Grizzly Flying High (Air Bear Shifters 1) by Sloane Meyers Page A

came over to greet her with a harried but kind smile.
    “Hello, dear. Coffee?” the woman asked.
    Amanda nodded. “Yes, please. And can I get a menu?”
    The waitress nodded and ran off to grab coffee and a menu. She returned a minute later with both items and promised to swing back by in a bit to take Amanda’s order. The sticky menu had just about every breakfast item you could possibly want listed. Amanda finally decided on the blueberry pancakes, and then set the menu down to look around the room. The space was crowded, and filled with laughter. It was the middle of the week, but there were still plenty of people who had managed to show up for breakfast. Life moved at a different pace here. Many of the people earned their living from the sea, working as commercial fishermen. The Monday to Friday schedules Amanda was accustomed to from the corporate world didn’t exist here. The people worked hard, but their schedules weren’t dictated by the open hours of the New York Stock Exchange or some other nonsense like that.
    The waitress came to take Amanda’s order as promised, then scurried off to her next customer. Amanda took a long, satisfying sip from her coffee, which was surprisingly good. It tasted more like it came from a gourmet coffee shop than from a diner with sticky menus and overcrowded booths. She let out an audible “Mmmmm” without even realizing it, earning her a chuckle from the man sitting next to her.
    “Not bad stuff, eh?” he said, glancing over at Amanda with a twinkle in his eyes.
    Amanda laughed. “Not bad at all. It’s especially good since I’ve been hiking quite a bit lately, and didn’t bring any coffee with me on the trail. I’ve missed having a warm beverage to hold in my hands in the morning.”
    “Where’ve you been hiking?” the man asked, his face lighting up with interest.
    “Um, some trails around Snow Valley, and then some other paths around Frost Peak. I cut my Frost Peak trip short, though, because I saw a grizzly out there and it freaked me out a bit. Thankfully the bear left me alone, but I decided I didn’t want to do anymore solo backwoods camping after that.”
    “You’ve been out there by yourself?” the man asked with a low whistle. “Most of the tourists don’t have the guts to do that.”
    Amanda tilted her head sideways. “Well, first of all, I can see why they don’t have the guts. That bear encounter was pretty frightening. But, second of all, how did you know I’m a tourist? Was it that obvious?”
    The man laughed again, a deep belly laugh that made Amanda want to join in. “Yup, sorry. It’s obvious.”
    “How?”
    “It just is,” the man said. “We locals know when someone’s not from around here. “I’m Peter, by the way. I’m a fisherman here in Kodiak.”
    Amanda sighed, and then took Peter’s offered hand to shake it. “I’m Amanda. Tourist extraordinaire.”
    Peter grinned. “So where are you from? What brings you to Alaska?”
    Amanda hesitated. She didn’t feel like getting too deep into her story right now. She wasn’t even sure exactly what her story was at this point, beyond the fact that she was searching for herself, which always came out sounding kind of cliché when she said it out loud. So she just shrugged and said, “I needed a break from my everyday life.”
    Peter’s grin deepened. “Don’t we all,” he said, then raised his coffee cup to toast Amanda. Amanda clinked her mug with his and then frowned.
    “Do you need a break from your everyday life?” she asked. “It seems pretty awesome—fishing and spending so much time out on the water.”
    “I do love it, for the most part,” Peter said. “But it can be dangerous work, and some days you’re so cold and tired that you really just want to curl up in bed and not go outside.”
    “I can understand that,” Amanda said. “Still, you must have had some adventures out there.”
    “Oh, I’ve had a lot of adventures,” Peter said, throwing his head