Hunter: A Werebear + BBW Paranormal Romance (Beast Warriors Book 2)

by Devlin, Bliss

  The fenced pastures in the foreground, bisected by a line of cottonwood trees lining a stream, gave way to a steep, forested ridge in the distance that defined one side of the valley.

  It was beautiful scenery, she had to admit.

  After rinsing off her dishes and putting them into the dishwasher, she wandered into the living room area with another cup of the delicious coffee, listening for the sound of an approaching truck that would herald Brett's return.

  Still nothing but birdsong.

  Catrina found herself pacing restlessly around the living room. Where was he?

  She desperately wanted him to return soon…and at the same time, she felt gnawing anxiety about having to face him after what had happened earlier.

  She had apparently entered the bedroom of a strange shifter while he slept, crawled under the covers, and snuggled up against him…all without waking him. Or getting herself killed by his bear.

  That was unheard of, in her experience. Shifters were a touchy lot in general, but especially while they were asleep. It was basic shifter etiquette that you never approached a sleeping shifter without making a lot of noise while you were still out of attack range. If you crept up, a shifter's beast half might awaken before the human half did, and the results could be ugly.

  By all rights, Catrina should be dead now. Or at least badly injured. But she wasn't.

  And neither Brett nor she had reacted until their human halves woke up.

  Weird. It was all so weird and totally disturbing.

  Trying to distract herself from circling endlessly around the same set of thoughts, she examined the collection of small antiques on the wide wooden mantel that circled the stone fireplace.

  She recognized an old Zeiss Nettar folding camera, various patent medicine bottles, and a pair of branding irons with the Grizzly Peak Ranch's stylized "GP."

  A little further down, she saw a pair of child-sized spurs with cracked leather straps and an exquisite, tightly woven Native American basket filled with old glass marbles that were chipped and dulled from use. A set of tin soldiers, scratched and dented but still brightly painted, marched along the back of the shelf, accompanied by several wooden horses that looked hand-carved under coats of worn and faded paint.

  Catrina studied them thoughtfully, wondering if these children's toys, well-used and well-loved, had belonged to someone Brett had known. He didn't seem like the kind of person who trawled antique stores for random knickknacks to decorate his home.

  Next to the toys stood a pair of tarnished silver photo frames, hinged so that they could be closed like a book.

  The left side of the frame held a black-and-white wedding photo.

  With a small shock, she recognized Brett, clad in an old-fashioned dark suit with a bow tie, standing next to a lovely woman in a high-necked white Edwardian wedding gown with a long veil and an armful of roses. She rested one white-gloved hand lightly in the crook of his elbow, and despite the fact that both of them were looking straight at the camera with solemn expressions, something in their body language spoke of deep happiness.

  The facing side of the frame held the portraits of two fair-haired young boys, one eight or nine, and the other perhaps five. Both were wearing sailor suits, and they had been posed against a backdrop of a beach.

  A door opened and closed behind her, and Catrina jumped guiltily, feeling like she had somehow intruded on something private, even though the photos were standing in plain sight in the living room.

  Brett strode in, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved flannel shirt, looking like he had come straight from his ranch chores, with mud-spattered jeans and coat and his cowboy hat in his hands.

  He came up next to Catrina, and she had to fight the urge to lean—or better yet, snuggle up—against him.

  Damn, he smells good, she thought, inhaling surreptitiously. Clean male, overlaid with the scents of hay, cattle, perspiration, and a hint of wood smoke.

  Her reaction did nothing to dissipate the feeling of sick embarrassment that made it impossible to meet his eye.

  "Morning," she said, without taking her eyes from the photos.

  "Morning," he replied, as he came to stand next to her.

  She braced herself for his questions about why she'd crept into his bed this morning.

  Instead, he reached out and touched one of the battered tin soldiers with a light finger.

  "I wasn't able to save much when my old house burned down," he said quietly. "I'd kept the box holding all of these things from—from my old life sitting in my bedroom closet for years. And yet, that box was the first thing I grabbed when I smelled smoke." He paused and sighed. "When the new house was finished, I wanted…well, I thought maybe it would be better not to hide these things away any more."

  "Your wife and children?" she asked, though she already knew the answer.

  Brett nodded, his expression haunted. "Her name was Adelaide Evans. She was a schoolteacher when I met her. WSS headquarters was located near New York City at the time, because we needed access to a port with ships that could take us anywhere in the world. Hal warned me about the risks of becoming involved with an ordinary human, but I thought that just fifty years of happiness with her would be worth the pain of loss. I just never expected to lose her so soon. We were married less than ten years."

  Catrina wanted to know but didn't want to ask intrusive questions. So she just nodded and let him share whatever he wanted to.

  "It was the influenza epidemic," Brett continued."Due to wartime censorship, not much was written about it in the newspapers at the time, but the death rates were horrific. In East Coast cities, bodies were piled in the streets because there weren't enough coffins—or gravediggers—to bury them properly. It was like the Black Death had come around again."

  Catrina stared at him, horrified. She remembered reading about the 1918 influenza epidemic, but she didn't remember that it had been so bad.

  "I was in France with the 82nd Division at the time," Brett said. "Perry was hoping to curry favor with the US government, so he encouraged his shifters to enlist when the US entered World War One. I remember getting the news that Adelaide was dead, along with our two boys, Thorfinn—" his callused finger lightly touched the glass over the older boy's face "—and James." He moved to the younger boy's picture. "Damn it, when I boarded that troop transport, I was sure that they'd be safe in our home, far from the front lines of the war."

  Catrina felt tears sting her eyes at the pain in his voice. Her self-consciousness forgotten, she half-turned and put her arm around his waist.

  Brett didn’t move away. In fact, she felt him lean against her, and she knew she'd done the right thing.

  "When I enlisted, I was sure that if anyone died, it would be me, from the new-fangled weapons like machine guns and poison gas."

  "I'm so sorry," whispered Catrina, squeezing his waist.

  She looked at the battered collection of toys and realized that they must have belonged to his sons.

  She felt him take a deep breath, as if shrugging off the old grief. Then he stepped away from her, his expression calm.

  "Anyway, it was a long time ago," Brett said.

  But Catrina wasn't fooled. Nearly a century had passed, and the pain of his loss still seemed raw.

  In an entirely different tone, he said, "C'mon, I'll take you to your car. I've already called Hal, and he's going to meet us there. Then, if everything works out okay, we'll go out to lunch. How do you feel about pizza?"

  "I love pizza," she said enthusiastically, respecting Brett’s deliberate change of subject. "How do you feel about anchovies?"

  * * *

  On the drive over to the riverside parking lot, neither of them spoke very much.

  Brett didn't bring up the subject of what had happened at dawn, though he knew that he and Catrina needed to discuss it sooner or later.

  While he was working this morning, he'd had a chance to think through the implications, and his early morning phone conversation with Hal h
ad only confirmed the conclusions he had reached.

  It was going to be an uncomfortable conversation about something Brett hadn’t thought would ever happen to him, old as he was.

  And how was this even possible? Catrina wasn't a bear shifter. She was a jaguar, a member of one of the New World bloodlines.

  In the old days, it had been absolutely forbidden for shifters to cross bloodlines.

  These days, with shifter birthrates in drastic decline, cross-lineage matches were permitted but still frowned upon, especially by older shifters.

  Brett took his eyes off the road briefly to glance at the quiet, self-possessed woman sitting in his passenger seat. She was staring out at the passing scenery of pastures and barns and the scattered herds of cattle, sheep, and horses.

  But he could feel her presence, as if she wore an invisible aura of flame that reached across the arm's length separating them and pressed against his skin like a burning brand.

  Lunch, he told himself. Let's get this part over with first. And then, if she's really who she says she is, we'll talk about the other thing over pizza and beer.

  They reached the place where the river crossed from one side of the highway to the other. Just before the bridge, a small sign indicated the turnoff for a boat ramp and picnic area.

  Brett bumped down a narrow, unpaved road that led past an abandoned osprey nest built on a tall nesting platform and into a stand of tall trees located on the riverbank.

  There were two cars parked in the small parking lot, which was surrounded by wooden picnic tables and metal barbeques scattered under the trees.

  One was Hal's silver Ford F-150 pickup. The big man was waiting for them, leaning against the tailgate, his arms crossed.

  The other car was a small white Subaru hatchback. Its windshield and rear window were plastered with fallen leaves wet from the recent rain.

  If Catrina had wanted to hide the car, she'd found the perfect place. Even now, in late autumn with most of the trees bare of leaves, anything parked down here was concealed from passing traffic on the highway.

  Brett pulled up next to Hal's truck and parked.

  Without looking at him, Catrina opened the passenger-side door and got out.

  Hal nodded at her. "I see you locked up before you left on your…hike."

  Catrina shrugged. "Force of habit. My camera and laptop are in the trunk." She paused and finally looked at Brett. "I'll go get the keys, I hid them before I shifted."

  "If you would be so kind," Hal said, with sarcastic courtesy.

  Catrina went over to the nearest big tree, climbed up on the picnic table that sat beneath it, and reached up on tiptoes. Brett saw her unhook something from a twig.

  "Catch," she called, and tossed the item in his direction.

  He caught it and looked down. It was a black key fob with a single key attached to it.

  He looked up, and their eyes met for a long moment. As before, something electric sprang to life between them.

  Then she dropped gracefully into a cross-legged seat on the table top. "Do your worst," she said in a resigned tone. "Just leave it in drivable condition, please."

  Brett could sense no apprehension in her, no undue nervousness. He guessed that they wouldn't find anything incriminating in her car.

  As Catrina watched impassively, Hal and Brett began a thorough search.

  As the two of them lifted floor mats and opened compartments, Brett reflected on the primal rage that had seized him the night before, when he’d heard the sound of a fist hitting flesh and Catrina's grunt of pain. He had begun the shift to warrior form without consciously willing it

  Then there had been that kiss, hot and urgent. She had wanted it as much as he had, and the need had come close to breaking his self-control.

  And then there was this morning, waking up with that strong, generous body spooned against him. He didn't think it had been some cruel, teasing game on her part. Catrina had seemed as bewildered as he had been.

  Reluctantly, Brett decided Hal's hypothesis had been right.

  Now he just had to figure out what to do next.

  "Doesn't it seem strange," Hal asked suddenly, pulling clothes out of a big duffel bag, "that there are absolutely no personal items anywhere in this car?"

  He was right. The duffel bag was filled with generic items—travel-sized toiletries, jeans, hiking socks, long-sleeved tees, a thick sweatshirt, and a waterproof hiking jacket. A pair of fairly new hiking boots sat in a plastic grocery bag in the cargo area. The only other notable items in the car were a camera bag containing a camera body, several lenses, data cables, and a spare battery, and a small laptop in a plain dark blue padded neoprene case.

  No CDs, no books, no MP3 player. No mementoes of any kind.

  "You'd think that a person wanting to desert WSS would have brought at least a few things with her—photos, a memento or two," Hal continued conversationally. "But you don't have anything. Not even an iPod with your favorite songs."

  Catrina scowled at him. "You'd think," she replied, in that same conversational tone, "that taking anything like that on a mission might tip off your teammates or commanding officer that you weren't planning on returning."

  Brett had to admit she had a point…but something still felt off about her story.

  Hal shot him a glance that confirmed he felt the same way. "A mission, you say?" he inquired, in a dangerously gentle voice.

  "A mission I never really started and have now abandoned," Catrina shot back defiantly. "So, are we good?"

  She hopped off the table. "Because Brett promised me pizza and there are a few things I need to buy in town, first."

  "We're good," Hal said reluctantly.

  Without proof, they'd just have to wait for Catrina betray herself, if she had somehow managed to lie to them.

  In the meanwhile, Brett had an uncomfortable conversation to look forward to over lunch.

  * * *

  As it turned out, the pizza was delicious.

  After Hal and Brett had finished turning her car inside out, she drove it back to town, following Brett's big white pickup truck.

  Parking on Main Street, he escorted her to several stores and insisted on purchasing the additional clothing and toiletries she needed for an extended stay in Elysia.

  When she protested that she had her own money, he informed her that to prevent anyone from tracing them electronically, Hal forbade any new arrivals from WSS from using their credit cards or withdrawing money from the ATM.

  Dismayed, she thought about all of the money sitting in her savings account. She had been counting on that nest egg to start her new life here.

  She then tried to protest the purchases, which included work boots and a heavy winter coat, as too expensive.

  Brett only laughed. "Winters here in Northern Idaho are no joke, especially for a California girl like you," he said. "You'll need real winter gear if you plan to be outdoors for any period of time."

  "Fine," she said, reluctantly acknowledging that he was right. "But it's just a loan, okay? I'll pay you back once I start earning some money."

  "We'll see," he said. "Ready for lunch?"

  They walked down a couple of doors to the Sorrento Pizzeria, following a delicious scent trail of roasted garlic and baking pizza dough.

  The pizzeria was housed side-by-side with the Beartooth Pub & Brewery and served the brewery's beers and ales. Both businesses shared the ground floor of one of Elysia's historic brick buildings, freshly renovated with sleek, modern interiors.

  As Catrina and Brett waited for their pizzas to arrive, they took their beers and sat at one of the pizzeria's shiny black tables. The restaurant was about half-filled with what looked like locals, since tourist season was over.

  "During tourist season, Aggie sells pizza by the slice over there—" Brett indicated a long bar running down one side of the dining room, with bottles of wine and Italian flavored syrups displayed on the wall behind the bar "—and most days, there’s a line out the door
and down the street." He smiled at her. "His wife was from Naples, and she got him to build a wood-fired pizza oven from brick and river stones. His great-grandson is the chef nowadays and still uses that oven."

  So the restaurant's owner was another member of Bear Team? Working and living with the third generation of his family, just like Rafe with his great-grandson Drake?

  Reminded of the wedding photo she had seen just a short time ago, Catrina wondered if immortality wasn't overrated. She was still young enough that her calendar age matched her apparent age, but in another fifteen or twenty years, she would start to look too young for her current identity.

  And it was going to be really hard watching the people around her age and die. Especially if she ever decided to settle down with an ordinary human man.

  You wouldn't have to worry about that with Brett. He'll stay young forever, just like you, a voice inside her whispered.

  Surreptitiously, she watched Brett drink his beer, admiring how lifting the tall glass to his mouth made his thick biceps bulge in the most appealing way under his flannel shirt. He had rolled up his sleeves halfway, and the corded muscle of his forearms wasn't bad to look at either.

  Just then, a big, tattooed man with dark red hair pulled back into a thick braided ponytail walked up to the table with two large pizzas, one in each silicone-gloved hand.

  She caught the scent of bear shifter, nearly lost in the delicious fragrance of tomato, herbs, and anchovies.

  "Ah, Brett," boomed the man, grinning down at them, his hazel eyes crinkling pleasantly at the corners. "I'd heard we have a newcomer in town."

  "Hi, I'm Catrina," she said politely.

  The man turned his head, to favor Catrina with a survey from head to toe that was equal parts male admiration and professional assessment, before addressing Brett again.

  "And I see you've already claimed her for yourself," he said cheerfully.

  Catrina was entertained to see Brett's tanned cheeks darken with a blush. "Hal asked me to serve as her sponsor."

  "Ah," said the newcomer. He looked at Catrina again, and his voice dropped to a low murmur. "Is it true? Were you really a Beast Warrior? Did Hal really set you to teaching those good-for-nothing wolf shifters not to shoot themselves in the feet?"