I was recovering from cancer surgery to my saliva gland—of all places—when a pair of large golden spots began to glow in the back of my mind. These strange apparitions didn’t go away. Brain cancer, I thought. The surgeons didn’t get it all and the cancer’s spread to the back of my head. Just as I was ready to call the doctor’s office to make a dreaded appointment, the glowing neon yellow spots blinked. Blinked, mind you!

Eyes?

These spots I’d tried my best to ignore for two weeks were eyes? Well hell, I didn’t need a cancer doctor. I needed a shrink!

For almost a month as I healed, making daily trips to the doctor to have liquid drained from my swollen face, these yellow eyes watched and waited and willed me to speak to them. Now, I might be a tad crazy, but even I know better than to talk to things that shouldn’t be there.

So, one night as I was drifting off to sleep, the eyes moved. They floated from my head and into the face of a huge brown bear standing at the foot of my bed. Since I believe book characters often search for an author to write their stories, I told him he was at the wrong house. That I didn’t write children’s stories. He shook his large head. “Oh, you’re not that kind of bear?” He silently shook his head again. It was an eerie moment.

Then to my surprise and delight, he shifted into a kilt-wearing Scot with long dark hair. “Oh gee, you’re still at the wrong writer’s house. I don’t write paranormal. I don’t even read it.”

He sauntered to my side of the bed and sat. “Aye, lassie, but ye will.” His Scottish brogue sent a shiver skittering over my skin. “Scoot over and I’ll tell ye how bears came to be extinct in Scotland.”

I snuggled closer to hubs and the bigger-than-life Scot stretched out on the bed next to me with one hand beneath his head. He told me the most bizarre, imagination boosting tale of his ancestors. He said his name was Creighton Matheson—Mathe meaning bear. I absorbed every detail of his family’s legend.

What do you think was the first thing I did when I woke up the next morning? I googled “Are bears extinct in Scotland?” They were. In fact, I found an article where the UK was trying to re-introduce the species into the Highlands. The article claimed the bears were shot by hunters in the previous century. But I had a better story…straight from the mouth of a bear shifter.

I was told by a woman who reads auras that the bear was my totem; my healer when I got sick. Who’d have thought?

My series of shifters began with almost zero knowledge of the paranormal genre. I hadn’t intended for anyone to read them because I felt like a fake writing about something I was ignorant of—but, oh, what fun I had writing for my own enjoyment. My agent at the time told an editor at Random House about my “play stories.” The editor read the first three chapters of one and gave me a contract for three books in a series. The books and novellas have continued and I’ve fallen in love with the bear shifters with the glowing, golden eyes.

Sometimes, dreams do propel us. They certainly led Cameo Blake, a woman who suffers from prophetic dreams, to a certain Aquarian bear shifter.

This man, full of wit, who loves people—if he feels they’re worthy—was born on February 2^nd. The Aquarian sign ranges from January 20^th to February 18^th.. The sign of the water bearer is in actuality an air sign. The Aquarian male looks for someone to engage him, mentally. A challenge of ideas and theories, of wills. Don’t get me wrong, while he enjoys the physical attributes of a female, the real turn-on for him is the mind.

I raised an Aquarius. He made me laugh often with his zaniness. He strove to please me. And he loved sitting up late at night talking philosophy. When he was in second grade, his teacher sent home a note accusing him of being unsociable, refusing to join in group activities. When I questioned him, he said, “But, Mom, the rest of the kids are so dumb. Why do I have to do dumb things with dumb people?” I could almost feel my first gray hair pop out.

But what happens when an Aquarius meets a woman who is more educated than he? A woman so full of herself, she makes this bear shifter laugh. Slip into the story with me…