Page 6 of A Bear's Journey

“Her name’s Olivia,” he offered. He felt his stomach tie itself in knots at the mere mention of the girl’s name. Despite himself, he saw her green eyes and gold-red hair in front of his face.

What would she look like with her hair down?He wondered. What would she look like on her back, moaning—

“Olivia,” said Craig. Jasper could picture his mate, sitting in his truck with his crew outside, staring ahead and saying the name to himself, over and over. “Where is she?”

“I told you, she’s here.”

“Is she there with you?”

Jasper could practically see the other man stop in his tracks.

“No,” said Jasper. “She kind of ran away from me, actually.”

Craig growled into the phone.

“We’re not wrong about her,” he said.

“She was feral,” Jasper said.

This was met with silence on the line, thought Jasper could hear Craig’s steps crunching over the leaves on the ground, as his mate considered this information.

“Really feral,” he went on.

“So?”

Jasper swallowed. He felt like he wasn’t conveying the gravity of the situation very well over the phone.

“Ten years feral.”

Craig grunted. Jasper sat on an overstuffed leather couch, trying to look like a guy just having a phone conversation, not someone whose heart was desperately trying to escape his chest.

“Let’s go find her,” Craig said. “You got that fancy phone on you? Google her.”

“I’m not googling her in the middle of a donor event.”

“Do you want her or not?”

Jasper pressed one hand to his temple, trying not to growl in polite company. Two humans walked through the lobby, toward the elevators, and he nodded at them.

“She’s not going to disappear overnight, Craig,” he said. “I think we need to talk about this first. There’s more.”

“She disappeared before.”

“That was different.”

Jasper heard a car door open and seconds later, shut. Suddenly the background noise on Craig’s end was quieter.

Jasper waited for Craig’s irritation to run its course.

“Where was she?” Craig finally asked.

“Sitting on a bench, eating lunch,” Jasper said, and then smiled. “I had these two old ladies with me, and I was so blown away that I almost didn’t say anything.”

“What did she do?”

She covered her mouth and closed her eyes. I think she might have had a panic attack, actually,Jasper thought.

“Nothing, really,” he said.

---