Page 4 of Taming Her Bears

I wasn’t sure where the others had touched down. The waves were too high, the sky was too gray. I saw bits of useless life-preservers, far too puny for our bear-shifting forms, and the sinking helicopter, but that was all. They were bears. They would be instinctively swimming for the nearest shore. In fact, it sounded to me like a very good idea.

I could trace the island by the acrid scent of recent smoke and turned in its direction. The storm had eased, but the water was still choppy. I paddled with my head up, my eyes half-closed, my feet following my nose.

I heaved myself up on a driftwood-studded beach, its cliffs carved away by the force of the north winds. I must be getting old. That tailspin had done a number on my equilibrium. I crouched on the beach for a few seconds, waiting for the world to stabilize, then shifted back into a human. I bent over my wetsuit to pull out my clothes when I was whacked from behind. Somebody smacked me on the head with what felt like a hundred pounds of solid steel. I fell forward, vertigo completely overtaking me.

Shaking the stars out of my eyes, I looked up at a long, stout pole held in young, feminine hands. I grabbed my aching noggin, completely forgetting to cover my iniquities. “Fuck! That hurts! What the hell did you do that for?”

A stern female voice answered back, “Who are you?”

I hadn’t looked up, and wasn’t sure I dared. Those feminine hands looked fine and well-shaped, but they also looked like they meant business. “Lieutenant Moses Darkhorse, U.S. Coast Guard,” I said, automatically reaching for my badge before remembering I was wearing no clothes.

The pole raised more threateningly, and I winced. “Please don’t hit me again. I’ve got a splitting headache. You could have knocked me out with that thing.”

“That was the idea.”

I sat down and groaned. “It’s a good thing I’ve got a thick head.” The throbbing pain slowly eased and mixed in a cocktail of unnerving sensations generally associated with being shook, spun, tumbled into freezing water, and shifting into a bear. “Can I put some clothes on?”

“I guess you can.” Her voice was hesitant. “Just don’t try anything stupid.”

I stood up slowly and shook out my wetsuit. She watched, unwavering, never once turning her head or lowering her staff. I was carrying a pair of denims and a naval-issue sweatshirt. “My badge is here,” I said carefully. “In my pants.”

“Pull it out and toss it over to me.”

I brought out my wallet, opened it and tossed it at her feet. She looked down for a split second. “What brought you here?”

I was busy climbing into my pants, so I gave the short version. “Smoke. We saw smoke. We were looking for a shipwrecked fisherman and we saw smoke, so we came over here to check it out.”

“In that helicopter?” She pointed to the wreckage sinking in the distance.

“In that helicopter,” I confirmed sadly.

Her hearing caught a sound just seconds after mine did, which was remarkable for a human. “How many of you are there?” She raised the staff over my head again.

I cringed. “Four. All officers with the Coast Guard, Special Division Ursa.” The sound in the brush was coming closer and the pole wavered intimidatingly. “Whoever is in the brush, please come out,” I called loudly. “I do not want to get whacked on the head again.”

Lee came forward, looking a little sheepish. “I wasn’t sure how to respond, sir. If you needed assistance or if, well, you know…” He waved his finger around in the air as though it meant something.

“Petty Officer Lee Brightwater, I want you to meet…” I looked in her face for the first time, and nearly dropped over again. She had one of those Russian faces, wide across the cheeks, with blonde, waving hair that blended in with the mountainous, coastal landscape. She had acquired the deep blues and greens of the ocean in her eyes, and the blush of wild berries on her lips. I stood at my full height and puffed out my chest, trying to appear more impressive. I’ve never had women complain about my physique before, but when one is beating you to death while you’re naked, it does make you wonder. “I don’t know your name.”

She held the pole in front of her and poked it at my chest. “If you’re Coast Guard, why did you let the whole damned thing get out of hand? Why did you leave it all in the hands of the state troopers and the police who can’t even go beyond their city limits?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t?” She started to whack me again, then threw aside her pole. “Fuck it. You weren’t even told. Did you get a message out before you went down?”

I shook my head. “Maybe we could retrieve the two-way radio. There was one on board for emergencies.”

She scoffed. “How will you do that?”

The helicopter was listing, around three hundred yards out, with the tail tilted toward the water. It was only half-submerged.

“It looks like the skids grounded on some rocks or a sand bar. I could recover it.”

She gave a short chuckle. “I know you guys are Coast Guard and all, but that would be pretty amazing. You can’t even pilot a boat in this storm.”

Now that she realized we weren’t the enemy, that we were as stranded on the island as she was, she was turning soft, wistful. I smelled the changes like tracking honey to its hive. I wanted just then to crush her hair against my face and breathe her in, but instead growled, “We need to find the other two. Lee, did you see any sign of them?”

He was hovering close by, shuffling his feet and sniffing the air. “No,” he said absently, then came to attention. “I believe I saw them coming in to shore due west of here. I turned this way because I heard voices.”

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