Epilogue
It was summer when Elise Davenport and Dietrich Best had their first baby. He came into the world on the anniversary of the night they had met, and that meant that all the Best boys were standing in the waiting room of the hospital. Elise was still in labor when Stacey and Kurt arrived, hand in hand. Anina came over to greet them, kissing Stacey on both cheeks. The old woman was clearly overjoyed, her milky eyes brimming with tears.
“Not long now,” she said excitedly. “Just think, a whole new generation of the clan is being born.”
“And another one on the way in two months,” said a voice behind her.
Here, Ben was sitting with his new wife Layla, whose own baby bump had swelled recently. Stacey gave them a wave and a grin. She looked at Kurt to find his golden eyes shining. He nodded, like he knew exactly what she was thinking. He often did.
“Actually, Anina, we-” Stacey begun.
But the old matriarch of the clan was still talking, too wrapped up in her excitement to listen to anyone else.
“Yes, yes,” she said to Ben, “and now Kurt and Stacey are happy and settled together. It’s all so wonderful. You next, Reinicke?”
She said this last with a teasing hitch in her voice. Stacey gave a giggle. It was a well-known fact in the family that Reinicke, Kurt’s cousin, hated to be teased. He looked the least excited by whole fiasco, though even he was tapping his fingers against his chair with impatience. He scowled. Reinicke might have been quite handsome, if not for all the scowling.
“No thanks, Gram,” he answered dryly. “You’ve got quite enough baby-making going on without my efforts.”
“Speaking of which,” Kurt tried to interject, but he was cut off once again.
“Well, what about you Hart?” Anina pressed. “Any new girls on the horizon?”
Hart caught his brother’s eye for a moment and they shared a sigh.
“I called Karina at the agency, just like you said,” he told his grandmother, “but she’s short on girls in this area right now. Sorry Gram, it doesn’t look like happily ever after is on my cards just yet.”
“However,” Stacey said loudly, but once again Anina was jabbering away.
“Oh, that’s a shame,” she said gently. “I thought you and that girl from Ben’s wedding were very well suited.”
“She’s gone back to China, Gram,” Ben cut in. “To her husband, remember?”
“Gram-” Kurt tried again.
“Ah,” Anina said. “I knew there was a reason that wasn’t going to work.”
“Gram…” he tried again.
“Such a shame, she was very pretty.”
“GRAM!”
Silence filled the room. Kurt’s voice had risen to shake the atmosphere, almost as loud as his roar. Anina looked at him, aghast. She seemed as though she might have been about to tell him off for being so rude, and Stacey felt it her duty to step in. She took the old woman’s hands gently, touching as they had when they’d first met.
“Anina, we’ve been trying to tell you our news,” she explained gently. “Kurt and I… Well, I’m two and a half months pregnant.”
Silence followed as the news sank in, then everyone was speaking at once. They rushed to crowd around Stacey and Kurt, congratulating them on the happy news. Even Reinicke got up to shake Kurt’s hand, before making some excuse about finding a vending machine. Amid all the fuss, Stacey looked to Kurt, and this time he shook his head. The crowd was excited enough for one night.
They’d wait until later to tell them it was most likely twins.
Hart
Bear Dating Agency IV
by
Becca Fanning
“Oh my God, Elise, he’s perfect.”
Jane Walsh leaned carefully on the edge of the hewn wooden crib, peering in with a lump in her throat. The baby boy was tiny, a perfect replica of humanity in every way. Tiny hands with tiny fingers, tiny lips that blew bubbles as he breathed. He even had tiny dark, hairs starting to sprout from his scalp. He was two weeks old, peaceful and perfect. And, when he opened his eyes to look at Jane, they shone with a ring of glittering gold.
“Say hello to Isaak Best,” Elise told her brightly.
Elise had been working less and less in the run-up to giving birth, and Jane hadn’t seen her for more than a month by the time she came to visit Fairhaven Park. Now, Jane could see that it was all so worth it, the slowing down, the taking time to create and care for something so beautiful. It stirred her heart into a warm, deep sensation, and she found herself watching little Isaak with a wistful smile on her face.
“You want one, don’t you?” Elise asked her.
Jane turned, eyeing up her favorite client carefully. Elise was glowing with all the charms of new motherhood, despite the tired shadows lurking beneath her eyes. Jane was more than just Elise’s agent, she had grown to be a dear friend to the slightly younger woman. She weighed up her options for answering the big question, and nodded slowly.
“Sure I do,” Jane replied, “but that involves meeting a man, making commitments. It just takes so much time, Elise. It’s time I don’t have right now.”
Even as she spoke, Jane couldn’t help but glance at her cell phone, which she’d kept one hand on in her pocket the whole time since she’d left LA. It was on silent for baby Isaak’s benefit, but the emails and instant messages were already piling up. Every five minutes, someone somewhere had a crisis for her to solve. She felt the wistful feeling leave her, a wave of stress returning to turn her body tense.
“But when will you ever have time, if you don’t stop and look once in a while?” Elise challenged. “Why don’t you call Karina Vasquez? Her agency sent me up here in the first place, remember?”
Jane shook her head at once.
“Not everyone can be as lucky as you and Dietrich,” she insisted. She glanced at her phone again. “I really ought to check this. Do you mind?”
Elise gave a sigh, which seemed to signal that she did mind, but Jane started to move away from the crib all the same. Her steps were heavy as she walked away, and at the door she looked back on the scene of a happy mother, and a woman in love.
“I…” Jane began sadly, but she couldn’t let go of what she really wanted to say. “I’m just here for the week, working out-of-office, to see you and get to know Isaak. Love just isn’t on my schedule right now. It’s not like I can just expect a man to fall out of the sky and-”
The door hit Jane square in the chest, and she stumbled backwards. Baby Isaak began to bawl at once, filling the room with the shrill cry of shock. Jane shrieked too, for as the door swung open, a tall, muscular man crash-landed at her feet. He had rolled his head into his arms to prevent any damage, and beyond him the hatch to the Rangers’ Lodge attic was wide open. His collapsed ladder had sent him flying towards the bedroom, and he looked up into Jane’s eyes with a sudden awareness.
His eyes were golden, shimmering like all those of the Best shifter clan, and when he grinned shyly, his teeth were gleaming. He flicked a strand of dark blonde hair from his face, and gave a small, apologetic shrug.
“That’s what you get for daydreaming on a ladder, I guess,” he mused.
“Jane,” Elise said, a wry smile playing at her lips, “this is Hart, Dietrich’s cousin. I don’t think you’ve met.”
She could have stayed and talked to Hart, but the messages were plaguing the back of Jane’s mind. He was handsome, like all the Best boys were, but also boyish in his clumsiness despite being one of the eldest. Hartwin Best. Jane loved the German name. It was a wrench to excuse herself and head downstairs, seeking out a decent cell signal, but it had to be done. People in the city were depending on her, and she wasn’t the type to let them down.
She walked several yards from the huge, ornate frontage of the Rangers’ Lodge, down towards the edge of the woods. It was mid-morning, which meant that the world of offices and phone banks Jane had left behind was just starting to get into full swing. She flicked through the emails on
her phone, browsing for the ones which needed urgent replies. Then she stood with the cell glued to her ear, listening to voicemail after voicemail about this, that and the other. Which models were going to get the new Chanel campaign, what shoes should be bought in for the latest ingénue to wear. It was dry stuff, but it really mattered. It could be the difference between whether Jane still had a job this time next year or not.
She made a few calls, wandering absently as she did so, until she realized that her voice was crackling on the line. Hanging up, she rattled her phone for a signal, only to discover that she had actually walked some way into the woods during her calls. Jane looked around, mildly alarmed by the sight of trees on all sides. There was a bright stream of daylight above her, and the greenery was thick and beautiful, but just a little too thick to see which way was the right one back to the lodge. Jane fired up her phone again, swiping to find Elise’s shining face.
“I thought you were swamped with calls,” Elise said at once, the playful annoyance still palpable in her tone.
“Yeah, well… Don’t laugh, but-” Jane began, and at once Elise chuckled. “I said don’t laugh. I wandered out into the trees, maybe only half an hour’s walk, but I’m not sure of the way back.”
“Did you hear that Isaak?” Elise teased, her voice gentle. “Auntie Jane is lost in the woods already.”
“Hey, little help here?” Jane pleaded.
“Sure, I’ll send someone,” Elise said with another laugh.
Jane thanked her ruefully, then looked around again with a little sigh. It was no use continuing to walk, in case she was walking herself even further away from the lodge, so she found a mossy rock and settled upon it. The signal was just about good enough to still get her instant messages, and soon she was deep into a chat with one of her many assistants about who they’d be sending to New York Fashion Week. It was during this heated debate that Jane thought she heard a few branches breaking somewhere nearby, as if under gentle footsteps. She looked up, hoping for the sight of Dietrich or one of his fellow rangers.
Instead, she found that she was looking at a shabbily-dressed woman with long, dirty hair. The two women stared at one another for a moment, then the stranger put a lazy smile back on her face. She had a glazed sort of look in her eyes, as though half her mind was somewhere else entirely. The woman certainly wasn’t a hiker, and Jane tried to sound bright and helpful as she returned the woman’s smile.
“If you’re looking to get out of the woods, I’m waiting for rescue right now,” Jane offered.
“Get out?” the woman asked. Her voice had the same faraway quality as her glassy eyes. “No way, lady. I’m so good where I am. Like, so good.”
The shabby woman spun on the spot like a child. She looked up into the foliage overhead, and Jane had a moment of panic as she watched the unsteady creature wobble and almost fall flat on her face. There was something wrong with her, and Jane wondered if she could guess what it was. The drug-users she met in LA were more the uppers and downers type, looking for energy all day and oblivion all night. This woman, Jane decided, had sought out a permanent chillax. The woman stumbled closer and, sure enough, a recognizable smell entered Jane’s nose.
“Well, you’re enjoying your vacation, aren’t you?” Jane said, now vaguely amused.
The stranger nodded gleefully, her matted hair flopping with a dull thud. She sat down on the floor in front of Jane, knees crossed like a schoolgirl.
“You could use some, you know,” the woman mused, “you look all weird and tense.”
Jane couldn’t pretend that the observation didn’t hurt her. She frowned, then frowned some more as the woman started rifling in the pockets of her shabby coat.
“Oh no, really,” Jane stammered politely. “I don’t… I mean, I couldn’t take your stash.”
“It’s no problem,” the merry woman said, still searching her clothes. “I got it gratis. Free sample from the Boys in the Wood.”
Jane started at that.
“In the wood?” she repeated. “Are you saying someone dealt drugs to you here, in the park?”
The woman looked up with a wide smile.
“Oh yeah,” she said proudly. “Grown here too. It’s good shit.”
“Grown here?” Jane echoed.
This was serious. If there was a drugs operation somewhere in the woods, the Best clan needed to know about it. Jane sucked up a breath, choking a little on the foul residue of pot smoke from the stranger, then she set her voice low and serious. It was the kind of tone she used with new interns back at the agency.
“Listen, honey, you need to tell me where to find the Boys in the Wood, okay?” she coerced.
“Ah,” the woman said with a giggle. “So you do want a fix.”
“That’s right,” Jane lied calmly. “So where can I-”
The question never got its end, for in that moment the shabby woman leapt up with a shriek. She held her hands either side of her head, eyes wide and crazed as she stared at a spot just behind Jane. When Jane turned, she too had a startled moment, for a huge grizzly bear had just emerged not three feet from where she sat. Unlike her addled friend, however, Jane knew what the golden gleam in the bear’s eyes meant. Even more of a giveaway was the strange satchel that the bear had thrown over is massive back.
“Whoa,” the woman warbled. “I must be freaking or something. A bear with a bag? Am I seeing this right?”
“I think you’re having a bad experience, honey,” Jane replied. “I, uh, well I don’t see anything there.”
The woman continued to stare for a moment. The bear, for his part, kept perfectly still, as if he was listening to Jane’s words.
“Perhaps you’d better go find somewhere dark to lie down?” Jane suggested.
“Mmm,” the woman said with a nod. “Yeah, ‘kay.”
The bedraggled stranger wandered off, and as she did so the bear came closer to Jane once again. He was huge and somewhat clumsy in his gait, with streaks of pale brown and dark mixed together, glittering in the sunlight. Jane watched as her savior passed her by and settled into a thick clump of bushes about three feet high. Then, to her amazement, he began to transform.
She didn’t see much beyond the shrinking of the bear’s huge form, but she heard the pants and cries of strain that followed. There was a cracking sound that shook Jane’s stomach a little, but after that, she heard fumbling and the rustling of leaves. Then, after a moment, Hart popped up in the center of the bush. His torso was bare, and Jane couldn’t help her eyes from roving down his chest, following the dark blonde trail of hair that made a line on his stomach.
“Sorry about that,” Hart said with a light chuckle. “Gimme a second to throw these clothes on.”
The bag made sense then. It had looked ridiculous across the huge back of a bear, and it looked even sillier on Hart, with its too-long strap making it drag on the floor. But the bag had contained his ranger’s uniform, which he quickly slipped into before stepping out of the bush. He even had shoes to put on. Crazy as the whole thing was, Jane sort of admired his forethought and organization. It was the kind of thing she would have done if she had to shift from one form to another.
“I didn’t realize they’d send you,” Jane said awkwardly.
Hart gave her a winning grin.
Edward (BBW Western Bear Shifter Romance) (Rodeo Bears Book 1) Page 62
