Bear Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire #2)(12)

“Is this your first time here?” Dalton asked.

“My very first time.”

“Alaska virgin,” Dalton said through an obnoxious grin.

Lena rolled her eyes and sighed. If he knew how accurate his name calling was, he wouldn’t ever let up on teasing her, so she just laughed it off and stood, empty plate in hand. “Storytime’s over, boys. I’m beat.”

Jenner pulled the chair back to allow her out, and she whispered, “Thank you,” at his unexpected gentlemanly gesture.

Stomach churning with emotion—nostalgia for her journey here, sadness remembering Dad’s funeral, and the strange tickling sensation in her middle that Jenner conjured—she rinsed her dish and waved goodnight to the men all sitting quietly around the dining table.

It wasn’t until after she’d showered and was laying in bed, sketching in her notebook, that a soft knock sounded at her door. Only when she opened it, the man standing there wasn’t the one she’d hoped for. It was Dalton, looking uncomfortable and unsure of himself.

“I wanted to say something, but I’ll sound like a total dick, and you’ll tell me it’s none of my business, but I don’t want to spend the next week thinking about you out there without warning you.”

“Okay,” she murmured, baffled.

He jerked his head toward Jenner’s room and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Be careful with that one, Lena. He’s a good man. The best. But he’s not right for any woman. He can’t keep one, you understand?”

Pissed that he was warning her off Jenner, she asked, “And you are the right kind of man for a woman, right?”

“No, I didn’t say that. None of us are. We’d be worthless as mates—” Jenner dropped his gaze to the hem of her flannel pajama pants. “What I’m saying is, don’t give your heart to someone who can’t keep it safe.”

Dalton gave her a sad smile, then without another word, turned and strode off toward his room at the entrance of the hallway.

His door clicked closed as she stood halfway in the hall, baffled on what had just happened. She frowned at Jenner’s door and wondered just what she’d gotten herself into, choosing him as a guide.

Dalton’s words hadn’t sounded like the whispered deception of a jealous man.

They’d sounded like an honest warning.





Chapter Five


Great hairy balls, it was early. Jenner had knocked on her door at five in the morning and whispered for her to get ready. He was all ready to go, from his newly-shaven jaw to his forest green thermal sweater that clung to his sexy torso like a plastic bag with all the air sucked out. He had a backpack thrown over his shoulder and smelled of mint toothpaste.

She, on the other hand, took one look at herself in the mirror and laughed. How had he kept a straight face while he talked to her at the door? Her hair was naturally curly and had dried like she’d stuck a fork in a socket. In her haste to answer the door, she hadn’t put her bra on, and both nipples were drawn up like beads against her sleep shirt. Fantastic.

She dressed quickly, brushed her teeth, and tamed her beastly hair with a curling iron, then pulled it back into a ponytail. Then she shouldered her heavy pack and made her way quietly through the dim lodge to the kitchen where Jenner was currently working on something over the countertop. Buttered biscuits from the smell, and when she sidled around the kitchen island, she could make out the grape jelly he was smearing onto seven or eight of them in a row.

“Breakfast for days?” she joked, fully aware of his appetite. When she picked up a half and bit into it, he gave a teasing growl.

“Woman, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but these are all for me. Get your own.”

“No,” she said around the bite. “Lennard said my trail guide is in charge of all my meals.”

“On the trail.”

She picked up the other half and licked it before he could stop her, and now he was stifling that sexy smile. With a wicked grin, she set her pack down and hopped up on the counter beside where he was sweetening his plethora of carbohydrates.

He didn’t move over as she’d expected him to when she sat close enough that his arm bumped her leg as he worked. Instead, Jenner seemed content to stay right where he was, watching her occasionally with an odd look in his dancing eyes as she ate his biscuit.

“You have ridden horses before, right?” he asked.

“Oh, millions of them.”

“Be serious, woman. Your life depends on it.”

She licked a smear of jelly off her thumb and offered him a pointed look. “I used to take lessons.”

“Western or English.”

Sarcastically, she answered, “Sidesaddle, like dainty ladies did in the olden days.”

Jenner growled a low, humming sound, but he didn’t look mad. “Okay, I get it. You can ride a horse. Dalton just got me thinking last night.”

“That I was more helpless than I actually am?”

“I know you aren’t helpless.”

“How do you know, stranger?”

He made a ticking noise behind his teeth and twitched his head. “You don’t seem the type. You remind me of my sister-in-law. Brave as shit but headstrong, so I just want to make sure you can handle the horse I give you.”