I told them the story of how I’d come to free the bear. How the cedar round had hummed, calling out to me, telling me what it wanted to become.
Zion nodded along as if I were stating scientific facts that made complete sense, asking questions about what the humming feltlike, and whether the song changed at various stages of the bear’s liberation.
Boone just grinned and said, “Magic’s real, sugar. Especially here.”
And the next morning, I woke up to find eight new rounds of wood waiting for me on the back deck. Every single one of them was humming.
Thank you, Ravik.
That evening, I asked Boone, “Does Bear Mountain have a library? I need reference books.”
It was just him tonight. Zion and Ravik had a vague “thing” up in Bear Mountain, according to Boone—who was not great at gossip, like Zion.
Boone’s face did something complicated.
“What?” I asked, a little alarmed.
“Yeah, Bear Mountain doesn’t have one, and maybe don’t ask Ravik and Zion about it.” His hand went up to the back of his neck. “You know about Zion’s birth daughter?”
I raised my eyebrows. “The one that’s in Vancouver and still not talking to either him or Ravik?”
I felt so much guilt around not telling Holly and Noelle I was here that I generally avoided the topic of Ravik’s and Zion’s maul kids, since two of them were planning to marry my daughters in July. But, of course, I remembered that deep conversation Zion and I had when he cut my hair.
“Yeah, her,” Boone said. “I’ve only gotten flashes of what went down around her exile, but I know Mara wanted to start a libraryhere before she got kicked out, and Zion and Ravik still feel hella guilty about not supporting her dreams. But why do you need a library?”
“It’s going to sound kind of crazy, but one of the wood pieces is saying it’s kind of a totem—but not a totem. I’m not sure exactly what I’m looking for, just that I’d love to get my hands on some reference books.”
Boone winced. “Well, you know, that’s not my area, sugar, but maybe when Ravik gets back you can ask him to go to the bookstore or something. Just not the library, okay?”
It was so strange. I’d never thought of Ravik as a person with feelings—ones that needed to be protected.
But, of course, I didn’t want to hurt him. Ever. And there was no way I was going to actually ask him for anything. I decided to just make do with all the gifts he’d already given me—seeing as how I didn’t even deserve them and had given him nothing in return except one bear, sourced from a piece of wood he’d given me.
Whatever the “thing” was, it kept Ravik and Zion away for the next night, too.
But when I woke up the following morning, I found a book on top of one of the smaller stumps that had hummed at me that it was a cub.
I picked up the top one. It had a striking close-up of a totem face on the cover and the titleTOTEM: The Art of the Canadian West.
It was exactly what I needed. And when I opened it, I found an old-fashioned return card from Blue Water Public Librarytucked inside an affixed pocket. Ravik of the Great Claw Mountains was printed across the third slot down in neat block letters. Next to it, a checkout date for three weeks from yesterday was stamped.
Blue Water. That was the name of the town with the public high school Zion had mentioned a couple of times, where some of the upperclassmen went for advanced classes.
So, Ravik had left whatever his thing was in Bear Mountain to drive all the way there, find exactly what I needed, and check it out on his library card.
My heart flipped, twisted, then melted. And there was no more denying it.Yep, yep…
I needed to make that man another batch of “thank you” sugar cookies. It was time to give talking to him another chance.
I had enough raspberry jam to make thumbprint cookies, and not feel dirty about it—since I was giving them to Ravik, not Zion.
How did the retired Mountie eat cookies, anyway? Probably neatly, with no crumbs spilling whatsoever. The opposite of Boone, who’d straight up Cookie Monstered a few of the half-batch I gave him, smashing them whole into his mouth before he walked out the door.
But not Ravik.
As I pressed my thumb into each ball of dough, creating the well for the jam, I imagined the rigid first maul eating themslowly, evaluating each bite. With his shirt off, for some reason, because he was careful when he was eating, oh-so careful, as his tongue….
Okay, stop, just stop, Bell. You are definitely toeing the line between imagination and fantasy for some reason….
