by Zoe Chant
"Right. Of course you don't. Well, let's try an easy one. Everybody knows 'Go Fish.'"
Daisy didn't remember it until the cards were in her hands, and then the rules came back easily. After that they played blackjack for awhile, betting with M&Ms from a candy dish on the table.
There was a big picture window looking out on the pasture behind the house, and both Tara and Charmian kept glancing at it. It was Daisy, however, who saw their midnight visitors first. Her initial glance showed her something large and dark in the pasture, which she thought was a cow. But then she looked again. That didn't look like a cow after all. Laying the cards aside, she got up and went to the window.
"Bears," she whispered. She couldn't believe it. Three huge bears, crossing the pasture in the moonlight.
"What is it?" Tara asked, and then she scrambled to her feet with a gasp. "One of them is hurt!"
"I'll get my med kit," Charmian said and hurried from the room.
She's going to try to doctor a bear?
There was definitely something odd about the way these bears were acting, though. Daisy had thought they were just crossing the pasture, but now it appeared they were heading right for the house. Daisy expected them to turn away, but instead they kept coming.
The kitchen door banged open. Tara was going out there! Daisy tore herself away from the window and ran after her.
Was it possible they'd tamed some of the bears on the ranch?
She still couldn't believe it when Tara went right up to the three bears, especially since one of them was limping and clearly hurt. But that was the one Tara made a beeline for. Daisy hung back in the doorway, staring as Tara laid her hands on the bear's shaggy, blood-matted fur. It was like something out of a movie, the red-haired woman with the great, injured bear.
And then something tugged at the back of Daisy's mind. Wait, she thought. Not all bears were really bears. A memory started to surface, something she'd seen in a movie—no—something that had happened to her—
For a shocked instant, she was back there, crawling out of her tent to be confronted by an enormous bear. She could feel the dirt and tree roots under her knees, the rapid pounding of her heart, in the memory and now. But she had been more excited than scared. She had known the bear wasn't really a bear, even then. Because some people could turn into bears—
And then she was back in the present, looking at the three bears in the moonlight, and seeing what she hadn't seen before. One big brown-colored grizzly, one dark blond one with Tara wrapping her arms as far around his furry shoulder as they would go, and one very dark-colored one—and the dark one had something dangling from his mouth, washed out gray in the moonlight, but tinted with rosy pink where the light from the kitchen touched it—
"My backpack!" she cried, and when she looked at the bear's face, she was unsurprised to see a scar slashing across his muzzle from one side to the other. "Gannon ..."
"Out of the way," Charmian said politely but firmly, moving her to one side so she could hasten past. "Why haven't any of you shifted yet? Come on, we can't get Axl to the kitchen like that."
An instant later, the blond bear vanished and Axl, as a man, was sagging onto Tara's shoulder. Next to him, the brown bear collapsed into Alec. Both of them were naked, and Daisy blushed, averting her eyes.
Only Gannon hadn't shifted. While Tara and Alec helped Axl into the kitchen, with Charmian hurrying along at his side, Gannon came very slowly down the hill and approached Daisy. He kept his gaze fixed on the ground. He dropped the backpack at her feet and lifted his shaggy head to look at her. It was hard to read expression on a bear's face, but he seemed shy, almost scared.
He was so enormous. The great furry hump on his back was level with the top of her head. But she didn't feel the slightest trace of fear. As a bear or as a man, Gannon would never hurt her. She was sure of it in a way she was sure of nothing else in her life.
"It's okay," she said gently, and held out a hand to stroke the fur on his face. It felt coarse to a light touch, but when she buried her hand in it, the thick underfur was surprisingly soft.
Gannon shifted suddenly, so she had her hand resting against the side of his face. He closed his eyes briefly and brought up his big, callused hand to cover hers.
"I don't get it," she said. "Why didn't you tell me? Nobody told me."
"I didn't really think of it at first," he admitted. "And then ... I dunno. I didn't know how. Thought maybe you'd get scared and run off."
"I could never be afraid of you."
She stood on tiptoe to kiss him. Gannon leaned down and put one hand at the base of her spine to pull her in, lifting her up. Their lips met, as warm and thrilling as the first time they'd kissed. Her feet were barely touching the ground. He was so very strong, and so very naked ...
"Come on in here before you two shock the livestock," Charmian said, leaning out the door. "Gannon, you can borrow a pair of Alec's jeans."
Daisy blushed again. Gannon's eyes just crinkled in that not-quite-a-smile way he had, and he set her down and took her hand instead.
There was something sweet and charmingly old-fashioned about that, just holding her hand, like they hadn't had wild sex all over his cabin earlier that day. She laced her fingers through his, and Gannon picked up her backpack and carried it into the kitchen for her.
"How's Axl?" he asked Charmian, who was rinsing a hand towel at the sink. He set Daisy's backpack on the kitchen table.
"Bleeding all over the best chair in the living room right now, but he'll be all right. Tara is taking care of him. They both turned down my offer to stitch him up, said the stitches would just grow into his skin as he healed and have to be torn out." She shook her head. "I'll never get used to the way you bunch heal up so fast."
"So you all know," Daisy said. "I feel as if everyone on the ranch has been keeping secrets from me."
Charmian shrugged and bent down with the wet towel to scrub at the bloody tracks Axl had left on the kitchen floor. "Us girls decided between us not to tell you unless you asked, or unless Gannon made the first move. We weren't sure how you'd react."
"Is this something that most people know about?" Daisy asked, searching her memory. All she had was that flash of crawling out of her tent with a bear looming over her, and the knowledge that she hadn't been afraid, not as she would have been of a real bear. Some part of her had known that people could turn into animals, even then.
"You mean about the shifter thing?" Charmian asked. "Yeah, it's fairly common knowledge. Shifters aren't a secret. They're on TV and in the movies. But most people have never met one in real life, and I know for certain that I had no idea about half the things shifters can do 'til I met Alec." She raised a damp hand to touch her neck. "I didn't know about the mate bond, for example."
"Oh, that's why all of you have those scars! And why you asked me." She touched the unscarred skin above her collar bone, and looked questioningly at Gannon.
Who was still standing naked in the kitchen. Charmian looked over at him as she squeezed out the bloodstained towel in the sink, and let out a small sigh. "Gannon, didn't I tell you to put some pants on? Alec can walk around naked in the house if he wants to, it's not like I can stop him, but I'd really prefer not to see quite that much of anyone I'm not sleeping with."
A flush darkened the tanned skin of his cheeks, making the scar stand out against it. "Yes ma'am," he said politely, and left the kitchen.
"Awwww," Daisy said. "Did you have to?"
"I'd prefer to leave something to the imagination, thanks," Charmian said. She nodded to the backpack. "Is that yours?"
"I think so." Daisy looked down at it. Her hand was resting on it, but she hadn't opened it yet. She was almost afraid to. This was the first real, concrete piece of her past that she'd come across so far. Where had Gannon found it? She tried to concentrate and remember where she'd been, but other than that memory of the tent and the bear, there was nothing.
Camping, she thought, brushing leaves and dirt off
the backpack. I was camping. Yes, that seemed right ... in some ways. She'd been camping, but also doing something else, something that seemed very important, if she could only remember.
She looked up from the backpack to find that Charmian had left the kitchen, giving her privacy. Voices came from the living room. Mostly it sounded like Tara and Charmian taking turns scolding somebody, probably Axl, not to walk on his injured leg.
Daisy smiled to herself. You have a place here, no matter what, she told herself, and unzipped the backpack.
The first items she pulled out were typical camping gear. There were some rumpled clothes and a sleeping bag, which had been shoved into the backpack in a wad, smelling of campfire smoke and dirt. I guess I'm a messier person than I thought. Underneath the top layer, however, she found that the rest of the clothes and underwear had been neatly folded. Trail mix, freeze-dried food, and toiletry items—deodorant, eco-friendly shampoo—were all sealed tidily into labeled plastic bags.
Looking at the wadded-up clothes from the top of the pack, some of which had bits of moss and dirt tucked into the folds, she wondered if she'd been the one to put them away.
And I remember a tent, but there's not a tent in here ...
There was very little to give any clues. The clothes were casual, T-shirts and jeans and a sweater in light green and yellow that she liked on sight. Well of course I like it, it's mine! There was a paperback romance novel with a bookmark stuck halfway through. She opened it to the last page before the bookmark and dimly remembered reading it. This went along with a memory of a snapping fire and a little LED lantern giving off a bright light to read by. And yes, there was the lantern, shoved carelessly into the pack; she had a brief recollection of always wrapping it up in a spare pair of socks so that it didn't get broken. Her pack had definitely been packed by someone other than her, which made her shiver at the implications.
Other than that, though, no new memories came to light. She opened one of the bags of trail mix and sampled a handful to see if the taste triggered anything. Nada.
In the zippered pockets on the side of the pack, she finally struck gold: a sealed plastic bag containing a key ring and a bright purple wallet in faux leather. Daisy opened the wallet with trembling fingers.
This is when I find out who I am.
The first thing to strike her gaze was a Colorado driver's license with a smiling picture of a slightly younger version of herself. Daisy's breath caught as she took it out and looked at it. Here was evidence that she existed. Here was her past. She read the name on the license.
Jennifer Lennox.
"Jennifer?" she murmured. But ... she'd been so sure her name was Daisy.
Jennifer. Was she a Jenny? A Jen? None of those seemed to fit any better than Jennifer; none felt like her name the way Daisy did.
Everything else on the license seemed right, though. The height and weight were about what she would have guessed hers to be. She was twenty-three years old, which was about the age she looked in the mirror. There was a Colorado Springs apartment address, which gave her a faint tug of familiarity. So did her last name, now that she was thinking about it. It was just the Jennifer part that was wrong.
"Daisy Lennox," she whispered to herself, and that felt like a much better fit.
She flipped through the other contents of the wallet. There were a couple of credit cards, a library card for the Pikes Peak Library District, a bookstore membership card, and an American Airlines miles card, all in the name of Jennifer Lennox. The interior of the wallet contained a roll of twenty-dollar bills, and Daisy's eyes went wide when she unfolded the money and counted it. Most of the bills were the crisp, neatly aligned sort that come out of ATMs, along with a few fives and ones that had probably been change. All told, Jennifer Lennox was carrying $382 on her, which was a lot more than Daisy was expecting for a college-age woman on a backpacking trip.
The only other items in the wallet were receipts for a gas station and a White Castle in Montana.
If I got gas, then I must have a car somewhere ...
She shook the key ring out of the bag. There were only a few keys on it: a couple of different house keys (apartment and parents' house? she wondered), a small angular-headed key that probably went to a post office box and another that looked like it fit a bike lock, and a car key with a Ford logo.
Okay, so I'm looking for a Ford. That sure narrows it down.
That seemed to be it for the wallet and key ring's contribution to Daisy's secrets, but the backpack wasn't finished yielding clues. She dug her hand into the same zippered pocket and came up with another plastic bag containing a phone.
Now that was the real key to unlocking her identity. She cradled the phone in her hands, staring at it. Unless she'd just bought it, there was a very good chance that a big part of her life would be on here. There would be an address book with her friends and relatives. Photos. Emails.
And the idea of turning it on terrified her.
Finding out that she'd been wrong about her own name, one of the few things she thought she knew about herself, had left her shaken. Now she wondered how many of the answers about her past would be ones she didn't like.
What if it turns out that I'm better off not knowing where I came from?
What if it means Gannon and I can't be together?
"Daisy?"
She hadn't heard him approach; despite his size, Gannon was as stealthy as a cat. Now he was watching her from the kitchen doorway, leaning against the doorframe. He wore a pair of borrowed jeans, slung low over his hips, with a trail of dark body hair vanishing under the waistband.
Daisy offered him a shaky smile. Seeing her distress, he took two quick steps across the kitchen and folded her into his arms. Daisy leaned into him, resting her cheek against his broad chest. Gannon stroked her hair, and slowly she began to feel calmer.
"Find something bad?" he murmured, his deep voice rumbling through his chest.
"No ... I guess not." She managed a small laugh. "I guess my name's actually Jennifer, not Daisy. At least that's what it says on my driver's license."
"Do you want me to call you Jennifer?"
"No," she said after a moment. "I don't."
"Good. You'll always be Daisy to me."
Daisy tipped back her head to look up at him, while he continued to stroke her hair. "There's not much else. I found some money in my wallet, and a car key. I guess I have a car somewhere. The only thing I haven't looked at is my phone."
"Would it help if we do it together?"
She hesitated, then nodded.
"Okay. We will. And ... Daisy ..." He touched her face lightly, a brush of his work-callused fingertips against her cheek. "There's something I gotta tell you, too. Maybe before you see what's on that phone. It's about me, and my past."
Daisy glanced around the kitchen. "We should go somewhere more private for this, don't you think?"
"Sounds good."
She scooped her things back into her backpack, and brushed off the dirt and leaves it had left on the table. Quietly they went through the living room to the guest bedroom. There was no one else around now, although Daisy could hear voices from upstairs that sounded like Alec and Charmian. Tara and Axl must have gone to their own house across the yard.
Strange, to live in such close proximity to so many people. But she could see how they made it work. Everyone had their own space, but they could mingle in the shared spaces as much as they wanted.
It would be nice, living like that.
But knowing that they were shifters made her wonder how she could ever fit in here. She wondered if they could really accept a human among them.
"Are there any humans living here?" she asked. "People who aren't shifters, I mean."
"Sure. You met Tara and Charmian, right?"
"Oh. I thought ... Well, when I found out about you, I thought everyone must be like you."
"Nope. Just the guys and Saffron."
He closed the door of the guest bedroom behind
them, shutting away the world and providing relative privacy. With the door closed, Daisy could no longer hear Alec and Charmian's voices. The old house's thick walls must provide good natural soundproofing.
Daisy dropped the backpack on the floor and got out the bag with the phone in it. The charger wasn't included, and she couldn't find it in the backpack pockets. "It might not matter if the battery's run down, unless we can borrow a charger from someone else on the ranch." Her finger hovered over the power button. "Should I turn it on?"
Gannon closed his hand over hers. "Wait. I ought to tell you my story first. Because ..." He hesitated. "Once you hear it, you might not want to share this with me. You ... might not even like me anymore. And you deserve to know."
"Gannon," she said gently. "Nothing could ever make me dislike you, any more than I could ever fear or hate you. Nothing."
"See if you still think that after you hear," he murmured.
Daisy sat down on the bed, and gave Gannon's hand a gentle tug, pulling him after her. The size difference was less noticeable when they were sitting side by side. She cupped her hand around the back of his head, pulling him in for a long kiss, and nibbled at his lips when she let him go.
"Nothing," she whispered. "Nothing at all could change how I feel about you. You took me in without knowing anything about me. You still know nothing about me, and you accept me just as I am. How could I do anything but accept you?"
"Just wait," he told her. "Hear my story. Then, when you understand me ... then tell me."
Chapter Eight
While they sat together on the bed, leaning into each other, Gannon told Daisy his story.
***
I was born in the Black Mountain bear clan. I was the son of the alpha, so from the time I was a cub, I knew I would be the alpha someday.
I now know that growing up in the Black Mountain clan was really different from how most shifters live. Shifters like to live in rural places, small towns with enough woods around so they can let their animals hunt or fly or whatever it is that their shifter type needs to do, but these days there's not a lot of difference between most shifters and their human neighbors. They work at regular jobs and their kids go to school, just like humans.