Page 2 of On Tap for the Bear
I leave the office in a daze, walking the fourteen blocks back to my apartment because I can't face the intimacy of a rideshare,can't bear the thought of making small talk with a stranger when my entire career is crumbling around me.
That night, I try to make myself dinner—pasta with brown butter and sage, something simple and comforting. I take a bite and taste nothing. Not the butter's richness, not the sage's earthiness, not even the salt I added to the water. Just texture and temperature. Just emptiness.
I set down my fork and begin to cry.
I've lost my mentor, my reputation, and apparently, my sense of taste all in the span of seventy-two hours. The betrayal has been so complete, so devastating, that my body has simply shut down the sense that defines my entire career.
I sit at my small kitchen table, laptop open, scrolling aimlessly through social media, when a post catches my eye. Cilla Morgan's Sweet On You food truck—I've been following them since covering a street food festival two years ago. The photo shows a rustic mountain town, autumn leaves blazing gold and crimson, with text that reads: “Settling into life in Redwood Rise! This town has completely stolen my heart."
I click through to Cilla's profile, then find myself falling down a rabbit hole of posts tagged with Redwood Rise. A small town in the mountains, far from San Francisco's fog and my destroyed reputation. A place where nobody knows me, where nobody will look at me with pity or suspicion.
I find a bed and breakfast with availability—the Pinecrest Inn, run by someone named Evelyn. The photos show weathered wood, cozy quilts, and windows that look out onto forest. It's exactly the kind of place where someone can disappear for a while.
I book a room for two weeks, telling myself it's temporary, just until I figure out my next move. I pack quickly, mechanically—clothes, laptop, my camera, the chef's knife my grandmother gave me when I graduated culinary school.
I turn off my phone, grab my keys, and walk out of my apartment without looking back.
Highway 101 North stretches empty before me, city lights dissolving in my rearview mirror. Five hours to Redwood Rise, according to the GPS. Five hours to put distance between myself and the wreckage of my career.
I don't have a plan beyond two weeks at a bed and breakfast in a town I'd never heard of until tonight. Most likely I don't have a job, certainly don't have a friend and mentor, or even, it would seem, my ability to taste the coffee I'll need to stay awake for the drive. That last one is going to hurt the most.
But I have my grandmother's knife in my bag, my camera on the passenger seat, and a town where the mountains meet the sea where nobody knows my name.
CHAPTER 1
ELI
The ley line hums beneath my feet, a steady pulse that most humans would never notice. I've spent enough years tending bar at the Bear Claw Tavern to know its rhythms like my own heartbeat—the way it ebbs and flows with the seasons, how it responds to the full moon, the subtle shifts when storms roll in off the Pacific.
Lately, though, it's been stronger. Not dangerously so—but it has been dangerous before or at least felt that way—and the bear inside me pays attention.
I pull another pint of the pale ale we've had on tap since my grandfather ran this place, sliding it across the bar to old Mr. Johnson, who's been occupying the same corner stool every Thursday for longer than I've been alive. The dinner rush is in full swing—tourists mixing with locals, the smell of burgers and cedar smoke from the kitchen filling the air, conversations layering over each other in a comfortable din.
"Thanks, Eli." Henderson takes a long drink and sighs contentedly. "Your daddy would be proud of how you've kept this place running."
I nod, the familiar ache of loss settling in my chest. Twelve years since the accident that took both my parents and left mewith the tavern, three younger brothers, a grumpy older brother, although Calder seems happier since he took Cilla to mate, and responsibilities that sometimes feel heavier than the redwoods outside.
The door swings open, and I don't need to look up to recognize Calder. My older brother moves through the crowd with the easy confidence of someone who knows he belongs, sawdust still clinging to his work boots from whatever project he's been building. He slides onto a stool at the bar, and I'm already pouring him a water before he asks.
"Long day?" I ask.
"Mrs. Patterson had me rebuild her entire front porch." Calder runs a hand through his dark hair. "Three times. Kept changing her mind about whether she wanted composite or cedar."
I snort. "Which did she finally pick?"
"Composite. After I'd already cut all the cedar." He takes a long drink. "Where are the others?"
"Beau's in the back pretending to check inventory. Sawyer texted that he's running late—something about a sea lion with an attitude." I don't mention Jonah. None of us do anymore, not during these check-ins. The empty space where our youngest brother should be sits heavy between us.
The ley line pulses beneath us, a little stronger than usual, and Calder's eyes flick to mine. He felt it too.
"Still at it," he says quietly, more statement than question.
"Yeah." I keep my voice low, casual, as I wipe down the bar. No need to alarm the human customers. "Hasn't gotten worse, at least."
Beau emerges from the back room, wiping grease from his hands with a shop rag. He's twenty-eight—only two years younger—but sometimes I still see the kid who used to followme into the woods, convinced he could shift into his bear form through sheer willpower at age seven.
"Inventory's good," he says, settling onto the stool next to Calder. "Though we're low on the IPA. You brewing more this week?"
