“You alright, Alanna?” Nathan said.
Alanna took another sip of her Grey Goose and soaked up the sound of his voice, the scent of him, the way his hair was just a little too long and messy, and the way his arms filled out the sleeves of his sweater.
“Rough couple of weeks,” Alanna said. “I’m fine. Thank you.”
“You want to talk about it?” Nathan said. He looked right at her, his attention focussed entirely on whatever she might have to say.
She wondered what would happen if she asked him for help, but the thought of an innocent man being hurt on her behalf would make her feel worse about everything and she shoved that thought away.
“No,” Alanna whispered. She leaned on her hand and sipped her Grey Goose, refusing to look away from him. “But tell me about yourself. Distract me. How long have you worked here? Is it a good job for a bear?”
“It’s a good job for this bear,” Nathan said. He motioned to the bartender and a locally brewed IPA was brought to him without him having to ask. “I run the place with my brothers actually. We each own an equal stake. My little bro Eric is the concierge, Cody runs the kitchen, and Connor’s in charge. I’m the handyman, obviously. To be honest with you, we really don’t need to be working. But we like to keep busy and we enjoy the place.”
“Wait…” Alanna grinned, disbelieving. “You own a quarter of this place and you’re already rich to begin with, but you’re the handyman?”
“I like being the handyman,” Nathan said. “I wear a cool tool belt, I don’t have too much work to do. The rest of the time I can go run and fish in the woods or read or ski or, ya know, bother Connor. It’s just enough work.”
“Just enough work for what?” Alanna said.
“To keep me out of trouble,” Nathan said. “I’ve been in trouble. Didn’t much like it. Don’t plan on getting into it again. It was when I was younger.” He shrugged and sipped his beer. “I fell in with the wrong kind of shifter. He thought I was like him. But I wasn’t. Anyway…I like to keep busy enough to keep trouble like that far away.”
“Right,” Alanna murmured, but all that warmth and good feeling rushed away again like a tide.
Nathan was clearly a good man and a good bear. He didn’t want trouble in his life.
That’s all I am, Alanna thought. Whether it was her fault or not, all she could promise was just that: trouble.
She was grasping at straws to even think of asking for help from the hotel handyman. It would be more useful to just resign herself to her fate and get used to it.
“Can I ask you a question?” Nathan said. He didn’t wait for an answer, which was wise because she would have said no. “Are you with the man you’re staying with? I only ask because you don’t seem like a couple.”
“It’s a business relationship.” She leaned on her hand and looked up at Nathan who’d moved over one seat toward her since they were talking now. “That’s all.”
“Okay…” Nathan rubbed his chin. He looked like he was fighting the urge to ask a million more questions. “You don’t like him, do you?”
“No.” She had finished her drink and she ordered another, refusing Nathan’s offer to put it on the house. It was Rawley’s money. She’d just as soon waste it.
“Are you...in trouble?” he asked tentatively.
“Don’t you worry about me,” she said, tapping the bar. He looked down at her fingernails, blunt and unmanicured. Bear or not, a man like him was probably used to women with money. Women with perfect nails. On impulse, she hid her hand in her lap. “I’m not getting some cute handyman involved in my nonsense.”
Save me, she thought again. But it was only a thought. He was a kind stranger and that was all. And rescues by men like him were the stuff of fantasies.
“Cute, huh?” Nathan bit his lip and tossed her wink.
Alanna snorted a laugh, covering her nose. “I don’t know if that was dorky or sexy.”
“I’ve been told I’m both,” Nathan said, taking a swig of his drink.
She looked him up and down. He was hiding a lot of muscle under his sweater and he looked as if he had been personally sculpted by a god. “Yeah. I don’t think anyone’s ever called you dorky. But nice try.”
“Okay, that’s true,” he said with a shrug. “More like the bad boy of my brothers.”
“Bad boy?” She raised her eyebrows. That didn’t sound right either.
“I was the one getting us beer when we were underage,” he said, with a shrug. “My older brother, Conner, he tends to call the shots but I never listened. Then I ran off. Got into some real trouble. It was fun until it wasn’t.”
“And now you’re a nice handyman,” she said, leaning on her arm to face him.
The light was low and it glimmered in his eyes and played off his hair, making it look like spun gold. He had such an easy smile and an open way about him that was so warm she wanted to wrap herself up in it like a blanket.
“Now I’m a nice handyman.” His voice was low and husky, and when he met her gaze, it somehow didn’t sound as innocent as it should have.
“Why are you really a handyman?” she whispered.
“I told you.”
“No, c’mon,” she smiled, searching his eyes. “There’s more to it.”
He sighed, and scooted a little closer, leaning on his hand. “I like fixing things. It’s what I’m good at. People get so happy when something was broken and you came along to make it better. That’s what I like to do. “
“Even if they’re just rich people in a ski lodge?” She said, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Well...I also fix things for people around the mountain. There are bears who live in cabins farther up. I like to make sure they’re taken care of.”
“Huh…” She shook her head. “Not sure I’ve ever met anyone like you before. Wish you’d been around when I was younger. My brother and I could have used taking care of.”
“You two were on your own?”
She nodded mutely and his hand moved as if to stroke her hair before he pulled it back. Her cheeks warmed, her heartbeat picking up a little at the near gesture, but she only dropped her gaze to her drink and took another sip.
“We used to move from town to town,” she said softly. “And there’s always a rich part of town. We had no money.” She shook her head, chuckling at the memory of threadbare clothes when they lived as humans and strategic shoplifting. “I mean no money. And I was okay living as a bear most of the time. But sometimes I wanted… I wanted to feel human. And sometimes we’d walk by these big hotels or restaurants and I’d stare at the people in the windows.” She spoke softly staring across the bar into the dark, mirrored glass that reflected them. “They looked so happy. And there were always couples. They seemed so in love. Once at Christmas, I saw people dancing in a hotel ballroom through the windows. All the lights dancing over their happy faces… I wanted that. I don’t know. It made me feel like I was more of an animal when I was human than when I was a bear. Funny, huh?”