Bearly Christmas

by Becca Fanning

  "I'm sure that narrows it down considerably, given what you do!"

  He waved that aside. "You were the one with her dad's horse. The one on the road, those guys."

  That was her cue to exit. Right? She could tell him she'd just been trying to say thank you, that she'd showed up early because – because? Because it would be easier to find him alone. Not because she knew after years of reading about him that he often arrived early before everyone else and stayed later.

  Only she didn't. The morning's events had made her bolder. "What was that all about?"

  He blinked. "You heard what I told the law." His thumbs stuck in the belt loops of his jeans, he leaned against one of the arena walls. He looked like an advertisement for the male ideal.

  "I heard what you told the law," she agreed, nodding. "Now tell me the truth."

  That made him laugh. "You don't believe in horse thieves, darlin'?" It came out a drawl.

  She didn't respond. And finally he sighed. "You know the Tyrell clan is a family of shifters." At her nod, he said, "What do you know about the disappearances of shapeshifters throughout the community?"

  "I've done some reading. Gemma Thomas was the first reporter to cover it."

  He nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah. Holden came unhinged on that one. And after she broke the story, Colby himself started going looking into it." He looked grim, his mouth set tight.

  Cara's mind flashed back to her reading.

  Colby was Jacob's cousin, just like Holden was. Colby was also law enforcement, at least when he was home in Texas. Holden was the one looking into the disappearances, at least at first, leaving Eddie in charge of the group of rodeo bears. But ever since the articles broke, Colby had been seriously looking into the disappearances too, and –

  "Colby's gone missing, hasn't he?" she asked.

  When he asked how she knew what she'd just said, Cara got the impression this time Jacob wasn't relaxed about what he was asking. There was nothing casual about his grip on her arm.

  Maybe now if she chose to walk off, he wouldn't let her.

  "It's not as bad as it sounds," she said. "Can we sit somewhere?" Reaction to the morning's events made her legs shake.

  Once they were in a VIP rodeo box in the deserted arena, she looked out over the performance floor and sighed.

  When she glanced back at Jacob, the smile she was used to seeing on his face in countless media photographs and online videos was gone. He watched her with suspicion, like he thought she might be a spy.

  Probably she could be. But the shapeshifting rodeo bears lived their lives in the spotlight. Why would anyone going after them need a spy?

  "The fact that shifters are being hunted – " she held up a hand when he sucked in a breath at the assumption – "Or that something is happening, because they keep disappearing? That's not news. Or rather, it is. It's on TV."

  He gave her a long look before he nodded. "But it's usually just that. News. Why do you have such interest that the facts are at the tip of your tongue?"

  "They're not," she protested. "All I said was shifters are vanishing and Colby has disappeared, hasn't he? No one's said so," she went on fast, "But no one's seen him in what, a week? Ten days?"

  Jacob made a face and ran his hands through his hair, brushing cinnamon colored curls into disarray. "Damn. Yes. Colby's been looking into the disappearances. And no, no one's heard from him in a while, including Gemma."

  "She's not writing about it," Cara said instantly.

  "No. Holden's at least talked her into that." When she raised her brows he said, "Colby was already out of the circuit, looking for missing clansmen. For missing bears. We're keeping it quiet that he's not checking in."

  "How do you know I will?" She couldn't help asking.

  "I don't. But you might be able to help us. Didn't you tell the deputy you're mounted posse?"

  She shrugged. "Volunteer."

  "Then you know the country around here."

  "Yes, but – " She squinted. "Did Colby disappear in Nevada?"

  "Shifters have vanished everywhere. But yeah, last we heard from Colby, he was out in the county." He looked miserable, staring at his hands where they clasped together between his knees.

  Her response was automatic and instant. "How can I help?"

  * * *

  Chapter Three

  "No," Holden said. Loudly. Firmly.

  They were back in the arena, working the stalls with the City's repair crew sent to put the stables back together. Jacob had left Cara some distance away.

  He shouldn't have bothered. She could hear them both.

  "Look, she knows the area. Grew up here. Knows the rural valleys. And now she's mounted posse. Come on, Holden, Colby could be – "

  "Colby could be dead," Holden said flatly.

  She heard the anger flare in Jacob's voice. "Does that mean we're not even going to look?"

  "Of course we're looking!"

  "Then we take advantage of every chance we've got. Come on, Holden."

  A sharp sound of a slap made her jump but neither man reacted and she guessed he'd just knocked dust off his hat against his knee. "What good do you think your little friend can even do? She's just some chick infatuated with the bright lights and the bull riders."

  Cara stood up. "I can hear you," she said.

  Both men went silent.

  Cara walked across the arena between them. "Look, I want to help."

  Holden looked her up and down. "Why?"

  And Cara in turn looked at Jacob. But it wasn't that simple. "Did you not hear Jacob tell you I'm sheriff's volunteer posse? That's what posses do. We look for people. I'm good at it. And what Jacob's saying is right. This is my desert. My town. My territory if you want to put it that way. I know how to search here. I have ideas where to search. And I've been following the stories ever since they started to break."

  Jacob looked convinced. Of course, Jacob had already looked convinced.

  Holden didn't. Tall, dark, the eldest of the clan and ruggedly handsome, he stood with his thumbs in the waistband of his jeans over an enormous belt buckle. He watched her without blinking.

  His stare said, Convince me. Or get out.

  If he even let her leave. While they were men she didn't think any of the Tyrells would hurt her.

  But if she pissed him off enough that he turned?

  Two sets of golden eyes trained on her. Two amazing looking shapeshifting bears, watching her.

  She realized the best way to make them believe her with the minimum amount of time spent on it.

  "I have a huge crush on Jacob," she said. "I have for the past five years."

  Jacob's face lit in an enormous smile. Holden made a choked sound halfway between a laugh and capitulation. But the interrogation was over.

  "Get her a horse," he said over his shoulder as he started away, heading deeper into the arena.

  Cara took a shaky breath. She'd convinced him. She'd also just thrown in her lot with the clan of rodeo boys half the audiences wanted to kill.

  Maybe not her best move.

  And then too – eventually she'd have to meet Jacob's eyes again.

  Cringing, she looked up at him.

  His smile couldn't be any more smug. "Crush, huh?"

  She snorted. "Let's find me a horse."

  They didn't. Not right away. Finding her a horse was the easy part. Finding out where to take the horse and how to search for Colby was more difficult.

  "He was in Vegas," she said, following Jacob into the stables. People swirled around them now as morning grew later. Jacob obsessively checked on the horses, those that belonged to the Tyrell clan and those that were simply there and had been in danger.

  "They were both here for a previous Wild West show. About a week ago." He had his hands on the lead to a beautiful Palomino.

  "A week ago! Doesn't anybody – hasn't someone – oh, my god!"

  He gave her a smirk over his shoulder that sent her heart pumping. His lips were full and sensual.
Even twisted in derision his face was one she wanted to study for years to come.

  Except all at once her attraction to him seemed like nothing more than a crush. How could it be anything else? She'd met him once when she was 17 and knew nothing about anything. She'd followed him and his career for the last five years and that proved what, exactly?

  He interrupted her thoughts.

  "A month ago Gemma started releasing the articles about the disappearances and Colby started coming and going like Holden. All of them were looking into the disappearances, going places where people had been when last seen. And, yeah, he was gone a lot but he'd only just hooked up with Gemma. Man needed a little space."

  He still looked like a smart ass, that twisty smile and the way his eyes crinkled at the corners.

  "So you're not worried?"

  When she asked, he became serious right away. He slowed so she walked beside him rather than following. "I wasn't until this morning. Eddie thinks I'm overreacting. He thinks the attack here was isolated." He pointed her down a hallway.

  "This isn't the stables."

  "No. Parking lot. Gemma and Colby were sharing a place. I want to take a look at it."

  She paused, standing in front of the half ton pickup he'd led her to. She squinted. If she wasn't mistaken, this was the same beaten and exhausted Ford he'd been driving five years ago. Something about that – the way it seemed down to earth and real – pleased her.

  Maybe the man she'd come to know through media releases and videos wasn't so far from the real man she was with now.

  "You have a key to their place?" Cara didn't have any sisters or brothers. After her mom died it had just been her and her dad on a big ranch in a big ranch house and he respected her privacy. Which was to say he wanted to know nothing about the mysteries of a teenaged daughter, just that she was still a virgin when she left his house.

  She had been.

  Just barely.

  Cara couldn't imagine giving her key to somebody else. She'd learned to value privacy.

  "Kind of," Jacob hedged.

  The place Colby and Gemma were sharing was an RV parked out in the desert at the very edge of an RV park. Cactus and corrugated green plastic lining chain link fencing separated the park from the desert itself.

  "Why?" Cara wondered.

  Jacob laughed. "Colby likes to travel light. Besides, his horses are stabled two miles away."

  She nodded and waited for him to produce a key to the RV. He didn't. Instead, Jacob took a quick look around the empty park. Even as early in the day as it was – not yet quite ten, which shocked her given everything that had already happened – the desert was heating up. No one was outside if they didn't have to be.

  When he didn't see anyone, Jacob shifted. Just for an instant.

  Just long enough to force the handle to the RV.

  It swung open easily. He raised ironic, and perfectly human, eyebrows at her.

  "Interesting."

  The interior was neat but tiny. Which meant going through everything thoroughly, because Colby and Gemma had filed or boxed or hidden everything.

  Or taken it with them.

  "I can't find any notes," Cara said. "Gemma's a journalist. Why hasn't her work missed her?"

  Jacob was looking in a cabinet over the sink. "Who says they haven't? Anyway, she freelances. Long as her articles are in on time, no one cares when she works. Or where."

  "Are they?"

  "I don't know her that well. I'm not even sure who she writes for."

  Cara nodded, distracted. Hands on her hips, she surveyed the tiny dining area. "No laptop," she said thoughtfully. Behind her Jacob grunted. If she keeps all her notes on the laptop, I'm not going to find anything.

  She crossed the tiny kitchen and sat down on one of the bench seats at the table. And instantly stood up again, turned and knelt, feeling under the seat.

  "What?" Jacob asked.

  Cara emerged with a spiral notebook, loose leaf pages sticking out of it and a Bic pen stuffed into the metal spiral. "Notes," she said.

  "Not much of a hiding space." He sounded skeptical, like she hadn't found anything important.

  "Maybe it wasn't hidden," Cara said. "This place is obsessively neat. Maybe it was just put there."

  "Then why take the laptop?" He was poking into another cabinet.

  "Because the door to this place isn't that secure?" she hazarded.

  "Touché."

  She sat down again and flipped the notebook open. And froze. "Jacob."

  He heard the undercurrent in her voice. Crossing over to the table, he sat down on the opposite side. "What have you got?"

  She gestured. "Gemma's notes."

  He stood again. "Move over."

  She shifted on the seat to make room for him. Together they paged through the spiral notebook. "There's more than one handwriting in here."

  "Colby's," Jacob said, pointing to one artful but illegible scrawl. "And Holden." Holden's were bold block letters. Their notes were sparse, and Holden's ended before Colby's contributions did. Gemma's went on much longer in a more feminine hand and with a more logical mind.

  "She's got lists of the disappeared?"

  Jacob nodded. When he moved, his curls brushed her cheek. He was so close, her entire body tingled. He smelled of sage and sweat and the sweet musk of bear. Cara's eyes closed briefly and she savored the moment.

  "I recognize a lot of the names," he said, running a finger down the page. He turned a few more pages and said, "She's also detailing where they vanished. And – " He paused and together they flipped through the pages, both backwards and forwards. "Yeah, the location last seen. The shows that were in town at the time. Or had just closed." He paused and looked. "What's nearby. She's got a radius of five, ten and 20 miles from the place last seen."

  "And from the arena or the site of the show," Cara added. Gemma had drawn crude maps. Locations were labeled with shorthand notes to herself. "Has anyone who went missing turned up again?"

  "Couple." He didn't take his eyes off the page. When her expectant silence got through to him he looked up at her. "Oh. No. Not like that."

  Cara narrowed her eyes. It was distracting being this close to him. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to run her tongue over his lips and bite at him and rip his shirt off and –

  "You're staring." He wasn't smiling but his voice was.

  "Mmm. What do you mean, not like that?"

  "What? Oh. The people who have reappeared were all out because they were drunk. Or hungover. Or they'd hooked up. Or they forgot to show up and went somewhere else. That's all."

  She stared at him.