Snow Angels by Sabrina York

stop talking to her?
    And why was he suddenly swamped with an overwhelming jealousy?
    For a dead guy?
    “Y-yes.” She hiccupped. “I couldn’t leave him out there.” She leaned closer and whispered, “He’s scared of bears.”
    Wade laughed and pulled her back into his arms. “Honey, I’m scared of bears, too.” Hell, he’d nearly shit his pants when that creature had started lumbering toward him. “So what did you grab, exactly?”
    “Well, the first aid kit of course.” She gestured to the mangled kit on the floor. Had he really ripped it apart in his frenzy to treat Bo? “And Jax.”
    He noticed it then. The red shoebox, the one she’d grabbed from the sled. Tied up with strings.
    His throat worked. “That’s Jax?”
    She nodded. “I brought him here…to say good-bye. He…he always wanted to be sprinkled here. But I couldn’t leave him out there. I couldn’t.”
    “Of course not.” He stroked her back. “So you didn’t run back there to grab the rest of the bacon?”
    “No.”
    “Did you grab any of the food?”
    “No.”
    He tried not to put out a lip. She could have grabbed something . He was starved. No matter. The ranger would be here soon. Surely he had something.
    Her lip trembled. “Are you very mad?”
    “I’m not mad. I was scared, honey. Scared to death.” Scared to death he’d lose her.
    “I was fine. Jax said there was time.”
    The tsunami of emotion roiling through him nearly knocked him over. “ Jax said there was time? You listened to Jax ?”
    “I always listen to Jax.”
    “Stop listening to Jax!” Okay, he knew he was being irrational, but Jax was dead and gone, and he was alive and with her.
    “But—”
    “Stop. Listening. To Jax.” He waved his hand in the air. “Jax, you can go away now. She’s mine.”
    Lyssa froze. Stared at him. Her lips worked. “I-I’m yours?”
    Oh, crap. Had he really said that out loud? “I…would-would you…like to be?”
    Her smile warmed the cockles of his heart. “It bears some exploration.”
    He chuckled, relieved at the warmth in her expression, the glint in her eye. “Please don’t say that word.”
    “Which word?”
    “Bear.” He shuddered. “I don’t want to hear that word ever again.”
    “I’ll try to restrain myself.”
    “I would like to…explore this, though.”
    “As would I.” Her grin flowered, and he couldn’t help but kiss her. She continued grinning all the way through it.
    “What?” he asked when he finally raised his head.
    “I bet you never imagined it would end up like this when we met.”
    He thought back to the first time he saw her, all tiny and elfin and dressed in everything she owned. He’d wanted her even then. “You were pretty cute.”
    She smacked him. “You thought I was a stalker. A calendar groupie.”
    “Aren’t you?”
    “Only for one month,” she said with a wink. She set her palm to his cheek and went up on her toes to kiss him. “My Mr. December,” she murmured against his lips.
    “Mmm,” he responded.
    But then she went and added, “I don’t suppose you would pose like that for me…in private?” which set off a whole flurry of fantasies in his head.
    “Maybe later,” he said. But not now.
    Because the roar of a snowcat shook the cabin. The ranger was here.
    And posing like that for her required privacy.
    Lots of it.

 
     
     
Epilogue
     
     
    Wade awoke alone in a cold bed, and frowned. Over the past two weeks, he’d come to enjoy Lyssa’s presence at his side…to need it maybe. Without Bo warming his feet, the cold seeped in.
    The dog was enjoying himself—spoiled rotten—at the Waystation. They’d decided to keep him as he healed to make sure there were no lingering effects of his close encounter with the bear. He was coming home today.
    Home .
    A silly word for a cabin that didn’t belong to him, a cabin he’d be leaving tomorrow.
    But Lyssa was here, so it felt like home.
    The past fourteen days had been magnificent. Just the two of