CHAPTER TWENTY
“How’s it going, buddy?” Lenny Benoit settled his bulk into the hospital armchair. He was so big that his head stuck up way past the high back. And his shoulders overflowed the sides.
Patrick looked groggily at his visitor. “I’m healing – so they tell me.”
Lenny got back up and closed the door. “We’ll have to talk fast. The nurse will be along to open that door in about a minute and a half.”
“What’s up?” Was something wrong with Heather?
“I hear you want to go running off to Denver,” Lenny said. “You thinking of leaving our girl behind?”
Patrick blinked. “Whoa. Where’d you hear that?” He was going nowhere without his bride.
“Fellas at the airstrip say your daddy ordered his plane fueled and ready to fly on notice. You’re supposed to be heading to Denver to see a plastic surgeon.”
“The backs of my thighs aren’t healing properly. The sutures keep pulling out,” Patrick admitted. “The doctor wants to go back in. Likely my father knows someone he thinks is better.” And the Bascoms could afford the best medical care. Jeremy might be a shitty parent, but he did his best.
“You know what you need is bear doctoring,” Lenny said. His big, broad face was sincere.
“Meaning?”
“You ought to go recuperate in the woods.” He held out his arm. Lenny held out a massive arm. “See that scar?”
“No.”
“That’s because there isn’t one. But you could expect that since it was a compound fracture with the bones poking through the skin, that there would be one. I’m not saying it would have healed right without a doctor putting the bones back correctly and sticking it in a cast, but I finished his work by following the old ways. If you see what I mean?”
Patrick remembered how the wound he had received in Syria had healed after just a few minutes in bear. And how both those lingering bruises from the thrashing he had received, and the fresh ones from his bungling attempts to climb the mountain, to say nothing of his headache, had disappeared when he finally shifted. Beneficial as that had been, shifting still made him feel deeply uneasy. He raised his eyebrows. “Convince me, Benoit.”
“This isn’t an experiment, my friend, this is how our clan has healed since Jacques Benoit brought the Salish woman to these mountains.”
“Who the fuck was Jacques Benoit? What the fuck is a Salish woman?” Patrick snarled.
Lenny looked pitying. “Didn’t your granddaddy tell you about Jacques Benoit?”
“My Grandfather Bascom died before I was born,” Patrick said. “And my great-grandfather never talked about Washington State.”
Lenny leaned forward. “What I thought. Still, I would have thought that Gil would have told you about your heritage.”
“He did his best,” Patrick said loyally. “But I don’t recall hearing about any Jacques Benoit.”
“Long story short, Jacques was a fur trader who wandered into these hills two hundred or more years ago. He had picked himself up a woman from the Salish tribes in Canada. They say she was as powerful as he was. They founded our clan and the clan founded French Town.”
“Huh.”
“You think there’s some other reason why you can turn into a bear and other mortals can’t?” Benoit asked in a gravelly whisper.
“Genetics,” Patrick snapped. “It’s just genetics.”
“Well, sure. That’s why in these parts it’s only the descendants of Jacques Benoit that have talent. If you want you can say that we just have genes for healing, and genes for wooing our mates. But whether you call it magic – or something else – it’s like playing the piano, if you don’t practice, you don’t develop your potential.”
Lenny looked at the shut door. “You need to develop some potential, Bascom. ASAP. You have a bride to look out for and you can’t look out for anyone lying in bed drugged up.”
Patrick remembered not to nod. His head still felt only weakly attached to his neck. “I don’t feel like I have the energy for that crap.”
“They’ve got you back on morphine.” Lenny shook his head disapprovingly. “Not good for your system. Not at all.”
“Heather doesn’t want to live in a city.” Patrick spoke his thought aloud.
“Cities are all right for a visit. Bit too crowded for bears.”
The door opened and a small man in scrubs walked in. “We have to keep this open,” he said propping it wide. A badge on his chest said his name was Alex. His hospital identity card swung from a coiled line at his hip.
“Sure,” Lenny said easily. He got to his feet. “We’ll make a plan for that physical therapy.”
The nurse’s face became even more disapproving. “Mr. Bascom is nowhere near ready for physical therapy. Now, it’s time to change our dressing.”
Lenny grinned. “Want I should shut the door while you’re tending to your patient?”
“We can draw the curtain.”
Lenny grinned wider. “Be seeing you, buddy.” He left whistling.
“Do we need help to turn over?” the nurse asked, pulling back the covers to expose Patrick from the chest down.
Patrick bared his teeth. “We do.” Running around in fucking bear was beginning to sound like fun.
* * *
Think. She had to think. “Would Zeke go back on his word to you?” Heather asked Jenna.
“Hell, no.”
“Then I shouldn’t assume that Patrick would.” He was a surly, ill-tempered city slicker. But she didn’t think her inner bear would let her fall in love with a liar. And it felt more and more like she had fallen in love with her husband.
“Patrick is not like Zeke,” Jenna said mournfully.
“That’s true. But you overheard Zeke and Jeremy making plans for Patrick. Patrick wasn’t there. And I know that Patrick’s daddy told him I was a gold digger – Amber heard them quarreling – and yet he waltzed up here from his sickbed to marry me all over again. Just how bad is he hurt anyway?”
“He was mauled pretty bad. He has deep lacerations to his neck and shoulders and the cat’s hind claws made a mess of his hamstrings. He can’t walk properly.”
Patrick had risked his life defending her. Automatically. That spoke well of his instincts. “Maybe he should see a plastic surgeon, Jenna. They don’t just make you pretty – they can save nerve and muscle function.”
Jenna snorted. “If you ask me, what he needs is to go into the woods and take bear.”
Heather looked around. The door was open but she saw nobody. She nodded and spoke low. “Wouldn’t occur to him. He is a mite conflicted about his beast. I am hoping he will get over that.”
Jenna looked thoughtful. She pulled her chair closer. “So was Zeke when I first met him. Damn fool nearly froze to death in the Big Nasty.”
Heather knew all about that freak winter storm when it had rained for weeks followed by a blizzard that had blanketed the fallen trees and mudslides in wet snow. Lots of animals had died in the Big Nasty. Zeke had been lucky to get away with just hypothermia. And to stumble on a nurse practitioner. But bear shifters were lucky. It was part of the package.
Jenna sighed. “All because he thought if he had to walk out of the woods naked it would reflect badly on the forces to have a bare-assed major in the papers. He survived, but if he hadn’t found his way to my cabin he would have died.”
“You would never know it now,” Heather said hopefully. “Zeke fits right in with the fellas around here – doesn’t he?”
“More or less. But he’d rubbed shoulders with all sorts in the military.”
“Patrick is in the Colorado National Guard,” Heather defended him.
“Zeke calls them weekend warriors.”
“You know that isn’t quite fair. Reservists get deployed. They fight alongside regular troops. Sometimes they do not come home. Patrick is only just back from seven months in Syria.”
Both women looked at their hands. The Ridge was full of veterans of every branch of the services. Both Jenna and Heather were the orphaned children of men killed in action. They never forgot that their country was at war or what it owed to those who served and were serving.
“I think before I decide that Patrick is deceiving me, and our marriage is a bust, I should have a talk with him.” Heather began to laugh. “Do you know that second ceremony was over so fast that we weren’t alone for a second? Doesn’t he have a phone?”
Jenna lifted her shoulders in a tiny shrug. “Zeke says that the doctors put Patrick back on sedatives. He’s okay when he’s awake, but the second he drops off he has nightmares and starts fighting with his bandages.”
“So his daddy and his brother are naturally worried and making plans – but he hasn’t agreed.” Heather forced herself to relax. “I’m upsetting myself over nothing.” She rubbed her belly where spasms were contracting at irregular and painful intervals.
“Are the cramps worse?”
“No. But they aren’t gone.”
“That’s why you have to stay in bed. I must make my house calls. Do you want to go potty before I leave?”
* * *
“Easy there,” Jeremy Bascom ordered. He stood beside the gurney and patted Patrick’s arm. “You’re going to bump him around on this rough ground.”
Lenny Benoit showed him his teeth. At Patrick’s head, Uncle Gilbert spoke, “Take it easy, Jeremy. Patrick is doing fine. Aren’t you, son?”
“Fine as frog’s hair,” Patrick said through his teeth. He was belted to the gurney and every bump hurt like hell. He smiled up at his father. Or maybe grimaced. Because Jeremy’s worried face became even more drawn.
“We’re just going to take him to the clearing. The ambulance took him as far as it could.” Lenny’s voice was deep and calm and sure. But Patrick knew that Jeremy was standing on his last nerve. Jeremy had a way of doing that.
The gurney jolted and rattled as it went over roots and stones. But Patrick was sure that he could not have walked that short distance. In the last few days, he had only hobbled as far as the hospital bathroom. Each time he’d been a little steadier, but still in need of assistance – and a fucking walker. The gurney was better than using a walker on this rough ground.
The clearing was full of big men standing around a couple of stocky, blond youths. He recognized Lenny’s brother Joey, and Asher and Gideon Bascom who had so thoroughly pounded him into the ground, and Uncle Pierre. The boys were strangers to him. It was alarming how much room these six people took up. Lenny and Gilbert brought his gurney to a halt.
“Set the brake,” Lenny instructed.
“Brake set.” There was another small jolt at each end as Gilbert and Lenny locked the wheels into place.
Big hands began to undo the buckles of the straps that held him into place. “Lie still,” Lenny said in his calm voice. “We’re going to carry you over to where we want you to be.”
This had never seemed like the greatest idea in the world. And now that he was out in the forest in his hospital gown, with the prospect of his backside waving in the breeze, it seemed like a much worse idea. But he held onto the fact that he had to get well so that he could figure out how to get Heather to forgive him and make their marriage work.
He hadn’t seen her since that second wedding. Every time he asked if he could go visit her, she was having a test or asleep. The reassurances he was given were anything but. She had lost their babies, and it was all his fault.
“Joey, Ash,” Lenny said. “Give us a hand, will you? We don’t want to jostle him too much.”
The four men hoisted him off the gurney on a blanket, and carted him over to Uncle Pierre. They helped him to his feet. Jeremy and Gilbert stood at his elbows in case he fell on his face. Which seemed imminent. He was worn out from getting here. His frailty was in marked contrast to the robust men staring at him. Absently he noted the absence of Duprés.
“You’re going to be just fine, boy,” said the old man. “I think you know everyone except Lenny’s brothers-in-law. Hunter, Cord, say howdy to your Cousin Patrick.”
The two boys held out their hands and shook his respectfully but tentatively as if they were afraid of doing him harm. Great. Even these kids thought he was too fragile to live.
Uncle Pierre continued “This here’s what we’re going to do.”
The others stood around in a circle and listened respectfully. Cord and Hunter stood in front of the older men. “We’re all going to take bear and help heal Patrick. We are going to work a little bear magic here today.” His bushy eyebrows snapped together. “Hunter, Cord,” he said sternly, “This is secret business. You don’t talk about this. And you don’t try this on your own. You got that?”
The boys nodded solemnly.
Lenny nudged them. “Answer Uncle Pierre.”
“Yes, sir,” the boys responded obediently.
Pierre signaled and Gilbert and Jeremy took his elbows and supported him to totter into the middle of the circle the others made. Moving made the wounds on the backs of his legs open up once more. Despite the dressings, blood begin to trickle out.
His head felt like it was going to fall off. He set his jaw. He didn’t want to be bawling like a baby in front of these guys. But it hurt like a son of a bitch. Gilbert untied the strings on the back of the gown and pulled it down his arms.
“Zeke, Gideon, you help him onto his hands and knees.” Uncle Pierre began to unbutton his shirt. “Here’s where we all take bear too.”
Kneeling on all fours, with his bits dangling in the breeze, while eight hairy giants stood around him undressing, was possibly the most humiliating thing Patrick had ever done. It was also humiliating to see that even the boys could smoothly shift into bear without fuss.
Only his father was as slow as he was. He didn’t recollect ever seeing Jeremy take bear. When he and Zeke had come into their talent at puberty, it was Gilbert and Freddie who had taken them into the foothills and explained shifting to them. Not that they had done that often. Success, Colorado, was not a location that was particularly bear friendly.
Lenny dropped to all fours and in the flicker of an eyelash he was a massive black bear. It took him no time at all, and he didn’t even seem to be uncomfortable. He opened his mouth to display an impressive set of teeth before sitting down on his massive hindquarters with what Patrick could only describe as a foolish smile. A foolish smile that could take your arm off.
Zeke dropped to all fours as Lenny Benoit had done. His change was both slower and less fluid than his buddy’s had been. Patrick could tell that his twin was suppressing his urge to bellow. Zeke’s black bear was smaller than Lenny’s.
Patrick’s own shift was excruciating. Far slower than it had been before he was injured. Agonizingly slow. And for some reason his paws remained human long after the rest of him had become a bear. And they weren’t designed to take the enormous weight of a black bear. His ankles and wrists protested.
The two boys were as pale as their own blond hair. They were cream colored, just the very tips of their round ears shading to cinnamon. Their black eyes twinkled and they were almost levitating with the joy of being in bear. Lenny stood up and bumped them with an enormous shoulder. He forced them back into the circle and he and another bear separated the lively pair.
Soon he was surrounded by black bears. Even though he was still muscular and broad, Uncle Pierre was not quite as large as his nephews. His black fur was tinged with gray on muzzle and chest. But the others treated him with the same deference they did when he was in human.
Jeremy was still struggling with his shift. His bear was brown and smaller even than those of the white youngsters. But at least he was all bear. Patrick concentrated on willing his hands and feet to become the great predatory paws they should be.
When it was all done, he hurt less than he had since the cougar attack. It was as if some miracle elixir was flowing through his veins. Not that he felt frisky enough to romp through the woods. His head still didn’t feel too securely attached to his neck. And his hind legs throbbed. The breeze chilled them, so he guessed they were bleeding.
Uncle Pierre nudged him gently with his nose so that he was positioned dead center in the circle of bears. Lenny – he thought it was Lenny – butted the two bouncing youths into place between himself and his brother. Or maybe it was Joey who did the butting. There was virtually no difference between those two enormous black bears.
Uncle Pierre gently touched his nose to Patrick’s. He opened his mouth and exhaled. A warm and comforting puff of air blew all over him, into his eyes and into his mouth. When he himself inhaled, it was as though he had taken some of the old man’s strength into his own body.
Pierre breathed into his face three more times, and then he must have given a signal that Patrick missed, for the entire circle rotated clockwise and he found himself facing the giant muzzle of Gideon Bascom, who opened his maw to reveal teeth like steak knives.