“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Ryan said smiling.
He drove on, turned right at a truly massive boulder that Jeanie would love to examine and he stopped the truck under the spreading branches of a clump of pine trees. Jeanie looked up at them and noticed faerie lights had been strung between them. Then she noticed the caravan stuck in a hedge and the steps leading up to the red door.
A sign hung in the bush read Honey’s.
“Honey’s? What is this place?”
“Local hang out,” Ryan said. “I’d like you to meet the locals. We’re about to have a town meeting and I think you should be part of it. But first I think you need to meet some people.”
They got out of the truck and made their way across the car park and up the steps to the bright red door. Ryan opened it for her and as Jeanie stepped through she felt her mouth hang open. The room beyond was mostly open to the sky with only the sides sporting a roof of sorts supported by poles. In the center of the area was a huge fire pit. With the weather looking chilly, great big logs burned and smoldered. Jeanie noticed that the place was quite busy for a Wednesday morning with big, burly men and large boned women sitting on the rough-hewn furniture. It was perfect; exactly how she would have expected a rustic place to look.
A young woman, probably a year or two younger than Jeanie herself walked up to Ryan and smiled. She had the most beautiful blonde hair and golden eyes.
“Hey Ryan,” she greeted him smiling. “You’re early. The meeting’s only at twelve.”
“Hey Donna,” Ryan replied. “This is Jeanie. Is Kyle here yet?”
“Hi Jeanie,” Donna greeted her with a curt nod. She was balancing a tray on her right hand steadying it with the other. “Yeah, he and Val are over there with Marcus and Paul. Good luck, Paul’s in a mood.”
“When isn’t he?”
She shrugged and moved on.
Ryan led the way across the open grass to the far side of the room. There at a large table sat four people and only one was a woman. Jeanie looked at her just as the woman turned her head, saw them and smiled. She had dark curly hair and the brightest blue eyes that Jeanie had ever seen, with lovely olive skin. She stood up and walked to them.
“Hi, you must be Jeanie.”
“Yeah, I am.” Jeanie admitted.
“I’m Valerie. I feel a little responsible for getting you out here.”
“Oh, that Valerie! It’s fine. This place is wonderful.”
Valerie smiled and led her to the table.
“And you don’t greet me?” Ryan said petulantly.
“Don’t be such a baby,” an old man chirped from the table. He was playing chess with the other old man.
“No one asked you, Paul,” Ryan retorted as he took a seat next to Jeanie.
“So, introductions. Everyone this is Jeanie Buchanan. She’s the one doing the environmental study thing,” Ryan said. “Jeanie this unpleasant bastard here is Paul Barkley, that silent old man there with all that white hair is Marcus Pierce, this is his grandson Kyle, that’s Valerie who only greets strangers, and I’m still Ryan.”
Jeanie smiled and chuckled looking at Ryan. “Are you sure?”
He laughed at her.
“Oh God! Hell has finally frozen over!” Paul exclaimed suddenly lifting his hands to the heavens. “Ryan made a joke, and for a girl no less!”
“Ignore him,” the man introduced as Kyle said. He had dark blonde hair and a wicked smile. He was sitting next to Valerie. There was something about the way they acted that told Jeanie they were a couple. “Everyone else does.”
“Ha! Checkmate! I knew I’d get you this time you sly ol’ coyote!” Marcus exclaimed and sat back in his chair. “I need a beer.”
“Marcus its only eleven,” Kyle retorted.
“So? It’s five PM somewhere.”
“Yes, but not here,” Valerie said. “Let’s have another round of coffees.”
“Right, because caffeine is so much better for me.” Marcus said sarcastically.
Donna came and took the order for the coffees and left.
“I feel that I should really explain why you’re here,” Valerie said to Jeanie as they all sat looking at each other. “You see I recommended you a great many times to Petersen-Snow. I was really hoping Wilkes would send you.”
Jeanie felt she was being examined as exhibit A. “Why?”
“You’re honest,” Valerie continued. “And I’ve never heard of you ever taking a bribe. So in this situation we need someone like you.”
“Okay,” Jeanie said haltingly. “Ryan said the same thing. What are you hoping for here? All I can do is submit my report and so far…” she held her hands up in an uncertain gesture. “I mean as cute as the bears are, if they’ve been tamed then I can’t recommend this as a wild life preserve. Which would come with its own issues anyway.”
“Tamed bears? What is she on about?” Marcus asked.
“Cute?” Paul exclaimed. “Cute? She thinks we’re cute?”
“No, I said the bears in the forest were cute.” Jeanie looked at the faces around the table and sagged. “Okay what am I missing? There’s clearly something.”
Ryan sighed. “I was hoping to do this another way but we don’t have the time.” He stood up and began to take his clothes off.
Jeanie had gone bright red as Ryan stripped to his boxers. He was absolutely not shy at all. And with good reason. He was so well built she wondered what he did for a living? Model maybe? But no, he had the look of a man who did hard physical labor, rugged and tough, not all man-scaped and soft.
And then things got really weird.
Just as Jeanie thought she couldn’t take it anymore, Ryan had begun to change shape. It was horrible. Jeanie was spellbound. As a scientist it was fascinating. Unpleasant, but intriguing. He went through forms that should be impossible for a human being, and yet it was all happening right in front of her.
And when it was all over a big black bear stood right there in Honey’s. No one paid them any attention at all as though this sort of thing happened all the time. In a daze Jeanie reached out and touched the glossy black coat.
“Oh. My. Gosh!” she said slowly, running her fingers through the fur. She stood up and walked around the bear which sat down on its backside watching her. She lifted a paw and examined it, checked the teeth in the mouth and peered into the golden eyes. “Ah, there you are. Hello, Ryan the bear.”
He grunted and stood up. Jeanie resumed her seat. The demonstration was over.
The change back into a man took less time. It was almost like the man stepped out of the bear form and Ryan pulled his clothes back on.
“Well that’s one way to tell someone you’re a Were-bear,” Marcus said. “Not the one I would’ve gone for, but what do I know?”
“Did you have to do it here where people eat?” Paul snapped.
“You’re taking it really well,” Valerie said smiling at Jeanie. “I wasn’t as cool.”
Jeanie shrugged. “Well I probably wouldn’t have believed him if he hadn’t changed right in front of me. I mean there’s no way to fake that. So were you born like this or did you get bitten?”
“Born,” Ryan confessed. “But listen I can answer all your questions later. Right now we need you to understand what’s really going on here. I’m sure once you hear this, the picture will change for you.”
“Okay, tell away,” Jeanie said.
The coffees arrived and Jeanie sipped hers as she listened. Marcus told the story. He explained as the chief elder of the Bear Clan it was his duty to lay out the facts. So he did with interruptions from everyone. Jeanie was spellbound. It was amazing. Almost a plot worthy of Hollywood.
“About six months ago a woman moved here to the San Luis Valley. She bought herself a ranch,” Marcus said. “Jess knew nothing about running a ranch and she hired Donna’s brother Wyatt to help her with the cattle. Everything was fine until her ex-husband came looking for her.”
It turned out that the ex was actuall
y Mr. Petersen’s son and he was angry about Jess leaving him. So he set out to make her life hell. He attacked her and she killed him in self-defense.
“The big problem with this,” Paul told her, “Is that Petersen is a werewolf. He has ties to the local pack that lives one valley over in Prichard.”
“It caused a fight,” Kyle said. “Not that it would take much, there’s never been any love lost between us all.”
“So this is like a family feud. Like a Montague and Capulet thing just without the romance?” Jeanie asked.
Ryan nodded. “And we need your help to figure out how to win this. We have to save our homes.”
“Okay, but I don’t understand how Petersen-Snow can buy the land out from under you? If you own it then there’s nothing they can do,” Jeanie said.
Everyone looked a little uncomfortable now.
“You don’t own the land. Do you?”
Heads shook.
“That’s why I thought you could help,” Valerie confessed taking Jeanie’s hands across the table. As she took Jeanie’s bandaged right hand, she winced and Valerie let go. “So sorry, are you okay?”
“It’s nothing. I fell yesterday and hurt it. It’s fine really. So what am I doing here? You need a lawyer.”
Valerie sighed. “I was hoping you could work something out with Calvin. Is he here yet?”
“Oh crapper!” Jeanie exclaimed. “I’m supposed to meet with him in town in, like, an hour.”
“Then we need to come up with a plan real quickly,” Kyle said.
Jeanie looked around the table at the hopeful faces. “Tell me about the land. Who does it belong to and why don’t you buy it?”
“It belongs to the humans,” Marcus said. “To the council which is headed up by Jeff Headley. He hates us.”
“But he loves money,” Paul said. “You got a few million in those little jeans of yours?”
Jeanie shook her head. She wished she did.
Calvin was a big African American man. He stood tall and proud in front of Grandma’s Inn as Jeanie pulled up in her rental SUV and parked at the curb. Dressed in tailored dark grey pants and a jacket he looked out of place in this world of jeans and flannel.
“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling you for over thirty minutes,” Calvin said opening the passenger door and slipping into the car.
“Sorry,” Jeanie said not feeling sorry at all. “I was out at Sun Valley, doing my job and there’s no service out there.” Thank goodness. It would have been really awkward on the drive to pick up her rental if Calvin had been calling her all the time. As it was she and Ryan were kind of hitting it off and Jeanie was eager to see where it went, even though he was a bear some of the time.
Calvin turned his oddly pale eyes on her. He had always made Jeanie uncomfortable and they had worked on at least six projects together now. His eyes weren’t blue, or grey, they were so light as to be almost colorless. She wondered, not for the first time, if they were natural or contact lenses.
“No signal? Is that a fact?” he asked. “Is there a place to get a good cup of coffee here at least?”
“There’s the Lemon Drop Café. It’s close by,” Jeanie said. “We could walk.”
Calvin looked out of the window at the greying sky. The wind had come up blowing errant leaves and trash across the street. “Drive. I may be in the sticks but I am not going to get anything on me.”
Jeanie rolled her eyes and sighed. Then she put the car into gear, checked the street for traffic, and pulled off a perfect U-turn into a parking on the other side of the street.
“We’re here,” she said getting out of the car.
Calvin eyed her but said nothing as he slipped out of the passenger seat. They went inside the quaint little coffee shop. All the tables were delicate little things. The décor spoke to a decidedly feminine feel that made Calvin look out of place. Jeanie loved seeing him perch uncomfortably on the little chair.
A waitress in a frilly uniform came and took their order. Calvin had a black coffee while Jeanie poured over the tea menu. If she drank any more coffee she would probably not be able to sit still at the table. In the end she went for an apple, kiwi, honeybush mixture that sounded nice. She was hungry so she ordered a grilled chicken mayo while Calvin ordered the house salad, “But hold the croutons, tomatoes and onion, and add olives, avocado and feta cheese. Oh, and bring the dressing on the side.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” the waitress said looking at him as though he was a strange insect.
Jeanie could imagine what the kitchen staff were saying about Calvin at the moment. She would bet it wasn’t complimentary.
“So what have you discovered so far?” Calvin asked her.
Jeanie shrugged. “Not much. I had a little accident yesterday in the woods. I dislocated my wrist.”
“Your own personal shit is none of my concern,” he told her sternly.
“Right,” Jeanie retorted. “But I had to spend the better part of the afternoon in the doctor’s waiting room so he could fix it.” She held her wrist up to display the bandage. “So what I’m trying to tell you is that I haven’t managed to do much. That’s why I went out there this morning.”
She decided to leave out all mention of Ryan and the rest.
Calvin looked unhappy. He snorted. “You know that Mr. Petersen is taking a personal interest in this acquisition?”
“Is he?” she asked. “I didn’t think this little town was worth his time.”
“Well it is. He wants this to go without a hitch. So make it happen and he will reward you.”
“I don’t take bribes,” Jeanie said smiling sweetly.
“Indeed,” Calvin retorted, raising an eyebrow.
Their drinks arrived and while Calvin sipped his bitter black liquid, Jeanie took great pleasure in pouring golden honey into her tea. It was actually very tasty.
“So what is Mr. Petersen’s interest here? Is it the gold deposit?” Jeanie asked. “I pulled the mineral survey from the seventies. Do you have a more recent one?”
“Yes I do.”
“Can I see it?”
“It has no bearing on this case.”
“Okay, it’s just if that’s all it is, then Petersen-Snow could actually run a mine here without really disturbing things too much. I mean if properly set up there would be minimal…”
“The mining possibilities are not the only aspect of the land that is of interest.” Calvin interrupted her.
“So what else is there?”
“Nothing that need concern you. I need you to refute the claim that Sun Valley has unusual bears that need protecting.”
“Oh.” Jeanie nodded. “So that’s it is it? You just want them all gone?”
“I couldn’t care less about the smelly beasts,” Calvin said. “But my employers are most adamant. So what do we have to do to make this all happen quickly?”
Just then the food arrived.
As her sandwich was placed in front of her, Jeanie looked up into those unsettling eyes. “This takes time Calvin.”
Bearly Christmas Page 185
