Wren and the Werebear (7 page)

"I'll be fine," Wren repeated hollowly. She thought of the shifter out there. In the woods. She hoped he hadn't seen her yet.

"Unless you're scared of squirrels." The ranger grinned at her. "But I think you can fight off a rogue squirrel or two. You look like a woman who can take care of herself."

Wren stole a quick glance up at him to make sure he wasn't being sarcastic. His face, though, was sincere, his eyes tawny and soft.

"And like I said, I'm right down there. You give a shout and I'll be up here in a split second."

"Okay," Wren said. "I'll make sure to scream if a pack of wild squirrels attacks me."

"You do that. G'night," Dawson said.

He climbed down the creaking wooden ladder and left her alone. Wren watched in the quickly dimming light as he moved through the trail down towards his cabin and became just another shadow among the trees.

Chapter Nine

Tommy.

Wren woke up shivering under the blanket, the shifter attack at the front of her mind. She'd kept her gun next to her, but it couldn't protect her from the nightmares that had filled the night. Glad to be awake, she stretched and looked out over the railing to the view below.

Everything was white. A sea of fog covered the forest around her, and the sky was overcast, the clouds pressing down and mixing with the fog. She could only see the tops of the pines nearest the fire lookout, their black branches piercing the thick white veil. From farther down than that, the sound of waves breaking on the cliffs carried through the air in a low murmur. She could not see the coast at all.

She rolled the sleeping bag up and left it on the cot. Walking down the trail, she felt acutely uncomfortable, and she kept her gun out and to her side. No way was she letting the shifter blindside her the way Tommy had been blindsided. She passed quickly through places where the trail narrowed. Every rustle in the woods made her jump, and by the time she reached the trailhead she was as awake as she'd ever been.

Down at the gas station, she found the teenager slumped over the counter, snoring. She went around the back of the counter and fixed a mug of coffee for herself, leaving him asleep. Scarfing down a protein bar, she swallowed the hot coffee in between bites to mask the taste.

She called Olivier's number from the pay phone out front.

"Who is this?" he asked, as soon as he picked up.

"I love you too, honey," Wren said, holding the payphone to one ear as she sipped her coffee. Technically, she wasn't supposed to contact the outside world, but she knew Olivier would pitch a fit if she didn't check in with him.

"Wren? Where the hell are you?"

"California." For some reason, Wren was not in any mood to placate Olivier. Most times she would bend over backward to reassure him, but today all she could think about was Tommy and the reason she had come here. She couldn't wait to find the shifter.

"Wha—what are you doing in California?"

"Work," Wren said. "They called me out here to take care of something important."

"You can't do that! We have a party to go to tonight, remember?"

"I'm sorry, Olivier. I can't make it." Her fingers tightened around the phone. She hated it when he told her she couldn't do something. It only made her clench harder to the work that she had come here to do.

"You can't—listen, Wren, this is the party with the committee head. This isn't just some bullshit cocktail thing you can skip out on. This is my chance to make an impression."

Wren gripped her coffee mug in her hand and took a sip. A party. That's why he was angry. Not that she was gone, but that she couldn't come to a party with him.

"Olivier—"

"You are being so selfish right now, I can't believe it. This is my one shot to really get ahead, and you're ruining it! For what? Some stupid little assignment?"

Wren's chest tightened in anger. She gritted her teeth and tried not to explode in rage. In her mind, she saw Tommy's face. The image of him tracking through the forest swam before her eyes and she forced down the feelings that threatened to burst from her.

"I'll be back for our weekend trip, I promise," she said, trying to speak calmly.

"Screw the trip." The words hissed through the phone's receiver. "I need you here tonight."

"I—Olivier—I can't be there. I'll explain when I get—"

"I don't need you to explain. I understand perfectly. You leave me in the middle of a dangerous situation with a criminal who tried to kill us—"

"He didn't try to kill us." Wren leaned her forehead against the wall and focused on breathing. Inhale, exhale. Tommy, stepping through the woods. The shadow of the bear.

"—and you didn't even take your cell phone so I could call you—"

"I'm out in the middle of nowhere, there's no cell reception here—"

"This is my one shot, Wren. My one shot to impress the committee head. And you're ruining it."

"Olivier, this assignment is important to m—"

"It's not important! What, it's more important to you than I am?"

In her mind, Wren saw the bear's paw slashing down onto Tommy's arm, and for a second she couldn't speak. She swallowed and bit down on her lip hard to try and make the image go away.

"That's not what I—"

"Because if you think that I'm going to let my one chance at getting the committee on my side just slip away because you're so attached to some goddamn assignment, you're wrong!"

Wren was silent, boiling over with fury. Every time Olivier wanted her at a party, he ended up ignoring her. And every time he guilted her into going to the next party, because every time was "his one shot" to get ahead. She was sick of it. Sick of the politics, sick of being a piece of arm candy.

She thought of Tommy, how he promised her that he would track down the shifter who had paralyzed her dad.

"Wren? Wren, stop being so ridiculous. Cut this out and come home, and—"

Wren hung up.

Anger sizzled through her body, but she didn't need emotion clouding her judgment right now. She was on a job, and she would finish it, no matter what. For Tommy. The pay phone rang but she ignored it.

She changed clothes quickly in the gas station bathroom, tucking the gun into her jacket and out of sight. The teenager at the counter was still asleep.

"Hey, excuse me?" Wren poked his arm. "Shawn?"

"—don't stop. Don't. What?" He looked up, his eyes bleary. "Oh, hey. It's you. Do you want some coffee?"

"Already got some," Wren said brightly, sliding the empty mug across the counter to him. "I was thinking of doing some hiking. Know any good trails?"

"Um, yeah. Sure." The teenager rubbed his eyes. "There's the one trail goes up to the fire lookout."

"That's where I was last night," Wren said.

"Oh. Oh yeah, right. So, you want a long hike, or what?"

"I'd like to explore a bit deeper into the forest."

"Kay. There's a loop that goes—here, here's a map."

He shoved a sheet of paper her way. She saw the trailhead behind the hotel which led up to the lookout and the ranger station. Next to it was another trailhead, and that was the one Shawn pointed to, yawning.

"Round the whole forest, basically. You go over a stream, and then up some, then it crosses back over. It's like, maybe ten miles round trip. Long loop."

"That sounds perfect." Wren folded the paper and tucked it into her jacket pocket.

"Wait," Shawn said. "You have water?"

"Water?"

"It's a long hike. Morning's foggy, but later it'll be hella hot. You'll want water. There." The teenager pointed behind Wren, to a pyramid of water bottles. She grabbed two of them and threw a five dollar bill on the counter.

"Thanks. Keep the change." Wren smiled inwardly. A pothead teenager, and he still thought ahead enough to worry about her. Nice kid.

Four miles into the hike, she wished she had brought more than two bottles of water. The fog had rolled out quickly, and the sun was hot, despite filtering down through the branches of the pines. It was humid enough here that the warmth made her sweat, and she wiped her face with her shirt.

The trail was steeper than she had thought it would be, and she spent a lot of time walking off on side paths, trying to find some evidence of a bear shifter. So far, nothing.

It was not until another mile or so that the trail started to turn down and the sun was completely blocked out by the thick pines. Her shirt was soaked through with sweat and now, down in the shadow of the mountain between two ridges, a chill ran through her. She walked faster now, gun still at the ready. Trudging across a trickling creek, she lost her balance slightly and pitched forward on the stones. Catching herself on the creek bank, she looked up, and what she saw in the bush took her breath from her lungs.

A tuft of light brown fur waved slightly in the wind, caught on a broken branch. The morning dew still beaded on the fur. She reached out, pinched it between two fingers, and examined it closely.

It was easy to tell bear fur apart from most other animals in the forest. The grain was rougher than deer fur, and usually came off in tufts.

So there was a bear around here. Wren already had her gun drawn, and she looked around now with the wary eyes of an animal of prey. There was another broken branch farther up the creek bed. Wren stepped forward slowly, her gun aimed down in front of her. She would not be caught off-guard.

Step by agonizing step, she made her way up the creek bed. The trickle of water under her feet grew as she moved upstream, and the stones grew larger, with occasional small boulders strewn through the creek bed. The extra water made the rocks slippery, and she stayed to the side of the bank so that she would not stumble again.

Better, too, for the hill rising up protected her on one side. The boulders were so large here that sometimes she had to circle them with her gun up and aimed, for she could not see over them to what was hiding on the other side. Every time she circled a boulder, her heart beat fast and she felt the adrenaline surge in her system. By the tenth time, she was growing tired from the constant tension in her muscles, but still she made her way upstream. She could not be careful enough. Tommy had not been careful enough. She would not make the same mistake.

She followed the broken branches along the side of the creek for a quarter of a mile. The creek under her feet had grown to a steady stream—the ground lower down must be porous, she thought—and soon she was simply scrambling over the wet stones, her shoes soaked through. The boulders lining the creek bed were huge, and it took her longer to scout around them to make sure there was nothing hiding.

Then there were no more broken branches.

For ten yards or so, she saw no other signs of the bear, and she thought she might have lost the trail. She cast her eyes around, trying to find something that she had missed.

A splash from up ahead made her heart jump, and her gun was up and aimed before she even steadied herself on her feet. The noise continued, but Wren could scarcely hear the murmur of the creek above the pounding of her pulse in her ears.

Boulders and fallen trees had clustered up ahead, forming a natural dam. There was a small pool beneath the dam, a waterfall streaming down between two boulders coming from the top. She would have to climb up to get to the place where the splashing had come from, twenty feet or so above the level of the lower pool.

Breathing hard, Wren made her way around to the side that seemed the most accessible. With one hand gripping her gun, she climbed up the side of the waterfall. The rocks here were wet, but the slope was not as steep, and she stepped up gingerly. There was nothing beneath her but the small pool of water and the rocks of the creek bed. Above her, though... Her heart beat fast. Her finger hovered near the trigger of her gun. She climbed, one-handed.

The splashing had stopped, and Wren eased herself up over the side of the boulder slowly, cautiously. Perching on a narrow ledge, she stood up slowly, her gun coming up alongside her vision. She peeked over the boulder, slowly, slowly—

"Ahh!"

The face in front of her was so close that she screamed and started backwards, losing her balance. A large hand reached out and caught her by the arm that held her gun.

Chapter Ten

Her foot slipped, and her free hand grabbed at the arm which had caught her. A gasp escaped her lips as she recognized the blond hair, the light brown eyes twinkling above her. And... and...

This time Dawson wasn't just topless. He was one hundred percent, bare-assed naked.

While Wren was agape at his completely clothes-free body, he was keeping her from falling backwards into the lower pool. Finally her mind reassembled itself into something that could think half-clearly. Her feet scrambled for purchase on the boulders, trying frantically to regain her balance.

"Stop squirming," the ranger said. "Let me pull you up over the ledge, okay?"

Wren stopped. She looked up at the ranger's face, averting her eyes from everything happening below his waist. His unimaginably muscled, sexy hips. His—

"Okay," she said breathlessly. But he didn't move to pull her up. Instead, his eyes darted down to her gun.

"You're not planning to use that on me, right?" he asked.

"I—n—no," Wren said.

"Just making sure." The ranger grinned and lifted Wren up and over the boulder's ledge as though she weighed nothing. Her legs wobbled under her as her feet found solid ground on the top of the boulder. The upper pool above the dam was much larger than the bottom pool, and an even bigger waterfall streamed down the side of the mountain to feed it. Wren wouldn't have been able to continue tracking the bear anyway—the next waterfall was much too steep.

"Now why don't you put that gun away and tell me what you're doing here."

"I—I—you—I don't—" Wren waved her hand vaguely in the direction of his body as she tucked her gun back into her jacket. The ranger was just standing there next to the pool as though nothing was the matter. As though it was perfectly natural to carry on a conversation with a stranger in the nude. And now that her gun was away, she had nothing to look at but his... but him.