Page 36 of Taming Her Bears

“So,” Drew continued, as soon as introductions had been made and everyone was seated comfortably. “I bought a piece of property about sixty miles from Dillingham. It already has a small lodge on it, but it needs improvement. I’m going to make it bigger. It’s going to have a lounge, guest rooms, fishing guide and charter boat services, bear viewing tours. Natalia is looking for a job, so I’m hiring her.”

“Why Natalia?” asked Josh suspiciously. He was still rankling over the kidnapping ring and wasn’t much into trusting anybody. He automatically put a protective arm around her. Always one to think about our unity, I pressed close to Natalia, too, and gave Drew my best scowl.

“She’s a people person,” explained Drew. “And she thinks on her feet. She’s a survivalist. Rhoda told me all about her, and of how she rescued that girl, Amy. That’s the type of person I want running my lodge.”

“And Natalia agreed to this?” There was an audible rumble in the captain’s throat.

“On one condition.” Drew pushed away his cup and gave all of us a straight-up look. “You have to invest with me. She said you were looking for a location to build your house—here’s your location. I need a business partner to make this work. I don’t have the funds to cover the entire lodge, plus staff and expenses. It’s a business venture, maybe a gamble.”

Darkhorse pulled at his chin, making one of those very long faces he made when he was thinking. “Not a big business venture for us. We all have our Coast Guard income. We were going to build her a house, anyway.”

“A house on the coastline, so we have a place to go to when we’re off-duty,” agreed the captain. “Would the costs be much more?”

“The upkeep, maybe,” hedged Drew. “Unless we can draw a good clientele. We need people to talk about us. Word-of-mouth is the best advertisement.”

The captain’s brow was growing dangerously thick. “We don’t do anything illegal.”

Drew made a placating gesture. “I know you don’t. I admire and uphold the law. Would I hire someone like Natalia if I didn’t?”

“Oh, she would so kick your ass if you didn’t,” I muttered.

He gave a nervous laugh and wiped at his neck. “Here’s the thing.” He waved us all in closer, so we were leaning over the table like conspiring politicians. “People want to see bears. They want to see them up close and photograph them, but they don’t want to see them in a zoo. They want to see them in the wild. And wild bears are dangerous.”

This was a fact we could agree upon. Katmai bears had gotten used to being photographed, but they could still be unpredictable, and the reserve was a two-hour flight from the lodge location. There were a lot of Bristol Bay bears, but historically, they weren’t very nice. Most lodges discouraged them from coming too close to prevent possible mayhem and murder.

“I was thinking,” he said, dropping his voice even lower, “that since you will be there on shore leave, you could stalk around the property in bear form.”

“Bear form?” asked Darkhorse innocently.

“Yeah,” put in Rhoda. “Prowl around the perimeter. Keep the grounds safe and, at the same time, give our guests a good look at bears.”

Josh made a dangerous sound in his throat, and Natalia quickly put her hands over his. “They know, Captain. They both know. Let it go.”

“They would never know you were shifters,” pointed out Drew. “Maybe you could even do a few neat bear tricks.”

This time the rumble was very menacing. “Okay, no tricks,” he retracted nervously. “But there are documented cases of bears opening and drinking beer. Would you mind if I left out a cooler?”

“Bears drinking beer is natural,” said Darkhorse. That sounded about right, so I nodded my head up and down vigorously.

“A cooler is acceptable,” agreed Josh. He was starting to get into it. We could be adaptable when the necessity arose, and this seemed like a necessity. If we had to do a little bear flashing to keep Natalia happy, it wasn’t such a bad idea. “Perimeter watching. Occasional kitchen invasions. No mass media advertising, however. No attaching the name of the lodge to any viral clips. No cute tricks.”

Now I know why there are businesspeople and lawyers. Ordinary people couldn’t possibly imagine all the things that might come up in a partnership or a venture. We spent the next three days working out a verbal agreement that was formally drafted out after we had a chance to look at the property. The one structure on the property was a two-story cabin with a sharply pitched roof. It was solid and wouldn’t take much to add onto it. The ground was also clear and ready for development.

I believed Captain Josh pulled some strings. We got stationed in Homer that winter, making it easy to fly out to the lodge and check on its progress when we weren’t busy pulling boats out of the ice or catching drug runners. Three months after our first visit, crammed into a Homer café with two lawyers, a banker, and an accountant, we signed the official documents that made us part owners to a Bristol Bay lodge. There was an enormous amount of “whoever” and “do agree” that I was expected to initial at the end of reading each paragraph, implying I understood something that was as impossible to imagine as millions of people.

We finally muddled through. Mama Bear had put her foot down and said she wanted a home, and we made her a home just where she wanted it. Every chance we got, we flew in or sailed into the sweet harbor of her embrace. We enjoyed entertaining the guests in our bear form. Sometimes, we ripped off the best pastries in the kitchen, drank beer out on the lawn or made faces in the windows at the kids, but no tricks. We weren’t anybody’s tame bears, coming at beck and call.

It’s odd how my life has been. First, I had a simple life; then a double life. Then, my life became so complicated, I didn’t know my head from my feet. Natalia made it all harmonious. I realized I didn’t have to struggle to become part of something; I already was a member of the clan. I didn’t have to understand all the wherefore and whoever—I only had to understand my heart.

We had a lot of adventures ahead of us. That year, we had to chase down a shapeshifting wolverine that had run amok in the northern villages… but that’s another story. This one is about Natalia, and how she became the mama bear that kept us glued together.

Josh

Ididn’t like to think about the future because I knew that the day we parted with Natalia, my heart would ache so much, the tears would fall. Natalia forced me to look at it and make plans for it, and I was glad that she did. I didn’t ordinarily like businesspeople, but Drew wasn’t a true corporate millionaire. He hung on the edge, his self-enterprise a crash or boom. Of course, with Natalia drawn in, I wanted him to boom.

It was difficult at first. All we had was a remote cabin under construction, our ship, and short periods of time with Natalia. She found an apartment, and for that first winter, we had to adjust to solid ground under our feet when we weren’t sailing. Only the sound of the ocean and the comfort of her arms helped me sleep when I was on shore.

Nothing was more difficult than the first time we set sail, leaving Natalia at the Homer harbor, promising to be there when we returned. My heart left me and stayed right there on that Homer spit until I returned. When my heart and I were reunited, my tears did fall. They rained all over her. I promised her I would do everything she asked. I signed all the paperwork and that spring, we were building a house for Mama Bear.

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