McClintock Bears Box Set

by Charlotte Summers

  Simone shrugged and said, “What happened was unfortunate but it’s one of those things.” She always tried to make light of the attack, and Dani knew her friend meant well and was trying to lessen the psychological impact of the memory. But Simone had escaped the tent unharmed while Dani had to live with those scars for the rest of her life.

  She had never let anyone see them. When she was with Henry, she had insisted that the lights were off before she undressed. She slept in a T-shirt so Henry wouldn’t roll over in the morning to face her and see the scars. They were ugly. Dani was thankful they were on her back. At least she didn’t see them every time she looked in a mirror.

  She felt guilty for being envious of Simone’s lack of scars. She was sure the incident had psychologically wounded her friend, even if Simone wouldn’t admit it. And it was Simone who tried to fight the bear off with a large branch before using the flare gun from their survival pack to scare it away.

  Dani remembered something else about the attack, something she had never told anyone. As she lay bleeding on the cold ground while Simone used her cell to call the paramedics, in the fading light of the red flare, Dani saw the bear through the trees. Only it wasn’t a bear anymore. It was a man. She couldn’t see his features; he stood in the darkness beneath the trees and the flare’s fading light hardly reached him. But she was certain the bear had become a man.

  At first, lying in the hospital bed the following day, she had tried to chase that particular memory away with logic. Of course the bear couldn’t have changed into a man. That was impossible. Dani had been in shock and her mind had played tricks on her.

  But as time went on, she was certain her memory was accurate. The bear that attacked her had become a man.

  Silver Rock had legends of shifters stretching all the way back through the town’s history. Dani had even been told about them by her grandmother. But stories were one thing and seeing a real shifter was something else. If shifters were real, it meant the world was not quite as Dani had always believed. That scared her.

  For two years, she had kept the secret locked away. It nagged at her mind constantly. Dani was ready to share her untold secret with Simone but it could wait until later. It was probably best to wait until they had cracked open the beers they had brought with them.

  “Hey,” Simone said, pulling Dani from her thoughts, “I wonder what Norman Lewis is doing these days?”

  Dani groaned. “Why did you have to mention him?”

  “He was the first person on the scene after the attack, remember? He got there even before the paramedics arrived.”

  “Only because he was driving by on the highway, saw the flare, and heard about the attack on his police scanner. He didn’t rush there to rescue us or anything.”

  Simone laughed. “Are you sure? Because that boy has had a crush on you the size of Alaska ever since high school.”

  “Please don’t remind me.” Norman Lewis had somehow fallen for Dani in high school and pestered her to go out with him ever since. She had refused. He just wasn’t her type. Geeky and thin with awkward social manners, Norman was okay if you had a problem with your laptop because he was an electronics genius, but he wasn’t exactly dating material. Dani was sure there was a girl out there somewhere who was perfect for Norman, but it wasn’t her—despite what Norman thought.

  “You made matters worse by dating his brother,” she reminded Simone. Randy Lewis, Norman’s brother, had been a jock in high school and moved in different social circles than his younger brother. Simone had dated him for a couple of weeks.

  “How the hell did that make it worse?” Simone asked, already knowing the answer to the question.

  “Because Norman got the idea that you dating Randy meant he was somehow more likely to date me. I’m sure he thought we’d be double dating with you and Randy.”

  Simone laughed. “Do you think you’ll run into Norman this week?”

  “Don’t I always? He seems to know exactly when I’m back in town.”

  “That’s because we come at the same time every year, honey. The boy doesn’t need to be a genius to figure that out.”

  Dani sighed. “Well, at least he didn’t ask me on a date the last time I saw him. Hell, that was two years ago. Maybe he’s moved on with his life since then.”

  “Maybe,” Simone agreed. “And speaking of moving on, we should get started on the house.” She began pulling cleaning fluids and rags out of a box they had brought. “We need dusters and air freshener. It’s time to give this place a spring clean.”

  Dani took a cloth and some glass cleaner. She sprayed the window and smeared away a thick layer of dust. Beyond the window, the overgrown back yard stretched to the woods. Dani peered through the smear of clear glass at the darkness beneath the pines and shivered.

  If only she could wipe away her fear as easily as she wiped away the dust on the glass. It was going to take a lot more effort than that to get over the attack.

  She would probably live the rest of her life in fear of wild places.

  That was a shame because she used to love hiking into the wilds with her canvas and paints. She enjoyed watching the animals and birds.

  Now there was an animal she hated. Bears. It was probably wrong to hate all bears just because she had been attacked by one, but she couldn’t help it.

  And if the bear that had attacked her had been a shifter, then she hated them, too.

  If she never saw another bear or another shifter for the rest of her life, that would be just fine.

  *

  Later, as it grew dark outside, Dani and Simone sat on the rug in front of the fireplace, leaning back against the sofa. Simone had lit a fire, and Dani watched the flames as they licked around the logs. A recently-delivered pepperoni pizza sat in its box between them, and they each held a bottle of beer.

  Cleaning the house hadn’t been as big a job as Dani had feared when she’d first walked in and smelled the musty odor. They had dusted and scrubbed all of the downstairs and the two bedrooms they would be sleeping in tonight. Tomorrow, they would tackle the rest of the upstairs and the yard.

  “To a job well done,” Simone said, raising her bottle and clinking it against Dani’s.

  “I’ll drink to that.” Dani took a swallow of beer and ripped off a slice of pizza. She had been thinking all day about how she would tell Simone that she was sure the bear in the woods had been a shifter. She decided to say it straight.

  “So, I have a big bear theory of my own,” she said.

  “Oh?” Simone took a slice of pizza from the box and put it on a plate. “What’s that, honey?”

  Dani cleared her throat. Now that she was about to tell Simone her secret, she felt nervous. “My theory is that the bear that attacked us was a shifter.”

  “What?” Simone’s eyes went wide. “How many of those beers have you had?” Then a knowing look crossed her face and she grinned. “You’re playing with me, aren’t you?”

  “No, I’m not. When you were calling for help, I looked at the place the bear had run to in the trees and I saw a man there.”

  Simone studied Dani’s face as if judging whether or not her friend was joking or not. “You’re being serious right now.”

  Dani nodded.

  “You were lying in a pool of blood, you’d just been attacked and you were in shock…”

  “You don’t believe me,” Dani said.

  Simone sighed “I believe you think you saw a man there. But it was dark and we were panicking…”

  “I know what I saw.”

  Simone took a pull from her beer bottle and looked into the flickering fire. “I want to believe you. But shifters?”

  “We both heard the legends from when we were little. I remember sitting in this room while your grandma told us about bear and wolf shifters. My parents used to tell us the same stories.”

  “Yes, stories. That’s all they were. Legends passed down over the years.”

  “What if they’re true? What if they’re ba
sed on reality?”

  Simone thought for a moment. “What if they are? It doesn’t change what happened in the woods that night. What does it matter if the stories are true or not?”

  “Because if they’re true, don’t you think we should investigate or something?”

  “Investigate what? Where would we start?”

  “I don’t know,” Dani admitted. “Maybe I’m just crazy.”

  Simone touched her shoulder affectionately. “You’re not crazy, so don’t go telling yourself that. If you say that bear was a shifter, then I believe you. It was a shifter. But right now, the only thing I’m going to be investigating is a second slice of pizza.”

  Dani laughed. Simone was right; even if shifters were real, that didn’t change what had happened. They had still been attacked, and Dani’s scars were just as real whether it was a normal bear that had attacked them or a shifter.

  “You’re right,” she told Simone. “Who cares if shifters are real? It’s not like it’s going to have any effect on our lives or anything.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Simone raised her bottle and took a drink. “Ah, crap.”

  “What’s wrong?” Dani asked.

  “We didn’t stop at the store on the way here. We don’t have anything for breakfast. No milk. No coffee. Nothing.”

  “I’ll go,” Dani said.

  “Really? Are you sure? We can both go.”

  “No, you stay here. I haven’t had a chance to drive the car yet and I could use some fresh air. Telling you about the shifter has made me feel…I don’t know…relieved, I guess. I feel pretty good right now.”

  Simone smiled. “I must remember to bill you for my time.”

  “I couldn’t afford your rates.”

  “True.”

  Dani grabbed the car keys and put on her sneakers. She checked herself in the hallway mirror. Cleaning the house had messed up her hair a little but she looked fine. She was only going to the store, after all.

  She said goodbye to Simone and stepped out into the cool night. By the time she had familiarized herself with the controls in the Taurus and pulled onto the road, she was singing along with pop tunes on the radio.

  Even when she hit the deserted stretch of highway that led into town past the dark woods, Dani’s good mood didn’t falter. She felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

  As the lights of Silver Rock appeared in the distance, Dani continued singing along with the radio.

  Maybe Simone was right, and this week was going to let Dani face her fear and get over it. Maybe she was being too optimistic, but Dani already felt like she was on the verge of a new beginning. Maybe even a new life.

  *

  Cole had spent most of the day exploring town, searching for the shifter in his territory. He had been along most of the main streets and down some of the back alleys and out of the way places but so far had come up with nothing.

  If the shifter was in human form, he would be very difficult to sniff out. It was usually hard to tell shifters from humans, even for an experienced bear like Cole. Outward appearances when in human form sometimes gave away a shifter’s true nature. Bears were usually big and burly and powerful, and tended to be loners. Wolves were usually leaner and stuck to packs. But just because a person displayed those traits didn’t mean they were a shifter.

  Cole was sure the local biker gang, the Rulers of the Night, were wolves. He couldn’t be sure, and there was nothing concrete he could put his finger on. It was just a gut feeling. It didn’t matter either way. Wolves and bears rarely mixed. So long as the Rulers didn’t give him any trouble, he wouldn’t give them any, either.

  As he walked along Main Street, he realized he had barely eaten today. The pine burgers he had eaten hours ago weren’t enough to sustain a man of his size.

  Most of Silver Rock’s stores were located at a strip mall just outside of town, but there was still a thriving local grocery store called Mom ‘n’ Pop’s Grocery Stop. Cole had left his truck in the store’s parking lot earlier. He walked back there and strode across the parking lot toward the store. The displays in the lit windows made his stomach growl.

  Sitting on their Harleys in a pool of light that spilled from the windows onto the parking lot, two members of the Rulers watched him. Cole wondered if they really were wolf shifters and if they could sense his inner bear. Pushing the thought away, he entered the store and grabbed a cart. When he was done here, he planned to go home and cook himself a huge meal. He could work it off with a run in the woods.

  The meal would be good, but Cole knew it wouldn’t satisfy him completely. He was sure there was only one thing that could bring him complete satisfaction.

  An image of Dani flashed through his mind.

  He tightened his grip on the cart and forced himself to focus on the food on the shelves.

  He needed to see her again soon or he was going to lose control and go crazy.

  *

  Dani parked the Taurus outside the Grocery Stop and went inside quickly, ignoring the two bikers who sat on their bikes staring at her.

  She took a cart from the row inside the door and began loading it with everything she and Simone would need for tomorrow.

  By the time she came down the last aisle in the store, she was studying the items in the cart and double-checking she hadn’t forgotten anything. Coffee, milk, pancake batter, bread, sugar…

  Slam!

  She collided with another cart. As she looked up, ready to apologize for not looking where she was going, her throat went dry. The apology lodged in her throat. She felt the same excited flutter in her belly as she had felt at the diner earlier that day.

  He grinned at her.

  Dani’s mind raced to find something funny to say. Something that would let him know that she was smart as well as sexy. But her mind came up blank and all she could do was utter his name.

  “Cole.”

  4

  Dani tried to compose herself. She didn’t want her brain to turn into mush like it had at the diner. “Hi,” she said. “I didn’t expect to run into you twice in one day. And I literally ran into you this time. Sorry about that.” Oh, God, she was rambling. Was it just a coincidence that he was here? Maybe he had followed her inside. Maybe he had pushed his cart into hers on purpose.

  She was being ridiculous. Get a grip, Dani. There was no way he had followed her in here. His cart was almost overflowing with food. He had bread, cakes, honey, and a lot of other stuff piled in there.

  “Wow, that’s a lot of food,” Dani said.

  He grinned. “Yeah, I’m a hungry guy.”

  She swallowed. His words had been innocent enough but they sent a shiver down her spine. Cole obviously had a large appetite. She wondered if his sexual appetite was just as big. She was sure it was; everything about Cole was larger than life.

  “If you’re not busy, I could use some help eating this stuff,” he said. “I’m a great cook.”

  “And modest, too.”

  He shrugged. “I am a great cook. You can find out for yourself if I’m bragging, or if I’m actually being too modest.”

  Dani laughed. She could think of nothing she’d like more than to let Cole cook a meal for her. There was something about him that made her crave his company. The old Dani, the person she was before the bear attack, would have said yes to him in a heartbeat, but even though she wanted to be that person again, she couldn’t bring herself to accept his offer. It was too soon, too huge a step to take right now.

  “I’m kind of busy,” she said.

  “Maybe some other time.” His eyes locked onto hers, and she almost changed her mind then and there. Something about Cole made her want to melt into him, to let him touch her everywhere and do as he pleased with her. She didn’t understand the longing she felt. Her thoughts were of physical actions but her attraction to him was somehow more than that, even though she barely knew him. She felt connected to him at a very deep level.

  She couldn’t dwell on it now;
she had to get away from him and give herself time to think about her feelings somewhere where she wasn’t being bombarded with his sexual aura. It felt like a hazy heat between them, and it made Dani’s mind full of desire. Her body responded with a slick heat between her legs and a pleasurable tightening of her nipples. She had to get out of the store before she lost all control and demanded Cole take her in the meat aisle.

  “I have to go, Cole,” she managed to say. Her heartbeat pounded in her chest like a fleeing deer. Her breathing quickened, and she felt like there wasn’t enough air in the store.

  He stepped back, as if he detected the turmoil writhing within Dani. He gripped the handle of his shopping cart so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. Did he feel the intense attraction, too? Did it threaten to overwhelm him as it did Dani?

  Dani was sure she saw a flash of something animalistic in his eyes. His shirt seemed to be more stretched by the muscles beneath. Cole looked bigger and there was something wild about his bearing.

  Something deep inside Dani seemed to recognize what was happening on a primal level and responded to it by inflaming her mind with an overwhelming desire to fuck Cole. Not make love, or even have sex with him. She needed to fuck him and be fucked by him. She wanted—no, needed—Cole inside her. She needed to feel him enter the hot, slick channel of her sex and drive his cock all the way to her greedy core.

  Oh, God, she had to get out of here. She didn’t trust herself to speak, so she simply abandoned her cart and ran for the door. Outside, the cool night air did nothing to take the burning sensation from her neck and cheeks. She fumbled the car fob out of her purse and pressed the unlock button with a shaking thumb. Climbing into the car, she sat for a moment in the dark, her head on the steering wheel, her eyes closed, and tried to calm down before she cranked the ignition. What the hell was happening to her?