Free Unbearable Desire (Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance) (Bear Valley Clan Book 1) by Serena Nox

heavy wool cardigan.  I touched the knitted floral design.  "Did Gran knit this for you?"
    She nodded and hugged her arms around her body, clutching her treasured heirloom close.  I patted her as she shivered.
    "I'll take care of it, Gabby.  Do you want to stay here?"
    She mutely nodded and stepped in to the cabin.  When she collapsed into the easy chair, I turned my back to give her privacy and shut the door on her quiet, broken sobs.
    I grabbed a light jacket from the hook.  The overlook was about a thousand feet up in elevation from here, and the weather could turn at any moment.  Grabbing a trowel, I walked around the foundation of the house and found a south-facing spot where the sun would always shine.
    The rich, moist earth moved easily, and I quickly dug a six-inch hole right up against the concrete slab of the foundation. When the hole was big enough, I sat back on my heels.
    "Okay, Gran. " I whispered and took a deep breath.  Then I opened the box.
    The gray ash was crumbly and uneven.  I swallowed back the gorge that threatened to rise.  "It's not her," I repeated to myself.  "She's in a better place.  With Pa." I dipped the trowel in, and pulled up a scoop.  A light breeze scattered a few fine particles that shimmered in the air.  The rest I dropped lightly into the hole.
    "Rest in peace, Gran," I whispered.  "I love you."
    Then I pushed the dirt back over the ash, mixing my grandmother with the place she loved and refused to abandon even when she herself had been abandoned.
    The box didn't feel any lighter when I hefted it under my arm and began the hike up to the overlook.  This was a route I had avoided until this day and for good reason. The trees were stunted and twisted this high up, and the wind was a constant gale in my face.  I ducked my head and clambered upward, knowing that my feet would find the way more easily if I didn't interfere with my mind.
    Instead I thought of Kai.
    The taste of his lips came unbidden; the force of the wind on my skin could very well have been his touch.  As I climbed higher, my heart thudded in my ears, but not so much from the exertion as from memory.
    He told me to call on him and he would come. It was a strange thing to say, but then Kai was a strange man. And with all the other strangeness that accompanied him, I had no trouble believing that he would come to me if I called him. 
    As I scaled a small plateau, his name came to my lips.  I almost called him, but I swallowed it back just before it could escape.  Because I had reached my destination.
    The wind whipped my hair and took my breath away even as the view did exactly the same.  Pechin Valley spread out before me, the clear air letting me see all the way to far off Bear's Folly mountain scraping against the low ceiling of clouds. Here and there the sun pierced the gray bank, sending shafts of sunlight to the valley floor below, glinting off the lazy river that twisted and wound like a snake.  A large swath of forest had burned, the blackened patch a scar on the landscape.  I wondered if it had been a lightning strike or something more sinister.
    I turned away from the far edge of the valley and looked back along the near side of the river. Over here it was just as wild and untamed and teeming with life as it had always been. Below me a pair of ravens tumbling acrobatically through the air, fighting over a scrap of food. I heard the cry of a hawk, but did not see it until it was just over my head.  It swooped over me with a rush of wings and another sharp cry, and then it plummeted out of sight as it dove for unsuspecting prey that scampered far below.
    I stood there, breathless. My Gran had wanted to be part of the valley always and in this moment I understood why.  I knelt down and pressed my hand to the sun-warmed rock below me and then sat carefully back on my heels. 
    "I get it, Gran, " I whispered as I opened the box again. "I get it." I inched to the very edge of the rock.  Vertigo