Dancing Bearback (BBW Shifter Cowboy Western Romance) (Bear Ranchers Book 3)

by Becca Fanning

  He had wished her a good night and then driven off, his taillights disappearing in the rain.

  Jamie had gone inside to find her father sitting with a glass of whiskey in front of the fire in the living room. It had been ages since he’d made a fire.

  “Where were you?” Ander asked, sipping the golden liquid. “I came down and Oliver said you’d left.”

  “Sorry dad,” Jamie said sitting on the arm of his chair and taking the glass from him. She sipped it letting the fire slide down her throat. “I just had to get out for a bit.”

  Her father nodded and put his hand on her knee. “I miss them so much.”

  “I know. Me too.”

  They sat in silence watching the flames dance in the grate.

  “Did Joe come?” Jamie asked.

  Her father nodded. “Yeah, but he’s taken everything with him. Says it’ll take some time to go through it all. You know, accountant for ‘its gonna cost you.’”

  Then he took the glass back from Jamie. “Get your own,” he said not unkindly.

  “I’m going to bed,” she said and kissed his cheek. “I love you, dad.”

  “I love you too Juniper-berry,” he said calling her the name he had used when she was a child.

  On the way up the stairs Jamie met Oliver coming down. He was dressed in good jeans, a nice shirt and smelled like a perfume factory.

  “You going out?” Jamie asked.

  Oliver bristled.

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but yeah. I am. I have a date,” Oliver said and swept passed her.

  “That’s nice,” Jamie said and walked up the stairs to the landing.

  Oliver was a little more than she could deal with right now. Feeling down about her situation, Jamie brushed her teeth and her long brown hair that hung down her back, straight as a ruler. Her mother had always praised her for her hair, how it shone and fell in a curtain around her. She’d always thought it dull, but her mother had loved it.

  Jamie pulled her pajamas on and got into bed. She stared up at her ceiling. The house had been built over a hundred years ago, and had passed from generation to generation, down to her father. It was old and she could feel the weight of all those Campbells looking down on her. It was oppressive.

  Even though her father didn’t want to talk to her about it, Jamie knew the farm was in trouble. The months since her brother and mother had died had been tough. The rains had come late, making feed hard to come by. The market had taken a dive, and things just always seemed to cost more and more, and yet you could never seem to make enough.

  It was like the farm was a giant hole that they just kept shoveling their hopes, dreams and blood into and nothing went right.

  Jamie let her eyes trace her ceiling to her light fitting above her bed. She knew her father thought she was insane to want this big heavy thing hanging above her bed. But tracing its lines with her eyes had been something she had done since a child, and it had always calmed her down. So when he had proposed to replace it in the living room, Jamie had insisted it go to her room, and he had obliged.

  Now her eyes roamed over it, tracing each wrought iron spiral and curve. Each spike and dish that used to hold a candle before electricity took all the beauty out of the world. Jamie felt the panic subside. They would be fine. It would all work out. She just needed some sleep. Trace the lines, watch them flow and drift off, it was a ritual and Jamie let it engulf her and carry her off to sleep.

  The howl was far away but startling in its clarity. Jamie sat up in bed, noting that the room was dark now. Her father must have turned the light off for her.

  It came again and this time it was closer. Jamie got up and went to her window.

  The cattle.

  The howl sounded through the darkness again and Jamie marveled at the animals’ persistence. It was still raining and the wolf, or the pack, she couldn’t be certain, were out in it messing with her cattle.

  Well she’d see about that. She moved to her closet and began to pull her jeans and boots on. Suddenly something cracked above her. Jamie hit the switch for her light. The room burst into brightness. She looked up. The light was swaying slightly. Jamie stared. A screw was missing. There were huge screws that held the light in place and one, no two—there was only one screw holding the heavy metal fitting in place. With a shudder and a groan the light pitched to the right and then came crashing down plunging her room into darkness.

  Jamie pushed herself back against the wall, her eyes still adjusting to the sudden darkness. Then as her vision returned she could see the dim shape of the wire that had supplied the light with its electricity dangling free as though cut. It was still live and swaying to and fro. On its upward arc it came to within a hair’s breadth from her and Jaime held her breath, frozen with fear as her heart beat like a drum in her chest.

  In a moment her father was in her room. He took in the situation, then moved faster than Jamie thought a man of sixty should, he grabbed her and pulled her out into the hall. Then he reached into her room and flipped the switch for her light.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Jamie nodded.

  “I knew that thing was dangerous,” her father said shaking his head. “It goes!”

  Jamie was too shocked to argue now. She just stood in the hallway taking deep breaths. Her father, also clearly in shock drew her to him.

  “I can’t lose you too Jamie,” he said into her hair and she closed her eyes, letting the security of her father’s arms wash over her. He had always been her safe place, always. But now as an adult she knew that this safe place couldn’t protect her from everything. There were things she would have to face herself and some things she would have to protect herself from.

  Suddenly she remembered what had woken her and gotten her out of her bed. “Dad, the cattle! I heard a howl. I’m sure there’s a pack after them.” Ander released his daughter reluctantly.

  “Go get Oliver. We’ll need the help,” he said.

  Jamie ran to Oliver’s door which was across from hers. She knocked but there was no answer. She pushed the door open, flipped the light switch and found the room empty.

  “I’ll call Jesse,” her father said looking over her shoulder into the room. “We’ll need numbers on our side if it’s what I suspect it is.”

  Then he strode off to get his cellphone.

  Jamie went back to her room, grabbed her clothes and finished getting dressed in the bathroom, listening to her father speaking to Jesse. It was 4:30am according to her wrist watch and she wondered where her stupid cousin was. That was the thing about Oliver, he was never there when you needed him and always around when he wasn’t welcome. It sounded as though Jesse had been up anyway from her father’s side of the conversation.

  Jamie was only mildly surprise to see Jesse less than twenty minutes later coming in through the back door. He looked fresh and ready for the day, his smile as bright as ever.

  “Morning,” he said.

  “Hi,” Jamie said frowning. “How did you get here so quickly? You live in Sun Valley, that’s what forty minutes away?”

  Jesse nodded and smiled. “You are correct. But I was over visiting my cousin Wyatt. He stays two farms over.”

  “That was lucky for us,” Jamie said.

  “Yes, now while you’re blabbing my cattle are being picked off,” her father said. “Let’s go.”

  He pushed them out into the early morning. Ander drove them in his truck. It was the same old workhorse that Jamie had ridden in as a kid and still going strong. The red paint was scratched and it was still dented a little over the front left light, where Jamie had driven into a post when learning to drive.

  Squashed into the front seat of the truck, since it was that or on the back in the still-falling rain, Jamie was terribly aware of Jesse. He smelled so nice, not artificial like Oliver, but natural. And his leg touching hers was warm. Jamie tried to keep her mind on the cattle, but the treacherous thing would have none of it. As they bumped along, kno
cking into each other when the going got really interesting and her father said, “Hold on now.” Jamie noticed each time her hand hit his, or her leg bumped up against his. It was like being in school and having a crush on someone you were supposed to be just friends with. Each touch was electrifying and secret.

  Jesse sat passively watching the rain in the headlights as around them the darkness and rain pressed in.

  They reached the field and Jesse hopped out making his way to the fence. Then Jamie followed him with her father staying in the truck. He turned on the truck’s floodlights angling them into the field. Now they could see the cattle. They were scared, huddled up in one corner of the paddock.

  “There’s something here alright,” Jesse said. He had his face tilted up as though he was smelling something. “It’s down there,” pointed into the area where the light didn’t reach. Ander was watching them from the truck and he quickly turned the lights, sending them streaming to the other end of the field.

  The rain had become a fine mist, settling on their clothes and hair. It made Jesse sparkle in the floodlights like he was surrounded in diamonds.

  Jamie’s gaze left him as a shape began to resolve itself in the light. She gasped.

  Not far from where they were a cow lay on its side in the mud. It was obviously dead. She could see great rends in the poor beast’s flesh and its limbs were at strange angles. Its head was turned right around so the mouth faced them, the tongue lolling out of the corner as though the cow was making a joke.

  “Those bastards!” she said hotly.

  “It’s still here,’ Jesse said, his eyes never leaving the carcass.

  Jamie wanted to ask him how he knew but he shook his head slightly and she stayed quiet.

  Suddenly a face appeared above the dead cow. It was a wolf face that was certain, but there was something odd about it. The expression on it, and it had a clear expression, was one of victory and taunting as though the beast had somehow won something. It didn’t take fright at the light, instead it stood up and bared its teeth, standing with its front paws on the dead cow like a hunter posing for a picture.

  Jamie felt rage build up inside her. How dare this animal take anything from her! This was her ranch, her family, her cattle. She took a step forward, bristling with indignant anger. Jesse put his arm out without looking at her.

  “Not if you want to live,” he said.

  Jamie looked up at him and noticed that his eyes never strayed from the wolf’s. They were staring at each other. She could feel something passing between them, an animosity that seemed greater than just a man or a wolf.

  And then her father raised his gun and shot at the creature. Jamie hadn’t noticed him come up from the truck.

  The shot went a little wide, hitting the cow carcass. The wolf should have taken fright and bolted, but it didn’t, it just stared at them, and then casually sauntered off into the retreating darkness.

  In a flash Jesse was over the fence and running through the field. He moved fast, very fast and Jamie and her father watched him go. He reached the carcass and stopped. Then he moved around it a few times, looking at the dirt. He knelt down once, and then again in a different spot. Then he walked back to them.

  “Mr. Campbell I think it’s safe to say that you have a very serious problem,” Jesse said, “One that is best discussed inside.”

  Ander nodded. “There’s nothing more we can do out here anyhow,” he said.

  The two men picked up the dead cow and, with an effort, loaded it into the back of the truck. Then they drove back to the house as all around them the darkness receded as the sun’s rays broke through the clouds and turned everything pink.

  Jamie put on a pot of coffee and sat at the table with her father and Jesse waiting for it to perc. The whole ride back Jesse had been tense and silent. Even her father had been rather terse, and now sat at his table with hands folded.

  “You know what that was,” Jesse asked his eyes on his own hands.

  Her father nodded. “Seen it before. A long time ago but I remember well.”

  “This one has a problem with you, you can tell by the way it’s behaving. Showing off like that. It’s messy, a way to get caught,” Jesse said.

  “I’ve heard the younger ones can be cocky,” Ander said looking grave.

  Jamie looked from Jesse to her father thoroughly lost.

  “What are you saying? We have a cocky wolf problem?” Jamie asked laughing. “That’s absurd.” Then seeing the looks on their faces she said, “Well it is!”

  “Not really,” Jesse said with not a trace of his usual humor.

  Jamie looked at her father, hoping for some clarity but he just sighed, looking more exhausted than she’d ever seen him.

  “Sometimes I wonder,” he said. “I just don’t know any more.”

  “We can beat this,” Jesse said with such conviction Jamie was impressed. “It won’t be the first time or the last. With your permission Mr. Campbell I’d like to call some friends. They are real good at dealing with this sort of situation.”

  “Hell, call me Ander. Since I seem to have drawn you into this mess we might as well be on first name terms,” Ander said. “Yeah, call them. We have to keep the cattle and what’s left of my family safe.”

  Jamie felt horribly left out of this conversation. She stood up with force, making her chair grate on the floor, scraping it loudly.

  “Jamie!” her father scolded, “The floor!”

  “Oh, how nice of you to remember I’m here,” she said sarcastically. “So are you two going to let me into this little club or what?”

  She glared at them both. Her father looked ready to explode at her and Jesse looked uncertain. Then he stood up, lifting his chair carefully.

  “I’ll make that call,” he said and left the room. He headed out of the back door into the yard where the sun was peeking over the trees.

  Jamie rounded on her father. “What the hell, dad? I need to know what’s going on as much as anyone. This farm is my home too you know and I work very hard…”

  “You do,” he said. “I know I’ve been stupid. You’re not a little girl anymore, and you deserve to know the truth.”

  “What truth?” Jamie was just about jumping out of her skin.

  “There aren’t only humans in this world. There are other creatures too, ones that look human, right up until they don’t. You saw one just an hour ago.”

  Jamie considered this and then folded her arms pursing her lips, “Really? Dad how gullible do you think I am? Werewolves? Please!”

  “They are real Jamie. And that thing that killed the cow tonight, it was a werewolf!”

  “How do you know?”

  “By the way it acted. You can’t tell me that you think that was normal for a wolf? You know how wolves behave, never that sure, that openly aggressive and not afraid.” Ander pushed his chair back and stood up. “You want me to take your opinions seriously around here, then start believing me. I don’t lie to you Jamie. Werewolves are real and if we’re being targeted then we have a very serious problem.” He left the room.

  Jamie stood for a moment stunned and then sagged into a chair.

  She looked up a moment later when the backdoor opened. Oliver strode into the room.