Bearly Living: Foxhollow Den #1 (Alaskan Den Men) (6 page)

∞∞∞

Bobbie stayed in constant awe of her cousin’s tracking abilities as they prowled their way through the trees and high brush. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a bear-spirit badass?”

“Children are taught the ways of the bear up here. This is normal for us.”

“And you didn’t say anything the entire time I’ve been complaining to you about being a bear?”

Samantha faced her and crinkled her nose. “We’ve both got issues and were going to focus on the donuts, remember?”

Men’s voices filtered through the trees. Samantha held a finger to her lips and waved Bobbie forward.

At the edge of the trees they stooped and high crawled behind a cluster of bushes. Bobbie could see a large four-door truck with a white horse trailer hooked to the bumper. Two men loaded a ridiculously sized crate into the back. A naked, very human Grant was hunched over inside. She assumed Ray was already in a similar cage on the truck. The nakedness meant they’d been in bear form before being captured.

Bobbie gripped Samantha’s arm. “This is bad. Very bad.”

“We need to take action now.” Samantha nodded at me. “Here’s the down and dirty plan. Take your clothes off and run naked through the field.”

“This is your idea of nothing crazy or risky? Are you insane?” Bobbie asked.

“We don’t have time to call for reinforcements. What if they get away? The poachers’ brains will literally shut off at the distraction and we’ll get the drop on them. They’ll be confused for days. We just have to get the guys out, and they can take care of the rest.”

“I’ll admit this isn’t one of your better plans, but I agree we may not have time for anything else. Still, you have to be the distraction.”

“Why me?” Samantha lost some of her whisper voice.

“Because your boobs are bigger and jiggle more when you bounce. Added to the fact that you can shift at will and run back to the cabin before they can catch you, you’re better suited to be the bait.”

Samantha huffed. “Fine. I’ll be the distraction, but you are so going to owe me for this.”

“I know. But one of us has to get close enough to open those cages, and I think you’ll be in less danger if you’re across the field.” This plan was stupider than anything Bobbie had ever done in her life, but she’d be damned if she’d let those bastards get away with putting Grant in a cage like an animal.

“But I’ll be naked across the field,” Samantha said.

“Topless mostly. No need to give them the works. Just remember to jiggle and giggle.”

“I hate you.” Samantha tip-toed across the tree line and stationed herself within sight at the far end of the field.

Bobbie sniffed the air and focused hard on the foul-smelling trappers who captured the two men. She sniffed again. The scents of three poachers, two shifters, and a true bear permeated the air around them. Two of the trappers were loading the trailer, and one was in the bushes. The scent of urine increased.
Gross
.

As soon as the stray poacher joined his friends, Bobbie gave Samantha the signal.

The entire situation was full of danger, but that didn’t stop Bobbie from having an initial giggle at Samantha skipping into the open field completely naked except for her boots. She’d meant for her cousin to keep her bra and pants on, but Samantha had discarded every piece of clothing. This distraction would kill brain cells.

Samantha called out to the men loading the truck. “Woo hoo, boys. I wonder if you could help me and all my naked sisters with a little something.” She twisted her hair, did a half jumping jack, and then skipped into the tree line.

The leader of the group told the other two to stay and promised a switch after they had their fun. If Bobbie’s stomach wasn’t already churning, their malicious intent would have been enough to cause an infusion of bile to rise in her throat. Her cousin would shift and be halfway back to the cabin before the men realized they’d been tricked. Now it was Bobbie’s turn to get in close and free the guys.

The two men left behind wouldn’t stop discussing Samantha’s attributes, and the distraction worked to Bobbie’s advantage as she snuck up behind the truck with the trailer. Just like the hide-and-seek excursion, she closed her eyes and felt her surroundings. The rifles slung on their backs. One of the men lighting a cigarette. Grant’s even breathing, calm but angry. She rolled under the trailer and pressed her back against the ground. The two men wandered around the far end, and she rolled onto her stomach little by little until she came to the edge.

She needed to be fast. Faster than she’d ever been in her life. After a deep breath meant to fortify, she pulled herself free from beneath the trailer and jumped into the back of the truck. Fear turned to sinking despair. All three cages were secured with a padlock.

Grant edged toward her, and they grasped fingers through the cage. His eyes flecked gold.

“I don’t know what to do next,” she whispered.

“The locks are rusted. You need to pull on the lock and shift. Your bear strength and human grip can break the lock. I’d do it, but I can’t get a grip through this cage.”

“I can’t shift at will. I don’t feel any of the anger from before that pushed me out of control. I don’t know what to do.”

“You watched me at the pond. You are built to do the same. Focus. Try. For me.”

She focused hard on that feeling in her gut she hated. The feeling she always avoided and dreaded. That ball of inner bear just below the surface. She imagined it now growing inside of her to a point she’d lose all control. If she lost control, she’d be in a matching cage beside Grant. The worry slowed her progress, so she shut it out. All she allowed was the focus of shifting, but not into a complete shift. Saving Grant.

The rusted lock snapped, and she let out a guttural grunt of satisfaction. Grant ran his hand over the fur on her half-shifted arm before pushing out of his cage to shift away the lock on his Ray’s cage.

“Now, shift all the way, and get the hell out of here. We’ll meet you at the cabin.”

“What about the injured true bear?” she asked.

“Her leg got caught in a trap. I don’t think she can run.”

All three tore out of the back of the trailer in their fully shifted bear form. The fourth true bear was too injured to join them, so she’d been left in her cage. Grant and his brother wouldn’t leave the bear for long. Bobbie headed toward the woods to rendezvous at the cabin but stopped at the tree line to make sure Grant and Ray didn’t get shot. The stark realization that she was in total control of her bear-self empowered her.

A simple swack from Grant to the heads of the two surprised trappers had both men flat on their faces in the grass. Grant and Ray shifted back to human. Grant fished around the pockets of both men until he came up with a set of keys. When he started the truck with the last cage still inside, Bobbie felt confident enough to run full speed to Grant’s cabin. As a bear. In control.
So this is what it should feel like
.

“That was more excitement than my life needed,” Samantha said. Since her clothes had been left out in the woods, she’d been forced to ransack Grant’s closet. Plaid flannel didn’t look bad on her, but the camo pants hung loose on her waist.

Bobbie’s own clothes had been ripped in the shift. She slipped into a pair of boxers and a camo T-shirt. “You were great. The guys are on the way with the truck. I didn’t smell anyone nearby, but we need to be on alert.”

“I think you’ve officially gotten in touch with your bear side. Impressive.”

“Don’t tell Grant that. It’ll only inflate his ego.”

Samantha moved to the window. “They’re here.”

Grant was the first through the door. “Don’t tell me what?”

The distance between them closed in seconds, and Bobbie clung to his naked body. “I was so worried.”

He nuzzled her neck and kissed her cheek. “I like having someone worry about me.”

“I like having someone to worry about.”

Ray walked in close behind Grant. His hands covered his male parts, and his cheeks were a hint of hot pink. He nodded at Samantha as he walked by with his back to the wall. “Whatever the issues between you and our sister, all I can say is thank you for coming to our rescue.”

Samantha’s cheeks pinked to match Ray’s, and her gaze dropped to the hardwood floor. “You’re welcome.”

“What did those men want with you?” Bobbie asked. She didn’t want to let go, but she knew he needed to put some clothes on at some point.

“Hides. Fighting. Black market delicacies. Even they couldn’t make up their minds about what they were going to do with us,” he said. “They were literally idiots, yet somehow we let them get the drop on us. Once they shot us with the tranq guns, we turned back human.”

“What’s going to happen now?” Samantha settled into the nearest overstuffed chair and rubbed her temples.

“Now we turn their truck and guns over to the authorities. Ray and I took some pics before we shifted and got ambushed, so we have enough to I.D. them. They’re lucky we’re the shifter family they crossed this time. I know families in other regions who would’ve killed them. The true bear will have to go to a wildlife rehab center for her leg.”

Ray bounded back into the room. “I’ve got to get home. Kristin is going to kill me.”

“I’ll drive you back,” Samantha offered.

Ray ducked his head. “We’re never going to live down being rescued by a couple of Taylors.”

“Maybe this is the olive branch needed to heal things between the families.” Bobbie still hesitated toward getting involved, but someone needed to state the obvious.

Grant kissed her on the forehead. “What’s important right now is that we’re all safe.”

Samantha and Ray nodded in agreement and walked solemnly out the door.

Grant kissed her on the neck and stayed there to nuzzle. “You were amazing. As a human and as a bear.”

She pressed into his body, drinking his warmth. “I want to believe the inner bear and my outer human can coexist. I was wrong about something.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“It’s not the sex that keeps the bear at bay. I felt more at ease from the moment I met you. It’s you. Your patience. Your kindness. Your unfaltering loyalty to every person and animal around you. How I think about you when you aren’t around.”

He pulled her close and grabbed handfuls of her butt. “You mean, like a soulmate?”

With all the pent-up anxiety, Bobbie didn’t know how she was able to smile. That’s what he did to her. “I don’t know if you’re going to get me to say that word. It’s only been a few days.”

“How about another deal? Stay with me the rest of the summer. Work with me on your bear when you aren’t baking spectacular donuts, and let me pleasure you at night.”

“And?” she asked.

“And see if that’s enough for you. At the end of summer if you still want to leave, I’ll let you go.”

∞∞∞

Three weeks after the incident and the summer proposal, Grant realized he had a problem with patience. There was no way he’d let Bobbie leave at the end of summer or any other time, and he had to take steps to make sure of it. He tapped over his right pocket where he’d stashed the gift for Bobbie he’d purchased down in Fairbanks. He strolled into the hardware store and for the first time didn’t have an ounce of irritation at the rearrangement of the same old things. Instead of his usual grumbles to his brother, he straightened a few boxes of nails on the counter.

Ray nodded at him from a corner where he stacked the entire stock of toolboxes in an odd symmetrical statue reaching shoulder high. “You’re the talk of the shifters up here.”

“Are you and Kristin gossiping again?” If gossip passed quickly in small towns, it passed with jackrabbit speed amongst shifting communities.

“It’s a good thing, lil’ bro. There are some other shifters who need to get in touch with their inner animals, and it appears you have the magic touch. They want to hire you.”

“So you have been gossiping. Bobbie and I are supposed to be a secret.”

“There are no secrets in Foxhollow, Alaska. Anyway, I didn’t think you’d be interested. After all the excitement with tending to the property and eating three dozen donuts a day, how would you even find the time?”

Grant glanced out the front window towards Bobbie’s café. A steady stream of customers walked out with white boxes full of what he knew to be the best donuts in Alaska. He returned his attention to his brother. “So it’s reverse psychology today?”

“I’m practicing for the twins.”

“I’m glad The Hideaway can provide a safe place. I’ll talk it over with Bobbie. See what she thinks.”

“Cotton candy.” Ray’s shoulders shook with laughter.

Grant growled. “Stop talking.”

“Are you going to ask her to stay past the summer? If so, you might want to drop the bomb on Mom and Dad. They know you’re cheerier than usual these past couple of weeks, but I swear they’re the only people in town who don’t know you’ve been dipping your toes in the Taylor pond. Better they hear it from you.”

His dad would bellyache about family loyalties, and his mom would need another vacation, but Ray was right for a change. “I think I need a donut.”

Grant didn’t hurry the short walk to the donut café. He found the back door unlocked and Bobbie inside the kitchen dipping batter into a several donut pans. Samantha’s voice echoed from the front dining area near the cash register. Knowing he only had a few moments to himself, he kissed Bobbie on the back of the neck.

“Got a minute?” he asked.

“Only if you taste my newest creation. Maple syrup with a bacon crunch.”

Bobbie stopped pouring batter long enough to shove half a donut in his mouth. He talked through the donut half. “For the love of God, woman. You’re going to kill me with sugar. You’ve officially made me a donut guy. What are you going to call these?”

“Moose butts.”

Grant shoved another donut half in his mouth and picked up some flyers advertising the donut café. They were certainly professional in quality. The bottom of the design had a credit to B. T. While he chewed, he turned them towards her, asking a silent question.