Page 50 of Bear My Heart

Pete was surprised at the level of possessive pride that awakened in him. He wasn't entirely sure why, just that it felt…

Like home, his bear said contentedly. Our mate is in our den where she's happy and safe, and we can take care of her and be happy with her.

Sometimes his bear was a little simplistic, Pete thought. Not this time. This time, it had gotten it exactly right. He murmured, Yeah, I think so, and after changing into his own PJs, crawled into bed beside an already-sleeping Shanti. He was every bit as tired as she was, and only woke up some hours later because his bear whispered, Wake up, at him.

It also added, Nothing's wrong, just as softly. But you should take our mate outside. The sky is dancing.

Pete heard himself make a bleary sound even as he sat up to snuggle Shanti, blankets and all, into a bride's carry in his arms. She woke up with a soft, startled breath, and he murmured, "I've got something to show you," into her hair, even though he was only half awake himself.

She made a bleary little sound herself, a blurt of confusion as she turned her head to smoosh it against his chest as if rejecting anything that had to do with wakefulness. Pete couldn't help chuckling with sympathy even as he carried her out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Shanti made another sound of pure protest as he opened the front door, but unsurprisingly, curiosity got the better of her even if she was barely awake. "What are you doing?"

"Look up," Peter breathed, and Shanti glanced upward as she yawned.

"Clouds. What. Funny clouds. They're…" She caught her breath and came all the way awake, staring at the sky. "They're green? And red and oh my god, this is the aurora? The…oh. Oh, wow." She choked on the last words, and Peter sat down on the stoop, Shanti still cuddled in his arms as they both gazed upward at the dancing sky.

The lights really were almost like clouds, in their way. Thin and constantly moving, but in the northern darkness, stars shone through the soft colorful curtains as they hissed through the upper atmosphere. The bulk of the lights were green, ranging from a faint, barely-there color to a surprisingly vibrant shade that shivered, at the uppermost edges, into a soft, shifting red. The lower edges spun lines across the sky, twisting and tracing above the treetops, singing and whispering until Shanti, incredulously, breathed, "I can hear them. Can I hear them?"

Pete murmured, "Yeah," into her hair, smiling. "Yeah, you can. Not always, but tonight they're singing for you."

Shanti threw her arms around his neck and he could feel hot, joyful tears against his skin as she whispered, "Okay, well, I guess I live here now. I live here, where the sky sings."

He laughed, a combination of hope and delight and adoration washing through him. "I'm all for it, but maybe that's not a decision to make in the middle of the night?"

"It's the best time to make it," Shanti disagreed, still in a whisper, before her mouth found his and captured it in a sweet, increasingly hungry kiss. When it ended, both of them breathless, she whispered, "There's another decision I want to make now too."

Heat and hope crashed through him, seizing his heart. "Are you sure?"

"I've never been more sure of anything in my life," Shanti murmured. "I want you to take me back to bed and show me everything. I love you, Peter. I love this place. I love whatever life we're going to build together. I want it all to start right now."

"I want everything you want," he whispered in return. "I love you too, Shanti. I can't wait to see how everything goes for us." He lifted her easily and carried her back into the house and up to his—to their—bedroom, and in the small hours of the night made love for the first time, carried away by joy and the brilliance of the dancing aurora above them, shining like a benediction on their union.

CHAPTER 25

Shanti rose the next morning more than refreshed: her heart was full of happiness, and her soul was more content than she could ever have imagined. Being with Peter in every way was more wonderful than she ever hoped, and she felt like she could float through her day, especially with the late-rising sun spilling soft gold in through the windows and showing the rough tall evergreens surrounding Peter's house to their best light. The sky was an incredibly mild blue, thin clouds dancing through it much like last night's northern lights, and it felt very much as if Shkalnik was putting its best foot forward for her today.

There was also an absolutely delicious smell coming from the kitchen, so Shanti pulled a robe and slippers on and went to find Peter more or less covered in pancake batter with an expression of alarmed determination spread across his face. "I haven't burned any yet!" he announced when he saw her, and Shanti laughed, coming to kiss him good morning.

"I take it you've never made pancakes before?"

"I had to call my mom for the recipe," he admitted, but he was grinning. "How hard could it be, I said?"

"Not very," Shanti said, smiling in return. "But messy, maybe. It does smell wonderful. I would have thought I couldn't eat anything for a week after all that fish last night, but now I'm hungry!" She sat at the bar on the other side of a kitchen counter that faced the dining room, put her chin in her hands, and watched Peter making her breakfast. "Has anyone told you that you're pretty great?"

"Only one person who matters." He smiled over his shoulder at her while flipping a pancake, and flopped half of it onto the counter. Shanti burst out laughing and he curled in on himself in embarrassed defeat, mumbling, "Maybe I better pay attention to what I'm doing."

"Maybe," she said happily, and after a moment got up to look into drawers and cupboards until she'd found everything she needed to set the table. The morning passed with pancakes and, somehow, so very unexpectedly—or not, Shanti thought, amused—with a return to bed that had nothing to do with sleep. It was early afternoon, which turned out to be alarmingly close to sunset, before they left the house, but watching the deep gold light settle over Shkalnik made Shanti even more certain of what she'd said the night before: "I really do want to move here, Peter. I honestly love it already. Do you think the clinic might hire me?"

"I think they would chomp at the bit to hire you. Would you like to go over and see it?"

Shanti felt herself light up, as if she wasn't already glowing with joy. "I'd love that. And I want to see the whole town while it's still daylight!"

Peter laughed. "Then we'd better look around before we go over to the clinic. The sun will be down before four. I'd like to show you the dock. Not that it's very exciting all by itself, but the view is amazing."

"And it's what they're looking at developing for more cruise ships, right? I feel like I understand exactly what Shkalnik must be going through, discussing it, because Virtue went through something so similar with the train line."

"Yeah. We've had them coming in for about ten years, but only a couple a summer. More is a big commitment." They were already in the truck, so Peter turned them down toward the water and they drove through the little town. Away from downtown, the streets were so lined with trees it was like driving through a forest peppered by small roads and driveways. Snow was built up at the sides of the road, although the sidewalks were more or less clear—where they existed, at least—and the streets were bumpy with potholes and lumps of ice, which made Pete mutter. "On one hand, it's not like cruise ships come in during the winter, so the ice pockets are fine, but it's hard to keep ahead of the potholes here, with the way the ground freezes and thaws."

"Most people on a cruise aren't driving anyway," Shanti guessed. "They must take a shuttle bus from the dock or walk. It's only a mile or so, right?" They were pulling up to the dock as she asked, and her breath rushed out of her in a soft laugh. "Oh my goodness."