Bear With Me: Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (3 page)

“We are
not
waking Kes up in the middle of the night to secure my booty call, Lynda! Do you want her to go into labor on her wedding night?”

Lynda rolled her eyes. “
Duh
. I was meaning, we can make sure you see him in the morning. You know. Get
properly
introduced.” She grinned wickedly. “You do remember what his face looks like, right?”

“Of course I do!” Jamie snapped, glad it was still dark enough Lynda couldn’t see her blushing bright red.

The brunch. She’d forgotten about that, and now that Lynda had reminded her, her stomach was twisting. So many of their guests had traveled for the wedding that Kes and Tom were putting on a huge day-after-the-wedding brunch for them before they started to make the journey home. Knowing Kes, Jamie suspected the brunch would be at least five courses of delicious catering, plus Advil for those who needed it and champagne for those who didn’t, and who therefore clearly hadn’t partied enough the night before…

And Jamie’s mystery man would be there.

“
I-might-not-actually-go-to-the-brunch
,” she said quickly, the words tumbling out over one another.

Lynda stared at her wide-eyed. “What? No! You’re a bridesmaid! You have to!”

“I just … You know, I have to leave early. To get back to work. Um.”

Lynda snorted. “Su-u-ure.”

“I do! And…” Jamie’s throat closed up with nerves.
And the thought of making small talk with the guy I just banged in the back of the car makes me want to crawl into a hole and die
, she thought helplessly.

She had never done anything like that before. Lynda was right. Forget “dry spell.” What she’d had for the last five years was a
drought
. Late nights, lots of overtime, and the only males she’d spent the night with were the juvenile condors down at the conservation center.

But from the moment she’d looked into that man’s eyes on the dance floor...

It was like their bodies had been in sync. Hell, of course she hadn’t asked his name—they’d hardly exchanged half a dozen words. Just danced together, bodies pressing against each other, until neither of them could hold back any longer and they ran outside, fumbled their way into the car and pulled off each other’s clothing with clumsy fingers.

Jamie was blushing so hard she felt as though her whole face was on fire. What had come over her? She hadn’t had
that
much to drink. And even now, in the sober half-light of dawn, all her body wanted to do was race back to the car and curl up by the stranger’s side.

No. What a ridiculous thought. It was just a one-night stand, and the last thing she wanted was to ruin Kes’s big day with the aftermath of a one-night stand in the back of some guy’s truck. Especially with Lynda around to stoke the flames.

Besides, Kes already knew Jamie might not be able to make it to the brunch. She’d only just managed to schedule time off for the wedding itself. The breeding program at the center was about to enter its most important phase. Jamie had been working toward this for the last five years. She couldn’t afford to be distracted—didn’t
want
to be distracted.

She wasn’t ready for a relationship. And she
definitely
wasn’t ready to spend a morning beside—what had Lynda called him?—Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Spanksome, awkwardly navigating the fact that one late-night hookup really wasn’t the basis for any sort of serious relationship.

Jamie sighed, and Lynda laughed.

“Come on, Cinderella. Let’s get a few hours’ beauty sleep before everyone else wakes up.”

* * *

MARK

Sunlight was streaming through the windows of Mark’s station wagon. He groaned, unwilling to wake up from the most incredible dream he’d had in his life.

The woman in his dream was beautiful. Shining red-gold hair, bright blue-gray eyes, and pale skin dotted with freckles that disappeared enticingly under the neckline of her dress. And under her dress…

Still half asleep, Mark dreamily wrapped his arms around his red-headed goddess—and woke up to find himself alone in the back of his car.

He sighed.
Just a dream, after all.

Except…

Mark sat up. His bear was still grumbling sleepily, but he didn’t need his shifter senses for this. His truck still smelled of pine, of the trees of his northern forest, still lingering after the hours of driving to get to the wedding. But mingled in with that scent was something else—something delicate, and sweet, and feminine.

There
had
been a woman here. The woman from his dream.

So maybe it hadn’t been a dream, after all. In fact, Mark thought, as his body began to wake up and send reminders to his brain, he was pretty sure that what he thought had happened, had
definitely
happened.

So where was she now?

His bear raised itself on its back legs, sniffing the air. Mark shuffled across to the door, ready to spring out and find the mystery woman. Something dug into his hip and he reached down to find a slightly battered-looking, strappy silver sandal.

He gripped it carefully and stepped down from the station wagon, his heart singing. He’d come to this wedding expecting an awkward weekend of awkward small-talk with his cousin’s friends and his own distant family.

Instead, he’d found a woman who—who what?

There was a strange stirring in his chest, in that deep place where he felt the strongest of his bear’s emotions. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he was looking forward to finding out.

“Hey, Mark! Have a good night?”

Mark looked up to see Tom grinning wolfishly at him from the other side of the parking lot. A light breeze across his skin gave Mark a hint to why Tom’ grin was so wide.

“Oh, sh—” he muttered, and dived back into the car as more of the wedding party appeared. Hunched down as far out of sight as possible, he scrambled to find and get back into his suit from the night before.

Tom rapped on the window just as Mark pulled on his shoes.

“Ready for brunch, big guy?”

“Tom,” Mark said urgently. “I met—there was this girl—” He stopped and sighed, exasperated with himself. “Did you see who was wearing this sandal last night?” he said at last, holding up the silver shoe.

It was a long shot. The longest of shots. How could he expect a bridegroom to remember what any woman other than his new wife was wearing? But to Mark’s surprise, Tom nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “I saw. All twelve of them.”

Mark’s stomach dropped.

“What?”

Tom punched him in the arm. “Weren’t you paying attention yesterday? All the bridesmaids were wearing these. I should know, Kes must’ve looked at a thousand different shoes before picking this one.” He took the sandal and held it aloft, examining it critically. “Don’t you think the delicacy and elegance of these straps is the perfect complement to the playful princess-cut bridesmaid dresses? Four straps, of course. Any fewer would be paltry; any more would be garish.”

Mark was shaking his head. “The bridesmaids? Yes, I know she was one of the bridesmaids, but…”

Realization dawned.
Stupid!
He’d noticed the bridesmaids were all wearing pink, and sparkly shoes. But he hadn’t expected them to be
matching
shoes. God, and he’d thought getting his suit was a hassle.

So, what now? Sort the bridesmaids by shoe-size?

“You said she’s one of the bridesmaids?” Tom said, interrupting his train of through.

“Yeah,” Mark replied. “She was wearing one of those pink dresses.”

“
Was?
” Tom teased, waggling his eyebrows. Mark shoved him light-heartedly.

“Give it a rest!”

“Fine, fine. What’s her name? Kes’ll hunt her out for you. They’re all her friends.”

“Who’re all my friends?”

Kes appeared beside Tom and kissed him. She had ribbons wound through her hair in place of the flowers she’d worn yesterday, and was glowing with a quiet happiness.

“Morning, Kes.”

“Morning, Mark,” Kes replied, and tapped Tom on the chin. “Who are we talking about?”

“My cousin here has a mystery sweetheart,” Tom announced, a butter-wouldn’t-melt look on his face. “He’s not sure which of your bridesmaids it was, and he didn’t catch her name, but…”

Mark threw up his hands. “Forget it. Let’s go have brunch. If I see her, I’ll be sure
not
to let you know.”

He pushed his hands deep into his pockets and turned away, shoulders rounded protectively. Behind him, he heard Kes gasp, and then felt her hand on his shoulder. She spun him around.

“This isn’t…” Kes’s eyes flicked between Mark and Tom. “…This isn’t one of those
you know what
situations, is it?” She silently mouthed:
Shifters?

Mark raised his eyebrows. “Tom told you about…?”

Kes rolled her eyes. “What, you think he’s going to bring me to family get-togethers without warning me I might find a bear-shaped uncle napping in the living room? What kind of a moron do you think your cousin is?”

Mark stared at the newlyweds. Tom wasn’t a shifter, but being from a family of shifters, of course he would have had to tell Kes about them. And if they could make it work…

“I don’t know if it’s … If she’s the one,” he admitted. “I just feel—I need to see her again.”

Kes and Tom exchanged knowing glances.

Tom clamped one hand on Mark’s shoulder, and one on his wife’s. “All right, detectives. My stomach says we can work this out and eat brunch at the same time.”

“Absolutely,” said Kes with a grin. “How long can it take to narrow twelve bridesmaids down to one?”
 

* * *

JAMIE

The last of the day’s light stretched out across the forest. Treetops glowed gold and orange as the sunset spilled color across the landscape, then shattered into a million glittering sparks on the surface of a winding river.

Jamie should have felt at peace. Instead, she was filled with a strange restlessness—the same restlessness that had plagued her since Kes’s wedding.

She had skipped the post-wedding brunch. Lynda had done her best to convince her to stick around, but Jamie had managed to slip out while the other girl was fixing her hair, and jumped straight in her car.

Her
own
car.

A day’s driving later, Jamie had been back at work at the conservation center. She’d always thrown herself into her job, and now she had another reason to do so: distraction.

It hadn’t been enough. No matter what she did, she hadn’t been able to get the mystery man from the wedding out of her head. She’d even found herself looking at her phone, waiting for it to ring—which was
insane
, because she was pretty sure she hadn’t even given the guy her name, let alone her number.

Working at the center clearly wasn’t doing the trick. Luckily, Jamie had some field work coming up, so she’d packed her bags. For the past five years, the center had focused on raising California condor chicks for release into a conservation area. They’d recently released the first mated pair into the wild, and it didn’t take much to convince her boss that doing a quick trip to the area to check on the birds a little earlier than planned would be a good use of her time.

That had been a week ago. Now, for the first time in months, Jamie didn’t need to close her eyes and imagine she was a hundred miles from the hustle and bustle of the city, from bright lights and blaring horns and raised voices … Or away from late nights in an empty office, waiting for a phantom phone call. Instead, she just needed to open her eyes and look around. No imagination necessary.

Best of all, her quest had been successful. Well, one part of it, at least.

Jamie took a deep breath, enjoying the clean, fresh air. Then with a final heave, she pulled herself up on to what she had decided to call her ‘crow’s nest’—a thick, solid branch near the top of a tree that gave her a clear line of sight across the river. Moving quickly but carefully, Jamie attached a carabiner from her climbing harness to the anchor she had set in the tree trunk two days before. Jamie was happy to camp on her own, but it did mean that if she fell out of the tree, there wouldn’t be anyone around to alert Search and Rescue.

As soon as she was secure on her perch, Jamie unclasped the case around her neck and pulled out her trusty DSLR camera. Holding onto the trunk with one hand, she hefted her camera with the other. With the light fading, she had to move fast.

A hundred yards away, the evening light glittered on the rushing water of the river where it bent around a rough cliff.  But Jamie wasn’t interested in the sunset. At least, not for its own sake.

Jamie ignored the peaceful beauty of the scene and kept her lens fixed on a spot partway up the cliff. Her target was invisible from ground-level; only here, perched on a tall tree, could she sneak a glimpse of the jagged crack in the cliff that made a rough cave. Squashed into that shallow cave was a huge black bird with a pinky-orange, featherless face.

“Hey, buddy,” Jamie whispered. “How about you stretch your legs and let me see if you’ve got anything back there?”

Jamie raised the camera to her eye, peering through the high-powered lens. The distant cliff shot into focus, looking close enough for her to reach out and touch.

The California condor sitting on the ledge looked even uglier in close-up, like a grumpy old witch wrapped in a raggedy cloak. Jamie sighed. If she didn’t know better, she’d think the bird was deliberately playing coy.

She had spent most of the last three days sitting in this tree, which was close enough to the nest to give her a clear view without being so close her presence would disturb the condors. In all that time, either one bird or the other of the mated pair had been sitting across from her, glowering suspiciously from the cave. When they sat there, they stayed stubbornly still, and when they changed places, they bustled hurriedly in and out so Jamie didn’t even get a glimpse of the nest site. Or anything they might be sitting
on
. Which was the whole reason she was here, after all.

A large black wing stretched out, and Jamie held her breath.

Come on, come on,
she begged.

As Jamie watched, the bird shifted, standing up on thick legs. She moved the camera down, searching around its legs and gnarled claws.

Yes—there! Nestled in among the rocks and twigs was one solitary, milky blue-white egg.

Click!

Jamie grinned triumphantly. She had been waiting for this shot all day. All day for
three
days. And now she had it—proof that the mated pair of condors she had been tracking had successfully bred.

She hugged the tree trunk, wanting to whoop out in happiness but well aware that it might startle the birds. Grinning and tree-hugging would have to be enough.

For the first time since she’d come out here, another emotion—pure joy—broke through her strange restlessness. She had hoped, when she first saw the nesting site, that she would be able to return to the office with the good news that the pair had bred. Just the very fact that one or the other of the condors had been sitting on it constantly all the time she had been watching had suggested they were looking after an egg, but without actually
seeing
an egg she had no proof. Now she knew for sure, and the knowledge filled her heart with a warm glow.

Jamie had been working on the condor conservation project ever since she left college. Condors had gone extinct in the area decades before, and only now were plans to reintroduce them really taking off. If this chick hatched and survived, then those plans could become a reality.

It was possible. The big, ugly birds had been released into the wild in other parts of California, including in special sanctuaries. So this latest attempt to bring the rare bird back to the mountains where it had once flown free on the winds wasn’t some pipe dream—it could really happen.

So long as nothing happened to the mated pair, or their chick.

Jamie straightened her shoulders. Now that she knew the condors had produced an egg, her task here was all the more important. The nest wasn’t as far out in the mountains as she had hoped. The river was near a popular hiking trail. Not
on
the trail, but close enough that someone who wandered off-track to have a swim might disturb the birds.

Not on my watch
, thought Jamie grimly. And:
Finally, something to REALLY distract me from whatsisname.

Still glowing from the discovery of the egg, Jamie kept to her perch. If she was quiet enough, and quick enough, she might manage to get another few good shots in before the sun fell below the hills.

Maybe the universe decided one good deed was enough for the day. The second condor swooped down to join its mate just as the sun dipped below the horizon. Jamie lowered her camera.

“Oh, well. Night-night, you great big ugly things,” Jamie whispered.

The two condors disappeared in the darkness, blending in with the shadows over the river.

With her camera in its protective case slung around her neck, Jamie clambered down out of the tree. Her campsite was only a few minutes’ walk away, easy for her to find even in the dark. She had decided on a spot farther up the river, far enough away that she wouldn’t disturb the birds, but close enough that she could trek down each day to keep an eye on them—and make sure no one else went stumbling into the nest site.

Jamie walked quickly through the dark forest, lighting her way with a handheld flashlight. Her tent was huddled between two big old pine trees at the top of a scrubby ridge. She had tied a tarpaulin between the trees for some extra protection from the weather. She hadn’t seen any summer storms yet this year, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any coming.

In front of her tent, she had cleared a small space and lugged in some fallen branches to act as a rough bench and table. With the shadows growing, she set up her flashlight in lantern mode and propped it up on the table-log.

Dinner was an unexciting prospect. Jamie had set out on this job with enough supplies to keep her going for a few weeks, and that meant a lot of dehydrated ready meals. And granola bars. She peered into her food pack and sighed.

“And tonight’s celebratory dinner will be ...” she rifled through the packets. “... mac and cheese. Or, as your host likes to call it, cardboard bits with mysterious orange sludge. Mmmm. Yes, I think I will
definitely
deserve some chocolate for dessert after this.”

Jamie’s camping food prep had been the same since she started hiking as a teenager. It didn’t matter how school-cafeteria-gross the main meal was, so long as she had plenty of good, rich dark chocolate to rinse the taste out of her mouth.

Half an hour later, Jamie was scraping the last of the gluggy pasta meal out of the bottom of the pan and was about to delve into the all-important chocolate pack when her ears pricked. She had been in the mountains enough to become familiar with the usual noises of the river and the forest. This wasn’t one of them.

Something was moving around out there, past the golden circle of light from her lantern. Something
big
.

Jamie gnawed on her bottom lip. There hadn’t been any sightings of large predators in this part of the mountains for years, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still out there. She began to wish she had bothered to build a proper fire rather than just cook on her trusty Primus stove.

Then she heard another noise under the sound of movement.

Scraaaark!

Jamie leapt to her feet. Something was disturbing the condors. Her heart jumped into her throat as another screech cut through the air.

Was something attacking the birds? At night? She dug into her knowledge of local wildlife, trying to think of something that hunted at night, and could scale a cliff to attack a nest. Then she heard something that made her almost laugh with relief.

“Shit! Ahhh! Stop it, you crazy bird!”

Not a predator. Just some unlucky hiker who had stumbled into the wrong place at the wrong time.

The crashing sounds got louder as whoever it was blundered away from the condors defending their nest. It sounded like they were coming upriver, closer to her camp.

Well,
Jamie thought to herself,
time for the all-important communications and outreach part of my job.

“Hello?” she called into the darkness.

The crashing noises stopped, but whoever it was out in the darkness didn’t call back. Jamie frowned. It hadn’t occurred to her before she shouted out that maybe she should be cautious about hollering to random strangers in the woods.

She shook herself.
Stop being ridiculous
. The river was a half-hour walk from one of the most popular trails this side of the mountain. Hundreds of hikers—families, young couples, hardy lone adventurers—would wander up and down it every day for the next three months. Whoever was bumbling around out there was more likely to be lost and glad to see a fellow human being than to be dangerous.

“Is there someone out there?” she called again, just to prove to herself how un-worried she was.

The noises stopped.

“Hello?” A man’s voice, deep and clear, floated out of the darkness. “Is there someone there?”

Jamie concentrated. It was hard to tell where the voice was coming from, but she thought probably down near the river. Which made it all the more important that whoever-it-was come up to camp. She didn’t want them stumbling back downstream and disturbing the nest.

Or, you know, stumbling into the water and drowning.

“Up here!” she called, holding up her light. It was a short walk to the edge of the scrubby bank that led down to the water. Sure enough, her flashlight caught the dark shape of a man standing at the edge of the river. Jamie was surprised to see that he didn’t have a flashlight of his own. He must have been making his way just by starlight and moonlight, she thought, as he turned to look at her and lifted one arm to shield his eyes.

“Oh, sorry!” she said, and lowered the light. “Hey, you really shouldn’t be down by the water at this time of night. Are you camping somewhere nearby?”

She hadn’t seen any other campers, but it was possible. Maybe he had set up farther up the river, and gotten lost.

“No—I was hoping to get further in before I set up camp, but I guess the day snuck away on me,” the man said ruefully. Jamie could see that he had a heavy pack on his back. She raised one eyebrow.

“And you were just going to keep walking in the dark? You know you’re way off the trail, right?”

The man made a gesture that somehow managed to convey a perfect sense of
Well-yeah-but-you-know.
Jamie decided against replying with a gesture that would show exactly how little she thought of that excuse.