by Lisa Daniels
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
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Arthur’s Mate
Bears of Valor Lake
Book 1
By: Lisa Daniels
Chapter One – Emma
Emma didn’t know what she preferred: the city or the country. Both had their pros and cons. Cities tended to have an abundance of shops, clubs, accessibility, trains and buses on a regular schedule. The downside happened to be congestion, expenses, and seeing hospitals lined up and down the motorways every day. Everyone seemed to be in a rush to get somewhere in her hometown of Phoenix, Arizona.
The country, of course, struck her with its beauty. Dirt trails and heavy pine woods, barely touched lakes and streams, fields with animals and long, horse-patrolled ranches. You also had the unfortunate tendency to wait one hour for a bus from the village to the city, barely any stores worth going to, and a tiny population that seemed indifferent to newcomers.
Checking her watch, Emma sighed. Stupid bus was supposed to be here on the hour, but it was five minutes overdue, and she’d been waiting for twenty minutes already, sheltering under the less-than-adequate roof that still allowed rain to drip through. One other person waited with her, standing wrapped in a yellow raincoat, hood obscuring their face in side profile. Water dripped from his or her white plastic bags of shopping. Emma wore only a jacket over her office shirt and knee-length skirt, and shivered miserably, wishing for the bus to come. Still hadn’t adapted to the rapid change in temperature, straddling the border between America and Canada.
She never planned to return to Phoenix again, if she could help it. Her eyes fixed past the rapid plopping of rain to the gray smudged air and the two convenience stores with their haphazard signs and warm lights. The acrid stench of wet concrete permeated her nostrils, and pools of rainbow-slicked oil appeared under some of the cars parked near the sidewalks.
Two buses. One from Valor Lake, total time of 57 minutes, to reach the nearby town of Buffalo. Then one switch in Buffalo to get to her work place in a medium-sized company of about forty employees in a two-floor building. And, unfortunately, her work tended to finish just after the hourly bus had left, and the inner-city bus lugged her over there to kill some time after.
Unease settled in her gut, along with the second pang of homesickness that day. She’d tried to convince herself to like her new place. Pretty scenery, the fresh breath of nature and the warm, cozy fires at night in little village cottages.
The reality—it was all fucking shit. Her parents didn’t know about the move, and Emma didn’t plan to tell them. Not after the stress they put her through.
But honestly, Emma had never heard of Valor Lake until a month ago, either. She’d just stuck the pin on a random spot in Google Maps, and kept doing it until she found a place whose name she liked. Helped at least that the rent was affordable, given that it existed in the ass-end of nowhere.
No more hot summers for her. No scorching Arizona sun, just a sky instead filled with gray, and unfamiliar scents such as broken pine sap, soils, methane, and air so cold it frosted her lungs.
But at least there was no more Marcus, either.
“Useless bus.” A disgruntled snort from the Raincoat person caused Emma to jump. A woman. “Fourth time it’s late this week. What do you think the driver’s doing, scratching his ass? Stopping for donuts?” The woman tilted her face towards Emma, revealing a wrinkly visage that almost seemed as though it’d been preserved in bandages for a few centuries.
Right. She expected Emma to talk. Emma responded with a non-committal sound in her throat.
Raincoat Grandma gave a wry smile. Emma didn’t want to look into her eyes—the woman appeared to be missing her bottom eyelashes, giving the rims a permanently bloody look. “You’re definitely a new one to Valor Lake, ain’t you? Still got a tan, I see that. Me, I’ve been there all me life. Got sons, daughters, grandsons. Getting me first great-grandchild soon.”
“That’s wonderful,” Emma said, wishing the woman would stop talking to her. She considered getting out her phone and feigning a call or something but ended up re-crossing her legs and moving a few inches away from the grandma on the thin metal bench.
“You live in Valor Lake, or passing through?”
Trying to decide if the woman was being overly friendly in that northerner way, lonely, or fixing for a fight, Emma replied, without looking at her, “Living there. Been there for a few weeks. Wanted a change of scenery.”
“You got family here?”
“No.”
“Hmm.” The woman made a sucking sound with whatever teeth she had left, and Emma drew a sharp breath, searching for the bus that refused to come. “Odd, ain’t it? Young woman like you. No family, living all alone out here. Wonder what you’re running from.”
“Nothing,” Emma said stiffly, cheeks now flushing. Her hands felt clammy. She almost cried out in relief when the small bus curved around the junction, a green traffic light encouraging it forward, and sputtered to a halt by their stop. Emma decided to wait for the woman to get on, so she’d sit down first, and Emma waved her pass at the driver, before making a beeline for the back of the empty bus. A faint, mildew smell rose from the seats, and from her clothing, and she thought she saw Raincoat Grandma’s face flicker in disappointment, before the bus lurched forward, taking them back to a place Emma never imagined herself to be.
*****
Odd, that woman had said. Emma sat in front of her TV, trying to pretend she was happy. That she didn’t mind being in the middle of nowhere, all alone, without anyone to support her.
At least I don’t have to support anyone else, either. Emma’s stomach curled in on itself.
As if attracted by a magnet, her eyes fell onto her second phone. The one with all the numbers of her past life upon it. One reluctant stretch, a poke and swipe, and the unlock screen disappeared. She saw forty-three missed calls, and at least as many messages. She couldn’t exactly block her own family, so she bought a second phone instead to avoid the deluge of attempted contact.
Ignoring the calls, even though her heart sank somewhere in the bowels of her belly, she thumbed through the messages. I know I shouldn’t. It’s masochism. It’s stupid. They never say anything worth saying.
Dad: Please contact us. We’re really worried about u. love u
Dad: Why aren’t you answering? Cant you see we care about u?
Yep. This was normal. She knew exactly how the next messages would play out.
Dad: What did you do with the tax forms? We cant find them, did u take them wiv u?
Dad: Can u answer? Running away like this is so cowardly, leaving us to run the business alone. We r really behind with everything and its ur fault for leaving it in such a mess!!!
Similar messages came from her mother. Starting off wheedling and syrupy fake, before building up to what she actually wanted to speak to Emma for. Her mother really enjoyed the attempt to butter up her target when she desired something.
She didn’t fall for the trap, though. She knew exactly where she put their stupid taxes. In the drawer, back of the shop. Like I always do. After all, they made her do all the work in that stupid convenience store, didn’t turn up half the time and expected her to be okay with that, and tried at least once every three months to come to her with their bright ideas of avoiding taxes, because they didn’t like the amount that was cut out of their wages. Each time, she’d told them no.
Probably went ahead and did it because she was no longer there reminding them not to be stupid. Staring at her phone for a few more moments, Emma shuddered, and blacked the screen again.
Nothing from Marcus. But she didn’t know whether that was a good thing or not. Maybe he just wanted her to panic. Maybe he thought she’d come crawling back to him in a pathetic heap. Maybe she was a pathetic heap. Panic soared in her, causing her brain to buzz, and she sought refuge instead with a drink of water, gently pacing up and down the apartment. Long as she didn’t think too hard, the tears would stay in. Mind drifting, she thought back to that old, wrinkled prune of a lady, abrasively asking questions.
Anything was better than staying back in Phoenix.
Even if it meant confessing to the fact that she ran away.
Noises from outside drew her attention, stopping her pacing on the soft green carpet. She shuffled past the leather sofa and poked her head through the partially opened window.
In the darkening street, in a type of scene best left to images of ghost towns or old westerns, a pile of clothes had spewed out over the sidewalk, with a white shirt draped over a badly parked car. High-pitched screeching accompanied by hoarse bellowing echoed from the house directly in line with the clothes, and then a suitcase tumbled out the window, hitting the ground with a distinctive crack.
“Stop! Stop throwing out my things! Are you crazy? You fucking crazy?”
A demented and choked scream followed those words. Other people peeked out of their windows as well down the residential street, drawn to the commotion, like a car crash unfolding in slow motion.
“I can’t believe you cheated on me! How dare you! I trusted you!” The screaming was drowned out in a loud crash. The kind of crash usually associated with something heavy and expensive falling, like a flat screen television.
The bellowing continued its aggressive back and forth, and Emma casually slurped her water, wishing right now she had a bit of popcorn to listen to the debacle. Twenty-five, and still a kid at times. She grinned.
The front door of the thatched cottage flew open, and a hulk of a man stumbled out, built more like a tank than anything else. He barely avoided something else flying out, which looked suspiciously like a digital radio, and flipped the bird at his now apparent ex.
“I didn’t fucking cheat!” he yelled, though Emma doubted the woman was in any capacity to listen at the moment. A part of Emma was inclined to side with the woman, knowing the number of guys that cheated, but she also felt a little sorry for the guy. His black hair lay plastered to his head in a sheen of sweat, and those muscled arms of his worked at picking up the scattered belongings on the rain-soaked sidewalk. The window slammed shut. Forlornly, the man continued scooping up his items, with some of them spilling out onto the damp. Emma hated it when that happened, when she attempted carrying her wet laundry out of the washing machine and a stray sock or panty kept tumbling out.
The more Emma watched, the less amused she became. He bundled his stuff on the hood of the car and fumbled in his pockets, before realizing he didn’t have the keys. Knocking on the cottage door gave no answer. Even when he banged hard.
A moment later, a police car with flashing lights drove up, parking in front of his car. Two policemen clambered out in heavy jackets and hats. To arrest him? Did the woman inside call the cops on the man?
One animated conversation later, the police had bundled the man into their car and stuffed his possessions in the trunk.
Well, Emma thought, closing her window since the wind had picked up a bit, sending droplets onto the carpet and green velvety curtains. Maybe it’s not as quiet in this place as I thought it was.
Chapter Two – Arthur
Eddie turned around in the passenger seat. “Tough luck, mate,” he said, brown eyes rather sympathetic.
“I kept telling her,” Arthur said with a growl of annoyance. “But she wouldn’t listen, man. I’m not a cheater. I’m hardly going to cheat on her with my own fucking sister.”
“Well, these are hillbilly parts,” Eddie said, now picking his nose. The cop uniform looked one size too small for him, and his beer-stretched stomach threatened to spill out of his navy vest. “There’s all sorts of weird shit going on here. We had to get someone out of a basement last week since they broke their key in the lock. Inflatable dolls all over the place. Fucking sad, man.”
Harold continued driving, squinting occasionally at the mirror, mostly struggling for visibility through his rapidly sliding wiper blades.
Arthur groaned, rubbing his eyes against his fists. It’d all gone so wrong, so fast. One moment, he’d been talking to Lamarya, attempting to explain that he didn’t like using Social Media, so that was why she couldn’t friend him on any of the platforms, that the person she saw him with was his sister, that surely it was okay to have women as friends, right—and the next, a screeching match and all of the items he’d moved into her cottage broken.
She wanted to keep the car, though.
“We’ll drop you back home safe at least, take your clothes to the laundromat. How ‘bout that?” Eddie gave him a wide smile and offered a bite of a cheese and pickle sandwich. Arthur declined.
“I swear, I’m just done with women. Too much shit to deal with. I’m not going to stop talking to my damn sister or my damn friends just because she has a problem with it. Family’s more important than her.” This was the truth. People like him didn’t go and turn their back on family. People like Lamarya didn’t turn her back, either. Maguires always clashed with Valors. Ever since the beginning.
Family pressures beat at the back of Arthur’s mind. Mustn’t be like his tearaway brother, who betrayed the clan and left them years ago for some slutty human woman. Mustn’t be like the uncle either, who had formed his own clan and challenged the leadership of his father. All the other clans deferred to the Valor, the founders of the Lake.
They tried hard to keep themselves insignificant on the map, to promote Valor Lake as a reservation—that coming here was dangerous if you weren’t a fan of grizzlies.
Honestly, Arthur wouldn’t mind slipping into someone else’s skin. Rather than be here, drifting from one obligatory job to the other, with his mother desperately trying to find a suitable woman to one day run the clan with him.
“You need to get someone soon,” she’d said, in her hoarse, scraping voice, as if she’d swallowed sandpaper. “That bastard’s got himself a son now. All he’s got to do is find an excuse to duel and kill you, and he’ll take over the lands.”
That bastard being Uncle Gilnes, of course.
Arthur examined the very lands his mother talked about. Valor Lake scintillated in the dawn light, the sparkles illuminating some of the fish weaving their ponderous bodies under the waters. Several fishermen sat on the bank edges or the mini piers, catching their food for the day. A few bears splashed in the river just upstream that led into the lake. On the eastern side lay a string of opulent houses, many of them constructed in the 19th century, with ridiculous amounts of space. All the wealthiest clans wanted a spot next to the lake, but only three had managed it, thanks to land right deeds, and keeping it in the family.
Most people chose to live in the village downstream from here, for easy access to the bus route out. Only four-w
heel drives could make it to the deeper parts of the reservation, to the sloping mountains and the frost that covered them. His eyes fixed on the most offensive site on the lake. A small section banked off, with huge metal pipes leading into it. The pipes themselves led to his uncle’s paper-printing factory, which belched smog into what should have been a clear blue sky.
“If he gets claim of this land, he’ll wreck everything for profit.”
Well, he’d tried. Didn’t want to, but he gave it a shot with Lamarya. Hot enough, with a cute smile, great in bed… but they didn’t exactly have much to talk about. She didn’t want to go camping with him, fishing with him, anything with him.
Maybe… maybe he was stupid, for staying with her so long? There were warning signs. Eddie and Harold warned him enough.
He rubbed his eyes, drained. An unwelcome cramp radiated down his neck. He’d slept outside this night. Didn’t want to go and face the music with his family. Grandma Jackie would no doubt happily smash it in his face about how foolish he was, how he risked the clan by gallivanting around like he had no responsibilities.
He didn’t want to have to face that.
Even when the cops had escorted him back home, he didn’t bother much contact. Luckily, no sister to bump into, his mother and father were out, and his brother was probably busy with the truck-driving. Arthur slouched straight to bed and curled up in a mini-depression, even though a part of him knew he was far, far better off without her.
*****
Even sleeping on it didn’t help much. He still experienced a hollow, numb sensation, and figured there to be only one way to deal with it.
Drink.
No drinking here, though. Not in sight of anyone who might want to ask him questions. Though they already suspected as much, since his sister was there that time and saw him moping around in a foul mood. He needed to borrow his sister’s vehicle, too, just to make it worse.
