Big Bear Mountain - The Complete Series (19 page)

“P
reacher we got trouble.” Jarrad’s radio squawked.
Would he ever stop cringing when they used his old army call sign? It had been
a long time since he’d had an enemy target in his cross hairs ready to help him
meet his maker.

Jarrad keyed his mike, the tension in Spider’s voice
evident, even over the crackle of the radio handset. “What kind of trouble?” he
asked.

“The kind that fires a Russian made air-to-air missile
at an unarmed rescue helicopter,” Spider acknowledged. “Evasive maneuver
successful, thanks for asking, but the damn thing is now en route to you.”

Swallowing hard, Jarrad weighed up his options. “What
about the climber?” he spoke hurriedly into his mike.

“Wake up and smell the coffee, you big dumb bear.
We’ve been set up,” Spider snapped back.

Shit!

Not wasting a second more, Jarrad shifted into his
bear. The strong, robust and extremely well-built former Army Ranger morphed
into a gigantic Kodiak bear, right on the side of the mountain. The bear
groaned but clung to the ice and rock with its long sharp claws as if its life
depended it. Because it did.

Bears and high altitude aren’t a natural combination,
at least not outside of the shifter world. Quite simply, bears don’t like
heights, even if their shifter human was an experienced high altitude climber
and rescue ranger. There are few things less natural than a colossal bear
clinging like grim death to a rocky cliff face.

T
he high pitched whine of the solid fuel rocket engine
gave little warning of the impending explosion. By the time the sound reached
the ears of Jarrad’s bear, the laser proximity fuse in the supersonic missiles
warhead detonated before impact with the mountain, maximizing the shockwave and
spread of shrapnel. The weapon was designed to bring down the largest and
fastest aircraft with devastating efficiency.

The impact of the shockwave was bone jarring,
scorching hot and peppered with metal from the missile and pieces of rock blown
away from the cliff face. It was like standing in front of the barrel of an
enormous shotgun as it fired. Digging his claws in for dear life and hunching
as best he could to take the brunt of the force on its huge rear end, so as to
protect his vital organs and head, Jarrad’s bear struggled to maintain his grip
against such an overwhelming force.

Then, just as suddenly it was over. He was alive.
Still attached to the rock face and no major arteries or organs had been sliced
by the white hot shards of metal propelled by the deafening blast.

But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like a
son-of-a-bitch. Doing his best to maintain his grip on the rock, Jarrad’s bear
used the claws of one paw to pluck the smoking debris from his flesh to allow
the healing to start. Almost instantly, as each piece of shrapnel was removed,
the bleeding stopped and the wound began to heal, leaving only singed fur and
the pungent stink of burned flesh as a reminder of how close he’d come to
becoming nothing more than a bloody stain on the mountainside.

As he shifted back to his human form to make the
descent to the LZ, raw fury raged through him. If they wanted to go to war, he
was ready and he knew Spider was, too. Nobody tries to shoot Spider out of the
air and lives to tell the tale. They had to keep Elle safe as well and getting
these bastards out of their lives once and for all was the surest way of
ensuring that.

Someone had better let the new Sheriff . . .  Sheriff
Jack Raven . . . know that it was on and it wouldn’t be over until it was over.
No one messed with his family and that included his shifter family. They were
all the family each other had and if you messed with one, you messed with them
all.

He needed to get to the LZ for an extraction by Spider
so he could get home to Elle and take her somewhere safe.

Oh no! Elle . . .

“W
e’re
too low on fuel,” Spider enunciated his statement by tapping on the glass
covering the fuel gauge. They were running on fumes.

Jarrad’s brow
furrowed as if frowning angrily at the gauge might make it change its mind. It
didn’t. Refueling then heading to his cabin further down the mountain was their
only option. The fact that the Mi-28 helicopter the cartel were using had
bugged out didn’t bode well for Elle’s safety. After all, it was Elle who
brought the cartel down on them in the first place.

Despite the
tension or perhaps because of it, Jarrad struggled to squeeze himself into one
of the seats in the rear cabin of the chopper and started thinking about Elle
and her voluptuous curves. He still couldn’t look at her without feeling a
pounding in his chest and a stirring further down. His bear adored her, too and
wanted nothing more than to have cubs with her and protect them all.

He pulled
futilely at the harness straps in an effort to buckle himself in. They were
designed to fit normal sized people. Jarrad was far from normal. He was a giant
and hardly anything, from clothes and shoes to safety equipment, fitted him.

It had been six
months since Jarrad had rescued Elle after she came to grief on an icy mountain
road while trying to outrun the cartel, carrying a suitcase full of cash and a
memory card containing the details of all their bank accounts, routing numbers
and passwords. The cartel practically declared war on Big Bear Mountain in an
attempt to retrieve the SD card. They didn’t count on ‘Spider’ Webb and Jarrad
unleashing hell on them and sending those that survived away with their tails
between their legs.

Now they were
coming back and it looked like they really meant business this time. Elle had
done her smoke and mirrors financial voodoo and siphoned their ill-gotten gains
to a number of veteran’s foundations, so he knew it was no longer about the
money. Now it was personal and that made them even more dangerous. That thought
turned the blood in his veins to ice. As if they weren’t dangerous and
vindictive enough before all this.

T
he
rotorwash whipped at the branches of the nearby trees and snapped Jarrad’s
uniform against his body as he fought his way through the whirlwind of dirt and
leaves to reach his cabin. It was still there. That was something, at least.
Last time, they vaporized it with a Hellfire air-to-surface anti-tank missile.
With a lot of sweat from himself and Elle plus a generous contribution of elbow
grease from the local community, it had taken them less than six months to
rebuild it to its former glory.

But where the
hell was Elle? Even if she’d been sleeping, the thunderous cacophony generated
by a jet powered helicopter landing in the yard should have awakened her.
Something was wrong and a lump of dread too large to swallow formed in Jarrad’s
throat. He turned to face Spider who remained in the cockpit, ready for a quick
getaway. Despite the roguish chiseled clefts that hinted at his Welsh heritage,
concern was plain on his face.

Signaling Jarrad
to wait, he worked his way through the power down checklist as fast as he
could. There was no way he was letting Jarrad go in there alone. Once
everything had been powered down, Spider grabbed a Glock 9mm he kept hidden
beneath his seat and unbuckled his harness. The Glock was a peashooter compared
to the weapons the cartel brought to the table, but it was all he had.
Better
than nothing
. Then he made a brief radio call before exiting the chopper,
gun in hand.

Together, they
approached the beautifully crafted cabin with its floor to ceiling windows
designed to give them an unimpeded view of the rolling valley below and the
pristine forest that bordered their property. Now, they served only to expose
them to whoever might be lying in wait for them. Armed and extremely dangerous.

Jarrad raised an
eyebrow at Spider when his eyes locked on the Glock he held at his side.

“What?” Spider
shrugged nonchalantly.

“That’s all you
got? You bring a 9mm to a missile fight?”

“It’s my backup
gun. I don’t like to keep anything heavy duty on board. You should know that,”
Spider rebuked. “Besides, it’s more than what you’re bringing to the party.” He
nodded toward Jarrad’s clearly empty hands.

Jarrad shrugged.
This would be the last time he was caught off guard. He needed to remember that
it wasn’t just himself he had to look out for any more. He had Elle and a
family on the way. It was going to take some getting used to. He swallowed hard
when he thought of Elle, glowing and vibrant when she told him she was
pregnant. He’d never seen her look more beautiful.

They split up
and approached the impressive two story cabin from opposite sides, covering
each other as they approached the front door.

It was ajar.
They never left the door open. Living on the edge of the forest, there were
always curious bears and cougars who would take the opportunity to enter a home
with an open door. Something was definitely wrong.

Together they
walked up the steps, Jarrad ready to shoulder the door open and sweep one side
of the room and Spider on his six, ready to sweep the other. Jarrad help up
three fingers, then two, then one . . . they entered the cabin in unison and
immediately stopped dead.

Jarrad’s skin
turned to ice. And not because of the chill in the mountain air.

The white
cowhide rug in the living room was stained with a bloody handprint.

J
ack
Raven’s face darkened as the call came over his radio. Memories flooded back,
raising a prickle of sweat on the back of his neck and a cold, empty feeling in
the pit of his stomach. He thought he’d left all that behind. Missiles and
helicopter gunships belonged in his old world. A world of scorching desert
sands and radical insurgents. A world where he always had a target on his back.
A world he hoped was a long, long way away from Big Bear Mountain, where he’d
come to heal and start over. Now it was all coming back.

His hand
trembled as he keyed his mike. “Acknowledged.” That was all he could say and
even that nearly caught in his throat.

He knew he
should warn Cassie, but he didn’t want her to see him like this. Everything had
been going so well. They were getting along brilliantly. She had come to terms
with him being a bear shifter and he was slowly learning to manage the issues
arising from his traumatic brain injury. The IED that earned him a medical
discharge would probably haunt him for the rest of his life, but that didn’t
mean he had to let the trauma control his life.

But how would
Cassie react to seeing him lose control like this. Trembling and bordering on
tears. Not tears of fear or sadness, but tears of sheer frustration that he no
longer felt like the man he once was. No, he’d say nothing for the moment and
hope for it to pass.

Besides, if what
Spider had told him was true, and he had no doubt that it was, then there were
bigger issues to deal with both as Sheriff of Big Bear Mountain and as part of
the bear shifter community that Spider had surreptitiously orchestrated for him
to join when he mentioned the job opening all those months ago. Sheriff? He
should have known it was a set up. They didn’t need a sheriff here. Not in a
community protected by some of the most highly trained ex-military bear
shifters in these parts.

He smiled to
himself. If he hadn’t taken this job, he’d never have met Cassie and for that
he’d always owe Spider. Big time.

“You want a
refill?” asked Rosie, the elderly but still very spritely owner of the local
diner and lodge as she shuffled over to Jack’s table with a steaming coffee
pot.

“No thanks
Rosie, I’ve got to be on my way. Looks like we might have some trouble heading
our way, if it’s not already here.”

“What kind of
trouble?” Her eyes held no trace of fear. It was as if she just wanted to get
ready for whatever was coming and face it head on. That’s how Rosie rolled.

“The cartel
kind, apparently.” Jack still didn’t know what to make of that. Why would the
cartel be coming here? It wasn’t exactly the drug or organized crime capital of
the country.

“Elle hasn’t
mentioned what happened? Not to you or Cassie?” Rosie asked, her brows rising
in surprise.

Elle and Cassie
had become good friends since Cassie’s arrival on the mountain and both Cassie
and Jack had helped Elle and Jarrad put the finishing touches on the cabin.
Rosie took it for granted that they would have been told the story.

Jack shook his
head.

“The cartel goons brought their particular brand of
thunder down on us a while back. Elle used to work for a bank that laundered
money for them and when she found out what was going on, she hightailed it out
of there, but not before she grabbed one of those memory stick thingies with a
whole bunch of stuff on it that those guys were prepared to kill to get back.”

“I thought we were all friends. Why wouldn’t they tell
us that?” Jack looked hurt at having been excluded by his new shifter family.

Rosie placed her wrinkled, spotty hand over Jack’s.
“Son, they know what you’ve been through. Jarrad isn’t the most sensitive guy
around, but even he knows better than to tell you that you might be living in a
warzone again. I think he was just trying to protect you.”

“I don’t need protection,” Jack snapped a little more
harshly than he intended.

“I know that. Jarrad knows that, too. He’s just trying
to do right is all. Cut him some slack. He’s been through a lot, too,” Rosie
spoke reassuringly and patted Jack’s hand gently.

“If push comes to shove, Rosie, will you let Cassie
stay here and look after her for me? If we’re going to have trouble, I don’t
want to have to worry about her too.”

“Of course, dear. I’ll have Elle come here and stay,
too.”

If we can find her,
Jack thought grimly.