"Right. Okay ..." Marci assessed the situation. "Guess I'll keep moving then. I have no idea what I am doing. Is this normal?"
He shrugged.
Marci stared down at the mattress. Fine. Whatever. She'd start with the boxes.
"Hey? Let me help."
She nodded and smiled. "Sure. I'm sure your muscles will be more helpful than my self-pity."
His cheeks flushed rosy. Interesting. A shifter that can't take a compliment.
"I'm not, or well. Okay. Let's get everything in."
"Caleb, you do realize you don't look like a big fluffy bunny, right?" She rolled her eyes and grabbed the box with a grunt.
The edge of the box bit into her stomach, but damn it if she wasn't going to prove her own usefulness.
He sputtered. "A bunny?"
"Yeah. Sorry, to burst your bubble. Annie said you were a bear; I assume that was more than just a poke at your rough exterior."
His lip curled for a split second. "Fine. Yeah. Whatever. Let's go."
Marci had zero ideas about why he looked put out, but she did like poking at him. Underneath this giant appeared to be a teddy bear to the wild grizzly he most likely was.
She watched as he lifted the queen size mattress as if it weighed next to nothing. The floppy rectangle flopped over his head. She grabbed her box and hurried behind.
"This bunny could use some help getting this thing up the stairs. All you need to do it guide it and I will do the lifting, but I can't carry it above my head with the narrow stairs."
She put the box down and stepped next to him, rubbing against him as she passed to the stairs. She wanted him to reach out for her, fuck the bed, or instead maybe they could do that on it. He didn't though, and mentally she tried to scold herself. She didn't need or want a man. This was her time to be herself. She needed to know she wasn't here because of some witch. Conscious thoughts still didn't stop the burning in her as she caught his musky scent when he was close enough to touch.
"Thanks for your help. And just so you know, I don't think you are built like a bunny. I figured you'd get the joke since I was pretty sure you knew your effect on ... uh well, I figured you knew your massive size."
He grunted. "It's fine. Just trying to get you moved in before dark. The northern winds are coming in. The sooner we get you settled, the better."
A pang of regret made her wince. She shouldn't feel this way. She shouldn't care. Slowly moving up the stairs to the top of the mattress she started to pull as he pushed. He was right; all she had to do was guide him. He'd barely even broken a sweat.
As they neared the top, he finally spoke.
"Take the room over there." He jerked his head to the left.
"Okay, sure. Why?"
She angled the mattress, and he took it from there.
"One, it's the only one that Annie cleaned when she heard someone was coming. Two, I cleaned the chimney and know the flue works, so you won't get too cold."
She followed behind him as he shoved the mattress in.
"Oh, okay. Thanks, for going through all this trouble."
He laid out the mattress. "You'll need to thank Annie. I just did what she suggested. Be careful though. That door sticks. At some point, I'll shave it down. This place needs some help. Maybe for once we could try and bring in some new blood to the town, actually have a real tourist season."
"I'll go grab some more boxes."
"Yeah. Sure. Be right down."
Marci walked around the room. It was large enough for her queen size bed and her small couch. It had more room for furniture she didn't even own.
Natural light from the late afternoon sun filtered through large picturesque windows.
"I think I see why she insisted on this room." She walked to the windows. The mountains and forest lay out beyond a small break in the yard. Laying her hand on the window, she peered out. "This is amazing."
Her magic jumped suddenly. A jolt of power radiated out from the forest. Strange. Turning back to the forest she could sense something raw and new to her. She jumped at the thump of a box behind her.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" he asked.
She nodded. "Yeah, it is. What is it? I can feel the magic, but it's not what I'm used to."
He shrugged. "The beauty is nice, and my bear loves the forest, but not that part of it." He came up next to her, an inch that might as well have been a canyon separating him from her. "That part there, it's full of pixies. Stay away. That's all I know. It's not a place for you. Stay away."
"Okay. I'm not sure how to take that. A place for me?"
An ember of anger ignited, she stepped aside.
"I meant it could be dangerous."
"Right. Oh. Okay. God, forbid poor little Marci could actually protect herself. Or poor little me, that I wouldn't be smart enough to not go into some crappy forest. For once I thought fate might be on my side, but I was wrong. My family couldn't trust me to make a good, choice and set up my whole marriage. They couldn't handle, that as they climbed social ladders, I did my own thing." She fisted her hands. Marci guessed the one thing she'd been searching for was a good reason to not want him. She'd found it and hadn't needed magic for it.
6
He stormed down the stairs. Stupid, meddlesome witches. He'd been pretty damn happy over the last two years. He'd found peace here, a boring one, but it was a sense of peace. The town had felt like a bunch of misfits, a coming together of anyone that wanted
