by Lauren Esker
***
They had a late lunch at a diner in Port Angeles and checked in with SCB HQ to let them know about the plan to stay overnight, then drove back into the park. Jack had taken over the driving duties this time, and he drove slowly along the park road in the vicinity of the trailhead until he spotted a small, overgrown logging road vanishing into the trees. He pulled the truck off the road, and Casey helped him drag a couple of deadfalls to help disguise the truck's presence. It was now late afternoon. The rain had stopped, but a load of water hung on every leaf, ready to ambush unwary passersby.
"I hope the truck doesn't get stuck in all this mud," Casey said. "Okay, what are you grinning about? I don't trust that grin!"
"I've been wanting to check out its mud-bogging capabilities anyway."
"Not in a national park, Yogi." She playfully kicked him in the shin.
Jack's Ford Explorer had been recently totaled when they'd driven it through the door of an underground parking garage in the process of rescuing a captured fellow agent. The F-150 truck was its replacement, and they'd only had it for a week. Neither of them had really talked about it, but it had felt like a milestone: the first major purchase they'd made together.
Casey had insisted on contributing as much as she could to the down payment, even though it wiped out her minimal savings. She had also been paying her share of the rent on their condo. She knew Jack wouldn't mind, in either case, paying her way. But it had been important to her from the beginning to come into their relationship as a full partner, not someone who would rely on him for everything.
And now they owned a truck together. Now the condo, which had been Jack's, had both their names on the lease. And this incredibly sexy man, currently getting undressed beside the truck, was hers. Sometimes she had to stop and wonder that this was really her life.
Jack looked up as he unbuckled his belt, sensing the intensity of her gaze on him. He was already stripped to the waist, revealing flat abs, a muscular chest with a dusting of dark hair, and an assortment of tattoos on his right arm: an assault rifle and the word Defend on his forearm, and an elaborate tattoo of a snarling grizzly bear wrapping around his shoulder. Pink scars laced his chest and marred the tattoos, fully healed but still an enduring legacy of his and Casey's near-death at the claws of lion shifters a few months earlier.
"What's the matter, is my fly undone?" he asked, grinning at her as he unzipped it.
"Like there isn't enough to stare at already." She took a step closer and ran a hand down his chest, over the slight ridging of the scars. Accelerated shifter healing had been able to heal injuries that would have killed a normal human, but even shifters could scar.
It should have bothered her, perhaps-not the scars themselves, but the fact that he'd almost died. And yet it didn't. She liked seeing his battle scars. She had a few of her own now, too.
Jack leaned down to kiss her, soft nibbles at her lips turning hot and heavy; her knees were weak by the end. He slipped a hand under her shirt and rested it against her waist. "Come on, clothes off. Don't leave me standing here bare-ass naked by myself."
"You romantic," she said with a snort, unbuttoning her shirt.
The sound of engines on the road, coming up fast, interrupted the playful moment. Jack ducked down behind the truck, pulling Casey with him, as headlights strobed through the tree trunks. There were two cars, driving fast, and it was unlikely they would have even noticed the truck concealed among the trees, let alone the two people beside it. However, Jack was clearly taking no chances.
The two of them straightened up, watching the taillights wink through the trees. The cars were heading in the direction of the trailhead parking lot, and as Casey listened to the engines, she thought they had slowed down. She was sure of it when the engine noise cut out a moment later, and distant voices carried through the trees.
"Hikers?" Casey asked quietly. "At night?"
"Let's go find out."
All business now, Casey stripped quickly-though she noticed an appreciative glimmer in Jack's eyes as she took off her bra and stepped out of her panties. They left their clothing inside the truck, along with their wallets and phones. Jack locked the doors and knelt to tuck the key into a wheel well.
Casey wasted no time shifting. It was even colder out here than it had been in the middle of the day. She rippled her thick lynx fur with a twitch of her shoulders, and looked up at the massive bear beside her.
Time for recon.
They ghosted through the mossy undergrowth in the growing darkness. Jack was able to move with surprising stealth for such an enormous animal, but it was impossible for him to be perfectly quiet; there was simply too much of him. Casey, meanwhile, made no noise at all, floating through the wet ferns like a wisp of smoke. She liked teasing Jack about being big and clumsy, though in actual fact he was much more quiet than a human could have managed to be in the same circumstances.
They both slowed as they approached the trailhead parking lot. Jack flattened himself as much as he was able, crawling through the forest. Casey went on ahead and peeked out.
A group of people-four men and three women-were unloading equipment from the cars. One of them was Peri Moreland; all were young and athletic-looking. They were handling around loaded backpacks, and some of them were carrying tripods. It was plain they intended to stay awhile.
Casey retreated, and Jack joined her a minute later. Deeper in the woods, he shifted human, and Casey followed suit.
"Bigfoot hunters," Casey said.
"Squatchers," Jack corrected, with a grin.
"Whatever. Do we abort the plan?" She shifted from foot to foot in the cold moss, wrapping her arms around herself and already regretting the loss of her heavy fur.
"I don't think we need to. They probably aren't planning to camp at the trailhead. We'll just wait for them to move on, and then sniff around like we were planning."
Casey nodded and shifted, ruffling up her fur. Jack stayed human-shaped a moment longer.
"Keep an eye out for anything they may have left behind," he said. "I've run into them before-not this exact group, but Bigfoot trackers in general. They may have set up game cameras. So don't shift unless you're sure you're unobserved."