Her Bear Protector (BBW Shifter Romance) (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

After leaning against the door for at least a full minute, just breathing and allowing my heart rate to return to normal, I pulled out my phone and dialed the Houghton police department. I spoke with a Sergeant Laine and told him everything that had happened in the woods. He said that local law enforcement was already quite familiar with the men named Jess and Earl.

            "And in fact, they're already wanted for a violent assault that occurred some months ago here in town."

            He said that he and a few of his deputies would try to locate them and investigate what had happened, and then would pay me a visit within a few hours.

            "But until then, stay in your cabin with the door locked."

            "You don't have to tell me twice."

            After washing my hair in the sink, because Earl's grimy fingers had touched it, and after changing my shirt and putting on the one that he had grabbed in the garbage, I spent the afternoon attempting to paint. But my rattled nerves, combined with my jumbled thoughts, didn't allow me to make much progress. I couldn't stop thinking about Jess and Earl and their leering grins and their dirty brown teeth. But even more than that, I couldn't stop thinking about the huge black bear who'd ultimately been my rescuer. The bear with the deep green eyes. The
impossible
green eyes. I couldn't stop thinking about the almost-human expression they'd held while the bear placed the lavender coneflowers on my lap and lumbered away.

            Around six in the evening, Sergeant Laine arrived at my cabin with two deputies, and I ushered them in.

            The cabin, although only one room and a bathroom, was spacious, with enough room for a full kitchen and dining area, a living room with a couch and a rough-hewn oak coffee table, and a sleeping area containing a bed in a log frame. Several windows spaced at intervals along the cabin walls looked out into the deep woods. Bill, the caretaker, had told me that the electricity might flicker out at times, briefly, but so far, it hadn't. And although the water in the shower was more than a little rusty, the flow was strong enough.

            I seated Sergeant Laine and the two deputies at the kitchen table, and after they'd declined with thanks the iced tea I offered, I sat down myself.

            "Please tell me you caught those two sickos."

            Sergeant Laine nodded and said they did. "Caught them near their cabin a mile or so north and brought them into town for questioning, where they admitted everything." He glanced at the two deputies, snorting. "Took them all of about two minutes to crack. They might be big, tough guys out in the wilds, but they weren't so tough once in custody. They'll plead guilty to a charge of unlawful imprisonment in your case, as well as one count of felony assault for pointing the shotgun at you while threatening you, and first-degree assault and attempted murder in the other case they were already wanted for. And once the judge sentences them, something tells me they'll be in for a long stint in a lower peninsula  prison. They won't be back up here to harm anyone for a very long time. And until their sentencing, they'll remain in the county jail, of course."

            I breathed a sigh of relief and thanked the officers for their work. Soon the conversation turned to a somewhat lighter topic, with me telling them why I'd come to the cabin and what I hoped to accomplish during my stay, which was to paint several high-quality nature paintings to successfully sell for a decent price when I returned to Detroit.

            Sergeant Laine nodded, his thick-rimmed glasses sliding down his nose a little. "Well, you've sure come to the right place for that endeavor. I'm sure you'll find lots of inspiration up here. Now, if you ever get a bit lonely, of course you can make the drive on into town, but there's also some nice folks who live in a multi-cabin settlement of sorts maybe a mile-and-a-pinch northwest of here, a little deeper into the wilds. Good people, and all friendly, though they do tend to keep to themselves. They seem to just like the isolation; which, there's nothing at all wrong with that. From what they've told me, they spend most of their time hunting and fishing and doing some woodworking and furniture-making. And they're very good at it. The whole family, which in all is maybe a dozen or so of them, come in to town a couple of times a year to sell their furniture at different summertime events. And tourists and townsfolk alike just love their work. I've got a few nice oak rocking chairs made by them out on my front porch, actually. Highest quality stuff."

            One of the deputies made a discreet check of his watch, but Sergeant Laine still saw it.

            "Oh, all right, Stevens. I know you're wantin' to get back to town. And with your wife's meatloaf and mashed potatoes, I don't blame you." Sergeant Laine turned his gaze back to me. "Anyway, I just mentioned all this because one of the women in the family paints pottery to sell, and I thought you two might have something in common to chat about if you ever get a little lonely out here and want some company. The trail that shoots off in a northwest direction from the trail circling your cabin, here, will lead you in a pretty straight shot to the family's cabins. They're good, peaceful folk, not that I've spoken to them at length, or more than maybe a couple of times. But they seem very decent. There's six or seven men, all of them brothers or relatives of some kind, and some of the men have wives, maybe three or four of them do. But one of the single guys, even though everyone in the family seems to be pretty close in age, all maybe late twenties or early thirties or so, one of the single guys seems to be the patriarch of the family, the leader, so to speak, and his name is Aaron. Tall man. Big. And the deepest green eyes you ever saw."

            A slight shiver rippled through me. Deputy Stevens checked his watch again, and Sergeant Laine gave him a sidelong glance.

            "Oh, all right, Stevens. I'm about ready for some dinner, too."

            Sergeant Laine and the two deputies got up from the table and began heading to the door, Deputy Laine telling me to call them for anything, anytime.

            "Though hopefully, you won't have any more trouble."

            After wishing me a good evening, the two deputies filed out the door, and Deputy Laine turned to face me in the doorway.

            "But do maybe start taking that .38 Special you mentioned you have out with you on any hikes. That bear you saw was probably just a fluke, because they do usually stick to the areas a little farther north, but it is possible that you may run into him again. And if that happens, you have no way of knowing just how he'll act. Some of those bigger black bears can rip a man to shreds in a matter of seconds."

            I nodded. "I'll start taking my gun out with me, but I really don't think this bear would ever do me any harm. Remember what I told you on the phone? He pretty much rescued me from being raped and possibly murdered, and then he picked some coneflowers with his mouth and set them on my lap. And then he more or less, like, accompanied me home, almost as if he wanted to make sure I made it back safely or something. And the expression in his eyes...towards the end of him following me, I could just tell that he meant me no harm. His eyes almost had a human expression; you would've just had to have seen it. His eyes were a deep, deep green."

            Deputy Laine frowned. "Well, that's just not possible. There's no type of black bears that have green eyes."

            "I know, but
I saw them, and they were green. I saw them up close. He set the coneflowers on my lap. He was literally only a foot away from me."

            Deputy Laine's frown turned to an expression that a parent might wear when dealing with an imaginative, storytelling child. His mouth twitched with just the faintest hint of a smile.         

            "Well, I'm sure the bear's eyes
seemed
green, and I'm sure everything that you experienced with the bear, him picking flowers with his mouth and him seeming to accompany you home and all, I'm sure all that
seemed
to be happening the way you experienced it. But see, sometimes when people are under a great deal of stress, sometimes when people experience an intensely stressful event, like I'm sure you experienced when the Taggert brothers tried to attack you...well, sometimes all that stress can make a person's perception of reality a little  ‘bendy,’ for lack of a better word. It's just shock. It's nothing a little peace and quiet and a good night's sleep won't cure you of."

            Deputy Stevens pulled one of two police cars from the little dirt drive in front of the cabin to right in front of the porch steps. Sergeant Laine glanced at him, making a little grunt of annoyance.               

            "All this one ever thinks about is food. Better not keep him from it. Have a good evening, Ms. Everly. Ah, you told me to call you Kyla. Have a good evening, Kyla."

            I wished him the same and shut and locked the door, wondering if it was possible that he was right. That my mind had been playing a few tricks on me with the bear. I had to admit, my stress level that afternoon
had
been off the charts.

            I went over to the table and examined the cluster of coneflowers the bear had, seemingly anyway, given me, which I'd put in a clear Mason jar with a little water. I ran a finger along some of the delicate, tiny lavender flowers, recalling the almost-human expression in the bear's eyes. His
impossible
green eyes. But everything had seemed completely real. And I
had
experienced high levels of stress and upset before, like during the time immediately after my parents' deaths, without imagining things different than they actually were. But then again, I figured, maybe all the stress of the previous few months, combined with the day's events, was finally catching up with me. Maybe Sergeant Laine was right, that stress could make people's perception of reality a little "bendy."

            But what had he said about one of the woodworking men having "the deepest green eyes you ever saw?” 
Doesn't matter, silly
, I told myself.
Men can have green eyes. That's normal. It was just a coincidence that you thought you saw a bear with deep green eyes the same day a man with deep green eyes was described to you
But  something about me thinking I'd seen a bear with deep green eyes, and then Sergeant Laine describing a man with deep green eyes nagged at me. But I didn't have a clue why.

            After a quick dinner, I got out my oil paints again, set a clean canvas on my easel, and began a new painting. Its title:
The Bear
.

            I'd been painting since I was fourteen, when a high school art teacher told me I had talent. I'd graduated college with an art degree, specializing in painting landscapes, nature scenes, and animals. My art wasn't avant-garde; it wasn't groundbreaking or shocking. But it was what I liked. Since college, it had been fairly well-received by the Detroit arts community, but only fairly. I'd managed to make a decent living selling paintings, but just barely. Gallery owners often invited me back after showings, but not enthusiastically. At the most recent exhibition featuring my art, my art teacher from high school, the same one whose encouragement had caused me to take up painting, had declared my paintings "technically brilliant, but lacking something I just can't put my finger on."

        "A certain passion maybe," she'd later said. "But don't worry; I think you'll find it in time." I wasn't so sure.

            I worked until about eight-thirty, when the sun set, casting shadows all over the cabin, and I realized that the yellowish light from two lone lamps in the cabin wouldn't be enough light to paint by.

            After putting my paints away and changing out of my painting clothes, I surveyed what I'd completed so far: half of a green-eyed black bear, several stalks of lavender coneflowers in his mouth.

            I went to bed that night with the image of the green-eyed bear in my mind. And despite the upsetting events of the day, I slept like a baby.

            The next morning dawned clear and bright, the sun's first rays painting the cabin and the red pines surrounding it in various shades of gold and pink. I enjoyed a cup of tea out on the porch, watching the sunrise, keeping an eye out for any wild animals or sinister people. But I only spotted two cottontail rabbits, hopping along in a patch of Queen Anne's lace bordering the dirt driveway.

            Several hours later, after I'd finished a painting session and then some lunch, a knock at the door made me drop a plate in the sink. Pulse thudding in my ears, I wondered if it could be Sergeant Laine with additional questions or info about the previous day. But I hadn't heard a car. And Sergeant Laine had my phone number.

            I tiptoed over to the kitchen window, which had a partial view of the porch, and took a peek through a one-inch crack in its gauzy cream-colored curtains. A man and a woman stood a few paces back from the front door. The woman, tiny and red-haired, appearing to be in her late twenties, held a ceramic planter of daffodils, a cluster of white daisies painted on the front. The man, tall, at least six-foot three, and dark-haired, looked at the door with deep green eyes. A fluttering sensation rippled through my stomach. I didn't think I'd ever seen a man more attractive in my life. I swept my gaze across his strong jaw and broad shoulders, the fluttering in my stomach intensifying.