Dirk: A Stepbrother Romance(25)

A noise like thunder rumbled overhead and she almost lost her footing as she looked around in amazement. It was still a bit too dark to tell but the skies didn’t seem to be cloudy. With a shrug, she resumed her jogging, humming in time to the music as a slight wind began to rustle the leaves of the trees lining the forest path. Lisa picked up her pace a little, almost running now.

She had gone almost a half mile along the forest path when she suddenly got the unmistakable feeling of being watched. Her eyes widened with irrepressible panic as she scanned the tall pine trees on either side of the path, extending in every direction as far as the eye could see. She saw no one. Fear coursed through her veins and almost automatically she started running, her breath burning in her lungs as she ran faster than she had ever run before.

Then she saw him. A huge, brown, absolutely beautiful, and deadly, bear with chestnut brown fur with flecks of gold. Its teeth were bared as it raced towards her. She almost froze in her terror. She couldn’t remember … are you supposed to freeze when you see a bear, or play dead, or run? While she tried to figure it out, he kept coming right at her in long lopping strides.

Raw fear clotted her blood in her veins and adrenaline burst through her in a rush as her terror took over and she faced forward and chose the “run away” option. He caught up to her effortlessly, his large paws closing about her waist as he lifted her in his great big paws and roared loud enough to wake the dead. She didn’t have to speak bear to recognize a roar of triumph when she heard it. His scent assailed her nostrils, surprisingly clean and nice. There was something strange about this bear. Why wasn’t she dead already? Her eyes fastened in fascinated horror on the pink inside of his mouth as he roared anew. The sound so loud she was almost afraid it would break her ear drums. Goosebumps erupted all over her hands and sweat poured down her body in rivulets. His paw encircled her entire waist effortlessly as he held her closer to his face and studied her.


Then things got even stranger as some deep survival instinct took over. This was a wild animal, but there was something different about it. There was an intelligence behind its eyes. Rather than scream she chose to speak.

“Please, please,” she panted, barely breathing through her fear. “Please don’t. I have little kids depending on me! Please don’t kill me!”

She was talking to a bear, her subconscious screamed. But even knowing that it couldn’t understand a word of what she was saying – or at least shouldn’t be able to, didn’t deter her as she continued to cry and plead for her life. Every nerve in Lisa’s body strained to breaking point as the beast kept her on level with its shiny white teeth, the size of small tusks.

Lisa struggled weakly in its arms, tears coursing down her cheeks as the animal stopped roaring long enough to look right at her out of strangely beautiful grey eyes flecked with bits of golden color. The animal seemed to freeze as it looked into her clear turquoise eyes. It blinked its great big eyes as though in confusion and Lisa wished desperately that she had a gun or tranquilizer.

The bear shook her slightly staring at her as though in wonder and she screamed anew. Then it extended one paw and?unbelievably? stroked her cheek gently. Lisa’s eyes widened in terror; was that the signal to begin eating her?

The beast made a low sound deep in its throat, its pale gaze fastened on hers. They stared at each other for a while and then with a grunt, it gently, almost reverently, with a deftness she did not think a bear could possess, placed her on her feet back onto the ground.

Lisa stared up at the immense bear, almost afraid to believe this was happening. The beast, as though understanding her disbelief, poked her slightly with one claw on its paw. She jerked backwards, almost falling over. Then with one last glance back at it, she turned and began to run, expecting every second to hear its feet thundering after her and the large furry paws closing around her neck again.

But with every step that took her farther away, the bear just stood watching her, an almost wistful expression on its face.

It let her go.

She ran for all she was worth, gasping as she stumbled and fell. Her alarmed gaze flew over her shoulder again and then widened in disbelief; the bear was gone! In its place, she saw a naked man walking away.

He turned for one last glance over his shoulder, the distance masking his features, and then he himself disappear. She fainted on the spot in mid-stride.





CHAPTER ONE



2015



Lisa Fuller grinned down at three-year old Emily, sharing the little girl’s happy laughter as they both threw more bread down to the swans floating around in the pond.

Emily was a little girl with a tangled mop of blonde hair, deep-set dimples, and the bluest pair of eyes she had ever seen on anyone. Emily had the sweetest smile possible and whenever she grinned at Lisa it felt as though all was immediately right with the world. You wouldn’t know it to look at her but she had known so much tragedy in her short life it was a wonder she even knew how to smile. Children really were resilient, Lisa decided.

“Lisa?” Emily chirped, in her little girl voice.

“Yes hon?” Lisa said, tossing a particularly large piece of bread to a giant swan at the far end of the pond.

“Who’s that man over there?”

“What man?”

“Over there. He’s been staring at us,” Emily said, pointing in the direction of another bench with the typical innocence of children.