Big Bear Mountain - The Complete Series

by Bianca James

  The bear sprinted forward with speed and agility that belied its sheer bulk, taking all three of them by surprise. Huge paws moved like lightning and before she knew what was happening, Cassie was scooped up by the powerful yet surprisingly gentle pads of the bear’s paws and carefully and deliberately set down to one side, leaving the two goons and the bear all alone to face each other.

  Cassie was stunned and bewildered. She was sure it was the same bear she saw at the spring, but what was it doing here? Why did it seem to want her out of harm’s way? She scooched backward on the floor, distancing herself from the bear. That’s when she backed into something unmistakable.

  The cold steel of a gun barrel. A very big gun barrel.

  Chapter 21

  “That’s enough of that heroic display, Sheriff Raven. No need to scare my boys any more than you already have,” the man spoke calmly and without any sign of fear, despite the almost lethal proximity of the gigantic bear. The bear didn’t appear to back down at the sight of the new intruder, despite the fact that he could see he held a weapon of some kind pointed at Cassie.

  “Before you do anything rash, Mr. Raven,” the man held the gun aloft, “I’m holding a Benelli M4. A Super 90 to be exact. Military spec. I’m holding enough firepower in my hands to stop an animal twice your size, so don’t even think about it.”

  The lethal looking, high powered shotgun was pointed directly at the bears head as if to emphasize his point.

  The human brain inside the bear did the math and visualized the spread of the shot at that distance. Not only would it tear him to shreds and way beyond his ability to heal, the cone shaped spread of shot from the weapon would most likely kill Cassie if the shooter fired from his current position.

  The bear dropped its paws and slumped into a submissive posture. There was no point taking risks when the tactical advantage had been well and truly lost.

  Cassie was still looking around for the Sheriff. She didn’t see Raven anywhere and didn’t understand why the gunman seemed to be talking to a bear.

  “Oh, you poor dear. You didn’t know? How adorable.”

  Cassie turned around and looked at the man properly for the first time. His hair was short, like Raven’s but salt and pepper. He was older than Raven, but his face was hard and his body equally trim and muscular. A man whose job kept him lithe and trim. A man with a dangerous occupation.

  He wore black denim jeans, a black shirt and a full length black leather coat. It was a fair bet he had a small arsenal hidden under there. She’d seen his type before. Former soldier turned mercenary turned hired thug. Even his eyes were hard. Lifeless and soulless, like sharks eyes.

  “I’m not a fool Raven. I was watching the cabin in case someone else showed up. There you were, right on cue doing your cute little bear ‘thing’ and scampering off to save your precious girlfriend. So predictable, right?”

  A heavy silence hung in the air. Cassie looked from the gunman to the bear. The bear met her gaze and she saw something in its eyes. Not fear. Sadness. The bear was concerned for her. None of it made any sense.

  Then the bear did something impossible. Something beyond her comprehension or ability to deal with.

  Cassie blacked out.

  Chapter 22

  Left with no choice, Jack shifted back to his human form. He’d made a huge tactical error. There had been four of them, after all. He should have trusted his gut. His jaw clenched as he ground his teeth in frustration, standing there in full uniform but no weapon. That was how it worked. He could shift to and from his bear fully clothed, but anything large and metal, like a gun wouldn’t shift with him. That was all part of the shifting magic. Or curse. Nobody had ever given him the rulebook on that.

  He’d heard of other shifter clans, but he was a lone wolf and would never have fitted in. That’s why he chose army life. The army gave him all the family and structure he needed.

  Right now, though, he wished he wasn’t so alone. He also wished he was a better tactician. His old CO used to say he was a great instinctive fighter but not the most tactical guy he’d ever trained. Now look where that had got him. At the wrong end of one of the most powerful shotguns in the world, his girl still held prisoner and no weapon.

  You’re a genius, Raven. A real tactical genius.

  Slowly, Cassie began to wake up. She’d had the weirdest dream. Kidnappers. Shotguns. Bear shifters. A total nightmare. She shook her head to clear the cobwebs and opened her eyes.

  Kidnapper.

  Shotgun.

  Raven in human form. What other form would he be in, you idiot.

  She blinked hard a couple of times to clear her vision. To make all the nonsense go away. Then she opened her eyes again.

  Nothing had changed. It wasn’t a nightmare, at least not one she could wake up from.

  Raven put his arm around her, the warmth of his touch comforting her immeasurably. It felt good to have him so close. Even though she could look after herself, he made her feel safe. She had missed his touch. More than she realized. He seemed to be genuinely concerned for her welfare and had risked taking a bullet for her. That didn’t strike her as something a guy who just wanted to chase a bit of ass would do. He really cared.

  The two remaining goons and their boss were in a heated discussion on the other side of the room, but the dark, deadly aperture of the shotgun barrel was still trained on them. The smooth and professional gunman still had his finger on the trigger. Safety off.

  Nervously, Cassie scooted closer to Jack, drawing strength from him. She nervously fingered the chain around her neck, as she always did when she was anxious.

  “Tell me I was seeing things,” she said. Her voice wavered. She knew what she had seen and was grasping at straws by hoping he’d tell her something different.

  “I wish I could say something other than the truth, but you know what you saw. I can’t even try to lie to you.”

  Her fingers tugged at the key on the end of the chain. She bit her bottom lip as she tried to come to terms with it, not daring to speak for fear of making it ‘real’.

  “What’s that?” Jack asked, his narrowed eyes trained on the necklace that she was twirling and tugging, like a nervous tic.

  “Nothing.” She pulled the key from her shirt to show him. “Just some old key my grandma gave me when I was little. She just called it ‘the key’ but never told me what it was for. She said I’d find out when the time came. It’s one of the few things I have of hers, so I wear it as a kind of good luck charm.” She forced a nervous laugh. “It’s not working, is it?”

  “Put it back. Hide it. I think I know what it is and why it’s so valuable to these clowns,” he said urgently in a hushed tone.

  “But, how do you —”

  “Not now.” he whispered. “Just trust me. OK?”

  She nodded. She did trust him. There was something about him that engendered trust. She felt that he knew what he was doing. He had an assured air about him. She’d been a PI for long enough to be able to read people. Jack had the bearing of a guy who had done a lot of stuff she’d probably never know all the details of. Dangerous stuff. He was the real deal and she was certain beyond doubt that he’d protect her. No matter what.

  A gleam of trust shone from her eyes as she nodded in agreement. Raven was pleased to have her confidence. He knew that was the start of something, something that he could build on in the future. But to have any chance of a future, they had to get out of this mess. Alive.

  The menacing shotgun barrel was aimed directly at Raven’s head. It was so close that Jack could almost feel the coldness of the steel against his skin.

  “Here’s how we’re going to do this, princess … I’m going to ask you some questions and each time you lie or I even think you’re lying, I’m gonna blow off one of your boyfriends limbs with this.” He raised the weapon to Cassie’s face so she got to see the large black opening of the barrel. She couldn’t even imagine the destruction such a blast could unleash.

  �
�And you,” he pointed the barrel back to Jack’s head, “if you so much as think about doing your shifter shit, I’ll blow your head off.” Jack had no doubt he meant it.

  The gunman turned his attention back to Cassie. The gun remained trained on Raven’s head.

  “Where’s the key?”

  Her eyes darted to Jack. With a barely perceptible shake of his head he signaled her. He had a plan. At least she hoped he did.

  “Back at the cabin.” She met the gunman’s eyes with her own and held an icy stare. Unwavering in the hope he’d not see through her deceit.

  “We searched the cabin.” To emphasize his resolve to carry out his threat, he racked a shell into the chamber — schlock-schlock and pointed the shotgun to Jack’s leg and pressed the tip of the barrel hard against his thigh. “Looks like someone’s about to lose a leg —”

  “It’s not in the cabin,” she blurted without hesitation or breaking eye contact. “It’s in my car, the old Cutlass. Glove compartment. Go see for yourself.”

  “You,” he turned to Boil Face, “go search her car.” Boil Face, eager to get away from the bear shifter and his maniacal, shotgun wielding boss made a beeline through the splintered opening made by Jack’s dramatic entrance.

  Cassie saw Jack nod slightly confirming she had made the right call. One down, he mouthed silently to her. The odds were more even but there was still the monstrous Benelli M4 to consider. In close confines, a weapon like that didn’t even need to be aimed. Just point and shoot in the general direction of your enemy and it was lights out for anyone within the deadly spread pattern.

  So confident was he in his ability to control the room with the M4 that the gunman hadn’t even bothered to zip tie either Cassie or Jack.

  That was his first mistake.

  “You two,” he waved the gun in their direction, “move over there.” He directed them to a position he could cover them more easily, but he also put them in a direct line between himself and the remaining henchman.

  That was his second mistake.

  And it would be his last.

  Chapter 23

  With a tilt of his head, Jack gestured to the remaining kidnapper, the one with the Austin Powers teeth. He was all hers. Jack needed to give his full attention to that shotgun or they’d both die in a fatal hail of lead shot.

  Cassie was fine with her end of the deal but was concerned for Jack. The thought of him taking a hit like that made her stomach churn and the thought of losing him, although she hardly knew him, felt unbearable.

  “Trust me,” he said softly but resolutely. His eyes hardened. Raven the special ops soldier, who’d been lurking below the surface until now, was ready to engage.

  In his mind, he visualized the scatter of the weapon once fired, calculating the increased diameter of the cone with each foot it travelled from the end of the barrel. It wasn’t an ideal scenario, but it was all he had to work with and like it or not, their lives depended on him. Hers in particular.

  Silently he mouthed a countdown for her to sync with.

  Three

  Two …

  In an instant, he shifted into his bear form and stood tall, towering above the gun toting boss. His gargantuan, fury body seemed to fill what was once an enormous, cavernous warehouse.

  The shotgun turned slowly, its owner still in shock at the appearance of the menacing creature and the horrific growl that echoed in the building.

  Cassie leapt at an awestruck and dumbfounded Austin Powers, crash tackling him to the ground with a hip and shoulder combo before punching him in the jaw and knocking him out cold.

  “Yeah, Baby!” she shouted triumphantly with her best impression of an English accent. She couldn’t help herself.

  Then she remembered Jack. The shotgun!

  It was like it all happened in slow motion. Raven didn’t even try to close the gap on the gunman. He just stood there as the powerful piece of hand held artillery exploded with a sickening and resonating boom, threatening to burst her eardrums.

  Jack took the hit to his shoulder and chest. Even the massive bulk of his bear was pushed back from the impact of the blast. Then he regained his balance and threw himself at his assailant with all the might and fury of a wild, protective bear.

  Cassie suddenly realized what he’d done. If he’d made his move before the weapon discharged, the shot pattern would have been too narrow, too concentrated and it would have torn an unsurvivable hole right through him. Instead, he’d let the blast disperse before it hit him, taking the risk that it wouldn’t kill him so that he could close the gap and take the guy out as he was racking his next shell into the chamber.

  Schlock —

  He never got to finish pumping the round home.

  Chapter 24

  Cassie examined the bear’s … Jack’s wounds. Through the thick fur, blood welled from the many pellets that had penetrated his flesh. He lay there, panting, eyes glazed with shock and pain. She had expected him to change back to his human form after the fight, but he either couldn’t because of his wounds or the healing process that seemed to be going on under the skin. Even as she watched, the blood flow slowed and some of the more shallow wounds had stopped bleeding altogether as they healed over.

  Finally, the bear slept, allowing the healing process to accelerate for a faster recovery. He could afford to do that now that they were safe.

  Cassie let him rest and moved over to one side to keep watch while her protector rested and recovered. Her movement was stopped short by a gun barrel stabbing her in the ribs.

  “Ssssh.” Boil Face hushed her with a rough prod with the gun. “We don’t want to wake sleeping beauty, do we?”

  “You found that in the glove compartment, didn’t you?” She looked at her own backup gun he held to her side.

  “Sure did. Thanks for that. Now I can have your little treasure box all to myself. I never did like the idea of sharing with the others, being an only child and all, sharing really doesn’t work for me.”

  “Did you bring the key?” she asked, knowing he couldn’t possibly have it.

  “You mean the one you keep fiddling with around your neck? Those other morons are so stupid. A little too much chlorine in their gene pool, as my momma used to say. I keep my mouth shut and my eyes open. I ain’t nobody’s fool.”

  Clearly. You beady eyed little prick.

  “Nice and easy, now … get up and walk, very slowly, over to the box and open it up with that sneaky little key of yours.”

  She balled her fists with rage, powerless to do anything with him pointing a gun at her. She knew it was loaded. No point having a gun if it’s not loaded, her grandma always used to say.

  “Enough with the tantrums, get over there and don’t try anything stupid. I’ll shoot, you know.”

  She saw greed in his eyes and knew he’d shoot her if she gave him cause to. Reluctantly, she made her way to the locked box, took the key from around her neck and knelt down at the front of the box. Boil Face stood behind her, gun aimed at her head.

  Reaching inside the box, she saw what looked like a bunch of old legal documents. As she rummaged through them, she felt something familiar beneath them.

  “The deeds, give ‘em here,” Boil Face demanded impatiently.

  When Samuel Colt developed the 6 shot Colt “Walker” revolver for Captain Walker and his Texas Rangers, the gun was so powerful and heavy that Walker remarked “it would take a Texan to shoot it”. It was the largest and most powerful handgun of its day and remained so until the .357 Magnum appeared nearly a century later.

  Of course, history wasn’t really of any interest to Boil Face when Cassie spun around, pointed the hefty, historic and near priceless piece of Samuel Colt iron at him. She cocked the hammer like grandma had taught her and watched with delight as his trembling fingers dropped her backup piece to the floor. A girl from Montana could handle the “Walker” like the best of those Texas boys.

  Both of them heard the thump-thump of the approaching helicopter roto
rs at the same time.

  Chapter 25

  Spider walked through the demolished wall of the warehouse giving nothing more than a casual glance at the destruction and havoc wreaked by the bear. After all, he was a Big Bear Mountain man and this kind of thing was becoming quite normal, these days.

  “You must be Cassie,” he said by way of greeting as he removed his helmet and held out his hand.

  “And you are …?”

  “Webb. Lieutenant Jim Webb. But you can call me Spider. Everyone around here does.”

  Cassie shook his hand. He didn’t seem to be a threat, although she had no idea what he was doing there.

  As if in response to the questions going through her mind, he responded.

  “Jack radioed me earlier. Told me to head up to the Larsen place and scout around from the air looking for anything unusual and to help out if I saw anything going down. That’s when I saw this bozo,” he tilted his head toward Boil Face, “take off in the Oldsmobile. Jack mentioned it was yours when we spoke, so I followed him.”

  “Thanks,” Cassie responded. She was still trying to process all that had happened.

  “No need to thank me. Looks like you guys have it all under control. I’ve radioed the State Troopers. They ought to be here soon to take these losers away.”

  “What about Jack?” Cassie looked over to the sleeping bear, the concern was evident on her face.

  “He’ll be fine. Let him sleep it off for a bit then he’ll be as good as new. Trust me.” He winked at her.

  “Are you —?”

  “Now that would be telling, wouldn’t it, Miss.” He flashed her a cocky smile, turned on his heels and headed back to his still idling chopper.

  Chapter 26

  Jack’s arm was in a sling. There had been some bone damage requiring surgery after he’d shifted back to his human, but nothing too serious. A few titanium pins and he was as good as new. Or soon would be. He drank his steaming coffee with his left hand as Cassie sorted through the various old papers at a corner table at Rosie’s.