Christmas, Pursued by a Bear Read online

  “I can’t imagine the park rangers would be thrilled with you digging up threatened plants—” Andie started. “Oh, that’s why you don’t like them.”

  “Among other reasons, but yes. Other parks have whole conservation teams, but after funding cuts this reserve is stuck with some up-jumped rent-a-cops that don’t do much other than evict people living in the backwoods in tents, or people like you, camping outside the allowed pitches.”

  “Funding cuts is a good reason to be invested in politics.”

  Cat raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, okay, I’ll allow that point.” She looked up and the moon and visibly shivered. “Getting cold. Didn’t think I’d be out this long.”

  “I thought you were planning on camping all weekend?”

  “Something like that. Throw another log on the fire, will you?”

  Andie tossed a big one into the fire, sending sparks into the air. “How’s that?”

  “Yeah. Good.” Cat reached out her slender fingers to warm them, scooting closer to the fire. “It’s getting late, are you planning on sleeping at some point?”

  “I only have a one-person tent…”

  “Don’t worry about that. I’m kind of a night owl. I’ll stick with the fire if you want to turn in.”

  “Hm…” Andie hesitated. The forest might be full of wood, but not all of it was suitable for burning, and she didn’t want this stranger to burn through all her firewood. “Can you make sure you leave me some logs for tomorrow night?”

  “Sure. You sticking around, then? Even with the imaginary bear?”

  “I have to look for my camera. It must be near that clearing where I saw the very real and terrifying bear.”

  “Alright, well, see you in the morning. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bears bite,” Cat said with an exaggerated wink.

  “Heh. Night.”

  * * *

  “Hey! You! You can’t be here!”

  Andie’s eyes flew open, and she sat up in the tent, soggy from the waist down. Turns out the rain had come, after all. If she could still find her camera, water damage was costly to repair. Her heart sank in her chest.

  “Did you hear me? Come out of there, right now!”

  “Alright, alright! Give me a second!” she shouted back, struggling to disentangle herself from her wet sleeping bag. She shivered, despite the morning sun. Unzipping the tent flap, she stuck her head outside and squinted in the light. A park ranger was standing at her extinguished campfire, clipboard in hand.

  “You’re not authorized to be camping in this area, young lady.” Andie snorted. At thirty-four years old, it wasn’t exactly accurate. “Is something funny?” the ranger demanded. “Because all I’m seeing here is a gross negligence and disrespect for the rules of this reserve. Who knows what fragile ecosystems you might have disturbed? And a campfire? Frankly, it’s an outrage!”

  “The campfire was within a ring, and it was tended and put out,” Andie argued. “But fine, whatever, I’ll pack up. I wasn’t planning on staying another night, anyway.”

  “I’ll be escorting you to the park gates immediately, in fact.”

  “What? No! My tent, and my gear—”

  “Will all be made available to you at lost and found in due time, which you can collect once your ban has expired.”

  Andie climbed clumsily out of the tent, her sock catching on the zippered closure. “Hang on, what do you mean ban?”

  The ranger smirked, her long, red braid like flames in the early light. “You will be banned from this reserve for three weeks.”

  “That’s not fair!” She’d never get a good shot, now. Her dreams of winning the wildlife competition were exploding into smoke.

  “Come with me, I will take you to the gates, where I assume your vehicle is illegally parked?”

  “Can you just give me a minute?” Andie shouted. “I just need to take a five minute walk in that direction, where I dropped my camera last night—”

  “Do I look stupid to you? You’ll just take off into the woods and leave before I confirm your car registration.”

  “You can even come with me if you want, but my camera, please—”

  “If anyone turns in a camera, you will be able to collect it from the information desk along with the rest of your things in three weeks.”

  Andie stuffed her wet feet into her boots. “Listen, lady, my camera is my livelihood. I just need five minutes.”

  “Well, maybe you should have thought about that before breaking the rules of Pine Meadows Reserve! I am duty bound to keep this park safe from transients and poachers, and—”

  “What am I going to poach with a camera, a photo?”

  “And that’s another thing - any pictures taken in the reserve must be credited to us and approved by the director.”

  “You realize this is fucking absurd, right?” Andie shot back, picking up her camera bag. No camera, but at least she still had her extra lenses and tripod. “If the director really cared about the safety and preservation of this forest, they’d clamp down on the assholes driving in from out of state for photo opportunities and leaving their crap everywhere!”

  “Tourism is what keeps this park open, I’ll have you know. Now come on, it’s time to go.”

  It was time to change tactics, if she was going to get her camera back. “Ranger…” she trailed off, looking for the badge. “Ranger Dade? I understand the pressures you are under, especially in the light of last year’s budget cuts, but if you could just spare a few minutes for me to find my camera—”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “You don’t have to be such a hard ass, you know. It wouldn’t cost you anything to just give me a minute to find my camera!”

  “Maybe next time you won’t go trespassing and getting yourself into trouble. Parts of the reserve are closed to the public for a reason, you know.” Ranger Dade tapped on her clipboard. “You didn’t see anything unusual, did you?”

  Andie swallowed hard. Something told her not to tell the ranger about the bear. “Unusual, like what?”

  “Poachers, unauthorized rock climbers.” She paused. “Invasive species.”

  “If I said yes, would you let me find my camera?”

  “No.”

  “Then no, I didn’t see anything unusual.”

  The ranger’s face clouded with anger. “Enough of this crap, I’m taking you to your vehicle and banning you for three weeks.”

  “But—”

  “Any more delays, and I’ll make it four.”

  Andie clenched her jaw. “Fine,” she said, through gritted teeth.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Cat shifted her beat up old truck into park and shoved the keys into her jeans pocket. She yawned and checked her phone, scrolling through the apps that paid her rent. If she was quick, she might be able to grab a quick nap before heading out to do some rideshares later, maybe some food delivery if she wasn’t too tired. Shifts always took it out of her.

  Slamming the door shut behind her, she had to jam the lock to keep it from drifting open again. Shitty landlord wouldn’t fix it, but what else was new? That asshole owned half the goddamn town, and now part of the reserve, too.

  “Hey Sis,” her sister Anita mumbled, sliding into one of the kitchen chairs.

  “You look like shit. Bad shift?”

  “The worst. You wouldn’t believe how many people are out lately.” Anita poured herself a bowl of cereal, spilling bits on the ground with a gentle cardboard tinkle. “Where the hell did you run off to last night, anyway?”

  “Research. And trying to keep tabs on some of the newbies up at the reserve.”

  “That ranger still giving you a hard time?”

  “I’m still managing to keep two steps ahead of her, at least. For now, anyway.” Cat sat in the other chair and grabbed the box of cereal, pouring some directly into her mouth. “Where’s everyone else?”

  Anita shrugged. “I never know what they get up to when their shifts are done.”

  “As long as they d
on’t wind up dead in a ditch somewhere. You know how things are these days. You can never be too careful.”

  “Yeah, yeah. You don’t have to lecture me all the time, you know.”

  “Any word from Mom and Dad?”

  “Is there ever?”

  Cat crunched on her cereal. “True.” Their parents had never quite forgiven them for leaving the Pacific Northwest in search of greener pastures and better jobs. Worse still was that those things hadn’t even appeared yet, despite constant searching. “Any plans today?”

  “Sleep. Class later, then I have a shift tonight.”

  “Need me to drive you?”

  “Nah.”

  “So how’s school?”

  Anita rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Catriona, can you ever just let me eat in peace? Not everyone can be so bright and bushy-tailed after a night shift.”

  “Hm.” Cat scowled at the use of her full name. She let the sound of Anita’s spoon scraping against the bottom of the bowl be the only noise for a moment before continuing. “You know I love you, right?”

  “Caaaaaat,” her sister protested, pouring another bowl of cereal. “I know. And I love you, but you really need to find someone else to bother in the mornings.”

  “Okay, okay, I hear you. I just feel like we never really talk anymore.”

  “We’re talking right now!”

  “You’re yelling at me right now, I’d hardly call that talking,” Cat grumbled.

  “Fine, what are we having for dinner?”

  “Whatever you can find in the freezer.”

  Anita poked at her cereal with her water-stained spoon. “There’s nothing good in there. We’re all out of those frozen burrito things.”

  “I know,” Cat said with a sigh. “But I’m flat broke until the next pay cycle, I had to throw some money at the city so they wouldn’t turn off the water.”

  “If you finished your nursing degree…”

  “You know that’s impossible with the night shifts. I tried.”

  “I just feel like maybe if you time it right—”

  “It’s not gonna happen, Anita. It just doesn’t work, not right now.” Cat pushed the box of cereal away. “Maybe not ever.”

  “You said that I should finish my program—”

  “That’s different, you’re a graphic designer. You can work whenever you want, once you have a decent client list. And with your people skills, I bet you’re raking it in six months after that diploma is in your hands.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Anita muttered, before draining her bowl and wiping her mouth with the back of her pale, freckled hand. “I still think you should think about trying again, Cat. You’re so good at it, and we could move out, get our own place—”

  The door crashed open, and two barely college-aged boys staggered in.

  “Cat! We missed you last night!”

  “Morning, Luke. I had to leave early, I had some stuff to do.”

  “Stuff like what? It’s not like you to knock off a shift early.”

  “Stuff.”

  “Hey Felix, you think it has anything to do with that hot woman wandering around the reserve that she was complaining about?”

  “I think it might,” Felix said, an irritating grin spreading across his face. “Did you meet someone nice, Cat?”

  “Go away, you both smell like roadkill.”

  “Aww, don’t be like that! You know we love you, Mama bear!”

  Cat grimaced. “I told you goons not to call me that, I’m barely ten years older than you.”

  “Yeah, but you let us follow you when you two left the west coast,” Luke said, more seriously this time. “Me and Felix would probably still be running around in the streets if you hadn’t let us tag along.”

  “You barely gave me a choice,” Cat said with a smirk.

  “We know, we know,” Felix said, hugging her shoulders from behind. “Just know, we are grateful for giving us a place.” He tilted his head at Anita. “And you, too, for putting up with our bullshit.”

  Anita smirked. “Yeah, and there’s plenty of it, coming from you two.” She wrinkled her nose and made a retching noise. “God, Cat was right, you do smell like roadkill. What the hell were you doing on your shift, scraping it off the highway?”

  “Ah, Nita, you know we have better taste than that,” Luke said, ruffling her hair.

  “Fuck off!” she shouted with a laugh, waving him away. “I have shit to do.”

  “Okay, bye!” Felix shouted, bounding out of the kitchen, dragging Luke with him. Their noise could be heard through the walls, the slamming of dresser drawers, the squabble about who would shower first, the heavy clambering on the bare wood flooring of the hallway.

  “Who even knows what they got up to last night,” Anita said, picking a piece of fluff off her pajamas.

  “Whoa, wait just a minute. I know why I don’t know what they were doing, but why don’t you?”

  “I dunno, Cat, maybe I just wanted to work by myself last night.”

  “Anita!”

  “Don’t get all upset, I was careful!”

  “What if someone had seen you?” Cat bit her tongue, knowing her own hypocrisy. The cute woman by the campfire had been too much to ignore.

  Anita scraped the legs of the chair back and picked up the cereal bowl from the table. “No one saw me.”

  “But what if they had?”

  “Stop worrying about stuff that didn’t happen!”

  “Of course I worry! You’re my sister!”

  “I might be your sister, but I’m also a grown woman, I’m older than the boys, and you let them do shifts alone.”

  Cat brushed off the knees of her jeans. “That’s different because they aren’t alone, they go together.”

  “Not always.”

  “Well, I’ll talk to them about that, obviously. I just don’t think it’s a good idea. It’s dangerous. There are so many people moving through town now, we don’t know where most of them are from, they don’t live around here, can’t trust them.”

  “You go out alone.”

  “That’s different because… because it just is.”

  “It’s a good thing you don’t have kids, Cat, because that excuse sucks.”

  Cat laughed. “Alright, I hear you, just… be careful. Please. I don’t know what I’d do if any of you went missing.”

  “We’re not going to go missing. Stop worrying all the time. Go to sleep, Sis, don’t you have work later?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then what are you still doing in here? Go!”

  “Where’s today’s paper?”

  Anita washed her bowl and set it in the dish rack. “What do you need that for?” she asked, her tone a little too even to be believable.

  “Why, what’s wrong?”

  Her sister sighed. “I didn’t want to tell you til later. I wanted you to get some rest.”

  “Well, I’m definitely not going to get any making up worst-case scenarios while I stare at the back of my eyelids. Come on, out with it.”

  “Here.” Anita slapped the day’s newspaper on the paper. “The zoning board is allowing the reserve development to move forward.”

  “What? No!”

  “Yeah. And it gets worse - the company buying it wants to turn it into luxury condos.”

  Cat barked out a laugh. “For who? I don’t see many high rollers around here!” She thumbed through the newspaper, swallowing back a growl when she found her answer. “You can’t be serious that it’s going to be owned and operated by Syndicorp.”

  “They said they’d be creating jobs here, that’s why it passed the board.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “Yeah, we know it’s bullshit, but if the board voted it down, people would claim they’re trying to keep the town from growing.”

  “It doesn’t need to grow! It’s fine as it is, without people coming in here and jacking up the rents, bulldozing half the goddamn forest…”

  Anita leaned against th
e peeling kitchen counter. “We could always move.”

  “With what money?”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  “I’m tired of moving, Nita. What’s it been, six times in four years?”

  “What other options are there? I mean, we can wait it out as long as we can, but you know as soon as they break ground this place is going to be swarming.”

  Cat sighed heavily, smoothing the paper out on the table. “We could try to round up some protest signatures to deliver to the board?”

  “Do you really think that will work?”

  “No. But it might buy us some time while we figure out what to do.”

  “People won’t be happy, they’ll see you as trying to keep them from better jobs. They’re not going to believe that the company will reduce that down. People never do.”

  “Well, I’ve got to figure out something, or we’ll be running forever. From higher rents, from…”

  Anita turned toward the window to hide the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. “Sometimes it makes me wish we’d never left the coast.”

  “It was the right thing to do.”

  “Yeah. But it was nice to have a place we knew we belonged.”

  “As long as we didn’t question anything.”

  “Heh. Remember that time Mom found out that we were thinking about going to college?”

  “She hit the roof.” Cat snorted. “Literally.”

  “I’m sorry, I know this is hard for you, too. I’m probably just tired.”

  “Go to bed, then. You want company on your shift tonight?”

  Cat smiled. “Yeah, that would be nice.”

  * * *

  “Alright, thanks, leave me a review!” Cat shouted as the business man climbed out of the backseat of her four-door truck. Folks dressed like that never left her a positive review. They always complained about the rust on her truck and the small tears in the fabric upholstery. As far as she was concerned, why care about what a vehicle looks like, if it’s just to get you from point A to point B? These assholes never tipped, either.