A Flame To Bear (Fire Bear Shifters 4) Read online

  It felt odd to be jumping without one hundred pounds of gear like he did on every work jump. But he definitely wasn't complaining about that. He hadn't done a jump without gear since the very beginning of smokejumper training. He knew that Charlotte, Ian's lifemate, had gone to several drop zones and done recreational skydiving. Charlotte was obsessed with canopy control and learning how to better steer her parachute, and jumping for fun gave her a good opportunity to practice that.

  The planes Trevor jumped out of for work usually didn’t have any seats, but the plane he and Bailey were in right now had two long benches. All of the jumpers sat facing forward with their legs straddling the bench, and Trevor sat in front of Bailey and her tandem instructor. He glanced back at her and gave her an encouraging smile, but she didn't even notice. She was looking out the window, her face pale and drawn. She’d been so adamant that she couldn't do this that Trevor hadn't been sure whether he would actually be able to get her on the plane today. It had turned out to be a lot less difficult than he thought, though. He had a feeling that, deep down, she really wanted to prove to herself that she could do it. Trevor had felt similarly the first time he jumped out of a plane. Everything in him had rebelled against the idea, but if he’d wanted to continue to work as a forest firefighter, he hadn't had a choice. The hardest moment had been the very first time he stood in the open door of an airplane. He’d felt sick to his stomach, sure that if he took that step out of the airplane that nothing good could come of it. But he’d closed his eyes, forced himself not to think about it, and taken the step anyway. Once he was out of the plane, in the open air, he didn't have time to think about being scared anymore. His training had taken over, and he had forgotten about everything except following procedures. Trevor's first jump had been a static line jump, meaning that he was attached to a cord that automatically pulled his parachute as he fell away from the aircraft. It had taken several more jumps for Trevor to truly be comfortable with standing in the door of an airplane, but nothing had been as terrifying as that first jump.

  Now, as they approached the jumping altitude, Trevor felt completely comfortable. But, as the jumpers in front of them started exiting the aircraft, Bailey began to freak out.

  “I can't do this,” she cried. “No way! Take me back down!”

  “Don't worry, you're going to be fine,” the instructor said. “Just relax, and you'll be having the time of your life before you know it.”

  “I can’t relax!” Bailey said. But she didn't fight the instructor as he pushed her toward the doorway of the plane. Trevor and the skydiver who would be videotaping the jump stepped out of the plane and onto a long step outside the door, holding onto a metal bar just above them. The tandem instructor stood hunched in the airplane’s doorway with Bailey attached to him. She looked as white as a ghost, and mouthed a series of silent “oh my gods.” At the instructor's signal, the three of them leapt from the plane at the same time. Trevor watched as the expression on Bailey's face went from one of panic to one of sheer joy. He breathed his own little sigh of relief. Maybe she wasn't going to kill him, after all.

  Chapter Ten

  Bailey had squeezed her eyes shut as she stood in the door of the aircraft, waiting for the moment that the instructor would push her out to her doom. Everything on the ground looked so tiny from up there, and she didn't want to see it anymore. Sure, she'd been in an airplane before, and seen the world below passing by in miniature. But it had always been from the safety and security of a commercial airline seat. Seeing the world below looking so far away from the open door of an airplane was an entirely different animal. Bailey hadn't wanted to watch anymore, and that's why she closed her eyes. She felt herself lurch forward as the tandem instructor left the airplane. She'd expected to feel the same kind of drop that you felt when plunging downward on a roller coaster, but it hadn't felt like that at all. Instead, she suddenly felt like she was floating, almost like the sky was a giant pool of water. The air rushing by her ears sounded like a raging waterfall. When she opened her eyes, she saw Trevor floating in the sky right in front of her. She smiled, and Trevor smiled back. Then he gave her a little wave before spinning around, doing a complete three-sixty in the air. The next thing Bailey knew, her instructor did a three-sixty as well in response. Then Trevor and the instructor moved toward each other, until Trevor was right in front of Bailey again. He reached out, grabbed Bailey's hand, and blew her an air kiss.

  “Oh my god,” Bailey screamed into the loud air. But, this time, she meant the expression with joy instead of terror. The tandem instructor continued to twirl her around in the sky, and, before she knew it, Trevor was giving her a little wave. She’d waved back, and then felt a sudden jerk upward as the open parachute above her filled with air and abruptly slowed her freefall. Bailey realized that Trevor had been waving goodbye because he knew her instructor was about to pull the parachute handle.

  “So, that wasn't so bad was it?” the instructor asked.

  “That was amazing!” Bailey replied. She looked up at the parachute above them, its colorful green and yellow fabric displayed brilliantly against the bright sun. The exhilarating rush of freefall had given way to the peaceful quiet of drifting slowly under an open parachute. After several minutes of floating, the instructor brought them to a soft landing right near the airplane hangar. Trevor had already landed, and was standing in the grassy landing area with his parachute neatly folded up in his arms.

  “So, how was it?” he asked, coming over to where the tandem instructor was unhooking Bailey from the parachute harness. Bailey looked up at him, her face still flushed with excitement.

  “Incredible!” she said. “I can't believe you convinced me to do that.”

  “See,” Trevor said. “I told you that you could do it.”

  Bailey shrugged in response. She could hardly believe herself that she had actually just done that. But then, she could hardly believe she’d quit her job, or that she was considering staying in northern California permanently. She had changed a lot of things about her life in the last week, and she was beginning to believe that she really could do anything. She still had no idea what she would do for work out here, but she had no idea what she would do back in D.C., either. She definitely didn't want to go back to being a journalist. She had a chance to find a job she truly enjoyed, and she wasn't going to waste that opportunity.

  About an hour later, the edited video of Trevor and Bailey's jump was ready. DVD in hand, they walked back out to Trevor's SUV.

  “Looks like tonight is movie night,” Bailey said, as she held up the DVD and waved it back and forth.

  Trevor laughed. “Whatever you want, my dear. Right now, I'm starving. Does my crazy little daredevil feel like anything in particular?”

  Bailey grinned. “Pizza!” she said. “I'm so hungry I feel like I could eat a whole pie.”

  “Pizza it is, then,” Trevor said. “That seems like an appropriate ‘post-jumping-out-of-an-airplane’ meal. I know just the place.”

  Trevor pulled out of the parking lot, and fifteen minutes later they were in the small downtown area of a quaint little town near the skydiving center. They ordered the Supreme, and, although Bailey didn't eat the whole thing, she did manage to put away half. As she climbed back into Trevor's SUV, she looked over at him and smiled. The days with him just kept getting better and better.

  On the way back to the hotel, she convinced Trevor to stop by a Wal-Mart so that they could pick up a cheap movie from the bargain bin—Bailey hadn't been kidding about the movie night, although she obviously wanted to find a movie other than their short skydiving recap. As they browsed through the discount selections, however, Trevor’s mood seemed to worsen with every passing minute.

  “Do you not want to watch a movie tonight?” Bailey asked, thinking that maybe Trevor just wasn’t in the mood to sit in front of a television. “We can find something else to do, if you prefer.”

  Trevor sighed and furrowed his brow. “No, a movie sounds great. Sorr
y, I just have a lot on my mind right now.”

  Bailey shrugged and went back to browsing DVDs, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was somehow responsible for Trevor’s sour mood. They bought a movie and some beer, then went back to the hotel room and ordered Chinese takeout. When their noodles arrived, they opened a couple beers and sat on the bed with their to-go boxes. Bailey started the DVD so that they could watch while they ate. She hoped that once Trevor became distracted by the movie, he would forget about whatever it was that was bothering him. But even after they had finished eating and the movie had been playing for about thirty minutes, the scowl on Trevor’s face had only grown deeper. Bailey grabbed the remote and hit pause on the DVD.

  “Okay, something is obviously bothering you,” Bailey said. “I don’t think you’re paying attention to this movie at all.”

  Trevor let out a deep sigh. “You're right,” he said. “There is something bothering me. A big something. But I'm afraid that if I tell you what it is, then you won't want to see me anymore.”

  “Oh, come on,” Bailey said. “How bad could it be? You’re not about to tell me you’re some sort of axe murderer or something, are you?”

  “No, it’s nothing…bad. It’s just that there’s something about me that’s really different, and I don’t know how to explain it to you.”

  “Just spit it out. You seem relatively normal to me. How bad could it be?” Bailey asked.

  Trevor rubbed his forehead and then ran his fingers through his hair. He stared up at the ceiling for a long moment, and then finally returned his gaze to Bailey.

  “Fine. You know what? Screw it,” he said. “I am just going to spit it out. I honestly don’t think there’s a better way to tell you this, anyway.”

  Bailey looked over at him expectantly, waiting for him to continue. On the television screen, the frame was frozen on an exploding car. When Trevor was silent for several more moments, Bailey decided to give him a little nudge.

  “So?” she asked. “What’s the deal?”

  Trevor took a loud, deep breath while looking uncertainly over at Bailey. “I’m a bear shifter,” he said.

  Silence hung in the air for a few moments. What he said didn’t make sense to Bailey, and she thought she must have misheard him. “I’m sorry, what?” she asked.

  “I’m a bear shifter,” Trevor repeated.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Bailey said.

  “You’ve never heard of bear shifters?” Trevor asked, his face looking strained.

  “No,” Bailey said. “Care to explain?”

  “I guess they didn’t cover that in journalism school,” Trevor said, the frustration in his voice clearly coming through. “A bear shifter is basically someone who can change forms from human to bear and back again on demand. It’s a genetic mutation, so it’s not contagious or anything like that. But, essentially, what I’m trying to tell you is that I’ve got a bear living inside of me.”

  Bailey nearly fell off the bed. “Oh my god,” she said between laughs. “How many beers have you had?”

  “Bailey, I’m serious. You’ve been with me all day. You know that this is the first beer I’ve had.”

  “I’m sorry. I just can’t take you seriously right now. People don’t just turn into bears, at least not in the real world. If you’re trying to pull one over on me right now or something, then you might as well stop. I’m not that gullible,” Bailey said. She wiped tears of laughter from her eyes as she looked at Trevor in amazement. He was doing a remarkably impressive job of acting serious. But her laughter stopped when she saw his expression changing into one of anger.

  “You know what? Forget it,” he said. “I should have known this was too good to be true. Maybe it’s all a joke to you, but this is my life. I’m glad you think it’s so funny.”

  Bailey forced herself to stop laughing. “Aw, don’t be mad just because you can’t fool me,” she said. “I’m a journalist by training, so I’m used to dealing with facts. If you want to trick someone into thinking that werebears or bear shifters or whatever you want to call them actually exist, then you’ve got the wrong girl. Now, do you want to tell me what’s really bothering you?”

  Trevor’s only response was to cross his arms and look at Bailey with angry, churning eyes. Before she could once again admonish him to get over his bad mood, she was knocked backward by what felt like a small explosion. She landed on the floor next to the bed, and she pulled herself up from the carpet in a confused daze. What the hell had just happened?

  When she lifted her eyes up to look at the bed, she let out a bloodcurdling scream at what she saw. On the bed, where she and Trevor had just been sitting moments before, sat a giant black bear. She looked around wildly, trying to find Trevor. But she didn’t see him. And then, she noticed the bear’s piercing green eyes. They looked just like Trevor’s. She stood slowly, and took a few steps backward while covering her open mouth with her hands.

  “It’s you,” Bailey said. “It’s really you. You weren’t kidding.”

  The bear huffed in response, its round, furry ears twitching back and forth. Bailey let her gaze wander over the bear in shocked amazement. Its fur was thick and boasted a sleek, black color. Each of its paws equaled nearly the size of Bailey’s head. And the long, sharp claws at the end of each paw could easily have done some serious damage if the bear decided to take a swipe at her. All of a sudden, the name “Burning Claws Crew” made perfect sense.

  “Are the rest of your friends bear shifters too?” Bailey asked, then realized that Trevor probably couldn’t answer her while in bear mode. Well, unless he was a talking bear. But that didn’t seem to be the case, since he hadn’t said anything since he shifted. As soon as she asked the question, she was knocked backward again by another small explosion. When she sat up, the bear was gone. In its place, Trevor sat on the bed. He was stark naked. That’s when Bailey noticed that the clothes he had been wearing were spread across the room in dozens of torn shreds of fabric.

  “Most of the crew are shifters,” Trevor said. “Charlotte, Ian’s wife, is human. She’s the only firefighter on our crew that’s not a bear. Riley and River, Hunter’s and Luke’s girlfriends, are human, too.”

  “And they’re…okay with this? With you guys randomly turning into bears?”

  “Well, yes, they’re okay with it. But it’s not random. I’m completely in control of when I shift back and forth.”

  Bailey sat on the floor, trying to process what she had just seen. The longer she sat there and thought about it, the angrier she became. “You should have told me,” she said.

  Trevor’s face looked pained. “I’m sorry, Bailey. I wanted to, but I didn’t know exactly how to tell you. Or when the right moment was to break the news.”

  Bailey stood up, her face flushing red with anger. “I’ll tell you when the right moment was—it was before you slept with me. I can’t believe you would let me have sex with you without telling me you were a bear.”

  “You make it sound like I’m a complete wild animal, Bailey. It’s not like that. I’m human, I just happen to be able to shift into bear form. But, other than that, I’m not that different from you.”

  “You let me sleep with you without knowing you were a bear,” Bailey repeated, her eyes blazing. “Here I was, thinking you were this amazing, sweet, romantic guy. I trusted you. I even jumped out of a fucking plane with you. And then you drop this bombshell on me and I find out you’re not who I thought you were at all.”

  “Bailey, I am who I said I was. I just happen to be a bear in addition to that. I’ve tried to be sweet and romantic with you because I truly care about you. None of this has been made up. Please, just give me a chance. You’ll see that I’m not really that different from you deep down.”

  Bailey stared at Trevor, unable to formulate a reply. She didn’t think she had ever been so angry in her entire life. Not even when her ex-boss had cared more about his story than about Conner’s death. At least her ex-bo
ss hadn’t pretended to be anything other than a jerk. Trevor had hidden his true self from her. How could he think it wouldn’t matter to her that he was half bear? Her skin crawled at the thought of it. Trevor looked over at her with pleading eyes, but all she could feel toward him in that moment was coldness.

  She had dared to hope that she had finally found a man who cared about her. She thought she had finally found a man who knew how to treat a woman right, and who knew the meaning of honor and loyalty. And he had hidden a huge secret from her in the first days of their fledgling relationship.

  “Bailey…” Trevor said, letting his voice trail off. He seemed to be fishing for the right words to say to make this better. But nothing could make it better. He had lied to her. He had let her down.

  Bailey raised her finger and pointed at the door. “Get out,” she said.

  Trevor’s face fell. “Bailey, please,” he said.

  “Get out,” she repeated, her voice hard and unfeeling.

  Trevor looked like he was considering protesting again, but then he set his face in a hard line. “Fine,” he said.

  He stormed into the bathroom and grabbed a towel, then wrapped it around his waist. He didn’t bother to grab the tennis shoes he’d left by the door earlier. He just snatched his keys from the hotel dresser and left the room without another look at Bailey, slamming the door behind him.

  With the sound of the door’s slam reverberating in her ear, Bailey sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed. The takeout boxes were smashed as a flat as pancakes by the weight Trevor’s bear had put on them. On the television, the screen remained frozen with the scene of the car explosion.

  An explosion.

  It now seemed like the perfect analogy for what the last week of Bailey’s life had been like. What had she been thinking, believing that she could actually change her life? Had she really been considering moving cross country for Trevor’s sake, just hours earlier? What an idiot she’d been. These kinds of things only worked out in movies.