Beloved by the Bear_A Shifters in Love Fun & Flirty Romance

by Isadora Montrose

  “What can you do that the sheriff can’t?” Samantha asked despairingly.

  “Kept going until we find something.”

  “Oh.” He must have been convincing because Samantha wordlessly handed him a set of keys and ran back inside the house.

  Anton turned to the neighbors. “You two come with me.” He pointed at two of the younger men.

  They immediately stepped forward. “I’m Jay Fletcher. This is Oscar Morrison.”

  “Hey,” Anton returned absently. The inside of the shed was pitch dark.

  “The switch should be here,” said Jay. He flicked it on. “Carmody?”

  The shed was level full of dusty crap. If Carmody was in there, she was well hidden. Old washtubs were piled with rusting tomato cages and sacks of fertilizer and mortar. A couple of bikes crouched under filthy tarpaulins. A jumble of rakes and brooms and bean poles blocked easy access. It looked and smelled like no one had been in here since last fall. And as if one wrong tug would create an avalanche.

  “I want you two to remove everything in this shed one piece at a time, and make sure she’s not trapped underneath this jumble,” Anton instructed.

  “For real?” protested Oscar. “Because this is old dust.”

  “I know. But if she’s somehow crept inside, we don’t want to find her in the spring.” He used his flat command voice and both men set to work carefully removing the tangle of odds and ends.

  Anton collected a couple more neighbors and headed to the garage. It was neater. And cleaner. Recently swept. A little subcompact mostly filled the floor space.

  “Does Samantha keep it like this?” Anton asked the two women.

  The woman who had introduced herself as Anna nodded. “She lets Carmody play out here. Samantha sweeps up every evening after the toys are put away, before she garages her car for the night.”

  Her friend Gwen nodded. “Toys go in there.” She pointed to a bank of cupboards at the back topped by a bare workbench.

  Those cupboards gave lots of places to stuff a body. Anton sniffed and was not reassured. He smelled unicorn and little girl with an overlay of phoenix. What the heck? Could that blowhard sheriff be right after all?

  “Anna and Gwen, look in the toy cupboards.” Anton unlocked the car. It was empty. The trunk held a spare tire, a case of water bottles, some cat litter and a shovel, windshield washer fluid. A winter emergency kit.

  The cupboards were full of toys. “We can’t open this one.” Anna indicated at tall cupboard with a lock.

  Anton found the key on Samantha’s ring. Power tools were hung neatly on the wall. He smelled recent traces of Samantha and older traces of a male. Not a phoenix. “Who helps Samantha with her yard work?”

  “Maynard Welsh. He lives on this street,” Gwen said.

  “You can’t think Maynard took her,” protested Anna. “He’s a good kid.”

  “I don’t think anything. Maynard outside?”

  “Well, sure,” Gwen was huffy. “He searched their yard.”

  “Good. Let’s move on. Porch next.”

  By the time he had confirmed that Maynard was the source of the scent in the tool locker, and the neighbors had removed the latticework to look under the Belfast porch, Samantha had returned. She had a little stuffed dog in her hand. “This is Carmody’s. It’s her favorite.”

  Anton took it with both hands and held it to his face. He inhaled deeply. Unicorn shifter, little sweaty girl, and phoenix. If he wasn’t mistaken, Ms. Belfast had quite a secret. Not his business. He now had a better lock on the child than Babcock’s shoe had provided. He handed back the toy.

  Samantha didn’t want it back. “Is that it? Don’t you want to take it with you?”

  “No, ma’am. I have a good memory for scent. I’m going to need both hands to lift things. Now I want you to tell me exactly where you’ve looked.”

  “The whole house.”

  “Inside the fridge? The freezer? Dryer?”

  “Good heavens, no.”

  “Then do so.” He pointed to a couple that was watching wide-eyed from the front yard. “You two give Samantha a hand. Look inside every cupboard, crawl space, under and behind every piece of furniture bigger than a bread box. Assume Carmody’s hurt and can’t hear you call.”

  “Okay.” Samantha squared her shoulders. “Will you come with me, Rose? Rick?”

  Her neighbors joined her.

  “One more thing, ma’am,” interposed Anton. “Any attractive hazards around here? Pool, fish pond, trampoline, construction site?”

  His audience gasped.

  “There’s a pond where the spring comes up.” Someone pointed. “Behind that fence. But Carmody couldn’t get over it. She’s too small.”

  Heads bobbed. Mouths were covered. “We forgot about the spring.”

  “Fence is too high to climb.”

  “No way she could get to the pond.”

  “Probably not.”

  “The gate is miles away.”

  Despite their assurances, no one sounded certain.

  Anton dropped to his knees and sniffed the ground. Faint traces of Carmody rewarded him. Old traces. In the moonlight, the fence was an indistinct black barrier at the edge of the Belfast yard.

  “Aren’t you going to take bear?” Samantha demanded indignantly.

  “I may have to talk more to the neighbors.” He circled the house trying to pick up fresh spoor. He could see why Samantha thought her daughter had not gone past the fence. It was tall and covered in moss and vines. It didn’t look available. But a little kid could climb over anything with that many handholds. At least any of his nieces and nephews could and would.

  He found a hole dug by animals under the fence. Didn’t smell of Carmody. He didn’t pick up a single trace of her or anyone else. But that didn’t mean he should leave the pool unchecked. Known hazards should be inspected first.

  Leaving Anna and Gwen to do a second search of the backyard, he prepared to scale the fence. The spring and therefore the danger was on the other side. If he didn’t find her in the water, they could all heave a sigh of relief and look elsewhere.

  The land on the other side of the fence was thorn brush that caught at his clothes and scratched his face. Dang, Samantha was right, he should be in bear. Nothing like bear hide to protect against briars. He found the pool without much difficulty. It was murky but someone was swimming in it. Well, shift and dang, had he found the missing kid?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Serena~

  By the time she got to the spring she knew how a salmon felt after swimming upstream to mate and die. The stream bed was rocky and swift. In many spots deep holes had formed, which all had to be plumbed. Her tail was torn and bruised. Her belly and arms battered.

  Having her father’s confidence made up for the bashing her body was taking. It was too bad she hadn’t located the child. No, that wasn’t her assignment. She wasn’t supposed to find Carmody, she was supposed to make sure the child wasn’t in the stream or pool. Just as the mer-patrol didn’t fail when most nights they came home without having rescued a swimmer or scared off shark shifters. She was doing just fine.

  She couldn’t smell Carmody, but she looked for the little girl in the holes anyway. Just in case. The handle of Dad’s trident came in handy to probe beneath tree branches and accumulated brown leaves. Nothing but crayfish and trout. Which was good, Serena reminded herself. Disappointment was good.

  Inevitably the water petered out as it went underground leaving only a damp gravel bed that she had to negotiate in her bare human feet. It hurt as tiny pebbles bruised her tender soles, but she kept moving until the water returned. Then it was back into mermaid. Until she was weary from the big energy drain of constantly shifting between forms.

  It couldn’t be helped, but it was exhausting. Just like normal life, paranormal transformation took energy. Lots of energy. Going back and forth sucked up psychic and physical reserves. But it kept her moving upstream. Still she had found no tiny limp
form. No sign that any human or shifter had come this way in a long time. All good.

  The pool that had formed at the spring itself was deepest of all. A round well, excavated by millennia of water bubbling up. She dived down to the muddy bottom and swam in ever decreasing circles, wishing she had a flashlight. She had to feel through the mud to the underlying rock with her hand and trident. Once she poked the long thin handle into something squishy and her stomach lurched. But it turned out to be a disintegrating inner tube.

  When she surfaced empty handed, Anton was standing, arms crossed, gazing grimly into the silty water she had stirred up. He silently extended a hand. Anger rose off him in waves. In fact, she recognized his expression. Just so did her father look if he thought she or one of her sisters had been reckless. Typical overprotective, domineering, alpha male.

  She released her hair from its tight braid and let him help her out of the water as she returned to human. The wet hair spilled over her body in long ripples. The evening breeze struck cold through her wet bra and hair. Beneath these inadequate coverings, naturally she was naked except for her bra. Anton’s eyes grew hot. But his anger cooled. Was she the bomb or what?

  He peeled his windbreaker off and held it for her. “Put this on.”

  Not word one about her accomplishment in swimming upstream.

  “Thank you.” One of them had manners. She was still shivering, and her legs were covered in goosebumps. But his jacket hung to mid-thigh and was better than nothing.

  “Not at all.” Like his face, his voice was hard, but scrupulously impassive. “Tell me,” he said through his teeth looking at her skinned knees and shins, “That you did not swim upstream, alone, and unarmed, in search of a kidnapper?”

  “I have a trident.” She waved it at him.

  He sneered. “Which I could break with my bare hands.”

  “I’d like to see you try.” She put her spear behind her back. “Uh huh. No touching. This belongs to the king.”

  He began to herd her toward the ten-foot high tangle of weeds and vines that protected the spring. “Of course, if there’s no touching the king’s spear, or his daughter, no bad guy could harm you.” Sarcasm dripped from his every word.

  She was so tempted. So very tempted. One tiny prick with the triple prongs of her spear would lay him flat on his back. But misusing Dad’s weapon would earn her no points with her father. And electrocuting Anton probably would not help find Carmody.

  “I take it she is still missing,” Serena said instead.

  “Unfortunately. The sheriff relieved me of duty at the Old Forest. He’s directing the search there himself. I’ve got the neighbors helping to do a proper search of this neighborhood.”

  Maybe this was why he was so pissy?

  “Surely, that was the first place to look? Kids wander off all the time.”

  “Coleridge is convinced she was abducted by a hunter. Just like your father. Up you go.” He boosted her onto the tangle of vines and she climbed over the fence, hardly flashing him at all.

  “I’m relieved to discover that you don’t dye your hair,” he growled in her ear as he straightened the windbreaker over her torso. “Cotton candy to the roots.”

  All she could do was blush.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Anton~

  The neighbors were talking in low, frightened voices. No longer gossiping. They were too worried for that. Anton looked down at his mate’s candy floss hair. It reflected the moonlight, shimmering like mother-of-pearl. “You ready, love?”

  “For what?”

  “To prance out like that.” He indicated the circle of neighbors with their lanterns and flashlights.

  “Oh. No. Not in the least.” His plucky mate’s face was scarlet, but despite her lack of clothing she held her head high.

  Together they faced the crowd. “Before you ask,” he announced, “We found neither sign nor smell of Carmody. Let’s assume she went for a walk tonight under her own steam. Where might she go? Is there a playground?”

  “We looked,” said a matron with a heavy sweater over her nightgown and bare feet crammed into slippers. “Serena, honey, we better find you some clothes.”

  “Thanks, Barbara. I’d appreciate that,” Serena let herself be escorted to a house across the street.

  “Listen up, people,” Anton got their attention focused on him instead of his half-naked woman. “It’s time to go house to house, and hope you missed something before. Break up into parties of three or four. Search where you already searched. Lift things. Look inside anything bigger than a breadbox. Remember how small kids can fold themselves. Look in places that are too dirty, too smelly, too dangerous. Culverts, sheds, bushes.”

  Soon only Anna and Gwen remained in front of him. He had his team. Serena came out of Barbara’s house wearing baggy track pants and black rubber boots. She had braided her wet hair. Barbara had taken the opportunity to replace her pajamas and slippers with jeans and a jacket as well as running shoes.

  “Where is everybody?” Barbara asked.

  “Doing a house to house,” Anton said. “What about your place?”

  “My husband looked earlier,” Barbara said.

  “Gwen, give her a hand to repeat that search, inside and out,” Anton ordered. “Serena, Anna, you’re with me.”

  Serena’s face was drawn with fatigue and her eyes were drooping, but she still carried that ridiculous spear upright. “Where do we look?”

  Every house was brightly lit except for a pink and white cottage three houses along from Samantha’s. “Whose place is that?” he demanded.

  “Francine Crick’s. She’s really hard of hearing,” said Anna. “Takes her hearing aids out at night, of course. I’ll bet she didn’t hear the siren. Or the neighbors.”

  Anton turned on his flashlight. “Which is Mrs. Crick’s bedroom window?”

  “Why?” asked Anna.

  “You’re going to wake her up.”

  “Better hope Francine doesn’t shoot you,” Serena warned.

  “I thought there was no hunting on West Haven,” Anton responded.

  “Francine keeps a shotgun for protection,” said Anna. She went to a side window and waved the flashlight around, flicking it on and off.

  Lights suddenly blazed all around the little house. Anton could now see that it was dwarfed by a long low red brick annex surrounded by a ten-foot chain link fence with an ominous row of angled barbed wire at the top. His heart sank at the sight of that compound. Over-the-top security was usually a sure sign of crazy.

  “What’s with all this barbed wire?” he whispered in Serena’s ear.

  “Francine Crick is a crystal healer,” Serena said. “With a gift for healing animals. She takes in wounded wildlife and nurses them back to health. Her animal hospital is out back. The fence is to keep the critters in and the kids out.”

  “That’s right,” Anna said. “Right now Francine’s got an owl with a broken wing and a nest of owlets, as well as an orphaned raccoon. And heaven knows what else.”

  Anton caught a whiff of Carmody’s scent. “Does Carmody hang out here?”

  Anna grimaced. “She tries. But Francine is real strict about not letting the kids play with the injured animals. She wants to keep them fit to return to the wild.”

  The front door opened. An unsmiling older woman glared from the doorway. Her short gray hair stuck up in clumps. An equally elderly border collie looked out from behind her quilted bathrobe. “Land sakes,” Mrs. Crick declared querulously. “What is this rumpus?” One age-spotted hand adjusted a hearing aid.

  Anton waved at hand at Anna.

  “Carmody Belfast is missing,” she said. “May we search your back yard, Francine?”

  “Nope. You know I can’t let folks in the hospital compound. I have a raccoon kit with a busted leg. Just as soon bite you as not. I’ll go myself.”

  Anton scoured the front yard. Only clipped stubble remained in the flowerbeds. The evergreen shrubs at the foundation were wrapped in
burlap. No little girl had hidden herself behind them. The lights in the annex came on. Somewhere an owl screeched. They heard the sound of slippers scuffing concrete and the rattle as a door in the fence was unlocked.

  They hurried towards Mrs. Crick. She held a huge black flashlight as thick as her wrist which she used to illuminate the concrete path. A green plastic igloo was nestled up against the side wall foundation. The dog limped over to it and went inside and began to whimper.

  They found Carmody curled up on a ratty blanket. The collie lay on top of her and did not want to leave the child. She didn’t budge when Anton checked her heartbeat. “Slow but steady. But she’s only wearing pajamas. She’s cold clear through. We need a blanket and her mom.”

  “For goodness’ sakes.” Anna peered around Anton.

  “Get her mom on the double!” he commanded.

  Mrs. Crick handed him a crocheted afghan. “She must have come looking for Crocker.” She put a hand on her collie’s head. “But I keep him indoors in the winter.”

  Samantha arrived with a gaggle of neighbors and picked her child up. “She’s so cold!”

  “Everybody back,” Anton spoke low. “Get a doctor out here. Carmody is probably hypothermic. Someone tell the others to call off their searches.” He phoned Deputy Babcock and personally gave him the good news.

  “Jeez Louise,” Babcock responded. “That blockhead.” He was careful not to say which blockhead.

  “The mer-patrol also needs to be informed,” Anton reminded him.

  The town siren began to sound again. This time in a steady two-pulse rhythm.

  “They know,” said Babcock. “That’s the all-clear.”

  Smalltown grapevine. When it worked it was golden. “Good enough.” Anton left Babcock to deal with the sheriff’s disappointment.

  Dr. Virginia Peterson beat the ambulance by five minutes. She insisted that Samantha and Carmody go to the hospital so that the child could be warmed safely.

  “Can we go home?” asked Serena wearily as EMS drove off.

  “Sure. Our work here is done.”