Hollywood Bear: BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance

by Chant, Zoe

  Until the afternoon he found himself at the rustic cabin, sniffing for traces of Shelley’s scent. Then he knew that his bear would never stop looking and longing for his mate.

  Mick transformed back into a man. And then he had a very, very long hike across the mountain, until he came to his house again.

  Okay, he told his bear. You win.

  He drove down the mountain the night before the wrap party.

  Shifter shapes keep you honest, if you let them, his grandfather had said. Be good to your bear, who sees the world simply. He will be good to you, and the both of you will live a long and happy life side by side with your mate.

  His grandmother said the same thing—as had all the shifters in their community. But as a know-it-all teen, Mick had found their close-knit, everyone-knowing-everyone-else’s-business attitudes stifling. He and a couple of his shifter buddies had signed up for the Army Signal Corps partly in order to help with future college plains, but also to escape small town life.

  As he fitted into the stream of traffic feeding into L.A. he considered looking up his old buddies to see how they were faring. Only he hated the idea of answering their return questions and whining about how he couldn’t manage to get it together with one woman. No, it was better this way: Dennis was somewhere in Greece shooting a documentary for National Geographic, and Jean-Pierre was in Japan, doing something-or-other with online media.

  He figured he had one last chance of seeing Shelley at the wrap party, and if she didn’t show up, he’d take one of these overseas offers and blow L.A. altogether.

  He kept his cool, greeting everybody, and hearing one word in a hundred as they all talked at him, looking bright and beautiful. But he only had eyes for one person . . .

  And she was there.

  ***

  Jan had offered to be Shelley’s plus one, but Shelley felt she had to do this on her own. Besides, this wrap party wouldn’t be one of those horrible large parties at which she’d know no one. She intended to hang out with the other stunt people.

  And so it went. The crew and caterers had extended one of the sets, creating a huge dystopian cave from the remains of a futuristic factory, with the food spread on the picturesque conveyor belt where the hero and villain had duked it out in their final fight.

  Shelley helped herself to tasty pot stickers, fajitas, and sushi, got a bottle of micro label beer, and sat with Jorge, his wife, and the other bar-fight crowd she’d spent two days pretending to kill.

  She tried to pay attention as everyone gossiped about their next gig, or what they hoped would be their next gig. But every nerve was attuned to the movement in the rest of the vast stage, especially around the door. Even before she saw him, her nerves flared like she’d been lit inside with neon.

  Then came the shouts, “Mick!”

  He walked in, trailed by producers, important front office people, and a star bent on making an entrance, but Shelley only saw him. He looked incredible in charcoal gray slacks and a black shirt that beautifully contrasted with his blond hair and blue eyes.

  A pang of concern chilled her when she saw the shadows under those eyes. But his smile was cool and professional as he began moving from group to group. She forced herself to turn back to the chatter around her as she debated fiercely about going up to him. If he’d been another stunt guy, or one of the actors with two lines, she wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But Mick was the center of attention for the entire party.

  Two hundred people are waiting to talk to him, she realized. I should just take a number.

  Five minutes later, “Hey, Shelley.”

  Whoosh. Her hard-fought calm vanished in smoke.

  The entire table fell silent as Mick joined them. He smiled as Shelley managed a, “Hey yourself.” Then he went on to greet everybody by name, including Jorge’s wife, Nancy.

  Slowly conversation began to pick up again as he chatted briefly with each person in the circle, until he came back to Shelley. To her surprise, he held out a card.

  “Perfect weather in Topanga Canyon,” he said in a low, intimate voice. “Want to do some trail riding?”

  “Sure.” She fumbled for her purse, then remembered she had left her cards (which she almost never bothered to take along) sitting in their box on her bureau. “I, ah, don’t have a card.”

  “Call me in the morning?” he asked.

  When she nodded, he moved on to the next person.

  Jorge dug his elbow in her side. “What was that about? Evil Biker Chick rising from the grave for another picture?”

  “I don’t know,” Shelley said. “I’ve never done a zombie. Is the make-up worse than the fake piercings?”

  “Far worse,” someone said. “Itches like hell.”

  “And the stoop-and-shamble is rough on the neck after about the sixth hour,” someone else put in.

  More zombie jokes went around the circle, everyone laughing, but by the time Shelley left, she began hearing bits of gossip that Mick Volkov’s next picture was going to be a zombie flick. As she drove home, she felt like she’d dodged a bullet.

  Not that she cared if someone knew they were dating. If they actually began dating. It was the idea of stepping into the fishbowl world, where whatever you did ended up with its own Twitter hashtag. Especially as she still had to deal with her Rule One feelings, which were losing two falls out of three against her sizzling hot Bearzilla memories.

  When she parked her car, she looked at the card she’d been handed. There was no way in hell she was going to make a personal call to him just to get screened by secretaries. Then she saw that the beautifully printed card only had two items: his name, and his number. That had to be his private number.

  When she got upstairs, she found Jan alone in the cramped living room, the roommates thankfully out. Jan sat in slippers and sleep T-shirt, obviously waiting up. “Well?”

  Shelley showed her the card. “Wants me to call in the morning. Suggested a trail ride in Malibu.”

  “You’ll call, right?”

  Shelley looked askance at her friend. “Since when did you turn into Aunt Minnie the Matchmaker?”

  “Since you’ve been about as much fun to live with as a case of the bubonic plague. Seriously—”

  “I’ll call,” Shelley said.

  “Good. And what about Rule One?”

  “It’s on hiatus. For a day.”

  “You really don’t think he’s going to start conning you out of your bank account?” Jan asked.

  “No. I’m not the least bit afraid that Bearzilla will steal from me. But you remember that cheating on me and then lying about it was another of Dominic the Doofus’s charming traits. And Mick did lie to me at first, with all that stuff about scouting a location that it turned out he knew better than anybody. That was kind of odd—”

  Jan started to protest.

  Shelley held up a hand. “No, I’m not complaining about it turning into the hottest sex in world history. But it was odd.”

  “I thought it was sweet. And when you asked, he did say he just wanted to see you ride.”

  “Yeah, that part was sweet. But why didn’t he come right out and ask me? What I’m saying is, I have a real low tolerance for lies or surprises.”

  “Gotcha,” Jan said, clicking off the TV and getting up. “Well, lunch shift tomorrow. G’night.”

  Next morning, Shelley waited until what she thought was a civilized hour and punched in Mick’s number.

  He answered on the first ring. “Hi.”

  She shivered. “This is Shelley. Calling. Like you said.” I’m dithering. She shut her mouth.

  She could hear the smile in his low, rough voice as he said, “Up for some riding?”

  “Yes. No. That is, I don’t have a bike. I could probably borrow one from my brother if he’s not using his, some weekend.”

  “Would you like to ride the KTM?” Mick asked.

  “Sure! Where do I meet you? And when?”

  “I’ll send a car to pick you up,” he
said. “Is that okay?”

  As he promised, a sleek new Lexus arrived to pick her up. She found herself smoothly wafted past clogged roads and expensive parking lots to private land north of Sunset Boulevard.

  They pulled onto a dirt lot that overlooked Santa Monica and West LA, and found Mick waiting beside his big 610 and the KTM.

  As soon as Shelley stepped out of the Lexus, Mick’s tired face transformed to a smile.

  “You look great,” he said.

  She could hear the genuine note in his voice, though all she wore were her usual jeans and her cotton driving hoodie. Her one concession to the occasion was that she had put on the Valentinos, which ordinarily came out for special occasions. But her old, cracked, grungy riding boots had looked so horrible, and a vigorous cleaning had only made them look worse.

  She’d put the Valentinos on, and passing Jan, who was getting ready for work, muttered to her significant glance, “Don’t say a thing.”

  “Nothing. Saying nothing!” Jan had caroled. Shelley knew she was in for NSA-style interrogation when she got back, but she didn’t care.

  She intended to enjoy the moment—and the scenery—as she watched Mick glance at the hazy panorama. He, too, wore jeans, and once again just a shirt. That was so dangerous, even for superb riders, which he was. If he dumped, he’d rip himself to pieces, and he had to know it.

  She would never nag anyway, but the silk shirt got two thumbs up the way it clung to his muscles as they as they pulled on gloves and helmets. The talk was brief and easy, nothing more than a comment or two about the party, the great weather, and which direction would she like to start in, maybe west so they could look out over the ocean?

  They rode up the trail to the top of the palisade, the salty sea breeze buffeting their faces. An hour later they’d swooped into the narrow switchbacks of Malibu. Mick led Shelley along a little-known trail deep into Topanga Canyon.

  The air smelled of eucalyptus, and the landscape’s folds and dips were filled with golden yarrow, snapdragons, clematis, and a host of other wildflowers. Brief as the rainy season had been, these plants clung tenaciously to the meandering little streamlets that fed into Malibu Spring.

  They opened up the throttle and began an exhilarating run down the valleys and up over the heights, sometimes with him in the lead, sometimes her. Just about the time she was feeling a little thirsty, he pointed to the left. They roared on down a narrow, rutted road that had probably been paved forty years ago, and pulled up at a picturesque beach eatery.

  “You like fish?” Mick asked after they shut their engines off.

  “Love it.”

  “They have the best fish and chips on the west coast. Cole slaw is always fresh-made.”

  Shelley was ravenous, and delighted to discover that he was right. It was delicious. They shared a basket of perfectly crisped fries and beer-battered fresh-caught red snapper, washing it down with a yeasty micro brew that Shelley had never heard of.

  When the edge of hunger had been taken off, she looked up to find his gaze on her. “Do your brothers ride?” he asked.

  “They all learned to, but only two stuck with it.”

  “Are they older than you?”

  She nodded. “All four.”

  “Four!” He whistled appreciatively. “That must have been intimidating to any guys who came around. Were they over-protective?”

  “No.” She laughed as she shook her head. “If anything, it was the opposite. I tagged along behind them from the time I could walk. They saw me as a little brother. Once I started martial arts in middle school, they made certain I could defend myself. Meanwhile I’d . . .” She thought it over and abandoned her sentence, and picked up another piece of fish.

  After the pause turned into an expectant silence, she glanced up to find him waiting. “You’d?” he prompted.

  “I’d, um, heard the way they talked about the girls they dated. I thought that was the way all guys thought about girls.”

  “Ouch,” he said, grimacing. “May I offer in our defense the observation that that attitude is grown out of by most guys by the end of high school?”

  She laughed. “I found that out. But between that, the fact that I was one of the tallest people in high school, and my brothers’ lessons in how to take down a guy in three strikes, I didn’t date until I left home for UCLA.”

  “Teenage boys are actually easily intimidated,” he said, his smile crinkling his eyes, so they seemed warm, simmering brown again. “I bet they thought you were a goddess and were scared shitless.”

  She laughed. “They might have been scared shitless, but the goddesses were all petite and beautiful.”

  “You’re beautiful,” he breathed.

  Once again she heard the note of sincerity in his voice, though rationally she knew he might say it—and mean it—to a harem of girlfriends. “Thank you.” She hid the shiver his low voice gave her. “Everything changed in college, as it does for so many people.”

  His smile was so . . . intimate. She smiled back, aware of the prickle of intimacy, of expectation. As if they were alone in the world instead of sitting on a bench in a noisy fish shack, with the hiss and pound of the waves and the caw of seabirds in the distance.

  “I got a crash course in dating from my dorm mates,” Shelley said. “And that’s my history. Do you have brothers or sisters?”

  He gave his head a shake. “Just me and my grandparents.”

  “I remember you mentioned them. Your parents didn’t come to the States?”

  “My mother left my father when I was little,” he said lightly. “My father was in the army. He died in Bosnia.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly.

  “It’s all right. I was eight, and I’d seen him so rarely. He was always in the field. “ Mick glanced aside, and then lifted one of his powerful shoulders in a slight shrug. “The political situation worried my grandparents. They’d survived Stalin and World War II, but enough was enough. So they packed up and left everything behind.”

  Once again a hesitation, and then he continued in a bland, even voice, “We ended up in a small town up Highway 5, where I found a couple buddies who were as good as brothers. Between them and Saturday morning cartoons, I not only learned English, but the mysteries of American culture. It was they who changed my nickname from Misha to Mick, convincing me that I would not survive the jungle of small town middle school unless I had a name that sounded like everyone else’s.”

  She gave him the expected laugh, but wondered what he’d been leaving out. Maybe it had to do with his father’s death. “Were Saturday morning cartoons what got you into film?”

  He flashed a grin. “That was mecha. Gundam, specifically. A scratched-up, worn-out VHS tape my friend had swiped from his older brother. The first time I saw that, there was no looking back.”

  “Who could not be inspired by giant robots?”

  “Exactly. The grandparents wanted me to become a doctor or a lawyer. Something respectable. But they let me go my own way when I spent all my carefully hoarded allowance to get myself a camera when I turned fourteen.” He paused as the waiter, a tall, thin guy with a droopy face that a cinematographer would love, shuffled by to offer them coffee.

  Once that was poured, Mick said, “You mentioned UCLA. Did you major in film?”

  She shook her head. “Theater.”

  He leaned his elbows on the table. “Theater? How did you end up doing stunt work? Would you rather be on stage?”

  “No, not really. I got into UCLA on the strength of my audition, reprising my role as Big Nurse in our drama coach’s adaptation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I discovered when I got to college that I didn’t really like memorizing wads of Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde—that I much preferred comedy, if I wasn’t stomping around as villains.”

  He shook his head. “I cannot imagine you as Big Nurse. No.”

  “Oh, I was terrific! Totally over the top. But I’m afraid my stage career peaked at eighteen. By my senio
r year in college, I was already doing character bits and stunt work for friends over at the film school. Which led to some actual paid gigs. Which in turn got me an agent. And here I am. What kind of films did you make? Animation is tough. How did you manage that as a kid?”

  “Too tough,” he agreed. “I made the leap to action films . . .”

  She leaned in, enjoying the slow rumble of his voice, silvered with laughter, as he gave pungent summaries of his and his friends’ film projects. Again she sensed a reticence, as if he meant to say one thing, but changed his mind. Each time his voice would smooth to blandness, and then the emotion would return.

  She realized that she had become sensitized to his voice in a way that had taken over a year with Dominic, and that was only after she’d begun to suspect that he was leading a secret life. And lying to her. Was something like that going on here?

  ***

  He saw the exact moment her mood changed. Sometimes, while he’d been enjoying the way her green-brown gaze sometimes touched quick and light as a butterfly to his hands, his arms, then back to his own face, her focus narrowed in. As if she sifted his words.

  As if she intuited how near he’d stumbled on revealing things it was not his place to reveal. Whatever happened about his own secret, the shifter community that had welcomed stone-broke immigrants must be protected. He could not imagine taking anyone back there, but if he did, they would reveal themselves or not as they chose.

  He’d intended this date to be something they both enjoyed, but also to try to get to know her. The problem with starting off with terrific sex first was everything felt backward. He wanted Shelley to understand that she wasn’t just a booty call.

  Though maybe she felt that way about him?

  She tipped her head, then said with a questioning look, “You don’t have to edit them out completely, if you don’t want to.”

  “Edit them?” he repeated, his brain freezing.

  She ducked her head in a nod, and he was distracted by the brush of her curls against her cheeks, those same curls he’d felt ruffled against his chest—