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The last giant on Earth I want to see right now.
To be fair, there are very few men I want to see right now—giant, regular-sized, or little. But Bear is right under Markham on that list.
“What are you doing here?” I yell, pulling my AirPods from my ears while scanning the area to see if he’s caught me alone again. At the same time, Molly jumps on me, getting muddy paw prints all over a second pair of my pants.
I push Molly away harder than I mean to, and she yelps. And maybe I was louder than I intended because Bear winces as if I’ve slapped him, then drops to his knees to make sure Molly is okay. He scratches her ears and coos to her while also giving me a glimpse of the teddy bear everyone keeps telling me he is.
An apology is on the tip of my tongue when Bear faces me, his eyes narrowed.
“What amIdoing here?Ilive here,” he growls and stands with Molly close at his side.
So, he wants to play the intimidation game? Make me feel like I don’t belong here? Like I should go home?
Well, he doesn’t know who he’s dealing with. I’ve spent the past two years getting pushed around by Captain Markham. If I haven’t caved under his intimidation tactics, I’m not shrinking from Bear’s either.
I meet his glare with one of my own, ready to fire back. Molly’s happy yip and panting stop me. Suddenly I realize I reacted out of fear, and Bear reacted out of worry. So I choose to de-escalate.
“You live here? In this field?” Humor usually does the trick of bringing down the temperature of a hostile situation, but this time it backfires.
A look of confusion flits across Bear’s face, and I feel a flicker of regret. Then the glower I remember from Georgia and Zach’s wedding returns, extinguishing any feeling of regret.
“You know what I mean. You don’t have to be rude.” His tone is hard and cold as steel. And now I’m confused because I’m not the one who’s been rude.
But I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree about that because I don’t want to keep fighting with this guy.
I loosen my grip on my club, run my tongue over my lips, and offer the bare minimum about why I’m here. “I’m just hitting golf balls. The course is closed.”
“It’s winter.” For half a second, Bear’s eyes drop to my mouth before darting to a spot over my shoulder.
“Yeah, I noticed.”
“Probably easier to golf in California than Idaho in the winter. Were you trying to hit that target?” Now his eyes return to mine, as if he’s actually trying to make conversation, but he looks through me, not at me.
“I’m having an off day.” I stare through him, the same way he is me, ignoring thoughts about his eyes being the same variegated shade of blue of Smuk Lake that struck me as so beautiful the first time I came to Paradise.
“Might be easier to hit with a gun. If you know how to shoot, that is.” He steps around me and walks toward my target, then says over his shoulder. “I’ll help you take down the target.”
I have no choice but to follow. “I’m LAPD. I know how to shoot a gun—probably better than you do—and I’m still using the target.”
As if Bear and his comments weren’t annoying enough, I can barely keep up with him. The ground is hard and uneven, and I’m not as sure-footed as he is walking over the inch deep ice-crusted snow.
“Probably. I don’t shoot much. Or golf. Especially in places I don’t have permission to be.”
“I have permission to be here.” Mostly. Zach told me where I could hit golf balls when I asked.
Bear walks faster, and I scramble to keep up with him. Our footsteps echo through the winter-crisp air, which would be a lovely sound under different circumstances. As it is, I’m not sure what he’s doing or why he cares that I’m here.
He reaches my target and stops in front of it before turning back to me. Of course, out of the billions of people in the world, I’m face-to-face with one of the few who has a height advantage over me. Our eyes lock in a glare, and for a microsecond, thoughts about how blue his eyes are slip into my consciousness.
Then he turns slightly and points to the hostage. “Is this who you meant to hit? I would have gone for the bad guy.” His lip twitches in an almost smile, and his stupid blue eyes dance.
But it’s not funny.
“Thanks for the tip, Bjorn.” My lip doesn’t twitch. There is no smile trying to break free on my face. “Like I said, I have permission to be here—from your brother, in fact, and I’d like to get back to what I was doing.”
Bear’s shoulders tense, and he looks to the target, then back at me with an expression that says exactly how important he thinks what I’m doing is. Not very.
“Funny. Last time I checked, my brother didn’t own this field,” Bear says casually, while straightening to his full height to lookdown at me, reminding me again he’s capable of a feat most people aren’t.
