Big Bear Mountain - The Complete Series (10 page)

T
he
thought that someone could even think that they could pull a trapped horse out
of a bog by using a rope around its neck amazed her.

Of all the
stupid ideas! What was he thinking? Was he even thinking at all?
She very much doubted it.

Cassie Hunter’s
plans to arrive on Big Bear Mountain discretely and without drawing attention
to herself had been well and truly scuttled by the rude and arrogant cop. So
much for keeping a low profile and blending in. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for
the whole Private Investigator thing. Maybe people were right to laugh at her
when she told them she was going to start working undercover assignments to
keep her struggling business afloat.

With your
people skills?

Seriously?
You think you’ve got the right personality for that kind of work?

She’d heard it
all before and she was determined to make it work. To show them they were
wrong. To prove to them and herself that she could do it. She was determined to
make it in the PI business. It meant everything to her.

But she had
little patience for fools and this man was clearly a 24 carat asshat. Maybe
that was a good thing, though, given the nature of her undercover assignment.
She reasoned that if
he’d
been able to rise to such a position of
authority, then the locals should be a pushover. That made her job so much
easier.

On the long,
glacially slow drive up the never ending mountain switchbacks, she had plenty
of time to review the client file in her head and refine her plan.

Cassie had
recently inherited a small cabin and a few acres of forest from her
grandmother, who’d lived her whole life on Big Bear Mountain. The original will
left the entire estate to Cassie, the only surviving relative. But her
grandmother had written a codicil that amended her original will just months
before her death. Before she could inherit any part of the estate, Cassie had
to live in the cabin for 90 days without revealing to anyone in the local
community that she was a private investigator.

The only
concession made was that a generous weekly allowance be paid to Cassie during
that time from a life insurance policy taken out shortly before her death. It
was as if her grandmother knew of her financial problems, although the two of
them never spoke of such matters. Grandmother was a bit old fashioned that way
and she regarded such discussions as unseemly. Yet, somehow, she knew that
Cassie needed help and ironically, after her death she became Cassie’s number
one client, giving her business a much needed injection of cash.

However, the
timing of the codicil amending the will and her grandmother’s death did not
escape Cassie’s attention, after all, it was her job to be suspicious. She was
sure it was nothing more than a coincidence and soon dismissed her initial
misgivings as nothing more than paranoia. After all, why would anyone want to
harm a sweet old lady living a quiet, peaceful life in her high mountain
hideaway?

J
ack couldn’t believe his eyes. A plus sized
girl with curves in all the right places, just as he liked them. Not that he’d
seen one like her before. Despite her stern and reprimanding demeanor, he could
see the intelligence and caring nature that hid behind her mesmerizing emerald
green eyes.

His bear could hardly contain itself at the
heady aroma of his potential mate. It growled inside Jack, eager for him to
shift and let him sniff her as only a Grizzly Bear can.

Easy big fella
. Jack tried to calm his bear.

And she cared for animals, too. That had to
be a good thing, right? If she liked animals, then maybe she’d be tolerant of
him being a —

“Well, are you just going to gawk or have
you lost your tongue as well as your mind?”

“Sheriff Raven. Jack Raven.” That’s all he
could manage. Later he’d probably kick himself in the ass for not thinking of
some smart comeback or other. He couldn’t even offer his hand for her to shake.
Slime and some kind of primordial ooze hung from his fingertips and wobbled
disgustingly when he began to extend his arm.

“Hunter. Cassie Hunter.” Was all she said
in reply as she screwed up her nose at the sight of his hands.

“Haven’t seen you here before,” he
observed, then waited for her to elaborate.

She didn’t.

“We don’t get too many visitors to these
parts,” he explained. “Mainly hikers and you don’t look like you’re … well,
dressed for hiking,” he added quickly.

“Do I even
look
like a hiker?” She
looked down at her curves as she spoke. “I’ll be staying here for a few months.
Kind of a sabbatical. Staying at the Larsen place.” She made it clear that she
wasn’t going to give away any more information than she had to.

“Ruth Larsen’s old place?” he quizzed. “I
heard she left it to a granddaughter who lives somewhere in the city.”

“I’m her granddaughter and I’m quite
clearly not in the city. I’m freezing my tits off, soaking wet and trying to
save a poor horse from certain death at the hands of an incompetent Sheriff.”

“Well, when you put it like that, it’s been
such a pleasure meeting you, too.”
Yeah, that’s more like it. Show her you
can dish it out, too.

“If the mud didn’t
drown the poor animal, you surely would have scared it to death. I’ve never
seen a horse so afraid,” she added, ignoring his snide retort.

There’s a
reason for that
. But she’s
never going to find out for herself. City girls and shifters don’t mix.
Not
that a woman like you would give a guy like me a chance to get friendly enough
to explain, anyway
, he thought as he heaved a sigh of resignation.

“Since when did a
city girl become such an expert with horses?”

“Not that it’s any
of your business, but I spent a lot of time with horses when I was younger.”

Great, a trust
fund baby with her very own pony collection. Just what we need around here.

“I worked my way
through college mucking out stalls at five in the morning for a race horse
trainer who ran a stable near campus,” she explained as if he’d spoken out
loud.

“Do you know where
the Larsen place is? Can you get there alright?” The last thing Jack needed
right now was to mount a search and rescue when she went missing on some unmapped
back road or fire break.

“I’ve got
directions from her lawyer. I’m sure I’ll be fine between that and the GPS,”
she said, dismissing his unspoken offer to direct her. “But thanks, anyway,”
she declared, reluctantly. There was no percentage in making enemies at this
early of the investigation. Especially given that she didn’t even know what the
investigation was about or if there even was anything to investigate.

Perhaps she was
nothing more than a pawn in a crazy old lady’s game and nothing more.

She looked at Jack
with fresh eyes. No longer wanting to antagonize him as was her habit with men
in authority. Actually, men in general, when it came right down to it.

Even soaking wet
with bilious brown snakes of gelatinous sludge all over him, he looked a fine
specimen. His wet uniform clung to his torso, revealing muscle definition that
suggested a man who either hit the gym a lot or a man whose body had been
forged and tempered through hard work or dedicated training in some discipline
or other. Her money was on the later. His physique was too lean and purposeful
to have been sculpted in a gym.

The thickness of
his forearms and the ropey muscle striations that bulged each time he balled
his fists in frustration at her remarks hinted at the strength they commanded.
He stood over six feet tall and she could see that he wore a shirt a few a
sizes too big in order to accommodate his impossibly broad and powerful
shoulders and chest. He was one robust and powerful unit, but she wasn’t going
to swoon over him like a love-struck schoolgirl. Her days of swooning over men
were well behind her and there wasn’t room in her life for a career as a PI and
any kind of romantic relationship.

Right now, she had
a job to do and though she had no idea what that entailed, she had an
unshakeable feeling that it was, somehow, going to involve Sheriff Jack Raven.
Of that, she was quite certain.

One year earlier.

A
crid smoke billowed
from the heavily modified Suburban as flames licked urgently from the damaged
engine bay. Two IED’s had exploded either side of the vehicle, shredding the
tires and shattering the bullet-proof windows into a crazed spider web. If not
for the ballistic steel plate and Kevlar panels beneath the civilian skin of
the heavily modified and armored SUV, both occupants would have died instantly.

Even as the
ringing in Sergeant Jack Raven’s ears began to fade, a familiar
pop-pop-pop
of enemy fire pinging against the armor plate, like deadly hail on a tin roof,
confirmed his worst fears. They’d been ambushed. If it had been a random,
opportunistic attack, he would have driven on the run-flat inserts that had
been fitted to the wheels for just such an emergency. But there was nowhere to
run. No backup. Surrounded on all sides by an enemy that held the higher
ground. Their chances of making it through were slim to none.

If he were alone,
he might have been able to shift into his bear form and make a dash for cover.
Even if he caught a few stray rounds, he’d survive and the wounds would heal
almost straight away. One of the advantages of having shifter blood. But he
wasn’t alone and with enemy eyes on him, it probably wasn’t the best time to
reveal his most closely guarded secret since joining the military. He’d heard
what happened to other shifters who’d made their special talents known to their
superiors.

J
ack examined the
only other occupant of the Suburban. The man was unconscious and Raven didn’t
even know his name to rouse him. Instead, he slapped him a few times on the
cheek and shook him gently. They had to move eventually and the sooner he could
get his
high value
cargo awake and alert, the better their chances of
survival. Jack had never lost a critical
package
during one of his
covert missions and he planned to maintain his exemplary record of on time and
safe delivery.

Extending the
antenna on his satellite phone with one hand and slapping the supposedly
important official or spy or whatever the hell he was, with his other hand,
Jack punched in a number committed to memory. The call was connected almost
immediately but there was nothing but a rhythmic thumping sound coming from the
other end of the line.

Reading out a set
of coordinates displayed on the dash mounted GPS and a few cryptic commands
that sounded like nothing more than meaningless chatter to those with the
electronics surveillance capability to eavesdrop, he disconnected the call and
waited. While rounds from the rooftop positioned enemy continued to pepper the
stranded SUV with sporadic gunfire, Jack scanned the surrounding area for escape
routes while he continued to wake his passenger. He needed him mobile and ready
to run for it when the cavalry arrived.

And a few seconds
later, he heard the unmistakable
thump-thump-thump
as the big Russian
Mi-28 attack helicopter approached. The huge armored beast, brought its
menacing and extremely deadly 30mm underslung autocannons to bear on the ‘soft
targets’ identified by the weapons officer and within seconds, after firing a
few wild rounds at the bullet proof chopper, the rooftop gunman were bugging
out.

Not a single shot
was fired by the imposing Mi-28 which NATO had codenamed ‘Havoc’. Its
reputation preceded it and that’s what Jack counted on. He couldn’t afford to
get into a firefight. The risk of his passenger catching a stray bullet was unacceptable.

As he exited the
cabin of the Suburban into the clearing smoke, he gave thumbs up the pilot of
the hovering gunship who nodded curtly and continued to swing the massive beast
on its axis to provide cover as Jack took off on foot, his compact but deadly
H&K MP5 slung over one shoulder and the dazed passenger leaning on the
other as he struggled to keep pace with his military escort.

“I
’m afraid the scan
results are quite conclusive, Sergeant Raven. The concussion you sustained
during your last mission has left you with what we call a TBI or Traumatic
Brain Injury. It’s quite common among combatants who have been subjected to
close proximity explosions, like IED’s, RPG’s and land mines.”

Jack sat
speechless as the doctor continued to glance at the scans that ended his career
as a soldier. He’d hoped the bouts of depression, mood swings and the headaches
would pass, given time. But, if anything, they got worse. They got so bad that
they forced Jack to break one of his rules. He went to the base doctor. And so
began a battery of tests, probes and scans. The end result, a medical discharge
and unemployment for the first time in his life.

For months, Jack
did nothing but replay that last mission in his head, searching in vain for
ways he could have done better. Trying over and over again to spot the trap
he’d led them into. Every night he’d wake in a cold sweat, as the explosions
tore into the unmarked Suburban, unsure if it was really a nightmare or if this
time they’d succeeded in killing them. He knew he had to do something to break
the cycle and have something else to think about. That’s when he broke another
of his rules. He asked for help.

The transition
assistance package he’d been offered and initially rejected now seemed like a
good idea. Perhaps a career in law enforcement would be a good match for his
skill set and give him the command structure, discipline and the opportunity to
protect others that the military had previously provided for him. And if a bear
shifter needed one thing, it was an opportunity to protect. That’s just what
they did.