Bearing the Late Thaw (Ice Bear Shifters Book 5) by Sloane Meyers

rest before heading back in to town.”
    Christine shook her head no, and looked at Neal with cold eyes. “I don’t want to stay here anymore. You’re a monster.”
    Her voice cracked when she said it, but her words still cut Neal to the core. Despite his strong alpha exterior, she had broken him with her rejection. He knew she was acting out from a place of fear and confusion. But it still hurt to look in her eyes and see the fear and anger there.
    “Alright,” he said, standing up and heading to the coat rack to get his parka. “If that’s what you want, I’ll take you home.”

Chapter Six
    Christine didn’t say goodbye to Neal as she dismounted the snowmobile and walked to the front door of the small house the firm had rented out for her. In fact, she didn’t even look at him. She couldn’t handle the sorrow reflecting in his deep violet eyes—sorrow she knew she had caused with her harsh words. She told herself that she had every right to be angry, but it was hard to reconcile that attitude with the knowledge that he had only been protecting her by keeping his true nature from her.
    Maybe her anger stemmed more from her disappointment with herself than from anything Neal had done wrong. Christine had always prided herself on championing the rights and value of those who were different from what society considered “normal.” It’s part of why she wanted to transition into a job where she could use her legal skills to help fight injustice. Too often, people who were different had no one to fight for them. Yet, here she was, storming out on Neal and calling him a monster because he was half bear. Because he was different.
    Her cheeks turned pink with shame when she remembered saying those words to him. She regretted them more than anything else she had ever said. After all, he had done his best to watch out for her. He had even saved her life, at the risk of his own. And the only way she thanked him was by calling him a monster. Sure, it was because of him that her life had been endangered in the first place. But he had done his best to avoid that as well.
    Christine went to the fridge and popped open a bottle of beer. She knew drinking alcohol when her body was so banged up probably wasn’t the smartest idea, but she deserved a drink after the day she’d had. She sat down on her couch and tried to figure out what to do next. The only course of action that made sense to her was to buckle down and throw herself completely into work. Hopefully, that would distract her from any thoughts of Neal. And the more she worked, the quicker this document review project would be finished. She sure as hell wasn’t going to go snowmobiling anymore. She was already trying to figure out how to explain to her insurance company what had happened to her wrecked snowmobile.
    All she wanted to do at this point was get the hell out of Glacier Point. She knew that leaving would essentially be running away, but, at this point, it seemed like the best course of action.
    Over the next few weeks, Christine stayed true to her plan. She barely slept, and spent every waking moment in the warehouse, sorting documents. She subsisted on microwave dinners, and avoided Northwinds Pub like the plague. She feared that any time she spent at the pub would put her at risk of running into Neal. Every time she thought about Neal she felt sad and ashamed, so she tried to push him out of her mind.
    But as the calendar turned to April, and then to May, she couldn’t stop the image of his heartbroken violet eyes from haunting her. She worked harder than ever, trying to fly through the boxes of documents, desperate to leave this place behind. But without Jill there to help, progress had slowed considerably. Steve worked slowly, and because the court had extended the deadline for finishing the review, the firm wasn’t interested in trying to send more people to help. The only bright spot in all of this was that the documents Christine was reviewing had