Saving Her Bear: A Second Chances Romance (11 page)

Catherine’s mind raced. Of course they kept to themselves. What would the world think if it ever got out what they were – what they could do? She wanted to plead John’s case, plead his family’s case, but Grampy hadn’t heard a word she’d said. He was simply finishing his thought, apathetic to any counters she might have on the subject. She grabbed her burger and stormed into the house, slumping down at the kitchen table to eat, alone. She regretted the fervor of her actions, instantly, her backside sending sharp pangs up her spine as it impacted with the wooden seat. She took one bite, and her stomach turned.

She sat there alone a moment, cursing nearly every member of her family as she took out her phone. Catherine sighed as she discovered another three missed calls from ‘Mom.’ She set the phone aside and tried another bite of her burger. The bite failed.

Bennett finally joined her at the kitchen table, feasting on the rest of her burger when she confessed her lack of appetite.

“Don’t mind Gramps, Catie. He’s just set in his ways, is all.”

Catherine shook her head. “I know, but that’s not an excuse. They don’t deserve the reputation they’ve got.”

Or did they? She wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

By dusk, Uncle Bodie and Gramps were in front of the TV again, scanning through the millions of channels on their satellite dishes. Catherine kept her phone glued to her, leaning against the kitchen counter as the sun set, watching out the windows for headlights in the driveway.

She wondered how John’s conversation with the great Patrick Fenn would go, how terrifying a sight it must’ve been. Though she felt almost cornered at the idea of John throwing away his life there in Falkirk’s Seat to be with her, the more she thought of him changing his mind, the more her heart hurt. How could she want him so badly after all this time? How could she be so sure, so ready to run away with a boy she last knew – truly knew – over a decade before?

Did she ever truly know him? She thought.

Well, she sure did now.

“What are you moping about?”

Bodie snuck up beside her at the kitchen counter, sneaking a peek out the window as though craning to see into the Gorilla enclosure at the zoo.

She gave him a gentle elbow. “Nothing. Mind your own.”

Bodie smiled, returning the jab in the ribs, before turning for the fridge. “You need anything down the store?”

Catherine glanced toward the clock. It was getting close to eight in the evening. “No, you’re going out this late?”

Bodie stared into the fridge a moment. “Yeah. Gotta get out sometimes. Otherwise, I might lose my mind – especially with your Grandfather around all hours of the day.”

Catherine chuckled. Bodie may have a bit of a sour streak, but he was family.

“You sure you’re all set?” He asked.

Catherine nodded, watching as Bodie finished his beer before grabbing the keys to his pickup and heading out the front door. Catherine watched him walk around the shed and disappear.

An hour after Bodie left, John still hadn’t called or shown up. She was beginning to feel a little hurt. No matter how terrifying the thought of John upending his life for her was, she realized by the time the sun went down that she wanted to dive head first into that fear – with him. She tried his phone one more time around ten, and finally gave up, curling into the twin bed in the Calhoun guest bedroom, the quilts still folded across the foot of the bed exactly as her Grammy Calhoun had done it.

She lay there listening to the deathly silence of the Maine woods through her open windows, and fell into a fitful sleep.

CHAPTER SIX

Catherine woke to a loud rumble from the living room – Grampy was up, and so were his hackles.

She clamored out of her bed, rustling into the kitchen to see what might be troubling her grandfather. He was struggling with his green sweater, a staple of his ‘lounge around the house’ attire. She watched him a moment, his shaky hands trying to take hold of the hem, then trying to slump the garment up onto his shoulders. It was a pathetic and futile spectable.

“Here, Grampy. Let me help.”

He turned at her touch and smiled, holding still for her to straighten his sweater. The house always had a chill to it in the early morning, the woodstove rarely lit in the summer months despite the cool nights. The sweater was caught at the hem of his t-shirt.

“Here, hang on. It’s caught.”

She pulled the sweat and t-shirt up and the thick scent of very dirty laundry filled her nostrils. She fought not to grimace as she straightened his t-shirt. In the split second his t-shirt was raised, she spotted a purple and yellow shape, almost identical to her own, massive across Grampy’s back.

“Jesus, what happened to you?”

He jerked as her hand touched the purple shape, reaching back to cover himself. “You helping me get dressed or trying to tickle me? Christ!”

She leaned closer. “Grampy, what happened to your back?”

He furrowed his brow at her. “What? Nothing. I’m getting old is all. Lost my balance and bumped something.”

She straightened his filthy t-shirt and pulled his sweater up around him.

She stood by as Grampy Calhoun slumped down in his favorite seat, watching him resort to smacking the TV remote in his open palm, when it wouldn’t work.

“God damn thing! Where’s Bodie?” He demanded, getting frustrated.

Catherine shuffled over the braided rug and took the remote from his hands, gently. Then she switched the input on the TV so he could watch the satellite. Grampy shot her a half smile, his lazy eye glaring toward the ceiling as he did. “Thankyuh dear. Why don’t you fry us up some eggs, will yuh?”

Catherine’s eyebrows shot up, but she didn’t say a word as the old man returned his attention to the television. She glanced around the empty house, almost aching for Bennett to appear and share this silent thought with her, but instead she simply headed into the kitchen – the proper place for any woman as far as Grampy Calhoun was apparently concerned, and started cooking up the old man’s breakfast.

It was the least she could do, given the free place to live, she thought.

Cook breakfast and laundry – without question. She didn’t bother asking permission and shot into Grampy’s bedroom, collecting up as much laundry as she could and hustling down the hallway to the laundry closet. Once the first load was in and whooshing away, she returned to the kitchen to start cooking.

She checked her phone as the eggs sizzled in the pan, shooting off a new text to John, admitting that she was beginning to feel hurt or worried – or both. Then she set it aside and thought of him, doing her best to replicate the perfectly crispy bacon he’d made her the day before.

She was buttering Grampy’s toast when the front door bust open, and Bennett appeared, coming across the living room with a strange energy.

“You were up early,” she said, carting the plate to her grandfather. He hummed his pleasure at the sight of his breakfast, declaring his thanks a bit louder than was necessary. She thought the TV was set a little loud this morning. “Do you have any idea when the last time somebody did laundry was? Or how Gramps got that ragin bruise?”

Bennett ignored her question. “You heard anything from John?”

Catherine stopped at the kitchen counter, spatula in hand as she made to offer a plate to him. He shook his head.

“No, actually. Was getting a little worried.”

Bennett shook his head. “I don’t think you can blame him,” he said, checking his phone. “Yeah, Paul and Jason haven’t heard shit either.”

“What are you talking about? Are you gonna eat?”

“No, I’m going back out,” he said, snatching up a piece of bacon before turning toward the front door.

“Where are you going, Bennett?” Grampy hollered, his mouth full of scrambled egg.

“Just going out, be back by supper, hopefully.”

Catherine watched him, her brow furrowed. He stopped by the door. “You might want to get dressed.”

“Why?”

Bennett glanced out toward his idling truck. “Deacon’s missing.”

It was as though someone had dropped a cannonball in her stomach.

They were barreling down the road in two minutes, Grampy settled back at the house with his TV remote and his cell phone.

“Where are we going?” She asked, wrapping John’s hooded sweatshirt around her shoulders as he took a corner with a bit less brake than was wise.

“I’m meeting up with Jason.”

“When did he go missing?”

Bennett rolled through a stop sign and onto the main drag. “They found his ambulance out on the rez.”

Catherine’s hair stood on end. My God, he really was missing.

“Nobody on the rez is gonna be of any more use than the Fenns, but - it’s Deacon, you know? No one can get ahold of John, so we’re not even sure where they’re searching, yet.”

Catherine swallowed. She thought of that day at Parkhurst Lake, of the Fenn family all combing the treeline and brush for a sign of something they were certain was there. She’d always wondered why the Fenns were searching at Parkhurst Lake. She never thought for a second that the Fenns she knew could do one of their own harm, yet Alison Fenn disappeared out near Falkirk’s Seat. It made no sense to search in Parkhurst Lake, several miles away. Still, that was where they found her.

Suddenly, it struck her what brought the family to search for their lost kin in the lake. She remembered John’s comment when he went into the woods to find her phone – ‘It’ll smell like you.’

Of course they were searching for her in the lake – they could smell that she’d been there.

“Will you drop me in Falkirk?”

Bennett took another corner, shooting her a sideways glance. “You’re thinking of going back after yesterday?”

She swallowed. “John’s brother is missing. I need to be with him.”

Bennett drove another few minutes without a word, but when the turn for Falkirk’s Seat came up, he took it. Catherine steeled herself for the long walk to John’s house. God damn it, John. You could just let me help, she thought.

Bennett rolled up to the closed metal gate at the Fenn property, whistling appreciatively. “You’re braver than I.”

“Thanks. Will you text me if you hear anything from Jason?”

Bennett nodded. “Of course. Here’s hoping this isn’t like those girls last year.”

Catherine stopped, searching his face. “What do you mean?”

He stopped, inspecting his knuckles. “They disappeared from the same spot. Last year.”

And they were never found. Oh god, they were never found.

“Call me if you find out anything! I’ll text you when I talk to John.”

With that, Catherine slammed the door to the truck and straightened the sweatshirt at her collar. Bennett was gone before she’d even made it under the metal gate.

The walk was familiar, the afternoon cool despite it being mid-August. Still, she felt her heart racing. She’d known Deacon for as long as she’d known John. Deacon had been the one to convince her to ask John to hang out alone the first time. He was the one to hint that John might like her, too – was the one who covered for them both when they were gone on one of their long joyrides. Sadly, the trip to Canada took too long for even charismatic Deacon to smooth over.

She imagined what Deacon must look like when he was a bear. Was he like Patrick, massive and black, smelling of musk and fur? Was he like John, huge and brown, shaggy fur tufts framing his muzzle? Despite the strangeness of this notion, the thought of Deacon meandering through the brush or tearing into a bee hive made her smile.

The thought of some misdirected hunter taking a chance at a kill on unpermitted land tore the smile from her face, instantly.

She jammed her hands in her pockets and doubled her pace.

Her phone buzzed and she leapt to retrieve it. Finally, John texted, she thought.

There’s a search party on the Rez. We’re heading down that way.

Bennett. Not John.

God damn it, John. Answer your damn phone! Let me help.

She was so settled into her gait that she barely heard the gravel churning beneath tires behind her. She glanced back and her spine jerked in abject terror as Patrick Fenn climbed out of his pickup truck and came storming down the dirt road at her.

“You’re becoming a serious fucking problem of mine,” he said, coming to stand over her.

“Pop! The tribe says the trail went cold.”

“Where?”

Patrick didn’t turn away from her, despite calling back to his son; John’s Uncle Terry.

“Down by the jetty.”

Patrick’s nostrils flared as he turned back to face her.

“I want to help,” she said.

“You want to help? Go back to wherever you came from.”

Catherine stared up at Patrick Fenn’s dark gray eyes, searching for words to express this sudden surge of feeling. He’d just hit some nerve she didn’t know she had. He hadn’t just hit it, he’d blasted it with a sledgehammer. He had no clue what she came from – no comprehension of the hell she’d left behind.

She spun on her heel and began to march down the dirt road toward John’s house. It was another mile or so. She could make it in twenty if she lollygagged, and far faster if she hustled.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

She kept walking. “Where’s it look like I’m going?”

She felt a hand at her shoulder, pulling her back, and she jerked free of his grasp. Suddenly, she knew exactly what it was about Patrick Fenn that was turning her inside out. Huge and mighty as he may seem, at that moment he reminded her of one man and one man only – her stepfather.

She spun on him like a mongoose fed up with a cocky snake. “Don’t you ever fucking lay a hand on me, again!”

He startled, but only for an instant. “Don’t you get lippy with me, you -”

She lunged forward, coming to stand so close to him that her chest grazed his belly. When she spoke, her words were low and calm. “Say it. I fucking dare you.”

“Are you threatening me, little girl?”

“No,” she said, glaring up into his bearded face. “I’m not threatening you. I’m warning you. I already shot the last man who talked to me like that, and you’re a much bigger target.”