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I gripped the bear spray but didn't pull it free.
Running would be pointless. The trail was too far away, the ground too uneven, and the thing behind me had approached without making enough noise to alert a forest full of plants apparently capable of taking sides.
Slowly, I turned.
My gaze landed first on a pair of enormous work boots planted in the moss. Heavy dark trousers covered legs the size of young tree trunks. A faded green shirt stretched across a broad torso, its sleeves rolled above forearms covered in dense brown fur.
I continued looking up.
And up.
The man standing over me must have been seven feet tall, possibly more. His shoulders were wide enough to block the path behind him, and a leather climbing harness hung around his hips, weighted with carabiners, ropes, and several tools I recognized from professional tree work. Thick brown hair curled around rounded ears at the top of his head. His face was neither entirely human nor entirely bear, with a heavy jaw, a broad nose, and a close-cropped beard blending into the fur at his throat.
He was huge.
He was also unfairly attractive.
The realization was so inappropriate that my mind immediately attempted to reject it. It failed. The was something arresting about the combination of massive claws and careful, intelligent golden-brown eyes. Something about the thick forearms, the powerful chest and the quiet way he held himself, as if he knew exactly how much space he took up and had spent years trying not to frighten anyone with it.
He looked at the bear spray clutched in my hand. Then he looked at the exposed root near my boots. His eyes narrowed.
I slipped the spray back into my pocket. “Hello.”
The man-bear folded his arms across his massive chest. The movement made his shirt pull alarmingly tight across his shoulders.
“Who are you?” he asked in a voice deep enough to vibrate through the soles of my boots. “And why are you tugging on my root?”
Chapter 2
Barrett
Storms always left work behind. Most people noticed the broken branches scattered across roads or the odd tree lying where it shouldn't, its roots pointing helplessly at the sky.
I noticed the things that hadn't fallen yet: limbs split just enough to come down in the next strong wind, hairline fractures hidden beneath bark, the sweet-sick scent of heartrot sealed beneath healthy wood, and water pooling where roots ought to be breathing.
Trees were honest if you knew how to read them.
I eased myself a few feet higher into the cedar, boots braced against the trunk as my climbing rope took most of my weight. The morning rain had left the bark slick beneath my gloves. Below, my chainsaw hung from its lanyard, bumping against the trunk each time the tree swayed.
Lightning had caught this limb, opening a long crack where rain would eventually find its way inside. Left alone, the wound would spread through the heartwood until the entire branch tore free under its own weight.
Pressing my hand against the fracture, I sensed the faint pulse of sap beneath, slow and stubborn. Leaning in close, I whispered, “Sorry about this.”
The saw growled to life, and the scent of fresh cedar filled the air. Soon enough, the sawn-off limb swung harmlessly to the forest floor on the lowering rope, leaving behind a clean cut that would callus over before winter.
I patted the trunk once before descending. “There now.”
I'd never minded talking to trees. Trees didn’t think you were strange for it.
Back on the ground, I coiled my ropes and took a long drink from the battered water bottle clipped to my harness.
Four more damaged trees waited along the ridge. Two nights of rain had softened the ground enough that half the root plates up here were only pretending to hold, and by mid-afternoon, the wind would start testing them.
The Woods could do as they liked once I was gone. My job was making the trees safe, or making sure nobody was standing underneath them when they weren't.
I shouldered the saw and followed the old maintenance track toward the next cedar. The forest settled around me as I walked. Then the breeze shifted, and something else came with it. Something that didn't belong out here — warm and human and unfairly good, like walking past a kitchen where bread was rising in the sun.
I stopped.
