Big Bear Mountain - The Complete Series (8 page)

D
espite her best
effort not to show it, Elle
was
afraid. Astonished and curious, but
still very much afraid. Before her disbelieving eyes, Jarrad transitioned into
a massive, living and breathing grizzly bear. She expected bone crunching and
howling like in the movies, but the transformation was fast and seamless,
almost magical. No crunching or howling. Just a smooth, almost fluid, change
from his human form to a larger and very dangerous looking bear.

The bear smelled
her fear immediately and tried not to frighten her even more, but a bear is a
bear and the urge to growl is an integral part of grizzly bear DNA and Jarrad’s
bear hadn’t shifted or growled for over a day now. He couldn’t help himself.

Grrrrrowl!

Standing tall on
his hind legs, the bear towered above Elle. One of his colossal paws, was
nearly  as wide as her body and the claws protruding from it looked positively
lethal. Just as Jarrad was the largest, most muscular man he had ever seen, his
bear was the most enormous and impressive living creature she had seen in her
life.

Her fear abated,
though, when she summoned the courage to make eye contact with the bear and
found herself staring into a pair of soulful eyes she immediately recognized as
Jarrad’s. Sensing her recognition, the bear lowered his massive head and
positioned himself such that Elle could easily stroke the fur behind his ears.

With some
apprehension, Elle gave the patch of fur being presented to her a tentative pat
before withdrawing. Nudging her and mewling softly, or as softly as a giant
grizzly can mewl, Elle was encouraged to continue stroking Jarrad’s bear,
knowing she was forming an important and unique union with both of them.

She felt no
hesitation in performing what she hoped was the proper bonding ritual. It felt
right, somehow and left her with a sense of ‘belonging’ and being a part of
something very special.

She only hoped they
would survive long enough to find out it if it were all true.

T
wo hours later, they
hit pay dirt. After hearing nothing but crickets for most of the day, the
strange contraption being carried by Jarrad started to beep.

“Result!” Jarrad screamed,
punching the air with his huge fist.

“So, that beeping
sound is a good thing?”

“Sweetie, that beeping
sound, as you call it, is the sound of your freedom. It means I know where the
car is and we should be able to recover the SD card, with a bit of luck and
some good old mountaineering skill.”

“What do we do if
we find it? What’s the plan?”

The plan?” Jarrad
asked. “I’m the brawn in this outfit, lady,” he said looking down at his
colossal body which, to most people, looked like a Russian war monument than a
human being.

“And what am I,
then?” Elle imitated him and looked down at curvy body.

“You? You’re the
brains of the operation. That’s for you to figure out once I’ve done my part.”

“The SD card was
hidden in my overnight bag. We need to get the entire bag, not just the card?”
Elle suggested.

“You mean the bag
with the hundred grand you stole?”

“It’s not exactly
stolen,” she replied coyly, averting her eyes to avoid making eye contact as
she lied.

“That’s not what
Trooper Ryan told me when he called me to find out if I knew where you were at.
Apparently, you’re wanted for questioning in connection with the embezzlement
of corporate funds, to use his words.”

“That’s what they
want the police to think so they’ll come after me. If they catch me, they get
their money back, too as a bonus. Besides, they can hardly tell the cops I
stole a big bag of their laundered drug cash and they want it back, now, can
they?”

“Yeah, you’ve got
a point.” Jarrad held up a finger. “OK, big bag of drug cash.” Then he extended
another finger. “One SD card.”

“That’s pretty
much your shopping list. How are you going to get them?”

“I already told
you,” he responded, then winked. “A bit of mountaineering skill is all we
need.”

“What am I supposed
to be doing while you’re off doing your secret squirrel mountaineering shit,
then?” Both hands rested firmly on her hips. A definite sign she wasn’t happy
being left behind.

“I won’t be long.
Just wait here and let me do my thing. I can’t focus on what I have to do
and
look out for you as well. You don’t know the first thing about climbing. It’s too
dangerous.”

“I don’t care. I’m
coming with you.” Her hands remained firmly braced on her hips.

Jarrad took a
length of rope from his pack and threw it to Elle. It hit her fair in the
chest, and then fell to the ground.

“Good catch,” he
teased.

“Nice throw,” Elle
shot right back at him.

“Tie me a figure
eight on a bight.”

“Fine.” Elle left
the rope on the ground, turned and walked toward a nearby boulder and sat down
with a loud
humph
.

Jarrad was
learning fast. He knew she was anything but ‘fine’.

A
n hour later,
sweating and panting, Jarrad climbed over the ridge where he’d left Elle with
their equipment and provisions. He had Elle’s overnight bag slung loosely over
his shoulder, ready to return it to her. But something wasn’t right. He
surveyed the scene. Everything was where he’d left it. Almost everything.

Elle was nowhere
to be found. The rock where she’d sat and glared at him angrily when he
departed to look for the car wreck was bare.

Not quite bare. A small
radio receiver sat where Elle had staged her sit-in protest.

Jarrad’s hands
balled into fists as he trembled with rage. His bear roared furiously and
demanded to be released. They both wanted to find the ones who’d taken their
mate and tear them apart. Limb by limb.

T
he radio squawked
loudly, and then went silent. Jarrad picked it up in his hand, the small device
looking absurdly small in his broad hand. He didn’t speak.

“
Thank you for being
so brave Mr. Mountain Rescue and finding our money and data card.

“Now, you will
return them to us if you ever want to see your girlfriend again.”

Jarrad knew they
couldn’t have gone far in this terrain with a prisoner. He looked around as he
considered his next move.

“
We don’t have
time to play games. You will leave the bag where it is and leave this place,”
the voice was laced with a peculiar accent Jarrad couldn’t identify through the
static, “
or we will be forced to bring down a storm of shit on you.
”

Keying the mic,
Jarrad responded, “I think you mean shit storm, asshole.”

“
Do not play
games with us. Leave the bag and go. Now, or there will be a storm coming to
you.
”

A laser beam from
a snipers tactical scope flashed twice on the ground at Jarrad’s feet.

Before he crushed
the radio transmitter in his hand, Jarrad had one final thing to say to the men
who had taken Elle.

“No, you got that
wrong, too.
I
am the storm. And I’m coming
your
way.”

I
f there was one
thing Jarrad knew better than anyone, it was
his
mountain. He knew there
was only one place they could have reached in the time he’d been gone and where
they could still have line of sight on him right now. Bear Claw Ridge.

If he left them
Elle’s bag for them, as he’d been instructed, they were both as good as dead.
The bag was his only leverage and he wasn’t about to let it out of his hands. He’d
die before he let anything happen to Elle.

Avoiding looking
toward the ridge where he knew they were holed up, Jarrad hoisted the bag
securely across his shoulder and jumped over an embankment and headed down the
mountain in the direction from which he’d come only minutes before. Getting
behind them, unseen, was his only chance to save them both.

As he made his way
through a heavily wooded area, Jarrad shifted and allowed his bear free reign,
as it had been eager to do since finding Elle missing. The hulking creature
bounded between the trees with a grace and elegance that was surprising for a
creature so large. It looked beautiful, but that was the last thing on the
bears mind.

Killing the cartel
goons and rescuing Elle was his sole reason for being at that moment. Nothing
else mattered.

E
lle saw it first.
Although her hands were zip tied behind her back and her ankles similarly
restrained, they hadn’t bothered to blindfold her. After all, she’d be dead
soon enough, so it didn’t matter that she saw their faces.

The sun glistened
against the soft fur on its head. Then she saw the eyes. Elle would recognize
those eyes anywhere. Jarrad’s bear. Her bear. He’d come for her.

Her bear had come
to save her. To protect her. She knew Jarrad would come the moment she saw them
approach, guns up and aimed at her. She never had a moment of doubt, so she
didn’t put up fight when they took her. There was no point getting shot when
she’d be free soon enough, anyway. Her man and his bear would see to that. She
could sense it, as if they were connected even though they were apart. She felt
safe, despite the three gun toting thugs surrounding her.

With a blood
curdling roar, the beast reared up from behind the foliage, behind which it had
been concealed, towering above the three armed gangsters. One of them ran at
the sight of the growling creature, screaming something in a language Elle
couldn’t understand, but she had a fair idea what he was saying, regardless.

A gunshot rang out.
One of the gunman pointed a smoking Glock 17 at the bear. Elle screamed. She
needn’t have worried, though; Jarrad’s gift was not limited to his ability to
transform into a bear. As Elle would learn over time, Jarrad and his bear were
quite impervious to most injuries and had extraordinarily fast healing
abilities in the rare event they were ever injured.

With an almighty
swipe of its huge paw, the bear knocked the gun and the man responsible for
firing it, clear across the clearing and into a rocky outcrop where he landed
with a sickening thud.

Schlock …
schlock

Even in his bear
form, Jarrad recognized the familiar sound of a military grade Mossberg 590A1
tactical shotgun being racked. He’d heard that sound often during his tour in
Iraq. Only then, he and his team were the ones doing the racking and the enemy
were on the receiving end. He’d seen the damage the weapon could inflict. It
was a lethal. Not even a fast healing, resilient bear could survive that impact
at close range.

J
arrad had no
choice. If he remained in his bear form, he’d be shot and killed in seconds.
Changing back to his human form was his and Elle’s only chance. The shotgun
wielding thug stood wide eyed and shocked into silence as Jarrad transformed in
front of him.

“Put hand in sky,”
the gunman ordered with a thick accent.

“I think you mean
reach for the sky, cowboy,” Jarrad said to himself as he complied, raising both
hands. Curiously, though, he held one finger extended on his right hand. Elle
noticed this peculiar gesture but couldn’t make sense of it. She did ten
seconds later, though, when a laser dot appeared in the center of the gunman’s
forehead.

Jarrad’s fist
closed tightly and the laser dot became a larger circle from which a drop of
blood oozed. The Mossberg fell to the ground. Dead even before he dropped the
weapon, the gunman collapsed a few seconds later with a look of disbelief frozen
on his face.

“D
o I even want to
know how you did that?” Elle asked, trembling in Jarrad’s embrace as he held
her close.

Jarrad snorted a
short laugh, remembering he hadn’t shared his backup plan with her. “That was
Rosie’s grandson. He owed me a favor and just happens to be in the army sniper
training school.” He laughed again, “Top of his class, too, if you hadn’t
already guessed. He’s had our backs since we left Rosie’s.”

“That man,” she
pointed to the dead gunman, “he was going to kill us, wasn’t he, even if he got
the money and the SD card?”

“What he
thought
he was going to do and what I would have let him do are two very different
things, sweetheart. I was
never
going to let him hurt you.”

Elle clung to him
like she never wanted to let him go. In the distance, the familiar beat of
helicopter rotors carried through the still mountain air.

“Here comes our
ride, baby. I’ve got a room booked for us at Rosie’s. What’s say we get you out
of here?”

“Did I pass?” she
asked anxiously.

“Pass what?”

“You know … the
bonding thing. Did I do it right?”

The bear within
mewled with satisfaction. He had, indeed, bonded with the true mate he had
chosen for them.

“You did better
than pass. You did perfect. Hopefully, I’ll show you how well you did later.”

She looked up at
him and smiled a smile that melted the heart of her big, tough, soldier bear.