Page 8 of A Bear's Journey

“That is a long time,” said Craig. “Surprised she came out of it.”

“She might have had to,” said Jasper, spinning the beer glass slowly between his fingers.

Craig frowned.

“There’s a rumor that she killed the two wolves.”

Craig’s eyebrows shot up.

“Shit,” he said.

Shit is right, thought Jasper.

He’d known about the dead wolves, of course. It made the front page of almost every paper in Cascadia when it happened, but in the total absence of evidence — and the complete unwillingness of the wolf pack to cooperate with the investigation — nothing had really happened.

The humans had decided that a real bear killed the wolves. Shifters tended to think that those two wolves had deserved it. That didn’t mean that they’d forgotten, though.

“No one’s proven it, obviously,” Jasper went on.

He didn’t say, no one really has to. The pieces all fit into place perfectly if Olivia had done it while feral. It sounded to him like all of Granite Valley had already decided that the girl did it.

“Well, fuck ‘em,” said Craig. “We can deal with all that later. Where is she?”

Jasper exhaled loudly.

“That’s kind of the other thing,” he said. “I think she works at the library, but she sort of... ran away from me.”

Craig gave his mate a long look that that hovered somewhere between disbelief and irritation.

“What did you do?” he asked.

“I gave her book back,” Jasper said. “Well, I tried.”

“What do you mean, ran away from you?” Craig asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Literally,” said Jasper. He took a long drink of his beer, the bitter liquid warming his throat. “I mean, the old ladies said something, I turned to answer them, and when I turned back, she was running.”

“Next time we’ll try a football play,” Craig said, his eyes crinkling at the corners with a smile. “You say something polite, she runs, and then I pop out of the bushes and tackle her. Done.”

Jasper laughed.

“You’re a caveman,” he said.

“You love it.”

Craig and Jasper kissed, Craig’s beard tickling Jasper’s clean-shaven face. When they pulled apart, Jasper could see the muscles in Craig’s forearms bunching and jumping as he messed with his beer glass.

“It’s driving me nuts to not get out there and track her down,” Craig admitted. “I just want to go house to house and rip the doors off the frames until we find her and...”

His voice trailed off and he looked around the small bar, noticing Dave’s gaze.

“I won’t really do it,” he said, raising his glass.

Dave gave him a thumbs up.

Jasper pulled the worn, ratty copy of A Wrinkle in Time from his inside jacket pocket and looked at it, rubbing his fingers gently over the cover.

Craig took it from him, his thick fingers carefully turning the soft, time-worn pages.

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