Rescued on Bear Mountain
Bear Mountain Shifters, Book 1
By Sloane Meyers
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Similarities to actual people or events are entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Sloane Meyers. All rights reserved.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
More Books by Sloane Meyers
About the Author
Chapter One
Anna Carter stomped the snow off her boots as she stepped into a building adorned with a sign that read “Pine Springs Visitor Center.” The building had been fashioned to look like a log cabin on the outside, but the inside looked sleek and modern. Anna didn’t care what the place looked like. She only cared that it was warm inside. The air from a heat vent hit her face in a welcome blast, and she wriggled her fingers to make sure they were still there.
She was a long way from sunny southern California.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” an old man asked. He sat at a shiny metal desk, underneath a no-nonsense sign that read “Information Center.”
Anna stepped forward, pulling a crinkled paper map out of her pocket as she did. “I was hoping you could tell me if there are any good spots around here to take pictures.”
“That depends. Pictures of what?”
“Snow?” Anna said uncertainly.
The man laughed, a deep, throaty laugh that sounded more creepy than cheerful.
“If you want to take pictures of snow, then you’ve come to the right place. All you have to do is step outside, and you’ll find all the snow your little heart desires.”
Anna sighed. She’d only been in Pine Springs for two days, but so far she wasn’t impressed with the hospitality of the locals. For a town that depended on tourists to keep its economy running, the people here could be awfully rude.
Part of it might be her own fault. She’d been acting so unsure of herself. The folks here probably thought she was ridiculous, with all her questions about what winter sports they recommended, or what kind of winter gear she needed.
But she couldn’t help it if she’d spent her entire life just outside of Los Angeles, where the only snow you’d see at Christmastime was that ridiculous fake white powder that some people still insisted on spraying on their windows—as though that somehow gave a winter ambience to her otherwise sundrenched city. Here in Pine Springs, thousands of miles from Los Angeles, snow covered everything.
Anna nodded sheepishly at the man. “Right. I guess what I meant was that I was wondering whether there’s a good spot to take landscape pictures of the snow. I just got this new camera, and I want to test it out.”
The man nodded. “Oh, sure. We get a lot of your type. Pine Springs is a good place to get started if you’re an amateur photographer. The scenery is so gorgeous that it almost doesn’t matter whether you have any technical skill. All you have to do is point and shoot, and you’ve got an amazing picture.”
Anna laughed nervously. “I was hoping you’d say something like that. I definitely don’t have any technical skill. At least not yet. I teach elementary school, so I’m quite busy during the school year. I haven’t had time to play with my new camera much, but I thought that winter break would be a good time to try it out.”
The man nodded again, already starting to look bored with the conversation. “Well, there’s a lot of good scenery around here. You almost can’t go wrong. But I know a lot of the photographers like to go down to Snowshoe Lake. The pine trees there are thick and plentiful, and they’re quite a sight to see when they’re covered in heavy snow like they are now.”
Anna frowned. She’d put Snowshoe Lake on her list of possible places to visit, but she’d been hoping the visitor center could direct her somewhere a little less obvious.
“What about something a little more off the beaten path? I don’t want to just get the same picture that one thousand other amateur photographers have gotten. I want something unique.”
The man guffawed. “I see. You want to be a special little snowflake, don’t you?”
Anna bristled. “I just want something special to frame and hang up in my classroom.”
What she didn’t tell him was that she wanted something to hang up that would remind her that there was another world out there beyond her classroom. A world of freedom.
Lately, she’d started to feel awfully suffocated at her job. Oh, she still loved the kids in her classroom. In fact, those kids were the only things keeping her going. She wanted better lives for them than the life she herself had ended up with. She felt trapped in her small town, which was rather ironic since that small town was only an hour from one of the biggest cities in the world—Los Angeles. But even though she should have felt that she had the world at her fingertips, she felt instead that life was too fast-paced, too expensive and too lonely, all at the same time.
She had plenty of friends, but no true soul sisters. And she definitely didn’t have a soul mate. She had yet to meet a man who made her heart beat faster just by looking at her.
Anna dreamed of one day escaping to a place where she could have genuine friendships, and maybe even fall in love. She’d thought that Pine Springs might be that place, which was why she’d decided to visit during her winter break from teaching.
So far, her feelings on Pine Springs were mixed. She couldn’t complain about the nature out here. The town was a cozy little community nestled in a picturesque valley beneath majestic mountains. What wasn’t to love? But the people had been a bit of a disappointment. They obviously judged her because she wasn’t from around here.
But maybe if she learned a bit more about surviving in winter weather, they would take her more seriously. In any case, she didn’t have to move to Pine Springs in particular. She just wanted to be somewhere with beautiful nature nearby, and residents who didn’t spend all their time trying to get ahead in the fast lane.
Right now, all Anna wanted was to take a picture of the majestic nature around her. She wanted a picture that she had taken, so that she could look at it hanging in her classroom and remember the exact spot she’d stood in when she took that picture.
She wanted a reminder of what was possible. If she worked hard enough, she could escape the rat race.
She definitely didn’t want the same picture of Snowshoe Lake that all the other tourists had. She didn’t want the same picture that she could easily purchase from any of the dozens of gift shops spread out across Pine Springs. She wanted something special.
But as Anna looked up at the impatient face of the man at the information desk, she realized that trying to explain all of this to him would be a complete waste. He was already looking at her like she was slightly off her rocker. Maybe she was, but probably not for the reasons that he thought.
She took a deep breath and pushed some wayward strands of her curly red hair back behind her ears. She was wearing a thick woolen hat, which flattened the top of her hair and left the bottom springing out in unruly protest. She probably looked ridiculous, but at least her head was warm.
Maybe a bit too warm. Now that she’d been inside in the heat for a few minutes, all of the chill she felt in
her bones earlier had been replaced by a growing sensation of overheating. She pulled off her gloves and wiped her sweaty palms on her heavy winter jacket. Then she put her crumpled paper map down on the counter right in front of the man. She pointed at a road labeled “Bear Mountain Pass.” The road snaked up one of the nearby mountains, which was named Bear Mountain and held the village of Bear Mountain itself. Apparently, whoever had named the road, the mountain, and the village hadn’t been too creative when it came to naming things.
Anna tapped her finger on the road. “Actually, I was wondering about Bear Mountain Pass. Is it passable this time of year? I’m assuming it must be plowed regularly, since there’s an actual village up there. I thought maybe going up Bear Mountain might take me to some spots with amazing views.”
The man jumped back as though Anna had just told him that she had a highly contagious, highly deadly flu.
“The road’s passable, sure. The folks in Bear Mountain plow and salt it themselves. But trust me: you don’t want to go up there. Those people are weird.”
“Weird? How so?” Anna wanted to make a comment that the man himself was weird, but she refrained.
He was shaking his head. “They just are. They keep to themselves and don’t mix with the Pine Springs locals that much. They only come down here when they need supplies, or sometimes in the summer they’ll come down for work. A lot of them are handymen, painters, or things like that. They all do good work, but they don’t mix with us down here. We’ve all given up trying to be friends with them, and, quite frankly, I try to interact with them as little as possible. I’m not sure if the isolation of being up on the mountain has gotten to them, but they have a bit of a crazy look in their eyes. If you want to take some good pictures, why don’t you head up Pine Mountain? There are plenty of spots at the ski resort up there where you could get a good view, and you won’t have to deal with crazy folks.”
I shook my head. “I want something unique. Everyone gets the same photo from the Pine Mountain Ski Resort. I want something that not everybody has. I can deal with a little bit weird. Are there any spots on Bear Mountain you would recommend for a good view?”
The man looked around as though wondering if anyone else was hearing this crazy talk. Then he lowered his voice and leaned forward.
“Maybe you didn’t understand, young lady. I don’t recommend any spots on Bear Mountain. The road might be passable, and the views might be great. But it’s not worth it. Those folks are strange. I don’t know what goes on up on that mountain, but I wouldn’t want any part of it. Rumor has it that if you spend too much time up there, you’ll never be quite the same.”
Anna frowned. She wouldn’t necessarily mind not being the same anymore. She was trying to escape the same old, same old. But she could see that this guy wasn’t going to change his mind. He’d at least told her that the road was passable, which was a start.
She’d check the weather, and as long as no big snowstorms were coming in the next twenty-four hours, she would head up Bear Mountain Pass to the village of Bear Mountain itself. Maybe the locals there would be a little nicer than this guy, and tell her where she could find some good views.
Maybe she’d get a good photo or two that would remind her of what it felt like to be far away from all the restraints society had put on her. At worst, she’d waste some gas money pushing her reluctant little rental SUV up the mountain. No big deal. She wasn’t afraid of some mountain villagers.
What could possibly go wrong?
Chapter Two
After leaving the visitor center, Anna decided to ask the concierge at her hotel if he knew of any good places to take pictures on Bear Mountain. But the concierge reacted just as strongly as the man at the visitor center had.
“You don’t want to go to Bear Mountain, Miss,” he said. His eyes widened with horror as though she had just suggested running helter-skelter across a mine field in a war zone.
“But why?” Anna asked.
The concierge couldn’t give her a specific reason. All he could say was that the people on Bear Mountain were weird. Anna decided to ask around a bit more. But the clerk at the gas station, the teller at the bank, and the barista at the local coffee shop all told her the same thing: “Don’t go to Bear Mountain. Those people are weird.”
No one could define what they meant by “weird.”
The fact that so many people warned her to stay away should have persuaded Anna to find another mountain from which to take photographs. But her curiosity had been piqued, and she wanted to know what this weirdness was. She tried Googling, but nothing much came up for Bear Mountain Village. According to the internet, the town had been founded as an offshoot of Pine Springs when one of Pine Springs’ early residents got into a fight with another early resident. The Pine Springs townspeople voted to kick out the man who had allegedly started the fight, and in response that man had left and founded his own village on Bear Mountain. A few people who had taken his side in the fight joined him, and from that moment forward Bear Mountain and Pine Springs had coexisted uneasily. These days, some Bear Mountain residents came down to the valley to work in Pine Springs during the summer. But other Bear Mountain residents never left the mountain at all.
From what Anna had read, it sounded like an old feud was keeping apart the people of Pine Springs and Bear Mountain. But she hadn’t been part of that feud, and she had no personal ties to Pine Springs. Why would anyone on Bear Mountain dislike her? No bad blood existed between her and the citizens of Bear Mountain.
Anna decided to go take her chances on the mountain. She checked the weather, and no snow was forecasted for the next three days. She’d be back well before then, so she packed up her camera equipment, a picnic lunch, and a small bag with extra clothes and toiletries—just in case she decided to stay a night on Bear Mountain. She wasn’t sure whether there were even hotels up there, but she figured it was better to be prepared.
According to the maps app on her phone, it would take three hours to drive to the top of Bear Mountain. Anna had been up early today, so it was still only ten o’clock in the morning when she started driving. She would prefer not to drive on a winding mountain road in the dark, so she needed to get going. Even if she hurried, the last hour of the drive back would probably still be in the dark. The sun set around five p.m. these days.
Anna was pleased to find that the main road from Pine Springs to Bear Mountain was salted and well-plowed, just like the man in the visitor center had said. She made good time to Bear Mountain Village, so she decided to stop at a small diner. She could use a cup of coffee, and maybe someone inside could give her some tips on a good spot to take photographs. Right on the Main Street through town stood a large, brightly-colored building with a sign out front that read “Bear Paw Diner.” Anna thought it wasn’t the most original name for a diner in the city of Bear Mountain, but it could’ve been worse. The owner could have called it Bear Mountain Diner. In any case, there were several cars out front. The place looked popular, which Anna hoped meant that the coffee would be good.
When she stepped out of her vehicle, the cold hit her hard. She shivered, and pulled the faux-fur hood of her jacket up around her face. The cold here in Bear Mountain bit even harder than the cold down in Pine Springs. For not the first time, Anna thought that perhaps she should have gone on a beach vacation. But she quickly pushed the thought away. She’d taken plenty of beach vacations in her life, and she’d come to Pine Springs to do something different. She’d wanted to get herself out of her comfort zone.
She definitely felt uncomfortable now.
Thankfully, she only had to walk a few yards to get to the front entrance of the diner. When she opened the door and stepped inside, the warmth of the place hit her like a welcome friend. The smell of coffee filled her nostrils, and she breathed deeply. This morning, she’d tried out the coffee from the coffee shop across from her hotel, but she hadn’t been impressed. The coffee had tasted burnt and bitter, and it had cost her a good five dollars.
According to the chalkboard sign above the old-school counter, the coffee in the Bear Paw Diner only cost two dollars—and if it tasted as good as it smelled, it was going to be worlds better than the coffee she’d had this morning.
Not only that, but the atmosphere in here seemed a lot more welcoming. As Anna stepped inside, the cozy decor of the diner almost seemed to reach out and give her a big hug. Nearly every table was full, and the people sitting at those tables were all talking and laughing. They all looked like exactly what you would think mountain folks should look like. The men all wore thick, flannel shirts and had thick beards. The woman were dressed in no-nonsense winter gear—hardy boots, pants, and fleece pullovers.
The only one who looked a bit different was the woman standing behind the counter. If her robust curves were any indication, she must have frequently indulged in the richest food the diner had to offer. She wore a brightly colored dress over leggings that Anna guessed must have been lined with fleece. It was too damn cold up here for regular leggings. A red apron covered the woman’s dress, and a large name tag that read “Poppy” was pinned to that apron in the upper left-hand corner. Her honey brown eyes sparkled with warmth above her rosy, round cheeks. Her dark brown hair had been pulled up into a bun that looked like it was slowly coming undone, one tendril at a time. She was laughing as she reached across the counter to refill the coffee mug of a large, tall man who wore a red flannel shirt.
Anna felt instantly at ease as she walked across the room. This place seemed homey and welcoming. What had everyone in Pine Springs been warning her about?
But then, Poppy glanced up and her laugh died in her throat. When Poppy stopped laughing, everyone in the room turned to see why. A slow silence fell over the room, and every eye in the place fell on Anna.
Anna felt the same way she had in third grade, when she’d been given the lead role in a play and had promptly forgotten her lines as soon as the spotlight shone on her. Right now, she felt like she had some lines she should be saying, but she couldn’t remember what they were.
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