Chapter 23 The Bear
the bear
BELL
Less than five minutes later, all three men stood on my back porch, looking at the carved bear.
The silence stretched.
And stretched.
My anxiety climbed as I realized it might be really bad.
Okay, my sculpture obviously wasn’t as bear-dacious as I thought it was when the wood stopped humming.
I mean, a roaring bear? Talk about amateur hour.
And these three guys were bear shifters.
They were probably looking at my sculpture like, “Bitch, this is what you spent weeks working on?” I felt so childish now. I’d so completely missed the mark on—
“Bell,” Zion said, interrupting my insecurity spiral. “This is extraordinary. Just extraordinary.”
Boone shook his head. “You being truthful about never working with wood before? Cuz this dude looks like he should be in a museum.”
“Seriously?” As it turned out, artists never got too old for compliments. My heart felt like it was about to burst out of my chest. “You like it? You think it’s good?”
“Without question, wood is your medium,” Zion declared. “Have you given any thought—”
He cut off. Looked over to Ravik for a few beats. Then turned back to me.
“Ravik would like to purchase this work of art from you, to stand outside our totem cave. He’s asking that you name your price.”
“What?” I blinked. Then stuttered, “N-no payment. I m-mean you’ve done so much for me. Of course you can have—”
Ravik picked up the three-foot statue like it weighed nothing before I could finish. Then walked away with it tucked under one arm.
My chest squeezed as I watched him leave. Like he’d won a prize.
“Guess he liked it most of all,” Boone rumbled beside me.
“Indeed, he did,” Zion agreed. I wasn’t looking at him, but I heard the wry smile in his voice. “Thank you, on our first maul’s behalf.”
That night, Zion and Boone walked me around the lake. And I monopolized the conversation, talking about myself.
I told them the story of how I’d come to free the bear. How the cedar round had hummed, calling out to me, telling me what it wanted to become.
Zion nodded along as if I were stating scientific facts that made complete sense, asking questions about what the humming felt like, and whether the song changed at various stages of the bear’s liberation.
Boone just grinned and said, “Magic’s real, sugar. Especially here.”
And the next morning, I woke up to find eight new rounds of wood waiting for me on the back deck. Every single one of them was humming.
Thank you, Ravik.
That evening, I asked Boone, “Does Bear Mountain have a library? I need reference books.”
It was just him tonight. Zion and Ravik had a vague “thing” up in Bear Mountain, according to Boone—who was not great at gossip, like Zion.
Boone’s face did something complicated.
“What?” I asked, a little alarmed.
“Yeah, Bear Mountain doesn’t have one, and maybe don’t ask Ravik and Zion about it.” His hand went up to the back of his neck. “You know about Zion’s birth daughter?”
I raised my eyebrows. “The one that’s in Vancouver and still not talking to either him or Ravik?”
I felt so much guilt around not telling Holly and Noelle I was here that I generally avoided the topic of Ravik’s and Zion’s maul kids, since two of them were planning to marry my daughters in July. But, of course, I remembered that deep conversation Zion and I had when he cut my hair.
“Yeah, her,” Boone said. “I’ve only gotten flashes of what went down around her exile, but I know Mara wanted to start a library here before she got kicked out, and Zion and Ravik still feel hella guilty about not supporting her dreams. But why do you need a library?”
“It’s going to sound kind of crazy, but one of the wood pieces is saying it’s kind of a totem—but not a totem. I’m not sure exactly what I’m looking for, just that I’d love to get my hands on some reference books.”
Boone winced. “Well, you know, that’s not my area, sugar, but maybe when Ravik gets back you can ask him to go to the bookstore or something. Just not the library, okay?”
It was so strange. I’d never thought of Ravik as a person with feelings—ones that needed to be protected.
But, of course, I didn’t want to hurt him.
Ever. And there was no way I was going to actually ask him for anything.
I decided to just make do with all the gifts he’d already given me—seeing as how I didn’t even deserve them and had given him nothing in return except one bear, sourced from a piece of wood he’d given me.
Whatever the “thing” was, it kept Ravik and Zion away for the next night, too.
But when I woke up the following morning, I found a book on top of one of the smaller stumps that had hummed at me that it was a cub.
I picked up the top one. It had a striking close-up of a totem face on the cover and the title TOTEM: The Art of the Canadian West.
It was exactly what I needed. And when I opened it, I found an old-fashioned return card from Blue Water Public Library tucked inside an affixed pocket.
Ravik of the Great Claw Mountains was printed across the third slot down in neat block letters.
Next to it, a checkout date for three weeks from yesterday was stamped.
Blue Water. That was the name of the town with the public high school Zion had mentioned a couple of times, where some of the upperclassmen went for advanced classes.
So, Ravik had left whatever his thing was in Bear Mountain to drive all the way there, find exactly what I needed, and check it out on his library card.
My heart flipped, twisted, then melted. And there was no more denying it. Yep, yep…
I needed to make that man another batch of “thank you” sugar cookies. It was time to give talking to him another chance.
I had enough raspberry jam to make thumbprint cookies, and not feel dirty about it—since I was giving them to Ravik, not Zion.
How did the retired Mountie eat cookies, anyway? Probably neatly, with no crumbs spilling whatsoever. The opposite of Boone, who’d straight up Cookie Monstered a few of the half-batch I gave him, smashing them whole into his mouth before he walked out the door.
But not Ravik.
As I pressed my thumb into each ball of dough, creating the well for the jam, I imagined the rigid first maul eating them slowly, evaluating each bite. With his shirt off, for some reason, because he was careful when he was eating, oh-so careful, as his tongue….
Okay, stop, just stop, Bell. You are definitely toeing the line between imagination and fantasy for some reason….
I caught myself with a shake of my head. They were just cookies. A thank you. Nothing more.
Clack! Clack! Clack!
I thought of the bear who’d returned in my dreams at least once a week since I moved here.
Nothing more. I’m not letting you in.
While they baked, I gave the cottage a long overdue tidy up.
Dusted, swept up the wood shavings I’d tracked across the house, gave a long-neglected pile of laundry a good washing and hung it up outside to dry, and picked up the orange coat I’d left slung across the old leather wing-back chair last night.
I usually wore it for evening walks, but it was getting too heavy with the warming weather.
I grabbed it to hang in the closet, thinking I’d switch to my old leather jacket. But as I lifted it, I noticed the lining felt thick. Structured.
Wait. Did the coat have a removable liner?
I checked the zipper along the inner seam. It did.
Maybe I could keep using my gift from Noelle then, continue reminding myself that I’d work up the nerve to see her and Holly. Eventually.
With that in mind, I unzipped the liner carefully, working it free from the shell.
A piece of paper fluttered out and landed face-up on the floor.
The room tilted, and cold crawled up my spine when I saw Dennis’s handwriting staring back at me.