“Swimming?” Bella asked, curling her nose up at the pond that smelled like rotten eggs. “I was hoping you had a hidden spa or something in mind.”

He smiled at her as he pointed to the pond that for some reason was steaming. “This is a hidden spa,” he said. “It’s a hot thermal pool.”

“A what?” she said, raising an eyebrow.

He grinned as he pulled off his shirt. “Just get in.”

She would have but she was too busy gawking at his shredded body. He was ripped with a broad muscular chest and deep abs that were chiseled as fuck. His arms were the thing of fantasies, toned over hours of chopping wood and doing manly shit. He was incredible. Completely gorgeous, even with the scars on his face that Bella didn’t seem to mind anymore. They gave his face a dark tragic look that was surprisingly hot.

“What are you staring at?” he asked, looking at her funny.

Abs, abs, and more abs.

“Nothing,” she said, looking away with her heart pounding. He was right. Swimming is definitely exciting.

He respectfully looked away as she stripped down to her bra and underwear and dipped a toe in the hot water. “I see what you mean,” she said as she jumped in, letting the waterline climb up to her neck. “It’s like a hot tub.”

She closed her eyes and moaned, letting the hot water soothe her aching muscles. This was definitely better than spending the long, boring day by herself in her tent.

“Why is it so hot?” she asked, opening one eye to look at the sexy bear shifter in front of her.

“It’s geothermally heated groundwater that comes from the earth’s heated crust,” he said, nodding.

“It’s what now?” she asked, looking at him with a blank face.

He grinned, inching a little closer to her. “The heat from the earth’s core makes it hot,” he said, putting it in laywoman’s terms.

She raised an eyebrow as she looked at him curiously. “You seem pretty smart,” she said. “When you’re not being an asshole.”

He ran a wet hand through his messy brown hair, slicking it back with the water. His brown eyes shined as he watched her intensely and she watched him back. He’s got nice lips. I wonder what they feel like.

“I’m sorry,” he said, biting his sexy bottom lip. “I’ll try to be more of smart Logan and less of asshole Logan.”

“That would be nice,” she answered with a grin. “Smart Logan is much more appealing.”

He turned away as redness flushed to his cheeks and Bella could see the hint of a smile cross his face before he showed her the back of his head. She took the opportunity to raise her chin and try to get another glimpse of that hard body. Stupid murky thermal water. She couldn’t see a thing.

“Where did you go to school?” she asked, wishing that he would turn around again. She liked looking in his soft eyes.

He swallowed before answering. “Harvard.”

“Harvard?” she spat out in disbelief. “Like Harvard, Harvard? Or Harvard High School?”

“No,” he said with a laugh. “The Harvard.”

“Get the hell out of here,” she said, eying him funny. “You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?”

He shook his head, sending little droplets of water sliding down his cheek.

She was still having trouble believing that a Harvard educated man had been living outside in the wilderness for three years by himself. Was there anyone else like that ever in history? Bella gulped. Right. The Unabomber.

“What did you study?” she asked.

His lips tightened into a line as his eyes dropped back down to the water. “I shouldn’t have brought it up,” he said. “It’s not a part of my life that I like to talk about.”

“Which part don’t you like to talk about?”

He sighed. “All of it.”

Logan turned with a heaviness in his body and swam to the rocks on the other side of the pool. He sat on a rock and laid back, closing his eyes as the lucky water massaged his big muscles.

“Hey!” Bella said, swimming over to him. “You can’t just spit out that you went to freaking Harvard and not give any more details.”

He never opened his eyes as he tilted his head up, letting the sunshine wash over him. “Yes, I can.”

Bella huffed out a breath. “That’s really irritating,” she said, swimming back to the other side. “You have to work on your people skills.”

He chuckled. “I know.”

After a few minutes of silence, they began chatting again. Bella told him about her life, her schooling, her parents, hoping that it would encourage him to open up as well. It didn’t.

But he did listen attentively to every word that she said. She could tell that he wanted to know everything about her. “Why study owls?” he asked when she told him about the dissertation paper that she was surely going to fail.

“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “They’re cute. I had an owl on my backpack and I panicked when the teacher said that we absolutely had to pick a paper topic in the next five minutes. I saw the owl stitched into my bag and just blurted it out.”

“They’re nocturnal animals,” he said, grinning at her. “Can you see in the dark?”

“No,” she said with a laugh. “Can you?”

“Yes,” he answered simply.

“Great,” she said, giving him a little smirk. “Maybe you can observe them, Harvard boy, and then type it up for me. Ten thousand words. Double spaced.”

He shrugged, his large round shoulders plunging out of the water for two delicious seconds. “I don’t have a computer.”

“That’s something you never hear anymore,” Bella said, shaking her head. “How do you not have a computer?”

He narrowed his eyes on her playfully. “How do you not have an ax?”

“I could order one,” she said with a chuckle. “On my computer.”

“Well I could chop up a computer,” he said with a grin. “With my ax.”

She laughed as she swam a little closer to him. “I didn’t think they still made men like you.”

His heated eyes locked on hers, making her heart skip a beat. “I didn’t think they made women like you.”

She turned away from his gaze, feeling her body heat up. Either the thermal springs raised an extra ten degrees or something else, like a sexy bear shifter, was making it hotter out here.

“Where’s, Cliff?” she asked, turning back around when she finally recovered. “I miss him. Can you bring him out so I can say hi?”

Logan frowned as he stared at the water, being unnaturally quiet, even for him.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he whispered, his shoulders tight and rigid. “It’s not safe.”

She licked the metal-tasting water off of her lips as she watched him. “He’s never hurt me before.”

He shook his head, still not meeting her eyes. “I should never have brought him around you in the first place. That was…reckless.”

“Why?” she asked, holding her elbow. There was still so much mystery to him. He was like an onion with a thousand layers and she desperately wanted to peel off each one to see what was at the center, but he kept clinging onto each layer, fighting to not let it go.

Logan ran a hand through his hair and slowly looked up at her. His brown eyes were sad and lonely, making her chest hurt for him. “He’s too dangerous.”

She shook her head as she held his eyes. “He’s not. I know he’s not.”

“You don’t know what I know,” he said with a heavy sigh. “You don’t know what he’s done.”

“What has he done?” she asked with a shaky voice. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know the answer.

But that was okay, because he didn’t give her one.

She walked toward him, stopping a heartbeat away from his muscular body. “I know your bear too,” she said in a low soothing voice. “He’s not dangerous. You’re not dangerous. Not if you don’t want to be.”

He stared at the water for a long minute, contemplating her words. “You really believe that?” he asked, finally looking up at her.

She nodded. She did. There was good in him, Bella could tell.

“Okay,” he said, raising out of the water. Bella stepped back with her breath quickening as she looked up at his shredded body. He really was gorgeous.

“I’ll bring him out,” he said, stepping out of the pool. “He misses you too. I can tell.”

She watched with her heart pounding as he slid down his boxer briefs, giving her a nice view of his hard ass. His body shook softly at first but then erupted in violent shakes and convulsions. She gasped as his hand curled up and long brown hairs began sprouting out of his skin. His muscles swelled and grew and then in an instant, an enormous grizzly bear exploded out of his skin.

Bella held her breath as she stared at the bear with wide eyes. He swung his massive head toward her and sniffed the air as he watched her with the same sad brown eyes that Logan watched her with.

“Hi, Cliff,” she said, giving him a nervous wave. “Want to come in for a swim?”

He lowered his head and stepped forward on massive paws. Bella gulped as the bear stepped into the water. The last time she had been this close to it, she woke up with a concussion. But that had been an accident. Cliff had saved her life right before and for some odd reason that she didn’t understand, she trusted the bear.

“Hey,” she said, laughing as buckets of water drained out of the pool as the large bear stepped inside. “Keep some water for me.”

Cliff sunk down in the water up to his neck and turned to her with a smug satisfied look on his face.

“You like that?” she asked with a laugh. “Has Logan ever let you go in a hot tub with a half naked girl before?”

He lumbered forward and sat down beside her, swinging his humongous head over to look at her.

“This is so incredible,” Bella whispered to herself as she looked up at the grizzly bear’s calm face. What made it even more incredible, was that Logan was somewhere inside him. Her skin was tingling in excitement as his soft fur brushed against her arm.

“Can I get that hug now?” she asked, smiling at the bear.

He didn’t answer but he did lean his shoulder into her, pressing his body against hers. That was enough of an answer for Bella.

She stood on the rock and hugged the bear, digging her hands deep into his thick fur. She pressed her cheek against his body and grinned.

“I knew we were friends, Cliff,” she said as the bear grumbled contently. “No matter what Logan says.”