A Bear of a Reputation by Ivy Sinclair Page B

say,” I said.
    “Get your butt over to the hospital. See what you can dig up there. I’ll head over to the police department.”
    “Sheriff Monroe is going to have his hands full. He’s not going to have a lot of patience for you or any questions,” I reminded him. To say that my father and Sheriff Monroe had a tenuous relationship at best was an understatement.
    “Sheriff Monroe is a servant of this town, and my taxes pay his salary. We’ll print a special edition today and get this out as soon as we can. I’m not going to let one of the national papers pick this one up before us.”
    My dad lived in constant fear of being scooped. It should have been amusing, but in this instance, it wasn’t. I felt sick.
    “You listening to me, Maren?”
    I realized that I hadn’t heard his last several sentences. “I’m looking for my car keys,” I said to avoid his question.
    There was a heavy sigh on the other end of the phone. “I thought you were over all that. It’s been ten years.”
    I was glad that my dad wasn’t there to see the heat that I felt rising in my cheeks. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
    “If the Greyelf Grizzly clan has to make a succession call, then there is a chance that he’ll come back. We both know that, so you better get ready for it.”
    “He who?” I made my voice as neutral as possible, as if I had no idea whatsoever what he was talking about.
    “Don’t do that. I may be old, but I’m not blind, deaf, or dumb. I know that boy broke your heart, but I would hope that you’d have outgrown your schoolgirl crush and moved on by now. Especially knowing his background.”
    This was definitely a train of conversation that I had no intention of following. It was far better to let sleeping dogs lie. “I couldn’t care less about Lukas Kasper, Dad. You’re right. It has been ten years, and I’d practically forgotten he even existed.”
    “The Grizzlies keep a lot of that succession business inside the Clan, but I know that Lukas hasn’t resigned his claim,” Dad said. “It’s been a bit of a bone of contention between Markus and the sheriff for years. He told me once when he’d had a few too many shots a couple of years back.” Magda Pern wasn’t the only one who got around in the gossip circles.
    “I gotta go,” I said. “I want to beat the ambulance there if I can.”
    “Call me as soon as you know anything,” Dad said. “I want as much information as we can get ready to go for an afternoon edition.”
    I hung up the phone and stared at it for a minute. Lukas Kasper. A ghost from my past—one I hadn’t thought I’d ever have to confront again, because he left Greyelf ten years ago. There was no indication in all that time that he planned on ever coming back. He had hated it here. If there was anything that was ingrained in my memories of Lukas more than anything else, it was his extreme dislike for anything and everything about our picturesque small town.
    I had already hit the remote start on my car while I was getting dressed, so by the time I settled myself behind the wheel, my butt already felt the warmth of the seat heater. That one thing was an absolute necessity for braving the arctic Minnesota winters. You never stayed outside any longer than you had to, and when you did, you had to make those excursions out into the chilled air as comfortable as possible.
    Turning the ignition, I looked into the rearview mirror. The street behind me was empty. As I swung my truck around, I hit the brakes. A large black bear stood directly in the middle of the road, staring at me. It swung its massive head toward me in a display of annoyance and then lumbered to the other side of the street before continuing down the slight slope to disappear into the tree line. My heart skipped another beat. I counted to ten, but the bear didn’t reappear. I took a deep breath and gently put my foot down on the gas once again.
    Twenty-five minutes later, I slid the truck into a