by J. K Harper
Jessie awarded her friend a sharp look. Livy had never been one for a good poker face. Dissolving into more giggles, she neatly sidestepped Jessie's playful swipe at her shoulder. "Don't mess with me," Jessie protested, although she let herself smile as well. "It's my first Christmas tree in my own place. Like, ever. It's a solemn moment."
With appreciable solemnity, both women regarded the two-foot-tall tree nestled into a cushion of red velvet atop the kitchen table that doubled as a writing desk and bill holder in a corner of Jessie's tiny apartment. Carefully, Jessie stepped forward to plug the small string of lights on the tree into the wall socket. With a festive little burst, they twinkled to life amidst the deliciously piney scent of the small, needled branches. She sighed with delight as Livy made admiring noises.
"See? It is perfect. I have everything I need here."
As if on cue, a slightly outraged wail punctuated her words. With the blissful rush of love that infused her every time her little angel made a noise, whether it was indecipherable baby babble, a loud burp, a rumbly fart, or even the incredibly loud screams when her sweet darling was really hungry, Jessie turned and took the three short strides to the other end of the room. Grant's chubby little legs, extending from his diapered butt, stood firmly by the low table he clung to. He futilely reached his little hands up in an apparent attempt to scale it. As Jessie reached down to pick him up, he looked at her, a small frown slicing across his brow as he once again let out an irritable string of sound, smacking one uncoordinated hand on the table leg.
Behind her, Livy said, "Wow. It's such a good thing we got you here when we did. That cute little booger is gonna be such a handful. I am so glad we were already friends, Jess. If you hadn't told me what was going on…"
Jessie, her arms now full of squirming, sweet smelling, very strong and solid little baby, turned toward her friend as she nestled her face into the top of Grant's head and breathed in his sweet baby smell. Her son. Her world.
Her own little baby bear shifter. Which was the Craziest. Thing. Ever.
But which also happened to be true.
Looking at Livy and her suddenly serious expression, Jessie nodded. "I can't imagine what I would've done if I hadn't known you. If you weren't from here." She waved her hand around, indicating the small, cozy little town of Deep Hollow, blanketed under snow outside her apartment. "What about the women like me out there in the world who don't have friends like you? Friends who know about, uh, shifters? What do they do, if this ever happens to them?"
Brown eyes slightly troubled, Livy stepped forward so she could cootchie-coo Grant's little belly. He loved Livy. Seeming to forget about his battle to climb the table, he giggled and smiled and shrieked up at her with joy. "That sort of situation is really rare. You and Grant were kind of the exception to the rule."
Jessie sighed. Quickly, Livy caught herself. "I'm sorry. That was insensitive." She didn't stop tickling Grant, who still giggled and squirmed, but she scrunched up her face in an apologetic expression at Jessie.
With a reassuring smile, Jessie shrugged. "It's been my reality for over a year now. Well, more like two years if you count from when I found out that I was pregnant. It's okay, Livy,” she said gently to her friend, who looked genuinely contrite at having put her foot in it. "You got me here. I have a new family now. Seriously, who could want anything more?"
Despite the fact that she had at least a ninety percent conviction in her words, what she didn't say hung in stark relief between them.
The father of her child. That was the only thing more she could ask for. Well, that was an impossibility that was never, ever going to happen. In her experience, families didn't work. She'd accepted it, and moved on.
Mostly.
"Come on," Livy said. She brightened. "Let's get your little bundle of joy here dressed up in that cute outfit his auntie Livy got for him. Didn't she get that for him, oh, yes she did, who's the cutest little thing ever, huh?" Her voice took on the ridiculous baby voice babble adults tended to adopt around adorable little, uh, babies. "Because we have a cookie exchange to go to, don't we, little Mr. Grant baby bear cutie pie. Huh, don't we? We sure do. Even though you can't have any cookies, my sweet little boy. But your auntie Livy sure can, oh, yes, she can."
Jessie couldn't help but shake her head and smile at Livy as the two of them bundled Grant into the adorable little purple and gray snowsuit Livy had gotten him. Livy said eventually he wouldn't feel the cold nearly as much as humans did. But until he began to shift into his bear form on his own, which should be happening pretty soon since it usually started right around the time shifter kids were a year to a year and a half old, for now he still needed the warmth of as many outer layers as a human would wear. There'd been an enormous snowstorm last night, and although the roads were plowed, it was still easier to walk to Livy's sister's house, where the holiday cookie exchange was happening.
Glancing at herself in the little oval mirror she'd hung by the front door, Jessie sighed again. Well, it didn't matter that she basically looked like a disheveled new mom. It wasn't like there would be any guys at the cookie exchange, for pete's sake. Livy had said it was a girls' thing. Even if there were any men there, they sure wouldn't look twice at a woman toting around a kid. Single moms weren't exactly in vogue in the dating world.
Fifteen minutes later, they had Grant swaddled in his snowsuit, diaper bag packed, and the batch of cookies each had baked that morning tucked away into containers they took with them. The second they stepped out into the winter wonderland, Jessie couldn't help but take a deep inhale of the air, pulling the crisp cold and the deep forest scents of the Colorado winter into her. The smell was heavenly.
With Grant tucked securely against her back in the baby carrier that had been one of the many items the local bear clan—wow, did it still feel kind of funny to be thinking about things like that now—had bestowed upon her when she first came here to live in Deep Hollow with her half-shifter son, Jessie stepped through the thick drifts of snow in front of her door to the groomed sidewalk before it. "You are so lucky you grew up with this," she said to Livy, letting soft envy buff her words. "I grew up with the smell of diesel and oil and dirty big city." Just thinking about it made her wrinkle her nose slightly.
Livy laughed as they walked down the salted sidewalk. "There are plenty of reasons to leave Deep Hollow.” She ticked them off on her gloved fingers. “Jobs. Men I didn't grow up with since kindergarten. Adventure. You know. The sort of opportunities you can only get in a big city."
Jessie rolled her eyes at Livy. They had diametrically opposed dreams. She knew Livy yearned for more excitement, but as far as Jessie was concerned, cities were ugly and gross and way too noisy. “I can hardly imagine moving away from this adorable little town.” She shrugged. “It already feels so comfortable to me.”
“Even after barely a week?” Livy teased.
Jessie nodded. “I can't really explain it,” she said softly. “Deep Hollow just clicked for me. Besides, it's definitely where Grant needs to grow up.” Grant cooed behind Jessie's head in the backpack carrier, one of his hands tightly catching strands of her hair that popped out from beneath her warm hat.
Livy nodded without answering. That, she understood.
A friendly silence held them the remaining block to their destination, although it was filled with Grant's endless nonsensical chatter of delight and what, Jessie decided, had to be some sort of running commentary on their surroundings. His voice warbled along in the cooing word-like noises of babies who weren't quite old enough to speak yet, but who grasped enough of language to understand they would be able to communicate that way.
As they walked, Jessie took in the holiday-filled scene of the little town, sighing with contentment. For the whole ten days she had been calling Deep Hollow her new home, she’d been utterly charmed by its mountain feel, the genuine friendliness of the residents, and something else she couldn't quite put her finger on.
Something that indeed felt lik
e home. Even without Grant needing to grow up here, surrounded by his own bear shifter kind and taught by them, she would have loved this place. She felt more soothed here than anywhere she'd ever lived in her life. Like it had called to her.
Right now, covered in piles of billowy white snow that sparkled in the sunlight of the clear day, it was even more enticing. The old-fashioned lampposts on either side of the lone main drag as they turned down it were festooned with lights and holiday decorations. Pine trees and several of the homes on Main Street were equally decorated, along with the fronts of every single shop on the way.
Jessie hadn't known she was a mountain girl before she came here, but now she was in love with everything about it. Some of the funny town stories Livy had regaled her with let her in on some of the small, harmless secrets about the locals, making her feel even more like she belonged here. The people she was already beginning to know made her feel welcome. People like the gracious Clara who owned the post office, Lindsay the bartender/server at the local watering hole called The Tank, and Peregrine, the high school kid who was bagging groceries at the town's sole tiny grocery store full-time during his winter break to fund what he had told her with earnest excitement was a new pair of skis for his younger sister's Christmas present. Jessie knew he was a shifter. She'd yet to work up her nerve to ask how a bear shifter could be named after a bird, but she figured there was an interesting story there.
Then of course there was Maddy, Livy's sister and the owner of the bakery café where Livy had set Jessie up with a job. It didn't pay much, but it came with the apartment. Maddy was also perfectly happy for her to bring Grant to work since he was such a well-behaved baby, and everyone instantly fell in love with him.
As they strolled along Main Street, occasionally waving at people on the other side whom they knew, Jessie felt the familiar sense of amazement that just about everyone in town knew that bear shifters lived among them. Livy had told her, with a deadly earnestness that almost scared her, that in general, telling humankind about the existence of shifters just wasn't done. That was pretty obvious, since Jessie had never heard of them in her entire life. Shifters weren't nearly as common as humans in the world, Livy had confided in her. It was a given that if shifters were ever discovered, they'd be dissected to within an inch of their lives. Studied, examined, spirited away to god-awful labs where who knew what would be done to them.
Humans were pretty good at being scared of what they didn't know.
Jessie felt fierce protectiveness wash through her again at the thought of anyone ever daring to want to do such a thing to her son. Jessie had not yet witnessed him turning into a bear. But he definitely was going to. She had seen his tiny claws extending and retracting from his fingertips, dreams in which he growled in a low register that no human would naturally do. Once or twice he'd sleepily blinked his little eyes at her and she could see the shadow of his bear within them, romping around somewhere inside her son.
Seeing his little claws come out two weeks ago had been what finally sent her lunging for her phone to call Livy, almost desperately accepting her offer of a new place to live. A place where Grant could grow up among his own kind, mentored by them in how to be the bear shifter he was. True to her word, Livy and two strapping male friends of hers had hopped a plane from some local private airstrip and flown to Jessie's latest home in Minneapolis, part of her years-long hop, skip, and jump around the country trying to find a good place to settle herself. They gathered up the rather pitifully small amount of her worldly belongings, threw them all into a rental truck, which they had paid for over her strident protest, and driven everything back to Deep Hollow.
She felt a tiny shiver slip down her back as she recalled the small demonstration they'd given her right as they arrived in Deep Hollow. Just after they entered the town limits, they'd pulled over in the snowy woods off the winding little mountain road. One of the guys from the local bear clan, whom Livy had introduced as Beckett, cheerfully showed Jessie his ability to shift from his human form into an enormous grizzly bear. She'd been ready for it, since Livy had been prepping her since before Grant was even born. Even so, to see the guy be human one moment, then a giant creature the next, standing there with them as nonchalantly as any person would, had been a stunning experience.
He'd opened his giant maw and yawned with an impressive show of gleaming sharp teeth—for which he got his shoulder smacked by Livy, who scolded him that he was going to scare Jessie.
"Wow," was all Jessie's stumbling brain had been able to come up with.
After a moment, Livy had gone to the moving truck, took Grant out of his car seat, and walked him over to the giant, humpbacked bruin. Despite herself, Jessie had stiffened and automatically reached for him, a protest rising in her throat. But before she could do or say anything, Grant stared at the giant bear, then chortled with glee and excitement as he reached out his chubby little hands. Beckett the grizzly bear had extended his nose forward very delicately, allowing Grant to feel and slap and tickle him without even moving, though he blinked his furry eyelids several times when Grant landed a fairly good one on his snout.
"Grant knows what he is, Jessie," Livy had said, throwing an understanding smile her way. "Even though he's half human, trust me. He's going to shift, and it's gonna happen really soon. It's a very good thing that he'll be around his own kind full-time," she'd quietly added.
They were safe here. Jessie again inhaled the scent of the wild, snow-covered woods as they turned down another street and up the walkway of a large Victorian style house nestled back in the trees. "Livy, this is absolutely the best gift I ever got in my life." She smiled happily as they went up the cleared walkway to the large, ornate door of Maddy's house. "I finally feel like I can relax."
Livy smiled. "I'm so glad, Jessie." She gently chucked Grant under his chin, the dopey smile that everyone in town seemed to get every time they looked at him coming across her face as he uttered his usual cute little baby coos and gurgles at her. "You deserve some stability and quiet after everything you've been through."
"I sure do." Jessie sighed with contentment as Livy knocked on the door.
Almost instantly, it opened, sending out a whoosh of warmth, the happy chatter and laughter of many voices inside, the delicious scents of baking cookies.
And a deeper, darker, far more intense something else beneath it all.
A something that swept through Jessie like a delicious, icy wind of alertness and clarity. A touch musky, yet crisp like snow, wild and rough, the scent slammed through her with an intensity she'd never before experienced.
"Hey, Shane," Livy said in oblivious cheer as she pulled off her scarf and hat, stepping toward the door. "I thought you were still out of town. Did the big ole manly grizzly bear come back just for our girly cookie exchange?" she teased. Then she gestured at Jessie. “This is Jessie, she's new here. Jessie, meet Shane, another one of our resident hulking shifters.”
Jessie stood rooted in front of the door, staring at the enormous guy filling the entire frame. Her jaw dropped as her eyes slowly traveled upward to find his. The guy was massive. Just like all the other male bear shifters she'd met so far, but he seemed even bigger. He must be 6'5”, she thought to herself in a daze. A half-wild tousle of golden brown hair on top of his head was at odds with the darker, neatly trimmed beard and mustache that bristled out from his granite hard, drop-dead gorgeous face. Light whiskey eyes that seemed familiar looked back at Jessie with as much startlement, his strong lips somewhat parted and sending the bizarre image of absolutely ravaging her with kisses as Jessie stared back at him, completely frozen.
Whoa, she thought, still dazed, he's a freaking sexy as hell bear shifter lumberjack god of the woods.
Except lumberjacks had never looked this sexy, she was pretty sure. Especially—
Especially ones she recognized.
Wait a minute.
Holy.
Freaking.
Nuh-uh.
He looked like—
"Maverick?" Jessie's voice was strangled as the name she had often thought about for the past two years managed to shove its way out of her mouth. She sensed more than saw Livy's smile falter as her head suddenly swiveled back and forth between Jessie and Mr. sexy lumberjack bear shifter dude. “You have a beard now,” she whispered stupidly.
His own voice rumbling out so deeply it vibrated through her body, he replied in an equally shocked tone, "Jessie? What—what the hell are you doing here?"
Grant chose that moment to emit one of the screeching little kid cries of those not quite into toddlerhood, demanding the attention come back to him. Obligingly, three sets of eyes clamped on him, though all Jessie could see was the corner of his face since he was still ensconced in the backpack carrier. He waved his snow-suited arms around, almost seeming to reach forward to Mav.
“Who—what—no, no, no. That's Shane,” Livy stuttered, eyes about popping out of her head. “He's the handyman up at the lodge. You said the guy's name was Maverick. And that he was some sort of fighter dude on the underground rings.” Her wide eyes darted between them. “No way.”
Seeing Jessie's expression, then that of the sexy guy Jessie knew as Maverick, Livy's face slackened. "Oh, my god," she breathed. She looked from Grant to Jessie, then back to Grant. Then she gestured at the huge, gorgeous man taking up all the space in the doorway. "No freaking way. This is him? For real? He's your baby daddy? Shane Walker from Deep Hollow is Grant's father?" Her voice dropped to a stunned whisper.
Jessie shook her head, completely lost as she stared into the achingly familiar face of the man she'd been looking for ever since she found out she was pregnant.
The man with whom she'd spent the most erotic, blissful, exciting three days of her entire life.
The man who was the father of her bear shifter son.