Bear for the Holidays (Animal Rescue Shifters) Read online

  Bear for the Holidays

  Zoe Chant

  Published by Zoe Chant, 2022

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to persons, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  BEAR FOR THE HOLIDAYS

  First Edition.

  Copyright © 2022 by Zoe Chant

  Written by Zoe Chant

  Contents

  Bear for the Holidays

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Epilogue

  A Note From Zoe Chant

  Also by Zoe Chant

  CHAPTER ONE

  ∞∞∞

  Deanna Ly hummed a bright holiday song as she made her way from her ancient Datsun to the rear door of Delmonico’s coffee shop, a large and unwieldy box balanced on her hip. At just before six in the morning, it was still dark enough that there were a few stars out, and the winter chill turned each breath into a puff of steam and put a stinging red blush in her cheeks.

  We’ll get snow for Christmas, she thought idly. It wasn’t a huge deal to her, but some of her extended family loved the holidays, especially the kids.

  She unlocked the back door, maneuvering the large box inside, startled to find that the lights were already on. She set the box down and then picked up the snow shovel that rested close by. It was probably overkill, but some kids had broken into the sandwich shop across the road. No one had gotten hurt, but Deanna wasn’t taking any chances. The kitchen was empty, but a scuffling noise came from the front of the shop.

  “Hey,” she called. “Hey, if there’s someone out there, I’m going to be really nice and let you out, all right? We don’t keep cash in the place overnight, so no harm, no foul, okay?”

  The scuffling noise came again, and she gritted her teeth, pushing the door to the front of the shop open and lifting the snow shovel high. It occurred to her as she did so that this was maybe a situation where she should have left to call for help from the car, but too late now.

  She was ready for anything. She was a strong independent woman with a snow shovel, there was nothing she couldn’t handle. Then she saw Mrs. Shevchenko sitting hunched and miserable at one of the tables, and she realized, no, she absolutely was not ready for this.

  “Mrs. S? Are you all right?”

  Mrs. Shevchenko made a strange grumbling, groaning noise, resting her face in her hand. Alarmed, Deanna put down the shovel to go to her side, kneeling down by the chair and stroking her round shoulder. Both Shevchenkos, who owned Delmonico’s, were large people, tall and broad, but right now, you couldn’t tell it by Mrs. Shevchenko, who sat curled over as if she were hiding. She made another pained noise and Deanna’s eyes went wide.

  “Mrs. Shevchenko, it’s Dee. Can you hear me? Are you in pain? Um. Can you spread your arms out and smile at me?”

  It was apparently such a bizarre request that Mrs. Shevchenko finally looked at her, blinking in confusion.

  “Why would I do that?” she asked, and Deanna smiled in relief at how normal she sounded.

  “My cousin was telling me that’s how you checked for a stroke.”

  “I am not having a stroke,” Mrs. Shevchenko said indignantly, sitting up even straighter. In her big fluffy brown sweater and full skirts, she overwhelmed her chair, as large as life and twice as healthy, and grinning, Deanna rose to take the chair opposite.

  “I’m so glad. But Mrs. S, what’s the matter?”

  Mrs. Shevchenko resumed such a sad expression that Deanna got a bit a whiplash, her concern came roaring back.

  “It is my son,” she said with a sigh. “I only wanted to make stew for him. See over there? I have made him his favorite.”

  She pointed at several containers sitting on the counter, presumably her stew. There was probably less than a gallon there, but Deanna wouldn’t have thought it was all that much less.

  “You make great stew,” said Deanna uncertainly.

  “Yes, yes, but he is up on the mountain counting birds. He says he cannot come down. Every year I make him his favorite, but he will not come this year.”

  She made the groaning sound again, so despondent that Deanna leaned over to give her a hug.

  “Oh, Mrs. S, I’m sorry. He just refuses?”

  “It’s not so very far,” Mrs. Shevchenko mournfully. “Just an hour from here. Maybe two. We were so happy to have him close this year, closer than usual, but still.”

  Deanna had been working at Delmonico’s for almost three years. She was close with the owners, but she had never met their son.

  “He does something with the park service, right?” she asked, stifling her surge of temper. She knew it was a bad idea to get involved in the affairs of the folks who signed her paycheck, but the Shevchenkos were good people. She didn’t like the thought of their son neglecting them for the holidays, especially when he was much closer than usual.

  “Yes. Counting ducks, something like that. Oh, he’s good, though, you must understand,” Mrs. Shevchenko said, peering at her anxiously. “I do not know why he doesn’t come.”

  “What did he say?”

  Mrs. Shevchenko shrugged, climbing heavily to her feet. Standing up, she towered over Deanna. Her husband was even taller. Deanna thought absently that their son must be a giant.

  “It is nothing for you to worry about,” Mrs. Shevchenko said bravely. “It will be fine. Someone else can eat this stew I made. Maybe you would like it. It has venison and sausage both, as well as onions and apples, honey for sweetness.”

  “It sounds amazing,” Deanna said, but she couldn’t quite take her eyes off of Mrs. Shevchenko’s red eyes or her still-trembling lower lip. She came to a decision.

  “Mrs. Shevchenko, your son lives just a couple hours out of town?”

  “Well, yes. Straight on the highway, and then a little farther.”

  “Sure, sure. How would you like it if I delivered the stew to him? I could go tonight, after work.”

  Mrs. Shevchenko brightened up like sunlight on a winter’s day.

  “Oh, would you? That would be so lovely. You know I only miss him so much.”

  Deanna smiled, even if there was a bit of strain to it. She knew family could be complicated, but who in the world would hurt Mrs. Shevchenko’s feelings like this? Well, she knew who, and she was going to go give him a gallon of what sounded like awesome stew and a piece of her mind. Somewhere in the back of her head, she could hear her cousin Pearl urging her to calm down, she might not know the whole story, she shouldn’t just charge in as if she knew what was right for everyone.

  Then she thought about the terrible sound Mrs. Shevchenko had been making when she came in, and honestly, to hell with that.

  “I’ll make sure I tell him that,” she said. “Now, let’s get this in the fridge. I’ll take it out after my shift. Right now, I’m going to put up the holiday decorations and–”

  She blinked as Mrs. Shevchenko packed the containers of stew into an old canvas bag and placed it firmly on Deanna’s shoulder. The older woman gave her a firm pat that felt a little more like a shove towards the door, smiling and nodding the whole while.

  “No, you should get on the road, my dear! Thank you, thank you so much for bringing my son his stew. This will be such a burden off my heart, such a comfort in my old age.”

  “Er, are you even sixty?”

  “So kind of you, and of course you will still be on the clock if you do this. Do not worry about a thing, here, go get this loaded into your car. I will text you the address and the directions. Only go now, because I think the weather is going to turn.”

  Slightly bemused, Deanna hauled the stew back to her car, nodding distractedly at Mr. Shevchenko, who was just entering the kitchen as she left. He raised a bushy eyebrow at her as she stepped back into the chilly day. Above her, the sky was lightening, but it was not yet properly dawn. Still it was as clear as crystal, another pleasant winter day in Colorado two weeks before Christmas, and she shrugged, dropping the stew into the passenger seat and buckling herself in. She was getting paid to do a delivery up the mountain, and she might get to chew out someone who was being thoughtless to one of the nicest ladies in town. That was a pretty good shift, she thought.

  She turned on the radio and pulled out of the parking lot.

  *

  Back in the coffee shop, Mr. Shevchenko pulled croissants out of the oven and arranged them on a tray before bringing them to the front. Mrs. Shevchenko gave him a quick kiss on the shoulder as he passed by, counting change into the cash register.

  “Was that really wise?” Mr. Shevchenko asked.

  Mrs Shevchenko made a pleased growling, grumbling noise.

  “She is perfect for him, don’t you think? I have always thought so, and now we will find out for sure.”

  “You are a devious woman, my love.”

  “Nothing devious about it! They will either be fine friends or they will fall in love. What could be simpler?”

  *

  Mrs. Shevchenko had said that her son–dammit, still hadn’t managed to get his name–was just two hours up the road, and that was true as far as the highway went. Then the instructions took her off through the mountains and up a series of increasingly narrow switchbacks where Deanna had to slow down until she was almost creeping up the incline.

  “Okay, if this g
ets too much steeper, I may get a little more understanding of Junior’s reluctance to come down,” she said out loud.

  She wasn’t exactly regretting her decision to come out. If she was being honest, she preferred some slightly tricky driving conditions to dealing with grumpy customers desperate for their caffeine. However, it did occur to her that she might have gone off a bit half-cocked, thinking the worst of Shevchenko Junior and climbing up the mountain to meet him for pistols at dawn.

  Deanna liked to think of herself as forthright, but she had to admit that could spill over into impulsive and bossy.

  It’s okay not to know everything! her cousin Pearl cried in her memory. It’s okay to call in professionals! You do not need to steal some dangerous man’s dog because you saw him hit the poor thing.

  Whatever. She was still pretty proud of that, and last she’d heard the dog had been renamed Barky Barnes (what the heck) and was rehabilitated and living with a family in Longmont. And anyway, this wasn’t her snatching some guy’s dog and running for the hills. This was just delivering some stew and a very normal message of go see your parents.

  She had just reached some level ground when a small pale shape darted in front of the car, and with a curse, she slammed on the brakes, breathing hard. She hadn’t felt anything hit the wheels or the bumper, thank goodness, but she got out anyway to scan the sides of the road. The moment she did so, there was a thin, strangled cry, and she blinked at the little cat by the side of the road, staring directly at her with big yellow eyes.

  “Er.”

  At the sound of a human voice, the cat screamed louder and more imperiously, never taking its eyes off of Deanna. Cautiously, she walked towards it, and when she approached, the cat trotted over to twine around her legs, purring madly the whole time. The cat was a dirty gray, small and bony except for a bulbous midsection, and gingerly, Deanna picked it up.

  “If you bite me and give me rabies, I am going to be very upset,” she told it, and in response, the cat only licked her hand placidly, its eyes drifting to half-mast.

  “You picked the wrong cousin,” Deanna sighed, tucking the cat against her chest. “Pearl would have you cleaned, housed and fed in twenty minutes. You’re going to have to wait until I can get you to her, okay?”

  As she walked back to the car, she saw the cat’s belly ripple, and it occurred to her why the otherwise skinny little cat was so chunky.

  “Wow, yeah, I am looking forward to making you Pearl’s problem, because, sweetie, you cannot be mine,” she said with a chuckle.

  She put the cat in the footwell of the backseat, watching for a moment to see if she was inclined to dash around and maybe get stuck under the brake pedal, but the cat settled in as if she had done it a million times, still purring up a storm.

  Deanna got back into the car, and just as she shut the door, something heavy hit the roof, a hard thump followed by the shriek of something sharp getting dragged across metal. She yelped with surprise, her heart hammering, and she peered out the window, trying to see what had just happened. Briefly, she saw a winged shadow flapping towards the trees, but then it disappeared.

  An owl, maybe? I guess it’s early enough they’re still hunting.

  She put the thought out of her mind, because she had stew to deliver and now a cat to pass on to her cousin. It was shaping up to be a busy day, and she whistled as she started driving again.

  Above her, dark clouds mounded up in the sky, and the first fat, wet, flakes started to fall.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ∞∞∞

  Nik made it back to the cabin just before dawn, hanging his waders up in the mudroom and kicking his boots and socks off to pad barefoot into the living room to light the wood stove. Once the fire was crackling, he stashed his gear, made some quick notes for later, and walked straight into the bathroom to start the shower.

  The water heater was about the size of a teapot, and he stretched its capacity as far as he could, going from mildly tepid to blazing hot to finally a cold blast to the face that was still better than the smell of the pond. He was pleased with the herons. He was less pleased with the cold waters they lived in.

  Should just go out in bear form, he thought, toweling off. Could probably rig the counter to hang around my neck, maybe find a way to click it with my teeth.

  As handy as it would be to use his grizzly bear form for very early morning counts, however, most wildlife didn’t care for the presence of a nine hundred-pound apex predator in their midst. It didn’t help that no one had seen a grizzly in Colorado since the ‘80s. The last thing he needed was to be sighted by some hiker or someone doing a flyover and get the news riled up.

  First time back in a few years, maybe I don’t set off a panic.

  He put on a clean pair of pajama pants, not bothering with the top despite the chill. He wasn’t immune to low temperatures in his human form, but he ran hot, and that plus the shower helped him shrug off the cold air. There was a dryness to it, he noticed now, as well as a certain crispness. A storm was on the way, and he was even more grateful to have finished off the east quadrant that morning.

  He was just pulling out the ingredients for a fry-up when his sharp ears caught the sound of a car pulling up the long gravel drive.

  Huh, no one called ahead.

  That wasn’t a good sign this high in the mountains, especially at this time of day. This was why plenty of his co-workers kept a shotgun loaded up with rock salt next to the door, but he’d never had any issues that a calm, reasonable tone and his grizzly form couldn’t fix.

  Wildlife management and forestry weren’t the most predictable of gigs, and on the off-chance that it was someone who needed help, Nik plugged in the espresso machine and flipped it on. He was just setting out the milk when there was a rapid knock.

  He answered the door just as he became aware of the fact he wasn’t wearing a shirt, and then he looked at his visitor and couldn’t look away.

  It wasn’t that she was Asian or that she had pink hair, and a gold stud piercing her lower lip. It wasn’t that she filled out her jeans really, really nicely. It wasn’t that she was carrying something that smelled a lot like his mother’s venison stew or even that there was a heavily pregnant cat sitting on her shoulder.

  It was the fact that she looked into his eyes, and in that moment, everything in the world went perfectly still. He was certain that somewhere out there, birds still flew, dogs still barked, and fish still swam. It was just that the world as far as he knew it, as far as he cared about it, was utterly still and silent because he was looking at his true mate.

  All shifters knew they had a true mate out there somewhere, and if they were lucky enough to find them, that was it. That was them, forever, and his heart beat faster at the idea that it was actually happening to him on this chilly winter day.

  He’d had heard about it all his life, but now that the moment came, there were no words. It was just him and the woman that he was for, and there was nothing in the world like it.

  She gazed at him in return, her dark eyes as deep as the hidden pools in the forest, her lips slightly parted. There was a shine to her lips, cherry gloss, his grizzly noted, and all he could think about was what it might be like to kiss her, to take her in his arms and–

  Suddenly the cat on his true mate’s shoulder decided she had had enough of whatever the hell this was, and she leaped from the woman’s shoulder to his own. He liked cats and he was used to working with unpredictable animals, but he flinched, one hand coming up to steady the cat and to make sure she didn’t claw his bare flesh to ribbons.

  She was only there for a moment, however, and then she streaked towards his bedroom.

  “Hey!” he started, and his true mate uttered a yelp, putting the stew down by the door to go after the cat.

  My true mate is fast, his grizzly noted proudly, and yes, that was nice, but it didn’t help him figure out what exactly was happening.

  He followed her following the cat into his bedroom, and found her on her knees by his dresser. It was a rickety thing with a bottom drawer that didn’t close all the way, which usually didn’t matter because he only kept his underwear in there.

  It was one of those things that wasn’t broken enough to need fixing, and apparently the cat – the very pregnant little gray cat–felt the same way. She turfed her way under a pair of boxers while kneading the rest into submission, and as they both watched, she circled a few times and nestled in with an exhausted little sigh.