Chapter 15 - Mysteries And Moms

Flint jogged to his Rover under darkening skies and tossed a box of odds and ends from the duplex into the backseat. Goldie was not around, and he hadn’t seen her since the day before, when he’d taken her the food. He didn’t need Carick on his ass, he was on his own ass, but trying to give Goldie space and time, too.

Flint was glad to have the overcast day off. He’d spent the last few hours at the duplex, cleaning, packing, grabbing some special tools he needed from the kitchen that he knew Bryce wouldn’t miss. He was unsure, though, of a few things he’d found laying around, so Flint had gathered them in a box and was going to run by the Bear Claw to show Bryce and Molly and Nando before he threw the stuff out.

He heard an engine rev behind him and turned to see Riot’s black motorcycle pull into the driveway on the other side of the duplex. What the fuck is that cat doing here? But the magenta hair spilling from the helmet of the woman behind him answered Flint’s question almost as soon as he asked it. So Darby was still chummy with that punk.

She lifted her leg over the bike and handed Riot his extra helmet, then kissed his on the faceplate, leaving a deep burgundy lip-print, and headed inside. Flint didn’t miss the glare she shot over her shoulder and right into Flint’s eyes as she made her way up the front steps.

What was it about him that Darby hated so much? He knew he’d gotten off on the wrong foot, but damn. That woman didn’t know the meaning of the word slack, much less how to cut him some. Riot probably was not helping. Flint waited while Riot backed out of the driveway and tore off down the street before backing out and making his own way toward town.

But Riot didn’t turn north to go back to town. He turned to head deeper into the forest.

(follow him.)

Flint’s Instinct spoke up loud and clear as he reached the fork where Riot had turned. Careful to stay far enough back not to catch the puma’s attention, and keeping cars between them for as long as he could, Flint followed Riot for miles.

The big cat ended up taking a washed-out dirt service road with ruts deep enough to strand even Flint’s tough-ass Rover if the rain came down too hard and fast. Instead he parked and jogged through the underbrush just off the road, prepared to dive into cover if Riot doubled back.

By the time he spied Riot’s bike the shifter was standing next to it naked, stuffing his clothes into a bag much larger than them which he rolled up and secured with cording. He shifted into a tan, lean mountain lion with a single black diamond between his eyes. His ears twitched as he settled into his cat, then Riot picked up the bound sack with his teeth and ran on magically silent paws to a steep mountainside, where he found a path up the rock and disappeared.

Flint made his way back to his ride as fat drops started to fall, unsure of what he’d seen or if it meant anything. So Riot liked to climb as a puma, that’s no crime. But something still felt off to Flint. He worried it like a rawhide chew, turning the questions over and over in his mind all the way to the Bear Claw Diner.

Once inside, Molly noticed instantly, her condor senses on alert. She and Hernando didn't have the sharp perception of an eagle like Aven, but they were still sensitive to people's moods. “What’s the matter? Why are you wet?” she said by way of greeting, her shrewd brown eyes pinning Flint to the proverbial wall. He kissed her tan cheek as he set the box he’d brought from the duplex on the counter. Molly fluttered her hands at the box. “Not here, get a table! And a towel, you're dripping! It’s the lunch rush and we’re already strapped with poor Brittany gone.”

Yep, every table was already taken. He snagged a seat near the counter and soaked in the bustling scene. Scents crowded in for his attention: human, shifter, half-shifter, and of course the wonderful food they served at the Bear Claw Diner.

Molly and Hernando had been Uncle Bruce’s employees at the Black Bear Outfitting Company when the vampires killed him, and had been first to step up and help when Flint and Bryce stumbled into town. For twenty years after the brothers’ family had died, Molly and Hernando had run the BBOC, keeping the business the boys had inherited in the black and even thriving. But once Flint had been old enough to take over, and even more so after Bryce joined him, their adoptive parents had confessed that their true dream was to run a restaurant. They’d opened the Bear Claw Diner a few years back and were more successful than ever, especially with the influx of shifters they were having in Five Hills lately. Males and the occasional female, with all kind of animals, would frequently feel drawn to the diner and in particular its logo, which they now knew resembled something switches called the Ingrav.

But to Flint the Bear Claw was an extension of home. Even as he watched, Bryce pushed through the door from the kitchen, a pie in each hand, and tucked them into the pastry case at one end of the counter. He saw Flint and strolled over, dusting his hands on a kitchen towel he then handed over to Flint. “Hey, bro, whatcha doing here?”

Flint shrugged, toweling his arms. “Found a few things at the house I thought I’d get rid of if nobody wanted them.”

Bryce poked through the box, his eyes lighting angrily on a cloth bag tucked in one corner. “What? You can’t throw out my diamonds, man!” He snatched the bag out of the box and glared at Flint with uncharacteristic fury. Flint didn’t know what had possessed the cub.

He put up his hands in surrender. “Hey, sorry, B. I thought after all these years you’d accepted that they’re worthless.” It was true. The diamonds in that bag were useless crap, dug up from a mine where fifteen dollars bought you a day’s access to all the rough gemstone you could carry out. But Bryce treated them like he’d lucked onto De Beers’ secret stash. Flint had never understood it.

Bryce stuffed the bag in his pocket, muttering as he turned back to the kitchen. “Not to me, they’re not.”

Hernando came in from the back hallway that led to his and Molly’s office, spotted Flint, and came over for a handshake and back-slapping hug. “How are you, oso?”

Flint looked into his adoptive father’s warm gray eyes. “Just as good as when you saw me three days ago, Nando.” Even after twenty-five years and Molly and Hernando legally adopting them, Flint had never been able to bring himself to call them Mom and Pop like Bryce did. Flint remembered their real parents; Bryce didn’t. Which was probably lucky for the kid, considering what Flint’s last memories of their parents were like.

He shook it off and returned his focus to Nando, chatting as he poked through the box. “Don’t see nothing I need. You happy up there at Tsigule?” Hernando’s gray eyes pierced Flint’s reserve and compelled him to speak. Nando wasn’t the biggest fan of The Cause coming back, and he didn’t like the idea of Flint leaving to take the vampires on alone, but Flint needed him.

Flint tuned his voice low. “Things are moving. Did Bryce bring Darby in this morning?”

Hernando nodded, his salt and pepper hair catching the light. “He brought her. Riot took her home to get ready, then he’s bringing her back for the dinner shift. Something we should know?”

Flint shifted his weight from foot to foot. So Riot was just helping out? That didn’t fit with Flint’s picture of the big cat. He’d have to keep a close eye, make sure Darby didn’t get her ass in a crack she couldn’t get it out of. “Bryce tell you Darby’s roommate is a switch?”

The older male shook his head wonderingly. “He didn’t mention it. Another switch in town. What a boon for you.”

Molly shuffled over to take a turn looking in the box. “You talking about Darby? She seems like a nice girl, Flint, why don’t you ask her out?”

Flint nearly choked. Darby, a nice girl? “I don’t think she likes me very much. We kind of got off on the wrong foot.”

Molly’s brow, still smooth of wrinkles even at her age, creased in confusion. “Don’t be silly. Everyone knows my boys are as sweet as the pies I bake. About time the two of you settled down, anyway. Start families. You’re not getting any younger, niño. Your bear is going to start growling soon.”

An ache the size of Wyoming woke deep in Flint’s gut. He’d never admit it to Molly, but his bear had been growling for years, urging him to find a female, settle down, keep her well-fed and round with his babies as often as she wanted, and to raise those babies in the kind of loving home he’d had before the vampires ruined it. But it wasn’t in the cards for him.

Hernando looked at Flint with shrewd eyes that had always seen more than Flint had been strictly comfortable with, as if the old bird could not only pick up on his emotions, he could hear every thought as it ran through Flint's head. “The Great Bear has plans for you, Flint. Plans that don’t include you living alone. The sooner you accept this and get on with it, the easier life will be.”

Flint muscled the hibernating beast of his bear’s Instinct back underground, back to the depths where those desires had to stay buried if he was ever going to avenge his family.

It was harder than it had ever been before, perhaps because for the first time, he had a face he would like to attach to those desires. A face defined by kind blue eyes, and a sweetness that made his heart swell pumpkin-sized.