Sawyer's Mate (Shifter Nation: Werebears Of Big Bend)

by Meg Ripley

  “Looks legitimate to me,” Sawyer agreed.

  “Let’s get digging,” Julian said.

  I brought my tools over and followed the line of the petrified bone on the opposite side of where Julian worked.

  “I wonder how big it is,” Julian pondered. “What a discovery—and it’s all mine.”

  I said nothing and just kept brushing the dirt away from the bone. To be honest, I felt disappointed in myself. Had I let a discovery pass me by because I’d been distracted by Sawyer all day? Had the very thing I said I wouldn’t do cause me to fail after all?

  “I’ll be the first student this semester to find something,” Julian bragged. “I might even have enough time to find a second fossil.”

  “I’m sure this one will take a good amount of time to exhume.”

  “I’ll have to call the media once we uncover it. They’ll want to do a feature on me, I’m sure.”

  “That’s great,” I told him. “You’ll get the fame you’ve always wanted.”

  “Yup.” He nodded and beamed.

  I wanted to slap the smug smile off his face. How annoying that he’d found something first. Even if he had worked more hours than me, wasn’t there some kind of kindness karma that would repay me for being a more decent human than he was?

  “This is going to be something big! It’s gotta be a dinosaur, I can just feel it.” He was practically dancing as he gloated.

  I looked over at the humerus peeking out from under the earth and Sawyer stood nearby, taking photos. There wasn’t much to say to Julian; it was his discovery. Even if he was being arrogant, he wasn’t being out of line by showing his excitement. Still, I wished he would be a little more humble about it.

  As we continued to work, I tried my best to ignore him. But he didn’t stop talking for hours. About how famous he would be and how much money he would have. How everyone would know him. How this had to be a dinosaur, which was the ultimate discovery.

  Sawyer came over to check on us. “How’s it going?”

  I stood to talk to him and we took a few steps away for privacy. “Good. It’s looking pretty complex in structure, so far.”

  “I’ll say. I have to leave for a little while. There’s a Ranger out sick, and I have to lead his tour. It’s an hour long.”

  “I’ll be here, digging in the dirt with that pretentious asshole.”

  “Sorry to leave you alone with him.”

  “I’m used to it by now. At least he’s been less annoying overall lately.”

  “Slightly.”

  “Slightly,” I agreed.

  We shared a smile that I knew we both wanted to be more. We’d have later that night, but it was hard to go all day without touching. I watched him walk off, enjoying the view of him from behind.

  When I turned back, Julian was watching me. “You know,” he said with a smirk, “you chose wrong. Picking the loser over the winner? What a mistake.” He shook his head.

  Dropping to my knees, I stuck my shovel in the dirt. “I’m not interested in your opinion on what I do.”

  He laughed. “Of course not. It’s all Sawyer, Sawyer, Sawyer. What a dumb name.” He got back to his knees across from me. Too close. “He sounds like a hick.”

  I refused to engage with him, though his comment made my blood boil. I hoped he couldn’t tell.

  “If you change your mind,” he went on, “you can ditch the loser and team up with me, I’ll make it sound like we made the discovery together. We can both be famous.”

  “I don’t want fame.”

  “You want money, don’t you? I can’t imagine that Ranger makes a salary worth much.”

  “Don’t care about that, either.”

  “How noble of you. Content to be a poor girl all her life. Wait, don’t tell me. You’re going to Harvard purely on scholarships, aren’t you?”

  I tightened my jaw and refused to look at him.

  “That’s a shame,” he went on. “You could’ve had it all: a good-looking man with tons of money to buy you anything you want and take you anywhere you want to go. You’d be like royalty.”

  “I have no need for any of that. That’s not what I want out of life.”

  “That’s what you think because you haven’t experienced it. But once you taste it, there’s nothing else like it.”

  I hoped Sawyer would hurry back. Somehow, his presence alone kept Julian silent. Now that Julian had something to talk about again, another bargaining tool to use against me, he was back to his old prideful self.

  12

  Sawyer

  When my tour ended and I’d answered all the questions from the couple I had taken, I headed back to the dig site. “Y’all sure have made a lot of progress,” I noted.

  “I’ve alerted the media,” Julian informed me. “They’ll be coming to take photos and interview me. They may have questions about the park.”

  I nodded. Great. What a circus this is going to become. Especially if it was a dinosaur.

  “Do we know what it is yet?” I asked.

  “I believe it’s a new species, actually,” Julian said. “I can’t find anything that matches any known species.”

  I looked over the bones carefully, trying to place things together and visualize the animal. I didn’t reckon it was a dinosaur. Something was off about it, though. I squinted and looked, and then I saw it.

  Once my brain solved the puzzle, I could see the rest more easily, too. It all became clear to me.

  “It actually looks like two animals,” I advised. “Not one big one.”

  “How can you think that?” Julian scoffed. “Like you would know anyway.”

  But Madelyn stood up and looked with me. I pointed out to her where I saw two sets of legs rather than one and how the other legs looked like wings, but weren’t. Anyone who knew anything about a flying creature knew that wing bones had to be thin and light.

  “Oh look,” Madelyn said. “There are the two pelvic bones. No animal, dinosaur or otherwise, has two pelvic bones.”

  “What?” Julian snapped and walked to our side of the fossil. “Where?”

  I pointed it out to him. He glared and fumed for a full minute before finally storming off, back to where he’d been working. But now he slammed his tools together loudly as he shoved them into his tool bag.

  “It’s still an important discovery,” Madelyn said.

  “And it still needs to be fully excavated,” I added. “The media will still take photos and want to talk to you.”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  And as he closed his tool bag, the first van pulled up. Then another. Each had a giant logo on the side, one from each of the news outlets in this part of Texas.

  Julian’s face turned beet red as he went to talk to them. I chuckled and looked at Madelyn.

  “Nice find,” she said. “And even better timing. He should be grateful, really. What if he’d claimed it was a dinosaur on the news, and then found it out wasn’t? You saved his ass.”

  “Well, darn.”

  We both laughed.

  “I guess they will want to talk to you,” she added.

  “And you.”

  We walked over to where Julian now faced a reporter just feet from the camera pointed at them. We could hear the interview perfectly from where we stood.

  “Can you explain to us what you found here today?” the reporter asked, shoving a microphone to Julian’s mouth.

  “We haven’t identified the species yet, but it appears to be two animals. It’s possible they died together trying to kill one another.”

  “But that’s not what you originally thought, was it?”

  “Well, no.” His face reddened further and he rubbed the back of his neck.

  I held back my laughter as I listened to him try to cover his mistake.

  “At first, the skeleton seemed to be just one animal, and a large one,” he said. He looked over to Madelyn and said, “My colleague mistakenly thought it was a dinosaur, and I’ll admit, the excitement made me
want to believe it, too.”

  The rage was instant in my chest. I’ve had enough of this bullshit. I stormed over and stood directly in front of Julian. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, ma’am,” I said to the reporter, “but unfortunately, Julian here has gotten things a little mixed up. You see, he was the one who claimed he found a dinosaur and would become famous for his discovery. Madelyn, his lovely colleague, assisted him in uncovering the fossil and was the one who pointed out that there were two pelvic bones, which indicated two animals.”

  “I see.” The reporter smiled and turned back to the camera. “Whatever these bones turn out to be, one thing is clear. We’ve dug up a bit of drama along with this fossil. Stay tuned for more and your first look at the fossil.”

  When the camera man said, “We’re out,” the reporter turned to me, shook my hand, and grinned.

  “That was great,” she said. “Next time, get in his face, though. If viewers think there will be a fight, they’ll get other people to tune in.”

  “I’m not fixin’ to start anything,” I said. “I just wanted the truth to be known. Madelyn doesn’t deserve to be blamed for his mistake.”

  The reporter turned to Madelyn next. “Hello, there. Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

  I turned my attention to them, wanting to hear Madelyn’s answers, but Julian had another idea in mind.

  “Asshole,” he growled under his breath. “You will pay for that little stunt.”

  I turned to face him. The few extra inches I had over him allowed me to peer down a bit to make him look up at me. A nice power move. I poked his shoulder hard. “You’re lucky that’s all I did. How dare you try to blame Madelyn like that? You’re nothing but an arrogant prick who only cares about himself.”

  “I’m the prick? Who’s the one trying to start a fight?”

  “I’m not starting anything with you. It’s not worth it.” I turned to walk away and saw that a camera had been pointed on us while we argued. I’d have to talk to my supervisor before it aired and make sure he knew the real story.

  13

  Madelyn

  In the weeks after Julian’s discovery, things had died down—especially after it was determined that the bones belonged to two deer who had apparently gotten themselves twisted together somehow. It was a bizarre arrangement, but our professors had confirmed the bones most definitely were not those of a dinosaur.

  Julian was pissed and had worked no less at trying to find something more, and I ramped up my efforts as well. I needed to find something. It’d been two months now and I hadn’t found as much as a piece of debris. I’d chosen the spot because it practically guaranteed I’d make a discovery there. The land of Big Bend was so rich in fossils, there had to be hundreds beneath the park’s surface alone. Since my specific thesis depended on real-life research methods and fossil finding, I’d been approved for the location, which was highly coveted. Julian had probably paid his way in.

  But the fact that I still hadn’t found anything had me stressed to the point of keeping me up at night. My paper was so far behind, it looked like I was in real danger of missing my deadline. The panic was starting to get hot in my chest. I had to focus better on school. But the problem was, over the last two months, my feelings for Sawyer had only intensified. I wanted to spend even more time with him now than I had at the beginning.

  I tried to work with him once. We’d gone to a coffee shop and he read while I wrote. That worked out alright, but when we tried the same at my hotel or his house, we just ended up making out. And the coffee shops in Marathon didn’t stay open late, so we were limited there.

  The night before, I’d gone straight home after leaving the dig and had worked until the wee hours of the morning. I even took my laptop down to the hotel’s restaurant and plugged away while I ate by myself. After hours of staring at the screen and staying up far too late, I’d barely put a dent in what needed to be done. I was beating myself up for it, too. I felt like I was blowing my whole career and education.

  The next day, sweat rolled down my temples as I dug my shovel into the dirt harder. Leigh was happy for me, of course. She’d wanted me to follow my heart, and spending as much time with Sawyer as I had was in alignment with her hopeless romantic notions. Sawyer said his family was happy for him and excited to meet me. I’d put off meeting them, however. He’d asked several times now, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Sleeping with him had taken things far enough.

  “Where’s the fire?”

  “What?” I squinted up at Sawyer.

  He chuckled and handed me a bottle of water. I took it gratefully and chugged it down. “Thanks. I needed that.”

  “You’re digging like crazy. What’s the hurry?”

  “I just need to find something. I can’t believe I’ve uncovered nothing after all these weeks.”

  He put his hand to my cheek briefly. “You’ll find something. There’s still time.”

  “Not much.”

  “Enough.” He pulled his mouth into a half smile.

  My knees went weak and my mouth dry. I wanted to sink into his arms and have every ounce of stress dissipate from my body.

  “I know what will take your mind off it. Tonight?”

  The glint in his eye almost pulled a yes from my lips. “I really have to work on my paper again. I’m so far behind, and the stress of it all is starting to keep me up at night; I have so little done.”

  “Oh.” His eyebrows pulled down. “I didn’t mean to add to your stress. I’m sorry. I just have such a good time being with you.”

  “I know, and I do, too. That’s why I’ve gone out with you so much instead of staying back at the hotel to work. But it’s catching up with me. I only have a few weeks left here, and at this rate, I won’t finish on time.”

  “Anything I can do to help you?”

  I gave him an apologetic smile. “Just be understanding? I don’t want to be thinking of my paper the whole time I’m with you, either. I want to enjoy my time with you.”

  “Will do. Why don’t I bring you supper?”

  “Not tonight. I’m going to eat in the hotel again while I work. At this point, I wonder if I should sacrifice some digging hours to write each day.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “I know, but that’s how behind I am,” I admitted.

  He pulled me into his arms, and I almost started to cry. It felt so good to be held by him. So comforting and safe.

  “I’ll go on and get out of your way,” Sawyer said. “You know how to reach me if you need anything at all.”

  “Thank you.” I wiped a stray tear. “Just let me work a few nights and get a little caught up. When I don’t feel so panicky about it, I can go back to having more nights out.”

  “I look forward to that.”

  He went to check on Julian, and I got back to work. I hated what I’d just said; it hurt to tell him we couldn’t spend as much time together. But the looming end of the semester had me heartsick, too. I still couldn’t picture living anywhere but New England, and the time to return there was coming fast. My chest ached imagining what it would be like to say goodbye to Sawyer.

  I worked for hours, lost in my thoughts. The day had grown late and the sun dipped lower and lower in the sky. It was almost time to call it quits; I just had one patch to finish up and then I’d shift into thesis mode. Plunging my shovel into the earth one last time, I noticed something different.

  I hurriedly pushed the dirt away and grabbed my brush. As I dusted off the remaining bits of sandy soil, there it was: I was staring right at a bone. My chest heaved and I could hear my heartbeat as adrenaline sent blood rushing to my head. I took several breaths to calm myself.

  I had to keep going now. I had to see what this was, so I picked and brushed furiously. When enough had been uncovered to know was a real find, I grabbed the walkie.

  “Sawyer!” I’d forgotten all about walkie protocol. “I found something!”

  “On my way!”

  I�
��d also forgotten that Julian had a walkie and had heard what I said. They both showed up at the same time.

  I smiled down at my find while they both looked it over.

  “Not a dinosaur,” Julian confirmed.

  “I never thought it was,” I agreed.

  “It does look like a large animal,” Sawyer said.

  I nodded. “I’m eager to uncover it more and see what we have. Don’t call the media, though. I want to know what it is before we tell anyone.”

  “Sure thing,” Sawyer said.

  Julian shot me a glare, but I ignored him. “Well, find number two. Let’s get to it!”

  Just like with Julian’s find, we both worked to uncover each bone. Sawyer watched and assisted where needed for a while before he was called back to the Ranger station.

  The whole picture of the fossil had started to come together. I stood back a ways, inspecting it from several feet to get a different perspective. But when I did, I realized what I’d found and froze in place. Fear, cold and prickly, surged through me. I have to hide this. Cover it up somehow.

  I felt my face go pale, recognizing it as the skeleton of a shifter, captured mid-transition.

  The bones showed a partial man. Human legs and feet stuck out from the upper half of a bear. If you didn’t know any better, someone might think the bear had swallowed the human whole. I could see where the partially-morphed bones looked distorted. Some had bent at strange angles while others had elongated to support the new form.

  I didn’t know any bear shifters, but from what I knew of shifters in general, the change tended to start either at the head and work its way down the body, or from the back to the front in one swoop. Each had his or her own shifting style. The whole process had always fascinated me, and I’d done some private research on shifter origins in the past.

  The resources were hard to find. Even more difficult was the ability to decipher what was fact from folklore. But based on the information passed down by my family, I’d put together modest notes on the history of shifters. Since the general population wasn’t aware that shifters existed, this would be a treasured rare find, indeed. I took several photos, but saved them in an encrypted folder on my phone. I didn’t want anyone seeing these, but I had to have some kind of documentation of my discovery.