The Christmas Tree Bear: A Bear Shifter Paranormal Holiday Romance by Rosie Lynne Page B

rinsed her face with a wash cloth.
     
    “There, looking better already,” he told her, after several long minutes of soaking.  “You scared me there.  Your lips were starting to turn blue.”
     
    “I felt like an icicle,” Charlie admitted. “Here, I’m gonna--” She dunked her head under the water.  The shock of warmth on her face helped revive some of her brain cells.  She sat up again and shook out her hair.  “Man.  That feels better.”
     
    Willis only smiled and tried to push her hair out of her face.  He kept touching her: her hair, her face, her knee, her toes.  Never anything inappropriate, considering she was almost naked in a bath with him, but little touches all the same.  She watched him, watched his muscles flex and relax under his skin as he rinsed out the washcloth, then came back to sit at the edge of the tub.  
     
    “How come you’re okay?” she asked eventually.
     
    Willis averted his eyes.  “It’s… well, it’s the--”  He stopped.
     
    “The bear thing?” she supplied.
     
    “Yes.”  He looked at her then.  “Yes, it’s because of the bear thing.”
     
    Charlie nodded to herself.  “I really didn’t imagine it, then?  You turning--”
     
    “Turning into a nine foot tall brown bear?” Willis asked.  He offered her a self-deprecating smile.  “It was real.”
     
    Charlie looked down into the tub.  She stretched her fingers under the warm water.  He had taken care of her when she had gotten stuck out there in the ice, then made sure she didn’t develop hyperthermia just now.  
     
    “Have you always been, ah.”  She struggled for a moment.  “A bear?”
     
    “We’re called shifters,” Willis offered.  “And, yeah, I’ve always been a bear.  My dad was, too.”
     
    Charlie struggled around that idea for a moment.  “Is Jolie…?”
     
    “Nope.”  Willis chuckled.  “My parents used to tell stories that my dad knew my mom was the one after she almost shot him with a shotgun one night when he was running across the fields.”
     
    Charlie chuckled too.  “That’s crazy.”
     
    Willis shrugged.  “Shifters like us… we just know these things.”  He moved on quickly. “My nephew, Elvis, is a bear shifter as well.  It runs in families.  My cousin Marta isn’t, but she married another shifter.  A llama.”
     
    “A llama?” she repeated.
     
    “A llama.  They’re waiting to see what their two kids will be.”  He rubbed at the back of his neck, then tugged at his ear, like he did when he was nervous.  Charlie smiled to realize she already knew this man’s tells.  “I’m still the same guy.  I’m still Willis, sexy farm man, like I was this morning when we were texting.  Like I was before you left the farm.  You, ah.  Happen to know some more things than I planned to tell you just yet.  I was going to wait until at least date number three to throw this out at you,” he added quickly.
     
    Charlie patted the water and watched it ripple.  “You probably saved my life, you know.”
     
    Willis flushed.  “I wasn’t going to leave you out there.”
     
    She reached out of the water and squeezed his hand where it rested on the rim of the tub.  He looked up at her with startled eyes – still the big, brown, honest ones that kept drawing her in.  
     
    “Help me up?” she asked quietly.  
     
    Willis helped her carefully stand up in the tub and started it draining.  He yanked a big towel out of the linen closet and watched her start to dry off.
     
    “I’m…” He watched her rub at her legs in distraction for a moment before he shook himself.  “I’m going to go get a fire started, all right?”  He ran out the bathroom door before he could get an answer.
     
    Charlie smiled to herself.  Her big farm bear was a gentleman, no matter how much he teased her.  
     
    ***
     
    Willis squatted by the fireplace and struck another match.  The big space heater was keeping the worst of the cold at