Free Baby, It's Cold Outside by Jennifer Greene, Merline Lovelace, Cindi Myers Page A

stretched maybe nine feet. He’d probably been sleeping most of the last month, but brown bears didn’t hibernate all winter. When they did wake up, it was because they were hungry. If the bear had been trapped for the whole last week of storm, he wouldn’t have had a chance to get out and find food.
    He had that look.
    Hungry.
    Angry-hungry.
    Rick told his heart to quit slamming, because he had to think—damn quick and damn well. The bear blocked the only exit to the shed.
    He had no way out. He had the axe, so he wasn’t completely without a weapon. But the bear spotted the glint from the axe, and suddenly let out a roar worthy of Tarzan.
    Maybe Rick had the axe, but fear shot through his pulse faster than bullets. This wasn’t just a bad situation. It was downright ugly.
     
    E MILIE WASN’T SURE WHAT woke her—but she lurched to a sitting position from a dead sleep. She thought for asecond a patient was in trouble—a ridiculous thought, of course—but she’d always had a strange sixth sense, sometimes knowing when a patient was in trouble before there was an ounce of evidence to make her worry.
    Obviously that wasn’t the issue here. The only rotten-wrong thing was obvious. Rick was gone.
    Not just gone from the pillow next to her. There was an emptiness in the place, a lack of sound and life. A lack of him .
    She pushed off the covers. It didn’t take two minutes to know he was outside—his parka and winter gear were gone. So he was cutting wood, she guessed. Maybe she wasn’t up to wielding an axe, but she could help haul in the firewood.
    She hit the bathroom, cleaned up, brushed up and started heaping on fresh layers—silk long underwear, flannel pants, thick socks, a tech shirt, then a wool sweater layer. In principle, she wanted coffee and a hot breakfast, couldn’t think of a single reason why she should charge outside in that blistering cold. Their making love had been terrific, but she hadn’t forgotten their fight before that.
    It hadn’t been a clean fight. It’d been a go-for-the-sore-spots fight. He’d said what she didn’t want to hear. She’d told him some home truths he definitely didn’t want to listen to.
    She yanked on boots, thinking it was crazy. She was crazy. Because she’d rather be fighting with him—even if it meant being downright miserable—than not be with him. Even for a second.
    Because that really was nuts, she parked on a crabby frown before opening the back door.
    And immediately froze.
    So did the bear.
    She took in the nightmare scene in a snapshot. Logs and pieces of wood were scattered everywhere in the snow. The bear was on all fours, at the door of the woodshed, but the moment he heard her, he whipped around and stood up on two feet. Crouched down, he looked huge. Standing up, he looked menacing and terrifying.
    “Rick!” Rick had to be trapped in there. Maybe hurt. Maybe worse.
    “I’m here.”
    “Are you—?” She couldn’t get a question out before the bear bared his teeth and lumbered straight for her. She heard Rick shout something about locking herself in, staying inside, but it wasn’t as if she had a choice at that instant. She slammed the door, shaking so hard she could hardly manage the dead bolts—and immediately felt a thunderous pound as the bear pushed at the door. The critter scratched to get in, making long, angry scratching sounds, then tried another pounding ram.
    She’d have hurled if she had time.
    She yanked off her hat, spun around, headed for the stairs. She couldn’t guess how long Rick had been trapped in the shed, but the logs strewn all over the yard told the story. The bear was trying to get to Rick. The bear was winning. Rick wasn’t.
    She charged upstairs, feeling the unwieldy weight of outdoor clothes slowing her down, not willing to stop. She jogged through the dark hall, fumbled with the closed door to the master bedroom—her dad’s room, when he stayed here.
    Naturally, she immediately crashed her knee into