by J. K Harper
Jerk.
“I'll try to head Quentin off at the pass for you,” Abby said, leaning forward to kiss the gelding's soft red nose before turning to Paxton and gently rubbing behind the mare's ears, which were sweaty and probably itchy from where her headstall had been. “They already left a review on Yowl.” She said it casually, not looking at Cortez, but he heard the careful note in her voice.
“In the past five minutes? Ah, fucking fried shit on a shingle.” He yanked the straps off of Paxton more forcefully than he needed to. The mare cast him a wounded look. “Sorry,” he muttered at her, which was dumb because she was just a horse, not a shifter. Even so, Cortez liked the horses. He wasn't a horseman, but ever since he'd officially taken over the lodge's sleigh rides in a bid to build up his own brand-new business, he'd spent enough time with them to start really enjoying their mostly quiet, calm equine company.
Horses couldn't give him shit like everyone else did.
“And?” He kept untacking, not looking at Abby. Yowl was the shifter app for business reviews, where everyone could review their favorite—or most hated—shifter establishment and let the entire rest of the shifter world know what they thought. Complete with growly faces of their animal avatars for a thumbs down.
Abby fidgeted, murmuring in Paxton's fuzzy ears as she rubbed them. Cortez chanced a sidelong glance at her. Sensing his gaze, she sighed and shook her head. “Well, they five-starred the lodge. They loved their stay here, and they plan to come back again.”
“That's good,” Cortez muttered, looking back at what he was doing. If he didn't pay attention, he'd tangle up the long reins and harness as he removed it from the mare's back. Untangling that stuff wasn't something he had time for today.
“But they weren't as thrilled with the lodge-recommended Tooth 'n Claw Tours. They gave it a snarling panther face.”
Cortez clenched his jaw. He'd just begun his outdoor tour company last year. He couldn't afford a single bad review.
“They then proceeded to dismember your good name, with some choice comments about your attitude and tardiness.” Abby gently chucked the mare under her chin, then looked at Cortez with a troubled expression. Her mate Quentin was the lodge manager, in charge while the elder Walkers were gone for the year. She liked Cortez, but her mate was her mate. Plus she worked here at the lodge now, so it was her reputation as well.
Cortez exploded. “My attitude? My attitude was just fine for those highfalutin panther shifters.” He shoved as much disdain into the word as he could. “I bent over backwards being nice to their snobby asses. No way was my attitude off.” He stomped over to the small tack room inside the barn to put away the harness.
Abby huffed in agreement. “I believe you, Cortez. I had to cater to their every need for the whole week. They were definitely a pain in the ass, and they're clearly more used to high-end places than a lodge like this.” Her tone was arch.
Cortez began to protest, but she waved it off. “You know what I mean. The lodge is incredible, but they wanted major upscale pampering and ass-kissing.” She gave a short, wicked little chuckle. “No one here is very good at that.”
He settled the harness onto its wall hook. “That's for damn sure. We advertise as a great place to come and let your inner animal loose. We don't advertise that we're going to groom it and serve it caviar and bubbly on a silver platter every night at dinner.”
Abby's own laugh rang out, lightening the mood more. “Definitely not. Anyway. I've got to get back inside, we've got some new guests checking in soon. Hang in there,” she added, smiling at him as he emerged from the tack room with brushes in hand to use on the horses. “You went through something awful, and you're still working your way back.” Her eyes on his were suddenly serious, though her voice was soft. “Quentin knows that. He might yell at you, but then he'll cut you some slack.”
Cortez heaved a sharp laugh. Abby had taken him under her wing like the big sister he'd never had. She liked to mother him. But he knew better. Quentin would just kick his ass five ways to Sunday.
“Yeah, right. He won't think I deserve some slack.” Starting with Paxton, he groomed her in small circles on her side with the curry, feeling her relax with a contented sigh under his hand. A small thunk sounded outside the barn as a pile of snow must have slid off one of the pine tree branches in the warming midday sun.
He could feel Abby's sharp gaze on him as he brushed the mare. “He's not the one who has to cut you the most slack, Cortez. That's on you.” Her voice was firm.
Ouch. That stung. Surrogate big sister-type truth usually did. He listened to the sound of her footsteps as they crunched away back to the lodge, the drip of melting snow outside the barn, the snuffling sounds as King Lear nosed around for some hay.
In his head, he suddenly pictured Haley's pretty green eyes, her wild messy hair, the fiery defensiveness that covered up something small and hurting inside. Just like him, though he tended to cover his by going balls-to-the-wall with fun and adventure.
Cortez felt his bear rumble around inside him, like a dark shadow filled with brooding energy. Fuuuck. This was the darkest secret he carried right now. Sure, on the surface he was lighthearted, fun, living for the moment. And prone to fucking up left, right, and center. But that was because he was at polar opposites with his bear right now.
His bear was anger. Shame. Rage. Sadness. There was so much darkness inside him, he had to balance it somehow or else he'd go crazy. He couldn't let anyone see the angry bear inside. Not until he got his shit straightened out. If he ever did. Quentin would have his head, and every antsy shifter in town that wanted a good throw down would challenge him to a brawl that would end much worse than they usually did. Cortez had seen it happen with his best friend, Beckett, who was a cranky asshole on the best day. Beckett didn't have much control over his very dominant bear. It was why he pretty much hid out on the mountain, so he wouldn't destroy the town by losing control and rampaging through it as his savage animal with no restraint from his more rational human side.
Cortez couldn't, wouldn't, let his bear get to that point. Because if someone like pretty little Haley knew about the darkness buried inside him? He'd hurt her somehow. He wouldn't mean to, but he would nonetheless. His bear was on a thin leash right now. She was cute enough, somehow fascinating enough, that he wanted to see her again. But he had to be careful. He could tell she already hurt from something. He wasn't about to add to that.
Swallowing more swears, shoving it all into his bear's dark threats rumbling deep inside him, Cortez pushed it all away. Stupid panther shifters, angry brothers, a business that might fail before he even got it off the ground. He needed to focus on right now, right here. Just brushing the horses, relaxed and quiet, until his bear subsided and all he was left with was a calm surface. The part of him that just wanted to go out and have a good time and forget about everything else. Especially the worst day of his life, the day that ended with pain and suffering and so much anguish he might explode from it.
He brushed the horses. Listened to the quiet of the day. Definitely thought about a cute girl with very pretty eyes and a big laugh. Yeah, he wanted to see her again, real bad. But it wouldn't matter anyway. Once she saw him, the real him, fucked up and going nowhere except downward in a spiral of anger and hurt, she'd run like hell.
No one would blame her for running. Least of all him.
3
Haley watched the beautiful winter landscape scroll out alongside the car as it slowly wound its way up the mountain. “It's so pretty here.” She sighed with contentment. “Have you gotten used to how beautiful it is yet?”
Jessie laughed. “Not for a single second. I grew up in big cities, so any snow we ever got turned all grey and slushy and yucky in about two seconds. This place still blows me away every day.”
“That sounds like Boston. Grey slush and dreary winter days. But this is just incredible,” Haley murmured. She couldn't drag her gaze away from looking out the window, at the sun-dazzled white sno
w that lay heavy on the deep green pine boughs, the occasional glimpse of jagged white peaks farther in the distance. Of course she'd seen mountains before. But they were back east mountains, the soft, sloped ones of New Hampshire she'd gone to for weekend ski adventures with friends. The hills were short, the views were mellow, and while nice enough, overall they had absolutely nothing on the wild, stunning beauty here. When she'd arrived in Colorado the other week, she'd been so bowled over by the seemingly endless mountain ranges, the big peaks, the snow-draped forests that probably stretched on for the length of two eastern states, she'd practically forgotten her own name.
Coming to Deep Hollow had been the best decision of her life. It was a lucky break that she intended to make the most of. Forget the past, and live for her new future in these beautiful mountains.
She drank in every detail as they drove upward to the Silvertip Lodge, the main shifter tourist draw of the area that also happened to belong to the Walkers. It was an entire landscape filled with adventure and excitement, all wrapped up in a crisp newness Haley desperately craved. She'd spent the last year in a nightmare. This was a sweet, incredible dream she'd finally been able to find. She only hoped she wouldn't suddenly wake up to realize it was just as false as the life she'd been forced to leave behind.
As Jessie steered the big truck around one more corner, she glanced over at Haley and smiled. "Your expression is just like the one I had the first time I saw all this. I feel so lucky I found this place. You will too." Her voice was cheerful and upbeat, just like she was.
Haley had met Jessie at the Mountain Muffin, a cute little bakery that was the heart of Deep Hollow. She liked to split her time between writing at the house, with its privacy and peace, then heading to the Mountain Muffin at midday to soak up the energy whirling around her as she worked on the more mundane tasks of running an online, one-woman business.
Jessie worked as a barista there. The very first day Haley had shown up, Jessie had immediately smiled at her. "You're Haley, right? You're house-sitting for the Walkers? I'm Jessie. Welcome to Deep Hollow." She'd been so instantly friendly and likable that Haley naturally liked her. Jessie was also human, but she was the mother of a shifter son, both of them living with her shifter mate, Shane, up at Silvertip Lodge where Shane worked. She told Haley she'd lived here for about a year now and that she absolutely loved this little town and its boisterous yet extremely protective clan of bear shifters. In Jessie, Haley knew right away she'd found a new friend.
Jessie had been fascinated to find out that Haley had already known about shifters, since she herself had never heard of such a thing until her son was born and she noticed something different about him. Luckily for her, her best friend was originally from Deep Hollow and immediately knew what was going on when single mother Jessie had told her that her infant son, who'd been born from a weekend fling, sometimes growled like an animal. Although Jessie curiously pried for how Haley knew about shifters, Haley was reluctant to share with anyone exactly how she'd found out about Deep Hollow.
Her best friend, Pix, was a dragon shifter who'd partially renounced her heritage. But that wasn't Haley's story to share, and Pix kept her shifter side a secret from most. So she just vaguely said that she knew a shifter back in Boston who'd hooked her up with the shifter-only online message boards through which the Walkers had been seeking a house-sitter. That was the truth. Jessie had easily accepted that, not pressing for more details.
"I think it's amazing here," Haley murmured now. “I definitely feel very lucky already.”
They rounded one more corner of the road, and suddenly a scatter of cozy brown log cabins, a barn, then a building that dwarfed all the rest, which must be the main lodge, came into view. Haley sucked in a breath, swiveling her head around to take it all in as Jessie drove them toward the large building. Nestled into a small valley beneath the imposing brow of the mountain above, which she knew was called Silvertip Ridge, the mountain lodge was spectacular but not overwhelming. The place felt cocooned in the safety of its little valley, yet at the same time it also opened up to the wide open sprawl of the mountains beyond. Haley got a sudden little shiver down her spine, then another, as she realized that bear shifters ran around back there. All kinds of shifters, actually. This place was the ideal mashup between meeting the needs of the human side of shifters as well as the animal side. Haley had to admit she didn't really know any shifters at all except Pix. And Pix wasn't a bear.
Suddenly, Jessie's delighted laugh rolled out. "There they are! My cub, and my man." Devotion and pride filled her voice.
Haley turned to look where Jessie pointed. Involuntarily, she gasped, her eyes widening as her brain stalled out. Charging across the snowy grounds, directly for them, was a little bear cub, an actual bear cub, all cute and roly-poly and sort of disjointed as he ran in that little baby creature way. He was followed by an absolutely giant grizzly bear. A grizzly bear that had to be Jessie's mate.
She found herself wondering if Cortez, that sexy, sexy man she'd met the other morning, would be as big as this bear. Be as fierce, and strong. She couldn't stop thinking about him, which half bugged her and half keyed her up. Even though he'd left on that sad, dark note, a note that jostled into her own deepest fears and told her he had fears of his own, what she most remembered about him was his deep laugh and the sparkle in his eyes. She couldn't help but wonder if he was up here somewhere. He was a Walker, after all.
Jessie coasted the truck to a stop on the side of the road. Opening the door, she jumped out and fearlessly went straight for the huge grizzly and the little cub, clearly joyful as she knelt down and spread out her arms wide so the little bear could run right to her. Haley just stared at the improbable but totally adorable scene, frozen to her seat with excitement and wonder. The next second, the little bear abruptly morphed into a little boy, probably around two years old, butt naked and giggling cheerfully in the freezing cold January weather. He leaped barefoot out of the snow into his mother's arms, flinging his own little arms around her neck and squeezing her tight.
Haley rubbed her eyes, blinking. Whoa. She'd met the little boy, Grant, at the Mountain Muffin several times, but there he'd always been in human form. And while she'd seen her friend Pix change into her dragon before, and it was amazing, she'd also been seeing it since they were both in elementary school. She was kind of used to it. Haley had never in her life seen bear shifters before. Her mind soaked in the details even as at the same time it could only unimaginatively come up with Wow as a descriptor.
The adult grizzly bear gently whuffled his nose over the boy's head, then equally gently nuzzled the top of Jessie's. Jessie reached out to rub the golden fur between the bear's fierce eyes, completely unafraid. Grinning, she gestured back at the truck, half turning to wave at Haley. Haley waved back, still nonplussed. The giant bear turned his head toward the truck, letting out a muffled roar that she really hoped was a greeting. He gently nudged Jessie one more time before turning and loping toward some sort of maintenance shed tucked around back behind the lodge.
Jessie stood up, naked little boy held tightly in her arms, and came back to the truck. She slid in, beaming at Haley. "Shane will say hi later, over lunch. We decided you didn't need to be freaked out too much just yet, so it would be better to meet him when he's human. And when he has clothes on.”
“Uh—sure. Clothes are good.” Haley's voice was a squeak.
Jessie laughed over her son's babbles. “I felt the same way when I first saw them in their shifted forms. Come on, let's get up to the lodge. Abby will have lunch ready for us. It'll just be sandwiches and soup probably, but it will be good. And you can meet everyone finally.” She put the truck back into gear and they rumbled the remaining hundred feet up to the beautiful main building.
Her head still whirling from seeing the bears, Haley murmured a delighted “Ooh!” at the sight of the stunning lodge. Huge windows spread from floor to ceiling while a wrap-around deck the size of the Titanic ran the full length of the
building. Stately pines, the ones Haley had learned were ponderosas, rose to dramatic heights on either side, their limbs covered with sparkling snow. Jessie pulled up and parked in the lot beside the lodge, shifting Grant in her arms as she got out of the truck and headed toward the front doors. Haley followed up the cleared walkway, which was lined by fluffy piles of snow all the way. It was fairytale beautiful here.
When they reached the doors, she made a noise when she saw the carvings in the wood. Jessie smiled at her. “Pretty neat, huh? The lodge is open to all shifters, but it's a reminder that this is native bear country.”
On the upper panels of the gorgeous oak doors, huge carved silvertips, or grizzly bears, stood on ridges surveying their domain before them. On the panels below, enormous grizzly paws decorated the wood, carefully etched in by a master hand. “Those are the actual paw prints of the boys,” Jessie said as she pushed open the door. “Shane's is down there,” she added, pointing proudly to what clearly was a newer carving. “He just moved back here a few years ago, but he's part of the Walker clan since he's a cousin. He got to have his on there too.”
Driven by sudden impulse, Haley asked, “Which one belongs to Cortez?”
“Cortez?” Jessie gave her a funny look. “I didn't know you knew him already. That's his.” She pointed to a block in the middle of the left door. “You can tell because he's missing a claw tip.”
Haley blinked at that. “Really? I thought shifters could, uh, heal really quickly.”
Jessie shrugged as she maneuvered herself and her squirming son through the doorway. “He was born that way. He's always been a little different. Abby!” she called out, waving at a blond woman behind the enormous reception counter. “I brought a new friend for us. Abby's a wolf shifter,” Jessie added. “Her mate is Quentin.”
Abby had almost immediately come forward to coo at Grant, who said something that sounded like “AmmyAwwy!” Abby smiled at Haley, who couldn't help but stare for a second too long. She was pretty sure she'd never before met a wolf shifter, either. But Abby didn't seem to notice. She said in a genuinely friendly voice, “Welcome to the Silvertip Lodge, Haley. I've heard all about you. We all have.”
