The Bear's Home

by Emilia Hartley

  She ended the message, keeping the phone in her hand. What she really needed to do, wanted to do, was to see Thorn’s range for herself. His descriptions of his home woods stuck with her. It was more than development that drove her. Her cat wanted to roam wild places. She pulled up her Uber app. It took a pretty big bribe to get a driver willing to go all the way out to Ripple.

  Now, Felicity stood up, smiling. It had been worth it. She walked through the woods, breaking into a jog as she neared the back of the Shoats’ B&B. Awash in satisfaction, she had to wonder at her decision to invade the bear’s home. While she had fought with other large predators before, never had she intentionally attacked a shifter. The outcome had proved amazing, but what had drawn her to do it in the first place?

  “You weren’t jogging in the woods alone, were you?” Emma Shoat stood in the kitchen washing dishes as Felicity entered the mudroom in the back.

  “No worries. I know how to take care of myself.”

  “You haven’t heard?” The round little woman dried her hands on a towel. Her face sagged in concern. “There’s a bear loose around here, a very, very large bear.”

  Felicity had to keep herself from smiling. Not only did she know about the bear, she had taken him to a French restaurant.

  “It came through town last night, got in everyone’s garbage. A bunch of cars were damaged. It even broke into the kitchen at the Squirrels Nuts. I just got a call from Helen Arborgast. A little while ago, the bear destroyed their chicken coops. Where am I going to get eggs tomorrow?”

  Last night? Just tonight? Felicity felt a little chill run up her spine. She had been with Thorn. Another bear was stalking the area? Given the size and ferocity of Thorn’s animal, this invading bear was taking a hell of a chance.

  Just like she had? Hell, Thorn didn’t know she was in his woods. It would have been nothing for him to kill her. What on Earth had compelled her to take him on? Something strange was going on in the woods around Ripple. Whatever it was, it affected her decisions, and twisted her instincts.

  “I’ll promise to be more careful,” she told Mrs. Shoat on her way upstairs.

  She thought it over in the shower. Why would a bear make such a ruckus in this tiny town? There were plenty of campsites deeper in the woods. Yet, this animal had chosen the only populated area for miles. It almost seemed to be showing off. But for whom? Why?

  The only answer that made any sense was Thorn.

  Dread filled her with ice as she dried off. Without putting her finger on a specific danger, her instincts were in full fight-or-flight mode. Dressing in jeans and a sweater, she thought about finding Thorn, asking him if he knew about this rival bear; perhaps warning him. But how could she find him? Supposedly, he owned a cell phone. He hadn’t given her the number. He’s said his house was on a road, that he had a neighbor. Several roads wound through or near all that acreage. It would take her hours to locate his home, if she could find it at all.

  Someone at that crummy bar could probably direct her. It was still early, even for a Sunday. And, as Thorn would say, there wasn’t anything else to do around this little town. She might even find him there.

  Inside of the Squirrels Nuts was the same sea of plaid flannel. The Sunday night game was wrapping up on the big screens. The bar owner, Sally, poured pitchers and offered Felicity a scowl. The woman looked a little haggard, her curly brown hair disheveled, her large shirt buttoned crooked. But the top few buttons were undone. Most of the men in the room had their eyes on Sally’s bounce. Was she not wearing a bra?

  In the corner, the same four guys huddled at a table, whispering, eyes taking in the room with darting glances. She saw no chainsaw sitting on the table by the men’s room, nor a giant lumberjack in attendance.

  She took an empty seat at the bar.

  “I thought you were leaving town,” Sally greeted her.

  Top notch service here. Felicity would have to make a note on Yelp. “I did. I’m back. I heard a bear broke into your kitchen.”

  Sally made an odd gesture, placing her right arm behind her back. “I’m still not selling.”

  “Okay, fine. You change your mind, you have my card. I’ll have a Mai Tai.”

  Squinting at Felicity from the corner of her eye, Sally grabbed some rum bottles from the shelves behind the bar and dumped them in a shaker. Peeking from the cuff of her right sleeve was a bandage stained with dried blood.

  “Did you hurt yourself?”

  Sally dumped some orange liqueurs after the rum. “None of your business.”

  There was probably no point in asking if Sally knew where Thorn was with her current surly attitude. Felicity tried a little sympathy. “You look a little pale. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Shaking the drink so hard her boobs bounced hyperactively, Sally bared her teeth. “I’m fine. What are you even doing here? You’re a city girl. We don’t go for slumming around here.”

  Fine. Let her have it. “I’m actually here looking for Thorn. You seen him?”

  Sally sloshed the drink in an old fashioned glass and banged it on the bar top. “And you stay away from Thorn, too. He doesn’t need some slick, sweet-talking socialite type turning his head. He’s good and kind and you don’t deserve him.”

  Oh-ho. The cat lifted her head inside Felicity and the claws came out. “And I suppose you do?”

  “Yeah, I do. Heck yeah. And the next time I see him, I’m going to tell him that.”

  “Really?” Felicity leaned back, sipping her drink. “How many opportunities have you already had, Sally? Do you really expect Thorn to go for some mousy bartender? The man’s practically a Greek god. Look at you, with your mussed up hair, that awful man’s shirt you always wear. Ring, ring, hello? It’s 1982. They want their stupid plastic eyeglass frames back.”

  “Ugh! You’re so mean!” Sally moved to the far side of the bar.

  Felicity had to agree. That was pretty mean. Was she really so into Thorn that she needed to verbally beat down the poor bartender? The thought nearly made her convulse. She really was that into Thorn. But damn it, she had to be convincing if she wanted to swindle the land from under his nose. Maybe that just meant she had to convince herself as well.

  “If I see that fucking bear, I’ll shoot it.”

  A man in an Elmer Fudd hat next to her said. Felicity turned up her keen feline ears to eavesdrop.

  “Damn thing put claw holes in my truck door. What the hell was that? Wasn’t no food in the truck.”

  His companion, a grizzled guy with a wattle chin pouted in thought. “This is like what them ads say on TV. If you spot unusual animal activity, you need to report it to the authorities.”

  “Well, sure, I’ve seen those. But who are the authorities? Never heard of no bear police,” Elmer said.

  “Fish and Game, I reckon. Maybe the sheriff.”

  “What the hell is the sheriff gonna do, arrest the damn thing?”

  “Animal went into my garage,” a man a couple stools down joined in. “Ripped my garbage cans to pieces and scattered trash everywhere. Took a big dump on my front porch, too.”

  “Slashed two of my tires,” another voice joined in.

  This was all very strange, Felicity thought. It wasn’t animal behavior at all. It was more like the activity of a gang of teenagers. Bears only interfered with humans when there was food at hand. They didn’t slash tires or punch holes in car doors for no reason.

  “Ripped down my goddamn fence.”

  “Busted the muffler off my truck.”

  “Knocked a tree down on the roof of my new extension.”

  “Saw the bear prints, big as day. Bigger.”

  “A bear bit my arm.”

  Felicity zoned in on this conversation. She saw Sally holding out her sleeve to a woman at the far end of the bar. “At least, I had a dream that a bear bit me. And then I found bear scat and footprints in the kitchen.”

  Feline-sensitive eyes took in the entire crowd, backing up the audio. Felicity found that
the only people not talking about bear vandalism were the four guys who looked alike at the corner table. From the narrowed and shifting eyes, murmured conversation, and a host of facial tics, they were talking about something else—but something related.

  Concentrating, Felicity tuned in on their low words.

  “If Thorn thinks he can get away with this bullshit, he’s fucking wrong.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Whaddaya gonna do, Casper, the guy’s a freakin’ apex.”

  Felicity’s interest leaped up a dozen notches. Watching the twitchy quartet in the mirror, she dialed into their conversation.

  “Apex schmapex, Sheridan, it’s just this kind of wild-ass shit that’ll get all the shifters around here busted, capiche? You’re his neighbor, Laramie, I mean, what the fuck is wrong with this guy?”

  “Hell if I know. I mean, once in a while, he walks around without pants, but he’s a shifter, right? We all get stuck without our pants sometimes. He does it around the wife, I get fucking pissed off. But c’mon, we all work with him. He’s a big moron, but he knocks down trees real good.”

  “Yeah, yeah, he’s good at knocking down trees. So’s a bulldozer. The pack don’t need a light shined on us. None of the shifters around here do, you see what I’m saying? All the humans in here talking about them TV and radio ads about odd animal behavior. Call the authorities. That, none of us fucking need, am I right?”

  She knew what the man was talking about. For the past few months, the spots had been all over the television and radio. Some mumbo-jumbo about climate change, loss of habitat, and animals behaving badly. Until now, it hadn’t occurred to her that the message wasn’t about wild animals at all, but shifters. She made a decision, and hopped off the barstool.

  “You are right.” Felicity pulled up a chair to their table. “Wolf shifters?”

  “Who the fuck’re you?” the one named Casper asked.

  Laramie, Thorn’s neighbor, said, “The one who’s making all the work for us you moron.”

  Casper sat back and studied her. “The real estate skirt. I heard you was a looker.”

  “Before you guys go pack on Thorn, I can vouch for him. He was with me when the bear blasted his way through town.”

  “And we should trust you why?” Casper placed his palms on the table and got into her face. “You smell like cat to me, babe.”

  Casper was the obvious alpha at the table. Felicity gave him the stare. “Why would I bother lying?”

  “Two reasons: one, you’re a woman; two, you’re a cat.”

  “Nah, she’s probably telling the truth, Casper. Couple days ago, all them deer—you remember? They were outside Thorn’s trailer. Displayed, like.” Laramie looked at each of his pack. “A message—I’ll gut you like a deer, motherfucker.”

  The pack, as one, looked over their shoulders before bending together again.

  This was the first time Felicity had heard this. Her thoughts were drawn to her carefully overturned car. Was that a message from this mystery predator as well? “What did Thorn make of this message?”

  “He didn’t know nothing. Man’s got no pack lore, or den lore, or whatever bears have for lore. I sent him to The Vet.” Laramie smiled. “I don’t know what he learned, but he came back with his ass hanging out of a hospital johnny.”

  The wolves shared a chuckle. Apparently, they had all been to The Vet.

  Sheridan, the smallest of the bunch, sobered the conversation up with a whisper. “What the fuck kinda monster would go after Thorn? The guy’s, what, a polar bear? He’s ten feet tall, two tons of him. I mean, shit, what are we dealing with here?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Casper said. “If there’s gonna be a fight over the apex position, we could all stand to benefit. We could be the apex around here.”

  “You mean our wives could be the apex.”

  Casper turned hostile eyes on the wolf who had been silent the whole time. “Shuddup, Cheyenne.”

  “Casper’s right,” Sheridan said. “If the two bears take each other out, we could move on the whole territory. That’s basic pack lore right there.”

  Felicity frowned. “On the flip side, Thorn doesn’t give a shit about wolves on his range. Will this new apex feel the same, or will he come after you? A bear won’t attack the pack—he’ll come at you one at a time. Can any one of you stand up to a brown bear shifter? Any two, or three even?”

  The wolves exchanged looks. Casper nodded. “We don’t go against lore. The apex is the apex, and we respect that. If it came down to it, the pack could take out anything. Even a grizzly shifter apex. It would cost us big time, and there would be a lot of questions, a lot of scrutiny from John Law. We don’t want none of that.”

  “In the meanwhile, we got a bear tearing shit up. What’s to stop him from wrecking one of our job sites? If he knows Thorn, he knows we work with him some time. Nothing gets a man’s attention like a claw to the wallet,” Sheridan said.

  Felicity barely listened as the wolves laid out a plan to protect their work sites. She was just starting to understand what was going on in Ripple. At first glance, Thorn was involved, cognizant of the fact or not, in a territory dispute. But Felicity started to go deeper.

  What had attracted her to this place initially? She couldn’t remember. She had started making offers on houses out here without even seeing the area. There wasn’t that much to see when she arrived. The potential in this corner of the world started out as fully instinctual. But was that instinct one of a profit-making developer, or a cougar drawn to a range with a troubled apex predator?

  Giving it some thought, all of her recent decisions were suspect when viewed through a human framework. Would prospective buyers or tenants want to be so far away from civilization, whether they were priced out of their current homes or not? And what was she doing with a lumberjack whose ambitions went no farther than knocking down trees, drinking, fighting, and screwing? She had taken him to a fancy French restaurant, a place she took clients. Felicity doubted she could ever show her face there again.

  Perhaps, like the wolves, she was drawn to fill the void of Thorn’s shirking his apex duties. That attack on him, while she thought it was all foreplay, was that just her instinct prepping her for a real fight for the bear’s territory?

  Instinct was a funny thing, sometimes a frightening thing. It operated deep beneath her critical thinking, deeper than her awareness of her inner cat’s needs and desires. The combined psyche of human and animal was indecipherable, and at the same time irresistible.

  There was an aspect of all this that the wolves couldn’t understand. Unlike Felicity and Thorn, these guys were social animals. Cougars and bears were solitary creatures. While her suspicions were unfounded, Felicity was fairly certain there was more to this than Thorn being a negligent apex.

  She needed proof.

  When she found it, Felicity knew she might have the means to take Thorn’s range away. Hell, the man would probably beg her to take his land. She couldn’t solve the mysteries of the lumberjack from here. Excusing herself, she went out to her car and drove through the night back toward civilization and Oscar León.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The moose made for a satisfying meal, and so did the stag Thorn came across on his way back home. The big deer smelled like a vegetable garden. Feeling like he was doing his bit as the apex, he sidled into his back yard, pulled on his damp clothes, and headed into the trailer.

  First thing, he was sticky with animal blood despite the rain. He grabbed a quick shower. After failing to find a beer in the fridge, he plopped down on the couch. TV couldn’t distract him from the thoughts of Felicity. These days, he couldn’t get her off his mind at all.

  Shifter sex turned out to be better than the regular human kind—who would’ve known?—but there was more on his mind than that. Once again, he remembered The Vet’s warning and hung it on the beautiful cat shifter. Was banging him out in the woods part of a plot to oust him as apex? If that was the case, he would
n’t mind a little more. Okay, a lot more. Even if it wasn’t part of an evil scheme, he still wanted as much bang-time as he could get with Felicity.

  The thought at once made him randy, and shook him to the core. He had never boned a woman more than twice, never asked a woman out, never sat around mooning. Scarier than the thought of someone out to get him was the idea that he was in a relationship.

  Felicity wanted a romantic date. What did that mean? Did he have to wear a tie? He didn’t even own a tie. Would he have to find a restaurant where he didn’t speak the language? More to the point, why was he so bunged about this in the first place?

  He wondered if she had stayed in Ripple after their crazy wilderness tryst. It was a long way back to the city, after all. Maybe he could swing by the Shoats’ place. If her car was parked in the driveway, he could leave a note under her windshield. He was thinking about her. Dot the I’s with some hearts. Was that romantic, or was it too adolescent stalker?

  If her car wasn’t there?

  “Go to sleep you idiot. You have work in the morning.”

  He felt like he was a big, dumb moth to her bright flame. That kind of attraction never ended well for the moth. Still, if her car wasn’t there, then maybe their lovemaking in the woods was her goodbye to him. He did embarrass her at that French place. Perhaps the woods were the only place she would see him. He was not good in public.

  “Stop it, you idiot. You have work in the morning.”

  But if her car was there, and there was a light on upstairs, maybe they could take a walk together. A romantic walk, a hand-in-hand stroll under the nearly-full moon. A walk that ended in more hot banging in the woods.

  Deep within, the bear rumbled approval.

  “Aw, shit.” Thorn snatched up his keys and headed out to the truck.

  An hour later, his heart took a dive. No sporty little car. He’d spent the drive composing his love note. Idling on the street in front of the B&B, he realized he didn’t actually have any paper. He would’ve had to write it in the condensation on her windshield. With the absence of the car, weighing adolescent stalking against romantic was purely academic.