Cody (Strauss Bear Shifter Brothers 0f Colorado Book 3) Read online

  “It was sad,” Jessie said. She reached out and grabbed his wrist and his heart raced as if he were a teenager again.

  He thought he showed an epic amount of restraint in not kissing her right then, but he only raised an eyebrow and just as quickly she moved her and. That was disappointing.

  “You told me you saw the movie?” Cody said.

  “I did, but the book is much more... sad.” She narrowed her eyes. “You told me it was cynical and dark-”

  “Well, that’s kind of how I read it, I guess.”

  “Maybe you’re cynical and dark-”

  “I am not!”

  Cody opened his mouth, the invitation to a date on the tip of his tongue. But just as quickly he stopped himself. It wasn’t the right time. Maybe it was some sixth sense telling him not to risk it. He didn’t want things to get weird between them.

  “What will you read next?” He asked instead.

  He thought he might go ahead and read whatever she happened to be reading. He wondered if she had more to say about The Great Gatsby. He wanted to hear her every thought.

  “Oh, I dunno,” she said. She ducked her head, looking shy, as if it was such a crazy thought that she could be reading a book. He thought that was strange. “I really loved Gatsby even if it was sad. The writing was so beautiful and I cried at the end, how he just wanted to erase his past but at the same time he couldn’t let it go?’

  “Yeah,” Cody said. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Jessie never disappointed. She was absolutely fascinating to him. “It’s painful but beautiful.”

  “Exactly!” She grabbed his hand and squeezed it and he felt caught in that moment, wanting it to go on and on. She let go of it again and sat back, the spell broken. “Anyway... I don’t get a lot of time to go to libraries or bookstores these days or... to read. That book wasn’t even that long and I only had time to read it over lunch.”

  “Are we keeping you that busy?” Cody said, frowning. “Jessie, have you been working overtime? Because-”

  “No, um... ” She shook her head. “Nothing like that. I just have um... other responsibilities?”

  “Oh, pfft.” He raised his hands as if in defense. “Sorry, that’s none of my business at all-”

  “No no!” Jessie said quickly. “It’s okay. Fair question. Anyway, I’d like to read more. I always feel better after curling up with a book for a while. I just wondered if you knew anything else I might like.”

  Shoot. His mind was blank. He wished he had thought of something. He imagined the two of them starting their own little book club. He wondered if he could get her to meet him in the lounge sometime. They could drink whiskey and talk about books and one thing would lead to another...

  “I’ll think of something,” he said smoothly. He winked at her and he could swear she blushed. He checked his phone and winced. He needed to be getting back to the kitchen and he was clearly holding Jessie up. “I’ll find you.”

  “Okay.” Jessie pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. He wished he could twirl it around his finger. She got up from the table, having finished just half her food, and he stood there, leaning as she wrapped up her leftovers for later.

  “Hey, Jessie,” Cody said softly. “It really isn’t my business but... if there’s anything you need help with? I mean, whatever it is that’s keeping you so busy, you can talk to me. I mean, I’d... help you however I can.” He couldn’t quite hold back the way his voice lowered. Something was wrong. He had a strong suspicion. But he couldn’t help if he didn’t know.

  “Thanks, Cody.” She smiled and just as quickly looked away. He felt immediately like the boss again, or at least the quarter boss.

  He wished they could just be two people, two bears, and not boss and employee.

  “Right,” he muttered. “Alright, I’ll see you later. I guess.”

  “Thank you for lunch,” she said, meeting his eyes once more. “Really.”

  “Any time,” he said.

  He left before things could become awkward and felt as if their friendship had taken a step back when he wanted it to take about ten steps forward.

  Goddammit.

  He left her there and out in the hall, his aggravation came out in the form of a low growl and he glared at employees passing by, who quickly skittered out of his way because Cody Strauss in a bad mood was bad news.

  He was frustrated. He felt as if he could have something special with Jessie but something was holding them back and he had a feeling it was a problem that Jessie wasn’t willing to share.

  And he wasn’t going to be able to drop it until he found out what it was.

  2

  Jessie

  The trouble was that Jessie liked Cody and that was hard enough. He had quickly become one of the highlights of her day and as far as the workday alone went, he was the highlight of her day. When she was exhausted from cleaning for hours and yet more tired thinking about all the things she’d have to do as soon as she got home, Cody always seemed to show up. Or she would go visit him in the kitchen and he’d give her a snack or a soda and chat with her and she always felt better. Sometimes when she surprised him in the kitchen, she caught him while he was grumpy and grumbling at his kitchen staff or himself because he was unhappy with a dish or the state of the kitchen. He always seemed a little more cheerful when Jessie left too. Unless she was imagining it.

  But Jessie had decided that her little crush would only remain that; a little crush. It could not be anything more. That was too big a risk.

  Jessie went back to work and allowed herself to pout as she made bed and stuffed laundry into a cart. The work was at least a distraction from thinking about what she could not have. Sometimes she didn’t mind it so much. Cleaning could be kind of satisfying. If she wasn’t so tired and stressed out all the time, she would not have minded the job at all. The pay was good and the Strauss brothers treated their staff well.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket as she pushed her cleaning cart down a carpeted hallway and she bit her lip. Texts always meant something had happened or somebody wanted something back home. Most of the time, it was something small. But after everything, her heart always gave a nervous little leap when her phone buzzed.

  The text was from Molly as most texts usually were, unless Chris or Jason had grabbed the phone.

  Pls pick up applesauce & milk.

  It was followed by several nonsensical but cheerful emojis.

  Jessie chuckled at the emojis, wondering what an octopus and a unicorn had to do with anything and replied.

  Ok. We had a gallon of milk?

  Molly replied: Twins spilled it all over floor.

  “Noooo.” Jessie groaned into her hand and took a couple of seconds, first to imagine what an awful mess that must have been and then to hope that Molly had cleaned it up.

  Poor Molly.

  She texted back an okay and an octopus emoji for good measure and pocketed her phone.

  Molly was twelve-years-old and the twins, Kevin and Mary, were three. Then there was the ten-year-old, Chris, and eight-year-old Jason and the toddler, Sophie. They were all bear shifter cubs.

  None of them were hers and neither were they her siblings.

  “Okay, one more hour,” Jessie said, sighing.

  The Clan, as Jessie had taken to calling it, of six bear shifter children who Jessie cared for all by herself had sort of fallen into her lap one day. Since that day, life had become a lot more exhausting, though sometimes when she could forget the danger and her entire body wasn’t aching from all the work and the kids were behaving, it was also a lot of fun.

  Jessie had come upon the six children one day a few months before getting her job at The Black Bear Lake Lodge. She’d been working as a barista at the time, and living with a couple other women her own age as roommates in an apartment just outside Black Bear Lake. She’d gotten along with Lucinda and Rebecca well enough. They’d never ended up becoming super close friends.

  Lucinda and Rebecca were devoted to th
eir schooling, still in law school and working full time, while Jessie was happy to take whatever job she could get that she didn’t hate and have enough free time to pursue her hobbies; watercolor painting, reading like a fiend, and a number of video games that she played into the wee hours of the night. But the other girls had been bear shifters too, and the three of them got along well enough. On occasion, they even went on runs together in the woods on the edge of town, or at least they did whenever Jessie could get them to take a break from their studies.

  It was on one such run when Jessie had found the children.

  She had split off from Lucinda and Rebecca and gone off on her own pursuing some interesting and unfamiliar muddy smells, her bear nature curious to explore on a chilly spring day. She’d found the source, a creek still thawing from winter. Then she smelled young bear shifters. Cubs always had a different scent than adults and it wasn’t something Jessie was too used to, having been an only child and not spending a whole lot of time around other cubs.

  Jessie had followed the scent through the woods, all the way to a damp and very cold cave beyond a cluster of trees. The entrance was blocked by a small boulder and a makeshift door of branches and vines attached to a chain around a hook so that it secured whatever was inside.

  It was not an everyday occurrence to find a cave that was obviously and deliberately “locked” to keep something in it. That was one thing. But the scents were unmistakable. There were cubs in the cave. And worse, once Jessie approached it, she could hear them crying.

  Jessie had not thought twice about it at all. She didn’t think about potential consequences or the idea that if someone was locking baby bears in a cave, they might also be nearby. And what then?

  Instead, she’d used all her strength to move the boulder and unhook the chain from its latch.

  Once she’d made it inside the cave, she felt her heart breaking. The six cubs were all in their human forms and somehow that made it worse. They were much more fragile that way, especially in the wild. All but the two oldest, Molly and Chris, were crying and whimpering. They were all dinner and far too thin. She’d found them with no food and only a bucket with a bit of water in it.

  Jessie had managed to talk to the oldest girl. It took Molly a few minutes to talk. Every second had been a little terrifying. To Jessie’s mind, whoever had trapped them here must be very dangerous. Molly told her that all the children were from the same sleuth who left them in the cave to go into town as humans whenever they liked. What was worse was, most of the children preferred when they were left alone rather than be knocked around and mistreated by their parents.

  Or anyway, Molly assumed the bears were her parents. There were no clear mothers and fathers, she said.

  It was more than enough information for Jessie to take action, but she knew she had to be smart about it. She left the children and pushed everything back into place, latching the door. She’d run out to find Lucinda and Rebecca, knowing they’d eventually come to look for her.

  That had been the trickiest part; lying to the two would-be lawyers. They were a little suspicious when Jessie insisted that she felt like staying in the woods overnight and they should go home without her.

  Jessie had left them as quickly as possible and rejoined the children.

  She’d stood there in the cave, in her human form, and looked every hungry and abused child in the eye. “If you want to, all of you can come with me. It won’t be easy, but I won’t hurt you. I’ll hide you from your sleuth and I’ll take care of you the very best I can-”

  She hadn’t finished her speech before Jason, the eight-year-old, had run forward and thrown his arms around her waist, crying into her hip. That had clinched it.

  Molly had been helpful during the escape. She knew which trails the sleuth took to get back the cave when they returned from town, so Jessie led them in the opposite direction. She’d led them for miles, far from the sleuth’s territory... which had brought them to that mountain of Black Bear Lake.

  On the way, Jessie fished in the parts of the river that were thawed enough that it wasn’t hard to catch trout. Molly and Chris already knew how to fish fairly well. They caught food for the little ones and Jessie let them rest for a bit while standing guard.

  Sometimes the cubs couldn’t stay in their bear form long enough and had to be human and that made it harder going. Their clothes were rags and the spring was still chilly. At least it wasn’t winter.

  They’d walked for hours on that first day, and even run for a long time. Jessie hadn’t formed much of a plan; just to find a place to hide the children before she could find somewhere better.

  She’d stumbled on the cabin by accident.

  The place was abandoned and it sat in a deserted area of the woods that looked out on the ski lodge below. It didn’t have electricity, but there was an old generator that actually worked. There was so much dust around, she could tell no one had lived there in years.

  It had been a big risk, but Jessie had set up a home for the children that day. She’d returned to her apartment and in the next few days, moved out. She made all kinds of excuses for her roommates who had apparently wanted a friend of theirs to move into her room anyway.

  So it all worked out... if suddenly finding yourself a single mom to six children on the run could be considered working out. It was scary sometimes. She was constantly afraid that the sleuth would track down their children. The cabin was far from where she’d originally found the children but it was still in Colorado. She was half-hoping, based on how the children had been treated, that the sleuth wouldn’t bother looking for their cubs.

  “One more hour to go,” Jessie thought. She pushed her cart down the hall and for about the fiftieth time that day, wished she could have said yes to Cody Strauss. But that was just too dangerous. Cody couldn’t know about the children. No one could. It was better to keep him at arm’s length. She just hoped they could still stay as they were... even if she fantasized about him at night once the children were asleep.

  Milk and applesauce, Jessie thought, as she locked another suite door. Don’t forget.

  “One more hour... ”

  Jessie was a hard worker and had always been wired that way. But sometimes the day was simply too long and arduous and she would take a break for a few minutes outside of her regular fifteen-minute scheduled breaks. They were such small amounts of time and yet she was used to constantly being in motion doing something. Even when she’d shared her apartment, she had seldom sat down and curled up with a book like she’d told Cody she so enjoyed. She was always cleaning or puttering around or going for a jog. She was a mover, a doer. Relaxing sometimes made her feel guilty.

  But her feet were sore by the end of the day. She was close to falling asleep standing up. So she took her extraneous five-minute break in the form of leaving just a few minutes early this time, hoping that when her time card was run through the computer for payroll, no one would be mad.

  Jessie clocked out, brought herself a and ducked into the lobby to rest for a few minutes before making her way home. Nobody who worked the front desk would care that she’d left just a few minutes early. She plopped down into one of the overstuffed striped easy chairs for waiting guests and sighed heavily, popping open her soda and taking a sip. The desk clerk recognized her and tossed her a wave and Jessie nodded back.

  She couldn’t help keeping her eye out for Cody on the off chance he happened to be lingering in the lobby. He was often around at this time. She liked to think it was so he could catch her on her way home. They often chatted for a few minutes. But it was more likely to happen.

  Jessie saw Cody before he noticed her. She bit her lip and sipped her soda, a greeting on the tip of her tongue. He was leaning on the front desk and holding a book as he chatted with the desk clerk.

  It gave her a nice view of the back of him. A very nice view. He filled out the dark wash jeans he wore in the kitchen just right...

  “Hey, Jess.” He turned around and saw her and
Jessie blinked, feeling caught out. She swallowed and she was about to get to her feet, though they were so sore, she needed new shoes, it seemed like an impossible task. “Nah, don’t get up.”

  “I should get home,” she said, sighing. She winced and whispered, “I may have taken off a few minutes early. Just a few.”

  “I won’t tell anyone,” Cody said, chuckling. He leaned on her chair and there was something casual and easy about it that she liked. “Hey, I was hoping I’d run into you. I got something for you.”

  He smiled and handed her a book. It was a pristine hardback edition of The Age of Innocence. “It’s from our guest library. I mean maybe you’ve read it before, but I just thought-”

  “No!” She found herself blushing and she touched her cheeks with the back of one hand to cool them, the book in her other hand. Cody was still hanging onto it and their fingers brushed. When he leaned in a little she could smell his bear scent and it made her dizzy. “I haven’t read it. I’ve heard of it.”

  “I thought I’d pick up a paperback copy,” he said, shrugging, watching her furtively. “We could talk about it. If you want.”

  A private little book club just for the two of them. She swallowed, her stupid crush threatening to swallow her whole. “Yeah, that sounds great.” Reluctantly, Jessie did get to her feet and she couldn’t but groan just a little. She was exhausted right down to her bones. “Sometimes I wonder if I can... ”

  She’d begun to speak without realizing it and she looked up at Cody with a jerk of her head. She had to be more careful, she thought. She couldn’t slip. She couldn’t open up, even if Cody was a lovely man, she even liked him when he was cranky and acted more like a bear than any bear shifter she’d met before.

  “What?” Cody said softly. “Are you okay?”

  He took her hand as she leaned heavily on the chair and the touch was so comforting, it made her want to fall right into his arms and that was dangerous.

  “Yeah.” She nodded. “Yeah, of course.”