The Bear With No Name

by Zoe Chant

  They stared into each other’s eyes. Lauren tried to tell him everything with that look – everything that made them perfect for each other, everything that their future could hold if only he could trust her enough to let her in.

  He pulled her closer.

  “I love you,” he whispered in her ear.

  “I love you, too,” she said. They would just have to let tomorrow take care of itself.

  She rose up on her knees a little, and sank down on him.

  At first, she rocked gently, feeling herself stretch to accommodate him. He took hold of her hips and pulled her closer as she rocked, adding just a little extra pressure.

  But soon neither of them could hold back. He grabbed at her ass and thrust up into her and she ground down onto him just as hard, every thrust stoking the flames higher and higher. She took his face between her hands and kissed him with desperate, panting kisses until passion exploded within her.

  He joined her just a few moments later, his hips bucking beneath her until his passion was spent.

  His hands caressed her gently up and down her back, until finally she climbed off of him, and he went to the bathroom to clean up. She blew out all the candles, finally feeling relaxed and at peace. She slipped beneath the covers of her bed, and David joined her there.

  They lay spooned together tightly, just as they had the night before. How could that have been only 24 hours ago? Lauren felt that she had lived a lifetime with him in just two days. Exhausted and sated, she fell asleep in his arms.

  Chapter 13

  Sunrise found David staring out the window with bleary eyes, no closer to clarity than he’d been the night before. Lauren was still curled in his arms, as she had been all night. His mind had raced all through the dark hours, endlessly replaying the same dilemma: giving up Lauren would be like losing a limb, but he would rather die than endanger her.

  It’s not that there wasn’t any room for compromise. He could imagine telling her part of the truth; he could say that he remembered something about himself that worried him, and he had to leave while he investigated whether or not it put her in danger. Maybe he could hint that it was about criminal involvement or something.

  But there was something about her, about their connection to each other, that made half a truth feel as bad as a lie.

  Not to mention the practicalities: she would never believe that it was safe for him to hike out of there alone. People had been talking at dinner last night about hiking over the mountain to Kirk, and it sounded like it would take around eight hours … for a human. If her told her he needed to leave, she and her friends would insist on hiking over the mountain with him, and then they would all spend the night, and then they would see him off on the bus or something, and that just would not do. And what if Lauren in her cheerful, determined way decided to follow him? Or what if he turned into a bear in a mountain meadow along the way and went berserk and slaughtered them all?

  What about that bear inside him? He had searched deep within himself for any scrap of knowledge of the bear. One thing he had become sure of was that the transformation was utterly familiar. As he concentrated there in the dark, he found that his control of the process was complete and nuanced. He could turn his nails into claws. He could cause fur to sprout all over his body and then to disappear. All of it felt as familiar as breathing. This was not some sudden change that had come upon him when he was injured, this must have been a part of him for years.

  The reasonable side of his brain tried to point out that if his control over the shifting really was that masterful, then surely he could stop himself from ever harming Lauren. Then the unreasonable side offered up an image of Lauren with her throat slashed by savage claws, and reason just gave the hell up. Nothing could ever be worth that risk.

  Lauren awoke with a little snuffling sound and then immediately lifted her head up, looking around. When she saw him lying right there with her, he could almost read her thoughts: Oh good, he’s still here!

  He sighed and smiled up at her. She had the most beautiful, expressive face. With a few quirks of her eyebrows and her lovely lips, she could have whole conversations. The lopsided smile she was giving him now said, Please tell me you’re done being an idiot?

  Oh Lauren, I wish I could be.

  Instead, he kissed her and said, “Your turn for the first shower.”

  Once they were ready for the day, they returned to the emergency shelter for breakfast, bringing a box of granola to share. Seeing all the townspeople there reminded David that others had struggles in their lives, too. Rev. Parrish was there sharing the news with everyone that Mr. Mitchell was recovering comfortably from his surgery, and when he thanked David again, people started applauding.

  David waved back to them, wordless with emotion.

  Another person David was looking for was Fran. He told Lauren and Ella his theory that yesterday’s bear might have been the cub’s mother, though he left out all the parts about scent. They both said they would keep an eye out for Fran so he could tell her the news.

  Fran didn’t appear until breakfast clean-up was over and everyone was spilling out into the town square. David went and told her the edited version he’d shared that morning.

  Fran took his news seriously, asking “Where exactly were you when you saw her? Which way was she heading?”

  “I was east of the ridge with the Valenti’s house, and she went further northeast from there. Do you think it might be the cub’s mother? How will you get them together?”

  “Oh, I have my ways,” she said. “You all were right to bring him in, because he must have washed down the river from a long way off. But this isn’t a matter for amateurs to mess with. I’ll take it from here. You know, most people from the city don’t worry so much about whether the bears are happy…” She gave him a considering look.

  “Just trying to help,” he mumbled, and didn’t dare say another word about bears for fear that his secret might somehow tell itself.

  David wondered if the female was hanging around town even now, because he kept catching faint whiffs of bear even as he was talking to Fran. And strangely, as he walked away, it looked like Fran too was sniffing for odors on the breeze.

  Mayor Hampton appeared on the town hall steps.

  “Good news, everyone!” he yelled out to the crowd. “The National Guard will be delivering supplies this afternoon! Gather ‘round and let’s make plans for unloading and distributing them.”

  People started clapping and cheering. Even David’s mood was lifted a bit, because now Lauren and her friends would be safer. He took Lauren’s hand and squeezed it. She smiled back at him.

  People were pushing to be part of the circle around the picnic table where Mayor Hampton had spread out his papers. Lauren was happy to let others do the planning and then pitch in with the work once the plans were made, so the two of them just wandered up and down Main Street for a while, hand in hand, awkwardly not saying much.

  David was wondering if the National Guard might be his ticket out of Ashton. If he told them he was an injured hiker with amnesia, they would almost certainly be willing to take him to a hospital, but then he would give up all privacy. And privacy in his case was vital. But was there anything else he could tell them that might get him a ride out of town?

  Then David caught the scent of bear again, much stronger and clearer than before. He froze, then turned slowly, searching. Then he saw the bear just a block away. Her posture was tense and he smelled fear, but she kept coming.

  Lauren gasped but stayed calm.

  “Is Fran still here?” he asked in a low voice.

  Before she could answer, a man’s voice yelled, “Look out, everyone, that bear is back!”

  David whipped around and saw Mr. Valenti with a snarl on his face.

  “Stay back, people. I will not let that beast attack anyone again.” Then Valenti drew a pistol from a holster at his back.

  David was almost blinded by a searing shock of rage and grief. If he didn
’t take action, someone else would become an orphan. And so he roared, and shifted.

  He rose up to his full height and snarled, making himself the more dangerous target. And as confused as Mr. Valenti might have been about where this other bear could have appeared from, he didn’t hesitate to shoot.

  The bullet hit him in the shoulder like a sledgehammer. He was rocked back, but anger fueled him and he actually took another step toward Valenti as Lauren screamed and reached out to him. But then the pain and the shock overwhelmed everything. He sagged and he fell, and as he fell he felt the bear recede and he became a man again.

  “That was David, you bastard! Don’t shoot!” Lauren yelled. He could feel her lifting his head up and cradling it on her lap. He struggled to open his eyes again. Someone was handing her a shirt and she wadded it up and pressed it to his shoulder. The world starting to swim again, and he couldn’t separate the buzzing in his ears from the fearful clamor of the crowd.

  “Stay with me, David, please,” Lauren sobbed. “Please, please.”

  A shrill whistle startled him and he forced his eyes open again. Fran had jumped up on the picnic table.

  “What the hell is wrong with you all?” she lectured the crowd. “That man lying there is a hero, and the one who shot him is the monster. Ain’t you ever seen anyone turn into a bear before? You had a bear shifter as mayor of this town for thirty years!”

  And with that, fur rippled over her, and a bear stood in her place. She pointed to herself with both front paws, shrugged impatiently, and then shifted back. “See? Bear. Big fucking deal. You want to see that again?”

  She shifted one more time, and David finally got a better look at her. She had glossy black fur, a tan muzzle, and a cinnamon chevron across her chest, just his like his mother.

  His mother …

  The floodgates of memory opened, and he went under.

  Chapter 14

  “I don’t care how many of you are bears!” Lauren shouted as David’s eyes rolled back in his head. “We need to get him some help!” She looked up to find some members of the stunned crowd rousing into action.

  Officer Brown walked calmly over to Mr. Valenti. He held out his hand and said, “I need to take that weapon, sir.”

  Valenti surrendered it without a word, looking as shaken and confused as anyone else.

  Meanwhile Officer Kennedy was racing to the town hall, to radio for the helicopter, she hoped.

  Lauren scanned the crowd frantically for Pete, hoping that he would know some way to help. The wadded shirt she held over the gun shot wound was beginning to soak through, and she felt blood seeping into her jeans but she couldn’t tell if it was from an exit wound or just spillover.

  “Please, please, please,” she chanted. With her free hand she caressed David’s face. It still felt warm, and she could feel his chest still rising and falling under her other hand. She clung to hope and tried to force herself to focus on what to do next.

  Hannah knelt down beside her and touched her shoulder. “Pete’s on his way with the ambulance; it’ll be just a minute,” she said.

  “Okay,” Lauren said. Then there was nothing else for her to do right now, so she counted David’s breaths, feeling the rhythm of them, trying to notice if they changed at all.

  Pete’s ambulance once again pulled onto Main Street, and soon he was right there at her side.

  “Okay, Lauren, there was just the one shot to his shoulder, right?” Pete asked as he took David’s pulse.

  When she nodded, he continued. “We’re going to roll him a little to the side, off your lap, and then lift him onto the gurney. Are you ready?”

  Pete and the two men who were helping him did exactly what he said. Lauren tried not to get in his way, but she felt such a terrible, empty ache when she was out of contact with David. She ended up standing at the foot of the gurney, resting her hand on his ankle.

  Pete put a monitor and oxygen mask on David and then bandaged his wound. And then he just stood there.

  “Isn’t there anything else you can do?” Lauren asked. “Why isn’t he awake yet? Will he be okay?”

  “Well, the bullet’s still in his shoulder and the bleeding is actually just moderate. His heartbeat and respiration are strong. I’m keeping an eye on his blood pressure and I’ll start some fluids if it drops too low, but it’s fine for now. He’s doing pretty well for a guy who just got shot. Honestly, I would have expected him to come to by now, but he did just have the head injury a couple days ago, so maybe that’s slowing him down…”

  Then Lauren noticed Fran pacing back and forth off to the side. “You,” Lauren said. “Did you know about this? Did you know he was a bear?” If Lauren couldn’t do anything else to save his life, maybe she could at least solve his mystery.

  “No!” the old woman said, wringing her hands together in worry. “I never even suspected! But now I wonder … he looks so much like my daughter. His bear does, I mean. He even smells like her. I think he might be someone that I’ve been searching for for years.”

  Lauren remembered the story that Ella had told her, and she looked down at David, awed by the thought that just maybe he was going to change someone else’s life just as thoroughly as he had changed hers.

  “Okay, listen up, folks!” Officer Brown said, getting everyone’s attention. “The helicopter is just a minute away, so I think we need to get some things straight. As I see it, what happened here today is that Lou Valenti saw a bear that seemed to pose a danger to public safety, and when he tried to shoot it, this young man accidentally stepped into the line of fire. No one is at fault here, no charges need to be filed, and certainly nothing out of the ordinary happened here just now. Does anyone have a problem with that?”

  And Mayor Hampton added, “Town hall meeting tonight, where I promise the whole bear thing will be explained, for those of you may be feeling a bit in the dark right now. And no, I cannot turn into a bear, just in case you were wondering.”

  A wave of murmuring rolled through the crowd, but no one spoke up to dispute the story. And then the helicopter arrived.

  Lauren already knew there would be no room for her to fly with him. She stood still with her arms wrapped around herself as David was loaded in and the helicopter lifted off. Her friends stood all around her, but she didn’t want their company right now. She wanted to be as alone as she felt inside.

  “I’m going to go home and wash up,” she said to them all. “But you,” she said, pointing to Fran, “I want to talk to you before this meeting tonight. And you,” she said to Mayor Hampton, “find me a way to get to that hospital. Please.”

  With that she turned and walked away, unable to maintain the mask of determined, capable Lauren for one more minute. The blood of the man she loved was drying all over her hands, and she didn’t even know when or if she would ever see him again.

  Chapter 15

  David’s patience was wearing thin, and his bear was close to a rampage. Lauren was only 60 miles away from him! His wound had healed enough that if he shifted, he could cover that ground in two days. But he knew that if he left the hospital, she would have no way to find him, and travel and communication with Ashton could be restored at any minute.

  Instead, the only useful thing he could do was call Ashton town hall from his bedside phone, because Lauren herself wasn’t even listed in the directory. In the day and a half since he woke up after surgery, he had called over and over and over again. Still no service! He slammed the phone down once more.

  Missing Lauren was like missing half his soul. Now that he had his memories back, there was so much he wanted to share with her! But every time he imagined telling her his secrets and his dreams, he had to face the fact that she might not want to hear any of it. He hadn’t been brave enough to tell her about his bear, and instead she had had to find out in the most terrifying way possible.

  He was sure he remembered Lauren cradling his head on her lap before he passed out, but that didn’t mean anything other than that she was a
compassionate person. It didn’t mean that she wanted to share the rest of her life with a man who was half bear.

  And what about the other bear shifter in Ashton? Was that just the imaginings of an oxygen-starved brain? But the image in his mind was so clear: Fran transforming into not just a bear, but an almost familiar bear. More gaunt than his mother had been, and with the fur of her muzzle shot with gray, but so close to the beloved bear that he remembered.

  He knew so little about his mother’s family, just that she was from New England somewhere, and that she had argued bitterly with her parents when she married his dad. For most of his childhood, he hadn’t even realized that the aunts and uncles and cousins that he played with at every holiday were all his father’s family, not his mom’s. Once he understood the difference and asked her about it, she promised she would tell him more about her family someday. But someday never came.

  Could Fran be part of his missing family?

  He reached out for the phone to call Ashton yet again, but the phone rang under his hand. It was the front desk clerk, letting him know that Lauren and Fran were on their way up right now!

  His heart sang in relief. He tried not to get too ahead of himself. Just because Lauren was visiting, it didn’t mean that she wanted to be with him. But it probably meant that she wasn’t completely horrified by him, and that was a good start! And if Fran was coming with her, did that mean his suspicions might be correct?

  He looked down at his hospital gown and wished like hell that he had something else to wear.

  Lauren’s beautiful face peeked around the edge of the door, with Fran behind her. Lauren smiled uncertainly at him.

  “Come in, don’t just stand there!” He waved them in.

  When Lauren met his eyes, he felt the immediate spark of their connection, as strong as ever. He held out his hand without even meaning to, just an instinctive reaching out to her, and she took it immediately. He tugged her toward the bed and she sat down at his side, still one prim inch away from him, but leaning like she might not mind sitting closer.