This was the worst possible scenario. Every moment that they were in close proximity drove his bear just a little more crazy. Gauge rubbed his face. He couldn’t deal with distractions like these. When he was in the middle of an investigation, he always kept his head down and his eyes on the prize. The only thing that mattered was closing the case. But now the only thing that truly mattered was Lola, his mate.
Gauge had signed up for Mate.com as a joke around the same time the rest of the Bear Patrol had signed up. But after a while with no matches most of the guys had just forgotten about it, including Gauge.
When he had gotten permission from Rollo to go undercover, he made sure to erase himself completely from all social media and all references across the internet. The one thing he didn't completely remove was his questionnaire information on Mate.com. He did, however, remove his picture and profile information from the site.
At the back of his mind, he knew that if he kept his account open on Mate.com, his mate could eventually find him. And that is exactly what happened. Fate had intervened and the two of them were matched, despite everything that stood in their way.
They weren't even allowed to have electronics at the compound so he had no idea how Lola could have possibly even gotten online. Yet they’d been matched, and now here they were both here.
He went back to his sentry post, his bear roaring and grumbling in his mind. Gauge couldn't stand the noise. He was usually a reserved person, which came in handy in his line of work. He had to stay in the shadows, undercover.
His bear was making it impossible to think clearly. He had to stay cool around Justin Lockheart's gang. If he revealed his shifter nature, he would be dead.
Ordinarily, a shifter could withstand one or two bullet wounds if they didn't hit anything too important. But there's no way he could withstand the firepower Lockheart's men were packing.
If anyone found out he was a shifter, he was done for. Now, he also feared for Lola’s safety. When he'd spoken to her, he could smell the fear rolling off of her body like a thick black cloud. It smelled of sorrow and loneliness and desperation. Like the scent of wet cigarette ashes. He needed to help her get away from here. But until he could, he had to stay away from her for her own safety.
He sat in his sentry post and looked out at the broad expanse of forest below him. This location was so remote that it probably didn't get any visitors for years at a time. Not even cross-country hikers or hunters would make it up to these treacherous climbs.
Justin was extraordinarily paranoid, but he had a reason to be. His operation was corrupting the entire population of Fate Mountain and all of the towns surrounding it. He had to know that the authorities of Fate Mountain were doing absolutely everything in their power to stop him.
Gauge still couldn't understand the man's endgame. Clearly Justin Lockheart had a screw loose. How was addicting the humans of his hometown going to help him rise up against the shifter oppressors he hated so much? He would only have a bunch of strung out zombies who barely had the physical health left to continue shooting up and smoking their destructive drugs. They certainly wouldn't be able to take out shifters like the Bear Patrol.
But it wasn't Gauge's job to understand the mind of a madman. It was his job to gather information and send the alarm when he believed it was the right time for the Bear Patrol to move in. He’d done the research and investigation up until this point. Now, he’d nearly achieved his goal of bringing down Lockheart's gang. He had to bide his time and wait. But most importantly, he needed to stay away from Lola Lockheart.
Just the thought of staying away from her sent his bear into hysterics. He palmed his forehead and groaned. He heard a voice below him, shouting up at him.
"What's wrong with you?“ Justin Lockheart's voice called out.
Gauge hurried down the stairs and stood at attention in front of the man who ran the operation.
"Are you backed up?" Justin asked. "Is that why you asked my sister Lola about the latrine?"
"Must been the road rations," Gauge said.
"Since you're the new guy, I'll let it slide, this once," Justin said wrapping his arm around Gauge's shoulder.
He was at least five inches shorter than Gauge but something about his wiry strength fueled by drug addiction and insanity somehow filled him with a kind of dark power. "But if I ever hear about you speaking with my sister again, you'll never be able to take another shit for the rest of your life because your crapper will be broken from the broom handle that I ram up there until you hemorrhage."
Justin said the words with such detachment that the cruel insanity of it was almost lost on Gauge’s ears.
"I wouldn't expect anything less," Gauge said.
Justin slapped him on the back. "Good man. I'm glad we have an understanding.”
8
Lola’s one day off a week was on Monday. Justin at least gave her that much. She always wanted to sleep in, but somehow her body wouldn't allow her to. She got out of bed at six a.m. and washed her face and brushed her hair. Her hair was still clean from the last time she'd washed it, relatively speaking anyway. It would never be as clean as it was a year ago, before Justin had forced her to come live up on the mountain.
They had gone through a hard winter and there’d been a point when she had mild frostbite on her toes. Even then, Justin wouldn't allow her to leave the mountain. He wouldn't allow them to light fires for warmth. They all huddled around tiny electric heaters inside the cave as the snow piled up outside.
Unless they wanted to have the crystal fumes in their face all the time, they had to wear gas masks most of the winter. It had been grueling and horrific, and sometimes she didn't quite know how she had survived.
The fear of another winter was still deep in her bones. The cold, the closeness of the men, everyone's general agitation, and that feeling of constant hunger that gnawed at her belly night and day from lack of food. In winter, even the wild game was sparse. Everything in her refused to believe that she would have to live through that experience again.
She slipped into her boots and walked out the front flap of her tent, carrying her berry picking basket in her hand. Her walks into the forest to gather wild food were some of the only times that Lola felt at peace. As long as she didn't try to escape, no one bothered her when she collected huckleberries, mushrooms, or pine nuts. They watched her, making sure she didn't make a run for it, night and day. As long as she stayed, they left her to her own devices when she wasn't working.
It had been so long since she'd been part of society, since she'd had any friends of her own. Except Chris, who wasn’t really her friend so much as Justin’s.
What would she do if she ever got off this mountain? Where would she go? How would she survive? Without Justin, she had nothing. There was no inheritance or money waiting for her. There was no job. She'd never gone to college and started a career. She’d barely finished high school after her mom died.
There was no hope left. She had no idea how to function in the world, even if she could gather the courage to run away.
She'd been raised on fear, fear of shifters, fear of anyone different. Fear that there was always someone out to get her and that she had to be hypervigilant at all times. Maybe it was true and maybe it wasn't. But that didn't mean Lola had any idea how to function out there.
She remembered a time when she was just a normal girl, before her mother married her stepfather. She remembered having friends and the soccer team and how it felt to be included and involved with her community.
It was everything that she wanted again. If she could only get back to those days. Maybe she could learn to become the woman she was meant to be. Maybe she could heal all of this darkness and find the light that still remained in her soul. That's when she thought of the man she'd been matched with on Mate.com.
Who was he? Why had he asked her to wait for him? She would never know now since Justin had taken her phone away. He’d probably even erased her account. She would never have a ch
ance to find her mate again.
Her mother had told her she had a good heart, and that she was pure and good and kind. Lola's mother was that way too, from what she could remember anyway. Why she'd married a man like Justin's father, Lola still didn't understand.
Justin's father had been a powerful member of the human community. He didn't hold any positions in town, but he did have the ear of a lot of people. He was the leader of an anti-shifter motorcycle gang back then. And was already cooking crystal when Lola's mother married him. Lola didn't think her mother ever knew about his drug activity until right before her death. They were really nothing alike.
Her mother had succumbed to Justin's father's charm. And she had lost her life for it. Lola was convinced that her mother's death was not an accident. But she could never prove it.
Justin was so much like his father he might as well be a clone of the man. In fact, Justin was worse. Part of her believed that it was Justin who had actually killed her mother. Perhaps it was at her stepfather's command, but she somehow knew that it was Justin who pulled the trigger.
She walked further into the forest, her dark thoughts swirling in her mind. She couldn't push them away, even in the beauty of the wood. The tall evergreen trees and the animals who lived in the wood were her only comfort. She loved the quiet peaceful sounds of the birds chirping in the boughs overhead and the squirrels chattering with their pine nuts and acorns.
She looked at a soft blanket of pine needles and wistfully thought of lying down and allowing herself to be absorbed back into the earth. What was there to live for anymore? She was damned no matter what she did. She could stay with Justin and remain a hostage or she could leave and be an uneducated, homeless ex-criminal. No matter what she did, there was no salvation.
She knelt on the ground, her empty pail in hand as she slowly spread herself out over the pine needles. She looked up into the sky, the blue expanse rose through the green canopy of the forest. It was so bright and open. It was as if she could be anything in the face of that magnificence.
She closed her eyes, feeling her body merge with the cool damp ground below her. She wanted to let herself go, to be absorbed into the planet. She wanted to be absolved from all that she had done and contributed to. She wanted to forget her fear and cowardice. She just wanted to be whole again.
"Are you okay?" a male voice said above her.
She snapped her eyes open and saw the new guy blocking out her view of the sky. She scrambled to her feet, fearing the worst for both of them.
"What are you doing here? I told you, you're not allowed to talk to me."
"I saw you walk off into the forest. When you laid down on the ground, I got worried. I'm sorry. I should leave you alone."
Lola felt some kind of attachment to him that she never would have expected. She’d never felt anything like that with any of Justin's other henchmen.
She reached out to him and caught his arm before he walked away. It felt solid and strong, not the arm of a man who took drugs habitually. He turned back to her, his brown eyes blazing with inner truth and goodness. She looked up into his face, seeing only pure intentions.
She let go of his arm, not knowing what had gotten into her. She folded her arms over her chest and glanced down at the ground, breaking her eye contact with the new guy.
"What's your name anyway?" she asked him.
"You can call me Cody," he said.
She looked up at him again. She didn't know how she knew it, but something about the way he'd said his name told her that it wasn't really who he was. Maybe it was a middle name or a nickname for something. That's what she told herself. He was one of Justin's men and therefore someone she had to stay away from.
She couldn’t ignore the magnetic draw she felt toward him. It was as if all she wanted to do was fall in his arms and weep out all her sorrows. She somehow knew he could absorb them. Maybe even help her.
It was an irresistible feeling; one she could barely contain. He looked at her again, those soulful eyes gazing into hers with so much concern and empathy it made her heart weep for everything she had been missing.
"Cody," she breathed. "There's something about you."
"You probably hear this all the time, but…you are irresistible."
His words came out as if he was trying to hold them back with every bit of strength in his being.
"I better go,” she said.
Instead of running away, she took a step toward him and leaned up into his arms, wrapping her arms around his waist. Cody wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. Before either of them could think, their lips were touching. His warm, sweet breath blew against her lips, ever so gently as she pushed harder against him.
She needed to feel him. She needed his strength to carry her through. This one moment. This one kiss. All of her lust and longing erupted within her. The passion between them broke free like a river that had been dammed for thousands of years. She groaned, flicking her tongue between his lips.
He met her passion with his own, returning her kiss and taking it to new depths. Their tongues danced and their breaths mingled.
It was as if the stars had come out in the daytime, bursting around them like fireworks. This was everything. This was it. She would give her life to feel this for just one more moment. And she did.
But then she pushed away.
"That can never happen again," she said. She ran away from him so fast, she completely forgot her huckleberry bucket.
9
Gauge looked down at Lola's berry bucket, wondering again what the hell he was doing. He couldn't keep his bear from growling inside his mind. Every instinct in him told him that the most and only important thing was protecting Lola. He'd had enough. This investigation was over. Now all that was left to do was make sure that she was out of the line of fire when the Bear Patrol moved in.
He had a secret signal inside his analog watch, installed by Damien before he'd left. When he opened the watch and hit the switch, the Bear Patrol would be alerted to his location. The beacon would inform them that it was time to move in with full force.
The Fate Mountain Police Department had its own helicopter and the Bear Patrol would be here within minutes of him giving the signal. He’d had enough of watching his mate suffer. He refused to take it a moment longer. But he had to be sly about how he addressed this situation. He couldn't just barge into her tent and tell her to come with him if she wanted to live.
He had to do this subtly. He needed her cooperation and that meant telling her the truth. He had to believe that his mate would trust him when she had all the information.
Obviously, she was as affected by him as he was by her. She'd kissed a stranger in the woods, knowing full well how dangerous it was for her to even speak to a man.
If Gauge told her what was going on, he knew she would trust him. She had to. He picked up her bucket, a plan forming in the back of his mind. He saw the purple stains of huckleberry along the edges of the bucket. She’d probably come out to pick more berries.
Their encounter had scared her off, and now she would go without. Gauge didn't intend to ever let her go without anything ever again. He took the bucket and continued into the forest, his own sentry duties not starting for another few hours.
He found the leafy bushes full of purple fruits and began to pluck the berries one by one and place them in the bucket. Soon he had a pretty impressive haul, if he said so himself. Being a shifter meant that his heightened senses could always pick out the closest berry patch.
He hefted the bucket, inspecting its contents. This would probably be enough berries just to satisfy his mate for today. His plan was to write a secret note and put it at the bottom of the bucket, telling her that he was here to help her. And that she needed to meet him in the woods that night. It was the only way that he could even imagine getting close to her.
He pulled a pencil, a piece of paper, and a plastic baggie out of the many pockets on his survivalist clothing and wrote a short note. Whe
n he was done, he put the note in the Ziploc bag and buried it at the bottom of the bucket.
As he approached the compound, and emerged from the cover of the forest, he looked around to make sure no one was watching him. He walked across the open yard in front of the cave and ducked into the tent area, on the way towards the latrines.
With a shifter-quick tilt of his arm, he put the bucket of huckleberries inside Lola's tent and continued walking without even slowing down. When he made it to the latrine, he turned and scanned the area again. The sentries above him were pacing back and forth in their lookouts, and didn't give him a second look. No one had come out of the cave to confront him, and there weren't any people milling about the camp.
He went into the outhouse that reeked of shit and piss and closed the door. He waited there for several moments before leaving again.
Outside, he hurried into the sentries’ tent and lay down on his cot as if he were taking a nap. His clock alarm went off when it was time for him to go to his post.
Gauge swung his legs over the side of his cot and grabbed his rifle before heading out to his sentry post. As he was changing places with the other sentry, he noticed Justin Lockheart walking over to Lola's tent. Gauge had to control his inner polar bear. It had a ravenous hunger to protect his mate and could not abide the sight of Justin Lockheart approaching her tent.
10
“What were you doing in the woods?” Justin asked her, looking down at the full berry bucket on her table.
She had no idea where it had come from. Then remembered that she had left her bucket in the woods with Cody. The new guy, who she’d kissed. He must have filled her bucket with berries just to give them to her. Didn't he realized that if he tried to flirt with her that her stepbrother would shoot him in the face?
Detective Bear Page 4