Saving Her Bear: A Second Chances Romance by Alana Hart, Michaela Wright Page B

window as though craning to see into the Gorilla enclosure at the zoo.
    She gave him a gentle elbow. “Nothing. Mind your own.”
    Bodie smiled, returning the jab in the ribs, before turning for the fridge. “You need anything down the store?”
    Catherine glanced toward the clock. It was getting close to eight in the evening. “No, you’re going out this late?”
    Bodie stared into the fridge a moment. “Yeah. Gotta get out sometimes. Otherwise, I might lose my mind – especially with your Grandfather around all hours of the day.”
    Catherine chuckled. Bodie may have a bit of a sour streak, but he was family.
    “You sure you’re all set?” He asked.
    Catherine nodded, watching as Bodie finished his beer before grabbing the keys to his pickup and heading out the front door. Catherine watched him walk around the shed and disappear.
    An hour after Bodie left, John still hadn’t called or shown up. She was beginning to feel a little hurt. No matter how terrifying the thought of John upending his life for her was, she realized by the time the sun went down that she wanted to dive head first into that fear – with him. She tried his phone one more time around ten, and finally gave up, curling into the twin bed in the Calhoun guest bedroom, the quilts still folded across the foot of the bed exactly as her Grammy Calhoun had done it.
    She lay there listening to the deathly silence of the Maine woods through her open windows, and fell into a fitful sleep.

 
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER SIX
     
    Catherine woke to a loud rumble from the living room – Grampy was up, and so were his hackles.
    She clamored out of her bed, rustling into the kitchen to see what might be troubling her grandfather. He was struggling with his green sweater, a staple of his ‘lounge around the house’ attire. She watched him a moment, his shaky hands trying to take hold of the hem, then trying to slump the garment up onto his shoulders. It was a pathetic and futile spectable.
    “Here, Grampy. Let me help.”
    He turned at her touch and smiled, holding still for her to straighten his sweater. The house always had a chill to it in the early morning, the woodstove rarely lit in the summer months despite the cool nights. The sweater was caught at the hem of his t-shirt.
    “Here, hang on. It’s caught.”
    She pulled the sweat and t-shirt up and the thick scent of very dirty laundry filled her nostrils. She fought not to grimace as she straightened his t-shirt. In the split second his t-shirt was raised, she spotted a purple and yellow shape, almost identical to her own, massive across Grampy’s back.
    “Jesus, what happened to you?”
    He jerked as her hand touched the purple shape, reaching back to cover himself. “You helping me get dressed or trying to tickle me? Christ!”
    She leaned closer. “Grampy, what happened to your back?”
    He furrowed his brow at her. “What? Nothing. I’m getting old is all. Lost my balance and bumped something.”
    She straightened his filthy t-shirt and pulled his sweater up around him.
    She stood by as Grampy Calhoun slumped down in his favorite seat, watching him resort to smacking the TV remote in his open palm, when it wouldn’t work.
    “God damn thing! Where’s Bodie?” He demanded, getting frustrated.
    Catherine shuffled over the braided rug and took the remote from his hands, gently. Then she switched the input on the TV so he could watch the satellite. Grampy shot her a half smile, his lazy eye glaring toward the ceiling as he did. “Thankyuh dear. Why don’t you fry us up some eggs, will yuh?”
    Catherine’s eyebrows shot up, but she didn’t say a word as the old man returned his attention to the television. She glanced around the empty house, almost aching for Bennett to appear and share this silent thought with her, but instead she simply headed into the kitchen – the proper place for any woman as far as Grampy Calhoun was apparently concerned, and started cooking up the old man’s