With a grunt, I toss my phone to the seat and rifle through the console, hoping for a stray butterscotch button. When I find one down at the bottom, beneath my spare nitrile gloves and an extra citation booklet, popping it onto my tongue makes me feel slightlyless irritated. Sofie means well, but her determination to drag me out of bachelorhood is starting to drive me nuts.
Accelerating onto the highway, I check in with dispatch on the radio.
“Long day in the saddle, huh?” Shelby replies with a cluck of her tongue.
Shelby’s been working dispatch almost as long as I’ve been a conservation officer. “Found the loggers,” I say with the butterscotch tucked into my cheek. “But they were too quick. Fled on a brand-new Polaris.” The “shot fired” part would only feed the gossip mill and I don’t need that tonight, so I keep it to myself.
Shelby tsks. “Idiots. A chainsawandan illegal motorized vehicle in our wilderness areas?”
Though I don’t have confirmation yet that the two men I caught red-handed today are from Sons of Eden, the cult that moved into the small town of Elk Flats two years ago, I’m sure my hunch is correct. How am I going to stop them when they can slip away like that? Just getting into that basin took me a full day. It’s maddening. I need to get smarter, develop a more effective plan to take them down, but I’m already stretched so thin as it is.
“Hey, we just got a call,” Shelby says, interrupting my thoughts. “That problem bear is back.”
I curse. It’s barely March. The bear should still be in hibernation, though maybe he was too busy ransacking cabins this winter to participate.
“It’s right on your way,” Shelby adds, snapping me back to the cab and the thick wet snow falling so hard it’s obscuring the road ahead.
I click the mic, then let the receiver drop to my lap. Fuck. All I want is to go home. Tupelo needs tending to. Plus I’m tired and hungry and my skin is the kind of numb that only the hottest shower will fix. Maybe it’s the epic day, but my knees feel like rusted gears,and my left hip is screaming. I need a hot shower, a soft bed, and a steady drip of anti-inflammatories.
“What’s the address?” I ask Shelby, my lips tensing around the words.
She rattles it off, and my memory flashes. “Isn’t that the old Dunn place?”
“You didn’t hear? It finally sold. Plus, every last acre that went with it.”
“To whom?”
“Jeez, have you been under a rock or something? She’s that famous painter.”
I run a hand through my still-damp hair. I couldn’t give a shit about the new owner’s vocation or whatever gossip Shelby’s stored up about her, but I don’t like the sound of a woman alone with a problem bear. “Is she safe?”
“Yeah. Frazzled though.”
“Fine. I’ll check it out.” Before Shelby can get rolling, I sign off.
By the time I turn up the long gravel lane, it’s nearing eight o’clock and so stormy the beams of my headlights barely penetrate the darkness. But when I round the bend, the handsome two-story farmhouse and matching barn are so brightly lit I could see them from space.
I park in a wide gravel turnaround and call in my location before tucking my hat back on and holstering my service weapon from the gun safe behind my seat. When I step down, my knees and hips feel about a hundred years old, and several vertebrae crack. A gust of cold rain slams into my shoulders, making me shiver.
Pressing my hat down with one hand against the storm, I make my way through the gate and head for the wide front porch. Handsome lantern-crafted exterior lights line the side of the house, illuminating lush green shrubs and a tidy lawn. No sign of the bear as I climb the steps. I rap my knuckles on the big blue door and wait. When nothing happens, I lean to the side and peer through thewindow, but there’s no movement, or sound. Unease crawls beneath my skin. I knock again, this time with my fist.
A scream carries on the wind, coming from the direction of the barn. I spin and rush down the steps, then race around the house, the thick, wet rain like cold razor blades against my chin and neck. Ahead, both of the barn’s doors are wide open. In the shadowy light cast from inside, I can just make out the silhouettes of several nervous horses in the adjoining corral.
But when I step into the barn, it’s quiet. “Hello?” I project my voice as I ease down the wide walkway between the stalls, my chilled skin prickling. “It’s Officer Whittaker from the Department of Fish and Wildlife. You called about a bear?”
Footsteps vibrate from the hay loft above me. A woman with light brown eyes peers out of the darkness, her cheeks flushed. “We’re up here.”
We? “Where’s the bear?” Who was screaming?
The woman gives her head a little shake. There’s something familiar about her, but I don’t take time to place it because she replies, “There’s no bear.”
I rub the back of my neck to keep my frustration at a simmer. If this is a false alarm, then I have a hot shower to get to. “Have a good night.”
“Wait! Please.” The woman scrambles down a ladder from a square hole in the ceiling. She’s wearing a pair of faded work jeans rolled up at the ankles, thick wool socks with Birkenstock sandals, and an oversized sweatshirt splattered with bright yellow and orange paint, the wide collar exposing her right shoulder.
“You were gonna fight off a bear in Birkenstocks?” I ask.Shit, I hadn’t meant to say that out loud.I was distracted by her bare shoulder and the lacy black bra strap peeking out.
“I was working.” She spins around. Our eyes lock, and her scowl deepens. “Hey. You’re that guy from the film festival. The one who never calledme.”