Bear With Me: Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (8 page)

“Though, if our self-control was the only issue, I have to say … we do have all these ropes…”

Jamie snorted with unladylike laughter. “That is too tempting in the absolutely wrong way, and you know it.”

He grinned wryly, and in the end, they both made it back to camp without any further distractions.

* * *

MARK

It didn’t take Mark long to pack. Actually, given he had never ended up unpacking anything, what with how the previous evening had gone, it took no time at all. He tried to spin cleaning up the breakfast dishes as long as he could, and burying the remains of the fish away from the camp, but eventually the time came.

“I just realized I never told you what brought me out here,” he said, hefting his pack over his shoulders. “Or where I’m heading.”

Jamie looked up at him. She had been quiet since their conversation in the tree, and he wanted more than anything to cheer her up. The trick was, doing that without ending up rolling in the hay with her.

Not that there was any hay around. But he was sure they’d find some alternative.

Jamie tipped her head back. “Do I want to know?” she asked the sky. “Do I want to lie in my sleeping bag at night, thinking, Ooh, there he is, only a few days’ walk that-a-way, and if I start walking now…” she trailed off. “Seems a bit risky.”

“What if I told you you’d be the only person who knew?”

That got her attention.

“What? But—” She saw his grin, and narrowed eyes. “Oh, preying on my sense of responsibility? Real nice.”

She smiled. He smiled back—and just managed to stop himself from pulling her into his arms.

Concentrate! What were we talking about?

He racked his brain, trying to remember the park brochures he had read when he was trying to find out more about the area.

“Don’t worry, I let my folks know where I was heading. I’m just doing the basic round trip out past the saddle, with the, uh … waterfalls?”

Jamie raised her eyebrows. “You’re well packed for someone who’s only doing a five-day hike.”

Mark forced himself to smile. He’d packed well because he wasn’t sure how long it would take him to find her.

But this was what she wanted. He couldn’t force his presence on her, not when she’d made it clear she needed time to think. And it would look suspicious for him to about-face and take his weeks of supplies back down the mountain after only a day’s hike.

“I figured I’d find a nice spot and camp out for a bit. Maybe spend a few weeks in total. It’s my first time hiking in these mountains…”

“…and you wouldn’t want to get lost and attacked by great big ugly birds,” Jamie teased. She gave him a playful push. “I don’t mean to interrogate you. I’m pretty sure that anyone who can catch fish in his mouth, in the nude, can look after himself. But be careful around the river, okay? If you’re not familiar with these mountains then you won’t know how fast the water can change. It can be a beautiful sunny day where you are, but if there’s been rain farther up in the mountains the rivers can flash flood in an instant.”

“Got it. No more moonlit walks by the water,” Mark reassured her.

Jamie grimaced. “There I go lecturing you again. What have we covered so far … Condor nesting habits, water safety…?”

“Wildlife?”

Jamie shook her head. “There’s nothing too big and dangerous around here. No bears or anything, and no one’s sighted any cougars in this area in a long while. Too high for coyotes. Just don’t be an idiot and you should be fine.” She paused. “But just in case … I’ll walk with you back to the main trail. Just to make sure you don’t get lost along another river.”

Jamie led the way through the trees, Mark a few paces behind her. The hiking trail wasn’t far away, or through difficult terrain—Mark could have found it himself with his eyes closed. Well, with his eyes open. And during the day.

He hoped Jamie had decided to show him the way because she wanted to spend more time with him, not because she thought he was totally incompetent.

At last they reached the trail.

Jamie looked up at him. “I guess this is goodbye, for now,” she said, softly but firmly.

“I guess so.”

Mark leaned down and kissed her one last time. As he pulled away he felt her lean towards him, and just for a moment she rested her head against his chest.

“Mark…” she murmured, and Mark’s heart thumped. “I know I said this isn’t a good time, but I finish up here at the end of the month. If you want to catch up with me when I’m back in town, or…” She shrugged. “You know. When I’m not as busy.”

“Count on it,” Mark said firmly, and was rewarded with a hot flush of pleasure spreading across Jamie’s face.

*

The morning sun was already high in the sky as Mark began to make his way further up the mountain trail. Even as he looked forward into the ranges, his mind flew back down the hillside to that small campsite by the river.

She had told him where he could find her, after they’d both returned from their various trips. She worked at a regional conservation center in a small town a few hours’ drive away, and from what he could gather, basically lived in her office there.

Despite this, he couldn’t shake off a sense of deep unhappiness as he left her farther and farther behind. Shifter instincts could only go so far—he could feel where she was now, walking back to her tent, but the farther away from her he got the weaker that connection would be. When she left the mountains, it would fade out entirely.

It would be like losing her all over again.

Then go back for her!
his bear demanded.

I can’t do that.
He couldn’t. And not only because Jamie needed space and time to think. He needed to shift, to run free in the mountains in his bear shape, release all the wild energy that had built up since the last time he’d had the chance to roam free in the wilderness.

Once he’d done that, he would go and find her. And he would explain everything. He’d ask Tom to help. Yeah, that would work. After all, Tom had explained the existence of shifters to Kes and managed to do it without scaring her off.

The trees opened up as he walked further into the depths of the mountain range. High above him, he saw the striking black wingspan of a condor, floating on the changing air currents. A sudden pang of envy struck him. Those two condors had only lived in the mountains for a few months, and they had already started a family. Their future was settled.

If only things were so easy for the rest of us
, he thought glumly.

THREE WEEKS LATER

JAMIE

Rain.

Again.

So much for summer
, Jamie thought, peering out through the tent flap.

She’d checked the forecast before she left, and it had been hot, dry, and hot and dry. So much for long-term forecasts.

“At least the farmers will be happy,” she grumbled to herself.
And at least I have a good reason to still be out here. Good enough to make putting up with this weather worth it.

If it wasn’t for the birds, she would have packed up and splashed her way out days ago. It had been five days since she’d last gotten a good look at the condor family. If her rough calculations were correct, the egg could hatch any day now—or might already have hatched. But it was too dangerous to climb up the lookout tree when the weather was this bad, and she hadn’t wanted to go down to the river-bank where the protective parents had dive-bombed Mark that night. It must be bad enough being a bald-headed bird in a rainstorm without some random human coming to gawk at you.

Her mind wandered, and not for the first time. It was the same old problem again. The rain might have kept her away from the condors, but staying cooped up in the tent meant Jamie had had a lot of time to think.

The first few days after Mark had left, the main thing she had thought was
You idiot! You let him get away!

So much for strong resolve.

She had dealt with that by keeping herself busy. It worked about as well as it had done back at the center, but at least it meant she got a lot of stuff done. She spent as much time as she could watching the condors, taking photographs and noting down their behavior. Once she was back in civilization she would put together a media release and photo blog about the mated pair to promote the conservation center’s work, in addition to the more official study logs.

On the days when the birds stubbornly refused to do anything more exciting than plop down on the egg and not move for hours on end, she went for walks around the river and surrounding hillside. The condors weren’t the only interesting creatures out in the mountains—Jamie saw hundreds of other birds, lazy lizards basking in the sun, even a glimpse of a bobcat family playing in the undergrowth.

That last one had reminded her of what she’d said to Mark about wildlife in the mountains. And then the rain had started, and she’d run out of things to distract her from thinking about him.

It was all so confusing. That wildfire lust that had hit her at the wedding, the moment she laid eyes on him—it had been incredible, but also terrifying. As though something inside her had made a decision and not waited for her conscious self to give an opinion. Her entire self, body and soul, were urging her to be with him—not just there in the forest, but forever.

It had been the hardest thing in the world to push away that bone-deep urge and make Mark leave. But being apart from him was no easier.

She still wanted him. She knew that if she ever saw him again, no matter where that was—here on the mountain, or back in the city—no force on Earth could stop her from ripping his clothes off.

That was her body talking, and that strange, deep urge inside her. But the longer she was cooped up inside the tent, forced to think about what had happened, the more her mind began to agree with her body.

Yes, it was strange. And a little terrifying. But it had also been incredible. He had touched her like she was the most precious thing in the world. He had been gentle when she wanted him to be gentle, and hard when she needed him to be hard.

And when she had asked for time, he had given it to her.

Jamie had made up her mind. She might have sent him away once, but when he came back down that mountain, she was going to make sure he knew she was his.

CRACK-OOM!

Jamie jumped, jerking away from the tent flap. Had that been thunder? She hadn’t seen any lightning. And it had sounded too close to be thunder.

Another huge crashing sound rolled through the forest, and Jamie jumped to her feet. She was out of the tent in a second, struggling into her waterproof coat.

She was right. It was too close to be thunder. Which could only mean one thing.

Something had fallen in the forest. Something had creaked, groaned, crashed, and splashed—into the river.

Jamie ran, slipping on the wet ground. The stand of old-growth pines appeared in her mind. And below them, the dead tree that had fallen down into the river.

Please don’t let what I think just happened be true
, she begged desperately.

Sure, none of those trees were tall enough to reach the cliff on the other side of the river if they fell. But the trees
above
the cliff…

How could she not have thought of this earlier? The condors were young adults, only just mated. They’d made their nest in a convenient cliff in an inconvenient location, because they didn’t know any better. A tree could slip down the cliff and scrape away the nesting site as easily as she would squish a mosquito.

Jamie didn’t even stop to think what she was going to do when she got to the river. She just ran.

Lungs burning, she skidded down the scrubby bank where she had first met Mark. Running down beside the river probably wasn’t the smartest idea after this much rain, but if she tried to get down to the water from the lookout, she would break her neck on the steep slope. This was the only easy access for a good mile. She would just have to risk it.

Besides
, she thought, glancing sideways.
The river doesn’t look that bad. It can’t have been raining further up in the mountains as much as it has been here.

Skidding on wet stones, Jamie made her way to the beach-like cove opposite the condors’ nest. Her boots splashed as she leaned against the fallen tree and tried to get her breath back.

Oh, shit.

She had been right.

A huge tree had crashed down over the river, taking half the cliff with it.
The rain must have waterlogged the cliff and weakened it enough that the whole thing collapsed
, she thought numbly.

There was no sign of the condor nest. Where it had been, a broken branch hung cracked across the rock face.

Jamie swallowed back a sob. Five years of her life—and one rainstorm had destroyed it all. What was she going to tell her boss? Her colleagues?

A flutter like a ragged black flag caught her attention. She squinted through the rain. There it was again—two great black wings, camouflaged against the dark leaves of the fallen tree. Jamie blinked water out of her eyes, barely daring to hope…

The river was wide here, maybe thirty feet across. Jamie had good eyesight, but she didn’t want the distance and her own hopes to make her see anything that wasn’t there. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and looked again.

Black wings. A flash of a pinkish-orange head, then another. Coco and Louis were still alive.

Jamie heaved a sigh of relief. The two adult birds were safe. But why weren’t they moving?

A creaking, crunching
groooaaaan
cut through the air. Jamie watched on in dismay as the tree slipped further down the cliff. The water below boiled as smaller branches broke off and plummeted into it. But the condors still didn’t move.

“Fly away, you stupid birds!” Jamie screamed. “What are you doing? Get the hell out of there!”

Then she saw it. Crouched under its parents, barely able to keep its footing on the slippery, sodden branch.

The chick had hatched, after all.

It was so tiny, an ungainly, defenseless scrap of a thing. It could only be a few days old. Its little tufts of downy feathers were flattened against its skin by the rain. If it didn’t drown when the tree slid all the way into the water, it would freeze.

The sight of it took Jamie back to her first day working at the conservation center. Coco and Louis had been nestlings then, part of the first cohort of chicks the center planned to raise to adulthood for release into the wild. They had been ugly, featherless, scrappy things too, but with the care of the center’s staff, they had grown bigger day by day, plump and healthy beneath first their juvenile down and then their glossy adult plumage.

And now their first offspring was going to die.

“No,” she cried, her voice half a sob. Tears stung her eyes and she rubbed them away. “I won’t let that happen.”

She unlaced her boots first. They would only weigh her down. Then her jacket joined the boots on the ground.

It might be waterproof, but there was no way it would work where she was going.

Jamie took a deep breath and rubbed her hands together. The rain was cool, not cold—but the river would be. She picked what she knew was the shallowest path across the water, and stepped in.

The first step was like walking into an ice bath. The second was like opening the freezer on an already cold day. But by the time she was halfway across, she barely felt the cold.

That was bad, she knew. But she pushed the thought away, reminding herself that she would only be in the water for a few minutes, and that her tent was warm, and dry, and stocked with her sleeping bag and emergency heat-packs. She was fine. She could do this.

The water was shallow here, shallow enough that she could keep her footing all the way across. She strode through the rushing water, feeling it pull at her legs as though it was a living creature that wanted to drag her down.

When she reached the fallen tree she grabbed at it like it was a life ring. She heaved herself up, feeling the trunk shift, and then settle under her weight.

Good. If she could just get to the birds and off again without the tree moving any more, everything would be fine.

Jamie chose her handholds carefully. This wasn’t like climbing the lookout tree, with rope and anchors to catch her if she slipped. If she lost her grip here, the only thing that would catch her when she fell was the hungry river below.

“Hey, birdies,” she said as she climbed ever closer to the two glowering condors. She made sure to keep her voice soft and smooth, and not to make any sudden movements. “Remember me? Of course you don’t. You’ve never seen me before, that’s the whole point of raising you for release. You just saw Mommy Puppet. Well, I guess I’m Grandma Puppet now, and believe me, it may look like I’m trying to steal your baby, but … Shit!”

The tree suddenly sagged beneath her with a wet crackling noise. Jamie felt her feet dip into cold water. She licked her lips, adrenaline flooding through her system. “Come on, you ugly mugs, piss off so I can save your baby!”

She flapped her arm at the condors and shouted, trying to scare them off. But they clung grimly on, reluctant even now to abandon their helpless nestling.

Jamie heard a roaring in her ears. “Goddamn
move!
” she yelled one last time. Then something made her turn around.

The roaring hadn’t just been in her ears.

Behind her, the rocky beach with the dead tree had disappeared under rushing gray water. The sound in her ears was the roar of the river, swelling with half a week’s rain.

Jamie’s whole body went cold with terror. It wasn’t the tree falling she had to worry about; it was the river rushing up to meet her.

She had to move, now.

“Come on, come on,” she hissed, hauling herself up towards the three birds. She kept her eyes fixed on the chick. The parents were adjusting their footing, holding on to the slippery bark, but the nestling was too young and too weak to manage that. Jamie reach out and scooped it up just as it began to topple off the side of the branch.

“
Skraaaark!
”

“Oh, God
dammit!
” Jamie curled over the nestling, keeping her face out of reach of the parents’ sharp beaks and claws. They might be carrion-eaters, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t attack a living creature. It just meant their beaks were strong enough to crack through bone. Jamie gritted her teeth as something scraped down the back of her neck.

“You’ll thank me for this later, you bastards!” she cried, inching back down the tree.

Something was wrong. She was already knee-deep, then thigh-deep, in water, but she couldn’t feel the bottom. Surely the river hadn’t risen that much?

Holding the chick firmly to her chest, Jamie lowered herself further into the river. Each time she moved down she stretched her foot out, probing for the solid river-stones she knew should be there. Each time her foot found nothing but water and she scrambled for a foothold on the sunken tree.

“Oh, God. Oh, God, what have I done?”

Images flashed through Jamie’s mind. If the river took her, she knew the chances were slim anyone would find her body. Her workplace knew where she was, and some of her friends, but no one would raise the alarm until she failed to come home on time.

She would disappear, and it could be weeks before anyone knew. Longer before they figured out what had happened.

Except Mark. Mark, who had promised to come back to her. Would he head straight out of the forest, planning to see her back in town, or pass by her camp and find it abandoned? He would probably check the lookout, to see if she was there. And when he saw the ravaged cliff, the broken tree and the empty nest—would he guess?