17. Chapter 17

Squirrels surround me, and I'm questioning my decision to stock up on the local, homemade trail mix with three kinds of nuts that I found at the grocery store. That's when I hear a familiar, loud voice.

"Stay still. They won't hurt you."

I do what Bear orders, only turning my head enough to see him.

The squirrels–five of them total… no, six–match my micro move, then advance further. I go completely still, taking shallow breaths and trying not to blink.

"Squirrels don't carry rabies," Bear says in a calm voice that has the opposite effect on me.

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

He inches forward, clearly less wary of the squirrels as I am. "In case they bite. I don't want you to worry."

"SQUIRRELS BITE??"

With that news, I'm finding it even harder not to make a break for my front door. There's only one squirrel guarding the entrance. But Bear's quiet, sh, sh, sh calms me.

"Very rarely," he says quietly. "And not these guys. Probably. They just want a snack is all."

Bear is close enough to my hostage-takers that I breathe a little deeper. They could decide to go for him instead of me.

Except I'm the one with the bag full of nuts.

"I've got trail mix," I whisper.

"Is it Nick's Trail Mix?"

I nod.

"Good. They love that stuff." He stays just outside the circle his apparent squirrel acquaintances have formed around me.

"You know these guys?" I slowly lower my hips to my heels, balancing both bags in my arms, grateful for my years of yoga practice.

"We've met. No sudden moves, and you'll be fine." His voice is slow and smooth, and now that he's not using words like bite and rabies, actually soothing.

I set the bags on the ground and slowly pull the trail mix from one of them. Two of the squirrels wiggle their noses and scurry closer. And it's kind of cute, but I am fully aware of distraction tactics, so I stay on high alert. The other three may be preparing to attack, and the one in front of the door hasn't moved.

I sense Bear's tension as Willy Wonkat meows from inside the studio.

"You still have a cat?"

"Maybe."

Until these squirrels are gone, I need Bear here, so I'm operating on a need-to-know basis. And right now, he doesn't need to know I'm keeping Willy.

In a stroke of both good and bad luck, before Bear can ask any more questions about cats, the squirrels charge forward. They stop inches from my feet, and I almost scream in panic. Fortunately, my emergency training kicks in. My mind clears, and I tear open the trail mix.

The smell of nuts fills the air, which is all the squirrels need to make their final charge. One of them actually touches me with his tiny paw before I toss the bag five feet away. They pivot away from me and swarm the trail mix.

I'm safe.

Except, the one in front of my door is still there, stoic as a Buckingham Palace guard.

"Get the popcorn."

I glance over my shoulder at Bear, who nods to the bag of popcorn poking out of my shopping bag. He's obviously very well acquainted with these squirrels, which is very suspicious.

I leave the popcorn right where it is.

Unfortunately, the squirrel stays right where he is, too.

"Cassie," Bear hisses. "Get the popcorn."

"Bjorn," I hiss back. "Don't tell me what to do."

Bear groans. "Fine. Please get out the popcorn and use it to get the squirrel away from your door…if you'd like to go inside soon."

I debate which is worse, taking orders from Bear or being stuck in a squirrel stand-off before reluctantly taking the popcorn from my shopping bag and tearing it open.

The squirrel takes a few tentative steps closer. He has longish fur under his chin reminiscent of a beard, and now that he's not so close to my door, I have to admit he's more cute than scary.

"Hold a piece out to him… please. He'll come right to you. I think his name is Mr. Whiskers." Bear crouches a few feet from me and makes a soft clicking noise.

My eyes dart to the gang of squirrels feasting on my trail mix like zombies on brains. They seem to be safely occupied, so I turn back to Mr. Whiskers.

And is it weird that he looks like a Mr. Whiskers to me?

I hold out a piece of popcorn and softly call, "Come here, Mr. Whiskers," and make a similar clicking noise to the one Bear made.

The squirrel darts to me, yanks the popcorn from my fingers, shoves it in his cheeks, then darts away.

"Oh. My. Gosh," I whisper.

"Cute, right?" Bear duck walks forward and takes popcorn from my bag.

"So cute!" My heart jackhammers in my chest, but not out of fear. "But also a little creepy. Who are these squirrels?"

"Lynette's friends," Bear answers softly, but the timbre of his voice echoes around me.

I take a second to figure out what he means, but when I do, a warm sense of belonging travels through me. Bear assumed I'd know what he meant. Like I'm enough a part of Paradise to know who Lynette and her friends are.

The fact he's right centers the warmth in my chest, where it expands into a pleasant glow.

"I thought they followed her. What are they doing here?" I hold out another piece of popcorn to Mr. Whiskers, who takes it from me without running away this time.

"Lynette goes to wherever they're nesting, then they come to her. Follow the squirrels to find her, but they don't follow her all over town." Bear holds out his own piece of popcorn, and Mr. Whiskers goes to him next.

His gentleness with the squirrel fascinates me. Bear is so big, he could crush Mr. Whiskers with his bare hands, but the squirrel stands even closer to him than he did to me. Mr. Whiskers trusts this giant more than he trusts me. We're both giants compared to him, but I wonder if a squirrel knows something about Bear that I've missed.

I watch my nemesis hold perfectly still—his lips curved in a soft smile—and study the squirrel. Bear is close enough for his crisp scent to fill my nostrils, reminding me of a few days ago when he was even closer. Heat spreads through my veins as the memory of his kisses takes up primary residence in my brain. There's no room for fear of squirrels or anything but want for Bear.

"I've got babies in the shop," he says quietly. "They're even cuter."

My brain has to switch directions from replaying the moment Bear carried me across the shop to his Mustang to making sense of what he's just said.

"Baby squirrels?" Obviously not human babies, but for a second I wondered.

He nods, then with his eyes still on the squirrel, he leans his head toward me. "I can show them to you later, if you want. I have to feed them."

His words are slow and careful, laced with a nervousness that threatens to knock down the walls I've tried to keep between us.

"I'd love to see how you feed baby squirrels."

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "Hopefully, you can help me figure it out. I've never done it before."

Now I have to fight my own smile. "I'm over here trying to figure out why you have baby squirrels at all, so I may not be a lot of help."

Bear lets out a loud laugh. Mr. Whiskers darts away but stops by my door to turn around and chatter as if he's lecturing Bear for sneeze-scaring him.

"Oops." Bear holds out another piece of popcorn and clicks his tongue with a soothing sound that brings Mr. Whiskers back.

Studying Bear with the squirrels settles the fight between my head and heart that's been going on since Monday.

Bear isn't Markham. His liking my smile isn't the same as the captain telling me to smile more. They aren't the same person. That fact should have been clear all along, but I mistrusted my intuition.

I used to be better at listening to my gut and following my instincts about people. But Markham had a way of twisting my ability in on itself. The person I ended up mistrusting was me, when all along it should have been Captain Markham.

The squirrel sends Bear a wary look while he finishes his popcorn, but then scampers toward him for more.

"Now's your chance!" Bear says quietly but urgently. "Run inside while I keep him occupied!"

He's right. I've got a clear path to my door, and I've got to take it. But I don't have to leave Bear unarmed.

I toss him the popcorn, pick up my grocery bags, then dash to my door. For the first time, I'm grateful I still don't have a key, so I don't have to waste precious seconds unlocking the door.

I do have to squeeze through a six-inch opening to keep Willy Wonkat from escaping. He's standing at the door meow-barking and hissing loud enough that the squirrels should be scared. But even through the door, I hear them chattering contentedly over their feast.

A knock at my door interrupts their noises. There's no way I'm opening it, in case it's some kind of squirrel trick, but then I hear Bear's voice on the other side.

"Don't open the door. They really are harmless, but I've got to get back to practice." His voice carries through the thick door, reminding me of his size and strength. That fact got lost in the gentleness he used with the squirrels.

And while I can't ignore the questions I have about his involvement with the squirrel gang, he's being so nice that I really want to believe this isn't a next level tactic to scare me away from buying the shop. My gut is telling me I can trust him, but I thought that about Markham at first, too.

I lean my forehead against the door so he can hear me. "Okay…thanks for your help."

"I'll be back soon." There's a long pause, but I know he's still there. "I'll show you the babies then?"

His nervous request quiets my questions. "I'd like that."

"Okay. I'll see you then." Another pause before I hear his heavy steps on the gravel.

Once he's gone, I put my groceries away and inspect the historic status paperwork I picked up from Mr. Sparks this morning. I debated for a few days whether I should ask him to let me take it to the city council. At first I wanted to because having them designate the shop as historic is my best chance to stop Bear from convincing the city to buy the shop in order to tear it down instead.

But the more I consider the shop's history, the more I love the idea of preserving the building. At least on the outside. I'm not opening an auto shop, but I already want to leave the garage door, so why not work around the rest of the exterior? I could leave all the outside intact, just give it a facelift, and still have my bookstore.

And as a callback to its history and original owners, I'd call it The Story Sparks.

Mr. Sparks loved that idea. I got the sense that, like Zach said, he has a sentimental attachment to the building. But he also loves his grandson, so he told me he'd only give the final approval for the designation if the city council rejected Bear's proposal entirely.

As soon as I left his house, I called City Hall to ask what I needed to do to get the papers approved. The mayor's secretary added me to the agenda of the city council's next public meeting. That only gives me five days to prepare a presentation for the entire city council—and whoever else is present—about why this building should be deemed historic rather than torn down.

I set the papers on my kitchen table, trying to ignore the pricking in my chest. The fact Bear was sweet to me for five minutes and rescued me from a gang of squirrels more tame than wild doesn't mean I should forget about submitting the paperwork. If my idea was just about beating him, I could give it up. But the longer I'm in Paradise, the more I want to stay. And ever since I thought of the name "The Story Sparks," I'm even more committed to making this bookstore happen.

I turn away from the papers and get a can of wet food from the cabinet. I dump it into Willy Wonkat's bowl. I've got to keep him happy, so he won't wander back to Harvey's. I also need to find a million more things to do to quiet the voice in my head, questioning whether I really want to follow through on my presentation.

I set the bowl in front of Willy when a kind of crying squeal comes from the shop. I don't know what the sound is, only that it has to be an animal. I don't think baby squirrels make that kind of sound, but it could be a possum—I've heard they scream—or some other wildlife that's found its way in the shop and is after the baby squirrels.

There's no chance I won't investigate. I'm a detective. It's my job.

Willy Wonkat is busy eating, so I run to the shop door and open it a crack. I see nothing unusual, but the squealing sound is even louder now.

I glance at the shelf next to the door and am met with two pairs of shiny black eyes and two bushy tails. The baby squirrels. And the crying is coming from them. Every time they open their mouths, the sound comes out.

They don't look hurt, even though they sound like it. I'm not sure if I should pick them up to examine them, or leave them alone until Bear comes back, or what? The only thing I know about baby squirrels is what I'm learning right now, watching them scramble over each other to get a closer look at me.

I take a step back, just in case they're preparing to attack, but I allow myself another couple of seconds to watch them tumble around and wrestle with each other. Bear's not wrong. They are very cute.

I'm about to shut the door when Willy Wonkat lets out a meow bark right behind me.

That's when one squirrel jumps, landing on my head. I scream and let go of the door, which swings wide open. I don't know where the other squirrel goes, but the one on my head digs in his claws, holding tight to my scalp.

Meanwhile, instead of chasing the squirrel not on my head, Willy Wonkat goes after the one that is. He attaches himself to my sweats and tries to climb me as if I'm a redwood.

Once Willy makes it as far as my butt—despite my efforts to unhook him from my clothes and skin—the squirrel lets go. He jumps to my shoulder, then scurries down my front.

Once the baby hits the floor, Willy pushes off my back and chases it. The squirrel climbs an old oil drum, then launches himself onto the same high shelf. Willy tries to do the same, but he's too fat to make it onto the oil drum.

The second squirrel darts past me into the studio, and before I can stop him, Willy follows.

Before I can join the chase, the first squirrel scurries through the studio door after the other one, with Willy close behind. I run after them, closing the door behind me. Who knows how many squirrels are in the shop? Maybe all the squirrels that cornered me outside are using the shop as some kind of baby squirrel daycare.

Best to contain the two I know of inside my apartment. That's standard police procedure. Contain. Restrain.

Except there's no containing the chaos the squirrels and Willy create. The squirrels somehow climb to the top of the fridge, then scurry across the space between the ceiling and cabinets, while Willy does his best to follow. He only makes it as high as the kitchen counter where my dishes are drying.

The plate he lands on flies to the floor, where it shatters. A glass follows, then my plastic cup, which lands on the dish shards, sending them flying before the cup rolls under the sink.

"Willy! Stop!" I yell.

I'd yell at the squirrels too, but I don't know their names. Wouldn't matter, anyway. They wouldn't listen any better than Willy does.

The squirrels change direction, run back over the fridge, and jump to the floor. Willy does the same, knocking the rest of my dishes off the counter as he runs over them. He follows the squirrels to the kitchen table where, one page after the other in quick succession, they kick the papers there to the floor. Then they all head for the daybed.

They practically run over my feet because I'm frozen in the middle of the room. Everything is happening too fast to know which way to move first.

One squirrel follows the other, with Willy hot on their heels, as they run on, over, under, around—every preposition—my bed. Then they jump on the curtains and scamper to the top. Both squirrels plant themselves on the curtain rod and squeal at Willy who paces below, like a lion who's treed his prey.

I don't know how much patience lions have. Probably more than Willy, because before I can reach him, he decides to climb the curtain too. He springs, hooks the sheer fabric with his claws, and lifts one paw to climb higher.

Inches from grabbing Willy, I freeze again as the bracket holding the weight of the curtain rod, two squirrels, and a fat cat—hanging mid-air by one foot—gives. A mini-snowstorm of drywall sprinkles to the floor as the screws come loose and the rod drops a couple of inches.

"No, no, no, no, no…" I grab Willy at the same time his hanging paw makes contact with the curtain. When I pull him away, he's hooked in tight, leaving eight long tears before I can unhook him. The rod drops another couple of inches, scaring Willy, who scratches his way out of my arms and attacks the curtain.

With Willy busy, the squirrels escape into the bathroom. Somehow, I have the presence of mind to shut the door.

Containment accomplished.

Then the curtain screws give. The bracket comes out of the wall. The rod crashes to the ground, taking out a lamp on its way.

Willy frees himself from the wreckage and runs to the bathroom door where he bark-meows and tries to claw his way inside. On the other side of the door, I hear my makeup bag crash to the ground. Then the toilet flushes.

I pray to the makeup and cute baby animal gods that neither my mascara nor Bear's squirrel babies were in the toilet. I almost look to make sure when I hear squealing so loud it has to be both babies.

The mascara can be replaced, but I'd have a hard time explaining to Bear a death-by-flushing of one of his squirrels. So, knowing they're both still alive, I don't risk opening the door. Plus, there's less to destroy in the bathroom than there is in the rest of the studio.

Except, as I survey the destruction the one-minute Willy Wonkat-squirrel tornado wreaked, there isn't much more they can destroy.

Half of my dishes lie broken on the floor. My one window is now curtainless, my one lamp is also in pieces. At some point, the squirrels must have run across the TV, because it's hanging crooked on the wall.

I cross the room to straighten it because that's one thing I can fix. But as soon as I touch it, the whole thing crashes to the floor.

I stare at the TV with Willy's mournful meows providing the appropriate background music for my life at this exact moment. A knocking sound adds to the discord until I realize it's coming from the front door.

"Come in," I say without thinking, still staring at the destruction surrounding me.

Bear pokes his head inside. "Hey, I heard noise. Everything…" He stops and looks around. "What happened?"

I shake my head. I don't even know how to explain it. I'm asking myself the same question.

"Wait here," he says over his shoulder before closing the door.

I hear voices outside, but they're drowned out by Willy's meowing and the squirrel… chirping? Is that what they're doing? It's a sound I've never heard before and so loud I can't believe it's coming from something so little.

"What is that noise?" Bear asks, walking slowly towards me.

"The squirrels," I whisper, enunciating each syllable.

Bear stops. "How did they get in the bathroom?"

"I heard a noise. I went to investigate. They attacked." At some level, I'm aware the words are coming from my mouth, but they sound as if they're coming from somewhere else.

From someone else.

Some other person whose apartment has been destroyed and whose scalp still stings where squirrel claws dug in. Because I'm having a hard time believing I'm that person.

"The squirrels did all this?" Bear scans the entire studio, but I can't look again.

Instead, I scoop up Willy and carry him away from the bathroom door. He fights me to get back to his post, even getting a few swipes at my face, but I hold him tight.

"They had some help from Willy." I nod toward the Tasmanian devil in my arms.

"I thought you took him back to Harvey." Bear sneezes.

"I decided to keep him," I answer.

"I told you I had baby squirrels in the shop. Why would you let a cat in there?" Bear listens at the bathroom door, his face twisted with frustration and worry.

"You didn't tell me they were running loose in there, and I didn't let Willy in." My voice rises as I defend myself from both Willy's claws and Bear's accusation.

I wrangle Willy Wonkat into his carrier, then face Bear. "He came to my defense when one of your squirrels jumped on my head."

"He could have killed the babies," Bear shoots back.

My mouth gapes. "Willy is not the most pressing problem right now, you know, since cats are actually indoor animals. Squirrels are not. You shouldn't have had them in the shop."

"Lynette thought they'd be safer from wild animals in here. Clearly, she was wrong!" Bear yanks his phone from his coat pocket and tells it to call Georgia.

"You thought the shop would be a good place to keep them? Now that it's not occupied by mice?" I ask over the ringing of his phone.

"What are you implying, Cassie? You think I planned all of this … I don't know… to torture you or something? That's your area of expertise, not mine."

Before I can respond, he sneezes, then says into his phone, "Cassie needs you to pick her up. It's an emergency."

Georgia's voice comes through the phone in a mumble, and I can't make out her words over my own.

"I don't need her to pick me up! I'm fine." It's bad enough he's accusing me of torturing him again. I don't need him acting as if he's my protector or something. "Just get your squirrels out of my studio!"

Bear ignores my protest, nodding into his phone before ending the call.

"That's what I'm trying to do," he says, shoving his phone in his pocket. "But I can't get the squirrels out with your cat here, and you don't look fine. Georgia can help you get cleaned up."

I hate that he's making sense and that he's so much calmer than I am. But, then, he didn't just survive a cat-squirrel natural disaster. And maybe it's because I'm in shock that I hurl my next accusation.

"You're trying to get me out of here so you can spring some other rodent on me!" Even as I say the words, I know I'm being ridiculous. The squirrel thing was obviously a mischance as much my fault as Bear's.

But that doesn't change the fact that he wants to keep me from getting the shop, and this little episode gets him one step closer to doing that.

Bear blinks, then huffs a laugh. "Do you know how crazy that sounds? You really believe I somehow orchestrated…" He scans the room, then spreads his arms wide. "This?"

Calling me crazy is not Bear's best move. Markham said the same thing once when I told him his "jokes" were borderline harassment.

Anger marches me so close to Bear, our chests are inches apart. "Why wouldn't I believe that, Bjorn? You've proven you'll do whatever it takes to get me out of here."

His face creases in a question that feels too close to the one he's already asked about how crazy my words sound. "Do you mean like when I filled the shop with cats knowing you're allergic? Oh, wait…that was…"

He turns his finger slowly to point in my direction. Then, as if to prove his point, sneezes again.

I curl my fingers into my palms, trying to contain my rage. "I mean, like when you tried to seduce me—or whatever that was the other night. When I didn't swoon and faint over you—when it was just as meaningless for me as for you—you brought in squirrels."

Bear's mouth drops. Then closes. He works his jaw back and forth. I wait for him to explode.

When he doesn't… when his eyes tell me something entirely different, heat creeps up my neck. In the silence that passes between us, I question how right I thought I was.

Bear's not angry.

He's hurt.

"Georgia will be here in five." He swipes a hand under his nose and presses his eyes closed to either stop a sneeze or… something else. "Take your cat and wait out front. I'll clean up everything in here."

Bear walks toward the door but stops before opening it. "To be clear, what happened the other night had nothing to do with the shop and everything to do with the way I've felt since the first time I saw you. We can disagree on a lot of things, Cassie, but I won't let that be one of them."

He shuts the door behind him, leaving me even more shocked than I already was.