He should leave right now. He didn’t like the companionable silence between them, or sharing the magic night sky, because this was about connecting and he didn’t want to connect with her. He wanted her to stay a distant acquaintance, someone he recognized from the service station. He wanted to go back up his mountain and sit in solitude on his own porch, not beside her on her wooden front steps.
But . . . nipples.
It was hard for him to walk away, with hard being the operative word.
Which made her even more dangerous to his self-imposed semi-exile from the human race, because every time he came in contact with her he became more interested in finding out who she was, what made her tick. She was so quiet and self-contained that even years into the future she could still supply surprises, and he wasn’t a “future” type of guy. He was a here-and-now, don’t-let-anyone-close-enough-to-give-a-fuck-about type of guy. He shouldn’t be wondering if she had a temper, how far someone would have to push her for the hot to surface, if he could make her scream in bed or if she tried to be as quiet as possible—
Shit. Just when his dick was settling down, he had to default to thinking about sex.
She said, “If you run short of food, we’ll share ours. We wouldn’t have what we have if it hadn’t been for you.”
He surprised himself by almost snorting a quick laugh, holding it back at the last second. Here he’d been torturing himself thinking about sex with her, and she’d been thinking about food. There it was in a nutshell, the difference between men and women.
His dick took that as a challenge to refocus her attention. He knew he could. He had the self-control to really make a woman happy, several times a night. Give him five minutes and she wouldn’t be thinking about eating pizzas and Pop-Tarts, she’d be eating—
Fuck! Shit! He needed to get out of here. He needed to go, and go now.
Then a bright curtain of crimson waved over the sky, and he saw a black shape on the other side of the road. He was on his feet and the shotgun in his right hand, pulling her upright with his left, before his brain finished forming the word bear. She didn’t yelp, though he knew he’d startled her. He released her to pull open the screen door, then pushed her up the step and onto the screened porch. He joined her, putting himself between her and the door and silently closing it.
He pointed toward the bear, hoping she could see his gesture in the deeper darkness of the porch. She turned her head in the direction he’d indicated, and went totally still as she spotted the problem.
The bear was rooting around on the ground, likely snuffling for fallen acorns. The breeze was in their faces so it hadn’t scented them, and a bear’s nose was far more acute than its eyesight. Likely they could have stayed still and remained sitting on the steps without the bear ever knowing they were there—and he had the shotgun—but he didn’t want to kill it if he didn’t have to, and neither did he want Sela in harm’s way. They were safer on the porch, where he could quickly get her inside if the wind shifted and the bear scented them.
They stood motionless, watching the creature root around. They heard a few grunts and snuffles, then it moseyed deeper into the bushes and was soon lost from sight. Ben listened as it got farther and farther away, and the sounds faded.
He realized he was holding Sela’s slim wrist, his big hand wrapped completely around it. Her skin was cool and silky smooth under his rough fingers, and the impact of willingly touching someone after years of holding himself apart was so strong that he felt as if he’d been punched in the solar plexus. He had to force himself to release her.
“I gotta go.”
He pulled the screen door open. His voice sounded raw and a little strained, but at least he’d gotten himself moving in the right direction.
She didn’t ask him to wait. Instead she said, “Be careful.” Then she let herself into the house, leaving him there, and he heard the click of the door lock.
He blew out a gust of relief when he was once more walking the road, heading back home. He kept the shotgun in his hand because obviously the bears were