Page 22 of On Tap for the Bear
We walk like this for what must be twenty minutes. The bear leads, I follow, and the whole time my mind is spinning with questions I can't answer. This isn't normal bear behavior. This isn't normal anything behavior.
My phone battery is dying (down to fifteen percent) and my legs are shaking from adrenaline crash by the time the lights of Redwood Rise finally come into view through the trees. The bear stops at the edge of the forest, where the trail meets the road that leads back to town. It turns to face me one last time, and in the dim moonlight, those golden-flecked eyes seem to glow.
I want to say something. Thank you feels ridiculous. Stay safe feels more so. But the bear doesn't wait for words. It vanishes into the shadows as silently as it appeared, leaving me standing alone at the forest's edge with my dying phone and a head full of impossible thoughts.
I run the rest of the way back to the Pinecrest, my breath coming in ragged gasps that have nothing to do with exertion and everything to do with delayed shock. When I finally stumble through the front door and lock it behind me, my hands are shaking so badly I can barely turn the deadbolt.
I waketo sunlight streaming through the window and the smell of coffee drifting up from downstairs.
For a moment, I lie there trying to convince myself last night was a hallucination. Stress-induced. Too much craft beer, not enough sleep, and way too many thoughts about a man and a bear with brown eyes shot through with gold. But my jeans are muddy. My sneakers are by the door, caked with forest debris. And when I check my phone, there's a thirty-seven-minute gap in my location history where I was deep in the woods. It happened. I met a bear in the forest, and it walked me home like a concerned neighbor.
"Morning, dear!" Evelyn chirps when I finally make it downstairs, showered and dressed but still feeling unmoored. "You're up early. Coffee?"
"Please," I manage.
She pours me a cup from the carafe on the sideboard and slides a plate across the counter. A cinnamon roll, still warm, glistening with icing.
"You look like you saw a ghost," Evelyn says, studying me with those sharp blue eyes. "Or something equally surprising."
"I..." I hesitate. Saying it out loud will make it real. "I went for a walk last night. In the forest."
"Did you now?" Evelyn's expression doesn't change, but there's something in her tone. Knowledge. Or maybe amusement.
"There was a bear," I say. "A big one. It... it walked me back to town."
"Ah." Evelyn nods as if I'd told her the weather forecast. "That happens sometimes. The wildlife here is very protective of visitors."
"Protective?" I stare at her. "Evelyn, it's a bear. Bears aren't protective of humans."
"Most bears aren't, no." She wipes down the counter with a dishcloth, not meeting my eyes. "But Redwood Rise has always had a special relationship with the local wildlife. The animals here... well, they're not quite like animals elsewhere. More intelligent, more aware. People say it's the land itself—the soil, the water. Makes everything that lives here a little bit different."
The way she says it—so casual, so matter-of-fact—makes my skin prickle. This isn't the first time someone's hinted that there's something unusual about this town. Cilla mentioned the fog. Anabeth talked about the forest.
Is that what Evelyn's talking about? Some kind of environmental factor that affects animal behavior?
"That's an interesting theory," I say diplomatically.
"Oh, it's more than a theory, dear." Evelyn pats my hand as she passes. "The question is whether you're ready to believe it."
She leaves me sitting there with my coffee and too many questions, staring at a cinnamon roll I probably won't be able to taste. But when I take a bite—when the flavor floods my mouth, cinnamon and butter and sweetness—I nearly drop my fork.
I can taste it. Not Eli's food. Not Eli's beer. Evelyn's cinnamon roll, made in this kitchen, and I can taste every single note. My hands start to shake again, but for an entirely different reason.
Maybe my palate isn't broken after all. Maybe it's healing. Or maybe, a small voice whispers in the back of my mind, it was never about the food at all. Maybe it's about Redwood Rise itself.
I take another bite, letting the flavor anchor me, and deliberately avoid wondering why those amber-flecked eyes in the forest felt so familiar.
CHAPTER 7
ELI
I'm pouring coffee when Calder, Beau, and Sawyer walk into the Bear Claw at seven in the morning. The sight of them together, this early, with those expressions on their faces—this can't be good.
Calder's jaw is set in that way that means he's been practicing his lecture. Beau has his arms crossed, which never bodes well. Sawyer looks worn, like he's already played peacekeeper once this morning and failed.
"We need to talk," Calder says.
The coffee pot hits the counter harder than necessary. Dark liquid sloshes over the rim of the mug I'm filling. "Good morning to you too."
