Firefighter Bear (Silvertip Shifters Book 6)

by J. K Harper

  Everly made herself smile as she went over and sat down beside Nita. Nita really was her friend; she knew that. Nita was a badger shifter, another shifter type often looked down upon in some communities. She'd never actually been shunned, having grown up in the very accepting and open-minded town of Deep Hollow, but she and Ever had recognized kindred souls in one another from the start and became fast friends. All through high school it was always the two of them, and of course Jacob, Tobias, and Slade.

  When life just blew up after Jacob vanished, everyone had spiraled apart. Everly stopped reaching out to Nita, Tobias shut himself up into his quiet, angry shell, and Slade…well. Thinking about Slade right now would push her over the limit. She had to think about something else. Anything else.

  “Dirty joke, right.” She gulped her beer as everyone looked at her expectantly. Did she even know any dirty jokes? She wasn't sure. Taking a deep breath, she opened her mouth, then jumped a mile as the swinging doors to the little back room they sat in crashed open and the biggest, baddest, sexiest bear shifter in Deep Hollow strode in.

  Slade. Holy shit, it was the sexy storm of Slade, blowing into the room and scattering her thoughts into space. She blinked at him. He strode up to her, his dark eyes focused just on her, ripped muscles bulging through his jeans and showing under his T-shirt, his movements bold and big like the enormous grizzly bear shifter he was.

  Everly almost choked on her beer, staring riveted at him as he came directly up to her. He didn't even seem to notice any of the others in the room. He stopped about two feet away from her, careful not to loom. She just stared up at him, knowing her jaw was slack, seeing out of the corners of her eyes that the mouths of just about everyone else in the now dead-silent room were open too.

  Slade took a deep breath, then exhaled. His nose was crooked, bruises showed on his face and arms, a rapidly healing cut sliced obvious and ugly on one forearm. He didn't seem to notice any of that, though. Instead, he opened his mouth and said the last words she would have expected.

  "Everly Vos, I owe you one damn big apology. I'm here to say it right now. I've been a chickenshit douche canoe to you, and I'm sorry about it."

  4

  Slade figured he ought to be shaking in his shoes, doing what he was doing. Just going right up to Ever in the middle of her suddenly silent gaggle of girlfriends to flat out apologize like that was nuts, but fuck it. He'd thought about it all on the long drive back home from the fight ring down in Durango. The more he thought about it, the more he realized Cortez was right. Slade had shied away from Ever for way too long now. Sure, she deserved a lot more from him than he'd be able to give her.

  But right now, for some damned reason, he felt like he needed to try. This fire season had been busy and he and the hotshot crew might be called out again at any moment, plus winning the fight last night had given him a confidence boost he now realized he'd needed. He wasn't sure if maybe she was going to kill him or not, depending on whatever Jacob said in his letter, but no matter what, it was time Slade Walker manned up—his bear harrumphed deep inside him at that—and just tell her he was sorry for having basically abandoned her for the last two years.

  Everly stared up at him, blinking her eyes like he was a mirage and she thought he'd disappear any second. Ah, hell, why did she have to be so pretty? So nice? So damned Everly?

  He took a deep breath, ready to launch into a more intricate apology, when she opened her pretty little mouth and simply said, "Okay. I accept your apology. It was pretty good, though I don't think you're a douche canoe. That's kind of a bit much, don't you think?”

  Slade furrowed his brow. She was talking an awful lot, which wasn't like her. At least, it wasn't like the Everly he'd always known.

  “I mean, I don't even know exactly what you're apologizing for.” She screwed up her forehead, making the most adorable little wrinkles form above her eyes. “Oh, wait. Is it for giving me the letter from Jacob? Oops," she added fast, clapping her hand over her mouth and looking at all her friends. “I wasn't going to talk about that. Dang.” She hiccuped, then blinked again.

  Shocked gasps came from the fascinated group of shifter women watching them like they were the night's entertainment. Ever gave a nervous little grin as she looked at Nita sitting next to her, whose jaw had dropped, then everyone else in the little back room of the coffee and beer bar.

  “Well. Yeah,” Ever said softly, dropping her hand from her mouth, letting her gaze touch on everyone else in the room as they stared at her. “Yeah, Slade found a letter from Jacob. To me.” Ever waved an arm about somewhat grandly. “He came and gave it to me last night. I'm not telling anyone what's in it, but that's why I've been drinking too much tonight and not talking much and oh my gosh, beer is not my friend.” She frowned at her beer mug, then looked back up at Slade. “So is that why you're here apologizing to me, Slade? The letter?"”

  Her gaze had come back to settle on Slade again. It was firm, but her eyes looked somewhat unfocused. Yeah, she'd been drinking all right. Ever wasn't a drinker and never had been. She'd been a total lightweight back in high school when they all used to sneak grown-up beverages. Beer definitely was not her friend. Cute little lightweight.

  Ah, shit. It was whatever was in Jacob's letter that had driven her to drink. Double shit. Maybe she thought he'd known about it all along and had just given it to her now? Suddenly alarmed at the thought that hadn't occurred to him before right then, he blurted out, “Ever, I swear I just found it yesterday morning. I really didn't know about it. I—”

  She held up a hand. “Stop. I believe you. You've never once lied to me.”

  Slade felt a wave of secret shame flood into his body. Not that she knew of, no.

  “Okay,” Pix finally piped up from the other side of the room. “Who's Jacob? What letter? I'm so out of the loop, I have no idea what's going on.”

  Haley and Marisa looked just as mystified. All three of them were new enough to Deep Hollow that probably no one had told them about the deep loss the Vos fox shifter family had experienced. There was an uncomfortable silence.

  "Oops. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to step in anything." Pix cast an apologetic glance toward Everly. "Ignore me. I've already had a little too much to drink tonight too."

  Everly shrugged, throwing her hands up in the air in a dramatic, slightly wobbly fashion. Damn. Slade hadn't seen her for several months now, and he hadn't seen her drinking for many years. She was a little theatrical when she drank. His bear huffed inside him as Slade remembered the last time he'd seen her. Valentine's Day, at a guest event held by his family's Silvertip Lodge farther up the mountain. She been dancing with some huge shifter he didn't know. Probably a lodge guest, but it hadn't stopped Slade from glaring at them while they danced. He winced at the slightly uncomfortable memory of being an asshat that night. He'd felt alternately stalker-ish for watching them and angrily confused at his anger to see her dancing with some random guy. He slipped away from the dance, not having danced with anyone himself, and went back to his cabin on the property feeling like a cretin.

  He and Everly didn't have anything between them. She could dance with whomever she wanted to. Even so, like an idiot he'd stewed about it ever since, just like he stewed about a lot of other things. The fight last night, finding Jacob's letter, seeing her at The Tank, and Cortez's well-meaning but sharp words had apparently finally made everything click inside.

  Cute little fox shifter Everly Vos wasn't leaving his thoughts anytime soon, damn it. And while it was possible he'd fucked up everything that could possibly happen between them, he at least had to apologize for being an ass. He owed her that much.

  "Jacob is my brother,” Everly said to Pix and the others. “I've got two brothers, Jacob and Tobias. Tobias is the older one. He's behind the scenes at The Tank, he handles the accounting and the ordering and all that stuff. Jacob—” She paused for a brief moment, her lips suddenly tight.

  Slade felt his heart lurch as the expression on her face shifted to a
snap of bright pain before it went back to the alcohol-softened blankness she'd clearly wanted to find tonight.

  "Jacob just up and disappeared a couple years ago. Vanished off the face of the earth. We never found out what happened to him. He probably died," she said softly, so softly that if the others in the room hadn't been shifters with shifter hearing, none of them would've been able to hear her.

  Slade glanced at Haley and Pix. Their eyes were wide, their faces draped in shock and sadness. Marisa's face was deeply compassionate. She'd had her own worry over a brother. She understood. Haley started to open her mouth, but Everly kept talking.

  "Anyway, that's who Jacob is. So Slade showed up at The Tank the other night with a letter for me from Jacob. He just found it. He gave it to me, and I read it, and that's why I'm here with you guys tonight. Drinking like a dipshit because I just got a letter from my missing brother, and now apparently Slade is going to apologize to me for something. But I don't know what?"

  She finally looked back at Slade. Her soft, pretty hazel eyes seemed like she could see deep into his soul. Those pink lips, small and pretty and perfect, were suddenly tense and sad. A wisp of her red hair snaked over one cheek. Slade wanted to reach out and tuck it back, but he didn't dare move just yet. Then she blinked, her eyes going slowly unfocused again. Suddenly she hiccuped, immediately afterward clapping her hand over her mouth again and looking embarrassed.

  Slade made up his mind in a split second. "Ev, I'm gonna walk you home. That be okay with you?"

  No one else moved or spoke. It seem like the entire room collectively held its breath as everyone waited for her answer. She lifted her eyes to his, her look zinging right into his soul. He felt a shiver tiptoe down his back.

  Quickly, as if doing it before she could change her mind, she nodded. "Yes, Slade. Please. Walk me home, big bear."

  His heart leapt into his throat as she used her old nickname for him. Damn, girl was drunk. He was damn well going to make sure she got home safe and sound. “Come on,” he said, finally walking closer and gently taking her arm. “I've got you, little fox.”

  She looked at him, her eyes as trusting as they'd always been with him. “I know,” she whispered, making shock and hope, fucking hope, rocket through his body.

  Everly. His Everly, damn it.

  He couldn't let her down again.

  5

  Everly ignored the looks from her friends as she got up to leave with Slade. She grandly, maybe too drunk-grandly, said thank you and good night to them, then turned and almost marched right into the kitchen of the Draft 'N Brew instead of toward the door that led outside. Whoops. Silly her. She giggled.

  “This way, Ever,” Slade gently corrected her, the touch of his hand on her arm sending excited shivers darting up and down her body. Uh-oh, trouble. Trouble, trouble, trouble.

  Delicious trouble. Maybe she should get drunk more often. Hmm, that was a thought.

  She tripped on the curb and whacked her foot into the cement. Ow! Nope, scratch that. Right. Being drunk had never been her style. She was a silly, bad, dorky drunk. Holy cannoli, she was drunk. Off a beer and a half. Little lightweight, like Slade always used to call her.

  Slade. Right next to her, right now. Big, strong, so sexy it made her skin tingle and her insides feel all delicious. Just like in her naughty dreams.

  Her fox purred.

  Oops, no! Not like all her naughty dreams. She couldn't tell him about those dreams. He’d think she was a complete nut job and then truly never want to be her friend again. Danger, Will Robinson, danger. She had to think about something else. Quick.

  “Um, thanks for walking me home.” There. She managed to say it without sounding too drunk-y. She had this.

  Slade shot a quick smile at her, easily navigating the two of them through the crowds on the sidewalk. “Thanks for letting me,” he returned. The smile that had been missing from his face when he walked into Draft 'N Brew was back.

  Oh, sexy smile. Dang it. Even if she had to wonder why sexy, strong, protective Slade was walking with her right now, Slade, whose presence heated her body and spun her brain into confused thoughts, she could sure enjoy that smile.

  His big, steady hand stayed on her back. Oh, maybe trouble. She liked feeling it there. Her big bear. She always used to call him big bear, and he always used to call her little fox.

  They moved out onto Main Street and walked through small throngs of happy summertime tourists, shifter and human alike, who likewise strolled the cute little place. Deep Hollow was a picture-perfect mountain town, filled with adorable cabins, storefronts that drew people in with their unique wares, an inviting Main Street with pretty lampposts and comfortable benches to sit on and a homeyness that drew small crowds of tourists here each season of the year. The mountains scented the air with the clean, fresh smell of pine trees and wildness and a clarity that cities lacked.

  Everly smiled with contentment at the whole scene. Deep Hollow had been her home since her family had moved here when she was a teenager, and she truly loved it. This place had welcomed her in a way that felt genuinely accepting like she'd never before experienced. Yes, Deep Hollow was her home, now and always.

  Almost subconsciously, she reached up to her neck to feel for her favorite necklace. She knew she wouldn't find it even before she reached, but it was a habit by now. Her beautiful necklace filled with fox fire. An imperial topaz, the stone was called, but she'd always called it fox fire for its shimmery orange-red color and the way it seemed to ignite the inner fire of her fox. Hung on a slim, beautiful silver chain and placed into a simple yet elegant silver pendant setting, she would sometimes stare deep into it, convinced she could see all the powerful, fiery wisdom of her fox reflected in its softly glittering facets.

  Her mom had given it to her as soon as she was old enough not to try to eat it or choke on it, and she'd worn it every day for years. Every day until about a month before she and her family finally left their hometown, a snooty place filled with nasty shifter bigots. One of the shifters who'd relentlessly made her life awful just flat out stole it. Everly saw her do it, saw her scoop it up out of Everly's locker as she'd come back in from gym class, during which she always removed her necklace in case it got inadvertently yanked off her neck during whatever activity they did that day. Everly saw her, one of the horrible Tarben grizzly bear shifter clan members. So did every other girl in the locker room. The Tarben bitch—her fox growled inside her at the ancient memory of the event—didn't even bother looking at Everly, since she'd been shunning the entire Vos family for years by then. Instead, she gave one of her equally nasty friends a superior smile, saying, “This looks way better on me than it does on trashy shifters, don't you think? I think so. It's mine now.”

  Everly hadn't dared say a word. No one else in the room that day had either, though plenty of them were strong shifter types, like bears, or wolves, or lions, who could have stood up to the thieving Tarben girl. But none of them did. Everly never saw her beloved necklace again—except around the neck of the hateful, hate-filled girl who'd taken it. Each time she saw it, she later cried in secret, sobs wracking her body so hard her chest would hurt. She told her mom she'd lost it while out playing, but she knew her mom saw in her averted eyes the truth she wouldn't speak out loud.

  It wasn't long after that incident that her parents uprooted her, Tobias, and Jacob from their bullied lives in that little town and moved them a few states over to tiny, supremely welcoming Deep Hollow. Deep Hollow, where a hot, flirty, genuinely nice and fun boy she'd met during the first week of school had so quickly become her friend. Slade proved to her he was someone she truly could trust, even though he also was a grizzly shifter. She'd eventually confided in him all the ugliness of her growing up years. She told him about her necklace, describing it to him before tears suddenly clogged up her throat. He was so angry about how badly the theft had hurt Everly that he wanted to drive all the way to her old town, find that girl, and take back Everly's necklace. But Everly told
him it was too late, it was gone, and she never wanted to think about it again. Then Slade had said something to her so earnestly, so filled with genuine conviction, she'd never forgotten it. “You know what, Ever? You're right. You still have your fox fire inside you. I can see it. You don't need a necklace to still have that.”

  Now, she glanced sidelong at Slade as he walked beside her through town. A smile pulled up her lips. That had been the night she'd really fallen for Slade Walker. She'd never unfallen, either.

  Despite the fact it was warm enough to be in shirt sleeves, she shivered as a little breeze kicked up and skittered across her bare skin. Slade frowned. “You always get cold so easily. How is that possible? Ya little weather wimp,” he teased, his smile busting through his words. Teasing her, just like he always used to all the many years they'd been friends.

  It felt really nice.

  Playfully affronted, she flounced ahead of him. Of course she stumbled. He caught her again. This time, she let him hold her arm as they walk. “I'm not a weather wimp. I'm just delicate,” she finally said, holding her chin up in the air. Delicate, and still freaking tipsy.

  Slade made her feel—looser. Relaxed, and maybe even happy. He also still made her body feel really warm, from where he held her arm to just—everywhere. Hoo, boy. Trouble.

  They walked by The Tank and Everly hurried up her footsteps. She didn't want to risk Tobias seeing her with Slade through the window and come roaring out at him. Not now. Not in this precious, unexpected moment alone with her big bear.

  “Here, Ever.” Slade turned her down a little cement ramp that led to the pathway beside Silvertip Creek, which ran right through the heart of Deep Hollow. The walked alongside the gurgle of the creek for just a minute before crossing over one of the little bridges to the other side, where Everly's rental house snuggled into a quiet neighborhood.