Lumberjack Werebear (Saw Bears Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Then another and another.
    “They’re fireflies,” Tagan explained in a hushed tone. “They stay active late into the night up here.”
    She’d seen fireflies before, but not like this. As more and more lit up, she gasped. “They’re beautiful.”
    Tagan looked down at her, holding her gaze in the soft moonlight. “Yeah. Beautiful.”
    Her heart beat against her chest as his eyes dipped to her lips. Her breath froze in her chest as he leaned closer.
    “You want me to kiss you, don’t you?” he asked low.
    The fireflies illuminated the woods behind him with their twinkling lights. Her lips throbbed with wanting, and her chest stirred like she was just coming back to life after a long slumber. If he kissed her, she’d be changed from the inside out. From her cells to her muscle fibers to her pounding heart, everything would be different. She wanted that. She wanted to live again.
    Searching his eyes, she nodded. “Yes.”
    His chin tilted slightly, and he gave her a hard look. “You’re too good for this place. You shouldn’t be wanting things like that.”
    He pulled away and turned his back on her. Not before she saw something dark in his eyes. Hurt, or perhaps regret, she wasn’t sure.
    Angry and feeling tricked, she clenched her hands at her sides and glared at his receding back. “I shouldn’t want things like what? To kiss a man? I didn’t ask you to get that close to me. You leaned in, and now you’re shaming me for feeling ?”
    “No, Brooke,” he said, turning, “you should absolutely want to kiss a man. Try saving your affection for someone who returns it next time.”
    Her mouth dropped open. How utterly confusing. She’d completely misread that moment with the fireflies, and now she’d angered him. Admittedly, she didn’t have that much experience with the opposite sex. Still, his abruptness stung. “I’m sorry I…” She didn’t know what she was supposed to apologize for. Clearly, she’d done something wrong, but she hadn’t a clue as to what.
    He hiked up the trail, much faster than she could keep up with, and when he was nearly out of sight in her flashlight beam, he stopped and pointed to a clearing on the side of the mountain. “Here. This is where you’ll get the best cell phone reception.”
    Confusion engulfed her as she paused beside him. “Thank you,” she murmured softly, trying to keep the tremble from her voice.
    “Can you see the trail we came up?”
    She pointed the flashlight down the steep embankment along a thin, worn path. “Yes.”
    “Good. That’ll lead you right back to the park.”
    “Where are you going?”
    “Home.” But he didn’t go back down the trail. Instead, he disappeared into the woods.
    “What did I do wrong?” she blurted out.
    Tagan didn’t answer. Hell, from the way he’d torn out of there, he was probably too far away to hear her. A stupid, treacherous tear slipped down her cheek, and she dashed it away angrily. She’d trusted Meredith to rent a decent place for her. This trip hadn’t been her idea. It had been her mentor’s. Let me take care of everything , she’d said. Yeah, well look where that got her. Then she’d been stupid enough to trust Tagan, a complete stranger, and a man so hot and cold she couldn’t read his mood from one moment to the next. And now he’d abandoned her out here in the woods in the middle of the freaking night. She was pretty sick and tired of trusting others, only to be left on her ass.
    Another tear came, and another. And just in case that jerk Tagan was watching her from the woods somewhere, she turned her back to the forest and looked out over the valley between this mountain and the next.
    “Oh, my gosh,” she whispered as her gaze landed on the starry night before her.
    A million specks of light pierced the dark veil above her. The mountains were only dark shadows, tinged in the blue moonlight, but the stars…the stars were resplendent.
    Brooke sagged to her knees at the grandeur of it