Authors: Maria Amor
Her Bear In Mind (5 page)
The emergency room staff bought the raccoon story without question.
Molly, however, did not.
“But it’s so deep!” she objected. “And how did it scratch you anyway? When did this happen?”
“I told you,” Sierra lied, “when I was out in the woods.”
“Where you say you found nothing.”
“That’s right.”
“Then, why did you get out of the truck to be mauled by raccoons if there was nothing out there?”
“I thought I saw something so I got out to take a look, but I was wrong. There was nothing. And then this raccoon just charged.”
“You’re lying to me, and you’re bad at it. If there was nothing out there, then why didn’t you get home until 10:00 am?
“Because…because…”
An idea seized her.
“Because I met Joe out there.”
“What?”
“There’s no big secret thing. He just goes out there for the quiet. I ran into him and…spent the night with him.”
Molly eyed her suspiciously.
“I still don’t believe you.” she decided.
“He was a birthmark on his inner thigh shaped like an apple.”
Molly looked her in the eye, running her human lie detector on her.
Fortunately for Sierra, she didn’t have to lie about that part. She’d seen it. It was just that circumstances that were a little different. Molly grinned.
“You slut!” she declared with glee. “You have to tell me all about it.”
“No, I don’t.” Sierra headed for her bedroom. What she had to do right now was sleep.
Joe came by the apartment unannounced the next day. Thankfully it was Sierra who answered the door.
“Hi.” she greeted him, and stood on tiptoe to kiss his check. Quickly, she whispered into his ear, “Molly thinks we had sex in the woods.”
He grinned at her before sliding on his poker face.
“Hi Joe!” Molly called out to him. “Just wondering for no particular reason, do you have any birth marks?”
After Joe had satisfactorily answered Molly’s questions, they escaped into her bedroom. Sierra shut the door behind them.
“Well that was horrific.” she said.
“That’s quite the cover story, Sierra.” Joe smiled seductively.
He moved closer to her, pushing her up against the door.
“You sure you can keep her convinced?”
He kissed her neck and wrapped his hands around her waist, sending shivers down her spine.
“Maybe it would be easier to lie about it if we actually made love.”
His hands slid up her shirt. He toyed with one nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
“It could be easier.” She agreed breathlessly.
“Besides,” he said as he fingered the top button of her jeans, “It’s completely unfair that you’ve seen me naked and I haven’t seen you.”
He unzipped her pants and tiptoed his fingers towards her clit.
Summoning an enormous amount of will power, Sierra reached her hand down and stopped him.
“How about you take me to dinner first? One where you don’t have to leave half way through.”
“How about dinner after?” he replied hungrily, pressing the bulge of his erection against her.
She pushed him away and sat down on the bed.
“Nope,” she said. “Dinner first. And a movie. And then
maybe
I’ll let you see me naked.”
“You know most women don’t say no to me.”
“I am not most women.” she replied.
Joe sighed. “No. You are not. I suspect that’s why I like you.”
*
This time he took her out for steak.
Joe was noticeably more at ease here then he had been at La Petite Maison. He relaxed back into his chair, laughed easily at the waiter’s jokes, and gave the guy manning the grill a backbreaking hug. They each got a pint of stout and a thick porterhouse steak. Joe told the waiter he’d like his, “as rare as you’ll make it
.”
When the waiter was out of earshot Sierra asked Joe, “Do you eat raw meat?”
Joe chuckled.
“Only in bear form. But I do like my meat a little less cooked then humans seem to.”
Sierra’s mind reeled at his use of the word
human
s. She was trying very hard to reconcile shifters into her view of the world. Sometimes she could accept it. Other times, in spite of all she’d seen, the logic part of her brain ran screaming from the notion that a person could sometimes be a bear. It felt more like a dream than something she had actually witnessed.
“You don’t consider yourself human?” she asked.
“I’m
not
human, Sierra.”
“But…you don’t think of it like sometimes you’re human, and sometimes you’re a bear?”
They switched their conversation to a banal one about the weather as their waiter returned with their steaks. Joe took a bite of the bright red meat before answering.
“There’s more to it than just a penchant for rare steak. There’s other ways we’re different from humans.”
“Such as?”
“I heal faster. I’m stronger. Better able to help damsels in distress lift their hybrid’s out of the mud. My body temperature runs a little hotter and my heart rate a little faster. I don’t age.”
Sierra choked on her beer.
“What?” she sputtered.
“The young ones continue to age until about twenty or so then stop. The ones that were bitten, like I was, just freeze in place.”
Sierra found herself grasping the table as if it would keep the world from spiraling out of control.
“So you’re 46…forever.”
“Actually, I’m 34 forever. Which reminds me, I need to start dying my hair gray again.”
Joe noticed her reaction. He took her hand and smiled at her in a bemused sort of way.
“Do you want to talk about the weather again?”
“No!” Sierra said, annoyed at herself for not keeping it together. “I can handle this.”
“Never doubted it for a moment.”
Sierra took another long swig of her beer as a realization dawned on her.
“How long have you been 34?” she asked him.
“Since 1916. I stay in one place as long as I can, but sooner or later the neighbors notice I don’t get any older. I’ve faked my death four times, then gone back later pretending to be my own offspring and inherited everything. It’s been fairly lucrative for me.”
Suddenly, the part of her mind that wanted to run screaming took a backseat to pure journalist fascination.
“What were the 20’s like?” she wanted to know.
For the rest of dinner he regaled her with stories about prohibition, the Great Depression, and both World Wars. He’d been to Woodstock, owned one of the first televisions, and ran a speakeasy. He promised to show her photographs later that he kept hidden away in his safe. Sierra found herself wishing she could write his story. There were, or course two small problems with that: she had promised not to tell anyone and, also, no one would ever believe it.
By the time they got to dessert, Sierra had asked so many questions Joe began to protest.
“That’s it.” he said. “I’ve spent the whole meal talking about me. You have to tell me about you now.”
Suddenly feeling as though her own life story paled in comparison, she did her best to give him the highlights anyway. Growing up in Visalia. High School. Family drama. Moving to Olympia to take the job with The Post and meeting Molly. He listened to every word with the same level of fascination she had held for his stories. He asked questions. He wanted to know everything about her.
They left the restaurant holding hands and headed to the movies. Impulsively, they told the teenager at the counter to give them two tickets to whatever started in the next five minutes. That turned out to be
Ouija
. Not having the highest hopes about a movie based on a board game, they got a big bucket of popcorn, and box of Junior Mints, and settled in to their seats anyway.
The movie turned out to be, if possible, worse than their expectations. The plot was predictable and failed to be scary and the array of pretty teenage actors brought general shame upon their profession. So it wasn’t long before they lost interest in the movie entirely and decided to make out in the darkened theater instead. Sitting in the last row, they lost themselves in each other.
Joe leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Do we really have to sit through the rest of this?”
They spilled out of the theater and raced to the car laughing, having made it through an admirable 37 minutes of the movie. Joe gunned the Range Rover to the Governor’s mansion.
They stole one more long kiss in the driveway before straightening their hair and walking inside, where they were greeted by what felt like an obscene number of staffers. Sierra had never felt more conspicuous then she did walking up the stairs to the Governor’s bedroom with about eight sets of eyes on her.
“Don’t you hate having all these people around?” she whispered to him.
“Just wait till you try Rose’s strawberry pancakes in the morning. You won’t be bothered by the staff anymore.” he replied.
Joe’s bedroom was elegantly appointed and larger than her whole apartment. At its center was a beautifully carved oak four-poster bed. As soon as the door shut behind them they made straight for it.
Joe pulled her dress over her head, leaving her in just her bra, panties, and heels. Sierra unbuttoned his shirt, revealing the smooth, sculpted muscles on his chest. He started at her heel and made his way up her leg, kissing and caressing the whole way. Sierra moaned as he gently nibbled on her inner thigh. He kissed the lace on her panties before ripping them off in one sudden motion. Sierra gasped and some tiny part of her brain considered protesting. But that voice was drowned out as he slid his hands up to her breasts and unhooked her bra. He gazed down at her naked body for a moment, drinking her in.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked him breathlessly.
He grinned wickedly and unzipped his jeans.
Sierra’s phone started to ring, blaring rudely out of her purse by the door.
“Sorry, just give me a minute.” Sierra said.
“Are you seriously going to answer that?” Joe asked incredulously.
Sierra climbed off the bed and walked over to her purse.
“What can I say? I’m married to my job.”
But it wasn’t work on the caller ID, it was Molly.
Sierra answered the phone.
“
Not a good time Molly
.” she said.
On the other end of the line Molly sobbed hysterically.
“Molly? Molly, calm down. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Joe drove her back to her apartment. Sierra’s throat went dry as she saw the flashing lights on the police cars out front. Inside two cops were asking Molly questions. An EMT was hovering over her, applying an ice pack to the massive bruise blooming on her right eye. The blow had split her eyebrow down the middle in a jagged line now held together with butterfly bandages.
The apartment was trashed. The glass-topped coffee table had been flipped over, leaving glittering shards all over the carpet. There was a hole in the wall where the assailant had thrown a can of paint against it. The bright red paint had splattered everywhere, standing out starkly against the white walls. The TV had also been knocked over and smashed in. He had taken a knife to their couch, exposing the stuffing. Worse yet, he’d done the same to several of Molly’s paintings, turning her works of art into shredded strips of painted canvas.
Molly had her sketch pad on her lap. She was sketching her assailant with a charcoal pencil clutched in her shaking hand. Even upside-down and from across the room Sierra recognized Eric’s face in the drawing. Etched in charcoal, his long hair looked like wisps of smoke. The cold expression in his eyes bored into her and she couldn’t help but feel a wave of guilt wash over her. Was this her fault? Had Molly been caught in the cross fire caused by her ambition?
Sierra rushed over and hugged her.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “How bad are you hurt?”
“That son-of-a-bitch destroyed my paintings.”
“I saw. Molly, I’m so sorry.”
“He wanted you. He kept asking where you were and I didn’t know where the hell you were even if I’d wanted to tell him. Which I didn’t. Because I’m a really fucking good friend.”
“You are the best of the friends. I’m going to buy you new overpriced paints. And wine.”
One of the cops interrupted.
“Do you know this man?” he asked, indicating the charcoal drawing.
“No.” Sierra lied. “I’ve never seen him before.”
“Any idea why someone might want to hurt you?”
“I told you,” Molly interjected. “She’s a reporter. She basically pisses people off for a living. It could have been for dozens of reasons, right, Sierra?”
“Yeah.” Sierra agreed, seizing on the plausible narrative like a life raft. “I can call my editor and have him scan the hate mail file to you.”
“Please do,” the cop said.
The cops continued to question them for the next hour. When they asked Molly to go over it all again for the third time that night, Joe stepped in and demanded if it was necessary. The cops, bashful after being chastised by the governor, agreed to call it a night. They promised to have a patrol car check in on them periodically, asked that Sierra and Molly call if they remembered anything, and went on their way.
By then Molly was three glasses of wine in and had almost stopped shaking.
“Okay,” Molly said, adopting her rarely used no-nonsense voice, “Now you’re going to tell me why you lied to the cops.”
Her accusation hung in the air. Speechless, Sierra turned to Joe, who wouldn’t meet her eyes. He was looking determinedly at a piece of couch stuffing.
“You can’t know,” Joe said softly. “I’m sorry you can’t know, it will just put you in danger. More danger then I’ve already put you both in.”
He knelt down eye level with Molly and took her hand.
“I’m sorry I can’t tell you why that man attacked you. He’s a coward for hurting someone weaker than himself. But I promise you I will find him and I will kill him.”
He stood up and finally met Sierra’s eyes. With a sad expression, he caressed her face.
“Sierra, I’ve enjoyed out time together, but I need to keep you safe, and you can never be safe when you’re with me. We can’t see each other anymore.”
Sierra reeled from the shock.
“What? You’re
dumping me
?
Now
?”
He continued as if she hadn’t spoken.
“I’m going to hire security to patrol your place. They’ll make sure no one bothers you again.”
Sierra felt hot tears spring into her eyes which she
refused
to allow to fall. She wasn’t sure if she was more angry, scared, or heart broken.
“I have to go now.” he said as he headed for the door. He gave her one last, sad look before leaving.
“Goodbye Sierra.”
*
The next day Molly and Sierra popped their first cork at 10:00 am, ordered a pizza, and set to work cleaning the apartment. Sierra found a pair of work gloves and started picking the larger chunks of glass out of the carpet while Molly scrubbed the red paint out of the places it had splattered. They put on some music and tried to focus on the task at hand instead of dwelling on the night before.
There was a knock on the door shortly after they got started. Sierra answered it with her gun behind her back.
At the door was a pale young man with sandy
blond
hair and a muscular frame. He held out his hand awkwardly. Sierra did not take it.
“Hi,” he said. “I thought I should introduce myself. I’m the, uh, security guard Joe hired. My name’s Zeke.”
Sierra regarded him for a moment.
“Well why don’t you help us then, Zeke? No sense in standing around. Why don’t you carry that couch down to the dumpster?”
“Sure.” he said, eager to please. Then he hesitated. “I mean…uh…maybe I could find someone to help me carry it.”
“I’m pretty sure you could lift it by yourself.” Sierra countered.
“Yeah but…” he dropped his voice to an undertone, “I’d look pretty obvious carrying it by myself, right?”
A few minutes later, Zeke had enlisted the help of a neighbor, and Sierra uncorked the second bottle of wine.
The man she was falling for had unceremoniously dumped her less than a week after their first date, and now there was a teenage bear shifter in her apartment. It was just going to be that kind of a day.
Molly refused to throw out the paintings. She gathered up every scrap, laid them lovingly in a storage bin, and then spent the next hour crying.
By the fourth bottle Sierra had called in sick to work and Molly had moved on to sketching cartoons of Eric dying in increasingly violent and creative ways. A lot of red colored pencil went into those drawings.
Zeke was eventually relieved by Damon around the sixth bottle or so. Damon was an older shifter who hardly spoke to them and would not help move furniture, not even when offered cold pizza.
By the time Damon was replaced by Steve they had hauled out all the broken furniture and appliances. They were left with their kitchen table, two out of four chairs, and one bed.
The two of them passed out on the living room floor where the couch used to be, empty wine bottles at their feet. Steve covered them with a blanket before assuming his post by the door.
Sierra woke up stiff and hung over. A look out the peephole confirmed that Zeke was back again.
Molly, annoyingly more capable of bouncing back from a bender than Sierra ever had been, busied herself with the acquisition of breakfast. She had a meeting with her publicist to discuss the lost paintings. Sierra supposed she ought to go to work too.
It just all felt so mundane. Toasting a bagel. Going to work. In the last week she had witnessed amazing and terrifying things and let herself fall in love with a man whose very physiology defied reason. Now it was just business as usual.
Sierra waved goodbye to Molly. Ate her bagel. Took a shower. Put on a suit and high heels.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror. Could she do this? Could she just go back to the way things were?
Sierra kicked off her heels and walked to the front door. She swung the door inward, almost sending Zeke, who had been leaning on the other side, tumbling to the ground. Startled, he smiled at her sheepishly.
“Good morning ma’am.” he said.
“Come in, Zeke,” she instructed him.
Sierra sat down at the kitchen table and poured them each a cup of coffee. Zeke sat down and dutifully accepted the mug.
“I need you to tell me what’s happening.”
Zeke shook his head empathetically.
“I can’t. We’re not supposed to talk to you. Just keep the place on lock-down.”
“You’re going to tell me what’s going on,” Sierra insisted. “You will tell me, or I will call Joe and tell him I caught you sleeping on the job.”
Zeke gaped at her.
“But I wasn’t…you can’t do that!”
“Try me.”
Zeke swore.
“Okay…but you didn’t hear it from me.”
“A good journalist never reveals her sources,” Sierra assured him.
“Okay.” Zeke said, reassured. “So there’s like this faction thing happening.”
“Factions?”
“Yeah. Joe got back to Sleuth and was all ready to fry Eric on a spit. But Eric was already there. And some of the other guys, well…they think you’re dangerous and you have to be turned or you won’t keep the town a secret. And Eric’s got all these guys with him. He wants to make a bid for Alpha, but he doesn’t really have enough support yet. Still, he’s got all these guys on his side, so Joe couldn’t really charge past them all to rip his head off.”
“So what’s Joe doing now?”
“He’s doing the politician thing. Trying to convince everyone you’re not a threat and to keep supporting him for Alpha.”
“And how’s that going?”
“Not good,” Zeke said darkly. “More and more of us are going over to Eric’s side every day. People are scared.”
“What happens if Eric becomes Alpha?” Sierra asked.
“He can order the pack to turn you. But they’ll have to get through me first.”
“You’re not going to side with Eric?” she asked.
Zeke shook his head.
“No ma’am. I’ve seen what he did to this apartment and your friend’s face. We don’t hurt humans. That’s like a dude beating a woman or a grown up beating up a kid. You don’t hurt people who can’t fight back. It’s not cool.”
Zeke sipped his coffee.
“Eric is not a cool dude.”
*
Molly’s publicist probably deserved a raise.
Instead of throwing his arms up in despair over the loss of over fifty completed paintings and a few unfinished pieces as well, he’d booked a private gallery for the next week.
Sierra was there both as a friend, and in a professional capacity, having promised to write a short article on the exhibit for the Post. She arrived at 8:00 pm, iPad at the ready and photographer in tow.
The sign in edgy painted letters hanging just inside the door declared the name of the exhibit “Home Invasion”. At its center was the charcoal police sketch Molly had made of Eric. It was accompanied by a series of stark, gut wrenching photographs of Molly’s bruised face. And then there were the paintings. The slashed canvases had been proudly framed and hung on the gallery walls. The shredded strips swayed slightly in the breeze generated by the A/C. Each one hung next to a small sign declaring its “former” title, medium, and price tag.