by Thorne, Elle
“Well, what do you think a guy named Griz would look like?”
Eden shrugged. “A grizzly shifter?”
“Duh.” Camden smiled at her twin, a mirror image of herself, dark-haired, dark eyed. Both looked a lot like their older sister Circe. Which brought said notorious sister to mind. “How do you think Circe’s doing?”
Eden laughed softly. “I’m not going to be the one to call her to find out.”
“Yeah, Marco said that Mae was there. I wonder if they’ll sort it out.”
It.
Whatever it was.
Circe never told Eden and Camden what her beef with their cousin Mae was.
They pulled their carry-ons from the overhead compartment and made for the plane’s exit.
No sooner had they made their way down the rickety metal ladder to the asphalt ground—thank goodness it wasn’t the dead of winter, by gosh—than a shadow loomed over them, blocking the sunlight’s glorious midday shine and casting shade on both Camden and Eden.
They looked at the source of the shadow.
A large man stood before them. A huge scar bisected his face, splitting it from eyebrow to jawline.
Dark haired and dangerous looking, the man had an air of confidence and the kind of good looks that didn’t fade with time.
Camden’s breath hitched, and she couldn’t have said if it was because of fear or not. Inside Camden, her elemental Avala gave a warning as though concerned. At the same time, Camden’s panther snarled within her head.
The panther’s snarl wasn’t one of defiance or aggression, it was more of a greeting, shifter to shifter, though it was doubtful the man before them would hear that greeting.
What it told Camden was this man was a shifter. His inner grizzly wasn’t hiding from her panther. He was straightforward and acknowledging them.
That told her what she needed to know. Of that she felt confident.
“Griz?” she asked.
He nodded and a smile broke through the aloofness of his handsome face, making him look less like a warrior and more like a friend.
Next to Camden, Eden’s pulse raced. Camden’s supernatural senses and her panther’s acuity picked up Eden’s out of control heartrate.
Camden took her sister’s hand, squeezing to let her know it would be okay.
Eden’s elemental, Piria had a thing about bears. Eden never spoke about it, but the family had put it together. They tried to be sensitive to Piria’s fears, but without more information, their hands were tied.
“Okay?” Camden asked her.
Eden nodded.
The big shifter stared at them, eyes curious, expression unreadable.
“Camden, Eden?” he asked, as though wanting to be certain.
“Were you expecting a different set of twin shifters?” Camden popped off before thinking about it.
Eden jerked her hand, as though warning her not to be rude.
Before Camden could apologize, the scarred man laughed. “You must be Camden. Your brother warned me that you have a mouth on you.”
Oh, now, she was more ready than ever to pop off at her brother Marco for talking smack about her.
“That’s right. She’s Camden, I’m Eden,” Eden beat Camden to the punch. “Nice to meet you, Griz.” She grimaced a bit as she said his name, then added. “Is that what you prefer to be called or is that a joking kind of nickname others call you?”
“I’ve answered to that for so long that I’m not likely to answer to anything else as quickly. Hope you had a good flight.”
Camden nodded. “Could have been worse.”
“If we’d crashed,” Eden interjected. “That’s the only thing that could’ve made it worse.”
“I’m guessing you had a lot of turbulence?”
“Understatement.”
Griz scowled. “Sorry. This time of year, every so often, that happens. Thought a flight would be better than a long drive, or so I told your travel coordinator.”
“We’ll probably drive home.”
He smiled in response.
Camden wasn’t sure what that smile meant, so she let it ride.
“Ready to meet your assignments?”
“No time like the present.”
They sought out their checked bags—no baggage claim here, just a cart with suitcases being loaded as they spoke, then pushed a few feet out from under the plane’s body.
Camden and Eden pulled theirs from the top shelf.
“I got them,” Griz offered and collected their luggage.
Just then a woman a little bit older than them walked up. Griz glanced at her, then said, “Hey, Mac. Feeling better?”
The woman nodded.
Camden glanced between the two of them with barely contained interest. Her shifter nose told her one thing for certain. The woman was pregnant. Her panther told her the woman wasn’t a shifter, but was couplebonded to one. The scent of their bond, and the aura around her, was strong.
Was this Griz’s mate?
“I’m MacKenzie Clarity.” The woman put out her hand.
Camden shook it. “Camden Brazos.” She pointed to Eden. “My sister, Eden.”
“You really are identical,” MacKenzie laughed. “I’m glad you’re not wearing identical clothing.”
“We quit that long ago,” Eden confessed, shaking MacKenzie’s hand. “Nice to meet you, MacKenzie.”
“Call me Mac, please.”
“She’s my nephew Lance’s mate,” Griz added for clarification. “He’s out of town on business.” Griz glanced at Mac, who gave a small nod.
Of course, that made Cam curious as to what kind of business and why he was looking at Mac like that.
“Congratulations on the baby, Mac,” Eden said.
Mac did a double take then laughed. “I keep forgetting you shifter types and your sensitive noses and hearing. That’s why I didn’t get to be here as part of the welcoming committee. Restroom run. This baby is giving my tummy fits. I can’t keep anything down, it seems.” She paused then added. “I’m hoping it will be a surprise, so if you can tell the gender from heartrate already, please don’t tell me.”
Camden laughed. “I won’t.”
Chapter Three
Several moments later they were making their way toward a mountain range that loomed up ahead, imposing and on the aloof side, much like the man in the truck with them had been when they first met him.
Griz’s truck was a beat up old pickup that looked more like something from an old TV show Camden remembered catching a few moments of on a sleepless night. Two detective brothers, the blond had a sports car and the other had a monstrosity of a big red truck. That truck could have been Griz’s truck. Except this one was blue, not red.
“Want to give us some background on the assignment?” Eden asked.
Cam and Eden had opted for the backseats together. Neither wanted to see Mac lose the contents of her tummy from any roughness that might happen.
“So, we have two little girls—” Griz glanced at Mac.
“Four years old actually,” Mac added.
“Right. They’re orphaned.” Griz frowned.
Damn. That plucked at Cam’s heartstrings.
Griz continued, “Trista and Tessa. Shifter cubs. One has an earth elemental. The other has a wind.”
“Wind,” Eden exclaimed, excitement tinging her voice.
“We rarely see wind elementals,” Camden added. She found that a bit exciting. So far, only Circe had dealt directly with a wind elemental.
“Should we know about the circumstances surrounding their being orphaned?” Eden inquired.
That had been Camden’s next question.
“It’s not been released yet,” Griz said.
Released to whom, Camden wanted to ask, then wondered why his fingers were gripping the steering wheel so tightly, his knuckles had gone white.
“You are uniquely qualified to handle this, as they are twins—identical—with elementals. And it seems lately their elementals ha
ve been wreaking a bit of havoc. Not on their guardians, but rather on the nannies brought in by their guardians.”
“Tell us about their guardians,” Eden prompted.
“Twins, grizzly shifters.”
Eden inhaled sharply.
Camden glanced at her sister, put her hand on Eden’s knee. “It’s okay. I’ll be there. We’ll be there together.”
Beneath Camden’s fingers, Eden was shaking. Camden squeezed hard. Eden gave her a look, as though to say, I may be fine, but my elemental is in chaos.
Camden nodded. She got it. But she didn’t want anyone else to figure it out, so she pressed on with the conversation.
“So, we have twin sister grizzlies in charge of the little hybrids?”
“Not exactly,” Griz said, shifting gears. “The guardians are twin brothers, grizzlies.”
Camden felt her jaw drop. “Why twin brothers?”
“Yeah, why are their guardians males?” Eden said.
Cam hoped they didn’t sound sexist, but… Oh, who cares how they sounded; the wellbeing of the little girls was what mattered here.
“They are uniquely qualified to be their guardians.” Griz’s tone said there would be no argument.
Seemed he liked the uniquely qualified phrase.
Okay, fine, Camden wasn’t going to argue, but she had questions and wanted answers, and there was more than one way to skin a cat.
“How did you come to have the little girls?”
“They were my first case at the Bear Canyon Wildlife Reserve,” Mac said.
Eden raised a brow. “I don’t think that’s cleared it up much.”
“I’m the veterinarian for the reserve.” She looked at Griz, as if seeking permission to go further.
Griz nodded, his expression unreadable in the rearview mirror.
“One purpose of the reserve is to help with orphaned shifters, or relocation of shifters—young and old. It’s a covert operation for the most part, working on the principle that only those who need to know are given information.”
“Right,” Griz added. “There are some who we help who could be in serious peril, and thus bring danger to the valley—or the mountain range—and we can’t have that. So, we keep things on the down low.”
“So, the little girls were orphaned,” Camden began. “Then they came to you—” She looked at Mac. “—and then?”
“And then we placed them with the O’Reardon twins.”
“And you can’t disclose why you chose them to be their guardians.”
“It’s in the file,” Griz said.
Camden wondered if that meant no, so she pressed on. “And we have access to the file.”
“No.” Griz let the word drop with the finality of an anvil. No finesse there. No doubt.
Clearly, it meant no. Well, Camden had never been good at hearing the word. Actually, she heard it just fine. It’s just that it didn’t pose an obstacle to Cam. If anything, it spurred her on.
Eden frowned at Cam, knowing exactly what her twin was thinking, clearly.
Camden gave her a slow wink, one that she was sure the others in the front seat wouldn’t catch, then ignored her sister’s look of warning and focused her gaze out the window on her own side.
She’d get to the bottom of it all. Sometimes, Camden wondered what path her life would have taken if she hadn’t joined the OE—Order of Elementals. She thought she’d have made a half-decent detective. Or something like that.
What’s to stop me now, a part of her asked.
She had a commitment, a higher cause, a calling. Her contribution to the OE, along with that of her siblings, was one they were suited for and did the most good in. But every now and then, when a mystery would come up, boy-oh-boy, was Camden rearing to get to solving.
What got to Camden was how she’d never made any progress on the mystery that lay between Mae and Circe. When Circe put her mind to it, she was tighter than a clam.
She looked away from the majestic mountains, the evergreen trees, the winding road before them, and went back into grilling mode.
“So, what’s the situation with the nannies? Are the brothers unable to care for the kids?”
“No, not unable,” Griz explained. “But they have jobs. And they can’t take the kids with them on a daily basis.”
Eden frowned. “What kind of jobs?”
Griz’s jaw tightened, the muscles working.
Great. Another damned secret. She was close to exploding on him. Why did they bring us here if they can’t tell us jack shit?
“They work in security.”
Okay, she wasn’t really mollified because that wasn’t much of an answer, but she couldn’t go ballistic on him because technically, he did answer—sort of.
“So, what’s the deal with the nannies then?”
“They keep quitting.”
Mac laughed. “That’s because they keep looking for help among a group of women shifters, for the most part, that they know. Women they’ve either had an entanglement with, or women that would like to be entangled with one—or both—of the O’Reardon guys.
Ewww.
Camden looked at Eden. Eden’s face was scrunched up, too.
“Women that want brothers?” Camden couldn’t help the tone of her voice. Surely, she didn’t mean at the same time.
She never found out. First, because Mac was laughing too hard at her exclamation—and even possibly at the expression on her and Eden’s face, but also because Griz had pulled into a driveway and stopped in front of a large cabin with a huge wraparound porch.
On the porch, hanging from the ceiling were two swing horses carved out of wood, suspended on thick chains.
On the wooden horses, two perfectly adorable little girls with hair pulled into two braids each, miniature Stetson hats, and boots, were swinging to and fro, pushing their bodies forward, then backward to gain more and more height.
She’d been ready to ask who the hell was keeping an eye on the girls when the largest man she’d ever seen stepped out of the shadows.
Her breath hitched.
Eden turned to her curiously.
Camden bit her lip. She didn’t react to men. Men didn’t hold a place in her universe.
She studied the broad-chested, wide-shouldered man who stood between the two little girls, a large hand on the rump of each wooden horse.
It was clear he was there to protect them, and it was also clear there was no way in hell anything would happen to the adorable little ones while he was around.
“That’s Tyler.” Griz nodded toward the porch. “Tyler O’Reardon.”
“Where’s the other one?” Eden asked.
“Sean had to take care of some out-of-town business. Without a nanny, one had to stay behind.”
“They don’t look like they’re a handful,” Eden exclaimed.
Griz’s smile was grim. “Right now.”
“Did you know when they came to you that they had elementals? Did you know when you placed them?”
“Nope. They kept well hidden.”
“Why do they run the nannies off?”
Griz shrugged.
Camden studied the ground before them. There were broken trees, gouges and ruts in the earth. Leaves scattered everywhere, though it wasn’t fall.
“So, they do security? This place doesn’t look too secure to me.”
Griz’s eyes met hers in the rearview mirror, but he didn’t say a word.
Chapter Four
Trista looked back at Tyler. “Is that the new nanny?”
Tyler tugged on one of the braids he’d done for her this morning. That wasn’t easy by the way. He’d had to reach far into the deep recesses of his mind to remember a different time, when he’d been a young boy and in scouts and done a project that required plaiting.
Now, he was starting to feel like he was almost an expert, except that his hands were so damned big, it seemed his fingers tripped over each other trying to make the braids.
“Is it?” Tessa r
eached back and tugged on his sleeve. “Is it, Ty? Is it?”
Trista squinted at Griz’s beat up excuse for a truck. “There’s more than one person in there with him and Mac. Two nannies?” She sounded very grown-up a second later. “So, if one can’t get the job done, they’re hoping two can?”
Tyler couldn’t help himself. He laughed. These two were such pistols. “You need to behave, Trista. I’m not telling you again. I won’t have you terrorizing any more nannies.”
He studied the truck as it was pulling up the drive. He’d called Griz in sheer desperation, but he had no idea what Griz had planned, who Griz called, or what arrangements were made.
The only thing that Tyler knew for sure was that Griz wouldn’t do anything to take the girls away from him and Sean.
“Well,” Tessa pushed on. “Why two?”
Tyler shrugged. “Griz said he would figure this out.”
“What’s to figure?” Trista asked, and at the same moment a wind picked up, pushing her horse higher, shaking the leaves in the trees.
“Trista,” Tyler issued a warning in his tone.
“Fine,” she huffed.
And the wind died.
Tessa turned back with a twinkle in her eye.
“That applies to you, too, little miss,” Tyler informed her. Man, he was ready for Sean to get back. Or for whatever Griz had planned to happen. Keeping these two—and their elementals—in check was wearing him down.
Griz stepped out of the driver’s side door, Mac out of the other side.
Then the back doors opened
Two women stepped out.
Curvy.
Beautiful, he had to admit, with their dark hair and smoldering eyes.
His glance went to the other one, and without a single warning, something that felt like a sledgehammer slammed into his chest. Or his body. Or his heart. Or mind.
Or every single damned bit of him.
How could this be?
Two identical women.
Yet that one, the one on the right, with a half-smile and a hellishly determined look in her eye caught his attention as securely as if he’d been a fish on treble tackle, each deadly barb of that hook deeply embedded in his very core.
In front of him, he noticed a subtle change in the atmosphere—or the environment—or something. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something had changed between the twins. Tessa and Trista were studying each other, and whatever was going on with them was a silent conversation that he wasn’t privy to.
