Chapter 4
FOUR
CAL
Haven Shores looked exactly the same.
Cal gripped the steering wheel of his truck and stared at the town that had haunted his dreams for fifteen years.
The same quaint storefronts lining Main Street.
The same weathered fishing boats bobbing in the harbor.
The same salt-wind that cut through everything, carrying the scent of kelp and magic and memories he’d spent too long trying to forget.
His bear should have been stirring. Coming home to ancestral territory, to the mountains where generations of Ursa bears had lived and died and denned—that should have meant something to the animal inside him.
You’re fine. You’re handling it.
The lie tasted bitter, even inside his own head.
He’d driven straight through from Seattle.
Six hours without stopping, fueled by black coffee and the grim determination that had gotten him through every obstacle for the past fifteen years.
His eyes burned. His shoulders ached. The last time he’d slept more than four hours in a row was. .. he couldn’t actually remember.
Doesn’t matter. Sleep is for people who don’t have dying grandfathers and failing sleuths to deal with.
The call had come three days ago. His grandfather’s voice, thinner than Cal remembered, delivered the summons with the same quiet authority Bran had wielded his entire life.
“It’s time to come home, boy. Past time.”
Cal had wanted to refuse. Had opened his mouth to make excuses about quarterly reports and client meetings and the hundred other responsibilities that kept him chained to his desk eighteen hours a day.
But Bran had never asked him for anything. Not once in fifteen years of sporadic phone calls and even more sporadic visits. So when the old bear said come home, Cal had cleared his calendar, delegated his workload, and gotten in the truck.
Now he was here, parked on the outskirts of the town he’d fled at twenty-three, trying to remember why he’d thought he could do this.
The Ursa men leave. The whisper surfaced unbidden, the same poison that had followed him through childhood. It’s in the blood.
His father had left when Cal was eight. Marcus Ursa, the heir apparent, vanished in the night with a human woman and never looked back. Cal still remembered watching his mother’s taillights disappear down the mountain road. She’d gone to look for Marcus. She’d never come back either.
Cancer, the doctors said later. Nothing to do with Marcus. Bad luck, bad timing, bad everything.
Bran had raised him after that. And every single day, Cal had heard the whispers.
He’ll be like his father. Watch. He’ll leave too.
They’d been right. He had left. But not because he was weak—he’d left to prove them wrong. To become someone whose worth couldn’t be measured by a family name or a father’s abandonment.
He’d built Ursa Consulting from nothing. A company that generated eight figures annually. That should have proved something.
Instead, he was back where he started. Summoned home to fix a mess he’d been running from since his early twenties.
Cal scrubbed a hand over his face. The stubble there was thicker than he usually let it get—he’d been too busy to shave this morning. Too busy to eat breakfast. Too busy to do anything except throw clothes in a bag and drive.
His stomach growled. His bear remained silent.
Coffee. The thought surfaced with desperate urgency. Find coffee, then deal with the rest.
He pulled the truck onto Main Street, scanning the storefronts for decent caffeine. A bar called Moonrise Mixology. Some oddities shop. And there—a yellow Victorian cottage with window boxes full of flowers and a sign that read Honey & Hex Bakery.
His bear lifted its head.
Cal went still behind the wheel. Looking at this butter-yellow bakery with its cheerful window displays, his bear was... interested. Alert in a way it hadn’t been in longer than he could remember.
Coffee. He told himself that was why he was parking. That was why he was getting out of the truck, straightening his suit jacket, walking toward the entrance like a man on a mission.
It had nothing to do with the way his bear had suddenly perked up. Nothing to do with the light spilling through those windows, promising something he couldn’t define.
He pushed open the door. A bell chimed overhead.
And the scent washed over him.