He parked and got out of the truck. The mountain air surrounded him—pine and snow-melt and the wild scent of bear territory. His animal stirred again, recognizing home even if the man didn’t want to.
“You’re late.” Margot didn’t move from her position. Her voice was granite and disapproval.
“I drove straight through from Seattle.”
“I don’t mean today.” She descended the porch steps with the careful precision of someone whose joints had protested. “I mean the last fifteen years.”
Cal had no defense. He didn’t try to offer one.
Margot stopped in front of him, barely reaching his shoulder, and studied him. The same assessing stare he remembered from childhood. The look that had made him feel like she could see through every excuse, every deflection, every lie he told himself.
“You look like death warmed over.”
“Thank you.”
“How long since you shifted? Actually shifted, not that half-assed thing city bears do.”
“A while.”
“Your bear’s gone quiet.” It wasn’t a question. Margot’s gaze cut right through him. “Thought so.”
“I’ve been building a company?—”
“I know what you’ve been building.” Margot turned toward the cabin. “Come on. He’s been waiting.”
Cal followed her up the steps, through the door, into the cabin that smelled of wood smoke and memories and the particular musk of a bear in decline.
The interior was exactly as Cal remembered. Photographs covering the walls—generations of Ursa bears, fishing trips, mating ceremonies, moments frozen in time. The massive stone fireplace that had seemed like a mountain when he was achild. The worn leather chair where Bran had sat every evening, reading or whittling or watching the fire.
The chair was empty now.
“Through here.” Margot gestured toward the back bedroom. “He’s been spending more time in bed lately. The cold gets to him.”
Bears didn’t get cold. That was the thing. Their shifter metabolism, their thick skin, the animal heat that ran through them—cold was something that happened to other people.
Cal pushed open the bedroom door.
His grandfather lay propped against pillows, blankets piled thick despite the fire burning in the small hearth. The man who had once seemed like a force of nature—massive, powerful, unshakeable—was now thin and gray andwrong.
Cal stopped in the doorway, unable to move. Unable to reconcile the image before him with the grandfather of his memories.
Bran’s eyes opened. Still keen, despite everything. Still carrying that quiet authority that had made him alpha for forty years.
“You came.” His voice was thin. A shadow of what it had been. “I told Margot you would. She didn’t believe me.”
Cal crossed to the bedside. Took the chair that had clearly been placed there for visitors. “You asked me to.”
“I’ve asked before. You had reasons not to.”
No accusation in the words. Fact. Cal couldn’t deny it. “I’m here now.”
“Yes.” Bran studied him with the slow, reading attention Cal remembered from childhood—the old alpha who could gauge the health of his sleuth from a glance. “You look terrible, boy. You have your mother’s stubbornness and your father’s bad timing.” A quiet pause. “At least you came back.”
Bran made a sound of disgust. “You’ve been living like a wolf. All drive, no rest. That’s not how bears survive.”
“I’ve been building a company?—”
Bran’s hand found his, grip weaker than Cal remembered but still present. Still anchoring. “I’ve followed your career. Every acquisition, every expansion. You’ve done well. Made something of yourself.” A pause. “But you’ve forgotten what you are.”
