A Bear's Journey Read online

  Copyright © 2018 by Dakota West

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Shifter Country Bears

  Shifter Country Wolves

  Copper Mesa Eagles

  Contemporary Romance Novels

  EXCERPT: Chapter One of A Bear’s Secret

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  About the Author

  A Bear’s Journey

  Shifter Country Bears, Book Four

  Dakota West

  Chapter One

  Olivia

  Olivia stepped out of the library and into the cool fall air. She stood there for a moment, her eyes closed, she inhaled the perfect scents of autumn: the dead leaves that scattered every yard and pathway in town, the earthy smell of yesterday’s rain, the sharp snap of evergreen that was present year-round but seemed especially pungent this time of year.

  Fall always sent a bolt of panic through her. Winter’s coming, the cold air always said to her. You need to eat more, you need to find a den that’s safe.

  Cascadia was far enough south, in what had once been northern California, that the bears there didn’t so much hibernate as merely sleep more, but even that took preparation. Olivia had a strong yet hazy memory of it: constantly eating, constantly feeling hungry, sleeping fourteen hours a night only for it to still be chilly when she woke, hours past sunrise.

  The door behind her swung open, nearly hitting her , and Olivia moved out of the way, almost tripping over her own feet. A woman walked out and gave Olivia a sour look, her mouth narrowing in disapproval at Olivia’s mere act of standing on the steps of the library.

  “Excuse me,” she said, fixing her eyes straight ahead again.

  “Sorry,” muttered Olivia.

  The woman was the head research librarian, and Olivia watched as she stomped off into the garden behind the library.

  Cranky old bat, she thought. The woman had hair like a dark brown helmet, all dyed so uniformly that there was no doubt it wasn’t her real color. She had watery pale blue eyes behind frameless glasses, and even though Olivia was at least eight inches taller than the older woman, she had a way of looking down her nose at Olivia even as she physically looked up.

  Finally, the sound of her sensible shoes faded away, and Olivia was alone again.

  It was her favorite way to be.

  She slid her sunglasses onto her face, since the day sunny despite the chill in the air, and went off to her favorite bench, lunch in hand. It was hidden in the back of the garden, on a short dead-end path. The rosebushes that usually abutted it had gone dormant already, but the cedar trees that hid it from the main path were evergreens, still lush.

  Olivia sat on the bench, putting her book next to her and her bag lunch on her lap, taking out her first peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. Her stomach growled in approval, and she bit into it.

  Ten years of eating berries, roots, squirrels, and deer really did wonders for a girl’s appreciation of peanut butter.

  Add it to the list, she thought, and made a mental note. Back in her tiny cubicle in the library, she had a very small notebook with one purpose only: so she could write down the things she liked about being human, and access to peanut butter was definitely on that list, along with time with family, indoor plumbing, and marshmallows.

  She finished the first and started on the second sandwich, letting the quiet of the garden settle in around her. Even though her part-time job was to shelve books in a library, a job that involved very little human interaction, sometimes it felt like too much. Time and lots of therapy meant that her first inclination, when annoyed with someone, was no longer to rip their face off, but that didn’t mean she had to like being bothered.

  Olivia finished the second sandwich and took a tart Granny Smith apple from her bag. A week ago, she’d mentioned how much she liked them to her mom, and in response, her mom had called up the nearest apple orchard and gotten them to bring over two bushels of them. Normally they didn’t deliver, but Olivia’s mother knew someone there.

  Mrs. Lessing always knew someone.

  The apple crunched between her teeth, its tartness perfectly complimenting the fall scents in the air surrounding her.

  I should add apple pie to the list, Olivia thought. Though the list is getting a little food-heavy.

  She took another bite. The list was food heavy because it was fall, she knew, her first fall as a human in ten years, and her body still thought it was going to hibernate in a couple of weeks. She’d gained fifteen pounds in the three months since she’d managed to shift back, but to be honest, the weight gain was the last thing on her mind.

  Besides, she didn’t mind the way she looked with some curves.

  She finished the apple and put the core in the plastic baggie that still had a smear of peanut butter on the inside from her sandwich, then pulled out two chocolate chip cookies. Olivia packed her own lunch every morning that she worked — she was twenty-seven, after all — but her mom always managed to sneak in some cookies.

  At least she doesn’t get teary-eyed with relief every time I come home from work anymore, Olivia thought.

  Then she heard voices on the main walkway: two women and a man, murmuring about something or other.

  “And,” one of the women’s voices said, “Pierce wants me to help with the fundraiser for his cat sanctuary. He really said that to me, Lois.”

  The other woman’s voice, who Olivia assumed was Lois, scoffed. “He’s got more than enough money to feed and house every feral housecat from here to Oregon,” she said. “And he wants you to help him? I swear, lions have some nerve.”

  “Have you been to the cat sanctuary?” the man’s voice asked. “I’ve heard it’s quite nice.”

  The three of them came into view, starting down the short dead-end path that ended in Olivia’s bench, and stopped short.

  Olivia sat there with her mouth open and one hand on the book she’d brought with her, staring.

  The two women were barely there, as far as she was concerned. The only thing she could see was the man towering over them.

  He looked like a lumberjack who’d been stuffed into a suit: good, but it was obvious that it wasn’t what he should have been wearing.

  He should be wearing nothing, Olivia thought, and then gasped.

  Her bear sat up and roared, and she clapped one hand over her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut.

  No, no, no no no, she thought desperately. She took a deep breath and thought about marshmallows and indoor plumbing and all the other reasons to control her bear and not go tearing through town.

  Olivia started sweating everywhere. She could feel it pouring down her face from her hairline, her underarms and back quickly soaking through the shirt and cardigan she’d bought so she’d look more like a librarian.

  Still, all she could see in front of her eyes was him, naked, holding himself up over top of her as she lay on her back, his dark hair flopping in his face, his nearly-gold eyes lighting up. Her legs wrapped around his back.

  She crossed her ankles and squeezed her legs together, her bear hardly staying inside.

  “Oh,” she heard one of the women say acidly, and Olivia
could practically feel the woman’s eyes raking her up and down. “Wrong turn. Let’s go.”

  Olivia could barely hear their retreating footsteps over the sound of her own pulse, her blood rushing through her veins at top speed. At last, she opened her eyes again, only to get a final glance at the young man who’d been with them.

  He looked straight at her, then smiled, like he was about to say something.

  “Jasper, are you coming?” one of the women said, and then he disappeared behind a bush.

  “It’s that feral girl,” the voice went on. “Feral for ten whole years, and they’ve let her out into the community. She’s positively a menace...”

  Olivia slumped back against the bench for a moment, nearly shaking. By now, she was pretty much used to people talking about her like she was an animal. She was just glad they were gone.

  Could you have handled that worse? She asked herself. Her shirt stuck to her with sweat. The most attractive man you’ve ever seen, and your reaction is to close your eyes and cover your mouth?

  That’s not how normal people act.

  She couldn’t be there anymore. She had to escape. Olivia jumped to her feet, grabbed her empty lunch bag and her trash, and walked out of her formerly-peaceful dead end. Right away, she started planning what she was going to do next: go to her car, pick up the milk and butter her mother had requested, and take the long way home. A nice drive always calmed her down; it was a good way to be alone but also close to nature — and there was less chance she’d shift, since shifting while driving was basically a death sentence.

  Just as Olivia began to calm down, the sweat no longer running down the back of her neck, she heard footsteps behind her.

  “Hey!” the voice called.

  It was him.

  Breathe deep, smile, exchange pleasantries, thought Olivia. Come on, you practiced this in therapy.

  She turned. Jasper jogged toward her down the path, his eyes locked on hers.

  Olivia took a deep breath. She smiled.

  “You left this on the bench,” he said, handing her the book.

  “Oh,” said Olivia. She reached out her hand and took it back from him.

  Exchange pleasantries, she thought.

  “Thanks,” she said out loud.

  “I loved A Wrinkle in Time when I was kid,” Jasper offered. He had an easy smile that reached his eyes right away, and something in them seemed to light up.

  Olivia’s bear growled, and she swallowed.

  “Me too,” she said. “I re-read it all the time now. It’s kind of comforting, you know? Like a security blanket. But a book.”

  Good job! she told herself.

  “I should re-read it,” he said, then stuck his hand out. “I’m Jasper, by the way.”

  Olivia stared at his hand for one moment too long, then remembered about shaking hands, and shook it.

  “I’m Olivia,” she said, though she had a feeling that he already knew. After all, her face had been on the front page of their small-town newspaper not long after she’d become human again, and people in Granite Valley weren’t shy about expressing their opinions about “that feral girl.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” he said, his gaze still boring into hers, and he jerked his thumb over his shoulder, back toward the library and toward town. “Listen, there’s this new place in town—”

  “Jasper, what are you doing,” asked an exasperated woman’s voice, and then the two older women came around a corner, stopping short when they saw Jasper talking to Olivia.

  He quickly rolled his eyes at Olivia, then turned for a moment to tell them something.

  Olivia bolted. She dropped the book and her lunch bag and sprinted to her car in the library employee parking lot, buckling herself in with shaking hands, before driving away as fast as she could get her ten-year-old Chevy to go.

  She forgot the milk and butter, and instead drove around back roads for an hour, until she felt brave enough to go home.

  Chapter Two

  Jasper

  When Jasper turned back around, the girl was literally running away, down the brick path that led out of the garden.

  Chase her! his bear roared, but he quieted the animal down. He knew better than to think he could go chasing girls through gardens — particularly when he was giving two of his father’s biggest donors a tour of the attractions of Granite Valley.

  Instead he stood there, her book in his hand, and watched her go.

  Deep down, he knew it wasn’t over.

  It was her. He couldn’t believe it. Her! Here! Sitting on a bench and reading, of all things. He and Craig had been totally certain that they’d never find her again, not that they hadn’t been trying.

  “Jasper, that’s just the feral girl,” Lois said behind him. “Haven’t you seen the news?”

  The feral girl?

  “I guess not,” he said. He collected himself, turned to face them, and put on a smile. “I’ve been in Redding most of the time, with the campaign.”

  “Ah, that explains it,” Alice said. She stepped up to him and took him by one elbow, holding her body close to his.

  That was one of the things about his job: when someone on Senator Sargent’s staff had to spend time with campaign donors, the older ladies tended to request his son, Jasper Sargent. Lois and Alice’s generation — both women were in their late sixties — had a lot of shifters who hadn’t been able, for whatever reason, to live in a happy triad. Usually, it was social pressure keeping the union to just a man and a woman, both yearning for a third to complete them, but unable to consummate if they wanted to keep their social standing among humans.

  A lot of those couples split, and Jasper didn’t blame them. He couldn’t imagine knowing who your third was supposed to be, and having to pretend that they meant nothing to you. Thirty years with that kind of stress could do anyone in.

  His own father, Senator Sargent, hadn’t acknowledged his male mate William until after Cascadia was granted statehood. It had been the topic of more than one fight in their household when Jasper was growing up.

  Alice’s hand gripped him a little harder, and Jasper looked down at her, smiling.

  “It began ten years ago,” Alice heard, keeping her voice conspiratorially low. “A couple towns over, this girl, Olivia, goes missing. Her family used to live in Granite Valley, so we knew them pretty well. Nice people.”

  “Don’t forget about the son,” said Lois. Not about to be left in the dust, she took Jasper’s other arm and held herself close.

  Jasper wished that she were Olivia, but he didn’t make a fuss. It was his job, after all. Sometimes a Communications Manager had to communicate in creative ways.

  “I’m getting there, Lois,” said Alice. “So Olivia goes missing, and there are a couple sightings of her, in bear form, for a year or so, and then she’s just gone. We thought she’d been poached or something.”

  Lois made a sad clicking noise with her tongue.

  “How awful,” Lois said.

  “Her brother just about lost his mind looking for her,” Alice went on. “Joined the army, got sent to Afghanistan, he was discharged for shifting in combat or something.”

  That sounded vaguely familiar to Jasper. His father had been one of the sponsors of the bill that ended the army’s policy on shifters, and he was fairly certain that the brother’s story had come up at some point.

  “He comes back, still looking for her,” Lois volunteered. “But in the meantime, she’s gotten into it with the wolves, somehow.”

  “Allegedly,” said Alice.

  Lois rolled her eyes behind her glasses.

  “Allegedly, she killed two wolf shifters,” said Lois.

  Jasper’s eyebrows went up. “Why?”

  Alice lowered her voice to a whisper and looked around. The three of them were no longer walking, just standing in the middle of the path, gossiping.

  “She says she doesn’t remember it,” Alice whispered. “There’s no proof it was really her, of course, but
who else would have done it?”

  “A real grizzly?” asked Jasper.

  Alice just gave him a don’t be an idiot look.

  “Anyway, the brother finds her in a cage on a wolf ranch and he manages to bring her back,” said Lois. “After ten years, too. That’s pretty impressive.”

  “He’s pretty impressive,” said Alice. “Have you seen him on the news? If I were twenty years younger, I’d eat him with a spoon.”

  “My god, Alice, those biceps.”

  Jasper cleared his throat, interrupting the two women.

  “That was her?” he asked. “The woman who was feral for ten years?”

  Both women nodded.

  Jasper’s heart sank, but it explained a lot. Like why he hadn’t been able to find her, for one.

  “She was in a cage?” he asked.

  “That’s what her brother and his mate claim,” Lois said. “The wolves keep changing their story. You know how wolves are.”

  “Interesting,” he said.

  Then he looked at his watch, his mind racing.

  “Would you ladies like to get a cocktail in the lobby of the Hotel Feliz? It’s got the oldest wooden bar in Cascadia.”

  The ladies tittered, and the three walked toward the sidewalk and down Main Street until they reached the old hotel. The women went on about something but Jasper’s mind raced.

  The moment they were settled in the bar, both ladies with dirty martinis and Jasper with a whiskey, he pretended to get a call and went into the hotel lobby.

  Instead, he called Craig.

  “I found her,” he said without preamble.

  For a moment, all he could hear was chainsaws in the background. Then Craig answered.