Bearly Christmas

by Becca Fanning

  "What?"

  "People just forget to show up?"

  "I like that this confuses you." He kissed her on the forehead.

  Cara instantly tilted her face up.

  He kissed her on the end of her nose.

  She pushed herself free of the seat, up closer to his mouth.

  He kissed her chin.

  She laughed and pulled his head to hers, and kissed him again and all her doubts – that watching interviews and media for the last five years wasn't knowing him – faded again.

  His mouth moved on hers. His hands trailed up into her hair. The clip released easily between his fingers. He dropped it onto the seat behind her, using his hand to fan out her hair. Pulling back, he looked at her, the strawberry blond curls dancing around her face. "That's how I remember you." His eyes were half lidded. One hand caressed the side of her face, touching gently just past the bruises that were starting up.

  She turned and kissed his palm as he slid his hand away. They looked at each other for what felt like a long time before going back to the notebook.

  The break had given her a chance to reboot. She saw the pattern this time. It wasn't hidden. Probably Gemma had seen it. She'd definitely been on the right track.

  "The attack here was early," she said.

  Jacob looked from the page to her face. "What?"

  She pointed. "The attacks come near the end of the shows. No, not attacks. Because this was new, right?"

  "There's been violence before," he said. "That it's around the same time as the disappearances isn't news."

  "No. But the disappearances happen at the end of the shows." She looked up and met his eyes. "When everyone is already headed out."

  "Because it's harder to keep track of people."

  They looked at each other. She went on. "Looks like most people were last seen within five miles of the stadium."

  "They're being lured," Jacob said matter of factly. "Something is drawing them out."

  "Like a contract? A chance to do advertisements?"

  He shook his head. "Or a threat. Danger to someone. We're guessing. Could be different for everyone." He stared at the notebook. "It's a big desert outside Vegas."

  But Cara shook her head and reclaimed the notebook. "Within five miles in this direction, there's just desert. No Henderson, no suburbs. Just heat and cactus and dirt. Has anyone tried tracing the GPS on their phones?"

  "No signals."

  "OK. We ride."

  He considered. "They've been gone about a week. What are the chances we'll catch up to them?"

  The chances weren't good. But they thought of more avenues to explore. A call to the editors of the magazines Gemma wrote for revealed she'd been in contact and on assignment until a week earlier, when she'd dropped out of sight. Likewise the RV they were in needed back rent paid for the last week.

  A week meant anything could have happened.

  They could be anywhere.

  Cara felt her impatience and nerves rise. The same way anxiety had driven her to the stables early that morning. If she hadn't been there, the fire might have been much worse.

  Right place, right time.

  She considered that. Right place, right time.

  "How many other fires? Or incidents? Right before everything was over?"

  Jacob blinked at her. And suddenly they were both pouring through news reports and social media.

  Fires. Unexplained explosions, small enough the horses weren't hurt, big enough to draw a response. And confusion. And chaos. In another arena the horses had been scared away by a rattlesnake in the stalls and unlocked stall doors. In one other location pigs had been released into the arena.

  Cara blinked. "Wasn't that you guys?" She felt a grin starting. The Tyrell boys had released pigs into a rodeo arena after they weren't allowed to compete.

  "In Texas," he said. "Not in Arizona."

  There'd been a disappearance after that. Not all the vanished shifters were from rodeos. Not all the rodeos were the site of disappearances.

  But more than enough were.

  She was on to something.

  * * *

  Jacob Tyrell looked damned good on a horse.

  That should have been a given. She'd seen him in rodeos. She'd read everything she could get her hands on about him for five years. Every bit of footage online and off, still photos, videos, whatever, all of it showed Jacob Tyrell on a horse or near a horse.

  Jacob Tyrell was a cowboy. She clearly should have known how great he'd look riding.

  But this was different. They were out under the Great Basin sky, riding through low rolling hills. Silhouetted against the bright sky, Jacob looked like a cowboy out of history, easy in the saddle. Comfortable in his own skin.

  Whichever skin that was.

  Now they were out here, moving through sage and tiny creeks, watching rabbits and lizards, Cara felt out of her depth. She didn't feel like she knew what she was doing.

  Except she did. They both had ideas. Gemma's articles showed the disappearances happened on the outskirts of towns where shifters had participated in rodeos and Western shows. Last seen, people were usually no more than five miles out.

  They were guessing there was a lure. Or a threat. Just as easily it could be something like that morning's fire.

  Maybe by being there at the arena Cara had stopped something like that from happening to Jacob.

  The thought made her glance again at him as he rode, just enough ahead of her she could watch him without feeling self conscious. Midafternoon sun cast merciless heat.

  The day felt like a dream. When Cara got to the arena that morning she knew what Jacob's voice sounded like. She loved his sexy, sensual, often sarcastic mouth, the full lips. She'd seen a million photos of his smoky eyes, his expression naturally sexy. It never looked like he posed for the photos. He just looked like that. When Cara showed up that morning she knew what his hands looked like holding a lead rope, and on the saddle horn, and on someone's shoulder. She knew his voice, always a little self deprecating.

  Less than a day later she knew his mouth tasted like cinnamon and his skin smelled like pepper, that his sleepy, smoky eyes were intense with life. She knew the heat of his hands, how huge they were, how rough. She knew the feel of the muscles she'd memorized.

  Way more important: she knew how smart he was. That his kindness to Cara's 17-year-old self hadn't been a fluke. She knew how much family meant to him.

  She knew she had to help him.

  But it was a big desert for two people on horseback. Even if they had access to a chopper the desert would spread out around them. She knew how vast and empty the desert could be. Her father's ranch where she'd grown up was less than an hour out of Vegas and had seemed as remote and rural as anything ever.

  Cara snapped aware, her own thoughts echoing.

  What did I just think?

  Panic made her breathing shallow. Jacob hadn't said anything in more than 20 minutes but she was afraid he would now. Afraid any interruption would send her thoughts spinning away like a covey of quail surprised out of the sage.

  Her father's ranch. Where Jacob had dropped her off when Cara was 17, and in trouble and coming home without the horse she'd ridden out on. Rural Nevada, wretched to the teenaged Cara, and less than an hour away from a metropolitan city in reality.

  And the land spread out around that ranch. Land for sale was at a premium in Las Vegas. Land outside Vegas in the desert? Not so much.

  Neither were the abandoned farms and ranches considered prime real estate. Nevada had been hit hard by the Great Recession. Some of its industries weren't recovering as fast as others.

  There were a lot of abandoned farms and ranches.

  Where could anyone find a more normal place to see cowboys?

  But abandoned? Wouldn't people ask why there were suddenly people on the property?

  No. Because there weren't that many people around to ask anything. Because they were glad to see someone on the land again.
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  Because the places were that rural and that abandoned. There might not be anyone around to see humans suddenly coming and going.

  Humans. Or shapeshifters.

  Without being aware, she'd stopped her horse. Her fingers scrabbled for the cell that should have been in her back pocket. Brief panic when she didn't find it before she remembered it had been smashed in the arena.

  She looked up. Jacob had turned and was riding back toward her, his body swaying with the movement of his horse. Cara stopped thinking about anything other than what it would be like to be held against his body, his arms coming around her waist, his hands maybe stroking her breasts, her backside pressed up against his crotch as the two of them let the horse amble its way out into the desert.

  The wonderfully empty desert.

  "What's wrong?" His voice didn't break her train of thought. The way he looked had already brought her out of her thoughts but she hadn't forgotten them.

  "Can I use your phone?"

  He didn't ask why. Just handed her a new iPhone. Cara dialed from memory, calling in favors from dispatchers and desk cops. She called four people. Three of them remembered her from her search-and-rescue posse success early on, finding a child in an abandoned mine shaft, alive and well if somewhat hysterical.

  Slowly the texts came in.

  A list of all the owners of abandoned farm and ranch properties in the rural areas of the Valley. Cross referenced, another list showed those owners who attended the rodeo. A third list was comprised of the properties themselves.

  Three of those properties were easily within the five mile radius of the arena.

  "This is where you turn around and ride back to the arena," Jacob said.

  Cara rubbed her jaw. It ached. Her scalp was getting sunburnt. She was thirsty and hungry and not going anywhere without him.

  "Sure," she said, placating. And lying. "I think we want to go that way." She pointed.

  "Seriously, Cara."

  She could fall in love with those gold eyes. She could even imagine bedroom games where she allowed the man with those eyes to direct her in everything she could and couldn't do.

  Not out here, though. Not in the desert. Not on a search.

  Not when he would then be heading into some weird situation, alone.

  "Seriously, Jacob. I'm not leaving."

  When he didn't move, she clicked to her horse, tapped her heels against its sides, and rode past him.

  * * *

  A few trucks passed them on the road. Even the semis didn't use the back ways. Mostly what they saw were farm trucks with incurious, weather beaten drivers. Most raised a hand even as they raised a cloud of dust that covered Cara and Jacob.

  When they reached the ranch, the one with the skulls of cattle still decorating the fence, she felt it like a stone in her belly.

  The horses sensed something. They were restless and prancing. Jacob was the one who saw the rattlesnake carcasses nailed to the fences along with the skulls.

  Jacob sensed it too. He reined up sharply and sat sniffing the air, his lips slightly parted. He looked like an animal gathering information from a scent. When he focused his attention on her again he said, "I smell bear." He kicked his horse in that direction.

  She wanted to call after him, This is when we call the sheriff's office. Because that's how things were supposed to work. But the memory of the deputies up in Jacob's face stopped her.

  She turned her own horse after his and followed.

  * * *

  Chapter Four

  No way to approach the house without being seen. The desert was too flat and too empty. So they rode straight at it, as definite as if they were expected for a visit.

  "This doesn't make sense," Jacob muttered as he rode.

  Cara didn't respond. Her skin was covered in goosebumps despite the heat. Something was wrong. That there were no guards. There was a strong sense of bears nearby.

  The sensation of wrongness was strong enough that she could feel it. That meant for Jacob the feeling had to be overwhelming. Cara was ready when he pushed the horse to lope, covering the last of the distance to the house.

  He dismounted without seeming to check around him for anything. She followed him, grabbing the reins from his horse with hers and throwing them around the porch railing before she ran onto the porch after him.

  He wasn't protecting her anymore. If she followed, he'd keep her safe. He wouldn't waste anymore time trying to convince her. He glanced once at her, then at the door. One hard kick by the doorknob sent it splintering and crashing inward.

  He went through the door so fast he caught the rebound on his forearm. Cara was on his heels.

  They fanned out without discussing it. She took the upstairs, heading straight up and searching every bedroom, every closet, every bath. The house was sprawling. It took several minutes.

  She heard him when he found the cellar door. She head him start shaking it.

  Her boots left tracks in the desert dust on the wood stairs. "Let me find a crowbar, a shovel or something." The cellar door still stood shut fast.

  "No time," he said, and faintly she realized she could hear voices from the other side. Her hand slapped hard over her mouth.

  Jacob blurred in front of her. The musky smell of bear filled the air. She coughed, blinked, and watched as the grizzly reached out with gigantic paws and ripped the door from its hinges. He threw it onto the floor behind him.

  The voices were clear now, begging for help. She almost started down the stairs without waiting but he held her back, nosing past her.

  They were in the cellar. Just Gemma and Colby. Chains kept them in place, pinned to the concrete walls. There were empty water bottles around them and nothing else. No blankets for when the temperature dropped in the desert night. No food. Nothing.

  Colby lunged for them the instant they came into the basement. He turned into a bear the minute they came into sight. Gemma shouted, fighting the chains, but even Colby in bear form couldn't break free. She stood no chance. Bloody rings on her wrists proved she hadn't stopped trying.

  Colby roared. Gemma fell back, straining against her chains, as far from him as she could get. Cara ran to her, which only made her flinch. They'd never met. Gemma had no idea who she was. Her eyes went instantly to Jacob and Cara saw Gemma trusted him.

  "It's OK. I came with Jacob. We've been looking for you two."

  Gemma nodded, her eyes instantly leaving Cara and going to Colby and then to Jacob.

  "Don't let him loose!" she shouted.

  Jacob spun back to her. "What? Why?" He looked back at his cousin and sniffed the air again, letting it run over his tongue. He swore.

  "What?" Cara was lost. She was trying to find a key for the shackles. Even if Colby couldn't be freed, Gemma could. "Jacob? What is it?"

  "He's starving. When did they last feed you?"

  "Three days ago," Gemma answered. She told Cara, "Key's over there. They left them on the back of the door." Her voice splintered and she broke off, coughing. "Water ran out yesterday."