“Do you need help with the door?” Jake asked, bouncing ahead despite his earlier exhaustion. The prospect of warmth and safety had revived his energy.
“That would be great,” James replied, shifting Doreen slightly in his arms. Her weight felt right there, like she belonged nowhere else.
Jake rushed forward, fumbling with the key before pushing the door wide. Bash darted inside first, shaking and spraying melted snow across the entryway.
“Bash!” Jake scolded, but his giggle betrayed his lack of true annoyance. Then the pair headed for Jake’s bedroom.
James carried Doreen to the sofa, lowering her gently onto the cushions. He carefully took off her boots and wet socksbefore he kneeled before her, taking her hands in his and rubbing them gently.
“I need to get you warmed up properly,” he murmured, his eyes scanning her face. The color was returning to her cheeks, but her fingers still felt ice-cold.
He pulled a blanket from the back of the sofa and covered her before holding both her hands in his.
“Warm hands. Warmer heart,” she murmured to him.
“A heart that beats for you,” James told her.
Doreen smiled up at him. “You say the sweetest things.”
“The heart wants what it wants,” he replied softly.
“And mine wants you, James. It has from the beginning, even when I tried to deny it.”
“But you’re not denying it now,” James said, his voice husky with emotion as he continued warming her hands.
“Never,” she assured him, squeezing his hands. “Not anymore.”
The patter of footsteps interrupted their moment as Jake bounded back into the room, freshly changed into several layers of clothes. His hair stood up in damp spikes, and his cheeks were flushed pink from warmth rather than cold now.
He looks as if he might have put on every item in his closet.James’s bear chuckled.
“I’m going to make hot chocolate for Aunt D!” he announced proudly, Bash trotting at his heels. “I learned how from Maisie! With real chocolate, not the powder stuff!”
“That sounds wonderful,” James said, smiling at the boy’s enthusiasm.
Jake darted toward the kitchen, already pulling open cabinets with the confidence of someone on an important mission. Bash followed his tail wagging excitedly.
Doreen kissed his cheek and then whispered, “How lucky I am.”
James shook his head. “You’ve got that wrong. We are lucky to have you. In fact, I believe I am the luckiest man alive.”
And I am the luckiest bear.
Epilogue
Doreen woke before the alarm, her body somehow knowing this moment was too precious to sleep through. After the storm, James had invited her, Jake, and Bash to stay with him. She had said yes. Now she could not think of any place she would rather live. And no man she would rather live with.
She propped herself up on one elbow, watching the steady rise and fall of James’s chest, the way his dark hair fell across his forehead, the slight curve of his lips even in sleep.
Mine,she thought with a sense of wonder that still caught her by surprise.This man is actually mine.
Without opening his eyes, James’s lips curved into a smile. “I can feel you watching me,” he murmured, voice rough with sleep.
Doreen leaned closer, pressing her lips to his cheek while her hand wandered across the warm expanse of his chest, fingers trailing through the light dusting of hair. “What can you feel now?” she whispered against his skin.
One eye cracked open, then the other, slate blue and intense as they fixed on her face. “Longing. Desire. Love.”
His simple words made her heart threaten to burst with love for him. Before she came to Bear Creek, before James, she’d convinced herself that love was something that happened to other people. That after Walt, she would spend the rest of her life alone, and she’d made her peace with that.
