Bearly Saved My Life: Madison Range Shifters (Quake Lake Bears Book 2) Page 2

  “It’s fine.” He opened his door. “I don’t know what she had in that jar, but it sure worked.”

  “Is everything else alright?” Charles asked.

  “Yeah, I just didn’t sleep well last night. I think I’m going to go back to bed for a while and see if I can get some sleep.”

  “You’ll tell me if there’s something bothering you.”

  “Don’t worry Charlie, everything is fine.” He closed his door and left Charles standing in the hall.

  “Is everything alright?” Charles turned around to find Jackie standing in the doorway of their bedroom.

  “Yes, sweetheart. Everything is fine. Robert burned his hand. Heidi had some salve that fixed him right up. Apparently, he had a bad night. He’s gone back to bed.”

  “Really.” Jackie was puzzled at Roberts strange behavior.

  “I promised to show the girls how to make Peg’s famous bacon waffles. Are you coming down?” He went to her and gave her a passionate kiss. “Mmm, maybe I’ll make them wait,” he wrapped his arms around her, “I love you,” he whispered.

  “And I love bacon waffles,” she whispered back. She gave him a big kiss. “It’s your fault. Now I’m hungry and want waffles.”

  Charles laughed, “Your wish is my command. You get dressed and they will be ready by the time you come downstairs.” He gave her another quick kiss and headed for the kitchen.

  The rest of the morning was full of fun and joking around. They didn’t see Robert again until dinner time.

  Chapter 3

  Jackie spent most of the day with Franny and Heidi. Becky and Fletch shifted and went for a run with Charles. They had a great time playing in the snow. Robert stayed in his room.

  As the girls talked, Heidi seemed preoccupied.

  “Heidi, is everything alright?” Franny asked. “You’re never this quiet. I swear, Jackie, she’s usually a down right Chatty Cathy. Never stops talking. I’ve barely heard her say a word since breakfast.”

  “Is something bothering you?” Jackie asked.

  Heidi let out a long sigh. “I may as well tell you. You’ll find out eventually anyway, but you must give me your word you won’t say anything. Not to Becky or Fletch and especially, not Charles.” Both the girls stared at her. “You have to promise.”

  “All right. We promise,” Jackie told her. Heidi looked at Franny and raised a questioning brow.

  “Oh, all right. I promise not to say anything.”

  “I think Robert and I are mates, and I think he does, too.”

  Jackie and Franny were speechless. Jackie didn’t know what to say. Finally, she cleared her throat. “Has Robert said anything?”

  “No. I don’t think he likes me. I think that’s why he’s been avoiding us, well, me. Just my luck, right. I find my mate and he hates me.”

  “Heidi, don’t say that,” Jackie told her. “You have to talk to him.”

  “I can’t. He knows, I know he does and he’s staying away. He doesn’t want to have anything to do with me because I am damaged goods.” Heidi looked down at her hands and played with a clip that had been in her hair.

  “I’ll talk to him,” Jackie told her.

  “Noooo! You promised not to say anything. If you do, I’ll go home. I’ll leave today. I’ll take the bus. I’ll hitch-hike if I have to.”

  “Alright, alright. Settle down. I’ll talk to Charles.”

  “You can’t,” Heidi cried.

  “Hold on. I won’t tell him, but I’ll ask him to talk to Robert and find out what is putting him out of sorts. He never behaves like this, staying away. I must agree, he is acting odd.”

  “Do you think he’ll confess how he feels to Charles?” Heidi asked.

  “I’m sure he will. It may take a while, but he’ll find out.” Jackie felt sorry for her. “Now, what you have to do is ignore him. Act normal and look sexy.” That made Franny laugh.

  “Oh, Jackie, good luck with that. Heidi never uses make up or lipstick. She always wears her hair the same way and never dresses up. Look at her, yoga pants and a sweatshirt. That’s all she ever wears.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to work on that. We don’t have to do it today, but we will have you ready by Thanksgiving dinner.” Jackie was already making plans in her head. She wasn’t about to let Robert ignore his true mate.

  “Come on, you two. I need your help to prepare dinner,” Jackie smiled, trying to make the mood a bit more cheerful. “How about roast chicken, scalloped potatoes and corn?”

  “Yummy, I’m starving already,” Becky said. “Potatoes, here I come. I’m an expert at peeling potatoes.”

  “Wonderful. I hate peeling potatoes, I always make Charles or Robert do it for me.” The three headed for the kitchen.

  As they walked into the kitchen, the back door closed like someone had just gone out. Becky looked out the door and saw Robert heading for the lake.

  “You don’t think he heard us, do you?” She looked back at Jackie and Heidi.

  “No, he was probably just on his way out.” At least Jackie hoped so.

  *****

  Dinner was great. Robert was polite and thanked Heidi for taking care of his burn, it was almost completely healed by the end of the day. He admitted to her that her salve had taken the sting out of it.

  “I’d like to know how you make your salve, Heidi,” Charles told her. “It would be great having something like that during fire season. We get so many campers, and fire fighters for that matter, that get burned. I spoke to my brother and he said he would like to produce it. Would that be alright, you’d be paid, of course.”

  “Really!” Heidi was surprised. “It’s just an old family remedy. I don’t think you can get all the ingredients here though. I have relatives send me what I need when my jar is almost empty.”

  “You just tell me what we need and we’ll get it. My brother has connections all over the world, he can get what is needed. It isn’t a secret family remedy, is it? You’re not sworn to secrecy or anything?”

  “No, nothing like that.” She gave Charles a big smile. She didn’t want to offend him by laughing. She though he was being totally silly.

  “Let me explain. We must conform to manufacturing laws, so we have to be sure everything is legit. We don’t want to get sued by your family if there are any legal issues.”

  “No, nothing like that, but I can double check if you like.”

  “Yes, I would,” Charles replied. “Now, enough business talk. Time to eat.”

  The rest of the meal was pleasant. Fletch and Becky told Franny and Heidi all about their run with Charles.

  “Franny, you wouldn’t believe it, the lake was created by an earthquake. The lake wasn’t here when they first moved here.”

  Franny looked at Charles. “You’re lucky your home didn’t end up under water.”

  “It almost did.”

  They had had a great day. They had one more day before Thanksgiving. Charles offered to take Franny and Heidi out the next day.

  “No, that’s okay,” Heidi told him. “I’ll stay inside where it’s warm.”

  Robert snickered. “I thought you were a bear?”

  “I am. Do you know anything about Pandas?”

  “Not really,” was Roberts reply.

  “I didn’t think so.” She instantly realized she was being bitchy. “Sorry. Giant Panda’s live in cool, humid, bamboo forests in China. Some live high in the Qin mountains. They don’t exactly live in cold snowy areas if they don’t have to.”

  “Does that mean you can’t handle cold weather?’ He asked.

  “No. It means we prefer warm to cold. But I can handle cold if I have to. I just don’t choose to be cold. I had enough of that before...” She stopped what she was about to say and took a bite of salad to avoid further comment.

  Robert shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever.” He continued to eat his dinner. Jackie and Franny gave each other a worried look. It didn’t go unnoticed and Charles decided he would find out what was going on
later.

  After dinner, the girls volunteered to do the dishes and clean up. It gave Charles a chance to kick back with Robert and Fletch in the den and watch some football. Jackie hadn’t had a chance to talk to him.

  Robert sat shaking one foot which he always did when he was unsettled about something.

  “Robert, you do realize that Heidi is one of the shifters that we found naked and nearly beaten to death in Oregon.” He gave his bother a glare.

  “Ah shit. I did know, but I fucking forgot all about that. Sorry, it’s just something about her that puts me off. I’d better go and apologize for being rude.”

  “No, let it go for now. Maybe at another time when the two of you have a chance to talk, you can apologize then.”

  Robert had no intention of sitting down with Heidi and having a talk. She made him irritable and nervous.

  *****

  After everything was done, the girls sat in the kitchen and talked.

  “Does Holly know we’re coming for Thanksgiving?” Becky asked. “I’d love to see her.”

  Holly was another of the girls, a white wolf, that had been rescued in Oregon. She had come with Charles and Jackie when they returned home and met her mate, a gray wolf, ironically named James Wolf. James was one of Charles’ best friends and alpha of the wolves on the Peak.

  “James and Holly are coming by tomorrow. Oh, and you’ll get to meet Amy, his sister. She’s the one that taught me all about shifters and how to shift. She can’t wait to meet you. I think she wants to see how good a job I did.”

  “Are James and Holly planning on having a family?” Franny asked.

  “I think they want to wait until they can build their own house. They don’t really want to raise kids in town. Holly got a job as a dispatcher with the forest service, that’s were Amy works. Most of his family work for the forest service.”

  “Charles and Robert work for Search and Rescue, right?” Becky added.

  “Yes, and hopefully they don’t get any calls in the next couple of days.” Jackie crossed her fingers on one hand and knocked on wood, the table, with the other.

  “They wouldn’t make them work over Thanksgiving, would they?”

  Jackie laughed. “Franny, of course they would. If someone needs to be found and rescued, it doesn’t matter what day it is.”

  “That sucks, I wouldn’t work for them,” Franny told them.

  “Well, they aren’t the only ones. There are lots of people that have to work on the holidays.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I didn’t think about that. Do people eat Big Macs on Thanksgiving?”

  That made Jackie laugh. “I’m sure people that don’t have families go out to eat.”

  Again, Heidi sat without saying anything. Franny just shook her head.

  “Heidi, what’s it like in China?” Jackie asked.

  “It’s beautiful and green,” she said softly. “Things are so different there, slower, except for Beijing. It’s crammed packed with too many people. My family lives away from the city in the low mountains where it is quiet.”

  “When was the last time you went home to visit?” she asked.

  “I returned for a visit before it happened.”

  “Before it happened?” It was odd the way she put it. “You mean what happened in Oregon?” Heidi nodded her head. Robert had gotten up to get a couple of beers and heard them talking. He stopped in the hall to listen.

  “I can never go home, now. I have shamed my family and they will no longer allow me in their village. They would turn their backs to me,” Heidi said quietly, “to them, I no longer live, I am dead.”

  “The whole village?” Jackie was shocked when Heidi nodded.

  “That’s terrible and unfair. You didn’t have any choice in what happened.” Jackie couldn’t believe they would do such a thing.

  “It is their way. I think I will go to bed now. If you will excuse me.”

  “Heidi, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “I’m alright, I have reconciled in my heart and don’t blame them.”

  As Heidi got up from the table, Robert quietly walked down the hall before she could see him.

  What he had heard made him angry. How could someone do that to her. It wasn’t her fault. If her family lived here, he would give them a piece of his mind. Their customs were barbaric. Robert grabbed a few beers and returned to the den.

  Chapter 4

  Robert couldn’t sleep. He tossed and turned and finally got up. He silently walked to the kitchen to get something to drink. He heard a noise down the hall and went to investigate. For some reason, he wasn’t surprised to hear Heidi quietly crying in her room. He felt bad for her and angry with himself for being so rude. There was nothing he could do now. He got his drink and went back to bed and was finally able to go to sleep.

  Charles was up early. He wanted to get a brine ready for the turkey. He had a special recipe and it took a while to put it all together. Robert was the next one up. Charles had already fixed the coffee. Robert grabbed his cup and helped himself.

  “Charlie, do you know anything about Heidi?” he asked.

  “Not much, why?”

  “I heard the girls talking last night. Heidi said she can never go home to her family because of what happened to her. She said her family was ashamed of her and they would refuse to recognize her as family. That’s not right.” Robert sipped his coffee.

  “No, it isn’t, but it’s probably their culture. I’ve heard of things like that before. Nothing we can do about it.” Charles continued to cook his brine. “She’s a nice girl, I like her. That’s one of the reasons I want Mack to work on her healing salve. If he’s successful and it sells, she’ll make a small fortune.”

  “I hope for her sake, it does,” Robert told him. “I heard her crying last night.”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “No. To be honest, I didn’t know what to do, so I went back to bed. I didn’t want to butt in. What could I say?”

  “You could have given her some comfort, a shoulder to cry on.” Jackie had told Charles about Robert and Heidi when they went to bed the night before. How Heidi suspected that Robert was her mate. She knew she had promised not to say anything, but she couldn’t keep it from Charles.

  “You don’t think that would have been inappropriate?”

  “You have a lot to learn about woman. When they are upset, unless they are mad at you personally, they want someone to hold them, and if they say they don’t, they’re lying. Do you remember when Jackie first got here?” Robert nodded. “She cried, yes, but when I held her, she let it all go. All the hurt and the feelings she had held in for so long. I hadn’t even realized she was my mate yet. I was just a pair of arms to comfort her. When I realized she was my mate, all of me was there for her. I imagine Heidi feels like Jackie did. No one should have to hurt alone.”

  Robert thought about it for a while. “Maybe we could find her family and explain to them what happened.”

  “That’s not a good idea. Families like hers have traditions and I think she would be terribly offended if you did something like that.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right.” Robert sipped his coffee. “Do you need me to help you with anything?”

  “Not right now, I just have to drop the turkey in the brine and put it in the pantry. The girls are going to bake some pies. Everything else will get done tomorrow morning.” Charles was all done. “I guess James and Holly are stopping by on their way to the Peak. I asked them to join us, but they were going to visit his folks and have dinner with them.”

  “Maybe they could get back in time to watch the game. I have a bet with James. He’s going to lose his ass.”

  Charles chuckled. “We’ll see.”

  Just then the girls came into the kitchen. Becky was her normal sparkling self. “Good morning Charles. Good morning Robert. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Nope, this is all done,” Charles told her. He picked up the big container that had th
e turkey and took it to the pantry.

  Becky and Franny fixed their coffee, while Heidi looked for the tin of tea. Robert went to the pantry and returned with the tin and set it in front of her, he didn’t drop it this time.

  “Thank you.” Heidi smiled up at him and braved meeting his eyes. He smiled back and a piece of her heart took flight. For a moment, Robert was mesmerized by the deep, sea green pools of her eyes. Someone cleared their throat and the spell was broken. They both instantly looked away.

  “Ooouch! What was that for?” Franny had kicked Becky under the table.

  “Oh, sorry. I thought it was the table leg.” She gave her a look and then remembered Becky didn’t know what was going on. She leaned into her and said sorry again in a whisper. Becky gave her a questioning look and Franny just shook her head and mouthed the word “later.”

  “Robert, are you cooking this morning or are we on our own?” Franny asked quickly before things got awkward.

  “Ladies, as much as I would love to wait on you, hand and foot, I must decline. I have chores that are calling my name, and if I don’t answer soon, you are going to hear my brother calling my name any moment.”

  “Robert!” Charles yelled. That made the girls laugh. Robert smiled and left.

  “Wow, what’s gotten into him? He has done a complete turnaround from yesterday’s Mr. Grumpy,” Becky remarked. “Who wants pancakes? I’m starving.”

  “I would like to make crepes,” Heidi spoke up.

  “Oooh, do you know how to make them?” Becky asked and Heidi nodded.

  “Tell us what you need and we’ll help,” Franny said. Just then Jackie walked in. “Heidi is going to make us crepes.”

  “That sounds wonderful. I don’t have any fresh fruit, but I have some frozen blueberries, could you use those?”

  “Oh yes, that would be perfect and whipping cream if you have any.”