The Bear With No Name (7 page)

She let her hair fall and placed her hands on top of his, then ran her hands slowly up his strong, tanned arms, drinking in the heat of his skin. She shimmied closer and he moved his hands to her ass, cupping and squeezing her and then using his grip to pull her right up to him.

She rose up on tip-toe to kiss him better. There were no gentle kisses this time; her hunger was as fierce as his, and as his tongue thrust against hers, all she could think of was having him inside her again. She rolled her hips against his, feeling the rock-hard proof of his desire.

“Lauren …” he gasped, moving one hand to push her shirt up. His other arm kept her crushed up against him, but he managed to sneak his hand in between them to gently tease her nipples.

Lauren longed to rip off her shirt and sports bra and free herself to the sun and the wind and David’s caresses, but she couldn’t quite let go of the fear that they might be discovered here. But oh, she wanted him so badly … She broke off their kiss for a moment.

“Got any bright ideas?” she said with a breathy chuckle. “I’m not quite brave enough to get naked out here.”

David slowly sank to his knees and looked up at her with a wicked smile. A thrill of want ran through her at the thought of what he might do down there.

He was gentle at first, so gentle he was almost just teasing her. He breathed in her scent and nuzzled her, then nibbled with soft little bites that were almost completely muffled by her shorts and panties. Her hips wiggled impatiently without her even meaning to do it, and David laughed.

He slowly unbuttoned and unzipped her shorts, then slid her panties down in front just enough to expose the few inches of dark, curling hair. He kissed her there, reverently, then set to work with his tongue.

The heat of his mouth was unbelievable. His tongue circled and flicked at her clit, and he slid his hands up her legs, under her clothes, until his thumbs got in on the action, too, kneading and massaging her sensitive flesh.

Her legs felt shaky and she leaned forward a little, knowing that he had the strength to support her. The heat built up and concentrated at her core, and she couldn’t help opening her legs a little wider, wanting to feel him everywhere. Her fingers curled in his hair, and when a strong shock of pleasure shook her unexpectedly, she pulled at his hair harder than she meant to. He groaned against her, and that extra little tingle was the last push she needed.

Her climax rolled through her in waves and she panted hard to catch her breath. She couldn’t wait to kiss him again, so she tugged at him until he was standing. He considerately zipped her back up before embracing her again. He kissed her with soft, gorgeous kisses, and she had never before been so turned on by the thought that she could taste a little of herself in the kisses.

She was in the middle of deciding what she could do in return for him, when a tiny something distracted her. The crackle of leaves and twigs didn’t really register at first, but one loud snap finally got her attention, and David’s too, judging by the way that he jumped back from her, as quickly as she did from him. He turned away from the trail, hiding an all-too-obvious erection, as Lauren tugged her shirt back down.

A young woman emerged from the tangled woods. They had met her at the cook-out last night; her name was Hannah.

Hannah’s embarrassed smile said that she guessed exactly what had been going on up here.

“Sorry guys,” she said, holding up her cell phone. “I was hoping I might be able to get some reception up here. My husband was at a trade show in Hanover when the storm hit.”

Lauren pulled herself together and tried not to wonder whether she was blushing, or whether her clothes were all in place. Instead she tried to set Hannah at ease.

“I came up to check for reception too; my family are a bunch of extreme worriers. Let’s see what we can find.”

The two women paced the ridge-top clearing, turning in all directions, but got nothing. Hannah looked so disappointed.

Lauren said, “There’s a couple other high points we could try. Do you want to come with us?”

“Are you sure?” Hannah said, glancing from Lauren to David.

Lauren turned back to David and found him standing straight and still, looking out over the landscape. He looked down at the town, to the creek and the river banks where the work crews continued clearing debris, then continued to inspect the encircling woods.

“If you two think you’ll be okay without me, I might actually go help some more with the clean-up,” he said, sounding distracted.

“Um, sure, I guess,” Lauren said, holding up her pack. “I’ve got a map and a water bottle. I’m good.”

“What about bears?” David said, oddly serious.

“And pepper spray, did I mention the pepper spray?” she said, shaking her pack again.

“Which way are you headed from here? Back the way we came?”

“No, the next spot I’m going to try is the clearing on Springer Ridge. We should head this way,” she said, pointing further up the ridge behind them.

“Okay, be careful,” David said, then leaned in and kissed her gently. Then he returned to the trail they’d come from, looking back to meet her eyes one more time before he disappeared into the woods.

Lauren didn’t know what to make of this sudden distraction. Maybe he just sensed that Hannah needed a shoulder to cry on, and he was giving them some time for girl talk. But another, darker possibility came to mind: maybe he had just remembered something new – something that made him want to get away from her as soon as possible.

Chapter 11

David was tracking the bear by scent. As soon as the odor had come to him on the breeze, he knew two things: one, there was a bear in the woods, and two, that he could not tell Lauren about it.

It gave him a strange, queasy feeling in his stomach to think about it. It was nothing like remembering the emergency room. That just felt like a door opening into another room, safe and well-lit. But when he imagined telling Lauren that he could smell a bear, he got a feeling of danger and wrongness.

To keep her safe, he would have to handle this on his own.

He stalked through the woods on the outskirts of town, trying to keep himself between the bear and the ridge where Lauren and Hannah were headed. He hadn’t traveled far from the Valentis’ sprawling mansion before the scent grew stronger, the direction more precise.

He could hear a rustle now, quieter than his own footsteps but still distinct. Pushing through a thicket, he saw her, just ten or fifteen yards away on the deer track: a small female black bear.

And just as he hadn’t hesitated with Mr. Mitchell’s heart attack, he knew exactly what to do now. He growled. As the low, savage rumble registered, the female bear flinched, but didn’t run away. She was scenting the air, too, turning her head about and searching.

Suddenly David remembered the bear cub from the river bank. Could she be its mother? There was something about her scent that tugged at him, but as usual, no memories surfaced no matter what he tried. If she was the cub’s mother, was there anything he could do to reunite them? He had been asleep by the time they had stopped at Fran’s house; he didn’t even know where it was.

The safest thing he could do for both humans and the bear would be to keep her well away from the town during daylight hours. He growled louder, standing tall and holding out his arms in a threatening pose. As he leaned toward the bear, she turned tail and fled. He tracked her further through the woods, till he was sure she was headed away from town and away from Lauren.

As he hiked back downhill toward town, he tried hard not to think about a suspicion that was forming in his mind: that not every person could have made that savage, animal sound, or fearlessly stared down a bear.

He emerged onto town streets again. Though he hadn’t passed this way before, he had a general idea of how to find the creek. There were still fallen branches littering the streets and sidewalks, and he tried to calm himself by being useful, dragging debris out of the way as he passed.

On one street, he found a large limb dangling from a tall oak, suspended almost in the middle of the street. He tugged at it experimentally. When it seemed to shift a bit, he put more weight into it and pulled. Then he heard a crack and a crash, and saw what looked like a third of the tree hurtling down at him. He threw his arms up over his head, and a strange convulsion ran through his body.

The falling branches battered his paws and bruised him, but slid off his thick fur with hardly a scratch.

My paws?
he thought in confusion, staring down at the heavy claws and leathery foot pads as he held his front limbs before him.

Then he heard a woman scream. He looked up to see Alicia Valenti at the end of the street. Looking terrified, she stumbled and ran, yelling for help and screaming again.

David ran on all fours for the forest, moving faster than he would have thought possible, crashing blindly through the brush when he reached it. He ran until all sound from the town fell behind him. Then he crouched down, staring in dismay at his furry limbs.

Change back
, his mind insisted.
Change back, change back, change back
. It didn’t happen until he stopped panting and finally relaxed. He collapsed back on the forest floor, staring up at the sky, shaken to his very core.

It just didn’t seem possible, and yet at the same time it felt distressingly familiar.
He was a bear
. He tried to calm his breathing, counting through the inhales and exhales, until he felt in control. Then he tried the indirect method of testing his memories, just as he had with the year and his name. He tried to make it a simple, straightforward question, no more threatening than “Is it 2015?”.
Hey, do I turn into a bear?

In response his mind gave him a whole cacophany of emotions all shouting at once: fear, anger, grief. The feelings raging through him made his heart pound and his muscles twitch. He jumped to his feet and he paced.

His mind swerved from one crazy scenario to another: had he hallucinated the whole episode with Mrs. Valenti just now, thanks to a slow bleed in his brain? Had he been attacked by some sort of werebear before losing consciousness on the mountain? (He remembered now that the first words he had spoken were “the bear …”) Or had he always been some sort of monster, half man and half bear?

He could test one possibility right away: he could try to turn into a bear again. If he could, then either he hadn’t imagined it, or it was a really detailed, ongoing hallucination. With sinking dread in his stomach, he willed himself to become a bear.

Nothing happened.

So was he crazy, then? Or was he just afraid to change? He stalked deeper into the woods,

If this bear had always been a part of him, it obviously wasn’t something that made him happy. Maybe it was a Jekyll and Hyde situation, with the mild-mannered doctor turning into a ravening beast when threatened or angered. Maybe that’s why he’d become a doctor in the first place! Maybe he was trying to save lives to atone for the mayhem the beast had caused!

He took another few deep breaths and returned to testing his theory. What would the process of becoming a bear be like? He tried to see the forest as a bear would see it: he looked around to see what he could eat and where he could shelter. Then he closed his eyes and smelled the air, exploring each sniff for signs of food or of danger.

The woods around him became vivid, rich and detailed. He tried again to change, and this time it worked.

Now that he had prepared himself for the experience, it wasn’t so horrifying. There was even a part of him that wanted to test out his new form and see what those massive claws and jaws and muscles could do. As soon as that thought came to light, he shut it down and turned human again with a shudder.

At any rate, “hallucination” seemed to be off the list of possibilities. But now it was time to set aside the useless speculation and focus on what to do next.

It was clear to him now that the forest held no dangers for him. He could take off over the mountains and wander back to wherever he came from. He still didn’t know where that was, but he couldn’t stay here and endanger Lauren and the rest of the town while he figured it out.

Who was he, really? Was he the bear who had attacked Mrs. Valenti last week? No timid forest creature like the little bear he saw today would have chased her all the way to her door and left claw marks on her house. But a monstrous man-bear with no fear of humans would have no problem with it.

He didn’t want to believe he could be violent or dangerous. He didn’t
feel
like a killer. But who knows what strange motives he might have in his other life, and when they might return to him and guide his actions again? What if he ended up hurting or betraying Lauren?
Lauren
. The thought of being without her was like a punch to the gut. He loved her, body and soul. But the only way to keep her safe was to leave.

But if he left tonight, without saying good-bye, he knew exactly what would happen: Lauren and the whole town would turn out to search for him, putting them in danger from actual full-time bears and who knows what else out in the woods. He would have to return to her and give her some sort of explanation before departing.

He dreaded what would have to happen tonight. He tried and tried to think of some way around it, pacing in the dim, shadowed woods until the sun started to lower and the mosquitos started to whine around him. Without thinking, he felt the wave of shifting start to wash over him, ready to fend of the pests with his armor of fur. He squelched the impulse immediately, just like flexing a newly discovered muscle. He swatted bugs unhappily as he trudged back into town.

Chapter 12

Lauren was surprised not to find David waiting for her at home or on Main Street when she and Hannah returned from their futile quest for cell service. When she started asking around and found that no one had seen him all afternoon, she got downright scared.

“We need to send out search parties while it’s still light out,” Ella told her.