Sam

“Sam!”

I rounded the corner of the house, my arms loaded with firewood, to find my cousin Kayden loping up the walk.

“Is it Christmas break already?” I teased. Even if I hadn’t kept regular tabs on Kayden and the half dozen or so others attending the university a few hours south, I would have known they were coming based on the amount of cooking my mother had been doing all week. Everyone came to the lodge for Christmas.

“Yeah.” He grinned. “Did you get a tree for the common room yet?”

“Not yet. I’ve been waiting on you.”

His eyes glittered. “Awesome. Thanks.”

“Go on; throw your gear inside and say hi to Ma. I’ll pull out the sleigh.”

He lumbered toward the lodge, while I went out to the massive barn to ready the sleigh. It was the same one my father had used, and his father before him. Now the task fell to me while my father and grandfather sat by the hearth, bouncing cubs on their knees and telling ridiculous stories. We were big on tradition that way.

Someday, the task would fall to my son, and I would be the one resting my paws by the fire.

Maybe. I had yet to find a mate.

That’s not true, my bear growled inside me. We met our mate a long time ago.

I sighed, thinking of Chloe as I tested the reins. That had been what, twenty years ago?

Though we had looked for years, we never found her. I knew she was still out there, somewhere. I felt it in my heart. But where she was, I didn’t know.

She probably still hated me. Hated us. We had promised her she would be safe, and we had failed her.

My father had done what he’d thought was the right thing by calling the sheriff, letting him know Chloe had been found and was alive and safe with us. He hadn’t expected the sheriff to show up with Chloe’s father, especially since everyone, including the sheriff, had suspected something was wrong with that whole situation.

The sheriff had said his hands were tied. Legally, her father was her guardian, and without proof of abuse or neglect, there was little he could do.

Chloe had refused to admit anything. I remembered her sitting there in the kitchen, her piece of shit father glaring at her as the sheriff asked why she had run away. Where her bruises had come from. If she had enough to eat. She had answered all his questions quietly with well-rehearsed answers while staring at the floor.

She had been lying. I knew it. My parents knew it. The sheriff knew it. Yet, there was nothing he could have done, not without evidence. So, with reluctance, he had said Chloe had to go with her father.

I didn’t understand it at the time. How could a man sworn to serve and protect just hand her over like that? My father had tried explaining it to me, talking about things like politics and fragile shifter-human relations. What it came down to, I thought, was that the sheriff had been afraid of upsetting the delicate balance we had with the humans.

Most of us, shifters and full-humans alike, coexisted peacefully, yet there were always a few on both sides who would have preferred segregation. One small human female who refused to open her mouth in her own defense wasn’t worth a war or the exposure it would bring, the sheriff had said.

My father didn’t believe that any more than I did, and that day, well, it changed him. I think it changed us all. The sheriff had retired shortly afterward and moved away, and the shifter community had grown even closer.

The thing I would always remember most about that day was those few moments when Chloe had looked at me. She wouldn’t look at anyone else, but she had looked at me.

I had been yelling at them to stop, and she had turned back, just that once, and said, “It’s okay, Sam.” And then the sheriff had put her in the back of his car and they were gone. It was the last time I ever saw her.

Not a day went by when I didn’t think about her. When I didn’t think of the way she used to follow me around, skulking in the shadows, thinking I didn’t know. I knew. My bear knew.

Because she was ours.

“Ready?” Kayden appeared in the doorway of the big barn, pulling me from my musings.

“Yep.”

We each grabbed a set of straps and pulled; me on the left, him on the right. The rails glided smoothly over the fresh snow, our boots crunching along as we moved.

“So, how’s school?” I asked.

“It’s good,” he replied, “but it’s not here.”

I knew exactly what he meant. After high school, I had joined the Army. I had received a good education and had traveled around the world. Nevertheless, something always called me back home, and after my commitment was fulfilled, I had returned. I hadn’t regretted a minute since.

Bear shifters could live in cities among the humans, but most of us preferred the mountains and open skies.

Besides, I wanted to be here, just in case Chloe ever returned. I wanted to believe that whatever divine force had paired us as mates would give us another chance.

Kayden and I checked out a couple of trees, finally selecting a twelve-foot spruce with a nice, symmetrical fullness. Then we made quick work of cutting it down, lifting it onto the sled, and securing it. Once back at the lodge, we got it inside and left it to the others to decorate while we grabbed some well-earned mugs of hot cocoa in the kitchen.

“Oh, I almost forget,” Kayden said, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket. “I wanted to show you this.”

I looked at the screen, certain he was going to show me a picture of a pretty girl he had met at college or something. I hadn’t expected to see a photo-quality painting that looked eerily similar to the lodge in which we sat. Nor had I expected to see a bear in the picture, poised in a protective stance, looking at something off in the woods.

“Look familiar?” he asked on a chuckle.

Yeah, it did. The bear in the picture looked exactly like me in my animal form.

“Where did you see this?”

“It was hanging in a diner in a small town we passed through on the way. Freaky, huh?”

Yeah, it was freaky all right.

I zoomed in and looked at the screen, trying to make out the artist’s name. My heart stopped when I saw the tiny signature scribbled in the bottom right corner. Chloe.

My mind raced back to twenty years earlier. To Chloe, sitting off in the corner by herself, drawing. I remembered how she never wanted to share her pictures, but I used to sneak back into the room during lunch to look. She was always drawing bears.

“Where is this diner?”

“Just south of Kelper’s Pass.”

I put my mug down. Kelper’s Pass was only a couple hours south by car.

“What’s the name of the town?”

“I don’t know,” Kayden said, frowning. “It was a small place. Didn’t even show up on GPS. Why?”

“I think I might know the artist.”

“No kidding?”

“No kidding.” I took out my own phone and pulled up a map. “Show me.”

He pointed to an area on the screen. “Around here, I think, but if you’re thinking of heading down that way anytime soon, don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because they were already closing the roads when we came through.”

As if a couple of closed roads were going to stop me! This was the closest thing I’d had to a real clue to Chloe’s whereabouts in nearly two decades.

“Sam, the tree is lovely!” my mother said, coming into the kitchen. “You boys really outdid yourselves this year.” She took one look at my face and asked, “Sam, what is it?”

“Show her,” I told Kayden.

He did.

When my mom looked at me again, I knew she was thinking the same thing. “Oh, Sam, do you think it could be our Chloe?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.

I wasn’t an idiot. I knew the chances were pretty slim that the painting in Kayden’s picture had been done by my Chloe, but my bear was convinced it was. I also had no idea when it had been done, or where the diner owner had picked it up. One thing was for sure, though—I was going to find out.

I packed a bag. I didn’t take the time to explain where I was going to anyone. My mom would take care of that.

“Good luck, Sam,” my mother called. “Call the moment you have news.”

I nodded. “I will. If I find her, I’m bringing her home.”

Then I shifted into my bear, snatched up my bag in my jaws, and took off.