Shifter Country Bears: The Complete Collection

by Roxie Noir

  Her other hand was on Craig’s leg, slowly making its way up toward his hip.

  Olivia’s heart was beating so fast and loud that she was absolutely positive that they could hear it, but she felt powerless to stop herself. For ten years she hadn’t touched anyone, and for the past three months it had all been chaste hugs from family, or Charlie stroking her hair in the bathtub: nice, but nothing like this.

  This made her feel like her center was made of molten lava, like she might explode at any moment.

  She put a hand on Jasper’s face. Even inches away, she could barely see him as he covered her hand with his.

  “You should probably go inside,” he said.

  Next to him, Craig nodded in agreement.

  “Do you want me to go inside?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “No,” Craig said. His voice was rough, and he had a hand around her back now. The three of them formed a triangle.

  Olivia leaned forward the last two inches, closing the gap between her and Jasper, and kissed him.

  At first, her lips were tentative, nervous. She had no idea whether she was doing it right, or if the two men even wanted her to do what she was doing. After all, the last time she’d kissed a boy she’d been sixteen, and he’d ended up dumping her for a human.

  But then Jasper kissed back, his firm, hard lips gentle with an undercurrent of fierce longing. Olivia felt the barely-controlled fire there, and somehow, she knew that what he really wanted was to push her into the grass and press his body against hers.

  Just the thought made her burn even hotter.

  She swiped her tongue along Jasper’s lip but he pulled away from her, leaving Olivia blinking in confusion. But before she could process what was happening, Craig was turning her face, pressing his lips to hers, his beard tickling her face.

  He pressed harder against her, his need more obvious, and when he bit Olivia’s lip gently she opened her mouth, their tongues sliding together like snakes.

  When they pulled apart, Olivia’s chest was heaving, her entire body hot.

  “You should go,” Jasper murmured.

  “Are you afraid of me?” she asked.

  The lights at the kitchen, in the back of the house flicked on, and she could see someone moving behind the curtains.

  “No,” he said. “I’m afraid of me.”

  “Why?”

  “You make me feel like I can’t control myself.”

  “So don’t control yourself.”

  “Let us take you on a real date,” Craig interrupted. “You deserve that.”

  I deserve to be pushed onto the grass with both of you at once, she thought. I deserve to kiss one of you while the other one makes me scream until I forget my name.

  She blushed at the thought, glad for the dark.

  “L’Aubergine,” Jasper said. “It’s a fancy French place, over in Old Pine. We’ll pick you up tomorrow at six thirty.”

  Olivia swallowed. Less people would know who she was there.

  “Okay,” she said. “If I can’t convince you to stay right now.”

  “Run while you still can,” Craig growled, only half-teasing.

  Equal parts buoyed and disappointed, Olivia stood and walked toward the sliding doors of her parents’ patio, preparing to explain what had happened to the three of them.

  When she turned around, she couldn’t see Jasper and Craig anymore, but she knew they were there, waiting for her to get inside safely. She slid the door open as quietly as she could, but the moment she shut it, she heard her mother coming downstairs.

  “Thank God,” she said, running across the room to hug her daughter. “Oh, thank God, you’re home, thank God, Austin called me the moment it happened and he’s organized everyone he knows into search parties all over Cascadia,” she went on.

  Normally, Olivia would have been mortified, but part of her was still back in the grass with Craig and Jasper.

  “Go to bed, you look terrible,” her mom said. “Austin and I will call off the search parties.”

  “Thanks,” Olivia said.

  I wish I could stop inconveniencing everyone I know, she thought.

  Olivia slept for almost twelve hours, until nearly noon. After the sun came up she was vaguely aware of her mom, her dad, and her papa opening her bedroom door just a crack to check on her, but she dozed off again before she could do or say anything.

  When she woke up, she realized that her knees and hands were still dirty. She’d gone straight to bed without brushing her teeth.

  It was a bad habit to get into — her therapist was always telling her that keeping even the little human rituals would make her feel more human — but she’d promised herself that she’d only do it once. It was a good thing, too, because her mouth tasted like a sewer.

  She pulled on pajamas, went to the bathroom, walked out of her room and into the kitchen. It was Sunday, so the library was closed and she didn’t have work. Mom was already in the kitchen.

  Olivia watched as she got onto a step ladder and took ceramic figurines down from where they usually stayed on top of the cabinets, and dunked them into soapy water in the sink.

  Her stomach tightened. A deep cleaning of the kitchen only ever meant one thing: her mom was upset about something.

  “Good morning,” she said, tentatively.

  Is it because I slept in? She wondered, feeling self-conscious about her pajamas. I was really, really tired.

  Her mother looked over her shoulder, sighed, and spoke.

  “Good morning, sweetheart,” she said.

  “Sorry I slept in so late,” she said.

  “It’s okay,” said her mother, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She walked over to Olivia and gave her daughter a hug. “I’m just glad you’re back safe.”

  “What’s wrong?” Olivia asked, hugging her mom back.

  Instead of answering, her mom squeezed a little tighter, then released her.

  “It’s in the paper, honey,” her mom said, her hands still squeezing Olivia’s upper arms.

  No.

  Please no.

  Olivia swallowed and felt the tears rising into her eyes, despite herself.

  “Where?” she whispered.

  Her mom just guided her to the kitchen table, where the newspaper lay in half disarray. She could still read the headline perfectly well, though:

  FERAL BEAR ATTACKS; RUNS

  Olivia dropped into the chair, staring at the headline.

  Below it was a picture of Buck, posing on his ranch, next to her high school senior portrait, taken only a few months before she’d gone feral.

  “That’s not what happened,” she said. “I didn’t attack. I didn’t hurt anybody, I just charged but then I stopped myself.”

  Her breathing got faster, and she could almost hear herself getting hysterical.

  “I didn’t hurt anybody,” she repeated again.

  “I know,” her mom said, bending down and holding her daughter in her arms. “I know, I know.”

  “Being feral was so much easier,” said Olivia.

  Now she was full-on crying, right on the edge of huge, heaving sobs.

  “Don’t say that,” her mom said.

  “It was,” Olivia said. “I just had to eat berries and bugs and shit, nobody was all concerned about how I acted every day, and I didn’t have to remember how to make small talk or buy cardigans because that’s what it seems like librarians should wear.”

  “But I missed you so much,” her mom whispered. “Papa and Dad and Kade missed you, too. We thought you were gone forever, but then you came back.”

  She paused. Olivia sobbed, the words on the page blurring in front of her.

  “Don’t make us do that again,” her mom said. “I don’t know if we’ll make it.”

  Something in the way she said that made Olivia’s heart freeze. Her parents had been her rock all through this, accepting her and loving her no matter how weird or feral or crazy she seemed.

  You can’t do thi
s to them again, thought Olivia.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “The rest of the article is just people calling for you to be properly examined and maybe locked up, and I quote, ‘for your own good’,” her mom said bitterly. “It won’t come to anything. That asshole who locked you in his barn is just mad that you got out and now he wants to ruin your life.”

  “I wish I knew why,” Olivia said, sniffling.

  “He hates bears is all,” her mother said. “Buck Reynolds has always been and will always be a racist, self-important asshole who thinks that he shits gold and nobody else is worth half a nickel,” her mother said, furiously.

  The blue language alone made Olivia drop her mouth open in surprise.

  “I’m sorry about the swearing, but it’s true,” her mom said, returning to the sink and washing furiously. “Everyone knows that he wants to have some kind of wolf-only paradise, and if he can somehow get a feral bear — that’s you — into a bushel of trouble then maybe he’ll get his wish. I still can’t believe they didn’t prosecute him for kidnapping.”

  “It’s not illegal to trap a bear on your own property,” Olivia said, tired of this discussion. “He got fined, and they couldn’t prove that he knew I was... me.”

  “He knew,” her mom said. “That son of a bitch knew. Sorry.”

  For a long time, the only sound in the kitchen was the sounding of water, then the careful, light clink of ceramic figures stacking together in the dish drain.

  “I have a date tonight,” Olivia said. She could feel herself blush, even though she was twenty-seven and more than old enough.

  Her mom turned around, yellow rubber gloves dripping onto the floor.

  “With who?” she said. Olivia could see her fighting not to scream and clap and possibly even cry. Now that Kade had his full triad — something their mother had given up on — it was Olivia’s turn.

  She was sure that her mom was already naming her grandchildren.

  “Their names are Craig and Jasper,” she said. “They live in Old Pine. They’re taking me for fancy French food at L’Aubergine.”

  Her mom’s face registered delight, then alarm, then determination.

  “What time are they picking you up?” she asked.

  “Six thirty, why?”

  Her mother took the gloves off and hung them over the sink, then crossed the kitchen without saying a word.

  Olivia watched her, puzzled. Her mom picked up the phone and started dialing.

  “Who are you calling?” she asked.

  “Quinn, and then Cora.”

  “You don’t have to tell everyone I have a date,” Olivia said, starting to panic.

  Her mom just pointed at her, phone to her ear.

  “That place is fancy, and you need something to wear,” she said. “Hi, Quinn? What are you doing this afternoon?”

  8

  Craig

  “I don’t have anything but plaid,” Craig said, scowling at his half of the closet. He stood in front of it wearing an undershirt and boxer briefs.

  “Bullshit,” said Jasper. “You wore a dress shirt one to that fundraising dinner two months ago. Where is it?”

  “Fell into a sinkhole?” asked Craig.

  Behind them, Ninety Nine lounged on the floor of their bedroom, watching them as though they were entertainment.

  He sneaked a glance at Jasper’s half of the closet, which was considerably neater than his. Not catalog neat — Craig didn’t think he could live with that — but Jasper never seemed to have a problem with finding things to wear to any sort of occasion.

  Craig could find an outfit to wear to work on a moment’s notice. Everything else was a little sketchy.

  “I’ve seen your workbench out in the garage,” Jasper said. “I know you can organize things when you want to.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Not really.”

  Jasper took a couple steps over, his tie undone and hanging around his neck, and started violently shoving through Craig’s closet, crammed with plaid and flannel.

  “You’ve got a sleeping bag in here,” Jasper said.

  “And?”

  Jasper didn’t answer. He stuck his entire arm into the closet, made a face, and then, with an effort, pulled something out.

  It was a dress shirt with very light gray and white stripes.

  “There it is,” said Craig.

  “You’re welcome,” said Jasper.

  He handed his mate a tie.

  “Just wear this, I think finding your own might actually be hopeless,” he said.

  “You complete me,” Craig said, teasingly. Jasper rolled his eyes, but then Craig grabbed him by the arm and pulled him in for a quick kiss.

  “I might have to,” Jasper said quietly when they separated.

  Craig frowned.

  “Why? We found her,” he said.

  “She might not want us,” Jasper said. He turned away and started doing his own tie in the full-length mirror. “Being feral fucks people up, Craig, and you can’t just charm them out of it.”

  “That’s not what I was doing,” Craig said. “I know it does.”

  “Most people who were feral never mate,” Jasper went on, quietly. “Most of them wind up moving to the middle of nowhere after a few years, and they sort of gradually go back to how they were. It changes your brain, Craig. Forever.”

  Craig stepped between Jasper and the mirror, forcing his mate to look at him, wearing a dress shirt and boxers.

  “Don’t do that,” he said. “Just for once, don’t do the research and run the numbers. Let’s just feel it out, okay?”

  He grabbed Jasper’s hand in his own and looked into his mate’s light brown, nearly-golden eyes.

  “I’ve got a great feeling about this,” he said. “Yeah, she’s damaged, but who the fuck isn’t damaged? Your parents pretended that there were only two of them until you were a teenager, and you can’t tell me that your papa didn’t resent being kept in the background. Hell, my older brother went to Stanford, and I didn’t even go to college, and I don’t know if my dad is over it yet.”

  Jasper looked down, nodding.

  “All we can do is stand by her, and if our best isn’t enough, maybe it will be in six months, or two years, or five years, or whatever, right? Didn’t we wait three years already?”

  Jasper nodded.

  “The worst has already happened,” Craig said. “Everything else is gravy.”

  Jasper nodded, then half-smiled.

  “Do you want me to put on your tie?” he asked Craig.

  Craig looked down at the knot that he’d started and then abandoned.

  “Yeah.”

  When they pulled into Olivia’s driveway — technically, it was her parents’ driveway — Craig got nervous. He hadn’t really been up until then, but suddenly he felt like he was going to prom, waiting for his date’s parents to give him the ‘home by midnight’ talk.

  He’d gotten around some in high school. Being the quarterback tended to have that effect, so there had been plenty of those talks and more than one given with a firearm in plain sight.

  Craig paused at the sidewalk that left from the driveway into the house, and Jasper looked at him.

  “What, cold feet?”

  Craig shook his head.

  I guess there are advantages to being a dork in high school, he thought. They’d gone to different high schools, of course, in totally different parts of Cascadia, but he’d seen Jasper’s yearbooks, and his mate had not been cool.

  But that also meant he’d never gotten that ‘midnight’ talk with a shotgun. As far as Jasper was concerned, dating was strictly between two or three adults, and there was no one else to please.

  An older woman who looked quite a bit like Olivia answered the door, a huge smile on her face.

  “You must be Craig and Jasper!” she said, stepping back. “Please, please come in, make yourselves comfortable and Olivia will be right down.”

  I’m in high sch
ool, Craig thought, adrenaline shooting through his veins, sweat soaking his palms. Oh no.

  Jasper walked first into the living room, where two men sat on couches.

  “Sit down!” the woman admonished. “I’m Lydia, and this is Norman and Gary.”

  “Hi,” one man said.

  “Pleasure,” the other said.

  Neither said anything about Olivia being home by midnight.

  “Tell me about yourselves!” Lydia said, sitting in between the men. “What do you do for a living?”

  Jasper started. “I actually work for—”

  “Mom!” said a voice from the stairs.

  Lydia glanced over, then got off the couch.

  “One minute,” she said, and disappeared.

  The two men on the couch looked at each other, and either Gary or Norman shrugged.

  “It’s a big day,” one of them said. “You wouldn’t believe the pandemonium that went into Olivia getting ready.”

  “Hoo boy,” said the other, shaking his head.

  “It did distract from the newspaper, at least,” said the first.

  “The newspaper?” asked Jasper.

  The two older men on the couch looked at each other again, but then they heard Olivia’s voice on the steps.

  “Mom, it’s fine. I’m fine, I promise.”

  Craig and Jasper saw her feet begin to descend the steps, and they both stood up. Craig fixed his tie, feeling strangely nervous.

  When she stepped into the living room, he was bowled over. She wore a sleeveless black dress that came to her knees, but it hugged her curves in a way that made him feel a little bit funny inside. His bear woke up and growled a little, but he had plenty of experience fighting it in front of parents, so he managed to control himself.

  “You look beautiful,” said Jasper. “I wish we’d thought to bring you flowers.”

  Olivia blushed, looked around at the five people staring at her.

  “It’s okay, they just die anyway and then I forget to change the water and they start smelling bad,” she said, twisting her hands nervously in front of her.

  “So, should we go? What time is our reservation?” she asked.