Page 47 of OctoBEARfest

"You do know we serve food here, right? Quite good food, actually? Award-winning and everything?"

"Yes, but do you serve cinnamon rolls?"

"Well." Bill sighed theatrically. "No. No, we don't. All right, to the bakery, then. You want to take the Impala or my truck?"

"They're both in the back lot now anyway, so let's toss a coin when we get there." Gwen slid her hand into Bill's and let him lead her through the pub toward the back door. A number of Torbens winked or waved at them, and she said, "Whodidyou tell about this whole mates thing, because I think everybody knows now."

"I may have mentioned it to my parents."

Gwen laughed. "Oh. Yeah. Okay. Everybody knows. Ashley must have been late to the family gossip chat."

"Even I am," Bill confessed. "I've barely looked at it over the weekend. I think it's been good for me." He pushed the back door open to a blast of cooler air, and shot a look at the mountains. "We don't need winter yet, dammit."

"Then you shouldn't live in Colorado." Gwen smiled up at him, then glanced past him toward her car. There was somebody leaning on it: an older man, white, baseball cap and a jeans jacket over a t-shirt and jeans. She yelled, "Hey!" in immediate outrage. "Get the hell off my car!"

The guy stood up immediately, swiping his baseball cap off to reveal thinning brown hair and an ingratiating smile. "Hey, sweetheart."

Gwen recoiled internally, but that didn't stop her furious forward motion. She stalked past Bill, which took some effort:he was striding toward the Impala, too, and he had much longer legs than Gwen did. She snarled, "I'm not your fucking sweetheart, asshole," at the stranger. "Whatever the hell you think you're do?—"

"Gwen," the guy interrupted. "Gwen, baby. It's me. It's your Daddy."

The world fellout from under Gwen's feet so hard and fast she would have collapsed if Bill hadn't been right there, slipping an arm around her waist. She looked down, making sure the asphalt parking lot surface was still actuallythere, because it really didn't feel like it. It was, which almost didn't make sense.

It made more sense than the thin asshole at her car being herfather, though. She looked up again, shaking with rage, confusion, and adrenaline as she stared at the guy.

It took entire seconds before he snapped into place, recognizable as the man she'd last seen fifteen years ago. Ike Booker was thinner than he'd been, obviously older, dressed far more casually than she could remember seeing him for almost her entire childhood. He wore glasses, which he hadn't before, but the ingratiating, too-white smile was the same. Her income had paid for that smile, both the straightness of his teeth and the veneers that made it so bright.

For a long few seconds, that was all Gwen could think, looking at him: she'd paid for his teeth. She'd been eleven and had done a series of commercials, and he'd used most of her paychecks to get his teeth done. It would help her career, he'd said. The better-looking and more professionalhewas, the more seriously he, and by extension,she, would be taken.

The bitter thing was, he may well have been right. But now all Gwen could think was, she'd paid for those teeth, and in exchange, her father had disappeared with every penny she'd ever made.

He was beaming at her with that bright, bright smile. He even opened his arms for a hug. Bill, at Gwen's side, growled so deep in his chest she thought he might actually turn into a bear.

Part of her wanted that more than anything in the entire world. It would be so amazing to watch him shift into that huge grizzly and swat the asshole who called himself her father right into oblivion.

But that would be really, really bad for the shifter community. The last thing she wanted was for Bill, and maybe his whole family and who knew how many others, to be outed, just because her knees had stopped working.

All at once they were working again. Gwen stalked forward, straight up to her father like she'd return the embrace but with her fists balled.

At the absolute last second, she remembered a fight scene she'd had choreographed in one of the few movies she'd done as a kid, and instead of literally punching him, she thrust the heel of her hand straight into her father's nose, and felt a shockingly satisfyingcrunchbefore he screamed and doubled over in pain, clutching at his face. "You crazy bitch! What the hell! What the fuck, Gwen? What the actual fuck?!"

Gwen wiped blood onto her jeans and whispered, "Gross. I didn't think that through," before getting her phone out with shaking hands. "Bill, can you hold him please. I'm calling the police."

"Yeah, you call the police, you crazy bitch, I'm gonna have you up on assault!" Her father make aglerking sound at the end of that, as Bill, with extreme calm and ease, wrapped a bighand around the back of his neck and held on. "Get your fucking hands off me!"

"I think," Gwen said, as calmly as she could, "that the police will be more interested in thefifteen million dollarsyou stole from me. Yeah, hi," she said into the phone as Bill's gaze snapped to her and he mouthed 'fifteenmillion?' in visible shock. "Hi, I need an officer or something at the Thunder Bear Brewpub. My name is Emma Hart and I've just found the man who stole every penny I'd ever made."

There was a shocked silence on the other end of the line before the woman who'd answered said, "Emma Hart fromStarting School?"

Gwen inhaled through her nose. She hadn't introduced herself that way in a very, very long time. But she nodded now and said, "That's the one."

The woman's voice rose. "You found your dad?"

"I did," Gwen said after another deep breath. She'd used her stage name because she wanted to be recognized, just this once. It didn't make it any less weird to have a random stranger know the details of her life. "He's currently being restrained in the back parking lot of the Thunder Bear Brewpub. He'll probably want to press assault charges. I think I broke his nose."

The woman muttered, "Good for you," and then cleared her throat. "I mean, I'll have an officer sent right away, Ms. Hart."

Gwen said, "Thank you," and hung up, only then allowing herself to become aware that her father was still swearing and dripping blood on the asphalt. She stared at him a long moment, trying to slow her heartbeat. It didn't work: she was cold, sweaty, and sick to her stomach. "Have you been in Renaissance all along?"

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