Bear Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire #2)(13)

“Gunner and I will be the best of friends.”

“Mmm,” he grunted noncommittally.

Dawn had brightened the horizon by the time Jenner carried her pack out toward the corral with her following directly. Even though it was July, nights were nippy, so she zipped her jacket up to her chin and jogged to catch up to Jenner’s ridiculously long strides, holding her camera that hung from her neck steady as she went. He nearly had her camera equipment tied to a bored-looking bay packhorse by the time she made it to where the lead horses were secured to a fence.

Gunner, as it turned out, was a dark chocolate-colored horse with no white markings at all, and a long, wavy mane the same color as the rest of his body. He was also a head-tosser as Jenner checked his saddle bags.

“What the hell is this?” Lena asked as she jammed her finger at a rifle secured against the saddle.

“Protection.”

“But I said—”

Jenner rounded on her. “There’s no room for that hippy dippy shit out here, Lena. We aren’t hunting bears. The rifles are for protection, and that’s all, but if you go out there without a defensive strategy, you’re as good as dead. It’s my job to protect you, and I’m not taking you out there unarmed. This,” he said, slapping the leather rifle sheath, “is non-negotiable. Please tell me you know how to fire one.”

Lena gritted her teeth and crossed her arms over her chest in rebellion.

“Answer me now, woman, or I swear we’ll put off your pictures another day to target practice and learn this weapon.”

With a pissed-off sigh, she said, “The gun is a thirty aught six and yes, I can handle the recoil.”

“Good. Safety?”

“It’s the small button on top of the rifle, over the trigger.”

“Stance?”

She lifted her hands as if she cradled an imaginary rifle and splayed her legs to the side, still glaring at him.

“Okay.” Jenner turned toward his own horse, a dapple gray whose attention was already on the woods, and who was currently stomping impatiently. Jenner spun around just before he hoisted himself into the saddle. “One last question. Where did you learn to shoot?”

“My dad.” She hadn’t meant for the words to sound like heartbreak on her lips, but there it was.

Some deep emotion slashed across Jenner’s eyes for just a moment before it was gone and he looked stoic once again. “Very good.”

She swung herself over Gunner’s back and twisted to look at the packhorse that was tied to the saddle.

“If you need to run and drop weight quick,” Jenner explained, pointing to the rope, “you drop that.”

“What about the packhorse?”

“He’ll stand a better chance of getting away if he isn’t trailing you.”

“Right.”

“Come on,” Jenner said low, kicking his skittering horse and pulling on the rope of his own following packhorse.

Gunner pranced under her, tossing his head as he blasted a snort in the early morning air, but he followed Jenner’s packhorse without too much prompting, and the patient bay behind her didn’t need any encouragement. He followed Gunner easily.

The hours directly following sunrise and directly preceding sunset were what Lena called the magic hours. Bar cloudy days, the lighting was always best during those times, and as the sun rose, she was stunned at how beautiful the woods here were. She’d been to some of the most breathtaking places in the world on her quest for photographs for Bucks and Backwoods, but this moment right here had to be one of the most profound. Gray and yellow streaked sky, snow-capped mountains, air so crisp and fresh it nearly burned her lungs, and vegetation so lush, the vibrant green was almost hard to look at for too long. Birds called back and forth, and insects buzzed a constant song. The quiet clomping of the horses’ hooves and swishing of their tails lulled her into a comfortable calm.

And all the while, she was adjusting her aperture and shutter speed, clicking away to capture these witching hours with her camera.

Jenner had said he didn’t want her taking pictures of him, but she couldn’t help herself. He was too beautiful not to photograph. The way he sat straight in the saddle, ear toward every forest noise. The way he cast a glance behind him at his packhorse as he urged it faster. The way his eyes looked when he scanned the woods. A haunted hunter ready for anything and missing nothing.

She shouldn’t feel safe riding ever closer to the brown bears, but with Jenner, unexplainably, she did.

The trail they road thinned to nothing in the middle of a meadow, waving like an ocean current with tall wild grasses and occasional blue flowers. Here, Jenner stopped. His attention was to their left, and she could see his nostrils flare, as if he was scenting the air. Wild thing, indeed. She sniffed but didn’t smell anything other than rich earth, pine sap, and horse crap, thanks to Jenner’s upwind packhorse taking advantage of their stop to squeeze out a pile of meadow muffins.

Jenner turned in his saddle. “Are you only here to photograph brown bears?” he asked quietly.

“Brown bears top the list, but I wouldn’t mind caribou, porcupine, ptarmigan, moose, waterfowl, wolves, black bears—”

“Okay, I got it. All animals.”

She smiled brightly. “Yep.”

He shook his head as he turned back around, but not before she saw the amusement on his face. And God, his distracted smile was beautiful. She wished she could’ve gotten a picture so she could look at it later when he wasn’t around.