Page 13 of Awakened By the Guardian

“It moved! You moved!” she cried.

He opened his eyes, his expression confused. “But I didn’t feel anything.”

“Look.” She did it again, sharp nail straight up from the bottom to the top. He twitched away.

He didn’t say anything, just stared. So, she did it again, three more times with the same result.

“But I don’t feel it,” he said quietly. “I don’t feel anything.”

“But this is good, right? This is new.”

Gary nodded slowly, his gaze going to her face. He opened his mouth to speak but no sound came out, and she saw confusion in his expression, coupled with hope and despair. She knew what he was thinking. Sometime in the last two years he’d finally accepted that he was a paraplegic, with all the discomfort, lack of dignity, and problems that entailed. He’d accepted, adjusted, and conquered. But now, suddenly, hope was being held out to him again? The possibility of normal mobility?

It was a struggle to believe. And, hope was the most dangerous emotion of all. What if it all amounted to nothing?

“No need to figure things out right now,” she said, squeezing his hand, trying with a touch to tell him that she was here for him. “We’ll go to the doctor. Maybe⁠—”

“I need the bathroom,” he said, his voice flat.

“Don’t shut down on me, Gary! Don’t give up on this.”

“I’m not,” he said, though his voice belied it. “I just need the bathroom.”

Of course he did. So she leaned down.

He was a big man, but she was strong and helped get him into his wheelchair like she had a million times before. She was about to say something funny—anything to get him to smile—when he wheeled himself into the bathroom and rolled shut the sliding door. Cranky much? She was still dithering about what to do when she heard him cry out. Not in pain, but in surprise and maybe a little fear.

She was at the bathroom door in a flash, but she hesitated to burst through. “Gary?”

“I’m fine,” he called, and she didn’t detect a lie. When he spoke again, his voice was clearer and calmer. “I’m fine.”

“Gary, talk to me. I’m freaking out here.”

The door rolled open and he sat there, his face pale but determined. “I felt the cath,” he said.

She grimaced. “I’m sorry. That probably hurt.”

He nodded. “It did. Like a bitch, but you don’t get it. I felt it.”

“Oh my God,” she breathed.

She reached out, and he gripped her hand. “Tell me everything, Margaret.”

“What?”

“Last night. Tell me everything.”

Memories flashed through her brain in a chaotic blur: his proposal, him as a bear, her covering him with a blanket and holding his hand through the night. “You want to know about…about you changing? You know…” She took a deep breath and voiced what they both knew. “Into a bear.”

He nodded, expression grim. “Yeah. About that. And about why you won’t be with me if you love me.”

Oh hell.

CHAPTER 5

Not one damned thing in this whole world made sense anymore. Not the fact that he could suddenly feel his dick when he hadn’t for nearly three years. Not the fact that his furniture was wrecked because he’d transformed into a grizzly. And certainly not the fact that the woman he loved wouldn’t explain why she claimed he deserved “better” than her. She was everything to him.

Well, everything if he found something for his headache. He felt like shit. His head was throbbing, and he fought the urge to sleep. He kept thinking that he felt something in his legs or his feet. Was it pain? Temperature? Pressure? Maybe. Or maybe he was just imagining things. He’d felt the exact same mirage right after the car accident that broke his spine. He couldn’t fall down that rabbit hole again. Not if it ended up back here in this chair.