in grey sweats, not his usual ranger’s uniform, and he was jogging out of the forest and straight towards the cabins. Elise’s heart gave a leap as she watched his strong, broad form getting closer and closer, praying all the time that he wasn’t going to veer off in a different direction. Soon, she could see his face, gleaming with a light sweat, and the dark shadow where the beginnings of a beard had grown in over his jaw. When his golden eyes came into proper focus, he looked up, straight at her through the huge double doors.

Elise opened the porch doors, smiling her most apologetic smile, and Dietrich jogged his way up to them. He panted at first, worked up from his run, and Elise couldn’t tell if the pink flush to his cheeks was down to exhaustion or embarrassment. When she guided him into her kitchen-diner, he sat down on a wooden chair, looking at his hands. Silence fell between them, and Elise felt all of her hope slipping away again. She had to do something. She couldn’t lose the potential they had together.

“Have you heard of a model called Chantelle Picard?” Elise asked.

Dietrich looked at her, one dark brow quirked.
 

“What does that have to do with-?”

“Humor me,” Elise cut in. “Have you heard of her?”

“Sure, who hasn’t?” Dietrich replied. “She’s the one with the huge… uh… Well, the huge everything.”

“Surgery, surgery, surgery,” Elise confirmed with a nod. “We were both at the same awards ceremony a couple of nights ago, the Shine Awards. I was just a guest, there to do some networking and show my face to a few companies, but Chantelle was claiming a big award for beauty.”

Elise crossed the room, sitting down in a chair opposite Dietrich. She gave a little sigh.

“And me, not being used to being watched by the press, well I said something stupid. I said that Chantelle wasn’t natural. She’d had to be augmented for people to call her beautiful. And I don’t think that’s right. I think she was beautiful anyway, before all the surgery. She didn’t need it. But the press took it all the wrong way, and now I’m all over the internet.”

“So,” Dietrich began, and Elise could see the thoughts connecting through his eyes. “So you’re not… augmented?”

Elise’s eyes widened.

“Oh no! Not at all,” she answered. “That’s my gimmick, see? The natural girl. My gigs are all skincare, vitamins, stuff like that. I’m aiming at the woman who wants to celebrate what she is, not change it all.”

Dietrich smiled, and it was the greatest sight in the world for Elise.

“There should be more models like you,” he said.

Silence again. Elise felt a little better, having finally got her faux-pas off her chest, but she knew there was more to come. With Dietrich’s shoulders curled like that, Elise could almost see the bear within the man, the way that his dark features must expand and increase in power. He still looked tense. Elise reached out, one hand coming to rest on his forearm. His sleeves were pushed up, and she dared to toy with the soft, dark hairs on his arm, drawing small circles.

“You must think I’m such a coward for freaking out like that with the press,” Dietrich said quietly.

He shook his head with a rueful grin, and Elise gave his arm a squeeze.

“I don’t know what to think, yet,” she admitted, “but I never thought that.”

“Clan Best is a really private group,” Dietrich began to explain. “Most shifter clans try to keep to themselves nowadays, because previous generations were wiping each other out with their pointless turf wars. But not everyone is pro-peace, even now. We do have enemies, and I’m the eldest male bear in Fairhaven. It’s my duty to protect everyone else.”

“I didn’t realize it could be so dangerous,” Elise replied. “I’m sorry I put you in that position.”

“You couldn’t help it,” Dietrich said. “How can you control a huge mass of media people like that?”

“No-one can,” Elise answered with a sigh.

It all felt so hopeless. Dietrich couldn’t be in the public eye, and with the scandal afoot, Elise couldn’t stay out of it. She wanted desperately to find some way out of the situation.
 

“I don’t want to not see you,” Elise said firmly. “I think we’ve got something going here. I need to see how it plays out.”

Dietrich shifted in his seat, and he took both of Elise’s hands in his. His huge, warm palms enveloped her, and she could feel his pulse through his fingers. His heart was hammering.

“I’ve met a fair few women since Gram made me join Karina’s agency,” Dietrich admitted, “and I was just about ready to give up. But you and me, we click. You’re right. There’s something here.”

Elise felt her breath catch in her throat, and she knew she had to take the moment. She leaned in, holding onto Dietrich’s hands to keep him in place, and pressed her lips to his. The kiss was warm and firm for a long, sweet moment, before Dietrich seemed to realize what he was supposed to do. Elise felt his hands slide along her arms, and his lips opened to allow their tongues to meet. A flush of heat rushed through Elise’s whole body.

But then Dietrich pulled away.

“Wait,” he said breathlessly. “There’s more. We can’t go forward unless I explain it all.”

“Could you make it quick?” Elise quipped.

She licked her lips and Dietrich flashed his shy grin, but it faded a moment later. He hung his head, not meeting her eye as he talked.

“I didn’t willingly transform when the press found us the other day,” he revealed. “The camera flashes and all the shouting… I’m not used to that stuff. What you have to understand about shifters, is that the animal is within us all the time. We fight against its urges when we’re in human form, and we have to let it out sometimes to run free, otherwise it’d drive us crazy.”

“So the bear is here, right now?” Elise asked in fascination.

Dietrich gave a little nod.

“All that power and instinct,” he confirmed. “It’s like having another voice in your head, a voice without words. When the media had us surrounded, the animal part of me needed to get out.”

Elise remembered the look on Dietrich’s face when he was in bear form. His eyes were filled with anxiety, and she’d felt so sorry for him.
 

“You need to know that I can’t always control that part of me,” Dietrich added.

Slowly, Elise pushed herself off her chair. She came to stand before Dietrich, stepping into the gap where his knees were splayed. Gentle fingers caressed the back of his neck, and he looked up at her with deep, soulful eyes. This close, she could see the different tones of gold swirling in his gaze. His hands came to rest on the small of her back, and when he straightened up, his head was almost level with her shoulders.

Elise leaned in again, and when their lips were close enough to brush against one another, she whispered.

“Can you stay in control right now?” she teased.

“I can sure try,” Dietrich answered, grinning into her kiss.

And that was when the doorbell rang.

“I didn’t even know these cabins had a doorbell,” Elise mused.

She and Dietrich had walked through the room to reach the door, hand in hand.

“It’s Gram, I know it is,” he supposed. “She’s come to hunt me down. It’s the old Mamma Bear instinct.”

“Mamma Bear?” Elise asked with a giggle. Her hand was on the door handle. “I hadn’t even considered that she’s also a-”

The sentence died on her lips, for the moment she opened the door, the old familiar chorus was back.

“Are you aware of IHateDavenport.com, Elise?”

“Any comment on the recent developments on Twitter?”