“No, it doesn’t,” Laurie said unhappily. “I’m waiting to hear how Diane’s surgery went. She’s a competitive skier. Or was. I know a lot of the others, too, but she’s hurt the worst.”
“I hope she’ll be okay.” They’d worked their way back across the field of debris by then, and Briana turned to glance over it, trying to see it with fresh eyes. After a moment, she said, “They’ve done a lot of cleanup work already, just this morning.”
“Yeah. They’re really good at it. But I can’t imagine the insurance company is going to clear us for returning this summer, even if they decide it’s safe at all. And rebuilding…” Laurie gave a half laugh and shook his head. “I don’t know how we could do it fast enough for this year’s Faire anyway. All those vendors out of work. The whole town’s summer tourism income down the drain, pretty much. I know there’s already a fundraiser to help people make it through, but I saw people commenting about the dangerous wild animals, too.”
“Better than comments about the wild animals turning into people,” Briana said a bit grimly. “Do you know an Alan Keatinge?”
Laurie nodded. “Yeah, redhead, he’s a circus performer. Older than me, more like my brother Bill’s age. Kind of a conspiracy theorist. Why?”
“Stephen thought he saw some shifters, and freaked out. Got off site really fast, anyway. He didn’t mention conspiracy theorist. That’s not a great kind of person to have see us.”
“I don’t know, people are used to not believing conspiracy theorists.” Laurie whistled theX-Filestheme with startling accuracy, and Briana glanced up at him, duly impressed.
“That was really good.”
Laurie opened his mouth, took a breath, and exhaled it, pressing his lips together again as if making a prudent choice. Briana groaned. “Yes, okay, thank you for not telling me I should see what else you’re good with your mouth at, or something like that.”
“You said it! Not me! Not guilty!” Laurie raised his hands, and Briana couldn’t help echoing the gesture.
“Yeah, no, I said it. You’re a bad influence, or something.” Or maybe he was a very good-looking guy who also happened to, annoyingly, be her fated mate, and now that she was starting to actually get to know him, evenmoreannoyingly, was kind of likable. And attractive. And probably good with his mouth at more than just talking and whistling. In a deliberately 'changing-the-topic' voice, she said, "At least the weather's cleared up."
Laurie grinned at the tone, but also glanced skyward and sighed. "Yeah. It's like it was waiting to knock the mountain down and then thought 'job done!' and moved on. Look, um, I'm kind of thinking I might seize the moment and get in touch with the Faire branch of the town council. Do you want to…" He shrugged uncomfortably. "You want to come into town with me, maybe?"
"Well, I drove and you probably did too, but, uh…" Briana looked toward the parking lot, then shrugged too. "But yeah, okay, sure. You can drop me back out here for my Jeep later. I'm sure I'll want to come back out here anyway."
Surprised relief swept Laurie's face and he smiled. "Or you can drive and drop me at the Thunder Bear later or whatever. Jon can bring me back out here or something, if I need the truck."
"Yeah, okay. Sounds good." Briana shoved her hands in her jeans pockets to give herself something do with them, and they threaded their way back through the site, stopping a couple of times to talk to people who were either doing disaster relief work or who, like them, had come to stare at the mess as if trying to process it.
By the time they got to the Jeep, Laurie wore an expression of hard determination. "I don't know if we can rebuild on the same site, but we'regoingto rebuild. We'll be back up and running next year if it's the last thing I do."
"I'd be happier if it wasn't."
Laurie shot her a confused glance and Briana clarified, "I'd be happier if it wasn't the last thing you did."
"Oh. Well, yeah, me too, although…" Laurie faded into a hopeful, tiny smile, though he didn't direct it at Briana herself.
She still all but heard what he was thinking: if she didn't want it to be the last thing he did, then she must care, at least a little, what happened to him. Which meant he might be winning her over, even just the smallest amount. Never mind that it was just the kind of thing people said. Even Briana could see how it meant something coming from a fated mate. Particularly a fated mate who had made it clear she wasn't interested in embracing fate.
Well, just because she wasn't down for fate arranging her love life didn't mean Briana wanted anything to happen to Laurie. Or anybody else, for that matter, but she abruptly remembered the heart-pounding horror of watching the slide smash into the back end of the fairgrounds, and a flare of white and red panic wiped her vision out. She wasn't yet driving, but her hands were on the steering wheel, clutching it with violent strength as her whole body went rigid with yesterday's fear.
It had happened so fast, and there had been so much to do, that Briana had barely even thought about the momentsof the disaster itself. Of her goat's stark terror as it took over, leaping ahead of and around the moving earth. Avalanches were a mountain goat's worst enemy. Her goat had twisted and bounced, catching her hooves on moving rock and launching forward with it, keeping just at the leading edge, keeping alive as the world fell down around her.
She remembered glimpses of Damien doing the same thing. She remembered an incongruously bright yellow and red banner sailing along ahead of her for several seconds before the pole it was on hit something else and the earth swallowed it. She remembered logs and branches, plastic buckets and picnic tables, mucky earth and rolling stones, all bouncing around her. People and animals tumbling through the landslide like broken toys. She hadn't remembered any of it until now, because staying alive had been too important.
The sound had been as horrifying as the earth's motion. Like thunder, but deeper and more merciless, inescapable. Stone on stone, wood snapping, voices rising in fear and being muffled almost instantly. Bears roaring and wolves howling, silenced as quickly as any other voices. Then the slide itself had been over and the quiet was deafening, almost worse than the sound.
And all she'd been able to think of was getting to Laurie. She'd seen him, glimpses from the corner of her eye as the landslide dragged them down the same path. A huge blond grizzly, dirtier with muck every time he surfaced, until he rolled ass over teakettle out to the leading edge of the slide, and collapsed. Briana hadknownhe wasn't dead, but now, clutching the steering wheel and trembling violently, she thought that had just been hope. Whether it had been knowledge or hope, in the midst of it she'd hated the idea that hemightbe dead, even if she'd barely given him a chance.
Maybebecauseshe'd barely given him a chance.
She'd seen his brother, too, just as big a bear, almost as blond. He'd been buried farther back and Briana had sworn to herself she'd go to him as soon as she was sure of Laurie's safety, because it would destroy Laurie to lose Jon. She just needed to see if Laurie was okay, first.
He had been, but it was like her whole soul couldn't believe that now, a day later. It had to be at least eighty degrees out, and hotter than that in the Jeep, but she was suddenly freezing, shivering from her bones out. Her goat was trying to take over to calm her down, but the goat wouldnotbe calm inside a vehicle, once it found itself there. Briana remembered watching Laurie shift from bear to human form, remembered thinking he was okay enoughtoshift, so he was going to be okay, remembered?—
—remembered how calm she'd sounded. How she'd assessed Laurie and the situation, calmedhimdown by promising to get Jon, told him what to do once Jon had erupted from the earth on his own. She'd been fine then. There was no reason to fall apart now, but she could feel herself hyperventilating, could feel tears spilling from wide eyes, could not for thelifeof her make her hands unclench from around the steering wheel. Her teeth were gritted, breath whistling between them, and she couldn'tstopit.
Laurie put his arm around her shoulders, pulled her against his chest, whispered, "It's okay now," into her hair, and Briana began to cry.
