Brody walked along Main Street, marveling at the way the men had risen to the challenge when John set out the parameters for this new mission. They had drafted in a bit of help from the Clan of shifters that had their own construction company in Nevada, to plan and build the small town square. Other than that, everyone had built their own little den in the woodlands that surrounded the cove.

A few also had houses and cover businesses in town. Brody had chosen to build his home on the outskirts of town, closer than most of the outliers. His job as sheriff of the newly incorporated town of Grizzly Cove, Washington, demanded his full attention. Now that humans were coming into town with more regularity, he needed to stay on his toes so his brothers and their secret would be safe.

The town square had a plethora of art galleries that were filled with all kinds of stuff the bears had thrown together. Most of it was garbage, as far as Brody was concerned, but there were a few standouts. Drew’s figurines had always been nice, and they were bringing in big bucks, mostly by accident.

Drew had put the first triple-digit prices on them as a joke, probably also hoping nobody would buy them. Much to his surprise, the rich humans who had bought the carvings on their way through town hadn’t even blinked at the high prices.

That set the tone. After seeing the kind of money Drew was bringing into their community, it became a point of pride among the bears to try to do better. Even Brody had gotten caught up in the competition, learning how to use his chainsaw to carve logs into—what else—bears. He liked the irony, and the humans seemed to like the bears. They didn’t bring in the same prices as Drew’s miniatures, but Brody was working on improving his technique and learning to carve other things besides his self portrait.

When he wasn’t busy being sheriff, that is. Not that there was much crime in their small town, but Brody’s unofficial job was to keep an eye on the humans. In particular, he was watching over a trio of new arrivals who had gotten permission to open a business. Though humans had passed through, none but this group of three sisters had been brave enough to go before the town council—made up of the Alpha and his top lieutenants—to seek permits to open a business here.

There had been long, high-level discussions about the newcomers’ bid to open a bake shop. Over a case or two of beer, the town council had decided to expand their social experiment to include the occasional human female in the town, under strictly controlled conditions.

Those conditions included discreet surveillance by the sheriff and strict limitations on where the females in question could live. In town. That was the only option open to them. Luckily, the sisters didn’t seem to mind.

And so, Nell Baker—with the suitably ironic surname—and her two younger sisters, opened the Grizzly Cove Bake Shop and lived in the tiny apartment above the small store. Business was booming, because bears liked sweet things and because Nell and her sisters were easy on the eyes.

Nell, Ashley and Tina were also some of the only females for miles, though they didn’t seem aware of it, at first. Only after they had set up shop and fallen into the routine of daily life, a few months after moving in, did they seem to realize there weren’t a lot of other women in the area.

Oh, a few female bears had answered the Alpha’s open invitation to settle in the cove, but times were tough in the realms of magic and those whose lives were touched by it. Most shifters seemed to want to stay put where they were until things settled down. Apparently, John hadn’t really thought about that when he put his plan in motion, but it couldn’t be helped now.

The shifter world was still in a holding pattern and would be until the enemy started up their old tricks again. Until that time, the bears were going to live…and live well.

“Afternoon, Nell,” Brody said, walking into the bakery and finding the eldest of the Baker sisters manning the shop.

Brody liked to come by a few times a week to check on things and pick up a pie. Nell made the most delicious strawberry rhubarb pies Brody had ever tasted.

“Now how did you know I just finished a batch of pies, Sheriff?” Nell laughed as she teased him.

Brody tapped his nose. “It smelled like lunchtime.”

Nell rolled her eyes at him. “Pie isn’t lunch, Sheriff.” She motioned him to take a seat and brought over a cup of black coffee.

Because there weren’t a lot of businesses in town where a person could get a meal, the bake shop had started serving coffee and sandwiches. The sisters baked artisanal breads in addition to the sweet stuff.

There were a few small tables inside, as well as a few wooden patio-style tables with umbrellas out front along the wide sidewalk. A lot of the men who found themselves in town during the day got their lunch from the sisters, and the ladies did a brisk business. The few tourists and hikers who came through loved the bakery too.

In fact, one walked in as Nell set Brody’s usual turkey on whole grain sandwich down in front of him. She’d serve him the pie later, but she insisted he eat a proper lunch first, before he devoured the strawberry-honey-rhubarb confection.

Brody watched the tourist covertly as he ate his sandwich. There was something off about the guy, but Brody couldn’t catch much of his scent from across the room and with the air conditioning unit blasting in his face. All he caught was the pungent scent of eucalyptus.

Maybe the guy had a sore throat and was sucking on a cough drop. Brody shrugged as he downed his sandwich, continuing to watch the tourist, his instincts telling him there was more wrong with the guy than just a summer cold.

Then the newcomer started speaking in a heavily accented voice, and his words told Brody all he needed to know. The man definitely had a one-way ticket on the bus to Crazytown.

“I heard there’s supposed to be a lot of bears around here,” the stranger said in a voice that carried to Brody, even as he stood to intervene. “But so far, all I’ve seen is a whole lot o’ nothin’.” The man leaned over the counter that separated them and took a very obvious sniff around Nell. Brody felt the growl reverberating in his throat as the man turned. “Finally!” he said, looking with challenge at Brody as he prowled across the floor of the bakery.

“You’d better leave the lady alone, son,” Brody growled, moving closer.

“Why? I thought Grizzly Cove was the place where bears could be bears. Or is that just a PR slogan?” The man—scratch that, the shifter—was breaking all sorts of rules, including the most important. Don’t let the humans find out.

“Let’s take this outside, friend.” Brody tried to intimidate the man out of the place, but apparently, a dominance contest was about to take place, whether he wanted it or not, and Nell was going to witness it. Goddess help them all.

He tried one more time, pitching his voice so only the newcomer would hear his words. “She’s human, man. Don’t be a fool.”

“A fool! Who’s calling Seamus O’Leary a fool?” the stranger demanded, reaching up to unbutton his shirt.

Only then, did Brody catch the underlying scent of alcohol.

“You’re drunk,” Brody snapped out, hoping Nell would accept that excuse for the man’s bizarre behavior.

“I am not,” Seamus objected, continuing to unbutton his shirt.

If the moron was going to get naked right here in the bakery and shift, Brody was going to have to do the same and show him who the bigger bear was in the most graphic terms. But Nell didn’t know about shifters. And Brody didn’t want to be the one to break it to her.

Better to arrest the drunken Aussie and handle all of this down at the station. When the foreign shifter sobered up a bit, then maybe Brody could make some sense out of his bizarre appearance.

Brody put one hand on the foreigner’s shoulder. “Don’t do this here,” Brody coaxed. “Come with me, and we can do it properly.”

Seamus shook his head. “Don’t want to meet me in public, eh, mate? Why? What are you? A pansy-assed panda?”

Brody personally knew at least one resident of the cove who would take marked exception to that comment, but he was more worried about Nell, at the moment. The Aussie’s shirt was off, and he just unbuttoned and unzipped, kicking off his sandals.

And then, he shifted. And got a lot smaller.

He wasn’t a big man to begin with. Built more on the wiry side than the massive scale of most of the residents of Grizzly Cove. And he was gray. With tufted ears. And he wasn’t chewing cough drops.

He was a fucking koala bear.