Bear In The Rough: Book 1: Treasure Hunt (BBW Bear Shifter Romance) (4 page)

              “Don’t think about it!” said the stranger in a strangled voice. “Just do it!”

              In spite of his earlier warnings I kicked at the man’s torso, hoping to turn him over. But he and the boar together were too big and they barely budged. The boar gave a low snarl as it licked his face with its long tongue. Next I tried to grab the machete out from under him, but this failed as well, because he was lying on top of the sheath and the only possible way for me to pick it up was by the blade, which sliced at my hands and fingers.

              I was now covered in blood, and, what was worse, my rustling around under the man’s body had drawn the attention of the boar, who suddenly shifted and left his chest, scurrying after me. I screamed and ran in the opposite direction, as fast as I could go, but the boar was faster still, and seizing me by the legs with its tusks, knocked me over. I stumbled and fell onto the hard ground with a loud thud. This was it, this was the end of me, nothing heroic, just the embarrassment of running in terror and the humiliation of being cut open by a creature that came no higher than my knees…

              And then it gave a final loud squeal, and was dead. The stranger stood behind it clutching the machete with a savage look on his face. The machete now poked through its ribs.

              Gallantly he came over and offered me his hand.

              “There are certain things that make you friends for life,” he said. “I’d say this is one of them.”

              “I’ll have to know your name first,” I said, gazing down at the boar’s lifeless body.

              “Henry,” he said. “My name is Henry.”

              “I’m Olivia.”

*              *              *

              We eventually recovered the stone, having followed Henry’s scientific projections of where it was likely to be given its trajectory. We did a sweep of the area, beginning from opposite ends and meeting in the middle, and I had recovered it within a few minutes. I handed it to him, though I suspect he could see the hungry look I gave it as I let it go.

              “What is it, anyway?” I asked. “The stone, I mean.”

              “It’s hugely important to me,” said Henry cryptically. “I wouldn’t have cared if it had been anything else.”

              “Hypothetically, if I bought you dinner, would you tell me about it?”

              Henry’s mouth widened into a smile.

Chapter 4—Henry

              That night at Carrie’s I ordered roast chicken and crab salad with mussels, while Olivia chose a more modest fish and chips platter. I tore into my meal with relish, having not eaten since the night before. Forgoing the use of cutlery, I used my teeth and hands to tear open the bird’s flesh. Olivia watched with an expression that was first surprised, then slightly horrified, before lapsing finally into a look of acceptance mingled with a kind of admiration.

              She merely pecked at her fish, perhaps having lost her appetite after watching me eat, or perhaps wishing to compensate for the terrible manners of her partner by displaying better ones. After the first ecstasy of eating had faded I became conscious that we were being watched and whispered about throughout the tavern. But rather than making me slow down and eat properly, this had the effect of pushing me to eat faster and chew louder just to see their looks of annoyance, gravy dribbling down my chin and onto the collar of my shirt.

              Perhaps wishing to escape embarrassment by directing her attention to something nobler, Olivia turned the green stone over and over in her hands, examining it with a look of appreciation.

              “It’s remarkable,” she said, her black eyes glittering. “The moment you held it up, I knew I had seen it somewhere. But for the life of me I can’t figure out where.”

              “I’d be very surprised if you had,” I said.

              “I recognize the symbols, if nothing else. They bear an uncanny resemblance to the markings on the sides of the pit.”

              The legends of the various treasures hidden on the island had drawn armies and corporations and solitary explorers from all over the world, which was probably its intent. There was nothing here but seaweed and crabs and the bodies of long-dead explorers, but as long as people continued to believe in the old stories, business had boomed. Gift and souvenir shops made a killing selling equipment to inexperienced explorers who didn’t know a trowel from a hand towel. Never mind that no trace of the ruined temple or any other bit of island lore had ever been recovered.

              “And why are you so keen on the money pit?” I asked her.

              She shrugged, seemingly offended by the question. “It’s a living.”

              “Yes, but why this place instead of somewhere else? What are you here for? Treasure?”

              She shook her head. Then said in a low voice, “Adventure.”

              I smiled and held up my wine glass. She held up hers and they clinked.

              She was certainly beautiful, a fact which I had tried not to notice for fear of becoming distracted from the conversation. There was something in the way she laughed, how she tossed her dark hair back across her shoulders; how she pressed forward when she spoke as if she had the most incredible secret, and couldn’t bear to share it with anyone else. She had a way of drawing you in, making you feel special. Even though we had only known each other for about half a day (not counting our brief encounter the night before), and had spent much of that day arguing and fighting off woodland creatures, she engaged me with an intensity and immediacy that made me feel as if we had been intimate for long years. Long-sustained layers of cynicism and affected world-weariness fell off of her as she sipped her wine and discussed the realities of archeology that movies never depicted.

              “You grow up thinking it’s all going to be dinosaur digs and outrunning enraged natives,” she said sadly. “It’s not that romantic, but it is methodical. I actually enjoy the tedium of our digs. I find them relaxing, a way to clear my mind, almost like meditation. Maybe not everyone could understand that, or want it, but it suits me. I thought I wanted excitement when what I really wanted was the monotony of an endless routine.”

              She shrugged and sloshed her wine back and forth in her glass. “Anyway. What are you here for?”

              With a heavy sigh I told her about my grandfather and his recent disappearance.

              “A year ago,” I said, “my granddad was diagnosed with incurable cancer. Doctors gave him less than a year to live. And I guess some people, when they get to that point, start making plans to relax and spend more time with their families? Not him, though. Not Granddad. He suddenly realized that he had spent
too much
time taking care of me.

              “There’s a great moment in Sinclair Lewis’s novel
Babbit
where the main character, a pathetic, dull man who’s lived a pathetic, dull life, finally comes to the end of himself and has this pivotal realization. He says, ‘I’ve never done a single thing I’ve wanted to do in my whole life!’ Granddad had so many plans, but they all fell by the wayside when my parents died and he had to take me in. There’s nothing like suddenly having a child to derail someone’s life. And after I graduated, and after Nanna’s death, he got to thinking and realized that he wanted to do some of those things he had never gotten to do before. And then when he found out he was dying of cancer, he realized if he didn’t do them now, he wasn’t going to. I mean, maybe you could travel the world as a ghost, but he wasn’t counting on it.

“So if he was going to see the world, this was his last chance. Granddad had had this crazy dream his whole life. Growing up I remember him talking about it constantly. He wanted to find out what had happened to our ancestors, our forebears.”

              Olivia looked perplexed. “You mean other than dying?”

              I pursed my lips, choosing my words carefully. “Our family hails from a large… clan, I guess you could call it, and many of them lived together and traveled the world together. They were semi-nomadic. They would vanish for long periods of time and no one would know where they had gone, but then they would turn up again in another part of the world.”

              Olivia nodded thoughtfully.

              “But during the second world war, they vanished and never returned. Of course this was during a time of mass deportations and wholesale slaughter, so it wasn’t that exceptional and very few people noticed. That was during the days when thousands of people could walk into a forest and not come out alive, and it wouldn’t be reported until after the war. My grandfather was just old enough to have served in the war, but had never visited his extended family. After he was discharged from the service he went looking for them and realized that no one knew where they’d gone. Last thing anyone heard, they had been evacuated to Oak Island to escape the Japanese conquest of the Pacific. So he made inquiries at all the hotels, shops and post offices nearby, but though several people responded that they had seen his family here, at some point they were no longer here. And this is where it gets weird: they didn’t leave. They were just… gone. One day they were together, eating breakfast, and the next day their encampment was completely deserted. How do you explain that? How do 500 people on a small island in the middle of nowhere just disappear?”

              “It’s like Roanoke Island,” said Liv, referring to a colonial American colony that vanished, seemingly into thin air.

              “It’s just as mysterious, but less famous,” I said. “I guess because of the times they were living in. But all my life Granddad had had a crazy notion that he would be the one to find them, and no one could talk him out of it. You know how when someone gets an idea in their head like that, when they start to think they’re the chosen one, it becomes a kind of mania, an obsession. He was normal in most respects, but not when it came to this. He felt he had a mystical connection, a blood-link that would help him succeed where every previous explorer had failed. He would be the one to find them.

              “I remember the last night we spent together. He brought out a bottle of champagne and kept me up telling old stories about the war, how he met Nanna in Italy. I woke up late the next morning and he was gone. There was a note on the kitchen table saying he had gone to find the amulet, and he wasn’t going to throw away his only shot. He was an adventurer at heart. Like me, I guess. I’m surprised he ever got married.”

              “I think I would have liked your granddad, very much,” said Olivia.

              “You would have gotten along,” I said. “He was a loner. Heaven only knows how he ever got married. If it was up to him, he would’ve spent the rest of his life backpacking around Europe, probably dying penniless in a canal. Luckily he met Nanna and she took care of him for the rest of his life. She talked him out of many a suicidal venture, but once she was gone and I was gone there was no one and nothing to stop him. All those self-destructive tendencies that had been held at bay by the responsibilities of his profession and family suddenly came roaring to the surface. He used to drink in moderation, but after her death I never saw him without a glass of wine in his hand.”

              “But he loved you,” said Liv. “He must have, or he wouldn’t have been able to hold down a job and look after you, without a fuss and without wavering, for so many years. It takes a rare stability and, well, love to be able to do that. And he passed that love of family down to you, else you wouldn’t have trekked halfway across the world to come find him.”

              I shrugged. “I guess so. I wasn’t just going to let him wander off without saying goodbye. I need that goodbye. Even if he’s no longer here to give it, I need to find him.”

              I felt like an idiot mouthing my fond memories of my grandfather, even if he had been a father to me. Men are expected to be tough and unsentimental, like a slab of jerky, and it must have been disorienting for Olivia to see me going from stoic and prickly to thoughtful and loving in the space of a single day. But with an uncommon appreciation for the multifaceted nature of individuals, she laid a reassuring hand on my arm. For a woman who occasionally seemed to be holding a perpetual grudge against the world, she too could be awfully softhearted.

              “You’ll find him,” she said. “I’ll help you.”

              “Thanks, but there’s really not much you can do,” I told her, and not just because I was reluctant to take on a partner. “The trail ends on Oak Island, the site of his last letter. I’ve interviewed all the storeowners, shopkeepers and inn managers in town, and the last time anyone matching Granddad’s description was even seen on the island was over a month ago. He was here. I know it. I don’t think he left, not when he was so close. Either he’s still seeking the treasure, or…”

              I paused, suddenly distracted by the rattle of cups and plates at a neighboring table. After a month alone in the wilderness, a nice dinner with a beautiful and charming companion was more than I felt I deserved. Liv sat there quietly, softly stroking her hair behind her ears, lost in thought.

              “Ready for dessert?” Carrie addressed herself to Liv, glancing at me narrowly from the corners of her eyes.

              “I’ll have the mango cobbler with ice cream and chocolate morsels,” said Liv, handing in her menu.

              “I’ll have the roasted mango and lemon bears,” I said. They both looked at me. “Did I say ‘bears’? I meant bars.”

              “Oh, and I’ll have a glass of ginger ale with a twist of lemon in it,” said Liv.

              Carrie took my menu without once looking at me and picked up our plates and dishes. While Liv was in the restroom I sat there wondering how she would react when she found out about my true identity. I had kept it carefully hidden when discussing my family history and grandfather’s whereabouts, but if we were going to be searching for him together—and if there was any hope that our friendship might become something more than that, which I flattered myself there was—then eventually she would learn the truth about me. It was probably better that I broke the news myself, lest she think I was keeping secrets from her.

              And how she reacted after that was up to her. I’d had girlfriends in school who had not taken it well when they learned that I was a shifter. The memory of one in particular, who had stormed out in a rage and never returned my calls, particularly rankled. Sometimes prejudice was too entrenched. But I had never forgotten something Granddad said to me when I was a boy: “There are going to be people in this world who can’t accept you for who you are, and those people aren’t worth your time. You know who you are, and that’s all that matters.”