The Bears of Blackrock, Books 1 - 3: The Fenn Clan

by Michaela Wright

  The older woman hovered there, fidgeting with her hands as though she felt she needed to do something more. Suddenly, Deacon appeared at her side.

  “Come on, Mom. Let’s leave her be.”

  Janice burst into tears. Catherine watched helplessly, but Deacon moved toward his mother, pulling her into him as he rest his cheek on the top of her head. John joined the embrace, and kissed her head as well.

  “It’s okay, Mom. We’re okay.”

  She sobbed, softly. “I know. It’s not enough. Catherine, I’m sorry. I don’t know how to say Thank you. There’s just nothing I can do to say it properly.”

  Catherine shook her head. “I didn’t do any -”

  The room changed, instantly, stilling her words as John and his family turned to look at the doorway. Just his presence was enough to steal the air from the room.

  Catherine swallowed, unwilling to turn and look at Patrick Fenn.

  “I’m going to need a moment to speak with Catherine,” he said, and her stomach dropped so suddenly, her abdomen tensed. She flinched, but didn’t say a word.

  Janice leaned down to Catherine, kissing her healing forehead before scuttling around the couch, led by Deacon. John didn’t move.

  “Alone, Johnathan.”

  John crossed his arms, standing in front of Catherine like a golem. Catherine couldn’t see Patrick, but she could hear him – and feel him – moving around the couch. When he finally came to stand in her line of sight, she wished he’d thought this a telephone worthy conversation.

  I threatened to shoot this man the last time I saw him. Now I’ve got a bullet wound in my side. I wonder if this is a good example of irony, she thought, trying desperately to calm herself as Patrick closed in.

  “I’m not leaving, Gramps. It’s not happening.”

  Patrick stared at him, his jaw set, twitching just enough to make his beard jump. Finally, Patrick turned to the armchair and sat down at the edge of it, his weight centered over his knees. He pulled it closer, coming to sit just in front of her, making it impossible for her to see anything but the massive shape of him.

  “You’ve had a busy couple of weeks, girl.”

  She held his gaze, nodding. She didn’t speak.

  “It has come to my attention that the family I have lost were taken by one of your kin.”

  “That isn’t fair,” John said, but Patrick simply held a hand up, quieting him.

  Catherine frowned. Her mother came to the hospital with news of Grampy more than once. The police had ransacked her grandfather’s house, collected all of Bodie’s guns and belongings. What they found troubled everyone – locks of hair, bundles of fur, and his favorite hunting rifle from that night, the bullet pulled from Catherine’s side matching those pulled from the bodies of both Alison and Greg Fenn over ten years earlier. Catherine exhaled. “Yes.”

  Patrick nodded, sagely. “And that both Deacon and John were tranquilized and held in your family’s shed.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You will permit me to admit that such an unfortunate connection gives me pause.”

  She nodded. “I understand.”

  His calm tone was almost twice as unnerving as when he yelled.

  “God damn it, Gramps.” Patrick glared at John, but John didn’t back down. “This is bull shit!”

  Patrick ignored John’s outburst, coming to set his eyes on Catherine, boring into her with slow precision. “Deacon tells me that bullet in your side was meant for him, is that correct?”

  “It is,” John answered for her.

  Patrick looked up at his grandson finally, his expression soft, but intent. “If you’re going to stay, for the love of God, do so silently. The last she and I spoke, I became very aware of just how well she can speak for herself.”

  Catherine cringed. “Yes, sir.”

  “And you know what we are?”

  She licked her lips and nodded.

  “And this does not bother you? The thought of loving a man of our kind?”

  She took a deep breath. This was not the line of questioning she’d expected. “Even if it did, I’d still have no choice.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Catherine glanced at John’s feet, unable to look up at him. “I’ve been in love with him since I was fifteen. I couldn’t stop if I wanted to.”

  John shifted anxiously, as though he wanted to go to her, but he couldn’t, frozen by the magnitude of his grandfather’s presence.

  Patrick Fenn sighed. “And what of your children?”

  “What?” John and Catherine asked together.

  “Your children. Our gift is a dominant gene. They will be shifters as well. Will you be able to love a child who is -”

  “Though the subject of my future children is not yet anyone’s concern, I take offense that you would question my capacity for loving my own child.”

  Catherine glared at him. The sheer mention of a baby, of her as a mother had shifted something inside her. She would let no man question her character that way.

  Kick me off your land, she thought. Go right ahead. Son of a bitch.

  “See. Told you she could speak for herself,” Patrick said, rising from his seat. “The Fenn family welcomes you. “

  John visibly relaxed, exhaling.

  Catherine startled at this. “Wait, really?”

  Patrick nodded. “Deacon introduced me to your kin, Bennett. I’ve been made aware of the nature of his father – of the kind of man he was. It takes no little amount of courage to fight back against a monster when that monster is meant to be loved. I pity him for having to make that kind of choice.”

  Catherine frowned. Patrick’s words were wise. If Bennett was ever going to be whole again, it was going to take some time.

  “I will have Terry and Tiernan check in on your mother and grandfather – see that the house is put back to sorts. When you are well enough, we will have a supper here for them.”

  John put up his hands to slow his grandfather’s retreat. “Whoa, Gramps. Slow down.”

  Patrick shot a glare between them. “What? A wedding should be celebrated between both families.”

  Catherine was so startled by this notion that she tried to turn, her abdomen screaming at her in response. “What wedding?”

  “You want to live on my land and bunk up with my grandson in sin? That might be all the rage down in New Hampshire, but where I come from, when you love someone you damn well make it official.”

  “Jesus! You think you could have let me breach that subject in my own time? What the hell?” John demanded following Patrick toward the door of the house.

  “Hey! I took the pressure off you. You’re welcome!” With that Patrick was out the front door, his boots clomping across the wooden planks of the porch. “Congratulations! Heal fast, Miss Catherine. I’m not a patient man.”

  A moment later, Patrick could be heard shooing Janice away from the door, demanding she leave John and Catherine in peace for the day.

  John stood behind the couch, out of her sight. Catherine let the silence speak for her, unable to comment on this sudden strangeness left in his grandfather’s wake. She could proclaim his demands unreasonable, speak against the sexism of a forced marriage and demand they move, but she didn’t. She didn’t want John to know, but Patrick Fenn’s mention of a wedding made her heart leap. How could she be so sure about someone? So sure in so little time?

  Little time, my ass, she thought. You’ve thought about him every day for ten years. There’s nothing little about how you feel about him.

  John finally appeared at her side, dropping to his knees on the floor before her rather than jostle her on the couch. He took her hands. “I’m sorry, baby. Don’t mind him, alright?”

  She smiled. “He says I’m welcome.”

  John grinned. “I know!”

  “And all it took was my getting shot and nearly dying!”

  John laughed, squeezing her hands before he kissed her knuckles. “He’s an easy man to plea
se.”

  They sat there a moment in silence, the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks keeping quiet rhythm outside.

  “What do you think? You in the mood for Lasagna or Chicken?”

  The simplicity of this question threw her off. There was no weight to it beyond, ‘are you hungry?’ Every other thing in her life had been so laden with weight before – where will you live, is mom alright, who will take care of Grampy, was Bennett going to be ok, what the hell is John?

  None of that mattered anymore. She knew where she would live; with John Fenn waking her each morning with his arms or his snores. Linda Calhoun was fine, moved into Grampy’s house to help him around the house, and to recover from the trauma of having Bodie Calhoun as a son. Grampy had come to visit her in the hospital several times, his clothes clean and his hair combed, his hands were even shaking less despite everything he’d been through. He walked with the lightened step of a person freed from purgatory. Mom’s demeanor was beginning to shift as well. John and Deacon’s promise of protection if ever she had trouble with Charlie didn’t hurt her sense of comfort, Catherine was sure. Though Bennett’s demeanor seemed heavier than before, even he found some peace in Linda’s presence, coming into the hospital to share an afternoon with her and John, shooting the shit as he always did.

  And finally, John. What was he? A bear folk, a shape shifter, just a guy working as a carpenter for the Fenn Contracting Company for seven years?

  As Catherine fought to shift on the couch and not disturb the bandages and still healing stitches in her side, she caught sight of him in the kitchen, bustling around with plates and forks and a Lasagna dish and the roasted chicken, piling chunks of both onto plates. Clearly he’d decided what they were having for dinner. She watched him a moment, stealing bites off both plates as he popped them into the microwave. Her heart swelled with affection, enough to bring tears to her eyes. This was going to be her life.

  He glanced up, catching her looking at him and he smiled, giving her a flirtatious wink.

  Catherine took a deep breath and sighed as the room began to fill with the savory smell of Janice Fenn’s Lasagna.

  What was John?

  John was home, and that was all she ever needed to know.

  Book Two

  BEARLY BURNING

  Blackrock Bears - Book Two

  Men In Charge

  By

  Alana Hart & Michaela Wright

  CHAPTER ONE

  The wheels locked instantly as Joe stepped on the brake, dropping her stomach through the floor of the tired old Ford Taurus wagon. She lifted her foot, quickly pumping to gain traction. The car did what it wanted in this kind of weather; it would stop only if it damn well pleased. A moment later, they reached a stretch of clear road and the wheels found traction again. Joe slowed the speed down to a snail’s pace. She might be desperate to get to the border, but she wanted to get them there alive.

  “Momma?”

  “Yes, baby?” Joe whispered into the backseat. Her daughter, Rory, lay stretched across the back, her mid-section strapped in by two separate seat belts.

  “I’m scared. I don’t wanna drive anymore.”

  Joe sighed. Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel, and the snow was coming down with such fury that the view through the windshield looked more like the Millennium Falcon traveling at warp speed than it did a station wagon on the back roads of Maine. Still, Joe needed to get as far away from Portsmouth as possible. Eight hours of driving was taking its toll on them both, and the threat of storms had turned into whiteout conditions by Bangor. Joe glanced down at her phone.

  Time to destination – 55 minutes.

  Fifty five minutes and they’d be at the border of Canada. Fifty five minutes and they’d cross into a country that didn’t welcome felons. Fifty five minutes and they’d be out of the reach of Carson O’Neil.

  Still, fifty five minutes in whiteout conditions at three in the morning felt like an eternity. Joe turned on her blinker and pulled off to the side of the road.

  “Siri, where is the nearest hotel?”

  The phone began to hem and haw over this request, taking longer than usual in the backwoods of Who Knows Where, Maine. Joe glanced back into the rear view at her tired girl.

  “I found only one hotel near you. Would you like directions?” Siri said.

  Joe glanced down at her phone – The Blackrock Inn and Tavern. She looked around at the dense trees and white squalls of wind and snow. There seemed to be nothing, as though this corner of the world had been torn from the map, left untouched by person or light. She took a deep breath.

  Siri offered up directions, and Joe turned the station wagon onto Falkirk Road, a stretch of pavement with no line at its center to betray much traffic. Joe straightened her rear view mirror and crept forward along the road. The snow was several inches thick on the roadway, sign of the last plow having past quite some time ago. Still, there were tire tracks to betray the road ahead, and Joe was grateful for a trail to follow. She followed the road at a slow speed, passing tired old buildings and a quiet post office.

  “Turn right onto Falkirk’s Harbor Way.”

  Joe did as she was told and almost instantly regretted it. The car skidded out around the corner, taking the turn sharper than she’d intended. She turned the wheel into the turn and the car straightened out, but even with traction restored, Joe didn’t like Falkirk Harbor’s Way. There wasn’t a tire mark to betray previous cars, no sign of a plow having passed down this road since the storm began. Joe envisioned her and her daughter pulled over on the side of the road, or stuck in the middle of it with spinning tires, helpless and waiting for a plow to find them and dig them out.

  God damn it, Maine. I fucking hate you.

  Joe slowed the car as she pulled around a bend in the road, passing a sign that pointed in the direction of an Indian Reservation. The sign pointing in the direction Siri commanded her to go simply read ‘Docks.’

  Exciting stuff, she thought.

  Joe pulled around another corner, and Siri burst to life again.

  “Turn left onto Seaside Drive and the destination is on your left.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Joe said, turning the wheel. This road was just as hidden beneath snow, its boundaries betrayed only by the tree line on either side. She rolled along the road, trudging a path through well over a foot of snow. The road twisted and turned, betraying nothing beyond trees and blackened openings into surrounding forest – the only sign of side streets and driveways. She passed a gated road on the left and rounded a final corner as Siri assured her The Blackrock Inn was just ahead on the left. The road dipped with such a suddenness that Joe’s stomach shot into her throat. She pressed her back into the seat, fighting to keep her breathing steady. The tires had traction, she was going slow enough. If she just maintained this speed, she should make it to the Inn without any skid outs. Right?

  She pulled around the corner at five miles an hour, and the world around her took on a strange depth. She stared through the windshield at the strange glow of the world. A light in the distance flashed toward her, then disappeared. She crept down the hill another few feet, watching the black ahead. The light appeared again. A lighthouse. They were right on the water.

  Joe turned back toward Rory. “Baby. You awake? We’re almost there, sweetheart.”

  Rory grumbled, but did not move.

  “There’s a lighthouse out on the water. You can see it even through -”

  Joe turned her eyes back to the road just in time to see a massive black shape bound onto the shoulder. She slammed on the brakes, twisting the wheel away to keep from hitting the bear, but her wheels locked in the snow instantly, and the car began to pick up speed on the downward slope.

  “No, No!” Joe chanted to herself as she pumped the brakes desperately, the massive bear by the road now a distant memory as her car slid down the road, faster and faster. She fought to turn the wheel, but there was no direction to the skid – the car was going
down. Down, down, and hell bent on doing it at high speeds. Suddenly, trees appeared in the light of the high beams, and Joe turned back to brace her daughter as the car dropped from beneath her, plummeting a sickening distance. She held her breath, bracing in the eerie silence that fell over the car as it dropped off the edge of the road.

  A sound like a shotgun blast rattled the car as they made impact. Joe saw white, then black. Then the pain began to set in.

  Joe could taste metal, the sour flavor of it filling her mouth. She spit onto the floor of the car, and pure red trickled from her lips. Her body throbbed from head to toe, her temple and her neck growing warm with running blood, then cold as it cooled in the frigid air.

  “Momma?” Rory said, her voice pained.

  Joe opened her mouth to speak, but her throat clamped shut on the words. She fought to move her right hand, the only part of her body that wasn’t screaming against even the thought of use.

  This can’t happen, Josephine. Don’t you dare fucking die here. Don’t you dare. Fight.

  Joe felt her hand down onto the console, lifting the cap to pull her phone from inside. Her face contorted in grief and pain as she silently prayed that these moments would not be her last. Her daughter was alone there, lost in the middle of nowhere. They had no family, no one to know they were missing. Rory would be trapped in that cold car, and Joe could do nothing to protect her. She felt her fingers crack as she moved them, but she would not succumb to the pain.

  I hate you, God, she thought. Don’t do this to me! Don’t do this to my baby! Please God, don’t do this!

  “Momma, there’s something outside the car. There’s a big thing coming over!”

  She fought to clench her fingers around the phone, but they could do little else, certainly not dial numbers. A moment later, Joe saw the screen come to life, the streaks of her own blood coating the glass surface of the phone. She pressed her thumb to the button and held it. Siri chimed to life.

  Joe gasped for air, feeling blood trickle into her throat. “Siri. Call 911.”