Wren and the Werebear (6 page)

Oh, who was she kidding? If her clothes didn't fit, she'd leave them behind in the parking lot without a moment's thought. Already she was imagining the ride up the coast, wind streaming through her hair...

"It's not quite inconspicuous, is it?" Wren asked. "You could have rented me a Volvo station wagon or something."

"That was my call," Marty said. "This is the most popular bike for California coastal rentals. And I figured that now the shifter knows we're after him, he'll be on the lookout for an inconspicuous sedan coming from San Jose."

"Nobody expects an assassin to come roaring up all the way from Los Angeles on a green motorcycle." Wren swung her leg over the Ninja and settled into the seat. It was small enough that she only had to tiptoe a little bit to balance. Not bad.

"Exactly. Also I know you like to ride."

"You're the best, Marty."

"Go kill 'em," he said. "Literally."

She pocketed the cell phone and revved the engine. The sport bike growled under her, as though it was as eager to race up the coast as she was. She patted the smooth green side of the sport bike and flipped her braid back over her shoulder

"Good boy," she said. "Let's go put down a bear."

The coast flew by under her feet, and the rising sun soon burned up the waves of fog. The rumble of the engine under her body hypnotized her and caused her to lose all sense of time. By the time she stopped for gas she was surprised to find that she had been riding for hours already. No time to waste. She ate a protein bar and hopped back on.

Curve after curve, she made her way north. The tall pines were as black as shadows against the yellow cliffs, and the sunlight glinting off of the water was blindingly bright. The salt air seemed to clear her brain of all thought, and she let herself ease into the rhythm of the ride, enjoying the wind and the sun.

There were fewer and fewer cars up on the northern edge of the California coast, as they peeled off to the inland highways to head toward San Francisco more quickly, and soon she was alone on the road, with only a few cars passing in the other direction every once in a while.

It was late afternoon. She'd thought she had missed the small town and was planning to stop for directions soon, but then she saw the city sign. Maugham. Population: 411.

All thoughts of her relaxing ride were driven away by the reminder of Tommy's death. This was where it had happened. She swallowed and slowed down.

Fifty feet up ahead, a man walked alongside the side of the road. His shirt was off, slung over one shoulder, and he held out a thumb to hitchhike. He turned at the sound of her bike and held up his hand in a half-wave.

As she passed him and waved back, her eyes swept over his body. His physique was incredibly muscled for such a tall man, and his broad chest shimmered with a gleam of sweat in the sun. His hair hung down past his ears: "hippy hair," as her dad would have put it. And something else, something lighter on his skin, running across his chest. She only saw a glimpse of it before his arm dropped.

He turned to watch her as she sped by him, and in her mirror she saw his eyes flicker down to the back of the motorcycle.

Beautiful eyes. Light, almost golden brown. If Wren had been a normal girl, she would have been taken in by them completely. Years of kills had cautioned her against those sorts of feelings, and there was only one thing in his eyes that mattered to Wren: where he had focused them.

In a split second he was out of sight behind her, but Wren knew without a doubt that those beautiful gold eyes had memorized her license plate number.

A half mile later, Wren reached town. She turned off into a dirt road in the center of Maugham.

It was a sampler pack for what a real city might look like, she thought. There was one tiny restaurant, one grocery store, one gas station. And one hotel, a small inn with wood shingled sides. All of the parking spaces at the inn were full, so she pulled into the parking lot for the gas station across the street.

After gassing up, she went into the gas station store to get some coffee. The teenager sitting on a stool at the counter had his eyes closed and was bobbing his head to whatever music was playing in his huge headphones. Wren waited unsuccessfully for him to notice her and then tapped his shoulder. He looked up at her from his chair with red-rimmed, glassy eyes and a goofy grin. He stunk of pot.

"Just a cup of coffee," Wren said. She would have gotten it herself, but the coffee machine was behind the counter.

"What?" He held the headphones away from one ear to hear her.

"Coffee."

"Oh, yeah. One sec. Fresh batch." The teenage boy mumbled, the tip of his tongue sticking out one corner of his mouth as he moved to make a new pot of coffee. Wren sighed and waited as he made the coffee, his body swaying to the soundless music inside his headphones. He turned around with the fresh pot in one hand and pulled down his headphones around his neck.

"To go?"

"Excuse me?" Wren asked.

"To go, or are you staying here?"

"Uh, I'm staying here." Wren darted a glance outside.

"Cool. Okay, then." He poured the coffee into a large ceramic mug and pushed it across the counter to her. "Just bring the cup back when you're done." He pulled the headphones back onto his ears and sat back down.

"How much?"

He had already closed his eyes, and Wren tapped him on the shoulder.

"Yeah? What?"

"How much for the coffee?"

"Free coffee as long as you get gas with us. You're staying here, right?"

"Right." Wren stood confused, holding the ceramic mug in her hands.

"It's like, a welcome present. Welcome to Maugham. Come back and get gas with us. Cool?"

"Cool," Wren echoed.

"Cool. See you later," the teenager said, and slipped his headphones back on.

Wren walked across the parking lot to the hotel, sipping the coffee. It was surprisingly good—rich and dark, with a nutty flavor, and it warmed her. The man at the hotel desk looked down at her motorcycle jacket and then at the mug she held in her hands.

"Did Shawn give you that for free?" he asked gruffly.

"Um. Yes," Wren said, shifting uncomfortably.

"Good," the man said, equally gruffly. "Dumb kid forgets everything most days. Welcome to Maugham."

"Thanks," Wren said. "Can I get a room?"

"Nope," the man said.

"What?"

"Rooms're all taken," the man said. "We only got four rooms. Could get you in tomorrow night maybe."

"I—well, I really need a room for tonight," Wren said, taken aback by his brusqueness.

"You could camp up on the ridge," he said. "Talk to the ranger."

"Ranger? What ranger?"

"That ranger," the man said, pointing. "Dawson. Hey, Daws!"

Wren turned to see who he was talking to.

It was the topless man from the side of the road. He was still half-naked, his shirt hanging loosely over one shoulder, and Wren couldn't help but swallow hard as she took in his body from up close. In his late twenties, maybe early thirties, the corner of his eyes wrinkled from either age or years in the California sun. His chest was slightly scarred, she noticed, the white seams of skin running from one shoulder down across his abs. His exquisitely sculpted abs. She blinked.

"Dawson Recke," he said, holding out one hand.

"Pleasure to meet you," Wren said, shaking his hand. He leaned against the hotel counter, so easy and confident that she found herself attracted to his manner despite herself.

"You know, Matt," the ranger said, "this lady drove right past me on the road and didn't even offer me a ride."

Wren blushed fiercely.

"That your motorcycle out near the gas station?" Matt asked.

"Yes," Wren said. "Well, it's a rental."

"I would've made such a good passenger," the ranger continued. "You wouldn't have hardly noticed I was there."

"I wouldn't even let you in the back of my pickup after you been working the trails." Matt growled the words, but Wren could hear a hint of laughter in his voice. "Lucky she didn't just run you over with how much you stink."

"Guess you're right," the ranger said, laughing.

The keenness that Wren had seen in the man's eyes before was gone. He seemed like a dumb outdoorsman, nothing more. She wondered if she had been imagining his glance down at her license plate. Maybe there was nothing there. She was jumping at shadows.

"Anyway, this little lady wants to camp up on the ridge."

"Camping?" The ranger turned to look at her.

"Here, let me take that," the hotel clerk said, reaching out for Wren's empty coffee cup.

"Thanks," she said.

"See you later, Daws."

"Later, Matt."

Matt shuffled out the hotel door and across the street to the gas station.

"So. Camping," Dawson said.

"Not really camping," Wren said. "I was planning on staying at the hotel here, but it's full. I don't even have a tent."

"What are you up here for?"

"Vacation," she lied. "Just wanted to get away from it all for a while."

"Well, you found the right place. Nothing at all around here. Not even hotel rooms."

"Do you think I should ride up to the next town?" Wren wanted to stay near the place Tommy had been killed, but not if it meant sleeping on the cold ground.

"Riding along these curves... not quite safe in the dark. Hey, you can stay in the fire lookout."

"Fire lookout?"

"Here, let me show you." Dawson turned and walked out without waiting for an answer. And Wren, to her surprise, found herself following him willingly. She tried to keep her eyes off his back and was completely unsuccessful. Oh well, she thought. Look, don't touch.

Dawson led her around the back of the hotel to a trailhead, and they began to walk up the side of the steep hill. She darted glances all around as they hiked up. One. Surroundings.

"Sun sets fast around here," he said. "Moon should be up soon, though, so it won't be completely dark."

"What is this place? A fire lookout?"

"Yeah. They used to have them all over the place. Kind of like a lifeguard tower, but instead of watching for drowning people, you watch for wildfires."

Dawson stepped over a large fallen tree trunk and held out his hand. Wren took it gratefully and was surprised at his strength as he helped her keep her balance as she climbed over the trunk. Her mouth went dry at the touch of his fingers on her palm, but the feeling quickly faded when their hands parted. She was here on a job, she reminded herself. And her boyfriend was waiting at home for her.

"So there's someone staying there to watch for fires?"

"Not anymore. This one's abandoned. So are most of them, really."

"Why?" Wren found herself panting as they reached the corner of a switchback. She had thought that she was in good shape, but the steep hike made her lungs burn.

"Well, now that we have webcams installed at the tops of all of the lookouts, it doesn't make sense to have people staying in all of them. They have one person who watches all the cameras for signs of fire."

"And all the other fire lifeguards... were fired?"

"Exactly." Dawson laughed, a thick rich laugh that made something inside Wren's chest twist. "That's the new economy for you. One guy doing a hundred people's job."

They reached the fire lookout. It did look remarkably like a lifeguard tower. Dawson let her climb up the wood ladder first, then followed. The roof covered a single platform with a log railing around all the edges, completely bare except for a cot in one corner. But the view—

"This is incredible," Wren said, leaning over the wood rail. Underneath her, the black pines fell away in a dark cascade down to the edge of the water. The coast stretched out north and south as far as her eyes could see. The sun already was half-set, and as it sank down into the horizon of the ocean, the thin lines of clouds in the sky turned red and orange and pink.

"Can't beat the view," Dawson agreed. "I love coming up here to watch the sunset."

She looked up to see him gazing out at the water. The sun was reflected in his light eyes, and as it dipped below the horizon she saw the gold irises turn dark. He blinked, and she looked away, swallowing her feelings. Back to the mission. Everybody was a suspect. Even this guy, with his soft gaze and hard muscles and sunset-watching.

But no. She knew predators, she'd met dozens and dozens of them. This man was no predator. She thought about what her dad had said—to trust her instinct. And every instinct in her told her that she didn't need to worry about this man. If she was being honest with herself, every instinct in her told her too that she should rip off the rest of his clothes and throw him to the ground and—

"What was your name again?" he asked.

"Wren," she blurted out, too startled by the interruption of her thoughts to lie. "I mean, my name is Isabel. But my friends call me Wren."

Dammit! How had he pulled down my defenses so quickly?

"Nice to meet you, Wren." The ranger held his hand out and she took it, her eyes flitting down so that she didn't have to look at his face, his chest. "That is... I hope I'm a friend."

She looked up at him and knew in her gut that she could trust him, but her smile was still tight, guarded. "I hope so, too."

"Hey—before it gets completely dark. You see that roof down there? Next to the two tall pines?"

Wren looked down and found the small brown rectangle he pointed out.

"The wood shingled one?" At the place where the trail had separated farther down the hill, one of the paths led up to the lookout and the other led to the roof he pointed out.

"Good eyes. That's my cabin. You need anything, you can walk down the trail and take the other fork up to where I am."

"Thanks," Wren said. She looked over at the cot; there was a sleeping bag folded up underneath. That would be fine. She glanced back at the opening they'd climbed through. "Is there... there's no lock."

"No doors, no windows, no lock," Dawson agreed. "But you'll be fine. Only thing to worry about here's the wildlife, and only the squirrels can climb ladders."