His boot prints echoed through the house as he made his way to and out the front door.
She narrowed her eyes at where he’d disappeared, then stood and dressed herself. The echo of the ax blasting into wood on the chopping block was loud. Much louder than the noise she made when she was chopping wood, but one look out the window explained why. It took her several strokes to get through a log. For Ian, it took one.
An overkill breakfast was on the counter in the kitchen, piled high on a plate and covered with a cloth napkin. It was cold, but good, and she ate every bite of it before washing her dish.
At the pump outside, she began to fill the bucket for the chickens’ water dispensers, but Ian, with a saddle slung over his shoulder, jammed a finger at her and said, “I already did it. You’re supposed to stay off your feet.”
“What are you doing with my saddle?”
“Cleaning it. You have a fine saddle with horse shit splattered on it.”
“Oh.”
Grumpily, she sat on the rocking chair on the porch and watched him work with her arms crossed over her chest. She wasn’t used to sitting around.
The man was a sight to behold, though. He’d chopped nearly a cord of wood while she’d readied for the day and ate breakfast, and the woodpile was looking much healthier, plus he had several logs lined up to chop later. He must’ve hauled them up with the four-wheeler this morning. He watered and fed the horses, milked the goat, and washed off a dark-stained table he’d apparently used to clean their fish sometime in the night if the dried scales were anything to go by. Out of curiosity, she hobbled around the house to the freezer and, sure enough, the bottom was covered in two layers of fish filets, neatly labeled and individually wrapped. Damn, it was good to see some meat in there.
When she came back, Ian was nowhere to be seen in the yard, but the telltale sound of tinkering echoed from the barn, so she hobbled closer and sat on an old rope swing tied to a tree in the yard. From here, she could see inside the double doors. Ian was working on the opened front of the broken-down snow machine. And from the pan of grease in the yard beside the generator, he’d been working on that this morning as well. Handy bear. She cracked an accidental smile at her little, silent joke.
Cocking her head, she tried to put the massive bear she’d seen yesterday to Ian’s human form. Okay, so he was a bear-man. Or…a werebear? He changed into an animal when the feeling struck, and thankfully, he’d done it yesterday to save her. She’d be a lot worse off than a swatted leg if he hadn’t been there. Undoubtedly, this place would be safer with him around. But spending winters without him would be brutal.
Perhaps she was thinking about this all wrong. She did love him. It seemed so strange to have that thought this soon, but there had been this instant connection between them. He cared about her enough to tell her what he was when he hadn’t told anyone his secret before. Winters would be hellish, but at least she would get half the year. It came down to just warm-weather months with the man she was falling in love with, or cutting him loose and hoping to find a man who was less than Ian. And the more she thought about it, the more she considered that, for the rest of her life, this decision could cause her pain and regret. Who could compare to him? No one she’d ever met. If she cut her heart off from him and moved on, the most she could hope for was a relationship with a man half as good.
Elyse sighed. Half as good didn’t sound good enough anymore. Not after he’d made her feel so deeply.
“Would you hibernate around here?” she called out, gripping the rough ropes of her swing.
Ian didn’t answer, but Miki came bouncing out of the barn toward her. Ian muttered something below her hearing and yanked his hand back, shook it, and sucked on the side of his index finger. He wore a white T-shirt with grease smudges all over it, and old, worn-out, threadbare jeans that sat low on his waist. The brown had left his eyes. She could tell from here because, when he cast her a quick glance, it was all blue-flame sexy.
“Ian!”
“No, I wouldn’t hibernate around here.” He strode out of the barn, wiping his hands on a dirty rag as he sauntered toward her.
“Why not?”
“I have a proposal,” he gritted out, pulling back the rope swing she sat on and pushing her forward.
“Oh, now you want to talk?”
“I didn’t want to talk because I know what you’ll say. And dammit, woman, I want to get shit done around here before you give me the boot.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw the way you looked at me last night. Like I was a freak. That’s part of the reason I didn’t want to tell you what I am. And I get it. I do. I’m not normal, and this is a lot. But hearing you cry over what I am last night ripped me up. I know what’s coming, but I still want to get you set up for winter before you kick me out.”