by T. S. Joyce
CALL OF THE BEAR
(HELLS CANYON SHIFTERS, BOOK 1)
By T. S. JOYCE
Call of the Bear
Copyright © 2014 by T. S. Joyce
All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, redistributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in any database or retrieval system, without prior written permission from the author.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Prologue
Trent Cress jerked his hand away from a rough two-by-four and glared at the growing red dot on his finger. Dillon, that ass, couldn’t cut smooth wood if his hide depended on it. The pain was only a minor annoyance as Trent watched the splinter heave from his index finger and lay in the staunched red. Bear shifter healing at its finest. With a quick swipe of his hand across his dusty pants, he snatched a pair of work gloves from the sawmill wall, pulled them on, and hefted three times the number of two-by-fours that a normal human man probably could.
That’s what made the lumber yard doable between him, his brother Bronson, and their childhood buddy Dillon. And along with Bron running the construction side of their business, Cress Lumber and Remodeling was becoming downright profitable.
As long as Dillon didn’t keep splintering the wood to shreds.
The east wall was made up of garage doors, the ones that slid up and down and were easy to lock up at night. Right now, all three were open to allow that cool Oregon breeze into the mill, so he could see Bron as he strode up the dirt road and past the clunker truck Trent drove up here.
“Shit,” he muttered, dropping the wood into the right pile and busying himself with straightening them up. Bron looked pissed, and when his brother was angry, he was a danger to everyone in his path.
And right now, he was barreling down on Trent.
“Guess who I just saw at the bar in town having dinner with Pete Anderson,” Bron growled.
Trent kept his eyes wisely at the toe of Bron’s roughed up old shit kicker boots. A wise bear didn’t look a shifter as dominant as Bron in the eye if he wanted to keep his limbs. Brother or no, the dude was scary when his eyes were all inhuman looking.
“Wanda from third grade?”
Bron canted his head and sighed an impatient sound. “Reese. Your Reese. She’s out with Pete. Why don’t you look surprised or pissed or I don’t know, anything, Trent? Any kind of emotion from you would work.”
“She’s not my Reese.”
“Why not? You’ve been with her since high school, man. You should’ve claimed her way before now. She’s not going to wait around for you to man up forever. Obviously.”
Hot anger flashed up Trent’s spine. “You know what? We work fine the way we are. Fuck when we want, go out when we want. If she wants to play around with Pete, fine. She’ll be back. She always comes back.”
“Why don’t you claim her, Trent? Stop messing with her head and make a decision either way. If she’s not it for you, then why have you hung onto her so hard, for so long?”
“You want me to claim her, is that what you’re pissed about?”
“Claim anyone,” Bron barked out. “Anyone will do at this point. We’re the last of the Cress line. Did dad not beat it into your head enough when we were kids about how important it is our lineage doesn’t stop with us?”
“Claim anyone,” Trent gritted out in disgust. “And how did claiming just anyone work out for you, Bron?”
His brother’s eyes were so light they should’ve warned him off of continuing, but screw it. He’d crossed the line. Again. “Muriel was just anyone, and she ate you up and spat you out and now you’ll be broken forever. Do you think about her? Do you think about Samantha when you look back on your regrets? She was special, and you tossed her away for tradition.”
“Stop it. Don’t you say another fuckin’ word. She was human.”
“Nah,” Trent said, spitting into the sawdust at his feet. “Samantha made you feel things. That’s why you did what you did. Don’t come preaching to me about claiming a mate when the ink isn’t even dry on your own divorce papers, Bron. When I claim, it’ll be for good.”
Bron dropped his head and hooked his hands on his hips. “You mean, you won’t fail like I have.”
Trent scrubbed a hand over his face and felt like grit. Bron had been through hell for six years trying to make things work with a rival alpha’s daughter. At eighteen he hadn’t had a choice. Things would have been different if Bron had been allowed to pick a mate now, like Trent was allowed to, but he’d been the eldest, in line for alpha, and part of the reason he’d done it was to spare Trent the same fate. He didn’t have to say it, but Trent knew the truth of why he’d broken a human’s heart all those years ago for a mate he didn’t care about. Everything just got so messed up.
“Jesus, man. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be bringing Muriel or Samantha up. I know that probably tears you up—”
“No, brother,” Bron said, lifting his lightened gaze. “I don’t think about Samantha anymore. Haven’t in years. I’ve let her go. Best you do the same.” With that, he spun and strode from the mill. “Don’t forget to lock up,” he ordered over his shoulder as he disappeared around the truck.
Like Trent needed to be reminded. Dillon was the one who always forgot to lock up, not him.
The sun was setting over the Seven Devils Mountains of Hells Canyon, and Trent stepped out to admire the last rays of light through the pines and firs. If Reese was really out with Pete, maybe she was moving on. A little ember burned in his gut just thinking about them together, but he wasn’t ready to settle down. Not until he was sure he wouldn’t be shredded like Bron had been. She knew better than to try and make him jealous. He wasn’t the type, so maybe she really was interested in finding a mate besides him. A part of him was proud of her for finally believing in her worth enough to move on. He loved her, but was it enough for them to last forever? After watching his parents fall apart, and Bron work so hard with Muriel to fail epically, he wasn’t sure.
He’d have to call Reese tonight and give her the okay to move on. She would be worried about him if he didn’t acknowledge the valley he’d put between them. Reese was a good woman, who had held on longer than she ought. The kindest thing for him to do would be to cut her loose. Would it be easy? Hell no. He cared about her deeply. But it was fair, and Dad used to say the hardest path in life was usually the right one. It was the only good advice that old badger ever gave, and dammit, he was tired of being on the wrong path.
He pulled down the first garage door and locked it, then repeated with the other two as his mind swirled around what he would say to Reese on the phone. Stepping through the front door to gather his satchel from the office, he heard a noise, a tiny scraping sound, and froze. Thirty seconds of silence later, he shook his head and rubbed his hand over the hackled fine hairs on the back of his neck. After what happened to Dad, his paranoia had never fully settled.
When he returned to the front, he frowned at the closed door. He could’ve sworn he left it open. The handle jiggled from the other side.
“Bron?” he asked as alarms went off in his head.
No answer.
The smell of gasoline hit the sensitive lining of his nose and his eyes flew wide. “Bron?” Rushing for the door, he pulled at the handle but it was stuck fast.
His ears perked up at a tiny flick of noise—the rough surface of a match striking the side of a box.
Cursing, he threw his shoulder against the metal front door. The window was too small for him to ever get his shoulders through. The garage doors were locked from the outside,
but he tried them next.
The air grew hotter and thicker and flames licked the walls now. He searched frantically for a way out, but they’d built this place to keep thieving rival bears away from the expensive lumber. The walls were reinforced with steel beams.
Smoke billowed through the open space as flames blazed through piles of sawdust and onto the dry two-by-fours, igniting the mill into an inferno. He tried in vain to put out the fire with an old blanket they used to keep wood dry as he coughed and hacked, but it had already spread too far.
Panicked, he gave in to the bellowing beast inside of him. Seconds felt like minutes as his adrenaline fueled the change. The pain of transition was nothing compared to the heat that lapped at his fur as he charged and rammed the thick doors repeatedly, bending them with every pass.
He would kill whoever locked him in here like this.
He would kill everything.
Chapter One
Samantha Young pressed the wrinkles from her floral dress with her fingertips as she folded into the seat Ryan Cummings held out for her. Maybe if she hid her hands in her lap the entire dinner, he wouldn’t notice how badly she was shaking.
She hated this.
Accepting a blind date had sounded like a good idea when she was so lonely she couldn’t see straight, but now, looking into the hopeful eyes of a stranger, it all seemed very desperate.
“Margie said you work for PSC,” Ryan said with a dashing smile.
Thank God the man seemed to know how to engage in small talk, because she was terrible at it.
“I do voiceovers and do the voice work for a character on a cartoon they run for kids in the morning.”
Ryan looked around the restaurant, only seeming half-interested in what she said.
She cleared her throat delicately and looked down at her shaking hands. “Riley Reads.”
“I’m sorry?” he asked.
“The name of the cartoon I work on is Riley Reads.”
“Ah.” He tipped his chin like he understood completely and flagged down a waiter with two fingers. “Can I get a whiskey and coke?” he asked as a tall man with a plastered upon smile approached.
“Sure. And for you, ma’am?” the server asked.
“Oh, um…” She searched the menu for inspiration as he rattled off a bunch of alcoholic drinks that didn’t sound appetizing on account of they were all made with rum. She hadn’t been able to stomach rum since her twenty-first birthday, and gagging like a cat with a hairball in front of Ryan and his pretty smile sounded about as much fun as swan diving into a puddle of magma. Thinking of magma made her throat feel parched. “I’ll have water.”
Ryan frowned as the server took his leave. “So I take it Riley Reads doesn’t rake in the dough for you then.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re ordering water.”
“So? I like water.”
“Should I cancel my drink order?” he asked.
“Do you not have enough money?” She wasn’t usually so brash in asking about finances, but he’d started it and she was feeling flustered by his direct way of speaking about things that were none of his damned business.
“I have money, but since you were the one who invited me here, I assumed you were paying for dinner.”
Her mouth was hanging open, so she snapped it closed. Maybe this was how dates worked these days. Negotiating who paid for dinner was first on the list of bland conversation. Sure, she’d fully expected to be paying for her own meal, but his too? His overpowering cologne was beginning to smell heavily of bullshit.
A chirping bird song signaled someone calling her cell, but she only paid enough attention to it to turn it to silent, then leaned closer to Ryan. “I didn’t invite you. Margie set us up on this date.”
“So your job doesn’t pay well.” A statement, not a question, from Ryan with the pretty smile that was now drooping in a very I-knew-something-was-wrong-with-her fashion. Ass hat.
Her cell phone buzzed against the lip gloss she’d slipped into her purse earlier, rattling like miniature gun fire. Probably Margie calling to check if they were married with a child on the way yet. Patience wasn’t her friend’s virtue.
“I think it’s rude to talk about how much a job pays, but I do decent. I’m still not paying for your dinner though, so by all means, buy all the drinks you think you need to get through this date.”
“The price tag is still attached to your dress,” he said in a flat tone.
“What?” Samantha twisted in her seat and reached over her shoulder. Sure enough, the red clearance tag that read $19.99 was still dangling there and had probably been flapping in the wind the entire walk here from her apartment. At least she hadn’t paid full price. Her blind date was a douche wagon.
With a firm tug, she pulled the little tag off and glared at Ryan. Her phone rang again, and as rude as she found it for people to take calls at the table, suddenly, that seemed just the way to handle Ryan and his frowny face.
“Hello,” she said curtly without looking at the caller ID.
“Sam?” a soft voice asked. “It’s Reese.”
Samantha hunched away from Ryan and covered her other ear to block out the sound of the restaurant. “Reese? Oh my God, it’s been so long.” Three years, at least. “Are you okay?”
The woman sniffled. “Trent is dead. We need you.”
Shocked, Samantha gripped the gold heart necklace she’d put on for her date tonight. A date that didn’t seem important at all anymore. Trent. Trent was dead.
“You said we need you. Reese, who’s we?”
A beat of silence, then Reese answered. “You know who.”
The line went dead and Samantha pulled it from her ear to stare at the screen.
Reese, her childhood friend. Reese, the chronically optimistic girl who’d always had her back. Reese, the one who Samantha had never seen cry. Now she was crying.
“What happened?” Ryan asked.
“My friend,” Samantha explained numbly. “One of my friends from childhood passed away.”
“Oh.” The server brought their drinks and Ryan slurped down his whiskey and coke and ordered two more. “From childhood, so you haven’t seen her in a long time?”
“Him. Trent was a him, and no, I haven’t seen him in six years.” She hadn’t been back to her hometown of Joseph, Oregon in that long? Six years? Her stomach rolled in on itself.
“So, someone you knew a long time ago died. You didn’t care enough about him to keep in touch, so what’s the big deal?” he mumbled, lifting the menu to cover most of his face. With a put upon sigh, he asked, “Are you going to sulk about this all night?”
“I’m going to go.” She stood and shouldered her purse, the one she’d bought to match the dress her blind date didn’t deserve.
“Go where?”
“To Oregon.”
****
This was a terrible idea. In fact, going back to Joseph was the worst idea Samantha could even think of. She was practically begging to get her heart shredded all over again.
Figuring out Trent’s funeral arrangements had taken all of one phone call to her late mother’s friend, Sandra. Joseph was a small town and everyone knew everyone. If she didn’t hit traffic too badly, she could pull into town just in time for the funeral, stop by the house her mother had left in Samantha’s name to make sure it was still standing, then hightail it back to Portland where she belonged.
She was only doing this for Reese.
Not for him.
Who was she kidding? Just the thought of Bronson Cress made her heart pound painfully against her ribcage. A mixture of useless hope and deep hurt churned within her until the giant pretzel she’d inhaled at the last gas station threatened to claw its way back up her throat.
She could do this. She wasn’t the same girl who’d fled town all those years ago. Now, she was a woman. A strong, independent one with a good job and friends and a life outside of the childhood crush she’d mistaken for true love.
She was even dating now. Granted, it had taken her six years to get back out there, and Ryan was a jerk, but hey—at least her date had been memorable. She hadn’t even flipped him off when he asked if she was going to pay for his drinks when she left. Another sign she was mature enough to handle a brief encounter with an ex-boyfriend.
The black dress that hugged her curves was a little too tight, but it would have to do. It was the only one in a dark shade she owned. It looked fine when she was standing, but sitting in the car for the six hour trip with a belly full of pretzel had her regretting the decision not to change when she got there.
She was already cutting it close though, so she’d been right to shove herself into the dress at home. She’d even put the extra effort to pull her dark hair back and plump her lips with dark red lipstick. She rarely dressed up like this, but Trent deserved the effort. He’d been a dear friend in another life.
She blasted by the Joseph, Oregon Population 1,002 sign in her black Jetta and pressed her high heel harder onto the gas. White knuckle gripping the steering wheel, she tossed a little prayer up into the air that she wouldn’t be late. Or that the funeral would start a few minutes behind.
When she pulled up to the cemetery, the procession was already parked and the crowd gathered around a hole in the ground. Samantha exhaled long and slow to steady her thundering heart, then slipped a pair of oversized sunglasses over her eyes. Clouds covered the direct sunlight, so it wasn’t bright, but she was an easy crier, and since she’d heard the news about Trent yesterday, she couldn’t seem to help her emotions.
The clouds were dark and ominous, matching the somber mood of the black suited men and woman in the graveyard. Where her hands had shook like trembling autumn leaves with Ryan, now they were steady, despite the fact that her insides quaked.
Bron should see her strong. He should know that he hadn’t broken her all those years ago.
Trent was beloved by the community, and there looked to be more than a hundred people here. The gravel path was uneven as she walked it in her towering heels. Gravestones in a meadow and an occasional pine, and the entire place felt haunted or watched, or perhaps both. And now Trent would be here, his gravestone standing sentinel in the valley before Hells Canyon Wilderness.
