by Roxie Noir
Cora reached out and took her hand.
“I know,” Cora said. “The thought never even crossed my mind. You’re wonderful and brave and you’re going through something those jackasses can’t imagine, so fuck them, okay? This is my house, and you’re welcome in it any time.”
Olivia nodded, feeling the tears about to start again behind her eyes.
Cora reached out and wiped one away.
“Now quit hogging my party in the bathroom and go eat some more snacks,” she said. “I baked like a maniac.”
Olivia laughed. Everyone in the bathroom began to trickle out and back downstairs, until only Olivia and Daniel were still in the bathroom.
“You good?” he asked.
Olivia nodded.
“I’m good,” she said.
They hugged, a warm, big-brother kind of hug. Then they both went back downstairs, and everyone was much politer, particularly around Cora, for the rest of the evening.
4
Craig
Craig’s eyes popped open at 5 a.m. on the dot, the same as every morning. For just a moment, staring at the ceiling in the dark, the aroma of coffee wafting through the house, he thought it was just another, perfectly normal day.
Then the truth came crashing down on him, and he felt adrenaline spike through his veins. Today they were going to go to the library and try to find her.
Olivia.
The bear they’d seen hundreds of miles away, further south, on a camping trip in the Eastern Sierras a couple of years ago.
He glanced over at Jasper, still sleeping peacefully, though both of them had had a rough time getting to sleep the night before, tossing and turning without sleeping, both wound up by the possible end to their mission.
They’d been looking for her for years, two or three at least, and to be honest, they’d almost given up. Craig had nearly convinced himself that he’d just made the whole thing up and just made eye contact with some bear that he spun into a whole story.
Then Jasper had seen her, practically in their own back yard. Granite Valley was one town over from Old Pine, where the two of them had lived for years.
Near the bedroom door, Craig heard a muffled thumpthumpthump, and he smiled into the dark.
“All right, girl,” he said quietly, sitting up in the bed and reaching for his robe.
Thumpthumpthump, the sound of a tail against the floor.
“I’m coming, I’m coming.”
He tied his robe around his big frame and walked to the bedroom door, Ninety Nine’s tail thwacking against his legs. She trotted downstairs the moment he opened the bedroom door, shaggy tail wagging, and waited for him at the back door.
Craig let her out, walked to the kitchen and grabbed the coffee pot. About a year ago, they’d finally bought one of those coffee makers with a timer. He’d been skeptical at first, grousing that it just wasn’t right if you didn’t make the coffee yourself, but he’d been proven wrong. One of the few times he didn’t mind being wrong. Having the coffee just waiting for you when you woke up was some kind of heaven.
Halfway through the first cup, Ninety Nine came trotting back in, business concluded, and then sat by the front door, right next to a ratty pair of Craig’s flip flops.
“All right,” he told her. “Let me pour a little more coffee and we’ll do this.”
Thumpthumpthump.
They took their usual walk around the block, Ninety Nine stopping to intently sniff every lamp post and mailbox, while Craig woke up gradually and tried not to worry about what they were doing that day.
So we just march into this library, hand her a book, and say, we saw you three years ago when we were all bears and we think you’re just peachy keen?
He rolled his eyes and took another sip. Ninety Nine saw a squirrel and froze in place, every muscle in her body tense. The squirrel clamored up a tree and she relaxed.
This is the least cool way possible to approach a girl, he thought.
It had been a while since he’d approached a girl — since meeting Jasper, they’d been only open to serious candidates, and there hadn’t been any — but he’d been pretty good at it when he was younger.
A dopey, “Here’s your book, will you be my mate?” didn’t sound so great.
We’ve gotta pretend we’re not stalking her, for starters, Craig thought.
Ninety Nine looked up at him, big eyes pleading, and pulled on the leash just a little. Craig realized he’d been standing in one place, lost in thought, for a while.
We need to just run into her when she’s buying coffee or something, he thought.
Though that didn’t work out great for Jasper.
Craig sighed. They’d either think of something, or wind up looking like ultra-dorks when they went to go hit on a girl in a library.
He went back into their house, set back a little from the road on the very last block of town, went inside and fed Ninety Nine.
I can’t blame her for going feral, really, he thought. It does make a lot of things a little easier.
I mean, look at Ninety. All she wants in life is a walk and some kibble. Maybe some treats for being a good dog.
A couple years ago, they’d been traveling back from California on a highway, right behind a flatbed truck. On the truck was a tiny black puppy, and before either Craig or Jasper realized that the wiggly black patch was a dog, the truck went around a corner and the puppy flew off, into the fields to the side of the road.
Craig had practically crashed the car pulling over the side of the road, and then the two of them had frantically followed the poor thing’s cries until they found her.
An emergency vet had pronounced her seriously bruised and scratched but mostly unharmed. By then they were already calling her by the name of the highway they’d found her on — Ninety Nine — and she wagged her tail when she heard the number, so it became hers.
Craig stood at the counter, and the dog finished eating and came over to lie down in the kitchen, tongue lolling as she watched Craig shuffle around in his robe.
“I think we found her, Ninety,” he told the dog. He leaned against the counter and drank his coffee.
Thump.
“Jasper has no game,” he went on. “None whatsoever. I gotta think of a better way to do this.”
Ninety Nine yawned, and Craig bent down to scratch her ears.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll run her by you first. Make sure she passes the sniff test.”
Thump.
A couple hours later, Craig and Jasper were in their car, parking behind the library.
“I don’t see why you’re against this plan,” Jasper said. “We go in, we give her the book, we ask her to dinner. What could go wrong?”
“Everything!” said Craig. “Do we also tell her that we made eye contact once, when we were all bears, and that we’ve been trying to find her ever since that moment?”
Jasper frowned.
“Okay,” Craig said. “Imagine that this is for your dad’s campaign. Would you ever tell him to do something like that to a donor?”
Jasper sighed and looked out the window, considering.
“Probably not,” he admitted. “There’s more of a courtship phase before you really go for it.”
“Exactly!” said Craig. “We’ve gotta court.”
Jasper sighed and cast a look at the library. “I spent a lot more time studying and playing video games than I did getting laid when I was younger,” he admitted.
“That’s why we’re a great team,” Craig said, grinning. “You’ve got the brains, and I’ve got the good looks and charm.”
Jasper rolled his eyes.
“Come on,” said Craig. He leaned toward his mate.
Jasper gave him a kiss, only a little grudgingly.
“Just follow my lead,” Craig said.
“What’s your plan?”
“I’m gonna wing it,” Craig said, opening the door of the SUV.
“No,” said Jasper. “We need an outline of a p
lan at least. Something.”
Craig gave him another look. Then he got back into the vehicle and shut the door.
“Okay,” Craig said. “Do you remember when we met?”
Jasper nodded.
“Did you have a plan then?”
“That was different.”
“I didn’t have a plan then.”
Just the memory made Craig get a half-chub. Jasper had been with his father at the groundbreaking of the new campus of Cascadia State University, back when the Senator had only been a representative in the Cascade House.
Craig had been one of the guys doing the groundbreaking. That morning the whole crew, wearing their cleanest jeans, shirts, and work boots, had gotten an earful from the foreman about presenting themselves well in front of Representative Sargent.
During the ceremony, Craig had locked eyes with Jasper once and completely forgotten that anything else was happening. Afterwards, at the first moment he could, he sneaked away and found Jasper at the refreshment table.
His line had been, “So you work for the Representative?”
It wasn’t a great line, but it had worked well. Very well.
Well enough that the Representative had found them, sweaty and naked, in a state-owned SUV forty-five minutes later. He hadn’t liked Craig since.
In the car in the library parking lot, Craig leaned over and kissed Jasper on the side of the neck, thrilling at the tiny sound that the other man made.
“Loosen up,” he said.
“Okay, okay,” Jasper said. “I’ll follow your lead.”
Then he pointed at Craig and half-smiled.
“Don’t fuck this up,” he said.
Craig laughed.
Then, after all that, she wasn’t even in the library.
Craig and Jasper stood in the kids’ section, towering over the short bookshelves, arms crossed. Jasper still held a ragged copy of A Wrinkle in Time in one hand, glaring at a display with a cartoon flower on it.
“Shit,” he muttered.
Three moms instantly shot him death glares, and he raised one hand in the universal gesture of sorry.
“This isn’t really part of winging it,” Craig muttered.
“We could ask when she’s working again,” Jasper said.
Craig just looked at him.
“...If we wanted to be weird stalkers,” Jasper said.
Craig grunted in response. His hands squeezed into tight fists, and he could feel his heartbeat pounding through his palms.
He wanted her now, a feeling that utterly defied all reason and rationality. He’d never even seen her as a human. Only as a bear, and only once, but there had been something in her eyes that he’d found so captivating, so beautiful, that he hadn’t stopped looking for her since.
“We know she’s here somewhere,” Jasper murmured. “Maybe this just takes patience.”
Craig scowled. Patience was easily one of his least favorite words.
“There’s that fancy coffee place next door,” Jasper said, a light coming into his light brown eyes.
Craig raised his eyebrows.
“I’m listening.”
“Want to go? I heard they have chocolate croissants.”
Craig uncrossed his arms. Pastries were his weakness.
“All right,” Craig said. “You said the magic words.”
Jasper took his hand and they walked out of the library.
“I know what you like,” he said.
The coffee shop was simply called Grind, and the moment Craig walked in, he felt out of place. Somehow, in the last couple years, the flannel and jeans that were his daily outfit had become cool, and now this place was full of skinny hipster kids all wearing the same thing as him.
Plus, they wanted five bucks for a latte.
None of it seemed to faze Jasper, who stepped up to the counter and ordered a cappuccino, a mocha, and four different pastries. The barista had to practically crane her neck up at him, since he towered over her by at least a foot and maybe more.
“Would it be possible to get that chocolate chip cookie microwaved?” Jasper asked.
I didn’t know you could request that, thought Craig.
“Of course,” the barista answered. “We’ll bring it out to you.”
“Thank you,” Jasper said, and left a dollar in the tip jar.
Once they got their coffees, Craig looked around for a seat.
Then he froze, literally stopping mid-stride.
There was a girl, sitting at the bar, with red-gold hair halfway down her back, wearing jeans and a cardigan. She was gesticulating wildly and talking to another man, their heads close together.
Craig nearly threw his coffee cup.
He hadn’t known he could feel like this. It was her, he was one thousand percent sure of it, even from seeing just her back. The knowledge was deep down and primal, he didn’t need to think about. He just felt it.
His bear was just under his skin, growling and roaring and absolutely itching to get out and murder this guy who had the nerve to sit there, talking to her, in public like that.
“Craig,” said Jasper, through gritted teeth.
Craig jolted back to earth, and realized that his cappuccino had spilled a little into its saucer and people were looking at him oddly.
He gave them a single business-like nod, grabbed the chocolate croissant off the counter, and joined Jasper at a small table right behind Olivia and her companion.
“They roast their own beans here,” Jasper said, too loudly.
Craig just nodded, then picked up the chocolate croissant and shoved a third of it into his mouth. He couldn’t believe that Jasper had wanted this table, right behind Olivia and her companion.
Just thinking the word made his bear grumble. Craig cast a sidelong look at the guy. He was big, yeah, and a grizzly shifter for sure, but if Craig took him by surprise...
Then he overheard a snatch of conversation.
“...On Saturday night?”
Craig watched from the corners of his eyes, facing Jasper who was obviously doing the same.
Thank god for shifter hearing, he thought.
“Where is it?” Olivia said.
Craig shoved more croissant into his mouth. The taste barely even registered, and that made him even madder at the guy who was talking to Olivia.
Why not just wreck everything? He thought. If we can’t have her, why bother with anything? Why not just run off into the woods and be feral forever?
“The Double Moon Ranch,” the guy said. “Starts at eight, but we could get dinner somewhere in Long Prairie first.”
Olivia ran one hand through her hair, and Craig thought that she shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
She allegedly killed two wolves and this asshole wants to take her back to a town full of wolves? He thought.
Craig shoved the rest of the croissant into his mouth and chewed it furiously. He was dimly aware of the satisfying, buttery way that it just barely crunched between his teeth, but he couldn’t pay attention to it.
“Or we could grab dinner here,” the guy said.
“I bet my parents would love to see you,” she said. “Give my mom more than just the three of us to cook for.”
Across the table, Jasper was staring into his coffee like he could light it on fire with his mind.
He’s already met her parents, Craig thought. He clenched his jaw, out of croissant to gobble.
“That would be great,” the guy said. “I’ll eat your mom’s cooking any time I’ve got the chance.”
They’re practically engaged, thought Craig. They’re going to get married and have a bunch of babies and then find a third person and be super happy and none of it is going to involve us at all.
“Six o’clock?” the guy said.
“Sure,” she said.
He looked at his watch, then said something too quiet for Craig or Jasper to hear, and patted Olivia on the shoulder. They both got up, cleared their coffee cups, and left.
For
a brief moment, she looked straight at him, as she turned to walk away. Craig gasped involuntarily, feeling heat and light and something molten rush into him.
He’d never seen her human face before, but somehow, it was exactly like he imagined. Jasper followed his gaze, and she looked at him too.
The tiniest smile lifted one corner of her mouth, almost a little smile of recognition. Unable to do anything else, Craig lifted a few fingers of one hand in a wave, still staring open-mouthed.
Then she walked through the door of the cafe, following the guy she was with, out onto the street, and disappeared again.
Craig covered his face in his hands. Jasper stared into his coffee despondently.
“What now?” he asked.
Craig just shook his head.
“Why would anyone invite her to a ranch run by wolves? In a town run by wolves? Is he trying to get her killed? Why did she say yes? Are they dating? Is there something we don’t know?”
“Slow down,” Craig muttered. It was too much: seeing her for the first time, only to find out that she was almost certainly lost to them forever.
“We have to go to that square dance,” Jasper said. He crumpled his napkin and tossed it onto a tiny plate. It looked like he’d also destroyed some pastries in a rage. “She can’t be there alone. What if she’s walking into a trap?”
Something doesn’t quite add up, Craig thought. There’s something here that we’re missing.
He almost disagreed with Jasper, because that sounded insane. Who the hell went to a dance that they weren’t invited to — a square dance at that, he hadn’t even known people still had those — to protect some girl they’d never even really talked to?
Then he imagined Olivia, in the center of a square dancing floor, the fiddler still playing. Wolves surrounded her, growling, their horrible yellow eyes practically glowing as she turned frantically from side to side. Just the thought of it made fire burn hot through his veins.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”
5
Olivia
When she saw them, Olivia nearly dropped the coffee mug she’d been holding. This time, the guy she’d seen outside the library — Jasper, a name she knew she’d never forget — was there with another man.
