Page 8 of Bear My Heart

"I always thought it'd be cool to work there for a while. I'm from Alaska, how different could it be?"

Very, his bear said almost gloomily. No bears there. No salmon.

Lots of penguins, though. And leopard seals. Pete wasn't sure leopard seals made good hunting for grizzly bears, though. He had the vague idea they were in similar weight classes, and grizzlies were good swimmers, but nothing like their cousin polar bears. Pete would put money on himself on land, and a leopard seal in the water, but he didn't know how much time they spent on land.

"Utqiaġvik to McMurdo, then," Shanti murmured, but looked hopeful. "Do you think we can take a train?"

"It'll be one of the lines I build," Pete promised.

"Perfect. Oh, here comes the waitress. She'll ask if we want dessert." Shanti's gaze flickered beyond Pete and back to him, and he lifted his eyebrows.

"I always want dessert. You?"

"I wouldn't mind seeing what they have." Shanti almost whispered it, looking nearly guilty, and Pete tried not to let his surprise and confusion show. Ordering dessert shouldn't be that big a deal, but he had to remind himself that even though her dark eyes and sweet smile and gentle presence spoke of home to him, he didn't really know this wonderful woman yet.

"Dessert it is, then. Although I gotta say, the burger was so good that if the desserts look promising I might order everything on the menu."

Shanti gave a startled laugh. "You wouldn't!"

"I would." Pete grinned and they each took a dessert menu as the waitress cleared their dishes away. After a few moments of looking over it, Pete laughed again. "Oh my God."

"I think it's a good thing I went for something small," Shanti said almost faintly. "Everything on this menu looks…"

"Illegal," Pete said. "Illegal in at least seventeen states. Wow. Okay. Are we ordering one of everything?"

"No! That would be crazy! I don't care if we share, there's no way we could eat all that!"

Shanti was almost certainly right. There were eight desserts listed, unless each of the kinds of pie was counted separately, in which case, there were an even dozen. "We could try a bite of everything?" Pete suggested.

"We could come back for two weeks and have something new almost every day, too, without wasting all that food!"

Pete made no attempt to hide the slow smile that blossomed over his face. "So…that's basically dinner every night while I'm here to work on the railroad?"

"Oh." Shanti looked startled, then bit her lower lip and shrugged a little, as if she, unlike Pete, was trying to disguise her pleasure at the idea. "I don't have anything else planned…"

"Do you mind late dinners? The shift usually goes until six and I promise you do not want me to come from the railroad without showering first."

Shanti tilted her head. "It's not quite six yet today and we met almost an hour ago now? Do you have Thursdays off?"

Pete chuckled and shook his head. "No, today's an exception. We're moving the base of operations to Virtue now, but tomorrow I'm back to the usual hours."

"Is seven late enough, or do you need to make it eight?"

Delight rose in Pete's chest. "Split the difference? Seven-thirty? And to be clear, I don't actually expect to go out to dinner with you every night for two weeks in a row. You might not find me as charming as I do."

"Oh, I don't know, so far you're pretty charming. And like I said, I don't have anything else planned, but…thanks for the out. Just in case. For your sake, too. I'm very boring and you'll probably want to find other people to talk to."

"I don't think anything about you could possibly be boring," Pete said with complete sincerity. "And I think we should order this…this brownie platter thing. The Chef Charlee Special."

Shanti glanced at the menu, but she'd obviously already read the description, because she also shook her head no. "I cannot possibly eat all of that. If it's half as big as it sounds, absolutely not."

"We'll share it. I can eat an embarrassing amount of ice cream and brownies."

She glanced at him, too, mumbled something, and nodded. Pete leaned in a bit more. "What was that?"

"You're twice as wide as I am, that's all. Not in a bad way. Shoulders. Broad chest." Shanti moved her hands apart, indicating the width of his shoulders, then looked embarrassed. "Not that I'm staring at your shoulders."

Pete fought down a grin. "But are you?"