Slade (BBW Bear Shifter Moonshiner Romance) (120 Proof Honey Book 5) (8 page)

The second phrase was less insulting, and he had less of the bite in his tone. It was a genuine question, and one that Karina had asked herself that very morning.

“Sure I have,” she lied at once. “Tons of times.”

“But not here?” Reinicke said, and it almost wasn’t a question. “Somehow, I think I’d remember seeing you if you had.”

She heard what he was driving at in the way his tone went flat at the end of the sentence. If he’d been talking to someone else that way, Karina might have found that wry humor amusing. Reinicke spoke his mind, at least. There was no falseness to him. Yet every time he opened his mouth, Karina felt her temper shoot up like a rocket. He was bad for her stress levels, and she needed to get away from him as soon as possible.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get started before the hottest part of the day sinks in,” she said briskly.

It was total bullshit, derived from what she’d overheard him warn the others about, and to her surprise he seemed to buy it. Karina began to stride through the visitor’s hut, towards the open door at the other end where the wilds of nature awaited. She was nervous, quaking inside and a little off-kilter from her second run-in with Reinicke, but she knew she had to do this. It was a test of herself, to see if she could live without the lifestyle she’d been buried in for so long.

“Hey, just one second!”

She heard Reinicke’s footsteps thump up to her before she turned. Some of the sternness had fallen from his face, making him look his true, youthful age. Before she could protest, he shoved something into her hand. Karina looked down to find it was a small, blocky radio, stamped with the seal of the Fairhaven Rangers.

“It’s a courtesy,” Reinicke said simply, “for people who aren’t familiar with the territory.”

“And this calls who, exactly?” Karina challenged.

“Me,” Reinicke replied. “I’m here in the day and at the mountain outpost all night.”

“I really don’t think I’ll need it,” she began to say, but Reinicke shook his head.

“I’m afraid I have to insist. It’s the rules.”

He was so proper, so stiff and unmovable. Karina tucked the radio into her pocket with a reluctant sigh.

“Don’t hang by the phone for my call or anything,” she teased.

Reinicke gave a little scoff.

“Believe me, I have better things to do,” he shot back.

And on that note, Karina Vasquez left the visitor’s hut to begin the adventure she’d always wanted to have.
 

Hiking was hard. Karina had known it would be a challenge for her, but as the hours went by, she realized that she was definitely out of her depth. She had been following a yellow route marked on the map, one of the Level 2 difficulties, to have something easy to start with. But somewhere along the way, she’d taken a right instead of a left, and now she was pretty sure she was halfway up a Level 4 hillside. And it was the hottest part of the day. The sun beat down on her head, making her hair feel like it was on fire, and she decided that she had to stop and find a hat and some water.

Although her bag seemed to be getting heavier by the minute, she was grateful for all the supplies she’d packed. The spotty teen adviser in the Great Outdoors store back home had been very, very helpful. She’d suspected he was all too keen to help a pretty young woman for a change, instead of the grizzled forty-something men he usually had to advise. Karina glugged some water down from one of several bottles she had with her, then she threw on a ridiculous-looking hat with a floppy brim all the way around it. The look was hideous, but the relief from the sun was heavenly.
 

According to her map, she just had to get over the other side of the hill, then there’d be another crossing of the paths. There, she’d make a left, then she could get back onto her original route and find a nice grassy place to pitch up and get some much-needed rest. Karina looked up at the peak ahead, craning her neck to try and see where it ended. She heaved out a heavy sigh, put her pack back on, and trudged forward again in the heat.

As the minutes went by, she began to make out a shape on the horizon. At the very top of the hill there was a thin-looking person with similar camping gear, sitting on a mossy rock. He was about Karina’s age with very dark skin, and he sat looking out on the view with a morose sort of expression. When Karina eventually arrived at the top of the peak, the young man was still there, and he noticed her as she set her bag down beside him.

“If you came for the view, I’d say it’s worth it,” he remarked.

Karina turned as he pointed beyond him, and what she saw took her breath away. The peak overlooked a low valley to its north, shaded from the midday sun and glowing with a million different hues of green. There was a glorious lake that snaked off into a river where it met the trees, and patches of those same trees popped up all around the valley to pepper it with darkness. Between these patches, lush fields of low grass and bushes sprang out. It all looked so cool and peaceful, and Karina couldn’t wait to get down there and enjoy its shade and calm.

“Wow,” she breathed. “I actually did it. I climbed a freaking mountain.”

Her fellow hiker gave her a grin.

“Your first time here too?” he asked. “I’ve never done Fairhaven before. It’s a heck of a challenge. I’ve been sitting here nearly an hour trying to get my breath back. I seriously thought I was dying on the way up.”

Karina chuckled. She approached the man and held out her hand to him.

“Karina,” she said.

“Bud,” he answered.

“You know,” she continued, “if you were seriously struggling, you could have just called the ranger on that radio thingy.”

Bud’s brows crossed in confusion.

“Radio thingy?” he repeated.

Karina got the little black block out of her pocket and showed it to him.

“Sure,” she began, “it’s for first time hikers. You didn’t get one?”

Bud shook his head, staring at the box.

“Oh, well maybe you didn’t meet the ranger down at the hut,” Karina reasoned.

“No, I did,” Bud added quickly, then he gave a little scowl. “You don’t forget a guy like that in a hurry. He basically inferred that I ought to go home if I didn’t know what I was doing. What an ass.”

Well, that definitely meant he’d met Reinicke. Karina looked at the radio again puzzlingly. Why hadn’t he given one to Bud, if he was so strict on the rules? Then, as he turned it over in her hands, Karina saw a tiny printed label on the radio’s back panel. It read:
Property of Fairhaven Park Rangers. Not for public use.

“What the heck…” she murmured, reading it again.

“I’m glad you have that thing,” Bud said, not hearing her mumblings. “Makes me feel safer. You mind if I do the descent with you, so you can radio for help when I inevitably break my leg?”

Karina chuckled.

“Sure thing,” she replied. “Ready when you are.”

“Really?” Bud asked. “Wow. You must be really fit to carry on without a big break.”

Perhaps it was adrenalin, or the pride she felt from reaching the top, but Karina really did feel strong again. She was looking forward to picking her way down the slope with gravity on her side for a change, leading her into the shady side of the peak where cool water and dense trees awaited.

“I guess it’s beginner’s luck or something,” she said, her cheeks flushing a little.

Bud held his hands up at once.

“I’m not hitting on you, by the way,” he said, sounding suddenly worried. “I have a wife back at the campsite. You seem like you could get me back to her in one piece.”

“What’s her name?” Karina asked.

“Susie,” Bud replied.

“I’ll do my best to return Susie’s property in good condition,” she jibed.

They set off then down the slope, Karina padding ahead whilst Bud carefully followed her footsteps. It was a strange position to be in, guiding someone else when she just about knew what to do herself, but it filled her with pride. She was used to leading and being in charge, never challenged or argued with. Bud was a patient and pleasant follower, and he made her journey pass a little quicker. Though, in all honesty, his brand of placid agreement was kind of boring. Now and then, as the forest grew thicker and the day grew darker, Karina found herself wishing for a certain acid-tongued person to appear and spice up her day.

***

Bud was hoping to return to Susie tomorrow, but now that he’d met Karina, he didn’t seem to want to go back alone. Somewhat reluctantly, she’d agreed to walk part of the Level 1 path with him the next day to get him back out of the section before she continued on her own journey. She found that her kindness was rewarded when Bud set up her tent for her and produced a tiny campfire to cook them some dinner. After that, her little follower took himself off to his tent to read, and Karina was left alone with the mild climate of the night. She could see the dim white glow of Bud’s electric lantern inside his tent, illuminating his shape as he craned over a book.

Outside, however, the light show was far more spectacular. The sky was lit with a magnificent array of stars, in constellations that she’d always meant to learn but never gotten around to. When she was a child, her father used to point them out to her, and now she wished she’d paid him more attention. Karina craned back to look up at the sky, and eventually she gave in and lay on the grassy ground outside her tent, just drinking in the solitude of the night.
This
was the kind of peace she’d been looking for.

A rustle in the bushes destroyed the moment entirely.
 

It brought Karina back to the reality of being alone in the forest, with nobody but Bud to turn to for help. The thought did not comfort her in the least. Slowly, she rose from her position on the ground, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dark shapes around her. The trees suddenly seemed longer and taller than before, their branches leaning in to surround her from her right. Further left, the babble of water caught her ear and she listened for the sound of animals who might be approaching it for a late night drink.

At some point during Karina’s stargazing, Bud had put his light out, and a moment of concentration allowed her to tune in to the low hum of his snoring. Perhaps it was only Bud that had turned over in his sleeping bag, making noise. But then the snap happened, the clear snap of a twig coming from the trees, and Karina’s head shot back to the dense forest. She scanned the shadows, seeing movement there, and she backed up to the flap of her tent hurriedly.

“No freaking way,” she murmured as the shadows took shape.

There was a bear in the woods. The huge lumbering grizzly had stopped at the very edge of the trees, some ten feet away from where Karina’s tent was pitched. The creature’s eyes glowed amber in the darkness of the night, and somewhere in the back of Karina’s terrified mind, she was reminded of a pair of eyes with a very similar hue. But the thought was blocked off by fear as she regarded the huge creature.

What was she supposed to do? Did you have to play dead with bears? Keep completely still? Or was that for wolves and pack animals? Perhaps you had to stand up and make yourself seem bigger? That sounded right.

All these thoughts rushed through Karina’s mind as she sat staring at the bear. But she was hardly anything over five feet tall, and the bear had to be eight long at least. If it raised itself onto its hind legs, it could just topple down and crush her. Keeping still was both the best and only option, for Karina found that she was too frightened to move. She kept her gaze locked with the deep eyes of the bear, willing it not to come any closer.

And it didn’t. The bear stayed exactly where it was, watching her with its own wary expression. Something her mother had once said came back to her in that moment, when Karina had found a mouse in their cabin on a Fairhaven holiday years ago.
Animals are more afraid of you than you are of them.
Man was the biggest predator the grizzly bear had to face, and this one seemed to have learned to keep its distance from other people. Karina continued to study the creature and it looked straight back at her with the same wary curiosity. Perhaps it was just looking for food.

“I finished my dinner a while ago,” she told it in a shaking voice, “and I don’t think you’d like my protein bars. Sorry buddy, I don’t have anything to give you.”

The bear cocked its head strangely, as if it was actually listening. Karina saw the flash of gold in its eyes as its massive head shifted. Its fur seemed dark by the light of the stars, and now that she was calm enough to observe it, the creature seemed a little thinner than she’d have expected. She felt bad then, about not having any food to give it, but at the same time she didn’t really want the creature to come any closer. If it tried to forage in her tent, the whole thing would be destroyed, and then she’d have to retreat to the hut and face Reinicke with her tail between her legs.

Karina ran her fingers over the radio, still in her pocket. This was exactly the sort of thing she ought to call him about: a bear coming too close to human settlements. But at that moment, the grizzly heaved itself around and began to retreat into the trees. It was a long time later, when she was certain that it was gone, that Karina managed to settle down and get some sleep.

Between them, Karina and Bud finally made sense of their maps. There was a short path back to the south which connected with a roadway into the main park, and they could get there in about two hours. Bud was grateful for the company, and he didn’t shut up about how pleased he was to be able to tell Susie he’d spent a night out in the wild. Karina hadn’t dared to tell him about the bear. She figured it might spoil his high a little if he felt he’d missed out on seeing it, plus he’d be nervous the whole way back if he thought that a grizzly was somewhere nearby. Karina herself had got to grips with her nerves, feeling like her calm standoff with the creature was a genuine achievement. She really was at one with nature now.