Page 10 of A Bear's Journey

Chapter Three

Olivia

Olivia drove around for hours,slowly losing herself on the twisting mountain roads of Granite County. Without realizing it, she drove to her other favorite place: a picnic area up high in the mountains, a quick walk from the road.

The air was getting chilly, and up here all the smells of autumn were even more intense, but she walked in her practical shoes and her librarian-esque cardigan to a picnic table and laid down on it, looking at the sky between the massive evergreen trees.

She closed her eyes as she felt the cool breeze across her face.

I’m glad I’m human, she thought. I’ve got a house to go to with a fireplace and peanut butter sandwiches. No sleeping all day and then digging up grubs.

Olivia took a few more deep breaths, then let herself think about the guy from earlier. Jasper, he’d said his name was. Even thinking about him made her stomach feel like it was turning in on itself. When she’d run, she’d reverted to pure instinct.

For the past ten years, anything that made her feel that much had been danger, but now, alone in the mountains, she was completely positive that Jasper was anything but.

Your therapist said you might be ready to form some new bonds, she thought.

She thought of Jasper again, of running her nails down his bare back as he grunted into her neck, both of them sweaty.

Alone in the forest, she blushed.

I don’t think she meant that kind of bond, she reminded herself. I think she meant, like, new friends.

Not that it mattered. The two older women he’d been with — probably his mom, she guessed, and an aunt or something? — had definitely known who she was, and she was certain that by now, Jasper was up-to-date on all things Olivia Lessing and wouldn’t want to have anything to do with her.

After all, most of the people in Granite Valley didn’t. She wasn’t sure that she could blame them, especially since there were days that she barely wanted to have anything to do with herself. What kind of person couldn’t even remember if they’d killed two people?

Some sort of maniac.

Olivia stared into the sky for a while, repeating marshmallows, indoor plumbing to herself, and after a while, she pulled out her phone to check the time.

Even though she didn’t have signal, she somehow had a voicemail from her mom. Olivia wasn’t surprised; in fact, it almost made sense that her mother could get a message through without a signal, just on pure force of will.

I ought to drive down the mountain so I can check it, she thought to herself. She took another few deep breaths, hopped off the table, and went back to her car.

* * *

She checkedthe voicemail as soon as she got off the mountain.

“Hi, sweetie, it’s your mother! I’m just calling to remind you about the baby shower this afternoon, over at your cousin Ash and Hunter’s house. I thought you could wear that cute blue dress that we got a week or two ago when the Macy’s in Redding had that big sale, remember? Anyway, it’s at six and I promised everyone I’d bring my famous meatballs, so don’t be late, okay, honey? Also let me know how everything went at the library today, I’m so proud of you for taking the initiative and getting that job. Call me back! See you soon! Love you!”

Olivia smiled. When she was a teenager, a voicemail like that would have made her furious — Mom, jeez, I can dress myself! — but as a formerly feral twenty-seven, she appreciated it more than anything. Yeah, her mom was kind of overbearing sometimes, but it was still a minor miracle that Olivia remembered that humans wore clothing some days.

She’d completely forgotten about the baby shower, though. Or she’d forgotten that it was today, in only a couple of hours, and heavy dread started dragging on her heart.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like babies, or her cousins and their mate. She just knew that there would be tons of people at the shower, plenty she didn’t know, and that lots of them would already have opinions about her.

Olivia sighed and drove home, and tiny part of her brain thinking, I never had to go to a baby shower as a bear.

Flush toilets, she reminded herself. Chocolate chip cookies. Beds.

* * *

A few hours later,she stood off to the side at Ash, Hunter, and Cora’s house. The event seemed more like a cocktail party than a baby shower. At least there were no awkward games and no diaper cake, she thought.

She’d spent the intervening hours Googling baby shower, and everything she’d found had made her a little nervous.

“So, how’s the library?” asked Quinn, her other cousins’ mate.

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